Pájaros en la boca y otros cuentos

by Samanta Schweblin

La presente compilación incluye veinte relatos ya publicados en ediciones anteriores de sus libros de cuentos y en ediciones internacionales, así como un relato inédito publicado por la revista Granta. La selección, llevada a cabo por la propia autora, configura una antología de su mejor prosa breve hasta la fecha, así como una pieza indispensable de la literatura contemporánea argentina.

Heredera de la más prestigiosa tradición literaria, en la línea de Raymond Carver y Flannery O'Connor, Schweblin maneja el lenguaje de una forma extraordinaria, con una prosa sobria y eficaz al servicio de historias que se mueven en el límite entre lo real y lo fantástico. Los cuentos de Schweblin, perturbadores y desconcertantes, plantean un enigma que provoca y atrapa profundamente al lector.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy, Spanish Literature, Literary Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Samanta Schweblin was chosen as one of the 22 best writers in Spanish under the age of 35 by Granta. She is the author of three story collections that have won numerous awards, including the prestigious Juan Rulfo Story Prize, and been translated into 20 languages. Fever Dream is her first novel and is longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Originally from Buenos Aires, she lives in Berlin.

Reviews

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are a literary collection of short stories by Samanta Schweblin translated from the Spanish. They are rather dark fare, infused with horror, stepping onto the territory of the strange, fantastical, the unexpected and even the supernatural with a strong sense of foreboding. As might be expected by such a large number of stories, from the slight to some that have more substance, they prove to be a mixed bag. To my disappointment the style and approach of storytelling fails to vary. So we have a merman, being stranded in a isolated location but not alone, of families, parents and children, brides in search of revenge, endeavours to confess to murder, putting off parenthood until a more timely occasion and more. Make no mistake, these are stories to unsettle, to horrify, to disturb, the queer, the sinister and the visceral. My personal favourites were The Digger, Headlights and Underground. As is often the case with short stories, some stories will hit the mark whilst others are destined to leave no trace on the mind after reading. However, the good stories make these stories from Schweblin worth reading. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.

[Adina ( back from Vacay…slowly recovering) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was ok but not more

I loved her novel, Fever Dream, even though I did not understand everything. It was strange, surreal, intoxicating and captivating. I was expecting something similar from her short stories but alas. They were strange, true, but without the other qualities that made me appreciate her novel so much. It felt like the stories tried to say something but in the end they did not amount to much. Not a lot of deepness, as much as a short story allows. Some stories were good but most of them, as other reviewer wrote, felt more like ideas put on paper. Most of these stories did not unsettle me as expected. Some were shocking, like a girl eating birds, but I could not see their point.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first four stories were creepy masterpieces. The rest felt like sketches where Schweblin explores themes that will no doubt be the core of her work as a writer, and that recall the everyday dread of Fever Dream: the weirdness of family; the impossibility of knowing even those you know best; the way everyday routine can decay unexpectedly into chaos and terror. In real life it’s an accident or unexpected illness; in these stories it’s learning your daughter is eating live birds or that the butterfly you just killed wasn’t a butterfly at all. The terrors here are metaphorical phantasms but they map onto real-life fears and that is what makes these stories powerful rather than just macabre.

[Mevsim Yenice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birkaç gündür muhteşem bir öykü kitabı okuyorum. Her öyküsünü okuduktan sonra bir iki öykücü arkadaşımı arayıp kitap hakkında baş ağrıtıyorum. Uykuya daldığımda kitaba paralel bir şeyler görüp kendi bilinçaltımla savaşıyorum.

Flannery O’Connor, Carver, Cheever ve Salinger tadı verdi bana okurken. Hepsinden ilham alıp ortaya harika bir şey çıkarmış sanki Samantha Schweblin. 1978 doğumlu bir yazar ve daha sonrası için ne yazacak şimdiden inanılmaz derecede merak ediyorum.

İyi bir film bittiğinde sinema solunundan çıkıp tüm gün yaşadığınız o güzel, büyülü hisse benzer birşeyler yaşıyorum Ağızdaki Kuşlar’ın kapağını kapattım kapatalı.
Şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum.

[Pavel Nedelcu · Rating 4 out of 5]

18 POVESTIRI DINTR-O REALITATE ALTERNATIVĂ

Am fost absorbit de povestirile Samantei Schweblin încă de la început, când m-a aruncat în vârtejul unei realități alternative, una în care se petrec tot felul de bizarerii, în care lucrurile ce nouă ne par simple se complică până la infinit.

