My Documents

by Alejandro Zambra, Megan McDowell (Translator)

Archived in a folder on award-winning author Alejandro Zambra's desktop are 11 stories of liars and ghosts, armed bandits and young lovers. Intimate, mysterious, and uncanny, these stories reveal a mind that is as undeniably singular as it is universal. Together, they constitute the debut short-story collection from Zambra, whose first novel was heralded as a “bloodletting in Chilean literature.”

Whether chronicling the return of a mercurial godson or the disappearance of a trusted cousin, the worlds of these stories are so powerful and deep that the works might better be described as brief novels. My Documents is by turns hilarious and heart-stopping, tragic and tender, but most of all, it is unflinchingly human and essential evidence of a sublimely talented writer working at the height of his powers.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Spanish Literature, Latin American, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Literature

241 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2013

About the author

Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean writer. He is the author of Bonsai, The Private Lives of Trees, Ways of Going Home, My Documents, Multiple Choice, Not to Read and Chilean Poet. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, Harper's, Zoetrope, and McSweeney’s, among other places.

Reviews

[s.penkevich · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘I was a blank page, and now I am a book.’

We live in the age of computers, where our thoughts and feelings are transcribed into text and, like this review, become another source of data, another heartfelt addition to our My Documents folder. My own folder is filled with reviews, college essays, photographs of my daughter, my resume and other such documents and becomes a catalogue of a human life, a digital replication of the heart and soul. Alejandro Zambra, best known for his breathless and breathtaking award winning Bonsaï, delivers nothing short of pure perfection in his collection My Documents, an aptly titled work that sifts the documents folder of the human soul across eleven exquisite stories. Zambra has a gift for creating a large impact with the lightest of touches and here we see him manage to embody the Chilean middle-class in all it’s mundane glory through stories soaked that, while soaked in melancholy, avoid any gratuitousness that would dip them into melodrama. These are stories of childhood memories—blurring the lines of fiction and memoir so that any thought towards factuality becomes beside the point—failed relationships, failed undertakings and basic primary living always under the lurking shadow of the Pinochet regime. Often humorous and always subtle, Zambra is at his best in this collection that permeates with Chilean history and assesses the lives of the common man.

‘...I started to believe, naively, intensely, absolutely, in literature.’

It has been fascinating to watch Zambra grow as a writer, to fulfill the early promises found in Bonsaï, the reaching out qualities of the heart-wrenching The Private Lives of Trees, and the meditations of growing up under Pinochet’s rule found in Ways of Going Home. My Documents reads like a culmination of all the high notes from his previous work, harmonizing together for a magical medley like an anthem for the modern era of Latin American Literature. Like any new direction of literature, it must acknowledge the predecessors that bravely forged the path thus far and Zambra pays homage to his influences and peers—from Enrique Lihn and Nicanor Parra to his contemporary Valeria Luiselli (author of the extraordinary Faces in the Crowd)—most eloquently in I Smoked Very Well. My personal favorite of the collection, this story brings to life a love of literature and respect to predecessors through a fascinating and very modern storytelling style.

Maybe that’s what the literary theorists mean when they talk about the active reader: a reader who suffers when the characters suffer, who is happy when they are happy, who smokes when they smoke.

The story brings the reader into what seems like notes jotted by the narrator (the staccato style feels akin to Luiselli’s own novel, and to whom the story is dedicated and also has her make a minor character cameo), but also immerses the story into the wider world of Latin American Literature (and world literature to the frequent allusions and blatant indebtedness to Italo Svevo) through the Bolañoesque name droppings and quotes.

These sort of name droppings occur throughout the collection, but not restricted to authors. Allusions to many bands such as the Pixies, Radiohead and the Talking Heads or soccer stars from the 90’s tie the stories into a sense of realism, space and place along the necessary time periods. In The Most Chilean Man in the World, titled after a language barrier mistake that aids in the atmosphere of being a stranger in a strange land despite the warm welcome of strangers found in the story, the focal character finds himself stranded and nearly broke after traveling to Belgium to see his ex-girlfriend who refuses his company. Zambra has the character reach out to friends via Facebook for assistance in navigating the foreign cityscape. References to social media as well as older computer technology help ground the stories into their time a place and function as a reminder of time passing and play into characters fears of obsoleting. This is best represented in the outdated desktop carried by bus in Memories of a Personal Computer to be given to the character’s estranged son who already owns a better model. Many stories feature middle-aged men feeling obsolete and irrelevant in a world now passed down to a generation in full bloom like the memories to which these men cling. Family Life, in particular, follows a 40 year old man who is still haunted by his past but out of touch with his modern era.

It is this estrangement that brings people together in My Documents, such as the night phone operator and the elderly man connecting across the globe in Long Distance spurred on by their loneliness, or how the rather scummy narrator of Family Life finds himself in bed with a much younger woman by filling her with lies that play on her need for a family lifestyle and acknowledgement of her motherly abilities. Zambra has a genuine gift for mining empathy for unlikable characters. True or False finds the reader empathetic for the dead-beat dad who buys a cat for his child to spite his ex-wife and the reader feels the rage that is always bubbling at the surface of his character. Perhaps it is having a divorce of my own already under my belt that draws me to stories such as these, but there is a real human element burning brightly in characters he creates and then has disappoint you with their actions. Relationships aren’t given much weight or value in anything Zambra has written, with people coming together and breaking apart without it seeming as if a great empire has formed and fallen as most authors would. Romantic love is regarded as transitory, and hearts never shatter but instead blur the pages with their vague melancholy.

There is a real immediacy to these stories as well, in part from the narrational style that breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader with asides such as ‘Well, there’ll be time later to describe him. For Now he’s just gotten off the bus…’ that give the feeling that the story is being created just words ahead of your reading upon the page and probe at the oral tradition of storytelling.

I think that the story can’t end like that, with Camillo St. crying for his son, his son who was practically a stranger to him. But that’s how it ends.

