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The Revolutionaries Try Again
Extravagant, absurd, and self-aware, The Revolutionaries Try Again plays out against the lost decade of Ecuador's austerity and the stymied idealism of three childhood friends—an expat, a bureaucrat, and a playwright—who are as sure about the evils of dictatorship as they are unsure of everything else, including each other. Everyone thinks they're the chosen ones, Masha wrote on Antonio's manuscript. See About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson. Then she quoted from Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam, because she was sure Antonio hadn't read her Can a man really be held accountable for his own actions? His behavior, even his character, is always in the merciless grip of the age, which squeezes out of him the drop of good or evil that it needs from him. In San Francisco, besides the accumulation of wealth, what does the age ask of your so called protagonist? No wonder he never returns to Ecuador. Mauro Javier Cardenas grew up in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and graduated with a degree in Economics from Stanford University. Excerpts from his first novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again , have appeared in Conjunctions , the Antioch Review , Guernica , Witness , and BOMB . His interviews and essays on/with László Krasznahorkai, Javier Marias, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Juan Villoro, and Antonio Lobo Antunes have appeared in Music & Literature , San Francisco Chronicle , BOMB , and the Quarterly Conversation .
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 15, 2016
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About the author
Mauro Javier Cárdenas
5 books203 followersMauro Javier Cardenas is the author of American Abductions (Dalkey Archive, May 2024) and Aphasia (FSG, 2020) and The Revolutionaries Try Again (Coffee House Press, 2016). In 2017, The Hay Festival included him in Bogotá39, a selection of the best young Latin American novelists.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
December 3, 2016
Raucous despair. Frantic banter masking guilt; toughness masking endless pain.
Nevertheless, Mauro Javier Cardenas has deformed American English in a stunning linguistic cartwheel that explores a mostly privileged generation’s experience of Ecuador’s politics, with spillover to and from the Silicon Valley. There is a restless assault of experiment after experiment of voice, language and time, so that the reader scrambles to keep up, trusting that the fragments will eventually hang together. And they do. For me it was relatively near the end that the power really became obvious. This is when the verbal jousting of the thirty-somethings who were going to clean up the country, but haven’t, is gradually overtaken by the voices of those they have seen on the street, of those they sanctimoniously, if sincerely, ministered to in weekly visits to the slums while in a wealthy Jesuit high school. Now, twelve years later, they feel guilty, they party, they try to recapture the past through nicknames and memories of teenaged transgressions. At first these transgressions seem fairly innocuous, but gradually the facts of these years get revealed, and we find they weren’t innocent at all. At the same time we find the stories on the fringes of their world, about the disappeared and other victims.
The moral grounding for the novel is a radical teacher at their 1990s(?) high school, a proponent of liberation theology who seriously challenged his upper class students to meet the responsibility of making a just government when they came of age. He took them to the slums every week to see and serve. Some of them, in particular two of the main characters, seriously responded to his urging, at the time. One went off to college in the US so that he could return and institute the best of development economics. Twelve years later he is living a frivolous life in Silicon Valley, when his best friend asks him to come back to Ecuador and join in a campaign for a better president.
He returns to find former friends who have dissipated in to various paths, some corrupt, a few relatively positive. He can only relate to them by reinvigorating the competitive quick-witted verbal by-play of their youth. The past and present passages of this insult-strewn patter are amazing, intricate and challenging. The Ecuadorian Spanish slang comes thick and fast, creating a bit of a barrier between reader and word, but I think that was precisely what the boys were attempting to do in their youthful world, to leave each other in the dust to show their adolescent intellectual chops, so that Cardenas is actually very skillful in making it a bit difficult to keep up.
But this is not just a boys life novel. Cardenas is doing a lot more as he weaves back and forth between national political scenes like campaign speeches in the streets, family histories that create the context for each of the boys vulnerabilities, and how they have situated themselves in the present political reality. The violence is always in the background if not the foreground, poverty for some is ever-present, and it is obvious that even the ones who are trying to arouse the people to action are naïve and unable to make headway against a culture that is like most these days; it responds to spectacle, not logic.
Cardenas juggles more and more complex emotions as the book rolls on. Nostalgia is overtaken by despair at seeing there is no way of making any sizable change. By the end this becomes refusal to continue even the most modest personal contribution, as meaningless in the big scheme of things. And gradually the voices of the marginalized enter in. We see the pain of two women in particular, one whose brother was disappeared, and one who went through abuse on her way to the US, leaving her father and brother in Ecuador to suffer on her behalf. The aspect of the novel that didn’t quite work for me is that the experience of both of these women is portrayed in a sort of fractured stream of consciousness that is different, for the most part, from the methods used to depict the mens’ experience. It doesn’t portray them as weak, indeed they are quite strong, but it almost leaves them as nothing but their pain, thus not as complex as the men.
So, this is a interesting novel about an Ecuadorian who studied economics at Stanford and returned to Ecuador to face his guilt at not reforming the system, written by an Ecuadorian author who lives in the Bay Area and studied economics at Stanford. Perhaps there is a bit of autobiography in it, but mostly there is tremendous linguistic power and invention, and visceral anger at the corruption. There is also tremendous humor; it is a very funny book. And I only got the jokes in English. (a slang glossary would help, as well as translations in the back of the two or three chapters that are all in Spanish, and a list of the boys with their nicknames and families—I got a bit confused reading it over the course of two or three weeks). There are inventive images (“pushing a book cart with crosseyed wheels”) and mind-twisting meanderings through minds and dreams.
Highly recommended.
just as it was pointless and childish for him to imagine the possibility of deforming American English as revenge for Americas deforming Latin America with their interventionist policies, and if he continued in this vein there would be nothing left, everything’s pointless, congratulations, Antonio, now what?
Nevertheless, Mauro Javier Cardenas has deformed American English in a stunning linguistic cartwheel that explores a mostly privileged generation’s experience of Ecuador’s politics, with spillover to and from the Silicon Valley. There is a restless assault of experiment after experiment of voice, language and time, so that the reader scrambles to keep up, trusting that the fragments will eventually hang together. And they do. For me it was relatively near the end that the power really became obvious. This is when the verbal jousting of the thirty-somethings who were going to clean up the country, but haven’t, is gradually overtaken by the voices of those they have seen on the street, of those they sanctimoniously, if sincerely, ministered to in weekly visits to the slums while in a wealthy Jesuit high school. Now, twelve years later, they feel guilty, they party, they try to recapture the past through nicknames and memories of teenaged transgressions. At first these transgressions seem fairly innocuous, but gradually the facts of these years get revealed, and we find they weren’t innocent at all. At the same time we find the stories on the fringes of their world, about the disappeared and other victims.
