المؤتمر الأدبي

by César Aira, عبد الكريم بدرخان (ترجمة)

رغم عنوان الرواية التّقريري، إلاّ أنّنا لن نشهد أي مؤتمر أدبي، تبدأ الرواية بصوت كاتب يزور فنزويلا ويسكن جنب أكبر لغز في القارة: «خط ماكوتو»، حبل مربوط على شكل مثلث جنب البحر، يخفي كنز قراصنة قديم، ينجح الكاتب في فكّ اللغز ويأخذ الكنز ليصير غنّياً، بعد أن عاش سنة صعبة بسبب أزمة إقتصادية أثّرت على سوق النشر. لن أكشف عن الرواية أكثر من هذا، رغم أن آيرا نفسه يقول بأنّه لا يأبه بالعُقد والنّهايات، وهو مستعد أن يفضح كلّ نهايات رواياته، ببساطة لأنّها لا تملك بدايات ولا نهاية، ولا تسلسل زمني. مع كل فصل نكتشف شيئاً جديداً، الكاتب يكشف عن هويته الحقيقية، عالمٌ مجنون يريد السّيطرة على العالم، ويريد استنساخ جيش كامل من البشر العباقرة، ومثاله هنا هو زميله في المؤتمر الأدبي والكاتب الشهير: كارلوس فوينتس..

تنتقل لغة السّرد من طبقة إلى أخرى، يحدّثنا العالم المجنون تارة بلغة ذهنية متفلسفة متأمّلاً في معاني الكمال وأصالة الأفكار وشباب الأجسام والحبّ، وتارة نشهد على مونولوغات طويلة حمقاء نجح المترجم في نقل نكتها المتخفّية. ليس هنالك خطّ ثابت لدى آيرا في الحَكي، وليس هنالك حبكة. كتابه يُقرأ جملة بجملة، جملة تضيف للجملة التي بعدها، أو جملة تناقض الجملة التي تسبقها، يبني ويهدم في نفس الوقت كطفل يلعبُ بمكعبّات اللّيغو، قد يكون صعباً على قرّاء الرواية العادية (ليس بالضّرورة الاستهلاكية، بل حتى الأعمال الطويلة، جيدة الحَبك).

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Novella, Spanish Literature, Latin American, Literature, Fantasy

93 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than eighty books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and now the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina’s ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, in 2002 he was short listed for the Rómulo Gallegos prize, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Reviews

[Gaurav Sagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very possibility of the disaster cast over my being a demonic splendor. In my role as a writer, I am inoffensive.

Of late, I have been reading quite a few genre- bending or rather genre-defining books, such as Rien Ne Va Plus, The Invention of Morel and Nostalgia, the The Literary Conference stands out among these as a book which does not care about the ‘genres’ at all. The author abhors any sort of superfluousness since he manages to weave the magic through just around ninety odd pages as he packed so much in those pages that entire universe could be felt in this microcosm. It is my first stint with the author, as I came to know about him through Goodreads itself, but it will definitely not be the last. The pleasure it provided to my literary senses kept me mesmerized for hours through a hypnotic spell which took over my consciousness to force me to ponder upon the adroitness of the author to bring up the cosmos out of nothingness.


There are some authors who are unbound to any sort of norms or dogmas, essentially about what is to be defined as literature and what not, César Aira certainly sits on epitome of the that limitlessness. He pushes the boundary of literature by discarding the long-standing conventions and take a flight through surrealism with a dab of horror and satire riding upon the postmodernist traits of meta fiction, to broil out an Avant-grade literature. He uses clear unemotional and realistic tone with straight forward narration to create an unusual and fantastical experience through mundane events.



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The narrator, whose name is César too, is a playwright who travels to Macuto, a coastal town in Venezuela. The narrator, making his way through his life, built upon the heavy dose of Venezuelan and Caribbean literature he read throughout his life, gets a happenstance to come up against the centuries old puzzle of Macuto Line which many revered personalities have failed to solve. However, our narrator here, having the mental configuration of right mix, gets a cue from his literary expeditions and strikes the right chord to solve the enigma, and destiny bows down in response to his ingenuity to put treasure at his feet. The narrator proposes to the reader that he would use the recently earned treasure to write a story with a minimalistic approach about the expeditions of a scientist. The senses of the reader may get activated and feel an air of comic filling his literary muzzle.


At this point, the reader is relatively unaware of the possibilities which may come up in the second part of the book; however, he starts the second part with charged enthusiasm, having a glimpse of the potency of the author’ s dexterous pen. It is only in the aftermath that the reader may ponder upon realizing the metaphorical meaning of Macuto line, if there are any at all; it may represent the odyssey to find out the real treasure which may be lying beneath the superficial life we devise for ourselves, or it may also represent something else or nothing at all. Nonetheless, the reader holds his breath and dives into the sea of unbound possibilities of the world of author.

If I could love, just like that, without the universe getting turned upside down, the only persistent condition that made reality real was contiguity: that things were next to things, in rows or on plates…No, it was impossible, I couldn’t believe it.


The narrator starts part two by announcing about the literary conference he is being invited to, the reader braces himself for something paramount as he jumps up with childlike zest while reference to the title of book transpires . He introduces an Argentinean scientist to the readers, the scientist who eyes to dominate the world through cloning of a perfect individual who would give him limitless unrestricted power through his experiments. The narrator splinters the shield between him and the reader, and throws a glimpse into his consciousness as he mentioned that the real power resides in a person whose acquisition is high culture comprises of philosophy, history, literature, and the classics. The narrator hereby mocks the desire of the scientist to dominate the world. Nevertheless, the reader moves on with surging eagerness to further delve into the universe of the scientist, but he is taken aback by the detonating declaration that the scientist is the narrator himself. The reader is hereby surreptitiously reminded of the disclosure by the narrator initially that he would write a story which takes its logic from a prior story which in turn would provide the logic to another story and thus ad infinitum.

I have discovered that every human being, every living being in reality, in addition to everything he has to show for himself by way of material and spiritual possessions, has style he used to manage those possessions.


The reader is thereby stung by startling revelation that the narrator is scientist, on which the story is based, and the writer of the story, and therefore, essentially the creator of the universe concocted by the author. We see that the otherwise oblivious narrator rises from the dungeons of nothingness to make his being felt by playing an active role in this process of procreation. The scientist cum narrator chooses a subject for his cloning excursion by scanning through various probable options who may provide him the best available specimen of humanity to satisfy his desire to overpower the world and who else could be better alternative here than the Mexican literary giant- Carlos Fuentes. What follows is a series of bizarre events ranging from surreal, fantastic developments to extravagant, out of the world comic phenomena with a touch of cautious horror.