This passage, from the ending of the charming story Camillo about the narrator’s childhood friendship with his father’s godson, makes it feel as if the story had to be this way, out of the writers hands. It is as if the stories have written themselves and Zambra a mere conduit for their fruition, and begs for the reader to question if these stories are true or not before recognizing that such thought is beside the point in fiction. While these stories, often of broken men and estranged relationships, are fiction or maybe partly memoir, they do not belong in the My Documents folder of one person, but of all people in order to speak their universal truths.

And that’s when, at the same time, democracy and adolescence arrived. The adolescence was real. The democracy wasn’t.

Lurking in each story are traces of Pinochet and his regime. Zambra often has his narrators place memories in time by their relation to political events to demonstrate how critical the political climate was in Chile at the time, such as this passage from Long Distance:

My first class was in March of 2000, a few days after Pinochet returned to Chile like he owned the place (I’m sorry for these reference points, but they’re the ones that come to mind.)

Each and every story in permeated with references to the political news of the time, and characters are often defined by their association to the party, like the mentally handicapped boy of My Documents that walks the street asking people if they are right or left, or the girlfriend in Family Lives that asserts ‘I was born under democracy’ as an excuse for any of her actions. One of the finest stories is the allegorical tale National Institute about a school where students are only known by their student numbers and the teachers are characterized by their cruel fascist nature. ‘I felt indestructible,’ Zambra writes in this gleefully rebellious tale of teenage anti-establishment anger, ‘rage made me indestructible.’ Zambra illustrates how every aspect of life was tainted by Pinochet coming to power, how families were destroyed (such as Camillo’s father being imprisoned and having to live life in exile over in Paris) and opinions silenced.

‘I have my books / and my poetry to protect me.’

Zambra’s My Documents is likely the finest work he has produced in his still-early career. He manages to explore melancholy and estrangement, disappointment and breakups without seeming overly emotional while still capturing the appropriate sadness and examines Chilean middle-class life under the shadow of Pinochet without being blatantly political. Zambra is a master of light touches and capturing time and space. ‘It took so long to build that by the time it was finished, I no longer believed in God.’ What a perfect sentence. There is the right blend of humor and empathy, rage and regret flowing within each story that feels alive in their immediacy and universal relevance while also superbly capturing a place in time and history. From the opening story concerning childhood to the final story, the metafictional marvel Artistic Rendition, each word reads like a blessing. Like his first novel, My Documents is a bold promise of a brilliant career with so much more yet to come.
5/5

Cigarettes are the punctuation marks of life. Now I live without punctuation, without rhythm. My life is a stupid avant-garde poem.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Childhood… Adolescence… Youth… I especially liked two stories: My Documents and Memories of a Personal Computer. They seem to be autobiographical and quite sincere.

The first time I saw a computer was in 1980, when I was four or five years old. It’s not a pure memory, though—I’m probably mixing it up with other, later visits to my father’s office, on calle Agustinas. I remember my father explaining how those enormous machines worked, his black eyes fixed on mine, his perpetual cigarette in hand. He waited for my awed reaction and I faked interest, but as soon as I could, I went off to play near Loreto, a thin-lipped secretary with bangs framing her face, who never remembered my name.

The stories are written in the simple and transparent language without any excessive frills but they are laden with subtle psychological nuances.
First experiences, first friends, first loves, first computer…
Computer – it is a miracle but one fine day it is capable to become a pain in the ass…

For some months, however, there had been portents of a greater disaster: dozens of inexplicable delays, some of them short and reversible, others so long they had to give in and restart the computer. It finally happened one rainy Saturday, which they should have spent calmly watching TV and eating sopaipillas or, in the worst of cases, moving the cooking pots and basins from one leaky spot to another; instead they had to devote the whole day to repairing the computer—or trying to repair it, more with willpower than any real, coordinated strategy.
On Sunday, Max called in a friend who was studying engineering. By the end of the afternoon, two bottles of pisco and five cans of Coca-Cola dominated the desk, but no one was drunk, they were just frustrated by the difficulty of the repair job, which Max’s friend attributed to “something very strange, something never before seen.” But maybe they really were drunk, or at least Max’s friend was, because all of a sudden, in one disastrous maneuver, he erased the hard drive.

Eventually, computers have changed the human consciousness. And computers have changed the world.

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

zambra’nın öyküleri en az romanları kadar iyi. romanlarında farklı-yenilikçi anlatım teknikleri ön plana çıkarken, öykülerin çeşitliğinde içeriğin gücünü de görme imkanı buluyoruz. hatta farklı anlatım tekniklerinin kurmaca oyunları olmadığını, doğrudan bu öze ilişkin olduğunu görüyoruz.

öykülerin bir özü, hakikati var. bir de bu hakikati anlatma, paylaşma meselesi. kitaba adını veren öyküde bir bilgisayarın belgelerim klasörüne kaydedilen anıları okuyoruz mesela. öykünün başından sonuna kadar kaydedilip birikenler anı formatının ötesine geçmiyor. ama anılar aynı format içinde sadece küçük dokunuşlar ve müdahalelerle bambaşka boyutlar kazanıyor. bir büyüme öyküsü bireyin değişimine, bireyin değişimi bir ülkenin siyasi ve toplumsal değişimine bağlanıyor. kitaptaki diğer öykülerde de karşılaştığımız küçük dokunuşlar süzülmüş, içselleştirilmiş bir bilgiye ve bir güce işaret ediyor ki, bolano’dan bildiğimiz, öz ya da hakikat dediğimiz şey de bu.

anıların yazarı/yazar bu yazdıklarının bilgisayarının belgelerim klasöründe kalması gerektiğini düşünürken yayımlamaya karar veriyor sonra. hakikat kadar hakikatin anlatılması, paylaşılması da önemli çünkü. şilili zambra yeterince anlatılmadığını ve anlatılması gerektiğini biliyor ve anlatmanın farklı yollarını deniyor. kurgudaki, anlatım tekniklerindeki farklılığının, yenilikçiliğinin bununla bağlantılı olduğunu söylesek hata yapmış olmayız herhalde. biz ne zambra’ya ne şili’de yaşananlara uzağız malum ve zambra’yı anlamak ve sevmek için çok sebebimiz var.