Sigur, nu toate povestirile sunt excelente, și am, cu siguranță, preferatele mele. Ca de exemplu, Femei disperate, în care tinere soții sunt abandonate pe un câmp de soții lor și se tânguie pentru acest abandon necontenit, sau Spre vesela civilizație, unde un grup de bărbați este izolat de către vânzătorul de bilete și soția sa și nu poate lua trenul înapoi spre civilizație pentru că acesta îi face semn în fiecare zi conductorului să-și continue cursa.

Ceea ce cu siguranță rămâne neschimbat însă în cele 18 povestiri ale lui Schweblin este capacitatea ei de a ține cititorul lipit de pagină printr-o tehnică narativă de efect, eliminând ornamentele ne-necesare, îndreptându-se spre inima subiectului și mizând pe mecanisme de dezvăluire graduală.

Când realitatea este trăită într-un mod alternativ, atunci și posibilitățile ei sunt infinite. De aceea Samanta Schweblin ne surprinde întotdeauna, ne face să ne îndoim în fiecare rând de desfășurarea ulterioară a faptelor. În timp ce descrie, de fapt, uneori sarcastic, alteori amar, realitatea noastră - cea de toate zilele.

[Mark Porton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mouthful of Birds is a disturbing collection of short stories by Samanta Schweblin.

If you enjoy stories starting with these openings such as this – you’ll love this collection.

If you pound a person’s head against concrete – even if you’re only doing it so they come to their senses – you will very likely end up hurting them.

Here’s ratings for each of these weird little babies:

1 Headlights: Newly married women being dumped (alive) at the side of a road. A bit chilling. 2 stars.
2. Preserves: A pregnancy version of Benjamin button. Fascinating & clever. 4 stars.
3. Butterflies: I love the message here. For all of those who don’t like killing anything, even a fly. 4 stars.
4. Mouthful of Birds: Says it all. 5 stars (shudder)
5. Santa Sleeps at our House: A Santa with a difference 3. stars.
6. The Digger: I had high hopes at the start, but this one had me flummoxed towards the end. 3 stars.
7. Irman: Unsettling story in a roadside cafe. 3 stars.
8. The Test: Couldn’t finish this one, cruelty to dogs. No rating. This did spark an enduring image of my time in Buenos Aires many years ago. Packs of dogs strutting through the streets of the capital – I particularly remember a beautiful Old English Sheepdog leading one pack. I often wonder what happened to that stunning animal.
9. Toward Happy Civilisation: A strange railway station, add a dash of “Stokholm Syndrome” and you’ll have a grim story that’ll have you on the edge of your seat, and a bit unsettled. 4 Stars.
10. Olingiris: The name of a fish. This one had me utterly flummoxed. 1 star.
11. My Brother Walter: An impactful, and quite insightful story about depression. 4 stars.
12. The Merman: No this isn’t Zoolander, BUT I loved this story about a woman falling for a Merman. 4 stars.
13. Heads against Concrete: Brilliant. Dark. Violent. Vintage Schweblin. 5 thunderous stars!!!!!
14. The Size of Things: A mum and a son, puzzles, model planes and silly games. 4 Stars.
15. Underground: A spooky story about digging and mining (I think). 3 stars.
16. Slowing Down: A memorable death. But I didn’t get it. 2 stars.
17. On the Steppe: Magic, suspenseful. 5 stars.
18. A Great Effort: An absent father, generational grief. So much here my body and mind sank. 5 stars. The best.
19. The Heavy Suitcase of Benevides: For art-lovers everywhere, if you like art of a different kind that is. A great way to complete this selection. 5 stars.

If you’ve ever experienced anxiety, you know this - The anxiety that pulled his throat towards his stomach, the author must’ve experienced every miserable malady available to humankind – because her descriptions of them are spot-on.

One of these stories involved a man seeing a massage therapist following trauma. The description of his sessions was an exact description of my sessions back in the day, even including the spontaneous sobbing (that I didn’t know was even there), Amazing writing.

Another personal experience with this collection: I dream about my dad a lot since he died. I love him like no other, we were best mates. But my dreams are always bad, we argue and fight, and it’s horrible – again Schweblin must’ve known I was going to read this with her “The pain that stiffened him and terrified him in his dreams, the pain that tied him to his father and to his own image in the mirror, the yellow pain”.

OMG – I love this author. I don’t know what it is, but every time I read one of her works she smacks me in the stomach. This is what reading is all about.

My overall experience with this collection is 5 Stars

Average story rating 3.47368 starswith a measurement of uncertainty of 3.5% and a biological variation of 4.6%. NB: Raw data available from markporton.wanker.com.au

[Coos Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agradezco a la editorial Penguin Random House por el ejemplar.

