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5th out of 25 books
—
6 voters
The Planets
When he reads about a mysterious explosion in the distant countryside, the narrator’s thoughts turn to his disappeared childhood friend, M, who was abducted from his home years ago, during a spasm of political violence in Buenos Aires in the early 1970s. He convinces himself that M must have died in this explosion, and he begins to tell the story of their friendship throug...more
Paperback, 227 pages
Published
June 12th 2012
by Open Letter Books
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The Planets is a difficult book to review. It took me a while to get into the writing, but once I did, I enjoyed the author's style. Plot-wise, though, the novel meandered all over the place. Normally I don't particularly mind this, but it seemed like periods of lucid anecdotes and other stories alternated with vague, rather confusing episodes of abstraction and philosophizing. I enjoyed the stories and anecdotes, not so much the rest of the content. I almost perpetually felt like there was some...more
Uneven, ultimately —parts of it are lovely, deeply felt and engaging, and parts are not, failing alternately for being too vague or too explicit. Too many connections are explained which should have been left to intuit, and too much time is spent talking about silence when some actual silence would have sufficed. I'm left with the suspicion that this book isn't quite about what Chejfec thinks it's about, that the Sebaldian meditations on identity, memory, and the city, are ultimately weightless...more
I won’t pretend to completely understand everything that is going on in The Planets. Despite that, I can appreciate that with its publication by Open Letter Books, Sergio Chejfec has presented English readers with a gentle novel on friendship, grief and loss. It is, ostensibly, a collection of memories told to us by the narrator about his childhood friend, M. M was abducted during Argentina’s Dirty War. He disappeared, his fate unknown, leaving his friends and family in a kind of limbo. (Sergio...more
A very strange and surreal book. I don't really know how to explain the plot, so I'll let the publisher do it for me:
When he reads about a mysterious explosion in the distant countryside, the narrator’s thoughts turn to his disappeared childhood friend, M, who was abducted from his home years ago, during a spasm of political violence in Buenos Aires in the early 1970s. He convinces himself that M must have died in this explosion, and he begins to tell the story of their friendship through a ser...more
When he reads about a mysterious explosion in the distant countryside, the narrator’s thoughts turn to his disappeared childhood friend, M, who was abducted from his home years ago, during a spasm of political violence in Buenos Aires in the early 1970s. He convinces himself that M must have died in this explosion, and he begins to tell the story of their friendship through a ser...more
Jan 27, 2013
Jacob Wren
added it
Sergio Chejfec writes:
Neither of us would have imagined that, years later, these events would be written down on paper. If we had foreseen this, we would have acted differently, guiding our steps according to our idea of posterity; fortunately, we did not. (This foreseeing should be clarified, however, given that if M knew the reasons why I would end up writing these pages, he certainly would have done what was needed to avoid his abduction, though, in fact, he did nothing at all to cause it. Th...more
Neither of us would have imagined that, years later, these events would be written down on paper. If we had foreseen this, we would have acted differently, guiding our steps according to our idea of posterity; fortunately, we did not. (This foreseeing should be clarified, however, given that if M knew the reasons why I would end up writing these pages, he certainly would have done what was needed to avoid his abduction, though, in fact, he did nothing at all to cause it. Th...more
“A sense of loyalty to his memory leads me to write,” the narrator of Sergio Chejfec’s novel The Planets confesses, thinking back on the life of his dearest friend. Of the duo, M was the story-teller, the writer-to-be, the absent-minded-professor (“always distracted to the point of appearing indifferent”) with a parable in every pocket, viewing the world askance. M was larger-than-life—until he was gone.
http://wordswithoutborders.org/book-r...
http://wordswithoutborders.org/book-r...
A surprisingly moving story of mourning written in a meandering, dense, philosophical style that touches on political, religious, and social themes, with lots of ideas about how humans interact with space around them, both in terms of geographic space, especially in how humans construct and are constructed by cities ("Captives of geography, our past is shaped by the city."), and in terms of outer space: "(Because the same mystery that moves the planets also impels people.)"
And it has to be note...more
And it has to be note...more
Both of Chejfec's books that have been translated into English (The Planets and My Two Worlds) have proven themselves somewhat difficult to get through. Not because Chejfec is a difficult writer per se, nor because I find them exhausting, but there is resistance in his prose that I liken to someone inviting you in, but keeping his foot against the door. This seems a deliberate choice on Chejfec's part and it works: his works demand that rare, valuable thing from a reader: strict concentration. T...more
"The Planets is a reflective book about friendship and loss that should be read slowly." --Karen Ackland
ForeWord Reviews reviewed this book on our website. Read the complete review at www.forewordreviews.com.
ForeWord Reviews reviewed this book on our website. Read the complete review at www.forewordreviews.com.
A novel of remembrance of a friend abducted during the Argentine upheavals of the 1970s; of remembrance, friendship, life, hope, coincidence. Its consistently understated tone reminded me of William Maxwell.
I received this book as part of the goodreads First Reads program. This was a tender book about a close friendship cut tragically short. The book is a series of memories-some mundane, some thought provokind, some bizarre. It was a bit too cerebral for me. I often felt like the narrative was bogged down by philosophical musings on time, space and identity.
Not really as tight as "My Two Worlds," but maybe more emotionally gripping. I love Heather Cleary's translation, and all the little stories that the narrator recounts from his childhood friend, especially the one about the eye and the railroad tracks. (I hope that sounds intriguing.)
It's kind of hard to review our own books on here, but I just want to say that I'm extremely proud that we took a chance on Sergio and signed on three of his books way back when. He's a fantastic writer, and one wh...more
It's kind of hard to review our own books on here, but I just want to say that I'm extremely proud that we took a chance on Sergio and signed on three of his books way back when. He's a fantastic writer, and one wh...more
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Very definitely not a book to be rushed through. It demands to be mulled over slowly. Very digressive and meditative. I found it to have much the same conceptual content as a lot of the poetry I've been reading lately.
What a beautiful story. Some was hard to read, I think it was because it was originally written in Spanish, but I loved the story nonetheless.
I won this book on Goodreads First Reads.
I won this book on Goodreads First Reads.
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“Identity is gradual, cumulative; because there is no need for it to manifest itself, it shows itself intermittently, the way a star hints at the pulse of its being by means of its flickering light. But at what moment in this oscillation is our true self manifested? In the darkness or the twinkle?”
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May 03, 2013 09:49pm