son olarak, hayatımda okuduğum en güzel öykülerden birinin bu kitaptaki “çok iyi sigara içerdim” adlı öykü olduğunu belirtmek istiyorum. okumamı, buraya yazdıklarımı, verdiğim puanı ve iki gündür içtiğim birçok sigarayı etkilemiştir.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I am a correspondent, but I would like to know of what"
Alejandro Zambra (° 1975) is a Chilean, you cannot overlook this in this collection of short stories: repeatedly there are references to Pinochet and his dictatorship, to uncles and cousins who fled to Europe, and also to the Catholic tradition of covering up nasty things. These are not just contextual elements: if you take all the stories together, Zambra seems to give an outline of a "lost generation" in his country, grown up under the dictatorship and now soullessly looking for a future of its own. His protagonists are mostly men, usually still relatively young, who are groping in life, lonely and insecure, possibly because of the country's troubled past.

There is a very penetrating tone of desolation in the style of Zambra, ingeniously elaborated in various stories, and also situated exactly in time; there are, for example, a striking number of references to computers, games and the internet. Especially because of his distant, restrained style, I had some trouble getting into this collection of short stories. Zambra looks like the complete opposite of Marquez and his dazzling, epic and magical-realistic style. But perhaps in his own way he also reflects the Latin American reality, with its very sharp contours. Especially in the last 2 stories, "Family Life" and "Reminiscing", Zambra shows that he really has something to offer. (rating 2.5 stars)

[huzeyfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alejandro Zambra'nin sade, gosterissiz ama bir o kadar da etkileyici bir uslubu var. Bu kitapta da yine ayni sekilde hayata dair, sade ve basit oykuleri oyle etkileyici anlatmis ki Zambra etkilenmemek mumkun degil. Her oykunun ayri bir tadi olsa da sanirim en cok Ulusal Enstitutu oykusunu begendim. Bir de futbolsever birisi olarak yer yer serpistirilmis futbol gondermeleri cok hostu.

[Nad Gandia · Rating 5 out of 5]

`Comprendí que una manera eficaz de pertenecer era quedarse callado. Entendí o empecé a entender que las noticias ocultan la realidad, y que yo era parte de una multitud conformista y neutralizada por la televisión. Mi idea del sufrimiento era ahora la imagen de un niño que teme que asesinen a sus padres, o que creció sin conocerlos más que en unas pocas fotografías en blanco y negro. Aunque yo hacía todo lo posible por apartarme de mis padres, perderlos era para mí la situación más desoladora imaginable.´

`Mi padre tenía un computador, mi madre una máquina de escribir. Yo era un cuaderno vacío y ahora soy un libro.´

Una antología que tenía pendiente desde el confinamiento, cuando Anagrama lo puso gratis para descargar en tiendas online. Me alegró descubrir que era una antología, creo que es de las mejores formas de iniciarse con un escritor, me sorprendió la musicalidad de su narrativa y la forma que tiene de describir todos los sucesos históricos a través de sus personajes.
Tanto los sucesos en Chile, como los que suceden a las generaciones que vinieron después de la dictadura de Pinochet, con una maestría absoluta.

El escritor tiene varios elementos en común, entre ellos, la religión, el fútbol y los pensamientos políticos de cada época. Contando de manera sutil también, como buen poeta los diferentes acontecimientos de los protagonistas de las diferentes historias.

Lo mío con este escritor, a primeras, ha sido amor a primera letra, una narrativa bien llevada. Las historias varían desde lo más banal de lo cotidiano bajo una dictadura, hasta lo más crudo de los infiernos personales. Una antología de contrapesos que en su conjunto hacen una gran obra a tener en cuenta. Sin duda, volveré a leer a este escritor, que como digo. Ha sido amor a primera letra, sin lugar a dudas.

Los recuerdos están muy presentes a lo largo de las diferentes historias, conformando el presente de los personajes, tanto a nivel social, como político o sentimental. Un reflejo de la sociedad Chilena, al menos en los rasgos culturales que definen a los que vivieron la dictadura de Pinochet. Crítica social, sentimiento, amor por su tierra y un gran abanico de colores y grises, que conforman a un conjunto complejo de circunstancias.
Definir todo eso, de la forma más elegante y simple posible es digna de los mejores poetas.

Tengo muchas ganas de seguir conociendo las capacidades de este gran escritor.

[M. Malmierca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mis documentos (2013), del escritor chileno Alejandro Zambra (1975), es una colección de once relatos con un toque muy personal.

Se trata de diversos instantes de la vida de un hombre, desde la infancia hasta la madurez. Los relatos construyen así un personaje o quizá una persona, pues parece ser una persona real (no sé si el autor), en todos ellos. Parten de una anécdota vital y recrean el relato con mayores o menores aciertos en su conclusión.

Muestran lo que son: sinceros, realistas y sin grandes circunloquios. Se nota su conocimiento del país, Chile, y su idiosincrasia. Un regusto melancólico atraviesa todos ellos. Los dos últimos me parecen los más intensos y el final del penúltimo, Vida de familia, muy logrado. La escritura es precisa y con suficiente calidad para animarme a leer una obra larga de este autor.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 5 out of 5]

zambra'ya, hafızayla kurduğu ilişkiye, çocukluğu anlatmasına bayılıyorum. tüm bunları anlatırken arada bir cümleyle değiniverdiği politik geçmişe de... belgelerim bir öykü kitabı, romanları kadar iyi...
agos'a yazdığım yazıyı ekledim http://tembelveyazar.blogspot.com.tr/...

[Sebastian Uribe Díaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con este libro confirmo algo que ya venía sospechando: Alejandro Zambra es uno de esos autores que originan devoción, adicción y una compulsión por seguir leyendo cosas escritas por él. "Mis documentos" tiene la misma temática que sus novelas, con cuentos que toman como escenario la clase media chilena para desarrollarse, historias con nada de fantástico y una prosa en apariencia sencilla, pero cuya maestría radica en atrapar al lector y jugar con él como si estuviera en una montaña rusa, con golpes precisos de emoción que nos puede hacer vibrar.Luego de la última página a uno sólo le queda un camino: tomar otro texto de Zambra y seguir.