The story or rather story within story act as recreational ground through which the narrator expresses his reflections upon literature, art, nature of humanity and various other aspects. The narrator, given unleash by the author, devotes ample time of his borrowed existence to discussing the reality and fiction, the distinction between them if any, through his well-reasoned digressions, Dadaism is also touched upon in this regard perhaps expressing nonsense and irrationality of the story and thereby life per se.


Overall, the author manages to weave the scared space of self- referential, metafictional postmodernist literature thereby suggesting how art communicates with the reality. He touches upon the various human emotions which define humanity, such as love, desire, lust, dominance and others through this carefully crafted and utterly hilarious tale. The author bends the traditions here and keeps the reader on his feet by changing the course of things through logical explorations to produce this little gem in contemporary literature.



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The strangeness that made everything sparkle came from me. Worlds rose out of my bottomless perplexity.

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

World Leader Pretend

My shadow stretched out in front of me, a human shadow, but also alien, irreconcilable. I stretched out my arms, and the arms of the shadow did the same; I lifted a leg, bent a waist, turned my head, and the shadow imitated me. I abandoned myself to a dance of recognition. When you are travelling the thought that nobody knows you gives you a certain feeling of impunity. Impunity: it’s always impunity that gets you dancing. What did I care about being ridiculous? I was on my way to earning a superior kind of impunity, and nobody knew it.



Exuberant. Absurd. Surrealist. Weird, whimsical, wild. Dizzying. What a ride. Being boxed up between the covers of this slender book reminded me of what Sebastian Faulks wrote about the experience of reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels, that it is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car and after a mile or so someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window.

As per usual skipping the blurb, I went in blind because unlike life I mostly like books to surprise me and I enjoy to expect the unexpected. I was rewarded with a pretty madcap and nonsensical romp about a translator and playwright annex mad scientist turning fairy-tale rich and world famous overnight not by his outstanding work but because of solving a mystery to retrieve a pirate treasure and who dreams of world domination, to achieve by stealing DNA from Carlos Fuentes by a cloned wasp on a literary conference. If this sounds quite insane, it is – and on top of that are the sizzling thoughts produced by the narrator’s quizzical, hyperactive mind. Anything seem to go for César Aira, as a child in a candy store he picks brightly coloured sweets to add to his outlandish brew: Alice in Wonderland, cloning, cartoonish sci-fi devices, grotesque and giant creatures, pirates, a dollop of schmaltzy romance and some good-natured frolicking with Carlos Fuentes reminiscent of what Boris Vian did with Jean-Paul Sartre (Jean-Sol Partre) in L'Écume des jours.



Jumping from self-reflection and introspective philosophising on writing, art, reality, time and the mind to scenes worthy of comic books, imagination, creativity and creation, if any, seem the core themes of the novel – whether crystallised in musings on writing, cloning, inventing or the staging of the narrator’s play inspired by Genesis – and unlike the biblical creator, César Aira – the namesake narrator perhaps as well as the writer- doesn’t sit back to admire his achievement but on the contrary acknowledges how creation is essentially a fluid and unfinished process:

But my mania -- to be constantly adding things, episodes, paragraphs, to be constantly veering off course, branching out -- is fatal. It must be due to insecurity, fear that the basics are not enough, so I have to keep adding more and more adornment until I achieve a kind of surrealistic rococo, which exasperates me more than it does anybody else.



Whereas I was mostly wondering where the novel was going plotwise or meaningwise and I am aware I am not literary literate enough to fully appreciate Aira’s meta toying, I experienced this first foray into Aira’s prolific oeuvre as gently humorous and mildly entertaining. I was charmed by a couple of Aira’s quirky meditations and some of the colourful, moving and funny scenes (the finely crafted miniature cage in the shape of a Swiss chalet and the funeral of the wasp, the shadow dancing) including some exquisite swooning on blue. And is there anything more beautiful and intriguing than blue, whatever the shape it comes in?

(***1/2)

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like innovate, avant-garde fiction polished superfine? Introducing César Aira from Argentina, author of dozens of quirky, quizzical, lyrical novellas and novels, many translated into English, his best known An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, a surreal yarn of a nineteenth century German artist's travels in Latin America and Ghosts, a tale about a haunted luxury apartment complex in the city of Buenos Aires.

Why haven’t I heard of César Aira before? Perhaps because he takes delight in being somewhat obscure. As he stated in an interview, nearly half of his ninety titles are pamphlets or booklets, many less than twenty pages. Since by his reckoning every story is a book, he prefers small, independent publishers willing to print a limited run. Therefore, he surmises, if someone really wants to read his books, they will find them.

I'm delighted I did just that! The Literary Conference is my first César Aira and it will certainly not be my last.

I was under the impression The Literary Conference would be about, well, a literary conference, featuring famous Latin American authors discussing the aesthetics of literature. I found to my astonishment, what begins as international adventure shifts to a comic version of mad scientist taking over the world via cloning and then again to B-movie, a science fiction monster flick, all the while offering meditations on the nature of art and creativity - contained in a mere eighty-five pages.

The narrator, a playwright with the name César, travels to Venezuela, to the coastal town of Macuto wherein he solves the centuries-long enigma of the Macuto Line and its sunken treasure. Just the right vibration from his fingers on the old hemp line and ta-da! - treasure miraculously falls at his feet. My sense is this piece of authorial legerdemain serves to remind us we are, after all, being told a tale and if the storyteller wants riches at the feet of César (perhaps César Aira himself?), then that’s what will bloody well happen.

Moreover, the Macuto Line could be taken as metaphor: the author engaging his imagination as the rope to guide himself down to the lower depths of his own psyche in order to mine a treasure chest of images and words he can bring to the surface and thus compose the very novella we are reading.

We arrive at the actual conference itself, not exactly a round table discussion, more an extension of César’s internal dialogue. One of the first observations made is how the tale he is relaying must be kept clear since poetic fog horrifies him. However, he acknowledges a fable provides the foundational logic for his story and that fable requires the underlying logic of yet again another fable. And the story we are reading provides the logic for a second story. Does all this Russian dolls story within a story remind you of anything? It does for me: One Thousand and One Nights of Scheherazade, among César Aira’s favorite modes of storytelling.

