La grande

by Juan José Saer

Última novela. Esta vasta galería de personajes descritos en un estilo vívido y minucioso es también un compendio de la obra entera de Saer y la culminación de su proyecto literario. Otro regreso a la tierra natal para demostrarnos el poder de resurrección de ese lugar, suerte de patria afectiva, donde el pasado se actualiza y vuelve infaliblemente a vibrar. Entre anécdotas y referencias que evocan un movimiento de vanguardia local, el precisionismo, reaparecen los pilares fundamentales del universo saeriano, surgidos del pasado inaccesible que sin embargo sigue enviando su luz. En esta obra deslumbrante, audaz respuesta al desafío de poner en palabras la experiencia, Saer reflejó una visión total del mundo. Tras su muerte, ocurrida antes de terminar el último capítulo de esta novela, queda el valor universal de su mirada y de su prosa.

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature, Literature, Ebooks, Novels, Contemporary

439 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Juan José Saer was an Argentine writer, considered one of the most important in Latin American literature and in Spanish-language literature of the 20th century. He is considered the most important writer of Argentina after Jorge Luis Borges and the best Argentine writer of the second half of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.” This epigraph to the novel is taken from the Abbreviated Dictionary of Surrealism and it may serve as a kind of clue to the book.
There is a literary technique or style called ‘ironic precision’ and using this style Juan José Saer managed to write his last novel with incredible meticulousness and preciseness…

I’m only interested in the world in general… Practicing the ontology of becoming is so simple: you just have to be aware of every part of everything and all the parts of the parts in all their synchronic and diachronic states.

The novel is a tale of relationships inside the clique of provincial bourgeois bohemians – however oxymoronic it may sound – and their interactions with the outside world.

The horizon, Nula thinks, paradigm of the external, is in fact the result of a human impossibility: the parallels do not meet at an infinitely distant point, but rather in our imaginations. A good portion of the world exists because I exist.

And the attitude to the modern society is often so bleak:

They refer to themselves as individualists and yet whenever they open their mouths all that comes out are clichés so fashionable that they end up being interchangeable with anything that their worst enemies, who pretend to be different, might have on hand.

Despite being unfinished La Grande demonstrates wondrous integrity and enviable completeness: the penultimate chapter, describing the festive gathering of all main personages, is a real culmination and the last, which is just a single sentence, is a perfect anticlimax.
The narration consists of the current events, memories of the past and contemplations on the nature of existence…

For now they move, healthy and careless, through the quiet of the evening, confusing their desires and their dreams with the unexamined reasons for their existence. They think they exist for themselves, but all they are is bait, tempting the thing that makes them exist. They think they’re displaying themselves, but what they don’t know is that they’re being displayed by the archaic design that brings them to the world, gives them an attractive shape, and then, without cruelty or compassion, casts them into the abyss.

Our memories of the past are the only link binding what we once were with what we have become…

[Lauli · Rating 4 out of 5]

La última obra de Saer cumplió con mis expectativas y hasta las superó. No es una novela de acontecimientos. Casi todo lo que sucede, sucede a nivel del lenguaje. Saer hace con las palabras lo que los grandes maestros de la pintura hacen con óleos y pinceles: conjura imágenes poderosísimas, de una singular belleza, y transmite paisajes emocionales ricos y complejos. Algunas partes me resultaron algo tediosas, como toda la disquisición acerca del preciocismo. Pero el asado final es de una vividez inolvidable. Y tiene una de las mejores últimas frases de novela que recuerde haber leído.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long at 500 pages but not-quite monolithic, this scattered Argentinian novel about a confusing literary movement called Precisionism, is less precise than the dependably inaccurate blurbs led me to believe. Jumping from close-knit characters to disparate scenes to clandestine moments of startling imprudence, through days and nights and the tired territory of restaurants and bedrooms, childhood and romantic entanglements, I was propelled through the narrative in the same way I enjoyed many bigger, better Spanish language tomes in the past. But unlike Terra Nostra or Infante's Inferno, Le Grande appears at times hastily composed. Many sentences rely on similes and strained metaphors, but as often as they shed light on pithy topics, they distract from action and tension, going on at exuberant length to prove a point I might have gleaned from a few choice words. Nonetheless this was an occasionally entertaining, readable, slightly tedious novel, with mesmeric atmosphere and an effective setting. Disregarding the politics it describes (not my department), the South America is presents is both exquisitely beautiful and rife with commonplace sin and disillusion.