Hace un tiempo estaba viendo una entrevista en la que Mariana Enríquez recomendaba autores de Argentina que se acercan o escriben terror, y entre esos se encontraba Samanta Schweblin. Automáticamente me generó curiosidad y busqué más sobre la autora. Con "Pájaros en la boca" confirmé lo que sospechaba: su acercamiento al terror radica en lo inquietante, lo indecible y lo crudo en sus cuentos. Son historias retorcidas y crueles, con finales mayormente abiertos que te sugestionan y te dejan pensando mucho, todos me gustaron mucho.

Les dejo mi video-reseña: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U1tS...

[Franco Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samanta Schweblin probablemente sea la escritora argentina del momento. Antes de este, había leído Distancia de rescate, novela corta que me sirvió para descubrir qué clase de autora estaba leyendo. Como aquel me gustó mucho, no podía postergar más la lectura de sus cuentos, de los cuales había leído numerosas críticas favorables rondando por todos lados. Ahora, con el libro ya acabado, puedo decir que Schweblin no solo es una escritora ambiciosa e imaginativa, sino que es un experta en el manejo de la psicología humana. Estos relatos, la gran mayoría breves, me dejaron perplejo. Hacía mucho tiempo que no me topaba con una antología tan bien elaborada, mostrando en cada oración una calidad que casi no varía. Es muy difícil decir cuáles de sus cuentos no me gustaron, puesto que todos tuvieron algo especial para darme, con una manipulación del absurdo y el humor que, como diría Wallace, «me erizaron el vello de partes del cuerpo que no tienen vello».

A pesar de que todos me encantaron, puedo hacer un injusto filtro y mencionar mis favoritos:

«Perdiendo velocidad»: El más corto de la antología pero no por eso menos valioso. Con una utilización notable de la fantasía y el realismo, su poca extensión la considero clave para lograr el efecto apropiado.

«Cabezas contra el asfalto»: Mi favorito. Pocas veces me reí tanto leyendo un cuento. Además, considero que es el que está mejor escrito de este libro. Extraordinario de principio a fin. Solo léanlo para saber a qué me refiero.

«Hacia la alegre civilización»: Al principio no lo venía entendiendo; no sabía a qué iba y me resultaba un tanto aburrido. No obstante, a partir de la segunda mitad Schweblin empezó a darme respuestas y hacia el final ya lo estaba disfrutando al máximo. Su inicio lento valió muchísimo la pena.

«La pesada valija de Benavídes»: Absurdo a más no poder. Este, en mi opinión, trata un tema tan delicado como el límite del arte, así como también qué tan por encima este se encuentra de la moral, la ética y la ley. Divertido y perturbador.

«Mi hermano Walter»: Otro relato muy corto. Este, al igual que otros, me gustó mucho debido a que se centra en la incertidumbre, en la falta de respuestas, lo que lleva al lector a aceptar las cosas como son y disfrutar del sinsentido. Como todos, también tiene su punta de humor.

«Papá Noel duerme en casa»: Diría que es mi segundo favorito. Deprimente, gracioso e innovador. Este cuento es una joya desde su inicio hasta su conclusión, con un uso muy maduro de los tiempos y una exposición grandiosa de tragicomedia. Brillante e inolvidable.

Sin embargo, como ya dije, todos los relatos de Pájaros en la boca son muy buenos. Quizá el que menos me gustó fue «Matar a un perro», pero hasta ese tiene algo interesante que lo hace también imperdible. Así que, si están buscando una buena antología, sin lugar a dudas esta es la que andan necesitando. Volveré pronto a Schweblin. Esto lo quiero volver a sentir.

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really admire Schweblin's boldness—she writes stories that are unsettling and just slightly off, akin to Ottessa Moshfegh, though the latter's are generally a bit more grotesque or filthy. Major props to Megan McDowell for a seamless translation as well. Though I preferred some stories over others (as with any collection), there really were no stories I disliked. I appreciated that she never overwrites; all the stories are between 5-20 pages, give or take a few. Though some tend to be more on the flashfiction side of things with only a quick glimpse into the characters lives, yet they all have something to say. She balances the themes and stories well, so they never feel preachy but your time reading isn't wasted.

[Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una recopilación de relatos que vuelve perturbador lo cotidiano. Sí creo que pudo ser mejor, algunos relatos como que no tenían "chiste" y se sentían más como, no sé, irrelevantes. No es apto para las personas que son extremadamente sensibles al maltrato animal porque hay un relato sobre ello y no escatima en detalles.