César goes on to relate how there was once a mad scientist who allowed the clones he created to roam the streets of his neighborhood. Ultimately the mad scientist needed CONTROL and the best way to maintain such control was to clone a superior man. And what will be the nature of such a superior man? Ah, according to the mad scientist, an individual having achieved greatness in the realm of high culture, things like philosophy, literature, history and being steeped in the classics.

César then reveals the truth: the mad scientist in question is none other than himself. And who does César judge the superior man fit for cloning? Why, of course, that giant of world literature – Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes. Permit me a side note: a number of years ago American men and women were asked what individual should be cloned to improve the quality of life within the United States. The results were divided: half the Americans polled voted for Albert Einstein and the other half for Michael Jordan. Perhaps a combination of both would be ideal - theoretical physicists who could tear up a basketball court.

Wacky weird, bugged out bizarre and Kool-Aid kooky from here on out. Thus I will shift from the narrator's singular story to a number of his reflections sweetly seasoning this literary conference confection. Firstly, how “language has shaped our expectations so extensively that real reality has become the most detached and incomprehensible one of all.”

Indeed, our view of ourselves and others, our notions of life and death and everything in between is a combination of fact and fiction. And because we coat our world with the thick syrup of language, I suspect the split is along the lines of 2% fact, 98% fiction.

“My Great Work is secret, clandestine, and encompasses my life in its entirety, even its most insignificant folds and those that seem the most banal. Until now I have concealed my purpose under the accommodating guise of literature.”

Hmmm, is the narrator (César Aira himself?) suggesting there is an underlying riddle to be solved along the lines of Hugh Vereker’s literary puzzle in Henry James’ The Figure in the Carpet? What a tantalizing prospect! No wonder a number of literary critics have linked Aira with his fellow countryman, Jorge Luis Borges.

“I was considering, with amazement, the quantity of things that were happening to me while nothing was happening. I noticed this as my pen was moving: there were thousands of tiny incidents, all full of meaning. I’ve had to pick and choose carefully, otherwise the list would be endless.”

Thank goodness César can choose wisely; otherwise The Literary Conference might include enough peregrinations, colloquies and bagatelles to fill hundreds of pages.

“Only through minimalism is it possible to achieve the asymmetry that for me is the flower of art; complications inevitably form heavy symmetries, which are vulgar and overwrought.”

At eighty-five pages, The Literary Conference undoubtedly qualifies as minimal in terms of length. And César Aira’s style is the opposite of heavy, vulgar and overwrought; rather, the author has created a little book chock full of ideas and philosophy that’s sheer fun, all within a breezy storyline too preposterous to be read without a smile.



"The soldiers got out and fanned out in front of the blue mass. At that moment denial was no longer possible: the men looked like insects next to the monster - and pathetically ineffectual. This became obvious once they began to shoot at it with their machine guns."


César Aira, born 1949

"And there, with a prodigious crack and a burst of foam, the treasure chest at the sunken end of the Line leapt so forcefully out of the sea that it rose about two hundred feet in the air, hung there for an instant, then shot down in a straight line, while the Line retracted, pulling back, until the treasure fell intact onto the stone platform, about three feet from where I was standing, waiting for it." - César Aira, The Literary Conference

[Saif · Rating 4 out of 5]

بداية المصالحة 🤝 مع أدب الخيال العلمي
رغم أنها ليست أدب خيال علمي بامتياز، فهي ممزوجة بكثير من الفلسفة وربما القليل من الهراء أيضا.

الرواية تستحضر في ثناياها قضايا العبقرية والأدب والاستنساخ من خلال أديب حالم ولكنه عالم مجنون أيضا
يؤدي هوسه باستنساخ الأدباء والعباقرة إلى خطأ كارثي.

ورغم أن الرواية لا تتعدى ١٠٠ صفحة إلا أنها كثيفة المعاني وتترك أثرا بالقارئ، وتدخلك في عالم غرائبي مليئ بالاندهاش، وعالم عبثي سوريالي.

التقييم:٥/٤

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"El hilo de Macuto" del prólogo podría significar, palabra por palabra, "el texto de Aira". Me parece que estas cuatro palabras forman, de manera lacónica, una imagen definitoria de su entero trabajo. El libro contiene en clave parabólica la ilustración del modo inspirado en el cual este autor único, y probablemente hasta por sí mismo imprevisible, escribe. Aira es consciente de su unicidad y fiel a ella, porque esta es más que él: es un conjunto en el cual el autor solo ocupa una parte y también está dependiente de la entidad medio ajena (hecha de experiencias, memorias, saberes, imaginación y mucho más) que lo impulsa a crear. Un acto del cual Aira se hace responsable, en una actitud extrañamente modesta, como si no escribiera, sino solo transcribiera lo que se debe, por lo cual él es, sin embargo, el único llamado. Se podría decir, más simplemente, que Aira tiene un Daimon, como lo tenía Sócrates. Y, como el Daimon es un genio casi ajeno, Aira puede ser modestamente genial:

No es que yo sea un genio ni un superdotado, qué va. Todo lo contrario. Lo que pasa (trataré de explicarlo) es que cada mente se conforma de acuerdo con sus experiencias y memorias y saberes, con la suma total, y la acumulación personalísima de todos los datos que la han hecho ser lo que es la hace única. Cada hombre es dueño de una mente con poderes que pueden ser grandes o pequeños pero que siempre son únicos, propios de él. Y lo hacen capaz de una «hazaña», banal o grandiosa, que sólo él habría podido realizar. Aquí todos habían fallado porque habían apostado a un simple progreso cuantitativo de la inteligencia y el ingenio, cuando lo que se necesitaba era una medida cualquiera de ambos, pero de la calidad apropiada. Mi inteligencia, lo he comprobado a mis expensas, es muy reducida. Apenas si me ha alcanzado para mantenerme a flote en las aguas procelosas de la vida. Pero es única en su calidad, y no es única porque yo me haya propuesto que lo sea, sino porque así tiene que ser.

