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El gran vidrio
El Gran Vidrio es una fiesta que se realiza anualmente en las ruinas de los edificios destruidos en la ciudad de México, donde viven cientos de familias. El hecho de habitar entre los resquicios dejados por las estructuras quebradas representa un símbolo mayor de invisibilidad social. Es quizá por eso que cuando deciden pertenecer al resto, cuando carnavalizan de alguna manera su situación, deciden llamar El Gran Vidrio a su celebración.
La clave duchampiana de la experiencia le da la opción a Mario Bellatin de cobijarse en una retórica particular, la del ocultamiento a partir de lo imposible –hecho que precisamente permite una exposición extrema–, para recrear tres autobiografías que muestran, a través de su hermetismo, lo que una autobiografía tradicional es incapaz de transmitir.
«Todos los textos de Mario Bellatin son de una rareza minuciosa, erudita y elaborada... Como si buscase los límites de la literatura y de sus interpretaciones, no de una forma teórica y segura sino a través de la fantasía imaginativa de su trabajo» (Mathiew Lindon, Libération)
La clave duchampiana de la experiencia le da la opción a Mario Bellatin de cobijarse en una retórica particular, la del ocultamiento a partir de lo imposible –hecho que precisamente permite una exposición extrema–, para recrear tres autobiografías que muestran, a través de su hermetismo, lo que una autobiografía tradicional es incapaz de transmitir.
«Todos los textos de Mario Bellatin son de una rareza minuciosa, erudita y elaborada... Como si buscase los límites de la literatura y de sus interpretaciones, no de una forma teórica y segura sino a través de la fantasía imaginativa de su trabajo» (Mathiew Lindon, Libération)
168 pages, Hardcover
First published June 30, 2006
5 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
About the author
Mario Bellatin
83 books188 followersMario Bellatin grew up in Peru as the son of Peruvian parents. He spent two years studying theology at the seminary Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo and graduated from the University of Lima. In 1987, Bellatin moved to Cuba, where he studied screenplay writing at the International Film School Latinoamericana. On his return to Mexico in 1995, he became the director of the Department of Literature and Humanities at the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana and became a member of the National System of Creators of Mexico from 1999 to 2005. He is currently the director of the School of Writers Dynamics in Mexico City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
May 8, 2020
en zor okuduğum kitabı bu oldu, hele Mürşide'de çok fena sıkıldım, dört kitap arasından en iyisi hâlâ "Güzellik Salonu"
August 6, 2021
An imaginary autobiography in three parts, each comprised of isometric-ish chunks of simple elegant prose. In the first part ("My Skin, Luminous") Bellatin's mother wins admiration by making a regular showing of her son's pre-pubescent genitals for the ladies at the local baths. In the second ("The Sheikha's True Illness") an older Bellatin attempts to assist the ailing sheikha of his town's Sufi congregation. In the third ("A Character in Modern Appearance") an older, perhaps contemporary, Bellatin begins by describing a thwarted quest, alongside an alleged German girlfriend, to acquire a 1970s Renault 5. He digresses pretty wildly from here (and reminds me of the experience of reading Herta Mueller's Nadirs -- that foggy, mystical quality of the private past recalled, bleak but innocent) to tales of a gender-swapped childhood, not as a timid boy in square glasses, but as a folklorically jigging girl-doll; the theft of a pig, rearing of classically Siamese cats, and formation of a personal zoo; and the destruction of his family home (abetted by his father's professional surveying practice) via the installation of a cross-town highway, the median of which falls squarely across the living room sofa. I thoroughly enjoyed The Large Glass and plan to seek out other English translations of this author's work.
October 19, 2021
Bellatin'in daha önce iki eserini okumuş ve paylaşmıştım. Yazım ve anlatım dilini beğendiğim bir yazar Bellatin. Bu eserinde ise farklı, belirsiz ve tekinsiz bir üslup bizi karşılıyor. Ve bu üslubu otobiyografisini kaleme almak için kullanıyor bu defa yazar. Ama ne otobiyografi!
