I had “just” finished a César Aira (b. 1949) novel in late January, but here I am having read another. I finished The Literary Conference last night. I cannot help it; I find these strange little novels utterly enticing and, I guess, addictive. They are unique and fill this odd niche sort of space. I have no idea regarding the dates of publishing for this book. According to the front matter of the book in front of me, the novella was originally published in 2006 as El congreso de literatura. I am not going to lie – on Wikipedia [the Source of Truth and Wisdom] this is listed as being published in 1997. It does feel like an earlier work by Aira (I say as if I am an Aira-expert). My edition is the New Directions paperback with cover art by Rodrigo Corral, translated by Katherine Silver.
The main thing that I love about the Aira novels, and his writing style, is his ability to very subtly mix reality and fiction. I have read somewhere that he has a particular writing process involving cafés in the morning. He does not seem to agonize over his writing, either. In other words, once written he does not revise and edit endlessly. I do not think he even communicates with publishers or translators unless truly necessary. Now, I want to say here that this is definitely a privilege because most publishers and translators do not “allow” writers this kind of treatment. Overall, Aira does have a touch of elitistm about him; this does not bother me. Anyway, short-form novellas work for him. He seems slightly annoyed when having to put his writing into a category. Is it poetry? Fairy tales? Allegory? Autobiographical? It is what it is, I think, and our desperate obsession with pigeon-holing things makes readers uncomfortable when thinking about an Aira “novel.”
Until now, I have been drawing a portrait of a character who represents me in more or less fair and realistic – even if partial – terms. Until now, he could have been taken for a cold, clear-headed scientist writing a well-reasoned memoir in which even emotions take on an icy edge. . . To complete the portrait, though, we would need to paint in a background of passion, so alive and excessive that it makes the rest tremble.
It would be counterproductive to go into too many details, so I won’t. I know myself and I know that the triumph of my false modesty when I sit down to write would translate into such absurd fairy tales that I don’t know where it would end up. — pg 43
Is Aira being tongue-in-cheek? Because factually, this book’s “storyline” is a dizzying absurd tale that no, I do not think even the most seasoned reader would predict. When Aira uses the pronoun I, which I is he speaking of? The character César? The writer César? Or yet another, developing, César? Decide however you like – when I am reading Aira and have these sorts of pauses and questions, when I feel the story has moved beyond what I find clear, I just think of Aira having a coffee at a table in a café in the early morning and just letting his pen tell the story while he pays a small amount of attention to the activity on the downtown streets around him. Writing like that, an author does not really agonize over the problems of Identity and Self. So what if the plot is veering around?
Hence the subtle shift from reality to fiction – hanging around on the line of each, which apparently, runs right through the café our author is sipping beverages at. Speaking of “lines” – this is precisely the apropos moment to insert the wild side-story of the Macuto Line – a old pirate “cable” that runs around the lagoon by the Caribbean Sea that leads to treasure. No, this is not real – its part of Aira’s deadpan storytelling that makes the reader unsure what is real and historical and what is just some dip into some absurd idea he had at the café table.
Lines and translations. Those are, I think, Aira’s starting points in this little work. Maybe he is following these lines and translations through the character, César, whom the author has made into a mad scientist. What do the lines and translations symbolize or what is the author trying to show us? I feel like he is just having a fun time writing and seeing where things go.
Now, the actual storyline is a bit odd (no kidding, right?). I mean we have this mad scientist who is ALSO a literary author. He is going to a literary conference in Venezuela where they are staging one of his plays. His viewing of his own play, by the way, has a very unique feel to it and probably someone should be writing an essay just on that segment. Anyway, the mad scientist is cloning Carlos Fuentes – and his great attempt becomes a huge disaster. When this happens in this little novel, it is one of the most outrageous, but deadpan, moments I have ever read. The little novella is getting too introspective and esoteric and then suddenly – a catastrophe that you could never have guessed! Its awesome. And then when the explanation for what is happening is given, it is laugh aloud, slap your thigh, giggle for awhile legit funny.
The most quoted lines of this whole story are these; and I would never not join the crowd in once again quoting them:
Only through minimalism is it possible to achieve the asymmetry that for me is the flower of art; complications inevitably form heavy symmetries, which are vulgar and overwrought.
But my mania – to be constantly adding things, episodes, characters, paragraphs, to be constantly veering off course, branching out – is fatal. It must be due to insecurity, fear that the basics are not enough, so I have to keep adding more and more adornment until I achieve a kind of surrealist rococo, which exasperates me more than it does anybody else. – pg. 59
Yes, I am sure this aggravating to the author Aira. It is also, probably, why he does not revise much and just sends his writing away as fast as reasonably possible without wanting to linger over it and return to it. However, this sort of “mania” as he calls it, mixed with that minimalism, is the very thing that brings so much delight and enjoyment to us his readers.
This is not an easy novel to read. On the other hand, the prose is straightforward and uncomplicated. Aira does not sound obnoxious. He has this matter-of-fact delivery that is so engaging when contrasted with the absurd chaos his tales run to. Recommended for strong readers.