Famosamente, Aira escribe en movimiento continuo y sin retornos: no vuelve a escribir nada, no edita. Sigue un flujo libre punteado por pequeñas revelaciones, giros inesperados, y el todo se concreta en esas ficciones que son, cada una, como un intrincado hilo con sus nudos. Aira es un artesano inspirado, el aprendiz diligente de su Daimon. Cada revelación es interceptada y después literalmente manipulada (con las manos), hecha “objeto”, nudo, capítulo. Después, otra revelación sigue, para formar otro imprevisible capítulo y así hasta que el libro entero, como un hilo, está hecho. Si el comienzo del hilo no se parece a su final, Aira no lo podía saber; eso sucede por cósmica causalidad. Él, al terminar la obra, solo puede decir: “De pronto, todo caía en su lugar. Yo, que nunca comprendo nada si no es por cansancio, por renuncia, de pronto lo comprendía todo.” Otro ejemplo de su actitud y de su modo de hacer, mágicamente pragmático, está aquí:

Lo que quiero destacar es que no me limité a resolver especulativamente el enigma, sino que lo hice también en la práctica. Quiero decir: después de comprender qué era lo que había que hacer, fui y lo hice. Y el objeto respondió. El Hilo, un arco tenso desde hacía siglos, lanzó al fin su flecha, y trajo a mis pies el tesoro oculto, volviéndome rico en un instante. Lo que fue muy práctico, porque siempre he sido pobre, y últimamente lo había sido más que nunca.

Entusiasmado con la lectura —“entusiasmo” significa etimológicamente “inspirado por un dios”— y en homenaje a Aira, decidí escribir esta reseña después de leer solo la primera parte, ¡o once páginas! El libro ciertamente va a cambiar mucho en la segunda parte, que, en realidad, es el "objeto de este relato", y yo no puedo esperar a ver cómo. Voy a descubrirlo —y os deseo que vosotros también lo hagáis— en cuanto ponga este último punto.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not kidding when I say that Cesar Aira is the most fiercely free writer I have read. He is one whose greatness relies on the vehemence against great tome-y literature. I have described his writing methods in reviews of other books by him, so I won't go into those. Suffice it to say that he is almost always writing a manifesto for his style, which includes a liquid and senseless plot that the narrator keeps tangling and untangling (the efforts are for all to see). You read the manifesto and a slapdash execution of that manifesto, and emerge from the work bemused and altered. There is nothing even remotely close to the Cesar Aira experience. Do not ignore him, for he is one writer who has done something genuinely 'new' in fiction writing.

Impossible to talk of the story / plot itself when one talks of Cesar Aira. It's so inconsequential. Just know that weird, senseless stuff happens all the time, and weird, senseless arguments are given to explain it. In this book, Aira seems to particularly ridicule literary greatness, but that too seems incidental, and even perfunctory. His books efface themselves. They are an exercise in amnesia. Completely unmemorable, but somehow devoid of the negativity of that adjective.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

César Aira is the Roomba of literature. Like the little robotic vacuum cleaner that goes off in all directions, he keeps going straight forward until he bumps against an obstruction, then that straight line becomes a series of Ptolemaic epicycles that delight in their wild divagations.

As the result of pure chance, the narrator -- also called César -- discovers a pirate treasure that makes him fabulously rich. As a combination playwright and mad scientist, he decides to clone the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes (who was still alive in 1996 when The Literary Conference was first written). He does this by using a nano-wasp of his own devising, which he uses to extract one of the Mexican author's cells while he is attending a literary conference in Venezuela. Atop a mountain, he sets his cloning machine into action while he attends the literary conference himself, where an early play of his about Adam and Eve is being performed.

I will not say at this point exactly how the cloning experiment goes awry, but it does so, in a most apocalyptic way.

Midway through the book, Aira, tongue-in-cheek, talks about his writing style:

But my mania -- to be constantly adding things, episodes, paragraphs, to be constantly veering off course, branching out -- is fatal. It must be due to insecurity, fear that the basics are not enough, so I have to keep adding more and more adornment until I achieve a kind of surrealistic rococo, which exasperates me more than it does anybody else.

Far from seeing this as "fatal" or "exasperating," it is to be an endless source of delight. This is the fourth Aira I have read so far, and I cannot seem to stop. As Roberto Bolano once said, "Once you start reading Aira, you don't want to stop."

Too true, and so Aira's Rococo Roomba rolls over the literary landscape, I find myself in a new world where anything can happen. And does!

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fast-paced science fiction, fantasy, horror and love story thriller with a considerable amount of humour added in for good measure. It is astonishing how much César Aira packed into fewer than 100 pages!

[Elina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ίσως ο μόνος τόσο αγαπημένος Αργεντίνος συγγραφέας. Μετά το νύχτες στο Φλόρες, το Συνέδριο λογοτεχνάις με απογείωσε. Ο τρόπος που παίζει με το μυαλό του αναγνώστη, είναι κάτι που λατρεύω στον τρόπο γραφής του. Μπορεί να είναι μικρά σε έκταση τα γραπτά του, αλλά έχει πολύ συμπυκνωμένα μηνύματα. Προτείνεται!!!

[Peiman · Rating 3 out of 5]

سزار مترجم، نویسنده و دانشمندی آرژانتینی است که رویای سلطه بر جهان رو داره. دستگاهی اختراع کرده که موجود زنده تکثیر می‌کنه و اون در فکر اینه که یک نابغه رو تکثیر کنه. برای اینکار نویسنده‌ی سرشناس مکزیکی کارلوس فوئنتس رو انتخاب میکنه و برای داشتن یک سلول از اون به کنگره‌ی ادبیات در ونزوئلا میره و پس از اون اتفاقات جالبی براش می‌افته. در حین تعریف داستان کمی هم از اعتقادات و زندگی خودش برامون تعریف می‌کنه که میتونه قابل توجه باشه.ه

[Jim Elkins]

How to Avoid Magic Realism, Surrealism, Logic, and Structure

Another spectacular book by César Aira. He's very uneven, but at his best, he has occasionally been the world's best writer. He can outpace conventional narration, magic realism, surrealism, absurdism, and philosophic fiction.

This time I'll zero in on a quality of his imagination that sets him apart from many other authors. This book begins with a short chapter describing how the author, a certain César, famous writer and "mad scientist," discovers the secret of the "Macuto Line," a mysterious braided cord on the coast of Venezuela. The Macuto Line, César says, was one of the world's wonders. It had been constructed by pirates to hide their treasure, but no one had succeeded in figuring out how to retrieve the treasure, which was somehow buried, at the end of the line, under water. César protests that he is not a universal genius, that there is no such thing as universal genius. But he has a particular combination of talents and weaknesses. He spends a couple of pages describing his theory of unique but unexceptional talents. He proposes a thought experiment: think of any three books you've read. There may be hundreds of other people in the world who have read those same books. Now add a book, and only a few people will have read those same four books. Add one or two more, and you will be the only one in the world who has read that particular combination of books. You aren't a genius for having done so, but you have skills and qualities of attention no one else has. Using this individual combination, César does something simple to the braided Macuto Line, and the treasure chest bursts out of its underwater cave and falls at his feet.