Üç farklı alternatif. Üç farklı hayat. Üç farklı insan, çocuk, genç, yetişkin. Bir insan kendi yaşantısının kaç farklı türevini resmedebilir ve aktarabilir? Bellatin bunu üç ile sınırlamış. Ama belki sorsak daha nicelerini de kurgulamak isterdi. Kim bilir?
Arka kapaktan çok hoşuma giden bir kısmı sizinle paylaşmak isterim: "Onun için otobiyografi yazarın kendi kimliğini bütünleştirdiği bir anlatı değil, kendini farklı kimliklere parçaladığı bir kendinden çıkış kurgusu. Bellatin 'Bellatin'i birbirine hiç benzemeyen üç ayrı otobiyografiye bölerek kendisini özyaşamkurmacalar içinde yeniden yaratıyor". Daha iyi nasıl anlatılır, ifade edilir bilmiyorum.
Oldukça zorlu, meşakkatli bir okuma. Ama bu ne de olsa bir serüven... "Yazmadan yazmak...bu yolda atmam gereken ilk adım, Mario Bellatin adındaki yazardan kurtulmaktı".
Kitaplarla kalın!
Üç farklı alternatif. Üç farklı hayat. Üç farklı insan, çocuk, genç, yetişkin. Bir insan kendi yaşantısının kaç farklı türevini resmedebilir ve aktarabilir? Bellatin bunu üç ile sınırlamış. Ama belki sorsak daha nicelerini de kurgulamak isterdi. Kim bilir?
Arka kapaktan çok hoşuma giden bir kısmı sizinle paylaşmak isterim: "Onun için otobiyografi yazarın kendi kimliğini bütünleştirdiği bir anlatı değil, kendini farklı kimliklere parçaladığı bir kendinden çıkış kurgusu. Bellatin 'Bellatin'i birbirine hiç benzemeyen üç ayrı otobiyografiye bölerek kendisini özyaşamkurmacalar içinde yeniden yaratıyor". Daha iyi nasıl anlatılır, ifade edilir bilmiyorum.
Oldukça zorlu, meşakkatli bir okuma. Ama bu ne de olsa bir serüven... "Yazmadan yazmak...bu yolda atmam gereken ilk adım, Mario Bellatin adındaki yazardan kurtulmaktı".
Kitaplarla kalın!
December 1, 2016
I can't even begin to fathom what the original untranslated version was like. Even after putting this text through a game of telephone, it is still so brilliant. It makes you question yourself all the way through, and runs your imagination in a nutribullet until it is a beautiful, mind-blowing powder, which you then snort and turn into egg that is freer than freedom itself.
As per booksleeve, it is an exploration of Bellatin's life, but also questions the autobiographical style itself.
As per booksleeve, it is an exploration of Bellatin's life, but also questions the autobiographical style itself.
February 15, 2016
Mario Bellatin is one of my favorite Latin American writes and this collections of three stories is not a disappointment. Bellatin again in this collection plays with the idea of able-bodies and disabled bodies and brings up thought provoking questions about difference and ability and what it really means to be and what makes one disabled .
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April 2, 2019No sé cómo calificar esta madre.
February 21, 2022
No me estaba gustando, me costaba, no le podía seguir el hilo narrativo, hasta que llegue a la 3er historia que dio cierre al libro. Es tan magistral el final que valió la pena el resto del libro. Solo al final logre entender estas historias pseudo biográficas.
September 25, 2024
El gran vidrio es una novela breve y enigmática de Mario Bellatin, un escritor mexicano conocido por su estilo experimental y por desafiar las convenciones literarias. La obra, publicada en 2007, se caracteriza por su estructura fragmentada, su mezcla de géneros y una narración que juega constantemente con los límites entre la realidad y la ficción.
no me gustó por qué habla de experimentar para hacer que un niño su color de sea mas clara, tambien experimenta con sus genitales del niño.
la otra habla de una señora que estaba enferma y era muy apegada a la iglesia
La última habla de una pareja que quería comprar un coche pero no les alcanzaba para poderlo comprar.
no me gustó por qué habla de experimentar para hacer que un niño su color de sea mas clara, tambien experimenta con sus genitales del niño.
la otra habla de una señora que estaba enferma y era muy apegada a la iglesia
La última habla de una pareja que quería comprar un coche pero no les alcanzaba para poderlo comprar.