Like Bolaño's contrived literary movement in Savage Detectives, you might read a thousand pages more about the bit players of Precisionism before being swayed by their views.

I counted six pages in a row describing one character threading a needle. It really got to me. I recall passages in Beckett minutely cataloging inconsequential actions, but since Saer didn't prepare the reader for this side-quest, it came as an unwelcome surprise. The majority of the pages contain mundane descriptions of one sort or another interspersed with just as many good literary choices. Most of the paragraphs take up 2 full pages, cut through by sparse resuscitation of dialogue. Great lines might pass you by if you aren't paying attention, and when the description isn't fantastic it is just long. The main and only downfall of this book is the perspective. It is difficult to zero in on and understand these literary characters, bewildered as we are by the flood of detail.

La Grande is a twisted look at a fascinating culture and time, but made for an uneven reading experience in my opinion. Admittedly, there are unifying themes, images and motifs (especially wine). The characters are not shallow puppets but fleshed, flawed, damaged individuals. A dense and complex amalgamation of memory and texture, fruitful relationships and a definite, disturbing undercurrent. Read it for the publisher, who is making a valiant effort to fill the gaps in foreign literature available in English. Read it for Saer, who put his impassioned talent to use, reaching for a greatness he might not have fully attained, but certainly approached.

I may tackle more of Saer's books in the future, but I see myself enjoying the rest of Cortazar first.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Note: I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway .]

He was among the men who thought they could change the world until they realized that the world changed on its own, and dizzyingly, but in the opposite direction toward which they’d worked, and even in unexpected and strange directions, at which point, neither innocently nor cynically, they started working for what was worth saving, even if that attitude sometimes made them seem antiquated or even conservative—at least compared to those that, while they unscrupulously cut the biggest slice of cheese for themselves, insisted on self-identifying as modern.

How odd to have finally finished within hours of each other two 500-page books in which an upper middle-class man who has nothing to do with the government (and is portrayed primarily amidst his coterie) is meant to stand in for a devastatingly disastrous leader of the country. In Chin P’ing Mei the man was Hsi-men Ch’ing representing the Emperor Wan-li; here it is the literary lion Mario Brando, who is gradually revealed to have been as evil as Pinochet, in his own arena.

But be assured that this is no rigid allegory. It is a subtle and beautiful novel that only gradually reveals this aspect of itself. At the same time it is an exploration of the power, minutiae and mutability of language, memory and perception.

The novel follows two interwoven groups of Argentinians over a week: two generations: older writers who experienced Pinochet as young adults, and those who are now in their twenties but were shaped by those years as well. The older ones were caught up in the Precisionist literary movement, which was controlled by the now-dead autocrat Brando. Among the younger ones is the main character, Nula, whose activist father was killed in an unexplained shooting many years ago. Several characters are ‘missing’, the literal or figurative victims of Pinochet or Brando. A few fled the city or the country and are returning or are voices from afar.

These are definitely not simple or ‘good’ people. They are complex and changeable. Saer’s technique is to build his novel in pass after pass through his characters’ memories. Gradually little pieces come together, refute or replace each other, add depth, evoke questions. This evolution happens in both his characters’ own minds and in the reader’s sense of the book. They are sexual, sophisticated, widely read, and politically astute, but they are human so they hurt and they soothe. They bear wounds but they carry on.

At first I was a bit asea and frustrated by the very dense text that sometimes focuses on the most quotidian tasks for pages on end. But about 150 pages in, I flipped back to look for a quote and began to perceive the unifying images and themes that Saer has beautifully woven into his work. Water is everywhere, but particularly in the river and its delta that the characters criss-cross daily and into which they stare and reflect. Again and again Saer describes the surface of the river, both its visual impenetrability and its actual permeability. Contrasted with its delta soup is the clear swimming pool of the expatriot who has returned to … no one is quite sure why he has returned. He has an enigmatic serenity that tugs at them, and the clarity of the water in his pool echoes his peace.

Saer also pays repeated attention to the slums of city and countryside, and to the consumerism of the hypermarket and the Western world. Weather is ever-present, as intense sunlight or storm. Wine serves as Nula’s livelihood (since his philosphy avocation won’t pay the bills) and lubricates every event. People think a lot in cars and buses. Real life, and yet somehow fragile, it is examined so closely.