[A. Raca · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Babam bir bilgisayardı, annemse bir daktilo.
Ben boş bir defterdim, şimdi bir kitap oldum."

Bilgisayarların evimize ilk girişiyle ilgili hikayeler, müzik dolu hikayeler, arkadaşlık hikayeleri...
Notos 💚

[Agustina de Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zambra ya no es más un pendiente. Qué escritor

[Ludmilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bazıları çok iyi, bazıları idare eder. Yine de Zambra okumak büyük keyif.

[I. Mónica del P Pinzon Verano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mis documentos (2014) reúne once relatos del chileno Alejandro Zambra, que siguen la vida de… ¿Alejandro Zambra? y, narran anécdotas, no siempre trascendentales, que forman y muestran su carácter y desarrollo como persona. Se pueden leer de forma independiente, pero también en conjunto forman una secuencia que cuenta la vida de alguien. Así, brotan temas como la infancia, la educación, la religión, la literatura, la familia, la dictadura de Pinochet, la represión, el primer amor y lo que significa ser chileno. Estos cuentos se fundan en tres pilares: la realidad y la ficción, la nostalgia y la narración.

…” Mi padre era un computador, mi madre una máquina de escribir. Yo era un cuaderno vacío y ahora soy un libro”.

…¿Alejandro Zambra? Sin lograr identificar la razón, durante la lectura la sensación que lo acompaña a uno es la de estar en un lugar inestable y difuso entre la realidad y la ficción. Los relatos cuentan la vida privada de alguien que puede ser el escritor; sí, por una causa inexplicable, que puede ser un milagro o una revelación, uno siente que él está contando apartes de su vida, y cuando se llega a dudar de eso, se hace preguntas de la forma: ¿será que le sucedió eso o se lo inventó? O ¿le habrá pasado a algún amigo suyo? Porque durante toda la lectura, está la idea de biografía o basado en hechos reales (gracias a la cercanía que proyecta sobre todo en Mis documentos, Camilo y Larga distancia) en la cabeza el lector, pero por más ironía o humor que se presente, nunca se tiene la certeza de ello. Y no se trata de esa fantasía a la que uno tiende, de pensar que en toda obra hay datos -cifrados, ocultos o simbólicos- de la vida del autor. En serio que no.

Cuando decidí que Mis documentos sería mi primera lectura de A. Zambra (para lo cual también me ayudó Anagrama en inicios de la cuarentena) imaginé historias que rodeaban la cedula de ciudadanía, el registro civil, la licencia de conducir (aquí la llamamos pase), la tarjeta de crédito… y no. El título hace referencia a la carpeta mis documentos de Word, y ahí, en esa carpeta con pedazos una vida, uno se encuentra con gajos de la propia, más cuando uno es de la generación que nació sin el computador. Mis documentos es como un álbum personal, que muestra las etapas vitales de una persona: la infancia, la adolescencia, fumar, la adultez y dejar de fumar. Recordé mucho la música de los 80, los primeros libros que fueron míos, mi prima mayor (quien fue mi primer paradigma) cuando vi el primer computador, que fue tiempo después de conocer atari 2600, mi primera amiga, la dramática preparación de mi primera comunión, la adolescencia -que también fue dramática- las primeras cervezas sin familia al lado, la universidad, los porros, mi vida con el cigarrillo y mi divorcio de él. Pero es una nostalgia con cariño y ternura, así muchas veces uno termine riendo, así muchas veces uno termine luchando con el deseo de volver a fumar.
Disfruté todos los relatos, en especial Mis documentos, Larga distancia, Recuerdos de un computador personal, Gracias y Vida de Familia; pero me gustó mucho, muchísimo Yo fumaba muy bien, porque yo también fumaba super bien (no he conocido a alguien que fume mejor de lo que lo hacía yo) y porque me gustó el verdadero triangulo amoroso entre leer, escribir y fumar y la forma en que él lo revela.

“Max casi nunca alcanzaba el cenicero, y fumaba mucho mientras escribía, o más bien escribía poco mientras fumaba mucho, pues su velocidad como fumador era notablemente mayor que su velocidad como escritor".

"El tratamiento dura noventa días. Hoy es el día catorce. Según el prospecto, me corresponde un último cigarro. El último cigarro de mi vida. Acabo de fumarlo. Duró seis minutos y siete segundos. La última argolla se deshizo antes de llegar al techo. Dibujé algo en la ceniza (¿mi corazón?)".

[…]

“Los cigarros son los signos de puntuación de la vida”.

...“lo que para un fumador es verosímil, para un no fumador es literatura”.

Pero por encima de todo, está la genialidad de Zambra para lograr que su narración sea el foco de sus historias, porque él logra un estilo que sólo puede ser de él (no me recuerda a nadie) es como si su narración fuera el sujeto de sus historias, que además hace palpable el doble fondo de las ideas que cuenta, porque en la superficie está lo contado y lo callado, camuflándose en la ironía, el humor y la inocencia. Uno lee Mis documento y se imagina que para Alejandro Zambra escribir es jugar.

…”además ya dejé de fumar. Qué idiotez, ahora ni siquiera puedo intentar dejar de fumar. No sólo dejé de fumar, también dejé de intentar dejar de fumar”.

“Enciende su notebook, se conecta a Internet, no hay mensajes de Elisa, pero tampoco los espera”.

“Vesa, un bar un poco lúgubre donde los jueves hay lecturas de poesía, pero hoy no es jueves sino martes”.

…”un escritor es alguien que escribe, bien o mal, pero escribe, poco o mucho pero escribe, así como un asesino es alguien que mata, a uno o a varios, a un desconocido o a su padre, pero mata”.

…”esa es la manera como la gente se conoce, contándose cosas que no vienen a cuento, soltando las palabras alegremente, irresponsablemente, hasta llegar a territorios peligrosos, a lugares donde las palabras necesitan el barniz del silencio”.