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June 20, 2018Mario Bellatin is a madman mystagogue and one-armed shapeshifter with no interest in following any of the rules of conventional prose fiction. As with Jacob the Mutant, his work is bracing to read, and what he gets away with can be truly startling.
In a sense, Bellatin writes parodies. Jacob the Mutant was a parody of academic literary criticism, and this is a parody of a memoir. The word parody also gives a good idea of Bellatin's puckish sense of humor. His writing is damn funny.
But in another sense, these books are not parodies at all. They are far too slippery and strange for that term to fully apply. They are more like burlesque mutations of the ordinary genres we are (far too) accustomed to reading. Mutation may be the right word, because Bellatin's characters and stories are constantly transforming, mutating, decomposing and reconstituting themselves in new and astonishing arrangements.
Or maybe it would be better to call The Large Glass a pranksterish reinvention of the autobiography. It's actually three different autobiographies, and the degree to which they actually draw on the reality of Bellatin's life is a matter of debate that would ultimately be pointless to undertake, or rather the joke would be on you if you were to engage in such quixoticism.
(If it seems like I'm repeating or correcting myself, doubling back, going in circles, spinning my wheels, well you have no idea as these moves are essential to Bellatin's bizarre toolbox).
I will remember:
the puppet dance
the big man selling a Renault
the lie about the German girlfriend
the Sheikha who is either pretending to be sick or pretending to be well
the old Datsun
the highway built through the living room
the grandparents being set out on the road with a sign hung around their shoulders
the dog finding its way back home only to be either killed or given up for adoption
the pig that must be killed and eaten or sold to an illicit gambling house
the mother who besmears her mouth with lipstick
the room behind the oven of the grandfather
the for-profit display of the child's genitals in the public baths
and much more
In a sense, Bellatin writes parodies. Jacob the Mutant was a parody of academic literary criticism, and this is a parody of a memoir. The word parody also gives a good idea of Bellatin's puckish sense of humor. His writing is damn funny.
But in another sense, these books are not parodies at all. They are far too slippery and strange for that term to fully apply. They are more like burlesque mutations of the ordinary genres we are (far too) accustomed to reading. Mutation may be the right word, because Bellatin's characters and stories are constantly transforming, mutating, decomposing and reconstituting themselves in new and astonishing arrangements.
Or maybe it would be better to call The Large Glass a pranksterish reinvention of the autobiography. It's actually three different autobiographies, and the degree to which they actually draw on the reality of Bellatin's life is a matter of debate that would ultimately be pointless to undertake, or rather the joke would be on you if you were to engage in such quixoticism.
(If it seems like I'm repeating or correcting myself, doubling back, going in circles, spinning my wheels, well you have no idea as these moves are essential to Bellatin's bizarre toolbox).
I will remember:
the puppet dance
the big man selling a Renault
the lie about the German girlfriend
the Sheikha who is either pretending to be sick or pretending to be well
the old Datsun
the highway built through the living room
the grandparents being set out on the road with a sign hung around their shoulders
the dog finding its way back home only to be either killed or given up for adoption
the pig that must be killed and eaten or sold to an illicit gambling house
the mother who besmears her mouth with lipstick
the room behind the oven of the grandfather
the for-profit display of the child's genitals in the public baths
and much more
December 6, 2016
Excellent, though I only really enjoyed the first section, and even that was slightly marred by the extraordinary pretension of numbering the sentences. Those who are particularly interested in 'the body' will find a lot to like in the three pieces in this book, as will those interested in dream-like literature, and those interested in epatering the bourgeoisie; unfortunately, none of those describe me. The writing isn't bad, though not nearly well done enough to excuse the translator's blather about mystical experience. Most importantly, it's interesting. So, in short: good, in all the important ways, but not something I'm excited by.
September 24, 2017
El Gran Vidrio es el baile de un escritor fingiendo ser una marioneta. Un baile metaliterario en el que la verdad y la mentira crean un laberíntico sinsentido diseñado para obligar al lector a ser participe del relato.
Está interesante pero me gusta más Salón de Belleza o Damas Chinas.
Está interesante pero me gusta más Salón de Belleza o Damas Chinas.