I grew to care very much for these people over the course of the novel, even if I was irritated by their imperfections at times. Saer is masterful in portraying their individual ways of coping with the echoes of Pinochet, and yet one concludes that they have found a way to conquer that past, whether through laughter or surrender.

This is one of those books that would repay a second read in order to notice and enjoy in more detail the complexity of language (e.g. mid-sentence tense changes) and the way that Saer weaves the layers of so many individual memories into a work of art. While there were a few places where the weight of unnecessary details severely tested my willpower, the farther I read the more I understood what he was up to and was all in for the ride. Early in the book a character recalls a memory that describes Saer’s method beautifully:

he and Tomatis were leaning over the railings of the suspension bridge, watching the water, and it occurred to Barco to ask, Carlitos, in your opinion, what is a novel? And without hesitating even for a second or looking up from the water swirling around the pillars of the bridge several meters below, Carlitos had answered, The decomposition of continuous movement.

Kudos to Three Percent and translator Steve Dolph, who brings the work to English elegantly.

[Julio César · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasta su último aliento estuvo Saer trabajando en esta obra maestra. No se puede creer la calidad de su prosa. Hay una descripción de un jardín en el que enumera las especies que había así "un manzano, una tipa, un limonero, pero también un cerezo", algo así (no exactamente); ese "pero también" me pareció excelente. Típico de Saer. La zona en su mejor expresión. Me encantó el personaje de Nula, es una franja etaria (mi edad: 29) que no se suele representar en las novelas argentinas, y menos en diálogo con los más grandes en esas amistades extrañas a las que nos tienen acostumbrados Tomatis y sus amigotes.

[Soledad Perotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

La Grande es la última novela de Juan José Saer, le faltó el último capítulo ya qué falleció antes de terminarla.
En la grande aparecen todos los personajes ya conocidos de sus obras anteriores, un Tomatis más querible que nunca.
Saer fue un escritor genial, nos hace viajar y compartir con él "la zona" el litoral Santafesino donde se desarrollan sus novelas. Su nivel de descripción es al detalle, una caminata de dos cuadras se extiende en varias páginas y vemos cada uno de los problemas de los personajes: un paraguas que no los cubre del todo o un charco que hace mojar un zapato, en un asado vemos cómo se va sirviendo la mesa, que se sirve primero, que después, quien se levantó para buscar que y quién levantó los platos y limpió la mesa.
Gracias Saer , soy feliz en tu mundo.

[Bhaskar Thakuria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The primary thought that rose in my mind while reading this work was whether the title of the narrative chose to expound on the key particulars of the contents. For I feel as if no other title would have been apt for a narrative of this length, with that many characters, and with the fleeting level of prose that often makes for the readers a heavy tread across a morass of nested sentences that are on par with the best of James and Proust; as well as a narrative technique built on past memory as a reference- with constant shifting back and forth of time- and inner monolgues as some uncanny jargon that defies understanding of various fleeting moments of space, that would make for a justifiable comparison with the best of Faulkner and Lowry. Indeed this is narrative of a grand scale and conception. And it would not be saying a great deal if we go so far as to say that this is a novel of excesses just like Faulkner's Absalom, absalom and Broch's The Death of Virgil. I have dealt with monster Spanish tomes in the past esp Roberto Bolano's 2666, del Paso's Palinuro and Cabrera Infante's Inferno and Three Trapped Tigers. And it was only last year that I finished reading another monster in the same vein: the first volume of Luis Goytisolo's quarter Antagonia. Now I can safely say that Saer's La Grande deserves its pride of place in that same category. The only thing that takes away from this intensely cerebral and demanding work is the fact that the narrative often rambles and is scattered and loosely arranged in parts. There are several characters who make their appearance over the course of a week and the principal feeling that one can take from the story is of a round of aquaintances that appear after the return of Gutiérrez 30 years after his mysterious departure from Argentina, and their interrelationships which are mostly of the erotic and the intellectual, and border on the chaotic and mystical. Their is also reference to a literary-political movement called 'precisionism' and its repercussions. This is a novel of heightened sexual tensions and intensely cerebral explorations that ends with one of the greatest lines ever written in the history of literature:

WITH THE RAIN CAME THE FALL, AND WITH THE FALL, the time of the wine.

