The one before by Juan José Saer
Argentina fiction
Original title – La Mayor
Translator – Roanne L. Kantor
Source – Review copy
Message In A Bottle”
Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despairI’ll send an SOS to the world
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
(Message in a bottle)A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heartI strangely choose A old Police lyric just as one part of arguments is about throwing a bottle with the word message in into the sea .
Now when this a three other books from the american publisher Open letter arrived for review , I was pleased this book in Particular is by a writer that is on my list of writer to read . Juan Jose Saer born to Syrian parents in Santa Fe , he studied philosophy at Litoral University and after that taught history of cinematography , he later got the chance to studied in Paris where he stayed in Exile up to his death ,Exile , Santa Fe and twins are recurring themes in his fiction according to his wiki page .He passed away in 2005 .
I ate the foods of the world ,My hands touched the stones of famous cities and my body , shriveled now but fit and feral , walked the streets more numerous than ripples in a river ,What man have I not known ? what book have I not read ? What might there be in the warehouse od visible and invisible things that could still be sold to me as a novelty ?
A poet remembering the places he has been Memories serve a part , another story is called scent memory
This book is a triptych of stories . Arguments are snatches of stories range from a paragraph to a few pages , thin slices of stories that range from little piece of info , arguments about books , being an exile , and memories that stack up together to make you as the reader both think and feel . The second and third story are more straight forward Half erased and the one before . I read the intro by the translator and found that the Character Pigeon Garay is a character that has featured in other works by Saer ,here he first appears in arguments here ,we see him wrestling with leaving his life in the last story , but his home town is also wrestling with an on coming flood almost as thou it is trying to wipe clean where he was . But also may drown him where he is which isn’t where he wants to be .
“The best thing a message can say ” said Barco , “is just message .So even when everything would seem to indicate we should write HELP! , I’d suggest that we write this is a message , Or just message short and sweet .
Tomatis considered this a moment and at last agreed , only to encounter another question : who would write the word ?
I choose the police lyric due to these lines , I love the second part who should write the message .
Well this was my first collection by Saer , he is considered one of the main figures in Latin American fiction . For me I see lots of Borges in the first section .These stories are like tapas like little pieces of fiction and as I say they are thin slices so like tapas can be mixed together to everyone’s taste however each reader approaches them taken what you want from them , rather like Borges made the reader work at times to get to the centre of the labyrinth . For me I got out his love of fiction , his feelings of exile (the parts on exile remind me of Goytisolo another great writer on exile ) The second two stories have a more visceral feel to them more of a modern feel say like Aira and Bolano write and show how Saer was a writer that links the stylish style of Borges with that brutal cutting edge of prose of Bolano .A great first book from Open letter books , I have two others coming in the next week or two .
Have you read Saer ?
Saer is awesome, but I really only know him through his novels and criticism and not his short stories. Faulkner and the nouveau roman are among his other big influences. Glad you got a chance to read him at last, Stu!
Me too richard hope get a novel ar some point by him
I reviewed this one too a while back. I love your comparison of reading his works with tapas, very clever!
Yes that fist story with the small flash parts I feel every read would get different parts from it
A while since I read Saer (what I like to call his Serpent’s Tail days). It’s great to see Open Letter getting so much of his work translated, but it does mean I’ve fallen behind! I hope to read at least one of his soon.
Yes thought seen serpents tail edition of him in the past my first but not my last
There is a pressing need to build awareness about the quality of Saer’s prose. During his lifetime he refused to engage in excessive promotion of his works, making him, to this day, one of the most unknown narrators on Latin America to be both critically aclaimed and barely edited.
Just last month I found that his book Glosa was retranslated into french by a small editor, but it’s a very welcome development. Glad to see that the English speakers are also discovering his literature bit by bit. Thanks for collaborating in that awareness effort!