September 11, 2023
Probably my fault, but I felt no life from this text. I suspect I'm missing something. At best I was confused. At worst, bored. Not even sure why I'm giving it two stars.
November 7, 2021
It's rare that with the strange and odd, which are my natural affinities that I feel I'm not quite in on the joke, and that it doesn't quite come together for me, or that the not coming together is what seems right to me, but Bellatin has a way of eluding me to a degree. Maybe that's why I'm fascinated and I read another of his books, even though he puts me in more of a headspace than a heartspace.
June 5, 2018
La primera vez que lo leí sucedió toda la magia en mi cabeza! El libro me estrujo, me conmocionó, me confundió,
me cuestiono y me despertó. Fue hasta la segunda vez que lo leí que entendí que todo esto había pasado.
Fan de Mario Bellatin! 🙌🏻
La ironía está presente en todo el texto, desde el hecho de que son 3 autobiografías! 🤔👏🏻
Muy recomendado, pero hay que leerlo con apertura.
me cuestiono y me despertó. Fue hasta la segunda vez que lo leí que entendí que todo esto había pasado.
Fan de Mario Bellatin! 🙌🏻
La ironía está presente en todo el texto, desde el hecho de que son 3 autobiografías! 🤔👏🏻
Muy recomendado, pero hay que leerlo con apertura.
October 1, 2024
Un libro raro, quizá ahí esté su clave de lectura. La tercera parte da cuenta de cómo el acto de escribir es ser otros, e imaginarse siendo otros y viviendo su historia no como un artilugio literario, sino como una verdad asumida. No había comprendido lo que intentaba hacer Bellatín hasta que llegué a la tercera sección y los cambios de género y número fueron obvios. Chévere texto experimental.
April 27, 2020
Interesting take on the autobiography/memoir. Definitely experimental, but sometimes a genre needs some experimenting
March 13, 2021
Fantástico!
April 5, 2021
La imposibilidad de la autobiografía.
July 14, 2016
Described by Daniel Saldaña Paris as “one of the most interesting writers working in Latin America right now. His writing is an offshoot of contemporary art, but also a marvel of the imagination and an inexhaustible wellspring of eccentricities.” Graciela Mochkofsky in The New Yorker (December 2015) saying; “In Bellatin’s stories, the line between reality and fiction is blurry; the author himself frequently appears as a character. His books are fragmentary, their atmospheres bizarre, even disturbing. They are full of mutations, fluid sexual identities, mysterious diseases, deformities.” Larry Rohter on 9 August 2009 in the New York Times saying; “In a score of novellas written since 1985 he has not only toyed with the expectations of readers and critics but also bent language, plot and structure to suit his own mysterious purposes, in ways often as unsettling as they are baffling.”
Add the dOCUMENTA 13 guest membership on the Honorary Advisory Committee and we have a very interesting character indeed. Every five years in Kassel, Germany, the documenta exhibition of modern and contemporary art takes place. The concept came to life in 1955 as an attempt to bring post-war Germany up to speed with modern art, after the banishment and repression of the cultural fringe during the Second World War. In 2012 dOCUMENTA 13 had Carolyn Christov-Bajargiev as the artistic director and curator and was based on the theme “Collapse and Recovery”. Enrique Vila-Matas in his work “The Illogic of Kassel” was a guest writer-in-residence at dOCUMENTA 13, appearing in a Chinese restaurant so customers and staff could watch them “write”, observe them “creating”.
Mario Bellatin’s most recent release to appear in English is the autobiographical “The Large Glass”, three works appearing under the one title, so named after Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Very much like Duchamp’s sculpture, described in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections; it “has gradually become the subject of a vast scholarly literature and the object of pilgrimages for countless visitors drawn to its witty, intelligent, and vastly liberating redefinition of what a work of art can be”, Bellatin’s book also pushes the boundaries, redefining what autobiography can be.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
Add the dOCUMENTA 13 guest membership on the Honorary Advisory Committee and we have a very interesting character indeed. Every five years in Kassel, Germany, the documenta exhibition of modern and contemporary art takes place. The concept came to life in 1955 as an attempt to bring post-war Germany up to speed with modern art, after the banishment and repression of the cultural fringe during the Second World War. In 2012 dOCUMENTA 13 had Carolyn Christov-Bajargiev as the artistic director and curator and was based on the theme “Collapse and Recovery”. Enrique Vila-Matas in his work “The Illogic of Kassel” was a guest writer-in-residence at dOCUMENTA 13, appearing in a Chinese restaurant so customers and staff could watch them “write”, observe them “creating”.