Elsewhere throughout this rambling narrative there are several passages that are memorable simply for their high flown artistry. The opening scene with Nula and Gutiérrez walking through the rain is classic and has a very artistic appeal:

HALF-PAST FIVE, GIVE OR TAKE, ON A RAINY AFTERNOON in early April. Nula and Gutiérrez are approaching, at a diagonal, the corner of an open, nearly rectangular field bordered at one end by a mountain sparsely covered in acacias, and behind which, still invisible to them, the river runs.

The sky, the earth, the air, and the vegetation are gray, not with the metallic shade that the cold in May or June brings them, but rather the greenish, warm porosity of the first autumn rains that, in this region, can’t quite extinguish the insistent, overwhelming summer. Both men, walking neither fast nor slow, a short distance apart, one in front of the other, are still wearing lightweight clothes. Gutiérrez, walking ahead, has on a violently yellow waterproof jacket, and Nula, who hesitates at each step, unsure where to place his foot, a red camper made from a silky material with a slick and shiny texture, that in his family dialect (it was a gift from his mother), they jokingly call parachute cloth. The two bright spots moving through the gray-green space resemble satin paper cutouts collaged on a monochromatic wash, the air the most diluted, and the clouds, the earth, and the trees the most concentrated grays.

So that's where it all starts to happen in this grand narrative.

The novel is however far from complete. In fact Saer reserved the famous last lines of this novel as the first lines of a final chapter, a 'coda', during his last days before he died in Paris on June 11, 2005. The last chapter ('The Hummingbird') and the last lines leave the reader stranded at the crossroads of several possible narrative endings.

From the modern crop of Latin American writers it is the Argentinians and esp Saer who is one of the foremost proponents of the modern wave of Latin American narrative. As Steve Dolph, Saer's biographer writes elsewhere:

Saer made prose in a baroque, draping style, from multiple viewpoints simultaneously, shifting registers dramatically from one clause to the next, circling syntactically, then back again, and maybe once more, then a dip, and a final turn. Reading Saer is like dancing inside the mind of someone who sees everything through the looking glass, always the skeptic.

[Chad Post · Rating 5 out of 5]

DISCLAIMER: I am the publisher of the book and thus spent approximately two years reading and editing and working on it. So take my review with a grain of salt, or the understanding that I am deeply invested in this text and know it quite well. Also, I would really appreciate it if you would purchase this book, since it would benefit Open Letter directly.

[Jorge Esquivel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuando uno se enfrenta a un texto que de entrada parece inextricable y acaba siendo subyugado por la inteligencia, la precisión y la belleza de la narrativa.Todo lo contrario a ligero y, por supuesto, a la larga más gratificante y enriquecedor. Algo parecido al conflicto placer versus felicidad. Un tema difícil de explicar y harto polémico y al cual había renunciado tiempo ha a tratar de compartir. Faux de pas involuntario que revive de vez en cuando en los momentos más inoportunos. Obra plena de significado y arte literario. Un autor de quien - por la lectura de esta su obra última (e inconclusa ) he decido leer toda su producción.

[Florencia Zarbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Para darse el lujo de morir, ironiza Tomatis, no queda más remedio que seguir viviendo.”

Uno de los mejores escritores argentinos; considero poético que haya muerto sin terminar de escribir este libro y que nos deje la última frase del mismo para imaginar nosotros lo que habrá sucedido el lunes.

Mas allá de la historia, sobre todo destaco que su manera de describir y narrar logra que uno pise donde está pisando Nula, mire el paisaje al mismo tiempo que Tomatis y sienta la magnitud de la melancolía de Gutierrez.

Un lujo.

[Manuel Fontana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solo voy a decir que es una obra maestra, que es inabarcable y que fue el libro cuyas reflexiones más me identificaron. Me gustaría transcribir algo, pero no puedo decidirme entre tantas líneas que me gustaron.

[Antonio Parrilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

La novela se aguanta entera por la fascinación que me da ver cómo pone una palabra a continuación de otra.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terminé La grande.
Saer, ¿lo habrá terminado de escribir?
Esa densidad, ese final.
Mmm.

[Daniela Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

"con la lluvia, llegó el otoño, y con el otoño, el tiempo del vino" dijo Saer, y murió. Arranqué esta novela sabiendo que no iba a existir un "cierre", que es una obra abandonada, como dijo Borges "Un poema nunca se termina, sólo se abandona". Aún así Saer me llevó a su dimensión a través del lenguaje y pude sentir al terminar esta última oración que hasta ahí esa historia había llegado. Merece más relecturas, es una prosa impecable, con reflexiones que me dejaron revisando mi existencia.
Subrayé y tomé muchas notas.