[Burak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muazzam bir kitap Ağızdaki Kuşlar, bir öykü kitabından bekleyebileceğim her şeyi ve hatta kimi öykülerde daha fazlasını verdi bana. Schweblin'in kısacık öykülerde dahi istediği tekinsiz atmosferi başarıyla kurabiliyor olması, anlatıcının çeşitliliğine rağmen (birinci tekil, üçüncü tekil, kadın, erkek, çocuk...) anlatımın her öyküde okuru anlatıcıya inandırıp hızla avucuna alması kıskanılacak kadar güzel.

Bütün derlemelerde olduğu gibi bunda da diğerlerinin yanında sönük kalan birkaç öykü vardı ama çok sevdiğim öyküleri sıralamak istesem kitaptaki öykülerin dörtte üçünü yazmam gerekir buraya. Hele birkaç tanesini tekrar tekrar okuyacağıma şüphem yok. Beni en çok etkileyen ise yazarın anlatmak istediği meseleleri öykülemedeki yaratıcılığı oldu, bence bu konuda ders niteliğinde bir kitap olmuş Ağızdaki Kuşlar.

Çok ama çok sevdim. Emrah İmre'nin çevirisi de kusursuz. Kurtarma Mesafesi kısa sürede alıp okunacaklar listesine, Samanta Schweblin de takip edilecek yazarlar listesine üst sıralardan dahil oldular.

[Bilal Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birbirinden harika on sekiz öykü okuduğumu düşünüyorum. Böyle iyi öyküler verin bana diğer türlerden vazgeçerim yeminle. Sonradan keşfettiğim bu türün sadece Türkiye, Amerika, bilemedin Rusya'yla sınırlı kaldığını sanıyordum. Ama şimdi türün diğer kıtalara, diğer coğrafyalara uzanan kolları olduğunu biliyorum. Buradaki Arjantin'den. Genç yazar Schweblin'in temeli sağlamdır, Borges gibi duayen var. Ama onun kökleri, beslendiği damarlar arka kapakta da bahsi yapıldığı üzere ülke sınırlarını aşmış. Kafka, Poe ve Carver örnek verilmiş ama liste genişletilebilir. Hangi öyküde kimden izler var, ismini zikrettiğim şahsiyetleri bilen birinin hemen farkedebileceği bir şey. Örneğin Kazıcı adlı öyküyü ismi kapatıp kim yazmış diye soran olursa gözü kapalı Kafka derdim...

On sekiz öykü, on sekiz dünya ve on sekiz tarz. Belli ki Schweblin de vatandaşı Borges gibi denemeci ve derlemeci. Benavides'in Ağır Valizi adlı öykü günümüzün şiddet toplumuna ağır eleştiri var. Birey de yine sıkıntılı. Sorunu sadece kendi içiyle değil, ruhsal durumunu etkileyen toplum kuralları, gündelik hayat ile işi ile kurduğu ilişki (buna işsizliği de ekleyebiliriz), sistem ve yapılarla kurulan ya da kurulamayan ilişkiler. Tüm bu ilişkiler yumağı neticesinde bireye kalan depresyon, ruhsal bozukluklar (canlı kuş yiyen bile var), uykusuzluk, sosyopati. Özellikle depresyon sıkça işleniyor.

Tarz dedik, mesela Muhafaza Edilenler'in depresyondaki kahramanı aslında biz okurlarla sağlıklı bir ilişki kuruyor. Bizimle mi veyahut yazı ile mi o da tartışılır.

Hep tespitlerde bulunuyoruz ama o kadar da net konuşmamak lazım. Malum öykü. Gedikleri çok fazla olan bir tür. Her okur başka türlü yerleşebilir çünkü. En son öykü Toprağın Altında'da mesela kafası iyi olan ihtiyarın anlatıklarını halen bir yere oturtmaya çalışıyorum..

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 3/13 for me from the Man Booker International 2019 longlist

Samanta Schweblin's 2014 first novel Distancia de rescate, when translated into English as Fever Dream by the wonderful Megan McDowell, was one of my books of 2017, and my pick of the Man Booker International longlist. Powerful, unsettling, gripping, a book that genuinely disturbed my dreams. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Translated again by McDowell, Mouthful of Birds: Stories was, per the copyright page 'originally published, in Spanish and in somewhat different form, as Pájaros en la boca by Random House Mondadori, 2010', and hence an earlier work originally.

The book consists of 20 short stories, averaging 12 pages each, although varying in length.

Fever Dream was successfully pitched in what the literary critic Tzvetan Todorov calls in his Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre "the fantastic." He argues that an author can choose between a rational explanation for supernatural events - what Todorov calls "the uncanny" - and a supernatural explanation - what he calls the "marvellous" (and most would call fantasy). Todorov focuses on the difficult to occupy middle ground:

The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. Once we choose one answer or the other, we leave the fantastic for a neighbouring genre, the uncanny or the marvellous. The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.
...
The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work - in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations

The stories in Mouthful of Birds occupy similar territory, although the emphasis is a little less on supernatural elements, and more on strange situations and behaviour.