En lo que respecta a la literatura latinoamericana, al igual que con todo el mundo literario, me quedo corta. Y sin haber leído mucho, entiendo porqué Alejandro Zambra es en la actualidad uno de los escritores latinoamericanos más importantes; y lo entiendo, porque él no necesita ser comparado con nadie para destacar, no necesita referencias. Estoy muy animada con la idea de que se antojen de Mis documentos, no tienen desperdicio. Todos los relatos me gustaron y me parecieron buenos; sin embargo, me hubiera gustado no leer el último, y no es porque sea malo. Sin duda de lo mejor que he leído este año y últimamente.

[Engin Türkgeldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zambra'nın kendine özgü tarzını seviyorum. Zamanı hiçe sayıp bir ileri bir geri giden, kitabın daha ilk sayfasından sonunda ve ortasında neler olacağını tak diye söyleyebilen bir tarz. Bu sayede neler olacağına değil de nasıl olacağına/yaşandığına odaklanabilmek güzel. Bunları yaparken edebi bir ustalık sergilemeye çalıştığını değil, sadece hikayesini anlatmak istediğini hissediyorsunuz.Sade bir dille, duyguları kolayca aktarabiliyor. Bugüne kadar okuduğum her kitabından zevk aldım ve yenisini bekler oldum.

Belgelerim, bu altyapıyla, dolayısıyla hevesle elime aldığım bir kitaptı fakat biraz hayal kırıklığıyla sonuçlandı. Zambra yine Zambra'ydı fakat bir şekilde bazı öyküler benim için yavan kaldı. Çocukluk anıları, cinsellik, her şeyin sonlanması ve hayal kırıklıkları yine vardı kitapta fakat novella/romanlarındaki keyfi alamadım. Belki Zambra'dan beklentim yüksek olduğu için, belki de öykü türünün onun tarzına çok uymadığını hissettiğim için.

Not: Her şeye rağmen Belgelerim hoşuma gitti, keyifle okudum. 3 y��ldız vermemin tek sebebi, yazarın kendi 5 yıldızlık kitaplarıyla yaptığım kıyaslama. Kendi başına değerlendirildiğinde 4 yıldız da rahatlıkla verilebilirdi.)

[Larnacouer de SH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dün birileri bana Şili edebiyatındaki en büyük sorunun ne olduğunu sordu. Ayaküstü bir muhabbette böyle bir sorunun ortaya atılabilmesi zaten yeterince saçma. Öte yandan ayaküstü muhabbetler başarısız olmaya mahkumdur ya da en azından bana hep öyleleri denk geliyor: Dikkat dağıtıcı basit sözler. Ama yinede kendimden ödün verdim, Şili edebiyatındaki sorununun sigara yerine sigarillo yazma alışkanlığı olduğunu söyledim. Şili'de kimse sigarillo demiyor, hepimiz sigara diyoruz, dedim tıpkı hayali bir masayı yumruklarcasına, ama Şilili yazarlar sigarillo yazıyor, diyerek lafın sonuna şu haddinden fazla hilebaz cümleyi ekledim: Ben sigara yazanlardanım.
Cümle hemen etkisini gösterdi. Onaylamışa benziyorlardı ama sohbet bozuldu.
Dört kişiden fazla olunca muhabbet asla ilerlemez, hele de söz konusu bir ayaküstü sohbetse. Kabul ediyorum, evet, ben depresyondayım ve biraz hırçınım. Bu tavrım canımı sıktı.

//

MSKDMSKDMAMSALABDKA harika! Yalnız Camilio... Camilio ile ilgili bir bölüm var... Yemin olsun film gibi! Al Zambra, ciğerim. Yok canım lafı mı olur al senin olsun.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Documents is a book about memory (the first clue is the self-referencing in the title) and throughout this collection, the question keeps rising up: is Chilean author Alejandro Zambra writing mini-memoirs? Or is it fiction? Or (as I suspect) is it memoirs enhanced by fictional elements?

There are intertwining references that thread together this collection. Pinochet. The character-as-writer. The ever-present computer. Failure of communication.

In his story “Memories of a Personal Computer”, Mr. Zambra gives a hint as to what he’s up to. He says this about a new lover, Claudia, who poignantly learns who he truly is by reading his e-mail: “Claudia read the different versions of that unsent message, and she noticed how a definitive phrase in one draft became ambiguous in the next, how he changed adjectives, cut and pasted phrases.” It’s a metaphor for life.

Perhaps my favorite in the collection, Family Life, shows the narrator creating an alternative fictional backstory for a neighbor. Instead of house-sitting for his cousin, he now owns the house and his wife has absconded with his daughter. It is a masterful look at how we can reinvent ourselves by altering the details of our life.

Another favorite, Camilio, focuses on the narrator meeting his father’s godson, whose own father was exiled from Pinochet. Years later, the narrator meets Camilo’s father and gets some hints into the back story. Mr. Zambria writes, “I think that the story can’t’ end like that..>But that’s how it ends.”

The writing is fluid and quietly powerful, and each story serves to reinforce the others. My Documents, indeed, is a living testimony to an archived life and reveals this author’s immense talent. 4.5 stars.

[Inge Vermeire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik lees zelden verhalenbundels maar 'Mijn documenten' is dan ook geen verhalenbundel in de strikte zin van het woord - de afzonderlijke verhalen lezen als een roman die de lezer achteraf zelf in elkaar kan steken.

Wat een ontdekking! "Als je Zambra gaat lezen, wat je zou moeten doen, lees dan niet alleen 'Mijn documenten': lees alles wat hij heeft geschreven." staat op de achterflap en dat ga ik waarschijnlijk ook doen...

Ben onder de indruk van de manier waarop Zambra mij meesleept in zijn verhalen die soms over heel banale zaken gaan maar anderzijds altijd zeer gelaagd zijn. Welke mix maakt dat een schrijver uitstijgt boven alle andere schrijvers? Hier is het de combinatie en het perfecte evenwicht van humor en melancholie, waarheid en leugen, juist en onjuist, fictie en autobiografie die ervoor zorgt dat ik het
boek echt niet kon neerleggen.