[Juanjo Conti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subrayado: Los entrerrianos somos poetas o bandidos.
Las últimas diez o veinte páginas de la parte tres, donde se cuenta la desaparición de el Gato Garay y Elisa, su amante, no se pueden soltar. Los chuparon por ser raros, no estaban metidos en nada.
El protagonista de La grande es Nula. Y el vino.
La parte penúltima tiene textos cortos en comparación con las anteriores. Saer ya estaba cerca de la muerte. Me dio lástima comprobarlo.

[Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's gorgeous. So many of the scenes are dense and beautiful like a Tarakovsky film (the opening section with Nula and Gutierrez walking through the rain reminded me very powerfully of Stalker). So many involved seemingly mundane happenings, but still I enjoyed the characters and the book in general.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brutalizing slog punctuated here and there by surprising brilliance, like life. The exquisite last section, and the insightful translator's note, left me feeling much more positive about this book than I might've otherwise. Happy I read it, but it was a lot of work.

[Gary Homewood · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wine salesman philosopher and a large, confusing cast of characters, some with multiple names, a thin plot over the course of a week, some politics, literary movements, parties, and occasionally some strong, vivid scenes. Not sure what it was driving at.

[Galez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Con esta maravilla se retiraba de la literatura y de la vida este escritor increíble, no pude evitar que los ojos no se me desbordaran, hasta siempre querido Tomatis

[Carol Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es la primera obra que leo de Saer y no fue una lectura fácil. Su estilo, con oraciones largas y una narración que oscila entre los hechos y los pensamientos de los personajes—que pueden situarse en cualquier punto del tiempo—me desafió mucho. Sin embargo, esa misma complejidad es lo que hizo que la experiencia de leerlo fuera tan rica.

Poco a poco, me fui enamorando de su forma de escribir. Cuando logré soltar mi propia ansiedad de “entender” a dónde iba la historia y me dejé llevar por el ritmo del lenguaje, empecé a disfrutar la genialidad de su prosa. La narración del último asado es perfecta: en los silencios entre los personajes se dice tanto como en las palabras. El tono me llevó a sentir que todos—los personajes, el autor y el lector—compartíamos la misma nostalgia de saber que nos acercamos al final.

[Pialo Purr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Renova la percepción de la realidad, es como adquirir una visión que le da un ritmo, novedad e intencionalidad revitalizadores al transcurrir del tiempo, a la desesperación silenciosa compaginada con el devenir azaroso y desenfadado. Nos recuerda el cambio, lo fugaz de nuestra percepción o perspicacia momentánea en el tiempo, donde se desdibujan inciertos los rasgos del pasado, el misterio que envuelve el entorno nos elude y nuestras mentes divagan sin notar la fuga de los momentos. Es algo más que eso.

[Pedro Peñuela Florido · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novela inacabada de Saer. Eso la hace muy difícil de calificar. Alterna momentos brillantísimos con otros menos. Muy centrada en los detalles, en la memoria. Lo mejor el uso del tiempo, que el autor maneja magistralmente.

[Kurishin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saer, unfortunately, wasn't around to edit this. Of course, we don't know how the product would've changed, but editing this needed.

[Enrique · Rating 2 out of 5]

No pude terminarlo. El estilo me resultó recargado y el ritmo lento. Por momentos me recordó a lo peor que hace años publicó Javier Marías. Dos grandes escritores, por cierto.

[Jaime Mostany Aranoa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hasta mas o menos la pagina 45

[blackdogcolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prosa absolutamente avassaladora, coisa de monstro sagrado mesmo, literatura com L maiúsculo.