Now here's what's different about Aira: almost any other author would have made that an emblem, a theme, a leitmotif, a central subject. But "The Literary Conference" never returns to the subject, draws any conclusions from it, or proposes it as a key to César's character. The Macuto Line is actually more or less forgotten. It doesn't even function as an introduction to the logic or narrative of the book, but at the same time it isn't an absurdist episode that is meant to be read allegorically as a sign of the illogic of life. Nor is it a surrealist or magic realist moment that is intended to evoke the world's absurdity or mystery. (In other books, Aira does fall into the clichés of so-called magic realism, with its assumption or hope that every surrealist juxtaposition or moment of illogic is in itself meaningful or expressive.)

The Macuto Line is simply the reason the narrator is rich, and even that doesn't matter much for the novel. There's something peculiar about Aira's way of imagining fiction. The Macuto Line, and other things that happen in this book, are nominally in the magic realist tradition, but only in a superficial sense because they don't reveal any unconscious ideas (as in surrealism) or hidden natural sublime poetry (as in what's often identified as Latin American magic realism).

The abstract meditations Aira uses to introduce things like the Macuto Line are nominally examples of philosophic fiction, but he has no philosophic arguments to make, only stories to tell. It's not that he doesn't care about literary precedents, possibilities, and expectations, but that his imagination is apparently either entirely impossible to control—or he'd like to avoid controlling it as much as possible.

Revised August 2024

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Erzähler ist im Grunde eine schwer gestörte Persönlichkeit, jemand dessen private Beziehungen desaströs sind, überhaupt seine Beziehungen zu anderen („Das Gelächter schreckte mich auf. Ich hatte ganz vergessen, dass das Publikum ja auch reagieren konnte.“) Dem entflieht er, der Übersetzer, in dem er Stücke schreibt, Rätsel um verborgene Schätze löst und, denn Wissenschaftler ist er auch noch, Menschen klont. Nein, nicht irgendwelche Menschen, sondern Carlos Fuentes. Denn, so der Plan, der könne dem Erzähler die Arbeit des Denkens, Entscheidens abnehmen.

Es wimmelt in dem Buch vor absurden, tiefsinnigen, verrückten Ideen. Es ist ein wahres Feuerwerk und obwohl das Buch so schmal ist und sich schnell wegliest, kann man an einigen Stellen lange verharren und über diese Ideen nachdenken. (Und manchmal vergeblich versuchen, ihnen zu folgen.)

Spannend auch, wie der Prozess des Schreibens eben dieser Geschichte reflektiert wird. Da werden einerseits klassische literarische Motive einbezogen, Piraten, verborgene, verrückte Wissenschaftler, Rieseninsekten. Zu den zahlreichen ironischen Anmerkungen gehört, dass der Erzähler dennoch bekennt, dass er „eine Abneigung hege, gegen das, was jetzt ‚Intertextualität‘ genannt wird; [...] Ich mache mir die Arbeit, mir alles selbst auszudenken“. Das widerspricht nicht nur der Verwendung bekannter Motive, sondern insbesondere der Tatsache, dass der Erzähler ein Übersetzer auch im Übertragenen Sinne ist und dies immer wieder thematisiert.

Und habe ich schon gesagt, dass der Erzähler dem Autor sehr nahe steht? Zumindest heißt er auch César. Vielleicht auch ein missratener Klon?

Und das Cover ist natürlich wunderbar, was der Leser erst später versteht.

Das ist mit Sicherheit nicht der letzte Aira, den ich lesen werde, auch wenn ich fast ein bisschen dankbar bin, dass (bislang) nicht alle seine Bücher übersetzt wurden. Seit den frühen 90ern produziert er drei bis vier dieser Kurzromane pro Jahr, die Liste dürfte bereits unüberschaubar sein. Vermutlich läuft sich diese Masche der Anhäufung von gescheiten Absurditäten auch irgendwann tot, zunächst einmal bin ich aber neugierig auf mehr...

[غيث الحوسني · Rating 3 out of 5]

سيزار آيرا هو كاتب أرجنتيني مرموق، منذ عام 1975 نشر أكثر من سبعين رواية، سيبدو لنا هذ الرقم كبيرا جدا لو لا أن أنه لا يتجاوز الـ 100 صفحة لكل رواية. روايته المؤتمر الادبي هو العمل الأول الذي تم عرضه باللغة العربية ترجمها لنا السيد عبدالكريم بدرخان، الامر الذي يدعو إلى التمهل في الحكم على الرواية دون تتبع المشروع الذي ينهجة الكاتب في أعماله الأخرى، فعندما قمت بالبحث وجدت ندفا صغيرة هنا وهناك وحوار مترجم نشر في عام 2009 بأن آيرا يعد من الجيل الذين أدخلوا التقاليد الثقافية الاوروبية في الادب اللاتيني الذي تشبع مؤخرا بالواقعية السحرية، مما جعله من الثائرين على هذه المدرسة الادبية.

بطل الرواية مؤلف ومترجم وعالم مجنون، يظهر عليه كما لو كان أسيرا لنجاحه الذي ينتهي دائما في سياق المغامرة الخطرة، ترتفع درجة الاحداث عندما لب دعوة المؤتمر الادبي بعدما تأكد من ان الكاتب كارلوس فوينتس سيكون من ضمن الحضور حتى يستنسخ منه جيشا عن طريق استخدام اللغز العلمي المحير "خط ماكوتو" ليتمكن من السيطرة على العالم، ولكن تبدأ المشكلة عندما قام العالم ويدعى سيزار الاستنساخ بطريق الخطأ الخلية التي ليس من فوينتس ولكن من ربطة عنقه !