The moral grounding for the novel is a radical teacher at their 1990s(?) high school, a proponent of liberation theology who seriously challenged his upper class students to meet the responsibility of making a just government when they came of age. He took them to the slums every week to see and serve. Some of them, in particular two of the main characters, seriously responded to his urging, at the time. One went off to college in the US so that he could return and institute the best of development economics. Twelve years later he is living a frivolous life in Silicon Valley, when his best friend asks him to come back to Ecuador and join in a campaign for a better president.
He returns to find former friends who have dissipated in to various paths, some corrupt, a few relatively positive. He can only relate to them by reinvigorating the competitive quick-witted verbal by-play of their youth. The past and present passages of this insult-strewn patter are amazing, intricate and challenging. The Ecuadorian Spanish slang comes thick and fast, creating a bit of a barrier between reader and word, but I think that was precisely what the boys were attempting to do in their youthful world, to leave each other in the dust to show their adolescent intellectual chops, so that Cardenas is actually very skillful in making it a bit difficult to keep up.
But this is not just a boys life novel. Cardenas is doing a lot more as he weaves back and forth between national political scenes like campaign speeches in the streets, family histories that create the context for each of the boys vulnerabilities, and how they have situated themselves in the present political reality. The violence is always in the background if not the foreground, poverty for some is ever-present, and it is obvious that even the ones who are trying to arouse the people to action are naïve and unable to make headway against a culture that is like most these days; it responds to spectacle, not logic.
The protest advances in a tumult of students, plumbers, domestics, fruit carriers, street vendors. And while they march they clap, scream, blow whistles. Rattling their cardboard signs as if warning of a cataclysm or a mattress closeout or the second coming, and as they scream they distend their mouths so wide they look as if they’re about to swallow the back of their heads, although of course that’s only possible in movies like Pink Floyd’s The Wall…United, they shout, not to be defeated again…Protesting to exist. And what is literature which does not save nations or people? Songs of drunkards, Milosz said…
Cardenas juggles more and more complex emotions as the book rolls on. Nostalgia is overtaken by despair at seeing there is no way of making any sizable change. By the end this becomes refusal to continue even the most modest personal contribution, as meaningless in the big scheme of things. And gradually the voices of the marginalized enter in. We see the pain of two women in particular, one whose brother was disappeared, and one who went through abuse on her way to the US, leaving her father and brother in Ecuador to suffer on her behalf. The aspect of the novel that didn’t quite work for me is that the experience of both of these women is portrayed in a sort of fractured stream of consciousness that is different, for the most part, from the methods used to depict the mens’ experience. It doesn’t portray them as weak, indeed they are quite strong, but it almost leaves them as nothing but their pain, thus not as complex as the men.
So, this is a interesting novel about an Ecuadorian who studied economics at Stanford and returned to Ecuador to face his guilt at not reforming the system, written by an Ecuadorian author who lives in the Bay Area and studied economics at Stanford. Perhaps there is a bit of autobiography in it, but mostly there is tremendous linguistic power and invention, and visceral anger at the corruption. There is also tremendous humor; it is a very funny book. And I only got the jokes in English. (a slang glossary would help, as well as translations in the back of the two or three chapters that are all in Spanish, and a list of the boys with their nicknames and families—I got a bit confused reading it over the course of two or three weeks). There are inventive images (“pushing a book cart with crosseyed wheels”) and mind-twisting meanderings through minds and dreams.
Highly recommended.
January 22, 2022
رمان انقلابیها دوباره دست به کار میشوند، از مائورو خاویر کاردناس، که به گفته کارمن بویوسا «مراقب این نویسنده باشید! کتابی که در دستتان است گاز میگیرد»، اکوادور دهه ۱۹۹۰ را روایت میکند، اکوادوری که بر اثر سیاستهای ریاضت اقتصادی با فقر، استبداد، کودتا و...همراه است و سه دوست(لئوپولدو، آنتونیو و رولاندو) که تحت تاثیر ایدهالیسم به دنبال تغییر شرایط اکوادور هستند.داستان با برخورد صاعقه به باجه تلفن و تبدیل آن به یک تلفن همگانی رایگان برای ساکنان شهر آغاز میشود.این تلفن برای مردم نوعی معجزه محسوب میشود در کشوری که ریاضتهای اقتصادی روزبهروز به هزینههای زندگی مردم افزوده است. اما طولی نمیکشد که لئوپولدو به عنوان مشاور رئیسجمهورِ مستبد برای از کار انداختن تلفن سر و کلهاش پیدا میشود،چرا که این معجزه نوعی دهنکجی به قوانین سیاستهای اقتصادی است. در این بین خود لئوپولدو تصمیم میگیرد از همین تلفن به دوست دوران دبیرستان خود آنتونیو(نزدیکترین شخصیت به خود نویسنده)تماس بگیرد(نمونهای از زیر پا گذاشتن قوانین)و از او بخواهد از آمریکا به اکوادور بازگردد و یکی از اهداف دوران کودکشان را دنبال کنند: نامزدی برای ریاستجهموری و ایجاد تغییرات واقعی در کشوری که سیاستمداران آن غرق فساد هستند. در همین حال رولاندو یکی دیگر از شخصیتهای اصلی رمان در حال برنامهریزی برای پخش ایستگاه رادیویی خود با دختری به نام اوا است که با یکدیگر میخواهند تغییرات انقلابی را رقم بزنند. اما در نهایت میبینیم که چیزی در این کشور تغییر نخواهد کرد و معجزهای هم رقم نخواهد خورد، اگر چه امیدهایی همانند تلفن رایگان یا ایستگاه رادیویی رولاندو، روزنه کوچکی برای تغییر خواهند بود، اما این سیاستمداران فاسد و پیشین(بخوانید پول و قدرت)هستند که مانع تغییر خواهند شد و دوباره به مصدر کار برخواهند گشت، درست همانطور که در صفحاتی پایانی کتاب آنتونیو با خود فکر میکرد« همه چیز بیفایده است، تبریک، آنتونیو، حالا چی؟».رمان از لحاظ سبک نوشتاری بسیار چالش برانگیز و برگرفته از سبکهای جویس، مارکز، خاویر ماریاس، کورتاسار، بولانیو و حتی پروست و فاکنر است و همین سبب میشود که خواندن کتاب صبر و حوصله فراوان و حتی چندینبار خواندن، بخواهد؛ چرا که رمان دارای شخصیتهای فرعی و ثانویه با داستانهایی هست که از یک طرف باعث جذابیت شده و از طرف دیگر با مونولوگها و دیالوگهای خود منجر میشود به آسانی پی نبرده کدام شخصیت به روایت میپردازد. همچنین رمان سیر خطی منظمی را دنبال نمیکند: تغییر راویها، مکانها و زمانها، داستانها و...