Een absolute aanrader!

[Özgür Daş · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yer yer cinsel fantezi sosuna batırılmış (son öyküyü ayrı tutuyorum) ve ince ayrıntılarla süslenmiş hayata dair sade öyküler. Öykülerin özellikle bitiş kısımları Zambra'nın kendine özgü tarzının etkileyiciliğini belirgin şekilde yansıtıyor. Belgelerim, okuduğum Zambra kitapları arasında sıralama yapacak olursam ilk sıraya yazacağım kitap olur.

Futbolun 2000'lerin başı ve öncesindeki dönemleri seven biri olarak, Pinochet diktatörlüğüne karşı cesur duruşuyla bilinen Carlos Caszely'yi, Iván Zamorano ve Humberto 'Chupete' Suazo'yu satırlar arasında görmek benim açımdan ayrı bir keyifti.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well-written story collection from Alejandro Zambra, translated by the excellent Megan McDowell (https://www.meganmcdowelltranslation....)

It consists of 11 stories (or 10 and a framing story), each around twenty pages, mostly set in modern-day Chile. The typical protagonist is a 20-30 year old male, typically single or in a casual relationship, into football, literature, smoking (Zeno's Conscience is an explicit influence) and casual sex, and with only a passing interest in politics (the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship is present but in the background).

For me, perhaps the stories were a little samey and the subjects not of great personal interest (that's a phase of life I never went through), and the inventiveness of Zambra's Multiple Choice is absent, but it is well done. 3 stars

Excellent reviews from two of my favourite bloggers:

Tony's Reading List
https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.co...

Tomy Messenger:
https://messybooker.wordpress.com/201...

An extract from my favourite story Memories of a Personal Computer, which tells the story of a relationship through a personal computer: (see https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/book... for a longer extract)

It was bought on March 15, 2000, for four hundred thousand eighty pesos(*), payable in thirty-six monthly instalments. Max tried to fit the three boxes into the trunk of a taxi, but there wasn’t enough room, so he had to use string and a bungee cord to secure everything; it was a short trip, though, only ten blocks to Plaza Italia. Once in the apartment, Max installed the heavy CPU as best he could under the dining room table, arranged the cables in a more or less harmonic way, and played like a kid with the bubble wrap it had been packaged in. Before solemnly starting up the system, he took a moment to look at everything deliberately, fascinated: the keyboard seemed impeccable to him, the monitor, perfect, and he even thought that the mouse and speakers were, somehow, pleasant.

He was twenty-three years old, it was the first computer he’d owned, and he didn’t know exactly what he wanted it for, considering he barely knew how to turn it on and open the word processor. But it was necessary to have a computer, everyone said so, even his mother, who’d promised to help him with the payments. He worked as an assistant at the university and he thought that maybe he could type up the reading tests, or transcribe his old notes, written by hand or laboriously typed on an old Olympia typewriter, on which he had also written all his undergraduate papers, provoking the laughter or admiration of his classmates, who were, by then, all using computers

The first thing he did was transcribe the poems he had written over the past several years – short texts, elliptical and incidental, which were considered good by no one, but weren’t considered bad either. Something happened, though, when he saw those words on the screen, words that had made so much sense in his notebooks: he began to doubt the verses, and he let himself get carried along by a different rhythm – maybe one that was more visual than musical. But instead of feeling like the change of style was an experiment, he pulled back, got frustrated, and very often just deleted the poems and started over again, or wasted time changing fonts or moving the pointer of the mouse from one side of the screen to the other, in straight lines, in diagonals, in circles. He didn’t give up his notebooks or his pen, though, and at the first slip-up, he splattered ink all over the keyboard, which also had to endure the threatening presence of countless cups of coffee and a continuous rain of ash, because Max almost never made it to the ashtray, and he smoked a lot while he wrote, or, rather, he wrote a little while he smoked a lot. Years later the accumulated grime would lead to the loss of the vowel a and the consonant t, but that’s getting ahead of things, and it would be best, for now, to respect the proper sequence of events.

(* I assume this should read four hundred and eighty thousand pesos)

[Konserve Ruhlar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romanlarını çok sevdiğim Zambra'yı öykü diliyle de sevdim. Aynı yalınlık ve samimiyet öykülerinde de kendini gösteriyor. Güney Amerika'nın büyülü gerçekçiliğinden farklı ve hatta ona tam ters anlatımı olması Zambra'yı ayrı bir yere koyuyor bence. Ülkenin siyasi tarihini ve kendi kişisel tarihini böylesine okunabilir ve çekici bir anlatım ile yazması eşsiz kılıyor yazarı. Romanlarını okuyalı çok uzun zaman olmuştu ama öyküleri ile kaldığım yerden devam etmiş gibi hissettim. Ara vermeden okumuş olsaydım belki birkaç kişinin yorumlarında belirttiği hayal kırıklığını ben de yaşardım.

Birkaç öyküyü çok beğendim; Çok İyi Sigara İçerdim, Aile Hayatı, Teşekkürler ve Camilo.

Çiğdem Öztürk'ün çevirisi de çok başarılı. Sadece bir yerde bir deyimi yanlış kullanmıştı. O da metnin nazar boncuğu olsun :)

[Cosimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caratteri in memoria

“Dopo la festa, lo scrittore – che a quei tempi neppure sognava di diventare uno scrittore, sognava molte altre cose, quasi tutte migliori che diventare uno scrittore – si era spaventato enormemente e non aveva più fatto nulla per rivedere Yasna, anzi, evitava il percorso che passava da quella casa, tutte le vie che portavano a quella casa, e non era più andato nemmeno in chiesa, il che comunque non gli richiedeva grande sforzo, perché a quei tempi aveva già smesso di credere in Dio”.

