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Feb 17, 2021 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: setting-south-america, translated-fiction, fantasy, short-stories

Gallardo was a well-known Argentine literary figure of her day (the 1960s and 70s), writing for newspapers and magazines, as well as five novels, some children's books, and this 1977 collection of short stories. It's an unusual collection, consisting of 27 slashes of 1-3 page microfiction, maybe 9-10 slightly longer brief pieces, and six stories that are at least ten pages deep. I'm not clear if these were all written roughly at the same time, or if they represent a collection of her short work Gallardo was a well-known Argentine literary figure of her day (the 1960s and 70s), writing for newspapers and magazines, as well as five novels, some children's books, and this 1977 collection of short stories. It's an unusual collection, consisting of 27 slashes of 1-3 page microfiction, maybe 9-10 slightly longer brief pieces, and six stories that are at least ten pages deep. I'm not clear if these were all written roughly at the same time, or if they represent a collection of her short work across the previous decades. They are grouped into eight sets of themes, for example the seven stories of "In the Garden" feature animals as characters, and the three stories in "Trains" revolve around trains.

The title is apt, as there is an ephemerality to much of the work -- fragementary glimpses at a character, animal, landscape. This is especially true of the microfictions, which ooze with a certain lyrical flavor of prose, and yet disappear from the mind as soon as you move on to the next one. For me, the longer stories were the ones that really resonated, and many of them had a quality that might be described as magical realism, supernatural, or science fiction, depending on one's perspective. A few that could be called gothic horror, as the final sentence produces a revelation of utter darkness.

The book opens with "On the Mountain" in which a soldier falls from a mountain path and is rescued by a strange hermit living in a cave -- weird things happen.. In "Things Happen", a retired old man discovers that his house and land have separated from land and become a floating island, and that the ocean is steadily eating away at his prize garden. In "White Glory" a prize English racehorse is sold to Argentina and escapes to the pampas when a train derails. "Cristobal the Giant" is about a huge warrior who seeks to serve the most powerful leader in the land, leading him through a procession of masters, concluding with the Devil and then a tired friar. The book ends with "A Loner" -- about a middle-aged bachelor who finds friendship late in life when his routine is upset by the closure of his lunchtime restaurant.

I can't say that I found Gallardo's style entirely to my taste, but it's definitely distinctive. Readers interested in 20th-century South American fiction should definitely give it a shot, as I imagine there are many connections to be made with the work of her Argentine compatriots (Silvina Ocampo, Julio Cortazar, Borges, etc.). However, perhaps the best way to approach this book is to read one story a day and let it drift through the mind and settle before moving ahead to taste the next one. ...more

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Apr 23, 2019 Luis marked it as to-read

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Around the World in 80 Books