November 10, 2016
I was well into this novel before I realized that it was not a work in translation. I was excited that so much Spanish was left in place—and then it occurred to me that the blend was intentional. Even though I don't speak Spanish, I never felt at a loss, although two short chapters are entirely in Spanish. The duality enhances the duality of the migrant experience, although in this case the migrant has gone home, at least for a time.
The more I think about this book, and in the process of writing a review, the more impressed I am by the sheer range of literary devices employed and the ease with which Cardenas juggles perspective and voice. My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2016/11/10/yo...
The more I think about this book, and in the process of writing a review, the more impressed I am by the sheer range of literary devices employed and the ease with which Cardenas juggles perspective and voice. My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2016/11/10/yo...
November 21, 2025
Literatura abstrusa, donde el autor parece más preocupado del impacto en el prestigio intelectual que no en alcanzar una audiencia razonablemente amplia y de ahí inocular su mensaje. Porque en verdad no se puede decir que haya mensaje, una reflexión sustanciosa. Ahora mismo la impresión que tengo es que Mauro Javier Cárdenas es uno de esos escritores que no utilizan la literatura para alcanzar las problemáticas del presente, en realidad todo lo contrario, prefiere mercantilizar las problemáticas del presente para acicalar y darle brillo a sus esfuerzos literarios, que le permita decir que aborda temas serios empleando formas muy audaces con las que pretende ir más allá de los límites de la novela convencional. Y si tú, pobrecito lector, no lo aprecias es porque sencillamente eres demasiado inferior para apreciarlo. Pero si has leído a unos pocos autores que a él le gustan y a otros que se asemejan a éstos, comprendes que sus intenciones están por encima de sus logros.
En ese mecanismo retorcido y rebuscado se comienza "narrando" el proyecto de Antonio y Leopoldo, dos antiguos compañeros del colegio San Javier, una institución católica dónde acuden las familias privilegiadas de Guayaquil y que el autor nombra con mucha insistencia, dos hombres que pertenecen a clases más o menos acomodadas de Ecuador, y que se proponen darle un giro izquierdista a la política de su país presentando una candidatura de raíz popular que favorezca a las clases populares. La ironía que señala el autor es que estos hijos de antiguos cargos políticos y funcionarios, que se enriquecieron de forma ilícita y corrupta gracias a su posición de poder, están destinados a no hacer absolutamente nada debido a sus propias inercias. La sobreabundante y cargante ironía de esos "procesos textuales" (en este caso debo emplear un término así de pomposo) se diluye cuando alcanza a personajes como Alma, que es la clase de persona vulnerable que recibe toda la carga negativa de la dejadez de esa clase política y las políticas intrusivas que fueron impulsadas por la administración Reagan, que deformaron y también corrompieron el rumbo político de muchos países de Latinoamérica, partiendo del Ecuador nato de los "personajes" principales y luego ampliando el foco e incluyendo a Chile, Guatemala y de refilón también se menciona a la Argentina de Menem, cuyas políticas causaron un gran daño sobre la población más vulnerable. Cárdenas se propone desde su espacio literario también pervertir el inglés. Y eso, creo yo, sería el corazón del libro.
El problema es que los amplios recursos literarios a los que el autor recurre, tales como capítulos con largas frases subordinadas, que se extienden durante varias páginas; párrafos de frases cortas que entremezclan diferentes voces y períodos temporales, diálogos de radio, monólogos internos y demás, no se emplean orgánicamente, por contra todo se siente utilizado con arbitrariedad y aleatoriedad, las líneas narrativas se interrumpen, saltan al pasado o continúan en un punto poco interesante del presente para simplemente diluir el foco narrativo, y la narración acaba componiéndose de escenas inanes, de comicidad poco inspirada, en las que apenas se vislumbra una conexión con el conjunto, un hilo que las conecte, avanzas páginas sin un rumbo claro o un objeto tangible, así que todas esas intenciones que he descrito anteriormente se diluyen en un mar de tedio, en un pozo dónde todo parece inconexo y caprichoso: el texto nunca hace pie, nunca tienes la sensación que ni las escenas tienen verdadero interés o que el gran puzzle narrativo tenga demasiado sentido. Los personajes a veces tienen actitudes contradictorias y eso les humaniza, pero quedan desdibujados entre tanto gesto oblicuo y opaco, desaparecen de la narración y reaparecen fugazmente en una escena suelta, luego quizás entre bromas sin mucha gracia. Ese empecinamiento por dispersar el foco narrativo y crear un cambalache de digresiones no parece tener otro objeto que mostrar a un autor muy extravagante pero refinado, que se pasea por las cimas de la literatura, lástima que tenga tan poca gracia como narrador o retratista. Lo único que de verdad queda es una suerte de taller literario dónde se conjuga con insipidez recursos extraídos de Falukner, Cortázar o António Lobo Antunes por citar unos pocos.
Tenía escrito para concluir un párrafo atacando con malicia al autor, lo he borrado, tan sólo hace falta dejar claro que un libro tan altanero y rebuscado sin duda encaja con el perfil público que el autor, entre risitas, se construye en Twitter. Si no me equivoco la suerte de sus libros en lengua española no pasa de anecdótica, así que es dudoso que esas otras dos obras que tiene publicadas encuentren editorial en lengua española y, aunque eso ocurriera, me resultaría indiferente, pues la vida es demasiado breve para leer más de un libro de Mauro Javier Cárdenas.
En ese mecanismo retorcido y rebuscado se comienza "narrando" el proyecto de Antonio y Leopoldo, dos antiguos compañeros del colegio San Javier, una institución católica dónde acuden las familias privilegiadas de Guayaquil y que el autor nombra con mucha insistencia, dos hombres que pertenecen a clases más o menos acomodadas de Ecuador, y que se proponen darle un giro izquierdista a la política de su país presentando una candidatura de raíz popular que favorezca a las clases populares. La ironía que señala el autor es que estos hijos de antiguos cargos políticos y funcionarios, que se enriquecieron de forma ilícita y corrupta gracias a su posición de poder, están destinados a no hacer absolutamente nada debido a sus propias inercias. La sobreabundante y cargante ironía de esos "procesos textuales" (en este caso debo emplear un término así de pomposo) se diluye cuando alcanza a personajes como Alma, que es la clase de persona vulnerable que recibe toda la carga negativa de la dejadez de esa clase política y las políticas intrusivas que fueron impulsadas por la administración Reagan, que deformaron y también corrompieron el rumbo político de muchos países de Latinoamérica, partiendo del Ecuador nato de los "personajes" principales y luego ampliando el foco e incluyendo a Chile, Guatemala y de refilón también se menciona a la Argentina de Menem, cuyas políticas causaron un gran daño sobre la población más vulnerable. Cárdenas se propone desde su espacio literario también pervertir el inglés. Y eso, creo yo, sería el corazón del libro.