لم تخلوا من رؤى فلسفية عميقة

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

the literary conference, a slim work by the very productive césar aira, is both fantastic and inventive. the argentinian author has written over sixty books, though, as yet, only five have been translated into english (a sixth, the seamstress and the wind, is slated for release early this summer). this novella, defying easy categorization, incorporates elements from a number of different genres.

aira's main character, a translator and playwright, sets about fulfilling his dream of world domination through the assumed role of the mad scientist. his plans are to be brought to fruition through the cloning of the great mexican novelist, carlos fuentes. the consequences of his plan deviate from their intended course, transforming the story in a wholly unanticipated way. to reveal the outcome, of course, would be poor sportsmanship, but suffice it to say that not a single reader could possibly expect the turns the story takes.

aira's unique approach to writing literature and upending traditional convention is readily apparent. as more of his catalog becomes available in english, we ought to be treated to an even greater display of his imagination and talent. while the literary conference is by no means a masterpiece, it is certainly an original and intriguing work. for whatever strange reason, it kept reminding me of both bioy's the invention of morel and the 1980s arcade game marble madness.


as a result, perfection has to find its own way. we can't find perfection. the miracle is that it happens at all. life is generous that way, it always is.

[فهد الفهد · Rating 3 out of 5]

المؤتمر الأدبي

لدي شغف بأدب الخيال العلمي، ومع ذلك لازالت قراءاتي فيه قاصرة، ربما لأنه مظلوم ترجمياً، لهذا اقتنيت خلال العام الماضي أهم ما صدر في أدب الخيال العلمي من سداسية (Dune) لفرانك هربرت، لأهم مؤلفات إسحاق عظيموف، لأهم العناوين التي تتصدر قوائم هذا النوع من الأدب، ولدي رغبة في منح هذا الأدب مساحة من قراءاتي السنوية.

يمثل أدب الخيال العلمي بالنسبة لي مزيج مثير من الخيال والفلسفة والعلم، محاولة لاكتشاف جوهر الإنسان وقيمه من خلال قصة مجنونة دائماً، تدور أحداثها في معمل أو مجتمع ديستوبي أو في مجرة بعيدة، يمثل أدب الخيال العلمي نوع من الانفكاك عن الواقع والمجتمع الخانقين.

أول قراءة لسيزار آيرا والذي يبدو لي نسخة أضعف من كورت فونيغوت، يكتب آيرا روايته القصيرة هذه لاهثاً فيما يبدو، معتمداً على موضوعة العالم المجنون الذي يريد السيطرة على العالم، يكتشف هذا العالم كنزاً ينقذه من الفقر، يحضر مؤتمراً أدبياً في منطقة جبلية وهو يطمح إلى استنساخ الأديب المكسيكي الشهير كارلوس فوينتس ليستخدمه في مخططاته، كان يمكن للرواية أن تكون أفضل بكثير مع شيء من التركيز.

[Hameed Younis · Rating 4 out of 5]

ميسكيلاني...ميسكيلاني...ميسكيلاني...
ترجمات هذا الدار لا غبار عليها، فاينما تجد كتاباً من ترجمة دار ميسكيلاني فانه لا بدّ رائع، وقد تعرفت عن طريق هذا الدار ايضاً على مترجمين افذاذ كمعاوية عبد المجيد وعبد الكريم بدرخان وعلي المجنوني.
عموماً الرواية جميلة واستثنائية، لم اقرأ رواية بمثل هذه الحيوية والزخم منذ وقت طويل

[Lee Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sci-fi autofiction entertainment. One big LOL at revelation of the provenance of the beasts causing trouble toward the end. Inventive, unpredictable, cartoonish, forward-flowing, good-natured (sometimes to a twee-ish fault?), self-consciously whimsical (aware of yet unable to resist the temptation to follow the author's whim), metafictional, sometimes maybe a little too apt to explore the old reality/irreality questions (?), a tactic that bores a hole in my attention (see Bioy Casares's The Invention of Morel). The first and last chapters were pretty great -- the rest sort of overly devoted to not particularly scintillating abstraction (in Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches, 1998-2003, Bolano does say that Aira is mostly dull -- funny they print another more positive Bolano quote on every Aira book). A little tale that means no harm, two pages turned down with good quotes re: writing I'll try to remember to type up later. Of the four Aira books I've read so far this comes in third. Worth reading but possibly forgettable despite (or because of?) the wacky plot? Recommended for fans of Etgar Keret (tho this one's longer, denser) and maybe George Saunders (tho this isn't up to his early level)?

[George K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Πρώτη επαφή με το έργο του Σέσαρ Άιρα και δεν μπορώ να πω ότι ξετρελάθηκα κιόλας. Το βιβλίο ξεκίνησε καλούτσικα, ενώ επίσης ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι στο τέλος ήταν σχεδόν απολαυστικό (δεν μπορώ να πω κάτι σχετικά, γιατί θα προδώσω στοιχεία της πλοκής), αλλά στο ενδιάμεσο θα έλεγα ότι κουράστηκα και βαρέθηκα ολίγον τι. Η αλήθεια είναι ότι το ύφος της γραφής δεν μου έκανε "κλικ", δεν με άγγιξε, αν και βέβαια παραδέχομαι ότι ο Άιρα έχει ένα κάποιο στιλ. Αλλά μάλλον όλα αυτά τα... φιλοσοφικά ερωτήματα περί πραγματικότητας/μη πραγματικότητας (;) και δεν συμμαζεύεται, όταν αφηγητής είναι ένας εστέτ της διανόησης με τις αναπόφευκτες δηθενιές του, απλά με αφήνουν αδιάφορο. Εντάξει, υποθέτω ότι σαν βιβλίο έχει το ενδιαφέρον του, καθώς και διάφορα μηνύματα περί τέχνης και πολιτισμού συμπυκνωμένα σε σχεδόν εκατό σελίδες, αλλά πιθανότατα δεν είναι για όλα τα γούστα. Στη βιβλιοθήκη μου έχω και το "Βαράμο" (το οποίο περιέχει δυο νουβέλες), οπότε σίγουρα τον συγγραφέα δεν τον ξεγράφω.

[Hadrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

To sum up: César, a translator who moonlights as a mad scientist, plans to take over the world by cloning a great genius - naturally, the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. The artificial wasp he sends to get a cell from Fuentes accidentally grabs a bit of his silk tie, so it clones a suit and then spawns an army of silkworms, which then rampage all over Mérida. Is this over the top? Sure. But writers being self-indulgent every so often is not a bad thing.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kein Faden kann aus dem Nichts geknüpft werden, oder? Aus seiner Rippe schöpft Cesar eine Eschersche Konstruktion von Leben und Literatur, Original und Fälschung. Die Textur der (Un)Wirklichkeit in allen Spielarten der Klonierung, amüsant, verstiegen, befremdlich.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character in this book sets up a metaphor of himself as a Mad Scientist. But this metaphor is actually more apt for Cesar Aira himself, as his books always seem like experiments in the best sense of the word. But not the type of experimental writing (a la Joyce or Stein) that is more interested in pure language play (not that Aira isn’t interested in language, but it is only one part of his experiment)... In most experimental writing you at least have a sense of the experiment being somewhat finished, predetermined, or at least a manifestation of an aesthetic leaning that the author is trying to work out, the endpoint being the ultimate artistic vision. But here the writing style is more conventional. But it is precisely those conventions (of narrative, of language...) which are the alchemical ingredients in Cesar Aira’s mad scientist lab. These experiments have no predetermined ends, not even a hypothesis before the scientific process commences, they are simply ‘mad’--ideas and literary devices are used, or rather, bent, to accomplish no specific purpose but to see what the end result would be.

That is why to appreciate Cesar Aira, one must be him/herself a little obsessed, a little mad, or at least open to playfulness and adventure, and a little bit interested in ‘what would happen if...’. His books may not all be good, but they’re always fascinating. Every once in a while his experiment succeeds beyond even his own wildest expectations, like in An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter. But most of the time, he will fail, but fail so amazingly that you cannot help but love reading it...

This novel in particular presents ‘Cesar Aira’ as a writer/translator/scientist, and in most cases I wouldn’t assume an autobiographical component to a book just because the name of the protagonist is the same as the name of the author (Cesar Aira appears in How I Became a Nun too). But in this case, I feel justified in at least reading into it a bit more. Not only is the mad scientist metaphor so apt for his playfulness, but also parts of this read as if he were looking back and musing on his own process.

If you’ve ever been frustrated with his wacko plots, imagine what he feels about them! As I read Aira (the character in the book) talking about a performance of a play that he wrote many years ago, I imagined the real Aira’s voice talking (about his books):

Gone were the many doubts that I had written it, for there were my recurrent themes, my little tricks... the idea had been to create something equivalent to those figures that was both realistic and impossible, like Escher’s Belvedere, figures that look viable in a drawing but could not be built because they are but an illusion of perspective...I was able to sustain it in this play only through the strength of ambiguities...but my mania--to be constantly adding things, episodes, characters, paragraphs, to be constantly veering off course, branching out--is fatal. It must be due to insecurity, fear that the basics are not enough, so I have to keep adding more and more adornment until I achieve a kind of surrealist rococo, which exasperates me more than it does anybody else. It was like a nightmare (the mother of all nightmares) to watch the living defects of what I had written materialize in front of me...it was grotesque, repulsive; I was mortified... Difficult as it is to believe, people liked that crap. (p55-60)

More writers should include a review of their own work in their novels... it makes my job easier ;)

[Ben Winch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing could please me more than an appropriation of B-movie tropes in a mock-literary context by a wickedly talented author in the service of the absurd. Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something, this isn't it. Plotless and essayistic I can handle, if the author has something to say, or if he says nothing in a beautiful way. But Aira says nothing clumsily with maximum confusion. Dead, dull, uninspired – for this piece of empty bravado I reserve the special hatred we feel when someone we had trusted lets us down. Maybe I'm being unfair because my expectations were high after An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, but if so it's unlikely I'll ever know it, because I don't plan on reading this book again. The worst reading experience I've had this year.

[Rowena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book by accident and decided to read it, despite reading some not-so promising reviews.The premise of the story is a mad scientist who tries to clone famous writer Carlos Fuentes. I enjoyed most things about this book; the storyline, the language used and the narrator's inner monologue in particular. It's a very enjoyable novella,and a quick read. I didn't care too much for how the book ended but I'm definitely interested to read more of Aira's books.

[Makis Dionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ένας εστέτ της διανόησης, που αντιλαμβάνεται πως ο βαμπιρισμός είναι το κλειδί της σχέσης του με τον συνάνθρωπο. Σαν βαμπίρ θεωρεί το σημείο στο οποίο συγχέονται όλες οι μορφές επονείδιστου παρασιτισμού που χρειάζονται τη μεταφορά για να αναδειχθούν. Αυτό που ρουφάει από τους άλλους δεν είναι χρήμα, ούτε ασφάλεια, ούτε θαυμασμός. Αυτό που ρουφάει είναι στιλ.... Κορυφαία στιγμή η κλωνοποίηση της γραβάτας του Φουέντες

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Literary Conference borders on . . . no, delves into the ridiculous — in the best way possible. A superlative stylist (and being translated by the superlative Katherine Silver), Aira’s matter-of-fact tone somehow manages to stay in tact in a book that begins as a puzzle-adventure in Venezuela, turns into a mad-scientist take-over-the-world science-fiction, and ends as a B-movie — and still manages to be about the creation of art.

Allow me to elaborate:

In the first section, “The Macuto Line,” a relatively well known translator and author (named César) is making his way to a literary conference but has made a stop in Venezuela. Near his hotel is the famous Macuto Line, a rope that wraps around a rock and plunges into the ocean. This line, it is said, is a centuries old puzzle that, if solved, leads the way to buried treasure. The line was obviously made by a genius; it is itself a piece of art. No one, in all the years (and, thankfully, the line is still in tact despite the ocean and wind), has solved this great mystery.

"On stormy nights the wind made it sing, and those who heard it during a hurricane became obsessed for the rest of their lives with its cosmic howls. Sea breezes of all kinds had strummed this lyre with a single cord: memory’s handmaiden."

César arrives, takes a look at it, and solves it. He admits, “My own intelligence is quite minimal, a fact I have ascertained at great cost to myself. It has been just barely adequate to keep me afloat in the tempestuous waters of life.” Nevertheless, his individual experiences, the events and moods that build up him as an individual, suited him for this task. It’s an excellent, slightly insane, discourse on the complexity of the individual.

Immediately wealthy, he could now skip the literary conference and go anywhere in the world, waking up the next morning to immense luxury. But that is not part of his plan, so, on to the literary conference. On the way, our narrator tells us a story about a mad scientist who has it in his mind to take over the world. He then proceeds to “translate” this story for us: the mad scientist is, of course, himself — César, our narrator, a slightly respected author, newly wealthy, is, it turns out, a bit handy with the science of cloning. For some time he has been hatching a diabolical plan, the central feature of which is to figure out whom he could clone who would best help him take over the world. This discourse is hilarious, and César finally lands on the perfect candidate: Carlos Fuentes. Naturally. And since Fuentes is going to be at this literary conference, César’s new fame and wealth do not deter him.

