The Paper House by Carlos Maria Dominguez

The Paper House by Carlos Maria Dominguez

Argentine fiction

Original Title – La casa de papel

Translator -Nick Caistor

Source – Review copy

I was pleased to see this fun novella reissued by Thousand Horsemen. As it was the second book I reviewed from Argentina back in 2010, it will now be the 58th book and the first reread I have done for Argentina, in fact only the second reread I have done for Argentina, over the years. But this is one of those novellas that, firstly, can be read in an evening. But it is also an ode to books themselves, as a single book is the main character in the book itself, and that is an old copy of Conrad’s The Shadow Line that was sent to a man who has since died.  Since I first reviewed the book, Carlos is still living in Uruguay; he is more of a critic than a novelist.  He writes for two papers in Uruguay as well as El Pais; he has also written a biography of Juan Carlos Onetti. Nick Caistor is still translating many wonderful books.

It was indeed a book, but not of the kind I had been expecting. No sooner had I opened the package than I felt an instinctive nervousness. I went to the office door, closed it, and returned to the broken-spined old copy of The Shadow-Line. I was aware of the thesis Bluma was writing on Joseph Conrad. But the extraordinary thing was that there was a filthy crust on its front and back covers. There was a film of cement particles on the page edges that left a fine dust on the surface of the polished desk.

I took out a handkerchief and to my astonishment picked up a small piece of grit. There was no doubt it was Portland cement, the remains of a mortar that must have been stuck more firmly to the book before someone had made a determined attempt to remove it.

The rather battered Shadow line in the parcel !

Now our book is narrated by the person who has taken over Bluma Lennon’s job as a professor of Literature, after she was struck by a car whilst reading Dickson. The discovery of a parcel from Uruguay containing a rather battered copy of Joseph Conrad’s Shadow Line.  This sends our narrator on a trip to Uruguay.  To find Carlos Bruna, the man that had sent the book. to the now dead Bluma. This leads our narrator to find a man who has disappeared as well, but who was a mad book collector in the process of building his own huge library in a remote part of Uruguay.  Leads our narrator into a world of bibliophiles, books, and the histories of the books they have and their readers. It is a sort of mystery, a love of books, and an obvious love of Uruguay.

He smiled a conspiratorial smile I willingly shared.
‘But unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘how many hours a day can I devote to reading? At most four or five. I work from eight o’clock to five in a position of some responsi-bility. But all the time I’m longing to be back here. In my cave, if you’ll pardon the expression, where I can spend a few happy hours until ten o’clock, when I usually go upstairs for supper.
I’m not interested in first editions. What I want is to have the book within reach in the best possible condition, otherwise I become anxious. These cases you can see are made from lapacho, a wood that has no cracks that insects can penetrate; I ordered the shelves especially: they are ten hardwood boards stuck together with an insect-repel-lent glue, and I put glass fronts on them because books obviously accumulate dust. From time to time, though, I have them fumigated just in case, because you can never be too sure. Silverfish drove Brauer mad.’
‘Did he keep his books in glass cases?’ I asked,

One of the many book collectors they meet trying to find out who carlos Brauer was

I see some people find this book annoying but a think it is a book that is sparse nature of the book with the gaps in the book are maybe meant be there they are alomost like gaps for the reader to fill. I said it was fable-like in my first review; I still think that it is a clever twist on the detective tale, centred on a dead woman, a missing man, and a book that connects them, but also about what books bring to us and how obsession works. I hadn’t reread Shadow Line when I first reviewed the book, but this time I got my edition and am slowly reading it, and it may have just a connection of the line between being a boy and a man; maybe the shadow line here is between being a book lover and a complete bibliophile obsessive. It is a book about books, readers, bibliophiles, and what happens when that goes over the edge: a woman killed reading Emily Dickinson rather than watching the road and a man who had built a mad library that has disappeared as well. I loved this more the second time around. I think reading 1500 books over the years has made me connect more with the characters. Do you have a favourite book that has books as part of the story in it?