The opening story Headlights starts with Felicity standing at the side of the road, watching taillights recede into the distance:

In the flat darkness of the countryside, there is only disappointment, a wedding dress, and a bathroom she shouldn’t have taken so long in.

Just married, she stopped for a toilet break, only to find, when she had finished at her new husband had, without any warning, driven off without her.

And then she meets Nené, and finds that she is not the only one, indeed there are many women in this particular rest place in the same situation, some of whom have been waiting for years:

“Look,” says Nené, “I’ll make this short because there’s really not much to it.” She steps on the cigarette, emphasizing the words: “They get tired of waiting and they leave you. It seems waiting wears them out.” Felicity carefully follows the movement of a new cigarette toward the woman’s mouth, the smoke that blends with the darkness, the lips that press the cigarette. “So the girls cry and wait for them . . .” Nené goes on , “and they wait . . .

But one day a car stops and the husband instead of the wife gets out for the toilet. Felicity and Nené decide to take action, only to find that the horizon is suddenly filled with headlights ...

Preserves begins:

A week passes, a month, and we gradually start accepting that Teresita will be here ahead of all our plans.

The female narrator finds that her pregnancy is progressing faster than she and her husband had planned for - he had nothing against our little Teresita - what could he have against her? It's just that there was so much to do before she came.

Until, that is, they find a doctor who claims to be able to reverse the pregnancy, starting with a treatment that involves her husband coming home late and being inattentive, her mother in law taking back the various gifts she had given them to get ready for Teresita ...

The title story is narrated by a man whose 13 year-old daughter is living with her mother, after their divorce. One day the mother sends the girl to live with him, unable to cope with the girl's new diet, which involves eating live birds. At first he tries to rationalise it to himself:

I thought about how, considering there are people who eat people, eating live birds wasn’t so bad. Also, from a natural point of view it was healthier than drugs, and from a social one, it was easier to hide than a pregnancy at thirteen. But I’m pretty sure that until I reached for the car-door handle I went on thinking, She eats birds, she eats birds, she eats birds, on and on.

But as he has to take responsibility for her diet: I left early for work and endured the hours searching the internet for infinite combinations of words like bird, raw, cure, adoption,..

Another story, with similarities to Headlights has businessman stranded in a remote location when he is unable to find the change for a train ticket, the stationmaster telling him that he also has no change, and signalling to the train going to the capital city that it needn't stop at the station. It seems a relatively trivial incident until it becomes clear that the stationmaster never lets the train stop and he is not the only stranded passenger:

He has the notion that the dogs of the world are the result of men who have failed in their attempted journeys. Men nourished and retained with nothing but steaming broth, men whose hair grows long and whose ears droop and whose tails lengthen, a feeling of terror and cold inciting them to stay silent, curled up under some trainstation bench, contemplating the failures of the newcomer who is just like them only still has hope, staunchly awaiting the opportunity of a voyage.

Then one day he and his fellows manage to trick a train into stopping, only for things not to turn out as they planned ...

Overall, not as powerful as Fever Dream, and while there were very few duds in the collection, there were few absolute standouts either, indeed the collection, for better or worse, did seem to be Schweblin reworking a consistent theme. But still highly worthwhile and a 2019 Man Booker International contender [Update: now on the longlist - and fringe of shortlist material for me].

A solid 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher, via Netgalley, for the ARC.

[Guadalupe Battilana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sospecho que buena parte de mi problema con este viene de que me lo recomendaron demasiado. Tal vez si hubiera venido con expectativas más bajas, me hubiera resultado un libro interesante, y sus fallas me hubieran parecido menos estridentes. Porque en general es un libro, digamos, correcto.
Pero llegó como llegó, hiper-recomendado.
No hace mucho, cierto amigo baterista insistía en que un disco que mantiene el mismo tempo en todos los temas es aburrimiento garantizado. Y algo de eso se me venía a la mente cuando venía terminando el libro, vi que me faltaban cuatro cuentos, y en lugar del vértigo de las lecturas que te marcan, sobrevino el fastidio de "por favor, esto no se termina más": todos los relatos presentan pequeñas situaciones fragmentarias hechas para ser sugerentes. Algunas son buenas ideas. Algunas, incluso, son ideas excelentes.
Pero el tempo es el mismo.
Todos los personajes se toman las cosas igual, reaccionan igual, piensan en los mismos términos, y lo que es más grave, cuando toman la palabra hablan exactamente igual. Hay dos relatos que deberían ser muy diferentes en los que dos personajes que deberían ser muy distintos hablan de cavar pozos, y las frases son prácticamente calcadas: mismo léxico, misma cadencia, misma extensión, mismo énfasis. Aunque las descripciones deberían darlos como personajes muy distintos. Y casi todos los relatos, salvo uno o dos, terminan igual, en final no-conclusivo, no-explicativo. Sólo faltan los puntos suspensivos.

[Jerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I liked the taut, evocative writing and the gorgeous cover, the stories themselves often felt empty to me. These stories are absurd and sometimes horrific, but horror and absurdity alone are not enough for me. There are some really great stories here, but not enough to make up for the more so-so ones.

[Cláudia Azevedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*
Compreendo que se adore ou se odeie. Eu confesso que adorei. Duvido que se fique indiferente a estes contos, que misturam o fantástico e a ironia, o horror e a crítica de costumes, numa combinação bastante explosiva. Este é também um modo de ver a realidade: satirizando-a até ao limite do imaginável. Ou será do inimaginável? Recomendo.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Releer cuentos no estaba entre mis planes pero no me quejo. Está bastante bien. Siento que me he reconciliado con la vieja Schweblin. La de los relatos raros, incómodos y tensionantes.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Samanta Schweblin currently has three works of hers that are translated into English. Her first was Fever Dreams, a novel which was shortlisted of the Man International Booker Prize of 2017. It was fabulously good, and not just in my opinion… This is a collection of short stories, and it is fabulously good (at least by my reckoning 😊 )! Longlisted for the Man International Booker Prize of 2019. It was “originally published in Spanish and in somewhat different form” titled Pajaros en la boca (Random House Mondadori, 2010).

To my mind there were two or three of the 20 stories that I didn’t quite understand…but the others for me generated 3.5-5 stars. And overall: 5 stars. Many of the stories are either weird good, eerie good, or creepy good. Notice how I append the word “good” to those adjectives. Some novels and stories are weird or eerie or creepy or some combination of the three where one ends up wanting to clear one’s mind of what they just read. With these I wanted to read more more more.

Most stories are 6-12 pages (paperback version, OneWorld Publications), shortest is 4 pages, longest is 27. My favorites: Preserves; Butterflies; Mouthful of Birds (Jim: yes it is what you imagine!); Santa Claus Sleeps at Our House; The Test; Toward Happy Civilization; Olingiris (originally published in Granta, Issue 133 [the Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists]); My Brother Walter, the Merman; Rage of Pestilence; The Size of Things; The Heavy Suitcase of Benevides.

Some interesting tidbits:
• Great interview and additional information about the author: http://bookanista.com/samanta-schweblin/

• Three short stories you can find on line:
o https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20... (this is in the book)
o https://harpers.org/archive/2017/10/i... (this too is in the book)
o https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto... (this is in Siete Casas Vacias (see below)

• The stories are translated by Megan McDowell (she lives in Chile but was born and raised in Kentucky and has a twin sister) and she has an interesting history. Links to her interviews (which are very good):
• https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
• https://electricliterature.com/transl...

• I found out in one interview of Megan McDowell’s that she is translating another earlier short story collection of Schweblin’s from 2015 (Siete casas vacías), and it should be coming out but I do not know its publication date. More information about those stories (I found out the names of the 7 stories) can be found by reading reviews from Goodreads reviewers at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

• Schweblin’s first collection of short stories was “El núcleo del disturbio (ISBN 950-732-034-2) (The Nucleus of Disturbances) and was published in 2002 when she was 24…she is now 42. As far as I can tell at least 4 stories from this current 2019 collection came from that early collection: Toward Happy Civilization; The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides; The Test; and Headlights. There are 8 other stories in that 12-story collection and I’m not sure if they are in any other publications of Schweblin’s besides “El núcleo del disturbio". That collection of short stories (in Spanish) does not appear to be available anymore.

• Schweblin says that Fever Dream (2017, OneWorld Publications) was partly influenced by David Grossman’s To the End of the Land.

• Her third work translated into English is a novel originally published in 2018, “Kentukis,” and published this year (2020) in English as “Little Eyes”. I have it on order. 😊

Reviews of “Mouthful of Birds”:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/10/683271...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/bo...

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Like most collections of short stories Mouthful of Birds has some stories that are hits and ones that are misses. I think the collection definitely showacases Samanta Schweblin's creativity and versatility. While most of the stories are permeated by the surreal they differ in tone and subject.

