The Literary Conference & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

The Literary Conference (translated by Katherine Silver) & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (translated by Chris Andrews) - by César Aira
"In my case nothing returns, everything races forward, savagely being pushed from behind by what keeps coming through that accursed valve. This image, brought to its peak of maturation in my vertiginous reflections, revealed to me the path of the solution, which I forcefully put into practice whenever I have time and feel like it. The solution is none other than the greatly overused (by me) "escape forward.""

Having started a long translated novel and lost interest as it seemed opaque to me (perhaps the original, perhaps the translation, perhaps just me) I decided that I would reread the César Aira novellas I had read and enjoyed last year but never made it to a blog post apart from a listing in my Books of the Year. This would allow me to contribute something further to SpanishLitMonth..

I started with The Literary Conference as it was the one that had left the greater trace. I had really enjoyed both books but neither had left as much of an impression as their companion in the three novella set I had purchased Ghosts. This may have a lot to do with the fact that I had posted on Ghosts. It is as if blogging has become an essential part of fully digesting a book I've read and committing it to memory.

Books of the Year 2015

Books of the Year 2015

As  I have lapsed somewhat into inactivity on the book blogging front I hope to use this post to quell those pangs of conscience that niggle in the back of my mind when I think of all the books I meant to post about but never have.
I have also been reading less, even with the extra time I should have had due to the lapse in blogging. However I took up running and managed to lose three stone in the first few months of the year and have not put much back on since. Also my band has risen from the ashes, at least briefly. I guess I have a tendency towards single-mindedness and that means that when one thing comes to the fore, another slips back into its wake.
Another possible reason was the revelatory re-read of Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, which rather than having it's edge blunted by the passage of time had the same impact as when it ravished me a few decades ago. It is my book of the year and re-calibrated my sense of the excitement a book should stir if it is to become a true favourite.

Ghosts

Ghosts - César Aira
(Translated by Chris Andrews)

I was expecting Aira to be a strange writer, although not sure in what way. I had bumped into him at a few of my favourite blogs: Caravana de Recuerdos; In Lieu of a Field Guide; Jacquiwine's Journal; Wuthering Expectations; Six Words for a Hat and probably a few other places as well. And strangeness I did get, although not quite in the way I expected.

Ghosts gives the sense of being improvised and contains the mundane and the supernatural living comfortably together. It takes place on New Year's Eve in a building that is under construction and seemed to me to be a reflection on how we construct spaces, stories and cultures. It explores choice, inviting us to consider the choices that are always being made by the writer. As the novel progresses the focus moves from the builders of and future owners of the apartments to the family of one of the builders, the alcoholic, Chilean Raúl Viñas, who is also night watchman. His family live with him in an apartment "no more finished than the rest of the building".