El problema es que los amplios recursos literarios a los que el autor recurre, tales como capítulos con largas frases subordinadas, que se extienden durante varias páginas; párrafos de frases cortas que entremezclan diferentes voces y períodos temporales, diálogos de radio, monólogos internos y demás, no se emplean orgánicamente, por contra todo se siente utilizado con arbitrariedad y aleatoriedad, las líneas narrativas se interrumpen, saltan al pasado o continúan en un punto poco interesante del presente para simplemente diluir el foco narrativo, y la narración acaba componiéndose de escenas inanes, de comicidad poco inspirada, en las que apenas se vislumbra una conexión con el conjunto, un hilo que las conecte, avanzas páginas sin un rumbo claro o un objeto tangible, así que todas esas intenciones que he descrito anteriormente se diluyen en un mar de tedio, en un pozo dónde todo parece inconexo y caprichoso: el texto nunca hace pie, nunca tienes la sensación que ni las escenas tienen verdadero interés o que el gran puzzle narrativo tenga demasiado sentido. Los personajes a veces tienen actitudes contradictorias y eso les humaniza, pero quedan desdibujados entre tanto gesto oblicuo y opaco, desaparecen de la narración y reaparecen fugazmente en una escena suelta, luego quizás entre bromas sin mucha gracia. Ese empecinamiento por dispersar el foco narrativo y crear un cambalache de digresiones no parece tener otro objeto que mostrar a un autor muy extravagante pero refinado, que se pasea por las cimas de la literatura, lástima que tenga tan poca gracia como narrador o retratista. Lo único que de verdad queda es una suerte de taller literario dónde se conjuga con insipidez recursos extraídos de Falukner, Cortázar o António Lobo Antunes por citar unos pocos.
Tenía escrito para concluir un párrafo atacando con malicia al autor, lo he borrado, tan sólo hace falta dejar claro que un libro tan altanero y rebuscado sin duda encaja con el perfil público que el autor, entre risitas, se construye en Twitter. Si no me equivoco la suerte de sus libros en lengua española no pasa de anecdótica, así que es dudoso que esas otras dos obras que tiene publicadas encuentren editorial en lengua española y, aunque eso ocurriera, me resultaría indiferente, pues la vida es demasiado breve para leer más de un libro de Mauro Javier Cárdenas.
September 5, 2016
In The Revolutionaries Try Again, Mauro Javier Cardenas has taken the edifice of arch modernism and suffused it with tender details of a boyhood in Ecuador. The long, unraveling sentences reveal an extraordinarily musical ear. This is a debut that will last.
February 26, 2022
«آیا واقعاً میتوان یکنفر را مسئول کردههایش دانست؟ رفتار او و حتی شخصیت او همواره اسیر چنکال بیرحم زمانه است که شیرهی جان او را برای خود میخواهد، چه خیر باشد و چه شر.»
این اثر، شاید یک شاهکار ادبی نباشد، اما همانچیزیست که (اکوادور) بدان نیاز دارد. سبک پستمدرنیسم این رمان، در عین پریشانی نظمی دارد و در عین ساختارشکنی، زیرساختهای منحصربهفردش را بازسازی میکند. سبک روایی داستان، در عین زمانپریشی و جامپکاتهای بسیار، دارای انسجامیست که بر لذت خواندنش میافزاید.
این اثر، شاید یک شاهکار ادبی نباشد، اما همانچیزیست که (اکوادور) بدان نیاز دارد. سبک پستمدرنیسم این رمان، در عین پریشانی نظمی دارد و در عین ساختارشکنی، زیرساختهای منحصربهفردش را بازسازی میکند. سبک روایی داستان، در عین زمانپریشی و جامپکاتهای بسیار، دارای انسجامیست که بر لذت خواندنش میافزاید.
September 16, 2016
Dazzling!
In only 269 pages Cardenas creates a novel that deals with the history of Ecuador (in the 80s and 90s), philosophy ("how are we to be humans in a world of destitution and justice"), immigration to the USA, memory, literature etc All of it in a non-linear narrative that jumps back and forth chronologically, told from different perspectives (narration shifts from first person to third to second, often in the same paragraph). Situations and characters are vivid, funny , absurd, cruel and heartbreaking. All of it in a distinctive, challenging style. Not an easy book to read but rewarding to readers who enjoy literary stimulation.
In only 269 pages Cardenas creates a novel that deals with the history of Ecuador (in the 80s and 90s), philosophy ("how are we to be humans in a world of destitution and justice"), immigration to the USA, memory, literature etc All of it in a non-linear narrative that jumps back and forth chronologically, told from different perspectives (narration shifts from first person to third to second, often in the same paragraph). Situations and characters are vivid, funny , absurd, cruel and heartbreaking. All of it in a distinctive, challenging style. Not an easy book to read but rewarding to readers who enjoy literary stimulation.
March 16, 2022
یک ترجمه خراب که نتوانسته بود کتاب را آنطور که باید به دست مخاطب برساند.
آشفته و پریشان. جملات گنگ. نامفهوم.
در توصیف کتاب، پشت جلدش نوشته بودند: «ابسورد...» ولی خب فکر میکنم ترجمه معیوب کتاب در فهم نشدن آن تاثیر داشته و نتوانست حق مطلب را ادا کند.
آشفته و پریشان. جملات گنگ. نامفهوم.
در توصیف کتاب، پشت جلدش نوشته بودند: «ابسورد...» ولی خب فکر میکنم ترجمه معیوب کتاب در فهم نشدن آن تاثیر داشته و نتوانست حق مطلب را ادا کند.
Want to read
July 12, 2016I am very, very easy to market to: just name-drop my favorite South American (not Bolaño). To wit, here's from the Millions' Great Second Half of 2016 Book Preview:
Cardenas’s first novel has the trappings of a ravishing debut: smart blurbs, a brilliant cover, a modernist narrative set amongst political turmoil in South America, and a flurry of pre-pub excitement on Twitter. Having garnered comparisons to works by Roberto Bolaño and Julio Cortázar, The Revolutionaries Try Again has been called “fiercely subversive” while pulling off feats of “double-black-diamond high modernism.”
Cardenas’s first novel has the trappings of a ravishing debut: smart blurbs, a brilliant cover, a modernist narrative set amongst political turmoil in South America, and a flurry of pre-pub excitement on Twitter. Having garnered comparisons to works by Roberto Bolaño and Julio Cortázar, The Revolutionaries Try Again has been called “fiercely subversive” while pulling off feats of “double-black-diamond high modernism.”