Ci sono libri che volano sopra le parole, sopra gli alberi e le nuvole; rimangono lì a scrutarci, in attesa di considerazione, di riscrittura, o almeno di risolvere l'innocenza di una notte insonne. In un silenzio abitato da sguardi, che danzano a ritmo con elegante ambiguità, si riuniscono i personaggi, le situazioni e i racconti del poeta cileno Alejandro Zambra, in una vertigine di fughe e smarrimenti, confrontandosi con violenze segrete, tristezze persistenti e disperazioni imprevedibili. Questa scrittura rende visibile al lettore un luogo sconosciuto e intimo, raggiunto in seguito al camminare in un'inevitabile sconfitta: quelli che dicono io rimangono indecifrabili a se stessi, mentre lettore e autore si accordano per una tregua indefinibile, una reciproca transizione di verità e finzioni, sottraendosi in un rovesciamento alla forma virtuale dell'esistenza. L'esilio, l'insicurezza e l'incertezza e poi la rottura, il trauma: ogni cosa è irrevocabilmente demandata alla memoria e alla letteratura, al dovere di mantenere dentro di sé un estremo e fragile disorientamento. Che sensazione di lieve ricomposizione averne vissuto le malinconiche storie.

[Ebru Çökmez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu kadar gerçeklik fazla mı acaba? Anı, otobiyografi kitaplarında bile tam olarak böyle hissetmemiştim. “Belgelerim” de yer alan öykülerin hemen hepsi, hatta 1. Tekil anlatılmayanlar bile bana bir hayat söyleşisi programındaymışız hissi verdi.

Öyle ki, az kalsın Zambra’nın annesini kırılgan bir daktilo, babasını 80 model büyük bir bilgisayar olarak hayal edeceğim. Alejandro da bu arada defterlerini daha sonra da bilgisayarının Belgelerim klasörünü dolduracak öykü malzemelerini topluyor.

Camilio diye biri var mesela. Alejandro ve ailesinin hayatına birdenbire ve iyi ki dahil olan vaftiz oğlan. Camilio’nun bu kadar gerçek olduğunu bilmek ne acı. Sonra, Alejandro’nun Max diye bir arkadaşı vardı, bir de Daniel diye. Ya da isimleri farklıydı da Alejandro tanınmasınlar diye öyle yazdı. Belki ikisi aynı kişidir, ya da her ikisi de Alejandro’nun kendisidir. Çünkü her ikisinde de boşanmış ve zaman zaman oğlunu yanına alan bir baba var. Kesin haberleri var öykülerinin kaleme alındığından. Zaten kitap çıkınca okuyacaklar, bu nedenle Alejandro’nun bunu saklaması imkânsız. Bazı detayları değiştirdi tabi. Önemsiz şeyleri.

Üstelik hemen tüm öykülerde kahraman yazarlıkla ilgileniyor. Hmm, en sevdiğim öykü olan Aile Hayatı hariç. Bir de Uzak Mesafe’yi sevmiştim. Aslında hepsini sevdim. Hafıza Yoklaması hariç. Onda ağladım biraz. Ağladım sayilmaz aslinda. Az gözlerim ıslandi.

[Gkcayhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zambra bir yenilikçi bana kalırsa. Öyküleri bir iç dökme. En sevdiğim ilk öykü ve sigarayı bırakmaya uğraşan adam oldu. Ama hepsinin bir yerinde yine kendinizi buluyorsunuz. Tabi siz de bu kadar samimi ve açık sözlüyseniz. Yoksa anlamaya uğraşmayın. Okuduğum ikinci kitabıydı, son olmayacak.

[Kapuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dejé de fumar debido a las migrañas, pero quizás no fue el motivo principal. Lo que pasa es que soy cobarde y ambicioso. Soy tan cobarde que quiero vivir más. Como si fuera, por ejemplo, feliz.

[Aydeniz Avcı · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zambra okumak ne türde yazarsa yazsın benim için büyük bir keyif, üstüne bir de anlattıklarında sevdiğim şarkılara, albümlere, kitaplara rastlıyor olmak daha da keyifli.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alejandro Zambra é um escritor chileno e que foi eleito pela revista Granta (2010) um dos melhores escritores de língua espanhola com menos de 35 anos.
Em 2006 o seu primeiro romance, Bonsái, foi um sucesso, tanto de crítica como de público e acabou adaptado ao cinema tendo sido apresentado no Festival de Cannes de 2011.
Meus documentos é uma colectânea de 11 contos que está dividida em três partes. À medida que avançamos na leitura vemos a mudança de tom dos contos, que começam mais leves e divertidos e acabam mais pesados e terríveis.
São memórias que se vão misturando com a história do Chile, com a ditadura de Pinochet, são pessoas perdidas, angustiadas, solitárias e com dificuldades nos relacionamentos.
Zambra tem uma linguagem clean e sem grandes floreados.

Contos favoritos:
Camilo
Instituto Nacional
Eu fumava muito bem

12/198 - Chile

[Aline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Que bom ter o Zambra de Bonsai de volta e muito melhor. A Vida Privada das Árvores e Formas de Voltar pra Casa não pareciam com o mesmo escritor de Bonsai. Bom reencontrá-lo em Meus Documentos.

[I. Mónica del P Pinzon Verano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mis documentos (2014) reúne once relatos del chileno Alejandro Zambra, que siguen la vida de… ¿Alejandro Zambra? y, narran anécdotas, no siempre trascendentales, que forman y muestran su carácter y desarrollo como persona. Se pueden leer de forma independiente, pero también en conjunto forman una secuencia que cuenta la vida de alguien. Así, brotan temas como la infancia, la educación, la religión, la literatura, la familia, la dictadura de Pinochet, la represión, el primer amor y lo que significa ser chileno. Estos cuentos se fundan en tres pilares: la realidad y la ficción, la nostalgia y la narración.

…” Mi padre era un computador, mi madre una máquina de escribir. Yo era un cuaderno vacío y ahora soy un libro”.