Schweblin makes the familiar feel unfamiliar. Many of the stories examine recognisable scenarios from an unexpected angle and it often takes a little time to catch up to what is going on.
One of my favourite stories, 'Toward Happy Civilisation', had some very strong Kafkaesque vibes and the creepy yet bizarre atmosphere I would except in a story by Shirley Jackson. Another favourite of mine was 'The Merman', an unapologetically offbeat tale involving, you guessed it, a merman and that reminded me of Kevin Wilson.

As much as I appreciated Schweblin's dark humour and the weirdness of her stories, there were a few unmemorable ones. The title story was a bit of a letdown (I didn't find it all that 'shocking' or subversive) and the really short ones were rather, if not completely, forgettable. I also did not care for that story that relied on animal cruelty. Not only did I not find it to be 'horrific' but it just came across as gratuitous and voyeuristic (gore and violence are cheap ways to 'inspire' fear).
Nevertheless I would probably pick up more of Schweblin work as this collection did show some promise.

[Ugnė Andriulaitytė · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kiekvienas pagimdytas apsakymas užaugęs galėjo tapti romanu. Bet tas kalnas romanų kaip koks rožių laukas buvo supiltas į mažą buteliuką eterinio aliejaus. Tu jau nebegali žengti tuo lauku, uostyti ir glostyti kiekvienos rožės, lėtai gėrėtis, bet atsukęs kamštelį, gali užuosti visas rožes vienu įkvėpimu. Stipru. Apsvaigina. Ir kiek palikta daug vietos tavo fantazijai ir potencialioms pabaigoms, tęsiniams. Patiko man šis kvapas. Tik rekomenduoju vartoti dozuotai, nes koncentracija ne vandenėlio.

Bet iš tikrųjų, jeigu ši knyga būtų eterinis aliejus, tai būtų ne rožių, o pačiulių. Jauti tokį sodriai niūrų žemės kvapą, kurio turėtum nebenorėti užuosti antrą kartą, bet uodi vėl ir vėl.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story reads like Borges meets Carter, but none of the others matches it for atmosphere or creepy coherence. After the first three or so the level drops a fair bit, and but for the occasional moment thereafter (and a couple of stories simply didn’t work at all for me), like Fever Dream, it’s accomplished and very readable but good rather than great.

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all of these stories first in Spanish and then again in English, worried that my Spanish might be too rusty (worth noting – neither of these languages is my native language, so words still go through some parsing process before they hit my brain).

This book did make me question my level of Spanish, because Schweblin hides the bizarre among the mundane in a very matter of fact way, that makes the reader go ‘wait, what?’. The consequent English reading proved that I was understanding everything correctly - it’s just the world of Schweblin’s stories is a warped one.

It’s also interesting to note that not all the stories from the Spanish collection made it to the English translation, and those that did, did so in a changed order and sometimes with a changed title. But in the end they produced a fairly cohesive whole of unsettling nightmares, where things happen in a reverse order, relationships between family members are explored, especially those between children and parents. Many parenthood horrors are investigated here.

My favourite story (and I’m not going to be very original here) is the one called ‘Towards the Happy Civilisation’. In a clear nod to Kafka, it’s a story of a group of men stuck at a railway station that they cannot leave as they don’t have the exact change for the train ticket. It’s a story of pointlessness and frustration that concludes that every version of life is a prison and all we do is constantly yearn for a different kind of prison.

Some other stories felt more like sketches – there were studies of the same subjects in a different light, and felt like they were just meant to stay in a sketchbook before they are reworked into a full novel. The most obvious dud in the collection was the Butterflies story – so on the nose it made me cringe.

There is a noticeable undercurrent of violence, machismo, misogyny, and animal abuse running through the book (and it is interesting to note most reviewers took more issue with the scene of cruelty against a dog, while being completely unphased by the story of a man who killed his wife and stuffer her in a suitcase). I particularly liked the exploration of violence posing as high art, and with it, the pass that male artists get despite being abhorrent human beings.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primeiro vou pensar nas estrelas. Terão de ser cinco, mas nem sei bem porquê...
Porque é um desafio à minha imaginação? Porque tudo é irreal e com finais inexplicados...
Porque me inquietou? Com o temor do que me esperaria no final...
Porque me fascinou? Pelo ambiente onírico, pela ambiguidade das personagens, pelo exótico das situações...
Porque...?

. Um homem pequenino que precisa da mulher para chegar ao frigorífico;
. Um homem que se transforma num menino por medo da sua mãe;
. Um homem que assassina a mulher e cujo corpo é interpretado por outros como uma obra de arte;
. Um pintor, que exorcisa as suas pulsões de esmagar cabeças no asfalto através da arte;
. Uma menina que come pássaros vivos;
. Um casal em lua de mel, cuja vida se transforma por uma leitura de destino na palma da mão;
. Mulheres em desespero pelo abandono dos seus homens;
. Uma estação onde um comboio nunca pára, aprisionando os passageiros que nele querem entrar e os que dele querem sair;
. Um buraco que se escava até se tornar um poço e que desaparece engolindo quem o escavou;
. Um ritual de iniciação no qual o candidato tem de matar um cão;
E mais uns quantos...

São dezoito contos e ao primeiro - porque dele nada entendi - apeteceu-me abandonar a leitura mas, descobri que os contos têm o dom de me impedirem de desistir de um livro; sei que se um não me agradou haverá sempre outro que me compensará. Talvez seja por isto que me tornei viciada neste género literário; é como se num único livro estivessem vários.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

I was not a huge fan of Schweblin's first work to be translated into English, Fever Dream, but found it interesting enough to want to see what this second volume held. And although (standard disclaimer), I am also not a huge fan of short stories, most of these 'worked' for me, and none of the 20 contained herein are absolute duds (although I could have done without the animal abuse in 'The Test' :-( ) . Most of them are surreally creepy, kind of a hodgepodge of Poe and Kafka, and that's not a bad thing. I read the entire book over a few hours, and that is probably NOT the ideal way to proceed, since sampling one or two at a time over a longer period would probably have made me appreciate them more.

[Marchpane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of eerie, horror-inflected stories, some very short, only a couple of pages. There’s a Twilight Zone or even Edgar Allan Poe kind of vibe to each of them, but very much updated for modern times.

These stories are nowhere near as trippy and confounding as Schweblin’s novella, Fever Dream, which could be a plus or a minus depending on how you felt about that book. For me, it’s very much a plus. I enjoyed Fever Dream well enough, but I remember thinking it would work better as a short story and Mouthful of Birds has confirmed my suspicion that Schweblin and the short form are made for each other.

There isn’t anything particularly splashy or ‘wtf was that?’ here, and Fever Dream fans may be disappointed, but I think these are stories that get better the more you think about them. Not to mention the translation is flawless. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Sinem A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birbirinden harika öykülerden örülü bir yolculuk. Bir yolüstü mola yerinde başlayan kitap yine yolüstü bir başka mola yerinde bitiyor. Bu yolculuk boyunca insanlığa dair girmediğimiz delik hissettmediğimiz duygu kalmıyor. Oldukça usta işi.

[A. Raca · Rating 4 out of 5]

"İçimizdeki his, seyahate çıkarken hissedilenin tam tersi. Mutluluğumuzun sebebi yola çıkmak değil, bulunduğumuz yerde kalmak."

☀️
Özellikle bazı öyküler çok başarılı...

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Liked some more than others but overall an good story collection

[Samuel Ch. · Rating 5 out of 5]

En una analogía con el boxeo, Cortázar dice que, mientras la novela debe ganar por decisión, el cuento debe hacerlo por knockout. Eso es justo lo que ocurre con cada relato de Pájaros en la boca. Uno cae fulminado, choca contra el suelo (SU suelo) y debe volver a la esquina para recuperar el aliento y ver qué más tiene Shweblin para ofrecer.
Con personajes sumamente erráticos, las historias aquí presentadas vienen de otro universo, otras costumbres, otra riqueza del valor narrativo. Lejos de sus finales contundentes, los cuentos de Shweblin ahogan de incertidumbre a todo aquél que se aferre a una superficie cada vez más falsa. No hay respuestas, tan sólo eventos inauditos, trucos mentales, venenos para la certeza. Acaso apoyados en el sistema del lenguaje que tampoco alcanza a entender qué pasa, los cuentos replantean lo ordinario con pie firme sobre baldosas desconocidas que raspan la callosidad de lo cotidiano, irrumpen el ensueño de la rutina, generan ópticas nuevas sólo porque sí. Sobre todo en el cuento de Cabezas contra el asfalto, una necesidad de estar enfadado con el mundo me tomó del cuello y me hizo ver que la realidad es del todo un gran defecto.
Samanta Shweblin maquilla entonces ese defecto a base de asombro, sencillez y desvergüenza, en un mundo terrenal extraño para los propios personajes que no pertenecen, por ser tan limítrofes como el lector mismo.
Pienso que los cuentos deben ser así: profundos en un plano de nadie, pero no desentendidos de lo que el ser humano ha pedido siempre desde que abrió por vez primera un libro.

[spillingthematcha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surrealistyczne, dziwne, niekomfortowe. Niektóre z tych opowiadań to jedne z najlepszych jakie kiedykolwiek czytałam, ale przeważają w większości te słabsze.