October 6, 2016
i probably just bought into the hype a little too much, but i'm pretty disappointed in this one. for all his references to bolaño, sebald, marías, et al. cardenas failed to remind me of any of them. there were moments early on that impressed me, but the characters and the reunited-high-school-buddies-giving-each-other-a-hard-time humor felt tiresome. it's a complex story and probably deserves much closer attention than i was willing to give it, but after a while it felt like a chore to trudge through.
June 16, 2025
Cárdenas writes like no other, in neverending sentences that flit throughout time and space, dreams and memories, pasts and futures; his characters so alive, his concerns so relevant to the current political situation that only an angry immigrant could have written his fiction: streams of consciousness, “experimental” prose, reads like poetry but, unlike some of his contemporaries, actually has a plot.
I don’t have much (or any) background knowledge on recent Ecuadorian politics, but I was still able to follow and appreciate this story based on how incredibly vivid Cárdenas’s writing is. From page 1 I was transfixed; by the final page I was stunned that he had managed to pull it off for the length of the book. Judging by its low rating and relatively small number of reviews at the time I’m writing this, I’d say that The Revolutionaries Try Again is shamefully underappreciated, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for something new/interesting/excellent to shake up their usual reading habits. Between this one and American Abductions, I’m getting closer to calling this author one of the living greats.
I don’t have much (or any) background knowledge on recent Ecuadorian politics, but I was still able to follow and appreciate this story based on how incredibly vivid Cárdenas’s writing is. From page 1 I was transfixed; by the final page I was stunned that he had managed to pull it off for the length of the book. Judging by its low rating and relatively small number of reviews at the time I’m writing this, I’d say that The Revolutionaries Try Again is shamefully underappreciated, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for something new/interesting/excellent to shake up their usual reading habits. Between this one and American Abductions, I’m getting closer to calling this author one of the living greats.
September 28, 2021
as an ecuadorian, living in San Francisco, this novel feels... intimate, especially having studued the allusions that Cárdenas makes to ecuadorian politics in recent decades. Damn, I mean, one of the prominent last names in the book is my very ecuadorian last name. The characters feel like a mix of my and/or my parents' experiences growing up and the allusions feel so personal and hauntingly familiar. Like, I'm still shocked that a book I read in English referenced my favorite Mafalda comic and the songs my parents raised me with. All of that to say, it feels like such an intimate, broken, grotesque and treasured mirror to some of my own experiences and thoughts that it was hard not to like it.
Still, my non-ecuadorian friend without any of this context gave it to me. I think a lot of ppl could appreciate the ramblings and unique prose and ideas expressed here--Cárdenas makes vivid the ennui and 'desolation' and disjointed thoughts of his characters express in a way that will keep you thinking for days.
But even so, it's definitely not a book for everyone. Took me a while to get through it. Sometimes the prose was too much and too ramble-y and I wonder if the allusions might have been too overwhelming if you didn't have the context. Anyway, will definitely look out for Cárdenas's next novel.
Still, my non-ecuadorian friend without any of this context gave it to me. I think a lot of ppl could appreciate the ramblings and unique prose and ideas expressed here--Cárdenas makes vivid the ennui and 'desolation' and disjointed thoughts of his characters express in a way that will keep you thinking for days.
But even so, it's definitely not a book for everyone. Took me a while to get through it. Sometimes the prose was too much and too ramble-y and I wonder if the allusions might have been too overwhelming if you didn't have the context. Anyway, will definitely look out for Cárdenas's next novel.
February 21, 2022
3.5
A writer's writer in that what dazzled me was the scrapbook of narrative techniques Cárdenas employed, presumably, to more deeply access the emotional underpinnings of his work: the painful loss of youth, innocence/experience, the great loss of country, and even the loss of hope. Unfortunately, along with his bursts of creativity, Cárdenas also displays some big "I am very smart" energy. Even if I sympathize I still rolled my eyes more than a few times. There are moments reading this when one feels the author resisting his vulnerability so intensely he is willing to push the reader away hard. Whole chapters, for example, are presented in untranslated Spanish. Please.
But this is a debut novel, which means it points in a direction the author wants to go. He certainly loves Bolaño and his puppy dog imitation felt like affection, not hackery: a new writer placing himself in a specific corner of dinner table conversation. Well good for him. There is certainly enough promise in this novel that I will read more of his work. I think it's worth reading for fans of experimental literature, too. Cárdenas may not be inventing anything new but with this debut he has confidently placed himself in an admirable category... and he belongs there.
A writer's writer in that what dazzled me was the scrapbook of narrative techniques Cárdenas employed, presumably, to more deeply access the emotional underpinnings of his work: the painful loss of youth, innocence/experience, the great loss of country, and even the loss of hope. Unfortunately, along with his bursts of creativity, Cárdenas also displays some big "I am very smart" energy. Even if I sympathize I still rolled my eyes more than a few times. There are moments reading this when one feels the author resisting his vulnerability so intensely he is willing to push the reader away hard. Whole chapters, for example, are presented in untranslated Spanish. Please.
But this is a debut novel, which means it points in a direction the author wants to go. He certainly loves Bolaño and his puppy dog imitation felt like affection, not hackery: a new writer placing himself in a specific corner of dinner table conversation. Well good for him. There is certainly enough promise in this novel that I will read more of his work. I think it's worth reading for fans of experimental literature, too. Cárdenas may not be inventing anything new but with this debut he has confidently placed himself in an admirable category... and he belongs there.
November 10, 2016
Phenomenal. Experimental to the point of frustration, which speaks to how much I had to love it to fight my way through! I couldn't recap the plot, but the atmosphere was everything. The dialogue, the characters, the turns of phrase, it was just very emotional to read and I enjoy that so much. This book made me appreciate the CRAFT of it and that is one of the best things to feel as a writer reading. Augh. So, so, so good.
September 17, 2019
I'm going to bail at 35% + skimming the last two-thirds. I admire the creative energy and the playful use of language and the long sentences and the energy - y leí los capítulos en español en la voz de la abuela, por supuesto - but the whole project is wearing me out. In my twenties I would have thrown myself at this and probably have loved it, but that's not my approach at this moment. It's an interesting and ambitious novel.
January 1, 2022
En toda la obra, el lenguaje desborda y adquiere protagonismo. Es en el fluir de la escritura que se elabora una crítica a la élite ecuatoriana, pero también se deja patente la imposibilidad del individuo de realizar cambios trascendentales. A ratos, el rebose de recursos literarios puede resultar atosigante y desconcertante para el lector.
March 6, 2023
Mauro Javier Cárdenas was on a podcast in praise of difficult books so I bought this, his first. It does not disappoint.