[Leandro Caniglia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anoche terminé de leer La Grande, la última novela de Saer, que dejó casi completa antes de morir. Esta novela es algo así como la hermana mayor de La Pesquisa. Por su forma de escribir, se puede decir que Saer no solamente hace hablar y actuar a los personajes, también los hace pensar. Incluso (sobre todo) en esas asociaciones de ideas que se nos cruzan por la cabeza mientras conversamos con otra persona. Esas recreaciones, que como digo, discurren en la palabra, los actos y las ocurrencias no dichas, consiguen pintar lo que acontece mediante el recurso (convertido en desafío) de hilvanar los detalles, como si los recogiese del natural y los acomodase entre frases preciosamente elegidas para producir en el lector la sensación de bienestar que conlleva toda claridad. Al hacer esto, es como si ensayase una forma de hiperrealismo localizado en algunos pasajes de la trama. Lo que atrae no es, en estos casos, la novedad de lo que cuenta, sino la manera en la que nos describe lo que ya hemos visto mil veces, y sólo podríamos haber referido torpemente. Hay otro efecto que me resultó muy interesante; consiste en acostumbrar al lector a seguir al protagonista a lo largo de innumerables páginas y de pronto, al separase éste de un personaje nuevo, con quien se había encontrado brevemente, continuar el relato enfocando en el segundo, dejando en abandono a quien veníamos atendiendo, que pasa ahora a ser un viejo conocido relegado a un rol secundario. Eso ocurre una o dos veces a lo largo de toda la novela, lo que otorga a la argucia efectividad plena. La intriga se establece alrededor de épocas y recuerdos a los que, por los años en que me ha tocado vivir, soy sensible. Sin embargo, debo confesar que las preocupaciones más recientes y las tristezas que dominan mi atención actual, me alejan de esos mundos y de su ubicación en el siglo pasado. No porque hayan prescripto, sino porque el mundo viene empeorando a tal velocidad que cada vez es más gruesa la línea que divide lo central de lo episódico. Los dramas de ayer languidecen frente a la desesperanza del presente y, en consecuencia, resulta difícil "distraerse" con aquellas historias, que también nos duelen, pero a las que casi no podemos seguir atendiendo en estos tiempos desolados

[Tonymess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Juan José Saer passed away in 2005, in Paris. During his final days in the hospital he worked on the book “La Grande” which was published posthumously in October of the same year. In Amanda Hopkinson’s obituary published in The Guardian, she says:

Born outside the literary nexus of the capital, to parents of siriolibanes (Middle Eastern) origin, his writing had nothing to do with the world of tango and extravagant baroque, nor with the streets of Buenos Aires and Latin American magical realism.
Instead he wrote, in a strikingly spare style, of what he knew personally. He wrote of his home town, the provincial city of Santa Fe and its cast of often strange characters, and of his adopted home, Paris, a place of tower blocks and back alleys, inhabited by incomers and sadistic criminals, and by his fictitious maverick, Chief Inspector Morvan.

With a dozen novels, four volumes of short stories and a collection of poetry he was a celebrated part of the Argentine literary scene, even though he lived “in exile” in France. This last work, published by Open Letter Books, apparently contains numerous characters from earlier works, and was shortlisted for the US based Best Translated Book Award for 2015.

Our story opens with two men crossing a field, Gutiérrez, who mysteriously disappeared from Argentina thirty years before and who has just as mysteriously reappeared, buying a mansion. He is accompanied by a “friend” (they’ve met only twice before this day), Nula, a young wine salesman.

Our novel takes place over the space of a single week, split into seven sections, commencing with “Tuesday Water Sounds”, however it also takes place over thirty years, as our multi layered number of characters interact, question Gutiérrez’s disappearance and reflect on the literary movement “precisionism”.

Running at close to 500 pages there is plenty of room for our novelist to muse on a raft of themes, including the inner machinations of his main protagonists:

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible piece of art. Saer uses a unique prose to drag us into another world, vivid and unique descriptions, marvellous scenes of unmatched clarity. The story is written as nothing I have ever read. It is its final novel, unedited. It revolves around several incredibly well described characters that find themselves living in a little town in Argentina. Most of them ex political activists or literate men, which share a common past. This book talks about identity, belonging, and the magic of ordinary life. About a little world inside other little worlds.
It not easy-read literature, in the sense that in requires the reader to commit, to engage, that is the premise to enjoy the unmatched quality literature of Saer. The descriptions, the ambiguity of feelings, thoughts, and life are so real that you will remember scenes of the book (with colours, temperature, sounds) years after finishing it.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

"With the rain, came the fall, and with the fall, the time of the wine." My favorite sentence in the book, and not just because it is the last. It's actually interesting to me. Not so the rest of the book. While the author does have some lyrical sentences, reading this book was not "like dancing inside the mind of someone who sees everything through the looking glass, always the skeptic," for me. For me it was like dancing with someone who has two left feet.
(translator's note)

PS My numerous updates will clue you into how I REALLY feel about this book. The cover shouldn't be blue...it should be gray.