4 stars
Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny (1937 – 1995) was first published in 1979. I had heard it can be a difficult read due to its structure and style. I would agree with that, but that sort of stuff works out at least midway through the novel. The problem is that, at best, I can describe this novel as “interesting” when there is so much about it that should have developed into awesome and tremendous.
Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block (b. 1938) was first published in 1977. It is the first in his series that stars Bernie Rhodenbarr. As Block tells it, the story was written during a time when he was undergoing a rough time as a writer, etc. I think the story is that he was moving around the country from NYC to various points and finally he finished the thing in Greenville, SC. At that time, Block did not anticipate writing other Bernie Rhodenbarr stories. (I think there are now thirteen in this series.)
I am very happily plowing through the stacks and shelves around my home lately. I have been reading, of course, heavy and tiring things like Foucault’s lectures (biopower) and a book on Mongolian warfare (invasions). Oh, also a really good book on growing and using hostas. Lately, I have been trying to read for quantity and mainly just very light, easy-breezy reads. I have not felt too much like some intricate tome of grand seriousness.
Over the weekend I finished The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt (1935). The novel was first published in 1994 and is the first in the Academy series. There is a long gap between this novel and the next in the series, so I am not fully convinced this book was supposed to be a series. The second novel, Deepsix, was published in 2001 and the last few pages of The Engines of God really seem like they are finalizing and there is no further except in the imagination of readers. I read the ACE edition with cover art by Bob Eggleton.
I read this novel during these days because of silly reasons: I wanted to challenge myself to get one more book read in January. So I purposely selected a shorter, speedy novel. Suffice it to say, I did not have any high expectations of the novel and perhaps that is the best way to read all novels. The Bormann Testament by Jack Higgins (1929 – 2022) was originally published in 1962 as The Testament of Caspar Schultz. The Bormann Testament is the retitled version republished in 2006. Higgins has a brief note at the start of the book that explains this. Allegedly, in the early 60s, it was not a legally/politically smart thing to allude to Martin Bormann (1900 – 1945), but this 2006 version reasserted the desired title and “a bit more” content. This is also one of Higgins’ earlier novels, maybe his sixth overall, I think.
The fifth book I have finished this January is Reliquary by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. It was published in 1997 and is the direct sequel to Relic, which I wrote 
In the 1950s, Frederik Pohl (1919 – 2013) edited collections of new science fiction stories. Pohl, an established author and familiar to the writing circles, managed to get the VIPs and MVPs of the science fiction world to include in these anthologies. I read the first anthology and enjoyed it immensely. That edition has a story by Clifford D. Simak (1904 – 1988) that still hammers at my soul from time to time. My favorite story in this second anthology is probably the one by Algis Budrys. I really ought to have read this anthology much sooner after reading the first because these are such high quality collections. Both the first and this second anthology were published in 1953. I read the Ballantine Books editions for both.
The Hal Clement story, Critical Factor, is quite good, however some readers might struggle through it. Its hard science and Clement makes the reader think. There is something esoteric and intangible about how Clement anthropomorphizes and develops characters that you always would know if its his story or not. His characters are always so thoughtful and almost always seem to have tendencies to be better and move toward the good. Anyway, it is not an easy read because Clement’s science meets up with his imagination and honestly, it is so beyond the human experience that its tough to figure out what the heck the characters are or are trying to do. I dropped a star in my rating because Clement did not fully immerse the reader because he had to make the characters use nouns/language that would be a referent for the reader, but at the same time, the characters would have zero referent for those words and therefore would not really use them. I certainly do not have a way around this, but it feels awkward. After you finish this story, a reader might not fully understand it, but I think they know they read a helluva story. Clement’s imagination was extreme, this is mighty.
is the story for the eighth episode of the third season of The Twilight Zone (1961). I do not know if I have seen that or not. The story did not feel familiar when I read it, so I want to say I probably have not seen the episode. Anyway, this is probably a must-read story for science fiction, horror, fiction fans. Its not super long, there is really no reason why readers cannot pick this up and get through it. The things that make it so good are that the frustration, fear, and immensity of the situation are palpable. These sensations are presented with an economy of words, an undercurrent of sympathy, and a subtle huge concept lurking throughout. Peaksville… population 46. A young boy with some major impact named Anthony is a massive creation by Bixby and even though the story might seem vaguely unsurprising, it is still disconcerting and disturbing. In other words, this story, like so many in this book, is good for the reader’s brain. Readers enjoy, as much as that makes sense, this harrowing tale.
I am pleased to have started 2023 with reading a vintage science fiction novel. I read Meeting at Infinity by John Brunner (1934 – 1995). This novel was first published in 1961. I read the ACE edition with cover art by John Schoenherr. The book begins with a short prologue and has twenty-one chapters.
There are also these rho-function elements. Apparently, they are part of imported technology from one of the portals? The main sidestory involving a woman named Allyn Vage is utterly about these rho-function things. Now, toward the end of the novel, there is some attempt to explain what all of this is about, but honestly, its very much left up to the reader. Its very difficult for an author to successfully utilize hard science and yet not fully work them out. Brunner takes the somewhat slack avenue of frequently saying that the characters themselves do not really understand how the technology works. Its okay to say so, but then do not make the technology such a pivotal element of the novel.
AQ's Reviews 