September 4, 2019
Cardenas’s prose is as exhausting as it is energizing, pouring over the reader in a deluge of run-on sentences separated by dashes -- commas, slashes/ and sometimes none of the above sometimes the sentence just keeps running if its what Cardenas is in the mood for, but it somehow forced me to want to read the novel all the quicker rather than turning me off completely, I like many other sane human beings hate flipping a page and seeing a gigantic block of text with nary an indention in sight but Cardenas does not seem to mind scaring off weak willed readers and there is certainly something admirable about that, it can even be a breath of fresh air, but it can also be overwhelming / rather than a stream-of-consciousness approach, Cardenas offers his audience a tsunami of consciousness. It takes a bit for the novel to completely unload onto the reader, but once it does, prepare for multiple characters’ words, thoughts , and actions to blend together, with little to no indication of who is speaking, acting, or thinking and whether they are in fact speaking, acting, or thinking, and then prepare for Cardenas to vaguely describe a multitude of situations in such a way that you aren’t sure whether or not you are supposed to have the full view of what happened, and then by the time you give up, move on, and forget about it, here he is again, revisiting the scene of unknown importance but telling it ever so slightly differently, just different enough to further frustrate what confusion already surrounded his descriptions --- of course / all of these things are on purpose, and for what it is worth, and it is certainly worth
something,
Cardenas pulls off his ideas admirably. However, there is almost a sense that he lets too many tricks out of his bag too soon, because by the end, I found myself less exhilarated by his style. It was not because it had become too much for me to handle, but instead I dealt with the book for so long that the onslaught began to feel tame, --- if I am docking any points, it is not because the prose is too experimental, rather that the experimentation plateaued a bit too early for me. And by the time his style became normalized, I realized that while I was enjoying the story, it wasn’t heading in any discernible direction, and once I noticed those couple of flaws, more and more became apparent, but overall, I still loved the book. I am a bit torn on the rating for this novel, but considering it expanded my view of what a narrative can be, I had to round up instead of down, because to bring something truly new to the medium of writing is an accomplishment that cannot be overstated.
something,
Cardenas pulls off his ideas admirably. However, there is almost a sense that he lets too many tricks out of his bag too soon, because by the end, I found myself less exhilarated by his style. It was not because it had become too much for me to handle, but instead I dealt with the book for so long that the onslaught began to feel tame, --- if I am docking any points, it is not because the prose is too experimental, rather that the experimentation plateaued a bit too early for me. And by the time his style became normalized, I realized that while I was enjoying the story, it wasn’t heading in any discernible direction, and once I noticed those couple of flaws, more and more became apparent, but overall, I still loved the book. I am a bit torn on the rating for this novel, but considering it expanded my view of what a narrative can be, I had to round up instead of down, because to bring something truly new to the medium of writing is an accomplishment that cannot be overstated.
August 1, 2023
DNF — I hate to say it but it wasn’t for me and we are no longer reading books that make us grind our teeth
December 28, 2021
This is a devastating study of transnational life, of complicity in corruption and exploitation, of personal and impersonal cruelty, of the lies we tell ourselves to keep going no matter how transparent they become. It is stream-of-consciousness which I know is not to everyone's taste, and you have to learn its language as you read, you have to pay attention to the repetitions, to the Spanish as well as the English (but aside from a couple of short chapters you don't need to understand Spanish), to the jokes and the little asides as well as the big plot lines, but the efforts are well worth it. The characters too, can be difficult and unlikeable, their language like their lives is rife with misogyny and a kind of hysterical narcissism but if you trust the writer he'll carry you through. As moving a novel as I have read in a long time. All the complexity of the language and the form and the ideas becomes sort of compressed in a brilliant, gem like ending. The global and the local and the personal and the political that Cardenas has been weaving together is pulled tight into a noose from which the reader can't escape. Perfect fusion of form and function.
Read
December 23, 20161) amazing, tbh. its a real page-turner, not like a real page-turner for being an experimental novel, but as much a page-turner as any novel in a more standard/traditional prose style
2) i began Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed as i was finishing this book, and i feel like its first chapter works well in relation to/as a commentary on much of this novel
3) its refreshing to see a novel that takes the mundanities of upper/upper-middle class politically seriously. many political novels (especially one from the usa) only speak of those already in power--Ronald Reagan, to take an example from this novel, or El Loco--ignoring that these people--upper/upper-middle class kids--9 times out of ten become those in power. theres a direct line between them and state/corporate power
2) i began Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed as i was finishing this book, and i feel like its first chapter works well in relation to/as a commentary on much of this novel
3) its refreshing to see a novel that takes the mundanities of upper/upper-middle class politically seriously. many political novels (especially one from the usa) only speak of those already in power--Ronald Reagan, to take an example from this novel, or El Loco--ignoring that these people--upper/upper-middle class kids--9 times out of ten become those in power. theres a direct line between them and state/corporate power
August 6, 2017
Conflict on this one. I really admired Cardenas' mischievous exploration of the tenuous bonds of childhood friendship(s) and the fragility of youthful idealism when held up against the realities of adulthood. I also found it brimming with formal invention and loved the attempts to twist and manipulate the boundaries of the conventional novel, but towards the end the meandering sentences and fragmented dialogue felt like being dumped into the middle of a conversation at a party between a tight group of guys who all knew each other from school. These encounters are full of wit and charisma and at times are immersive and exhilarating, but all too often became confusing and mildly infuriating. May need to revisit at a later date.
May 22, 2018
It’s hard to really make much of this novel. At one hand, you appreciate the stylistic attempts from the author, he is obviously paying homage to Bolanos, Cortazar. On the other end, for these stylistic attempts, the story is lost. Narratives are brought up, and never resolved. I found myself uninterested in all but a few characters. Where I feel the biggest disappointment is felt: The essence of the Ecuadorian city is completely missed by the author. It’s most frustrating as the beginning of the novel showed promise in the conflicts of an expat trying to reconnect with his roots but this is Guayaquil, not Paris. Over elaboration and frills ultimately makes finishing this novel a chore.
May 4, 2022
there are cool scenes here and there. like the mayor whipping all the lumpen that come to collect their checks for the photo op. but much of it feels like a bloodless pantomime of better high modernist stuff though. some guys blurb on the back says it’s one of the most exciting experimental novels in years, which is weird bc it feels like a very conventional rehash of stuff that hasn’t been experimental for decades. the characters are all stock, the humor is corny, so is the profundity mostly. i recommend his interview of LK though
September 13, 2016
Excellent. Read by review at Music & Literature:
http://www.musicandliterature.org/rev...
http://www.musicandliterature.org/rev...