What does all of this mean? Does it mean anything? Is Aira simply telling us a fun story? Perhaps, and if so, it is still worth the short time it takes to read it. Still, this is Aira, and this book is, among other things, self-conciously concerned with its own inception and with its own process:

"And (in conclusion) I have filled these plots with contents that have between them a relationship of only approximate equivalencies, not meanings."

Telling the reader that there is no such thing as “in the meantime,” César sets up his cloning station on a mountain (not for the atmospheric effect, as it might appear, but because the air is more conducive to the process) and, because it takes some time to create an army of Carlos Fuentes clones, he goes down to the town in the valley to wait “in the meantime.” In the chapters that come before the clone army descends upon the town, we go to parts of the literary conference, watch the staging of one of César’s plays he does not remember, and we have a funeral for a tiny insect. Events proceed to escalate, until César seems to realize that it’s all just a bit ridiculous, but –

"Since turning back is off limits: Forward! To the bitter end! Running, flying, gliding, using up all the possibilities, the conquest of tranquility through the din of the battlefield. The vehicle is language. What else? Because the valve is language."

Where does this lead us? Well, César himself will tell us:

"It seems like the insertion of a different plot line, from an old B-rated science fiction movie."

And, remember that I mentioned at the top that through all of this Aira maintains a matter-of-fact (though energized!) tone, delivering to us this ridiculous plot from the eyes (and mouth) of someone slightly above it all, but who is, I’m sure, having a blast. I don’t know what it all means – how the discourse on the individual relates to the cloned army, how the funeral connects to the plot, or, frankly, how the Macuto Line fits into the plot — but it is fun and interesting because such a frenzied writer is taking us there, and because this frenzied writer is showing us a bit of his mentality as he does so:

"Which reminds me of the answer to the questions I left hanging: how to measure the velocity of my thoughts. I am trying a method of my own invention: I shoot a perfectly empty thought through all the others, and because it has no content of its own, it reveals the furtive outlines — which are stable in the empty ones — of the contents of the others. The retrograde cloned mini-man, the Speedometer, is my companion on solitary walks and the only one who knows all my secrets."

I was talking to Barbara Eppler, president of New Directions, and she mentioned how she went to Argentina where, lucky her, Aira took her on a tour of some of the museums. Fittingly, they saw many museums in just a couple of hours. I must feel slightly similar after having read this book.

[مصطفي سليمان · Rating 3 out of 5]

مزيج عجيب ما بين الواقع و الخيال ما بين البساطة و الفلسفة عمل لا يمكن الحكم عليه من القراءة الأولي تحتاج قراءة المزيد من أعمال سيزار آيارا للحكم علي طبيعة عمله و أسلوبه الرجل ينتقل ببساطة ودون اي قيود معينة أحيانا نتوه خلال الكلمات والأفكار التي تشعر انها مسترسلة وليست منظمة ولكن يفاجك انها مرتبة بشكل ما أو ربما لا
المؤتمر الأدبي هنا هو خلفية الاحداث لعملية الغرض منها السيطرة علي العالم!! من قبل عالم كاتب مجنون هو سيزار آيارا
عن طريق استنساخ الكاتب
Carlos Fuentes
ولكن الأمور لا تمشي بكل تلك البساطة المرجوة وتتفاقم الأمور الغريب ان مع بط الاحداث كثيرا ف المنتصف ولكنك مستمر لمعرفة ماذا سيحدث
وكيف سينهي تلك القصة العجيبة؟
ولكن النهاية تحمل الكثير والكثير من البساطة التي تجعلك تفكر ف الامر من جديد
رواية بسيطة وصغيرة أتمني أن يتم ترجمة أعمال أخري له

[Nawfal · Rating 3 out of 5]

أكملت القراءة خلال نهار واحد ، الرواية صغيرة الحجم وغريبة بعض الشيء. فيها خيال سيريالي ولكنها مكتوبة بخبرة كاتب لديه أكثر من ١٠٠ رواية ليس فيها ماهو مهم، ولكنها درس في كيفية ربط الواقع بالخيال والفنطازيا . مشوقة ولكن ليس كثيرا

إن انقطاع أي فكرة عن الظروف التي أنتجتها، هو الشرط الضروري لاصالتها ونجاحها

كم ينطبق هذا الأقتباس من الصفحة ٣٠ على فكرة هذا الرواية المنقطعة عن شروط ولادتها ، لا أدري

لا شك ان الكاتب عرف اللغة تعريفيا لا يبتعد عن مفهوم جاك دريدا حين يجردها من مطابقة المعنى خارجها وبهذا حرر نفسه من كل مسآءلة واقعية.

لا أحب ادب امريكا اللاتينية الذي يحاول أن يكون أوربيا . الواقعية السحرية هي مسرح ابداع هذه القارة

[Sofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Εχω την αίσθηση οτι ο συγγραφέας είχε κάτι να πει αλλά πνίγηκε κάτω απο τα στρώματα αερολογιας. Πρώτη φορά η πρωτοπροσωπη αφήγηση μου φάνηκε τόσο εγωκεντρικη.

[Nada Majdy · Rating 3 out of 5]

غريبة جدا، مابين الخيال العلمي والفلسفة وتصنيفات أخرى نستكشف مغامرة بطل الرواية، كاتب وعالم مهووس بالسعي نحو الكمال يريد بناء جيش من المستنسخين والسيطرة على العالم.. بعيد عن أي رادع إنساني أو أخلاقي يمضى العالم المجنون قدما في خطته فهل سينجح؟
فعلا رواية غريبة جدا ولكنها ممتعة في الغالب.
ملحوظة: كان هذا ختام هدف القراءة الخاص بي لسنة 2018 والحمد لله :)

[عبدالخالق كلاليب · Rating 4 out of 5]

الترجمة الأولى للكاتب الأرجنتيني سيزار أيرا للغة العربية, والقراءة الأولى له, رواية قصيرة (نوفيللا) ولكنها أدخلتنا مباشرةً إلى عوالمه الغريبة, كاتب يحطم القواعد الروائية كلها ويصنع قواعده الخاصة, يبدو مختلفاً ولا يشبه إلا نفسه, نتمنى ترجمة أعمال أخرى له من رواياته الكثيرة .