Woven on the Loom of Time: Stories by Enrique Anderson-Imbert

by Enrique Anderson-Imbert, Carleton Vail (Translator), Pamela Edwards-Mondragon (Translator)

Argentinian scholar and writer Enrique Anderson-Imbert is familiar to many North American students for his La Literatura de América Latina I and II, which are widely used in college Spanish courses. But Anderson-Imbert is also a noted creative writer, whose use of "magical realism" helped pave the way for such writers as Borges, Cortázar, Sábato, and Ocampo. In this anthology, Carleton Vail and Pamela Edwards-Mondragón have chosen stories from the period 1965 to 1985 to introduce English-speaking readers to the creative work of Enrique Anderson-Imbert. Representative stories from the collections The Cheshire Cat, The Swindler Retires, Madness Plays at Chess, Klein's Bottle, Two Women and One Julián, and The Size of the Witches illustrate Anderson-Imbert's unique style and world view. Many are "short short" stories, which Anderson-Imbert calls casos (instances). The range of subjects and points of view varies widely, challenging such "realities" as time and space, right and wrong, science and religion. In a prologue, Anderson-Imbert tells an imaginary reader, "Each one of my stories is a closed entity, brief because it has caught a single spasm of life in a single leap of fantasy. Only a reading of all my stories will reveal my world-view." The reader asks, "And are you sure that it is worth the trouble?" Anderson-Imbert replies, "No." The unexpected, ironic ending is one of the great pleasures of reading Enrique Anderson-Imbert.

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Sijad · Rating 2 out of 5]

متوسط رو به پایین.

بخشی از کتاب :
پس از سال ها دعا و درمان، شاهزاده متولد شد. جشن بزرگ ملی برگزار کردند. رقص ها، آتش بازی، هیاهوی ناقوس ها، شلیک توپ هاو... . نوزاد از وحشت صداهای مهیب مُرد. :/

[Amin Houshmand · Rating 5 out of 5]

«او در آیینه نگاه کرد. پس از آن آیینه دیگر همان آیینه قبل نبود؛ شب‌ها جیوه آیینه از درون می‌لرزید.»

این کوتاه‌تربن داستان این کتاب بود. #انریکه_اندرسون_ایمبرت توی این کتاب نگاه سورئال و عجیبی به دنیا داشت. بعد از خواندن تک تک داستان‌ها مجبور بودی در بهت به اتفاقی در چند خط افتاده فکر کنی.

حیف که این نویسنده‌ها شناخته نمیشن، دیده نمیشن، و در نتیجه خوانده هم نمیشن. گنجینه‌های ادبیاتی که در دل تاریخ خاک خوردن و باز هم باید خاک بخورن.

#ارواح_اتاق_زیر_شیروانی رو بخوانید و از خواندنش لذت ببرید و در دل داستان‌های تاریک و کشف نشده پسِ ذهن نویسنده آرژانتینی سفر کنید.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve known the Argentine Anderson-Imbert primarily as a literary scholar rather than as a creative writer. This volume is made up of selection of stories from six of his collections (1965-1985). The University of Texas Press has published translations from some very talented Latin American writers–the Mexican Juan José Arreola and the Peruvian José Maria Arguedas come to mind–so I was hopeful for "Woven on the Loom of Time," but I was disappointed. There are a few interesting stories here, but mostly the stories seemed old-fashioned, throwbacks to a romantic, nineteenth century narrative style that felt cloying and a bit stale.

Many of the stories are very short. What might be called sudden or flash fiction today. For writers like Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, or Silvina Ocampo, their short works are precise and puzzle-like, requiring the reader to spend time, as they would on a poem, figuring out the complex relationships between the (few) words on a page. In the selection of stories from Anderson-Imbert’s first collection, "The Cheshire Cat," I read through parables, animals tales, fables, biblical and religious tales, fantastic and supernatural stories, stories that sounded like they could be from A Thousand and One Nights. I felt like I was pawing through an attic full of unfinished and forgotten projects, and none of it struck me: first lines, if they were first lines of something longer, that were not memorable. The short pieces in the rest of the volume were also without distinction. Words Words Words

Although the longer stories do have plot and character development–they have a rising action and a denouement–language, plot, and character are most often conventional and time-worn. It also seems like Anderson-Imbert keeps a distance between himself and the stories. It is as if he is talking about stories rather than telling them, explaining rather than showing. It is as if he doesn’t really know what is going on in the stories or how and why his characters think and act as they do. To whitewash those gaps, those aporias, he deploys an emotive language of surprise and shock. He also seems to need conventional conclusions for his stories. Too often, though, he doesn’t figure out the logic, so he splices on a surprise twist at the end, which feels neither organic nor logical. He also doesn’t get into his character’s minds–like a nineteenth century writer before Henry James–so he gets stuck making suppositions about the characters rather than doing the psychological work of actually knowing and understanding his characters.

There are a few satisfying stories. “Esteco: Submerged City” is longish, has conflict and character development. It feels like Anderson-Imbert is telling the story rather than talking about or explaining it. There is still a surprise, twist ending, but you can’t have everything I guess. “Two Women and One Julián” has the best plot, character, and conflict development in the book. Anderson-Imbert tells more than talks about, and he even offers social commentary. That’s one of the other problems here. Most of these stories seem to exist in a rootless literary void. Only rarely does he plug his stories into the larger world. Of those stories which acknowledge the larger world, the most interesting is “Baby Bear,” whose protagonist is a writer, professor, and journalist who wants to fight the government (dictatorship?) but everyone else around him has capitulated. Anderson-Imbert parallels the protagonist’s disappointed idealism with his young son’s maturing out of his imaginary friend, Baby Bear, because of the protagonist’s impatience with his son’s immaturity and unwillingness to deal with the real world. The protagonist becomes like the dictatorship he despises: a concluding twist that works.

[Quiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bursting with inspiration.

The Texas Pan American Series is expensive to buy (at least in Europe) but publishes some of the most wonderful Latin American texts in translation that would otherwise be inaccessible to a wider English-speaking audience.

[Alireza Zamani · Rating 1 out of 5]

اول اینکه کتاب مجموعه‌ داستانک های یکی و دو صفحه تشکیل شده یجورایی ترسناک و سورئال هستن، زیاد با داستان هاش شخصا نتونستم ارتباط بگیرم و برام جز بدترین کتابایی بود که تو سال 1400 خوندم.

[SnakeWithCrown · Rating 5 out of 5]

بالای۳ بار خوندمش:) واقعا دوست داشتنیه