…¿Alejandro Zambra? Sin lograr identificar la razón, durante la lectura la sensación que lo acompaña a uno es la de estar en un lugar inestable y difuso entre la realidad y la ficción. Los relatos cuentan la vida privada de alguien que puede ser el escritor; sí, por una causa inexplicable, que puede ser un milagro o una revelación, uno siente que él está contando apartes de su vida, y cuando se llega a dudar de eso, se hace preguntas de la forma: ¿será que le sucedió eso o se lo inventó? O ¿le habrá pasado a algún amigo suyo? Porque durante toda la lectura, está la idea de biografía o basado en hechos reales (gracias a la cercanía que proyecta sobre todo en Mis documentos, Camilo y Larga distancia) en la cabeza el lector, pero por más ironía o humor que se presente, nunca se tiene la certeza de ello. Y no se trata de esa fantasía a la que uno tiende, de pensar que en toda obra hay datos -cifrados, ocultos o simbólicos- de la vida del autor. En serio que no.

Cuando decidí que Mis documentos sería mi primera lectura de A. Zambra (para lo cual también me ayudó Anagrama en inicios de la cuarentena) imaginé historias que rodeaban la cedula de ciudadanía, el registro civil, la licencia de conducir (aquí la llamamos pase), la tarjeta de crédito… y no. El título hace referencia a la carpeta mis documentos de Word, y ahí, en esa carpeta con pedazos una vida, uno se encuentra con gajos de la propia, más cuando uno fue de la generación que nació sin el computador. Mis documentos es como un álbum personal, que muestra las etapas vitales de una persona: la infancia, la adolescencia, fumar, la adultez y dejar de fumar. Recordé mucho la música de los 80, los primeros libros que fueron míos, mi prima mayor (quien fue mi primer paradigma) cuando vi el primer computador, que fue tiempo después de conocer atari 2600, mi primera amiga, la dramática preparación de mi primera comunión, la adolescencia -que también fue dramática- las primeras cervezas sin familia al lado, la universidad, los porros, mi vida con el cigarrillo y mi divorcio de él. Pero es una nostalgia con cariño y ternura, así muchas veces uno termine riendo, así muchas veces uno termine luchando con el deseo de volver a fumar.
Disfruté todos los relatos, en especial Mis documentos, Larga distancia, Recuerdos de un computador personal, Gracias y Vida de Familia; pero me gustó mucho, muchísimo Yo fumaba muy bien, porque yo también fumaba super bien (no he conocido a alguien que fume mejor de lo que lo hacía yo) y porque me gustó el verdadero triangulo amoroso entre leer, escribir y fumar y la forma en que él lo revela.

“Max casi nunca alcanzaba el cenicero, y fumaba mucho mientras escribía, o más bien escribía poco mientras fumaba mucho, pues su velocidad como fumador era notablemente mayor que su velocidad como escritor".

"El tratamiento dura noventa días. Hoy es el día catorce. Según el prospecto, me corresponde un último cigarro. El último cigarro de mi vida. Acabo de fumarlo. Duró seis minutos y siete segundos. La última argolla se deshizo antes de llegar al techo. Dibujé algo en la ceniza (¿mi corazón?)".

[…]

“Los cigarros son los signos de puntuación de la vida”.

“ que para un fumador es verosímil, para un no fumador es literatura”.

Pero por encima de todo, está la genialidad de Zambra para lograr que su narración sea el foco de sus historias, porque él logra un estilo que sólo puede ser de él (no me recuerda a nadie) es como si su narración fuera el sujeto de sus historias, que además hace palpable el doble fondo de las ideas que cuenta, porque en la superficie está lo contado y lo callado, camuflándose en la ironía, el humor y la inocencia. Uno lee Mis documentos y se imagina que para Alejandro Zambra escribir es jugar.

…”además ya dejé de fumar. Qué idiotez, ahora ni siquiera puedo intentar dejar de fumar. No sólo dejé de fumar, también dejé de intentar dejar de fumar”.

“Enciende su notebook, se conecta a Internet, no hay mensajes de Elisa, pero tampoco los espera”.

“Vesa, un bar un poco lúgubre donde los jueves hay lecturas de poesía, pero hoy no es jueves sino martes”.

…”un escritor es alguien que escribe, bien o mal, pero escribe, poco o mucho pero escribe, así como un asesino es alguien que mata, a uno o a varios, a un desconocido o a su padre, pero mata”.

…”esa es la manera como la gente se conoce, contándose cosas que no vienen a cuento, soltando las palabras alegremente, irresponsablemente, hasta llegar a territorios peligrosos, a lugares donde las palabras necesitan el barniz del silencio”.

En lo que respecta a la literatura latinoamericana, al igual que con todo el mundo literario, me quedo corta. Y sin haber leído mucho, entiendo porqué Alejandro Zambra es en la actualidad uno de los escritores latinoamericanos más importantes; y lo entiendo, porque él no necesita ser comparado con nadie para destacar, no necesita de referencias. Estoy muy animada con la idea de que se antojen de Mis documentos, no tienen desperdicio. Todos los relatos me gustaron y me parecieron buenos; sin embargo, me hubiera gustado no leer el último, y no es porque sea malo. Sin duda de lo mejor que he leído este año y últimamente.

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best of the three books by Zambra I've read. It is a collection of short stories which are unashamedly masculine, but very moving and reflective. I loved how the reading as a part of life is always part of his stories even if in a negative way. The characters are often defined by their passion of reading or the lack of it. The books also are discussed as an integral part of the stories. More broadly in "My Documents" Zambra reflects on the generation of the "children of dictatorship" in Chile, on the process of writing, and, less predictably, on the meaning of smoking for the affected (I have to quote the wonderful sentence here: "Cigarettes are the punctuation marks of life. Now I live without punctuation, without rhythm. My life is a stupid avant-garde poem."). But the book is not dominated by the politics or any social issues. It is more about eternal questions of fighting the loneliness, searching for understanding and one's place in the world.

[Cally Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why I put off reading this for so long because it was amazing. He writes in a just-detached-enough way that it lends more vividness to the stories and the characters. Also the stories do the short story that covers the course of a whole life thing really well, which a lot of stories don’t. “My Documents,” “Memories of a Personal Computer, “I Smoked Very Well” were my faves.