October 9, 2023
Obviously very "semi-autobiographical"--a stream-of-consciousness tale of many tellers from the giant coastal city of Guayaquil. Although some of this version is all in Spanish, it later appeared I assume entirely in that language: Penguin 2018, translated by Miguel Antonio Chavez, as ). I read it in the 2016 Kindle-library edition in English. This needs to be mentioned, for without fluency in both languages, the version here under review won't be totally intelligible. Not that it's easy for a bilingual 'gringo' either, from my experience. There's so much packed onto practically every page, in intricate but often overly self-referential and smugly self-hating, but self-satisfied too, prose--about pivotal decades of the 1990s in smart-set Ecuador, concerning its politics, its presidents, its polemics, that I doubt one lacking familiarity with this context can make much sense out of the meandering, dense, allusive, formidably "smart" narrative.
I fall into the Venn diagram at the overlap where one might theoretically parse out the references better, I humbly aver, but I confess I needed my Spanish dictionary, and that only got me partway. Lots of vocabulary won't be found there, and lots of the Ecuadorian context eludes any non-native.
Cardenas is talented, yes. But this brand of fiction smacks of the MFA-small press-grant recipient industry, rather than a work aimed at a wider readership. I'm not sure in fact who might be judged the target for this, as the book requires somebody versed in two languages, in slang, in nudge-nudge references, in Latin American affairs, in Catholicism, in popular song from the region--you get the picture. It's ambitious, and the author (Stanford-educated and it's tellingly obvious this "snob cred" matters to both fictional and real-life teller) from the background he satirizes indulges relentlessly in sly, cruel fun as he has down pat the put-downs, vulgarities, repartee and inside jokes that adolescents perfect among themselves and may never give up, a dozen years down their various roads. He's on to promising material about corruption, nepotism, lassitude, and failures in Latin America, exacerbated by El Norte, but this effort either needed a helluva lot of footnotes and a glossary for the buyer most likely to pick this up at an indie coffeeshop-hipster bookstore, or a warning label instead of booksellers' blurbs alerting the purchaser to the rarified contents within.
I fall into the Venn diagram at the overlap where one might theoretically parse out the references better, I humbly aver, but I confess I needed my Spanish dictionary, and that only got me partway. Lots of vocabulary won't be found there, and lots of the Ecuadorian context eludes any non-native.
Cardenas is talented, yes. But this brand of fiction smacks of the MFA-small press-grant recipient industry, rather than a work aimed at a wider readership. I'm not sure in fact who might be judged the target for this, as the book requires somebody versed in two languages, in slang, in nudge-nudge references, in Latin American affairs, in Catholicism, in popular song from the region--you get the picture. It's ambitious, and the author (Stanford-educated and it's tellingly obvious this "snob cred" matters to both fictional and real-life teller) from the background he satirizes indulges relentlessly in sly, cruel fun as he has down pat the put-downs, vulgarities, repartee and inside jokes that adolescents perfect among themselves and may never give up, a dozen years down their various roads. He's on to promising material about corruption, nepotism, lassitude, and failures in Latin America, exacerbated by El Norte, but this effort either needed a helluva lot of footnotes and a glossary for the buyer most likely to pick this up at an indie coffeeshop-hipster bookstore, or a warning label instead of booksellers' blurbs alerting the purchaser to the rarified contents within.
November 2, 2023
Friends try to recongregate in Guayaquil during the time when Leon Cordero, the former president of Ecuador, was the mayor, and form some sort of political influence/run a presidential candidate. From this point, a story of the futility of politics and the endurance of the ups and downs of friendships emerges.
Yet the main things one remembers from the book other than from the last 50 pages or so, where the varieties of political corruption that are alluded to in passing within broader streams of thought earlier in the book (a technique that deftly captures the interweaving of political violence, inequality, and day to day plans in society in an idiosyncratic, expert way) come to the forefront to spectacular effect, is the technical adventurousness. Cardenas rotates through different types of first- and close third-person perspectives, sentence lengths, punctuation constructs to scaffold his portrait of the seemingly permanent destabilization of Ecuador. His main characters, including Antonio, who lived as an expat in SF learning classical piano prior to coming back to run for political office, and Leopoldo, a government worker compromised by the corruption of the conservative administration of Guayaquil, led by former president Cordero, seem to have no real idea of how to effectuate political change. Rather, they end up turning inward, reflecting on their pasts as if attending a revolutionary high school reunion in a place with no windows.
The technique shifts are abrupt and hit and miss for much of the first half but Cardenas gets points for daring and using technique as a means to an end rather than the end itself. One does wonder what the book may have been like if anyone seemed to have an idea of how to break through to being an actual “revolutionary”… whatever that entails and I’m not suggesting that I know, but it’s an impressive book in many respects.
Yet the main things one remembers from the book other than from the last 50 pages or so, where the varieties of political corruption that are alluded to in passing within broader streams of thought earlier in the book (a technique that deftly captures the interweaving of political violence, inequality, and day to day plans in society in an idiosyncratic, expert way) come to the forefront to spectacular effect, is the technical adventurousness. Cardenas rotates through different types of first- and close third-person perspectives, sentence lengths, punctuation constructs to scaffold his portrait of the seemingly permanent destabilization of Ecuador. His main characters, including Antonio, who lived as an expat in SF learning classical piano prior to coming back to run for political office, and Leopoldo, a government worker compromised by the corruption of the conservative administration of Guayaquil, led by former president Cordero, seem to have no real idea of how to effectuate political change. Rather, they end up turning inward, reflecting on their pasts as if attending a revolutionary high school reunion in a place with no windows.
The technique shifts are abrupt and hit and miss for much of the first half but Cardenas gets points for daring and using technique as a means to an end rather than the end itself. One does wonder what the book may have been like if anyone seemed to have an idea of how to break through to being an actual “revolutionary”… whatever that entails and I’m not suggesting that I know, but it’s an impressive book in many respects.
September 18, 2025
انقلابی ها دوباره دست بهکار می شوند
خاویر کاردناس
ترجمه طهورا آیتی
نویسن��ه به جنبش Macondo تعلق دارد و بسرعت جز نویسندگان بوگوتا ۳۹ قرار می گیرد که بهترین رمان نویسان امریکا لاتیناند. آنان سعی دارند که ادبیات امریکای لاتین را که با آثار رئالیسم جادویی مارکز و …شهرتی جهانی دارد را تغییر مضمون دهند و ادبیاتی را برای نسلی بیافریند که سعی ندارد با مدرنیسم پنجه در افکند.داستان در اکوادور می گذرد، کشوری با نرخ ۶۰ درصدی فقر دائم با تمایزات طبقاتی شدید که زندگی در آن را همواره پر از تنش می کند و نویسنده بخوبی توانسته این تنش ها را به داستان خود وارد کند.
مترجم در مقدمه اذعان دارد که کتاب سختخوان است و تمرکزی بیش از معمول نیاز دارد.