Mario Bellatin’s most recent release to appear in English is the autobiographical “The Large Glass”, three works appearing under the one title, so named after Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Very much like Duchamp’s sculpture, described in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections; it “has gradually become the subject of a vast scholarly literature and the object of pilgrimages for countless visitors drawn to its witty, intelligent, and vastly liberating redefinition of what a work of art can be”, Bellatin’s book also pushes the boundaries, redefining what autobiography can be.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
March 19, 2016
one of the main characteristics of my personality is lying all the time. i think that this, somehow, makes me amusing to others. i know that the stories that the puppets interpret always have a lie at their center. maybe that's why i have assimilated aspects of my performance into my daily life.in ways i am unable to more fully articulate, reading mario bellatin reminds me of (the far more arduous process of) reading robbe-grillet: there is much to admire in the stylistic uniquities, confident voice, and uncommon fictional forms — yet, there's a certain readerly enjoyment (in the broadest sense) missing from the experience [n.b. although i will happily, even eagerly, go on seeking further works from bellatin, robbe-grillet will, to me, remain perpetually unpalatable]. the large glass (el gran vidrio) (aptly titled, see also marcel duchamp) collects three short autobiographies ("my skin, luminous," "the sheikha's true illness," and "a character in modern appearance"), offering a convoluted (and curated) glimpse into a trio of formative moments (at least in memory) for the mexican/peruvian writer. experience (and memory thereof) loom large in these brief pieces, but they reveal nary more about the author himself than what he chooses to share — however enigmatically.
having only previously read jacob the mutant , which i enjoyed for all its strangeness, i don't, yet, know what to make of mario bellatin. if nothing else can be said, his writing appears to conform only to his seemingly wild, vivid imagination and literary inclinations. while the large glass didn't strike as stirringly as jacob, it appears to be a necessary part of the bellatin mystique which continues to amorphously expand into an ever greater realm.
what is there of truth and what is there of lie in each of the three representations, in each of the three autobiographical moments... that i have presented here? knowing is entirely irrelevant.
*rendered from the spanish by david shook (translator, poet, and author of our obsidian tongues)
September 22, 2016
Translated version: The Large Glass. Too disjointed to read much.
August 12, 2014
Prácticamente todo el libro es un ¿qué carajos estoy leyendo?
Pero Bellatin amarra todo con una finura en las últimas 9 páginas del libro que uno no puede hacer nada más que suspirar y cerrar el libro con una sonrisa que se dedica a algún cabrón que hizo algo grande, que no se le ovaciona de pie, pero que se le reconoce con vehemencia.
Pero Bellatin amarra todo con una finura en las últimas 9 páginas del libro que uno no puede hacer nada más que suspirar y cerrar el libro con una sonrisa que se dedica a algún cabrón que hizo algo grande, que no se le ovaciona de pie, pero que se le reconoce con vehemencia.
January 6, 2009
Two playful biographies.
March 20, 2015
Estuve a punto de dejar de leer este libro casi a cada pagina; Bellatin cierra esta historia, su historia haciendo encajar las piezas.
November 12, 2015
I want my money back
January 24, 2016
Impresionante, te estás todo el libro con el ceño fruncido y las últimas cinco páginas con cara de asombro y luego piensas "chingado, chingado, wow, putamadre".
March 19, 2016
Tres biografías extremadamente extrañas, con un pie en el territorio de los sueños. Interesante por lo diferente.
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May 20, 2016This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the May/Aug 2016 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...
May 3, 2017
Qué es la mentira sino la propia escritura. Bellatin escupe mentiras que disfraza como ficción y las acumula en un libro compuesto por tres autobiografías inexplicables. El gran vidrio se sale de la propuesta inicial (una fiesta anual mexicana) y se transforma en una falsa transparencia que se escribe con el miembro fantasma.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews