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Απομονωμένος στα Πυρηναία, ο διάσημος και αινιγματικός μαθηματικός Αλεξάντερ Γκρότεντικ επεξεργάζεται με μανία το τελικό του έργο. Αλλά τι ακριβώς είναι αυτό το μνημειώδες, μυστηριώδες εγχείρημα; Γιατί ο συγκεκριμένος άνθρωπος, μία από τις μεγαλύτερες ιδιοφυΐες της εποχής του, αποφάσισε ξαφνικά να εγκαταλείψει εντελώς την κοινωνία; Καθώς ο αναγνώστης ψάχνει τις απαντήσεις, ξεδιπλώνονται δύο πολυεπίπεδες αφηγήσεις. Η πρώτη αφορά στις προσωπικότητες που ενέπνευσαν τη φαντασία του ήρωα: τη Χάνα Αμπράμοφ, που ζωγραφίζει χίλιες φορές το ίδιο ηφαίστειο, τον Βλαντίμιρ Βοστόκοφ, που συγκρούεται με την τεχνολογική πρόοδο, τον Μαξιμιλιάνο Σιενφουέγος, που αποτελεί το σύμβολο όχι μόνο της συνείδησης του συνταγματάρχη αλλά και ολόκληρης της Ευρώπης. Η δεύτερη αφήγηση ταυτίζεται με την ιστορία ζωής του ίδιου του πρωταγωνιστή: από τη Ρωσία της Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης στο Μεξικό της αναρχικής δεκαετίας του 1920, από τον Ισπανικό Εμφύλιο Πόλεμο μέχρι το Βιετνάμ, και από τη Γαλλία ως τα νησιά της Καραϊβικής. Το εκλεπτυσμένο ντεμπούτο ενός ταλαντούχου συγγραφέα, μια κωμικοτραγική αλληγορία για το πολιτικό φάσμα του περασμένου αιώνα.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published February 10, 2014
19 people are currently reading
477 people want to read
About the author
Carlos Fonseca
5 books106 followersCarlos Fonseca Suárez was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1987, and spent half of his childhood and adolescence in Puerto Rico. In 2016, he was named one of the twenty best Latin American writers born in the 1980s at the Guadalajara Book Fair, and in 2017 he was included in the Bogotá39 list of the best Latin American writers under forty. He is the author of the novels Colonel Lágrimas (Restless Books) and Natural History (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and in 2018, he won the National Prize for Literature in Costa Rica for his book of essays, La Lucidez del Miope. He teaches at Trinity College, Cambridge, and lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
May 17, 2021
Purposeful Madness
If, as a mathematical genius, one discovers that the language of mathematics itself is evil, where does one turn for solace, or at least for an explanation of why this is so? Not religion, which uses even less reliable language. Not psychiatry, which has a language no one actually understands. Not science, which is the process by which mathematics is used to poison the world. And certainly not philosophy, whose vocabulary has nothing to communicate at all.
No, if an explanation for the failure of mathematics is to be found anywhere at all, it will be in alchemy, and its cognate field of Kabbalah. Both alchemy and Kabbalah reject conventional wisdom about how the world is constituted. They are the ‘sciences’ of anarchy that undermine all language. The former knows that things are not what they seem. With patience and by using arcane secretive processes, the essence of things can be transformed. The latter knows that the language we use to describe things can only lie. Language can never touch the essences discovered in alchemy. Together alchemy and Kabbalah may reveal the fatal flaw at the heart of mathematics.
So the mathematical genius hides himself, forsaking not just professional society but also all but the most primitive human contact. He “...doesn’t want to be understood. His wish is simpler: he wants to be forgotten... to erase all legacy.” He spends his day doodling esoteric symbols that are inspired by historical figures known, and often persecuted, for their devotion to the dark arts: “... in his desperate battle for anonymity, he seems to inject himself with enormous doses of historical memory. The pleasure of healthy poison.”
The colonel, for so is he unaccountably called by the locals, is not a military man. He was of course born somewhere but he is stateless. He mother was an Hasidic Jew; but his father was a wandering anarchist. So the colonel has no real religion. Perhaps he was already anonymous as far as the world was concerned - except of course for the matter of his mathematical skills. His mathematical writings should be the most vulnerable part of him. Very few others had any interest in them. And none of those with interest could really understand what they meant. On the face of it they are ephemeral - opaque equations, derivations, and proofs. Mere words.
Yet, perversely, these ancient pre-doodles persist. He had asked someone to round up the publications in which they appeared and destroy them. But he doubted the promise. In any case, other mathematicians had seen them already. They would remember the content even if they did not understand it. They would pass on what they knew. The alchemists’ and Kabbalists’ greatest secret was how to hide what they had discovered. This is the secret he was bent on discovering.
But language always wins. It is madness to believe otherwise. The colonel’s sin is irrevocable. When he dies: “Someone will take charge of the macabre task of looking into the corners of this moldy home in search of his final work: a mathematical sketch of an invisible project. Then will come the meetings and a kind of mathematics-cum-mysticism, the posthumous labor of a group of professors-cum-Talmudic sect.” Language is invincible. It conquers even those who use it... no, especially those who use it.
If, as a mathematical genius, one discovers that the language of mathematics itself is evil, where does one turn for solace, or at least for an explanation of why this is so? Not religion, which uses even less reliable language. Not psychiatry, which has a language no one actually understands. Not science, which is the process by which mathematics is used to poison the world. And certainly not philosophy, whose vocabulary has nothing to communicate at all.
No, if an explanation for the failure of mathematics is to be found anywhere at all, it will be in alchemy, and its cognate field of Kabbalah. Both alchemy and Kabbalah reject conventional wisdom about how the world is constituted. They are the ‘sciences’ of anarchy that undermine all language. The former knows that things are not what they seem. With patience and by using arcane secretive processes, the essence of things can be transformed. The latter knows that the language we use to describe things can only lie. Language can never touch the essences discovered in alchemy. Together alchemy and Kabbalah may reveal the fatal flaw at the heart of mathematics.
So the mathematical genius hides himself, forsaking not just professional society but also all but the most primitive human contact. He “...doesn’t want to be understood. His wish is simpler: he wants to be forgotten... to erase all legacy.” He spends his day doodling esoteric symbols that are inspired by historical figures known, and often persecuted, for their devotion to the dark arts: “... in his desperate battle for anonymity, he seems to inject himself with enormous doses of historical memory. The pleasure of healthy poison.”
The colonel, for so is he unaccountably called by the locals, is not a military man. He was of course born somewhere but he is stateless. He mother was an Hasidic Jew; but his father was a wandering anarchist. So the colonel has no real religion. Perhaps he was already anonymous as far as the world was concerned - except of course for the matter of his mathematical skills. His mathematical writings should be the most vulnerable part of him. Very few others had any interest in them. And none of those with interest could really understand what they meant. On the face of it they are ephemeral - opaque equations, derivations, and proofs. Mere words.
Yet, perversely, these ancient pre-doodles persist. He had asked someone to round up the publications in which they appeared and destroy them. But he doubted the promise. In any case, other mathematicians had seen them already. They would remember the content even if they did not understand it. They would pass on what they knew. The alchemists’ and Kabbalists’ greatest secret was how to hide what they had discovered. This is the secret he was bent on discovering.
But language always wins. It is madness to believe otherwise. The colonel’s sin is irrevocable. When he dies: “Someone will take charge of the macabre task of looking into the corners of this moldy home in search of his final work: a mathematical sketch of an invisible project. Then will come the meetings and a kind of mathematics-cum-mysticism, the posthumous labor of a group of professors-cum-Talmudic sect.” Language is invincible. It conquers even those who use it... no, especially those who use it.
August 30, 2020
Colonel Lágrimas was translated by Megan McDowell (also translator of Samanta Schweblin, Daniel Mella, Alejandro Zambra and Paulina Flores) from the 2015 original Colonel Lágrimas by the Costa Rican and Puerto Rican author Carlos Fonseca.
The eponymous protagonist of the novel is based loosely on the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck (1928-2014), a Fields Medal winning genius in 1966 (citation: Built on work of Weil and Zariski and effected fundamental advances in algebraic geometry. He introduced the idea of K-theory (the Grothendieck groups and rings). Revolutionized homological algebra in his celebrated ‘Tôhoku paper’.) but who from 1970 increasingly foresook mathematics for (low-key) political activism, sometimes combining the two (e.g. lecturing at Hanoi University in North Vietnam during the war). By the late 1980s his research had largely moved into mysticism and he lived the last 14 years of his life in seclusion is (as was found after his death) a small village in the Pyrenees.
Fonseca's Colonel - a self-assumed not military title - shares some of this story although much that is ficticious - e.g. Fonseca gives him a Mexican birthplace, a Russian artist for a mother (whose obsessive paintings of a Mexican volcano are based on the real-life artist Dr Atl) and an anarchist, killed in the Spanish civil war - for a father. The colonel is a self-assumed title, reflecting his political interest in conflicts (as with Grothendieck he does lecture in Vietnam):
He had heard, in those student get-togethers that drew out into the drunken dawn, of the colonel’s pagan poems, his bold orientalism, the political crossroads that had led him to put aside all that he had loved most—his passion for theory, for which he was venerated—in order to throw himself, chalk in hand, into a war that was not his, but would end up making him into what he had always wanted to be: the anonymous colonel of a thousand wars.
And the Colonel shares Grothendieck's Bernhardian obsessiveness, crafting an ambitious, encloypedic and destined never to be completed treatise:
What was it, or what did it become, that project put forth under the strange title Vertigos of the Century? Now, as we look at the archive and see the postcards piled up in their repetitive falsity, we are struck by the strange nature of a project that never took shape, or that, if it did, refused to show itself. Vertigos of the Century is a kind of kaleidoscope through which to look at the events of an age: if we rotate it skillfully, we see the Mexico earthquake of 1985, Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Fidel Castro’s triumphant entrance into Havana, the woes of an endless and unexpected strike. So far, the great events of history. If we turn it in the opposite direction, we see minimal events depicted: the beautiful legs of two women crossing a cobblestone street, the blackened face of a British miner, a solitary piece of gum falling onto spotless pavement. Vertigos of the Century is, in the end, among many other things, an almanac in which we read what we want to read.
In an interview the author explained:
The novel, which is related in the collective first person, begins:
The colonel must be looked at from up close. We have to approach him, get near enough to be a nuisance, near enough to see his slow-motion blinking—that face of his, youthful still, though tired, as he bends himself once more over the page. Now we will see him engaged in his true passion, meticulous over the paper that he touches with what seems a monk’s devotion, as if it were not his writing, but something sacred.
But that’s not enough. We must get closer, until we see his image dissolving into tiny points. Pixels of a latent madness. Pale-cream shades from which suddenly, as we focus once again, that face we know so well emerges: the curly locks falling in a cascade, the receding hairline, and his eyes burning with a passion we do not understand. It is this mortal passion we seek in all his gestures, in all his movements, until we see him broken down into a series of successive photographic frames.
This narrative device, which both zooms in on the fragments of the Colonel's life is inspired by the artist Chuck Close "and in particular with his idea that a portrait is ultimately composed of a multiplicity of smaller pixels. I was intrigued with how it suffices to break the face into these pixels and color them accordingly—and that this, when seen from an adequate distance, produces the hyperreal effect that has become his signature. So one day, I attempted to translate this approach into writing."
There are two ways of approaching the colonel. You can see him from a distance, his romantic profile like a tired genius who finally surrendered to the madness of endless projects. Easy to see him in this genius-like aspect, prisoner of dementia, a captive of the memory of his traumatic childhood. More difficult though to approach him to the point of belief, to where we believe in his projects. To see him up close in his more criminal profile: no longer a genius, no longer mad, but rather a man who waited, patiently, until the day came that would strip him of his talent so he could sit down to write what he always wanted.
Fonseca now lectures on Latin America Literature and Culture at Cambridge, based in Trinity College and went on to discuss the link with his childhood love of mathematics and this book:
Fonseca has also acknowledged a number of other literary sources, in addition to Bernhard and Piglia (who he knew personally) both international and those that relate to his background:
Overall - the ideas behind the novel warrant a strong 5 stars. It was however somewhat less successful for me as a reading experience - while an enthralling read, much of what the author is trying to do was only clear to me from interviews - 3.5 stars as a read. But a good 4 overall for the sheer ambition and I look forward to his new novel, also translated by McDowell, Natural History.
Sources:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/03...
https://www.musicandliterature.org/fe...
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d...
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/car...
The eponymous protagonist of the novel is based loosely on the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck (1928-2014), a Fields Medal winning genius in 1966 (citation: Built on work of Weil and Zariski and effected fundamental advances in algebraic geometry. He introduced the idea of K-theory (the Grothendieck groups and rings). Revolutionized homological algebra in his celebrated ‘Tôhoku paper’.) but who from 1970 increasingly foresook mathematics for (low-key) political activism, sometimes combining the two (e.g. lecturing at Hanoi University in North Vietnam during the war). By the late 1980s his research had largely moved into mysticism and he lived the last 14 years of his life in seclusion is (as was found after his death) a small village in the Pyrenees.
Fonseca's Colonel - a self-assumed not military title - shares some of this story although much that is ficticious - e.g. Fonseca gives him a Mexican birthplace, a Russian artist for a mother (whose obsessive paintings of a Mexican volcano are based on the real-life artist Dr Atl) and an anarchist, killed in the Spanish civil war - for a father. The colonel is a self-assumed title, reflecting his political interest in conflicts (as with Grothendieck he does lecture in Vietnam):
He had heard, in those student get-togethers that drew out into the drunken dawn, of the colonel’s pagan poems, his bold orientalism, the political crossroads that had led him to put aside all that he had loved most—his passion for theory, for which he was venerated—in order to throw himself, chalk in hand, into a war that was not his, but would end up making him into what he had always wanted to be: the anonymous colonel of a thousand wars.
And the Colonel shares Grothendieck's Bernhardian obsessiveness, crafting an ambitious, encloypedic and destined never to be completed treatise:
What was it, or what did it become, that project put forth under the strange title Vertigos of the Century? Now, as we look at the archive and see the postcards piled up in their repetitive falsity, we are struck by the strange nature of a project that never took shape, or that, if it did, refused to show itself. Vertigos of the Century is a kind of kaleidoscope through which to look at the events of an age: if we rotate it skillfully, we see the Mexico earthquake of 1985, Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Fidel Castro’s triumphant entrance into Havana, the woes of an endless and unexpected strike. So far, the great events of history. If we turn it in the opposite direction, we see minimal events depicted: the beautiful legs of two women crossing a cobblestone street, the blackened face of a British miner, a solitary piece of gum falling onto spotless pavement. Vertigos of the Century is, in the end, among many other things, an almanac in which we read what we want to read.
In an interview the author explained:
The protagonist of the novel, the colonel, belongs in fact to that strange sect of explorers of the negative which Enrique Vila-Matas has so well described in his book Bartebly and Co. Like Bartebly and like Alexander Grothendieck, upon whose life story the novel is based, the colonel decides one day to renounce the life of action in order to dedicate himself solely to the life of thought. I am fascinated by such characters: characters which one day decide to devote themselves to a conceptual project that might at first sight seem absurd, characters like the protagonist of Thomas Bernhard’s Correction. I am interested in sketching out how thought is also a type of action, perhaps the most beautiful and contemporary of them all. The only action that truly changes the world.
The novel, which is related in the collective first person, begins:
The colonel must be looked at from up close. We have to approach him, get near enough to be a nuisance, near enough to see his slow-motion blinking—that face of his, youthful still, though tired, as he bends himself once more over the page. Now we will see him engaged in his true passion, meticulous over the paper that he touches with what seems a monk’s devotion, as if it were not his writing, but something sacred.
But that’s not enough. We must get closer, until we see his image dissolving into tiny points. Pixels of a latent madness. Pale-cream shades from which suddenly, as we focus once again, that face we know so well emerges: the curly locks falling in a cascade, the receding hairline, and his eyes burning with a passion we do not understand. It is this mortal passion we seek in all his gestures, in all his movements, until we see him broken down into a series of successive photographic frames.
This narrative device, which both zooms in on the fragments of the Colonel's life is inspired by the artist Chuck Close "and in particular with his idea that a portrait is ultimately composed of a multiplicity of smaller pixels. I was intrigued with how it suffices to break the face into these pixels and color them accordingly—and that this, when seen from an adequate distance, produces the hyperreal effect that has become his signature. So one day, I attempted to translate this approach into writing."
There are two ways of approaching the colonel. You can see him from a distance, his romantic profile like a tired genius who finally surrendered to the madness of endless projects. Easy to see him in this genius-like aspect, prisoner of dementia, a captive of the memory of his traumatic childhood. More difficult though to approach him to the point of belief, to where we believe in his projects. To see him up close in his more criminal profile: no longer a genius, no longer mad, but rather a man who waited, patiently, until the day came that would strip him of his talent so he could sit down to write what he always wanted.
Fonseca now lectures on Latin America Literature and Culture at Cambridge, based in Trinity College and went on to discuss the link with his childhood love of mathematics and this book:
Q: The place where you teach, Cambridge’s Trinity College, calls to mind such names as Nabokov, Wittgenstein, Ramanujan, and of course Newton. All obsessives. Some tortured in their demented projects of total knowledge, more transcendental than universal … not unlike some of the characters in Colonel Lágrimas and Natural History. Could you see them walking past Porter’s Lodge at Trinity?
A: I like the mixture of scientists, writers, and philosophers. As you say, they all seem to be adamant about pursuing their fixations to the utmost limit. When I was fifteen, my dream was to be a mathematician. Srinivasa Ramanujan was my idol. I think what fascinated me about mathematicians was their capacity to provide models that seem to respond only to their highly capricious sense of beauty, but which nonetheless end up describing reality. This paradox always baffled me. In a way, they all seem to be trapped within what Wittgenstein would call “private languages”—projects that only they can understand, obsessions that guide their own private quests. That is what Bernhard understood so well in his depictions of Wittgenstein in books such as Correction, that meaning is something imposed by the passionate and, at first sight, nonsensical pursuit of an idea.
While discussing the history of the novel as genre, Ricardo Piglia used to say that Descartes’s Discourse on Method was the first modern novel because it traced “the passionate pursuit of an idea.” I like this way of mixing passions and ideas, vitality and thought. As you say, the characters of my novels belong to that tradition: They seem to give up everything in order to passionately pursue projects that might initially seem senseless. In doing so, they show that the meaning of the world is not something that we inherit, stable and given, but rather something each of us constructs actively by pursuing our individual obsessions and passions to the very end.
Fonseca has also acknowledged a number of other literary sources, in addition to Bernhard and Piglia (who he knew personally) both international and those that relate to his background:
In my case, being born in Costa Rica and raised in Puerto Rico, I like to think that perhaps a novel like Colonel Lágrimas is the strange offspring of the Puerto Rican baroque writing, on the one hand, and Costa Rican minimalism and experimentation, on the other. While writing the novel I kept thinking that the playful narrator had much to do with the voyeurist narrator in Luis Rafael Sánchez’s 1976 novel La guaracha del Macho Camacho, a novel that fascinates me due to its rhythm and narrative techniques. Meanwhile, I also kept thinking about Carmen Naranjo’s 1982 novel Diario de una multitud, an experimental novel that always reminds me of a set of Russian dolls
....
I guess, at least right now, the names in the main shelves are the following: Faulkner, Machado de Assis, Borges, Sebald, DeLillo, Lispector, Perec, Sarraute and Piglia. Then, next to them: Bernhard and Calvino. From each I have a particular memory, and perhaps my favorite is Faulkner, but with regards to this novel, I think the most important author was Machado de Assis whose Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (published in the UK as Epitaph of a Small Winner) is a fascinating inheritor to Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: a playful experiment in narration. I love the idea of thinking of Machado as a black nineteenth century Brazilian predecessor of Borges, another author that is always central, not only to me, but to most writers in general. Regarding Ricardo Piglia, there is no doubt I am highly indebted to him, not only for his generosity and his amazing lectures, but for his capacity to redefine the way we read nowadays. Very few people, if any, have reimagined the figure of the reader in such a radical manner.
Overall - the ideas behind the novel warrant a strong 5 stars. It was however somewhat less successful for me as a reading experience - while an enthralling read, much of what the author is trying to do was only clear to me from interviews - 3.5 stars as a read. But a good 4 overall for the sheer ambition and I look forward to his new novel, also translated by McDowell, Natural History.
Sources:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/03...
https://www.musicandliterature.org/fe...
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d...
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/car...
September 6, 2019
Ούτε ο συνταγματάρχης είχε που να κλάψει ούτε εγώ.
March 22, 2020
Este libro es malo. Muy malo. Tanto que me lleva preguntarme por qué se cree que Fonseca es una gran promesa costarripuertoriqueñense. La única respuesta que se me ocurre es porque no su novela nada tiene que ver ni con Costa Rica ni con Puerto Rico (la verdad, eso está bien). Posiblemente la otra respuesta es que ser mitad boricua y mitad tico, tener un doctorado, y ser ungido por Piglia lo hace interesante. Pero su modo es engreído, auto placentero, hippie new age. Un Fito Paez sin la creatividad del rosarino. No es ni Hernán Jiménez (no tengo tanto contra el realismo pipi como se podría creer). Jiménez, a diferencia de Fonseca, ocasionalmente entretiene. Así sea sin querer.
Coronel Lágrimas (claro ejemplo de la ropa del emperador) me recuerda, y no lo digo positivamente, a Auster en Travels in the Scriptorium. Es auto complaciente, casi masturbatorio. Confunde creatividad con hacer algo por hacerlo. Muestra poco para supuestamente generar un aire de misterio. Pero en realidad aburre.
Y molesta, pues parece que al autor no le interesan sus lectores.
Cargada de sin sentidos y non sequiturs (“una manía siempre es más visible si se dibuja sobre fondo blanco”), esta novela la escribió un autor regular que quiere aparentar ser un buen autor (¿dónde estás, Mikes?). Y su mercadeo lo ha logrado, parece. Me hace pensar en un Dan Brown logrando undir al Eco del Péndulo de Foucault. A un Franzen sintiéndose mejor que Wallace por salir en Oprah. A tantos proto Bolaño que hay hoy en día.
Las primeras treinta páginas debieron haberme prendido una alarma. Son poco más que un lento auto-placer que uno sospecha nunca llegará al clímax. Un pasaje que se realizó para demostrar que el autor leyó un par de libros de historia europea (no universal, como afirma la contraportada). Y que ha estado en Europa. Y que el Caribe no importa en el mundo, realmente.
Pero el lector lentamente comprende que las últimas 160 páginas más bien empeoran.
En inglés uno diría que Fonseca está “trying too hard.” Su obra es una galería donde la exposición es presentar cliché tras cliché. Aparenta involucrar al lector, hablando, en forma engreída siempre, en tercera persona. Esto empeora, no mejora, las cosas. “Nos limitamos a afirmar: Napoleón cruzó..”. “Nuestra misión: salvarla de los...” . “Digámoslo así: el coronel habita...” Pomposo, innecesario, masturbatorio.
¿Dije innecesario? Me recuerda a mis épocas universitarias cuando leía ensayos de jóvenes -hombres todos, por cierto- estudiantes de la facultad de ciencias sociales que querían sonar inteligentes y a la vez emocionar a quien lee, fracasando magistralmente en ambas intenciones. Muchos proto Jaques Sagot, si se quiere.
Es que, por lo más santo, por favor lean: “Junto a la cama, en una pequeña mesa de impoluto mármol, yacen dos libros sobre la luz sombrilla de una lámpara de porcelana”. Sa-got.
A veces parece no ser más que una versión descuento de un mal cuento del más risible (y eso es decir mucho) realismo mágico. Una obra new age que a la vez trata de venerar el boom y de distanciarse de él intentando europerizarse. Y logra ninguna de las dos. Como nuestro intrépido estudiante universitario. (¡No solo vos podés hablar en tercera, Fonseca!)
Eso, en sus buenos momentos. En sus malos momentos el libro parece ser un intento por ingresar al libro Guinness. No tanto por ser una historia sin pies ni cabeza sino por la cantidad de apariciones de las palabras “anacrónica”, “anacoreta”, “ermitaño” en una novela. O por el uso más frecuente de los dos puntos. Así, tal como suena.
Al final de la novela, el autor incluye una ficha bibliográfica. Entre otros apéndices, indica que su novela es un “delirio ficcional”. Pues, sí.
Por novelas como esta es que uno deja de leer literatura latinoamericana, coño.
Coronel Lágrimas (claro ejemplo de la ropa del emperador) me recuerda, y no lo digo positivamente, a Auster en Travels in the Scriptorium. Es auto complaciente, casi masturbatorio. Confunde creatividad con hacer algo por hacerlo. Muestra poco para supuestamente generar un aire de misterio. Pero en realidad aburre.
Y molesta, pues parece que al autor no le interesan sus lectores.
Cargada de sin sentidos y non sequiturs (“una manía siempre es más visible si se dibuja sobre fondo blanco”), esta novela la escribió un autor regular que quiere aparentar ser un buen autor (¿dónde estás, Mikes?). Y su mercadeo lo ha logrado, parece. Me hace pensar en un Dan Brown logrando undir al Eco del Péndulo de Foucault. A un Franzen sintiéndose mejor que Wallace por salir en Oprah. A tantos proto Bolaño que hay hoy en día.
Las primeras treinta páginas debieron haberme prendido una alarma. Son poco más que un lento auto-placer que uno sospecha nunca llegará al clímax. Un pasaje que se realizó para demostrar que el autor leyó un par de libros de historia europea (no universal, como afirma la contraportada). Y que ha estado en Europa. Y que el Caribe no importa en el mundo, realmente.
Pero el lector lentamente comprende que las últimas 160 páginas más bien empeoran.
En inglés uno diría que Fonseca está “trying too hard.” Su obra es una galería donde la exposición es presentar cliché tras cliché. Aparenta involucrar al lector, hablando, en forma engreída siempre, en tercera persona. Esto empeora, no mejora, las cosas. “Nos limitamos a afirmar: Napoleón cruzó..”. “Nuestra misión: salvarla de los...” . “Digámoslo así: el coronel habita...” Pomposo, innecesario, masturbatorio.
¿Dije innecesario? Me recuerda a mis épocas universitarias cuando leía ensayos de jóvenes -hombres todos, por cierto- estudiantes de la facultad de ciencias sociales que querían sonar inteligentes y a la vez emocionar a quien lee, fracasando magistralmente en ambas intenciones. Muchos proto Jaques Sagot, si se quiere.
Es que, por lo más santo, por favor lean: “Junto a la cama, en una pequeña mesa de impoluto mármol, yacen dos libros sobre la luz sombrilla de una lámpara de porcelana”. Sa-got.
A veces parece no ser más que una versión descuento de un mal cuento del más risible (y eso es decir mucho) realismo mágico. Una obra new age que a la vez trata de venerar el boom y de distanciarse de él intentando europerizarse. Y logra ninguna de las dos. Como nuestro intrépido estudiante universitario. (¡No solo vos podés hablar en tercera, Fonseca!)
Eso, en sus buenos momentos. En sus malos momentos el libro parece ser un intento por ingresar al libro Guinness. No tanto por ser una historia sin pies ni cabeza sino por la cantidad de apariciones de las palabras “anacrónica”, “anacoreta”, “ermitaño” en una novela. O por el uso más frecuente de los dos puntos. Así, tal como suena.
Al final de la novela, el autor incluye una ficha bibliográfica. Entre otros apéndices, indica que su novela es un “delirio ficcional”. Pues, sí.
Por novelas como esta es que uno deja de leer literatura latinoamericana, coño.
May 6, 2017
Intellectual masturbation. Would have been better off as a dissertation read by a small committee to spare the masses the trouble.
September 16, 2016
an ambitious, inspirited debut novel from costa rican-born, puerto rican-raised author carlos fonseca (suárez), colonel lágrimas (coronel lágrimas) is a fictionalized imagining of the twilight years in the life of reclusive mathematician alexander grothendieck (spent in the pyrenees) — and his final undertaking, the sweeping vertigos of the century project. fonseca writes impressively well and his lively, playful narrative is equal parts reflective philosophizing and delighting revelation. colonel lágrimas is far-reaching in its scope, covering a century of war, history, enigma, and personal fixation. while lacking a certain something, fonseca's debut is, nonetheless, a buoyant, curious, and admirable outing (though comparisons to borges, bolaño, and calvino [as offered in the marketing copy] are rather specious).
*translated from the spanish by megan mcdowell (zambra, meruane, schweblin, et al.)
did he love her, then? the colonel runs from his passion with the energy of a mime practicing faces in a mirror. so he did love her. let us assume he loved her until, as required in law and mathematics, it is proven otherwise. let us do right by this colonel out of time, this mime of a thousand faces who now again puts pen to paper only to retract it, incapable as he is of outlining the birth of his most archaic diva. let us do right by this abraham without his sarah, this hermit of solitary laughter who, it seems, was at least very close to love even if he didn't love, very close to an abstract passion even if he did not act, very close to salvation that moved away little by little in a nostalgic crab walk. in a sudden anxious blow, the realization has agitated his stomach. we hear the rumble of his guts, his anxious footsteps, and the closing of the bathroom door. just when we were beginning to unravel the thread of his passion, the colonel, crab of a thousand legs, decides to go hide in his last bastion of privacy.
*translated from the spanish by megan mcdowell (zambra, meruane, schweblin, et al.)
August 19, 2018
Apparently it is loosely based on the life of mathematician Alexander Grothendieck. (I had never heard of him & had to look him up on wikipedia, but then again, I'm not a mathematician.)
I felt like this book was similar to looking at a kaleidoscope. Lots of little bits, some pretty or nice, which sometimes seemed to form a cohesive whole & sometimes not. I am guessing there were some parts that zoomed straight past me & I didn't know enough to notice or note them. The book itself is not magical realism or surrealism, but you are examining a mind that is disintegrating so it feels a little bit like that...? I liked it well enough, but it also never truly pulled me into the story. I'm on the fence about this one.
I felt like this book was similar to looking at a kaleidoscope. Lots of little bits, some pretty or nice, which sometimes seemed to form a cohesive whole & sometimes not. I am guessing there were some parts that zoomed straight past me & I didn't know enough to notice or note them. The book itself is not magical realism or surrealism, but you are examining a mind that is disintegrating so it feels a little bit like that...? I liked it well enough, but it also never truly pulled me into the story. I'm on the fence about this one.
October 2, 2018
Nunca había leído a un costarriqueño. Me he dado a la tarea de encontrar por lo menos un libro que provenga de un autor que haya nacido en un país latinoamericano. Tras mucho buscar, me topé con Coronel lágrimas, publicado por mi querida Anagrama y al ver que se trataba de una historia que buscaba, valga la redundancia, cifrar la historia, supe que su lectura era indispensable.
Un anciano ermitaño se ha refugiado en los Pirineos para escribir la historia universal en clave íntima. Así, la historia se basa en el trazado de este secreto vital y la obsesión del protagonista por reducir el mundo en unas cuantas y pequeñas cosas. De esta manera, Coronel lágrimas se convierte en una ambiciosa novela que combina la enigmática vida del personaje con la historia política del siglo XX, que va desde Rusia y España, hasta México y las más lejanas islas caribeñas, abordadas por un hombre que va más allá de su tiempo, en una “sociedad condenada al capricho informático”.
Rara, Coronel lágrimas es una novela rara, extravagante. Incluso, de esas que amerita más de una lectura, pues mediante ecuaciones, el escritor arma la historia, con el fin de demostrar las formas en las que ciframos nuestras pasiones, transformando sus (nuestros) miedos en escritura. Mediante la Guerra Civil española, el México de los 20, la Segunda Guerra Mundial, lo ocurrido con Vietnam y un sinfín de cuestiones históricas más, Fonseca hace un recorrido metafórico por la conciencia del siglo pasado, marcado por el sinsentido, la ambivalencia entre recordar y olvidar, la presencia constante del pasado y la configuración de la historia.
Con 28 años (para cuando se publicaba el libro), Fonseca hace de Coronel lágrimas un relato perturbador y absorbente. Crea imágenes preciosas y cuenta historias por y para nosotros, que logran mostrar, como si fuera una película, para qué sirve la literatura, concluyendo que se estructura para entendernos como seres humanos, con el fin de creer, crecer y comprender el mundo. El escritor se vale de espejismos y de una escritura bellísima, compleja, llena de metáforas, para hacer de Coronel lágrimas un libro que no puede pasar desapercibido.
El autor une la miseria cotidiana y los grandes acontecimientos históricos con números y precisión matemática, ofreciendo mil y un caminos para la reflexión crítica y creativa. Su novela es un fascinante laberinto sin salida, donde somos piezas de un rompecabezas, que arma a un coronel romántico, melancólico y nostálgico que vive y ve de nuevo todo lo ocurrido, prescindiendo de lo obvio y lo mundano.
"Existe una belleza que consiste en dejarse enredar por la vida y seguirla hasta sus últimas consecuencias”, dice el coronel que ve hacia atrás intentando entender lo que ha pasado. Sin embargo, su vida es un completo enigma, pues todo lo que se puede decir de ella son datos históricos, lo cual abre un abanico de interpretaciones sobre el significado del libro. Aún así, logra cerrar con una fórmula armoniosa que demuestra que, aunque todo cambia, los datos permanecen ahí, pues el coronel podrá olvidarlo todo…. Pero nunca la ecuación que representa ese todo. En consecuencia, su novela se configura en una especie de delirio, en una propuesta arriesgada que reivindica a ese lector crítico que ha quedado en el olvido y que en Coronel Lágrimas necesita unir cabos para construir el sentido mientras lee.
Por ello, los lectores de una novela como Coronel lágrima solo será aquellos dispuestos a enfrentarse a algo fuera de lo común. En definitiva, un libro único para lectores únicos, que me ha dejado sin palabras y que se va a mis favoritos de este año.
http://mariana-is-reading.blogspot.co...
Un anciano ermitaño se ha refugiado en los Pirineos para escribir la historia universal en clave íntima. Así, la historia se basa en el trazado de este secreto vital y la obsesión del protagonista por reducir el mundo en unas cuantas y pequeñas cosas. De esta manera, Coronel lágrimas se convierte en una ambiciosa novela que combina la enigmática vida del personaje con la historia política del siglo XX, que va desde Rusia y España, hasta México y las más lejanas islas caribeñas, abordadas por un hombre que va más allá de su tiempo, en una “sociedad condenada al capricho informático”.
Rara, Coronel lágrimas es una novela rara, extravagante. Incluso, de esas que amerita más de una lectura, pues mediante ecuaciones, el escritor arma la historia, con el fin de demostrar las formas en las que ciframos nuestras pasiones, transformando sus (nuestros) miedos en escritura. Mediante la Guerra Civil española, el México de los 20, la Segunda Guerra Mundial, lo ocurrido con Vietnam y un sinfín de cuestiones históricas más, Fonseca hace un recorrido metafórico por la conciencia del siglo pasado, marcado por el sinsentido, la ambivalencia entre recordar y olvidar, la presencia constante del pasado y la configuración de la historia.
Con 28 años (para cuando se publicaba el libro), Fonseca hace de Coronel lágrimas un relato perturbador y absorbente. Crea imágenes preciosas y cuenta historias por y para nosotros, que logran mostrar, como si fuera una película, para qué sirve la literatura, concluyendo que se estructura para entendernos como seres humanos, con el fin de creer, crecer y comprender el mundo. El escritor se vale de espejismos y de una escritura bellísima, compleja, llena de metáforas, para hacer de Coronel lágrimas un libro que no puede pasar desapercibido.
El autor une la miseria cotidiana y los grandes acontecimientos históricos con números y precisión matemática, ofreciendo mil y un caminos para la reflexión crítica y creativa. Su novela es un fascinante laberinto sin salida, donde somos piezas de un rompecabezas, que arma a un coronel romántico, melancólico y nostálgico que vive y ve de nuevo todo lo ocurrido, prescindiendo de lo obvio y lo mundano.
"Existe una belleza que consiste en dejarse enredar por la vida y seguirla hasta sus últimas consecuencias”, dice el coronel que ve hacia atrás intentando entender lo que ha pasado. Sin embargo, su vida es un completo enigma, pues todo lo que se puede decir de ella son datos históricos, lo cual abre un abanico de interpretaciones sobre el significado del libro. Aún así, logra cerrar con una fórmula armoniosa que demuestra que, aunque todo cambia, los datos permanecen ahí, pues el coronel podrá olvidarlo todo…. Pero nunca la ecuación que representa ese todo. En consecuencia, su novela se configura en una especie de delirio, en una propuesta arriesgada que reivindica a ese lector crítico que ha quedado en el olvido y que en Coronel Lágrimas necesita unir cabos para construir el sentido mientras lee.
Por ello, los lectores de una novela como Coronel lágrima solo será aquellos dispuestos a enfrentarse a algo fuera de lo común. En definitiva, un libro único para lectores únicos, que me ha dejado sin palabras y que se va a mis favoritos de este año.
http://mariana-is-reading.blogspot.co...
July 5, 2017
This book is great fun. Another example of a young Latin American writer tackling weightier subjects in a complex, original way that works even though when you try to describe it, you might well think it wouldn't.
My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2017/07/05/a-...
My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2017/07/05/a-...
March 21, 2015
Fascinante narración cinematográfica sobre la vida privada de un matemático ermitaño que intenta reescribir la historia tomando como puntos cardinales aquello que todavía retumba después de una vida dedicada a la investigación matemática: guerras y divas.
Al igual que el Coronel, quien propone un nueva forma de compromiso político que parece ser absurdo a priori, Carlos Fonseca le da una nueva forma a la novela política en la cual la voz narrativa nos dirige (a los lectores, en plural, o mejor dicho, a los espectadores, a la audiencia) a acercarnos de cerca a la vida privada del protagonista, a observar sus placeres, sus obsesiones, sus miedos, sus contradicciones, sus "doodles" y su relación con su ex colega Maximiliano, hasta llegar a comprender que el amor mas honesto y el compromiso político mas radical se esconde entre la fuerza y la nostalgia o entre el espanto y la locura de los símbolos de una ecuación escrita sobre pizarras de guerra.
Al igual que el Coronel, quien propone un nueva forma de compromiso político que parece ser absurdo a priori, Carlos Fonseca le da una nueva forma a la novela política en la cual la voz narrativa nos dirige (a los lectores, en plural, o mejor dicho, a los espectadores, a la audiencia) a acercarnos de cerca a la vida privada del protagonista, a observar sus placeres, sus obsesiones, sus miedos, sus contradicciones, sus "doodles" y su relación con su ex colega Maximiliano, hasta llegar a comprender que el amor mas honesto y el compromiso político mas radical se esconde entre la fuerza y la nostalgia o entre el espanto y la locura de los símbolos de una ecuación escrita sobre pizarras de guerra.
May 19, 2016
El trabajo de Fonseca en Coronel Lágrimas es muy interesante. En cierta medida, supera la línea de delimitación de la narrativa tradicional clásica, aristotélica, al no mostrar de manera clara y distinta una trama con acción, clímax, superación del problema planteado y conclusión.
La fortaleza de la obra de este joven escritor se encuentra, a mi juicio, en dos elementos sin los cuales, de otro modo, estaríamos leyendo un diario al que le hacen falta ciertas páginas: primero, el narrador; segundo, la arquitectura misma de la novela.
El narrador escogido por Fonseca es un ser observador, una especie de mezcla entre el narrador omnisciente y el narrador participante. Como un espectro, nuestro segundo personaje principal mira la vida del Coronel desde la intimidad (sin sacrificar la distancia) y con una voz picaresca nos revela el negativo de la vida del Coronel. La vida misma del sabio en retiro es una colección de fotografías examinadas con lupa. El narrador se infiltra en la casa, en el ser del Coronel, y nos da sus impresiones. Pese a darnos la impresión de saberlo todo, su mismo tono no es de fiar. Esta dualidad está muy bien lograda en el texto y hace que la novela sea un experimento narrativo muy valioso.
La manera en la que la novela está construida también es digna de apreciación. A veces parece dispersa, difusa, pero sigue conservando un sentido lógico. Lo que la colección de impresiones de la vida del Coronel nos muestra al final es un cuadro completo de sus sentimientos y de sus frustraciones y, gracias a una prosa muy fluida y bonita, este cuadro toma forma en las páginas finales de la novela. En medio de su desespero, en un acto final casi teatral, el Coronel se para frente a su televisor a hacer un discurso que, al igual que el resto de vivencias de su vida, es un episodio que no concluye, sino que flota en la pizarra. Parece que el único elemento finito de la vida del Coronel es la misteriosa ecuación que surge en la narración en ciertos puntos, como para recordarle al personaje principal que, al final, el telón se cierra.
Considero, en conclusión, que la ópera prima de Carlos Fonseca es un texto muy bien logrado en términos estéticos y narrativos.
La fortaleza de la obra de este joven escritor se encuentra, a mi juicio, en dos elementos sin los cuales, de otro modo, estaríamos leyendo un diario al que le hacen falta ciertas páginas: primero, el narrador; segundo, la arquitectura misma de la novela.
El narrador escogido por Fonseca es un ser observador, una especie de mezcla entre el narrador omnisciente y el narrador participante. Como un espectro, nuestro segundo personaje principal mira la vida del Coronel desde la intimidad (sin sacrificar la distancia) y con una voz picaresca nos revela el negativo de la vida del Coronel. La vida misma del sabio en retiro es una colección de fotografías examinadas con lupa. El narrador se infiltra en la casa, en el ser del Coronel, y nos da sus impresiones. Pese a darnos la impresión de saberlo todo, su mismo tono no es de fiar. Esta dualidad está muy bien lograda en el texto y hace que la novela sea un experimento narrativo muy valioso.
La manera en la que la novela está construida también es digna de apreciación. A veces parece dispersa, difusa, pero sigue conservando un sentido lógico. Lo que la colección de impresiones de la vida del Coronel nos muestra al final es un cuadro completo de sus sentimientos y de sus frustraciones y, gracias a una prosa muy fluida y bonita, este cuadro toma forma en las páginas finales de la novela. En medio de su desespero, en un acto final casi teatral, el Coronel se para frente a su televisor a hacer un discurso que, al igual que el resto de vivencias de su vida, es un episodio que no concluye, sino que flota en la pizarra. Parece que el único elemento finito de la vida del Coronel es la misteriosa ecuación que surge en la narración en ciertos puntos, como para recordarle al personaje principal que, al final, el telón se cierra.
Considero, en conclusión, que la ópera prima de Carlos Fonseca es un texto muy bien logrado en términos estéticos y narrativos.
March 21, 2016
La del Coronel es una de las travesías más brillantes de los últimos años, un proyecto que a la vez funciona a distintos niveles: biografía, crónica, ensayo estilístico, histórico y político. La potencia del lenguaje nos recuerda al "Papyrus" de Osdany Morales y plantea un necesario respiro en un panorama contaminado por la Alt-Lit, Tao Lin y las narraciones con tweets o conversaciones de whatsapp.
October 26, 2016
A delightful, metafictional read that reminded me a lot of Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf as much as it did any of the greats mentioned in the marketing copy (Borges, Calvino, etc.), read in advance of moderating Fonseca's panel at the Texas Book Festival.
November 3, 2016
Decadent and gorgeous. A lovingly detailed exploration of a day in the life of a self-styled recluse and mathematical genius.
April 15, 2017
Zeer intrigerend
August 2, 2019
Me parece que esta novela bien pudo haber sido mejor como un cuento de 20 páginas.
La premisa me pareció atractiva, pero no me gustó en general el libro por:
1) El narrador me entusiasmó el inicio (habla en 1era persona del plural), se me hizo elocuente y hace que el lector sea una especie de acompañante en los sucesos, peroooo, cae en el tedio rápidamente. Se convierte innecesario, como una voz falsa de un documental aburrido que no me deja ver la psicología del personaje (a pesar de que el objetivo del libro es precisamente adentrarse en una mente que se fragmenta más y más).
2) A ratos me pareció que se abrían datos o hilos narrativos que no tenían buen sustento. Parecían caprichos del autor, demostraciones de su saberes pero sin justificación en la narrativa.
3) La única expresión matemática que sale, está mal escrita.
4) Por favor díganle a Fonseca que encuentre un sinónimo de "anacrónico".
¿Para qué decir que está basada en la vida de Alexander Grothendieck? Los aspectos medulares del personaje (orfandad, ermitañismo, aislamiento, falta de patria) que comparte con Grothendieck, son genéricos, al menos eso me parece a mí.
En fin, buena premisa pero muy mal argumento narrativo.
El placer de escribir una reseña honesta...
La premisa me pareció atractiva, pero no me gustó en general el libro por:
1) El narrador me entusiasmó el inicio (habla en 1era persona del plural), se me hizo elocuente y hace que el lector sea una especie de acompañante en los sucesos, peroooo, cae en el tedio rápidamente. Se convierte innecesario, como una voz falsa de un documental aburrido que no me deja ver la psicología del personaje (a pesar de que el objetivo del libro es precisamente adentrarse en una mente que se fragmenta más y más).
2) A ratos me pareció que se abrían datos o hilos narrativos que no tenían buen sustento. Parecían caprichos del autor, demostraciones de su saberes pero sin justificación en la narrativa.
3) La única expresión matemática que sale, está mal escrita.
4) Por favor díganle a Fonseca que encuentre un sinónimo de "anacrónico".
¿Para qué decir que está basada en la vida de Alexander Grothendieck? Los aspectos medulares del personaje (orfandad, ermitañismo, aislamiento, falta de patria) que comparte con Grothendieck, son genéricos, al menos eso me parece a mí.
En fin, buena premisa pero muy mal argumento narrativo.
El placer de escribir una reseña honesta...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2020
(La cantidad de reseñas pendientes ha empezado a hacer mella en mi tranquilidad, y el problema es que no consigo sacar adelante las fuerzas para reseñar de verdad. Sea entonces este un ejercicio epigramático, para presentar en brevedad este y otros textos. Va)
(Epigrama, 2020)
En este libro se encuentro la búsqueda de un viejo por reescribir el pasado para olvidar la cobardía de no haber seguido el amor. A los Alpes de su monomanía entramos con ojos documentales, invisibles espías de su rutina golosa y su escritura que, inocua, no consigue modificar lo ocurrido.
(Epigrama, 2020)
En este libro se encuentro la búsqueda de un viejo por reescribir el pasado para olvidar la cobardía de no haber seguido el amor. A los Alpes de su monomanía entramos con ojos documentales, invisibles espías de su rutina golosa y su escritura que, inocua, no consigue modificar lo ocurrido.
September 15, 2022
Demasiados anacoreta.
January 23, 2017
This book was puzzling for me. Highly complex, with a ton of sophisticated cultural references and a format of unraveling the story that was entertaining as all mysteries are but frustratingly oblique. The book is written from the perspective of an omniscient, all seeing team of researchers who hop around following the Colonels every move and are constantly checking their own biases in discussing the Colonel, his life, and his sad and lonely end. It's a strange conglomerated picture of aging, passion and regret, but I enjoyed it for the insightful writing, the free ranging style, the imaginative quasi biographical/fantastical genre and most of all the realism on how people often lead their lives to ends that they regret.
October 17, 2015
Excelente novela escrita en la tradición de Georges Perec o de Italo Calvino como un rompecabezas que poco a poco el lector va reconstruyendo hasta quedarse con la imagen total. Requiere valentía la apuesta y este muchacho se las juega. A pesar de utilizar un lenguaje distinto, menos minimalista, ubicaría esta novela en relación a ciertos poéticas contemporáneas como las de Valeria Luiselli y Alejandro Zambra. Intentos de repensar la forma de la novela. Y bueno, a esperar una segunda novela, que sabemos ahí está la prueba.
October 24, 2023
No me gusta dejar de leer ningún libro antes de terminarlo, pero con este tuve que hacerlo. No pude entrar en el ritmo de lo que pasaba y no entendí. He leido otro libro de este escritor y me encantó. Trataré otra vez en el futuro.
Regresé a leer el libro y lo terminé. Me gustaron algunas de las secciones, pero no pude tener un sentido claro de su totalidad. Me pareció que el lenguaje es presuntuoso y complicado solo con el proposito de ser complicado.
Realmente no me gustó. Había leído otro libro de Fonseca, pero este me pareció malo.
Regresé a leer el libro y lo terminé. Me gustaron algunas de las secciones, pero no pude tener un sentido claro de su totalidad. Me pareció que el lenguaje es presuntuoso y complicado solo con el proposito de ser complicado.
Realmente no me gustó. Había leído otro libro de Fonseca, pero este me pareció malo.
February 24, 2025
Un estilo narrativo que te confunde de las maneras más mágicas. La aventura casi cinematográfica de perderse con este narrador testigo fue fascinante. La carátula del libro es sumamente reveladora sobre la trama. Al final, lo que parecen pensamientos desorganizados de un protagonista obsesionado con su arte matemático/afectivo en realidad es la representación literaria de un cuarto con muchos espejos.
¡ Un orgullo tico boricua !
¡ Un orgullo tico boricua !
May 11, 2023
Un aburrimiento total... Sólo una tercera persona, un narrador invisible, narrando la ¿vida? de un personaje sin ninguna importancia. Tuve la mala idea de leerlo completo por si en algún momento mejoraba y nada... y lo peor es que el personaje es absolutamente intrascendente. Le puse 2 estrellas solamente porque el escritor trató de poner talento en una ¿historia? absolutamente intrascendente.
November 23, 2017
Uneven though interesting and engaging read. I enjoyed how the image of a man alone with his memories emerged from a haze only to declare that his memory was unclear itself. I would agree with fellow Goodreads member, Jeremy that the comparisons to Borges, Bolaño and Calvino are specious.
April 3, 2020
I liked the idea of the book but it's scattered narrative style becomes very grating. To me it lost the story about halfway through and became very repetitive. An ok read but unlikely to stick with me
August 22, 2018
An allegorical pseudobiography with dizzying prose. I wish I knew what that equation meant, though.
October 18, 2020
It left absolutely no impression on me.
September 3, 2020
In a word, brilliant.
January 31, 2021
Perhaps in keeping with the style of the book itself I just have a random collection of things I highlighted. I haven't threaded everything together. Unsurprisingly. But I did latch on to certain bits, seemingly by chance:
-I like the wearing of personalities like masks concept, though I was wondering who he is wearing the masks for. I think the answer is no one. But I could be wrong, because I admit that I didn't entirely piece together all parts such that I could be confident.
-I like the packing of his life into postcards. I actually initially had mixed feelings; I like postcards, a lot, and I like preserving memories but I did get pretty scared at the thought of leaving the earth with postcards being the only traces of you left. But I suppose as long as one person (Maximillion) reads them, that's alright too.
-I like "caffeine for the coffee: a caffeinated century chugging coffee to make it through the long nights" ☕ (pretty much just because I like coffee but also because I confess to my fair share of frenzied attempts at academia while assuming that coffee will fix all problems).
-I like "Yes, he loved her. This affirmation has consequences". And of course, Cayetana Boamante's little sequence was the best part for me.
-I am intrigued by this idea of someone going to war suddenly and with so little explanation that you wonder whether they were disrupting boredom. I have actually wondered myself whether people do just randomly disrupt their lives, due to some restlessness that was in abeyance, or even just to see what happens. Actually I have rather wondered about what it is that keeps people from doing that. Comfort? Societal judgement? Fear of losing the first, and of getting the second? Now I'm just rambling.
-I felt the colonel's gluttony did bring the tenderness that later in the text it is suggested we should feel for him.
-I like the wearing of personalities like masks concept, though I was wondering who he is wearing the masks for. I think the answer is no one. But I could be wrong, because I admit that I didn't entirely piece together all parts such that I could be confident.
-I like the packing of his life into postcards. I actually initially had mixed feelings; I like postcards, a lot, and I like preserving memories but I did get pretty scared at the thought of leaving the earth with postcards being the only traces of you left. But I suppose as long as one person (Maximillion) reads them, that's alright too.
-I like "caffeine for the coffee: a caffeinated century chugging coffee to make it through the long nights" ☕ (pretty much just because I like coffee but also because I confess to my fair share of frenzied attempts at academia while assuming that coffee will fix all problems).
-I like "Yes, he loved her. This affirmation has consequences". And of course, Cayetana Boamante's little sequence was the best part for me.
-I am intrigued by this idea of someone going to war suddenly and with so little explanation that you wonder whether they were disrupting boredom. I have actually wondered myself whether people do just randomly disrupt their lives, due to some restlessness that was in abeyance, or even just to see what happens. Actually I have rather wondered about what it is that keeps people from doing that. Comfort? Societal judgement? Fear of losing the first, and of getting the second? Now I'm just rambling.
-I felt the colonel's gluttony did bring the tenderness that later in the text it is suggested we should feel for him.
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