امریکا لاتین از نظر تاریخی و بویژه پس از استقلال همواره در نقش حیاط خلوت امریکا بوده است و در کتاب هم شاهد نقدهای بشدت مداخله جویانه ریگان و کندی در عمده کشورهای جنوب امریکاییم و مداخله در انتخابات و روی کار آوردن وابستگان خود برای تسلط بر منابع عظیم این کشورها مجموعه ای از فساد و وابستگی و طفیلیگری بوجود می آورد .امریکا رئیس جمهورهای غیر همسو با امریکا و ادامه دهنده رابطه با کوبا را ساقط می کند و افراد وابسته بخود را سر کار می آورد. بسیاری از این کشورها درگیر فسادهای سرسام آور از جمله تولید مواد مخدرند و اکوادر ۷۰% کوکایین جهان را تولید میکند .
نمی توان نویسنده زندگی مردم این بخش از جهان بود و از مهاجرت به جامعه امریکا ننوشت .اساس رابطه این دو بخش از جهان متاثر از عواقب مخرب و ناگزیر مهاجرت بر اثر هم جواری است، مهاجرتهایی که غالبا حاصل پربار و متحولی ندارد و مهاجران مردد از بازگشت به وطن. تفاوت فرهنگی و اجتماعی آنها و عدم ادغام در جامعه میزبان ، تاثیرات فرهنگی اقتصادی و سیاسی ناشی از این مهاجرتها بر زندگی جامعه مبدا، روایتهایی از رد مرزشدگی های متعدد و رفتار خشونت بار پلیسها از جمله روایات این کتاب است.
خاویر کاردناس
ترجمه طهورا آیتی
نویسن��ه به جنبش Macondo تعلق دارد و بسرعت جز نویسندگان بوگوتا ۳۹ قرار می گیرد که بهترین رمان نویسان امریکا لاتیناند. آنان سعی دارند که ادبیات امریکای لاتین را که با آثار رئالیسم جادویی مارکز و …شهرتی جهانی دارد را تغییر مضمون دهند و ادبیاتی را برای نسلی بیافریند که سعی ندارد با مدرنیسم پنجه در افکند.داستان در اکوادور می گذرد، کشوری با نرخ ۶۰ درصدی فقر دائم با تمایزات طبقاتی شدید که زندگی در آن را همواره پر از تنش می کند و نویسنده بخوبی توانسته این تنش ها را به داستان خود وارد کند.
مترجم در مقدمه اذعان دارد که کتاب سختخوان است و تمرکزی بیش از معمول نیاز دارد.
امریکا لاتین از نظر تاریخی و بویژه پس از استقلال همواره در نقش حیاط خلوت امریکا بوده است و در کتاب هم شاهد نقدهای بشدت مداخله جویانه ریگان و کندی در عمده کشورهای جنوب امریکاییم و مداخله در انتخابات و روی کار آوردن وابستگان خود برای تسلط بر منابع عظیم این کشورها مجموعه ای از فساد و وابستگی و طفیلیگری بوجود می آورد .امریکا رئیس جمهورهای غیر همسو با امریکا و ادامه دهنده رابطه با کوبا را ساقط می کند و افراد وابسته بخود را سر کار می آورد. بسیاری از این کشورها درگیر فسادهای سرسام آور از جمله تولید مواد مخدرند و اکوادر ۷۰% کوکایین جهان را تولید میکند .
نمی توان نویسنده زندگی مردم این بخش از جهان بود و از مهاجرت به جامعه امریکا ننوشت .اساس رابطه این دو بخش از جهان متاثر از عواقب مخرب و ناگزیر مهاجرت بر اثر هم جواری است، مهاجرتهایی که غالبا حاصل پربار و متحولی ندارد و مهاجران مردد از بازگشت به وطن. تفاوت فرهنگی و اجتماعی آنها و عدم ادغام در جامعه میزبان ، تاثیرات فرهنگی اقتصادی و سیاسی ناشی از این مهاجرتها بر زندگی جامعه مبدا، روایتهایی از رد مرزشدگی های متعدد و رفتار خشونت بار پلیسها از جمله روایات این کتاب است.
August 1, 2018
En mi obstiancion de 'descubrir' a escritores ecuatorianos interesantes, por diversas referencias llego a mis manos esta novela, que poco a poco se fue conviertiendo en una gran decepcion, si bien a grandes rasgos habla sobre un grupo de chicos que quieren cambiar la historia de su pais, no tiene una historia central de la cual el lector se pueda agarrar y guiarse. A veces tenia la sensacion de estar leyendo a un mal imitador de Roberto Bolanos o incluso de Cortazar por la forma tan enrredada y confusa de tratar de contar las cosas, pero sin la gracia de esos maestros. Se que es su primera novela, se nota pues tambien me parecio cruda en el sentido de que no ha hecho muchos entudios o ensayos previos antes de dar con la version final......me parece que le salio asi y asi se fue! Con todo quedo con curiosidad, esta ha sido su primera novela y se pueden perdonar muchas cosas, con trabajo se puede mejorar mucho, creo ver ( lo que seguramente talvez vieron sus editores) madera.....en corto:novela poco entrenida para un lector promedio como yo, pero el estilo del escritor es lo suficientemente intrigante como para quedar curioso y a la espera de un nuevo trabajo en donde lo haga mejor.
April 12, 2025
“The Revolutionaries Try Again” is a book I will one day try again to like, but my first reading was not an especially enjoyable one. I had a tough time finding the soul of this novel. Does its soul reside in its characters? The juvenile, self-aware pedantry of Leopoldo and Antonio comes across as even more juvenile and pedantic than the author seems to have budgeted for himself. There are flashes of artistic, even occasionally moving prose, but more common are sentences that are well-crafted but lack the dynamism and music to which they aspire.
My fundamental gripe with this novel is that its experimental ambitions appear to be a flimsy façade covering an eminently conventional foundation — its experiments are more accident than essence, and so the final product is too contrived to take seriously as great literature.
With that said, it’s obvious that Cardenas is a talented writer, and there is enough promise in this novel to give it another shot, perhaps when I have matured more as a reader and am better able to appreciate certain formal innovations that I may have missed or undersold on this reading. I’m also interested in reading Cardenas’ subsequent work, where his voice as an author very well may be more developed.
My fundamental gripe with this novel is that its experimental ambitions appear to be a flimsy façade covering an eminently conventional foundation — its experiments are more accident than essence, and so the final product is too contrived to take seriously as great literature.
With that said, it’s obvious that Cardenas is a talented writer, and there is enough promise in this novel to give it another shot, perhaps when I have matured more as a reader and am better able to appreciate certain formal innovations that I may have missed or undersold on this reading. I’m also interested in reading Cardenas’ subsequent work, where his voice as an author very well may be more developed.
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