Eric Stener Carlson

The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires had been on my wishlist for ages, until, feeling in the mood for it, I finally downloaded it as an ebook and read it through in a matter of a few days.

Eric Stener Carlson’s novel is set in Buenos Aires, where the novel’s narrator – failed philosopher/academic Miguel – lives and works as a lowly bureaucrat at the Ministry of Parks, Public Monuments and Green Areas. He is married to loving, sexy Julieta, and a father of a little boy, but the daily frustrations at his office increasingly seep into his private life, making him question his past choices – including his marriage to Julieta. One day, browsing through the books at an old second-hand shop, Miguel stumbles across an edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints containing cryptic handwritten annotations by a previous owner. These turn out to be part of a diary kept by a fellow civil servant some years before, recounting this mysterious personage’s quest to control and turn back Time. Miguel soon becomes obsessed with this account, following its trail to seek other annotated volumes with occult instructions. Miguel hopes to obtain membership of the elusive club of the title and, ultimately, the supernatural powers described in the diary. But others seem to be onto the same secrets – including his old philosophy lecturer and, possibly, even his wife. Can anyone be trusted?

I was drawn to this novel because its blurb gave off dark academia vibes. And there are indeed plenty of Gothic elements and tropes both in its narrative structure (the incorporation into the narrative of “found artefacts”, in this case a diary) and in its plot (references to the occult; reworkings of supernatural legends particularly those referring to the salamanca where witches meet; nightly shenanigans and orgies; psychogeography; Faustian pacts). What I wasn’t prepared for – and possibly wasn’t quite in the mood for either – was the novel’s humour. Indeed, despite its dark elements, there is, throughout the book, a farcical undercurrent. Admittedly, the humour is acerbic and cynical, but, nonetheless, creates a contrast with the more overtly horrific elements. Both aspects of the novel support what is ultimately a philosophical question – if we had the power to turn back time, would that really be a gift? Or would we be better off making the best of our present and future? Perhaps – in the real world – the answer is staring us in the face. Short of discovering the powers of the mysterious Argentine bureaucrat, we’re lumped with our past. Rather than recriminating our life-history, we should embrace the here and now...

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-saint-perpetuus-club-of-buenos-ai...… (plus d'informations)

Interesting labyrinthine tale that suffer from a clumsy immature first person narrative perspective and an unsuccessful attempt at dialect. The entire novel is a framing story with seven tales that may or may not be real. I found the first person perspective, the clumsy plotting (at times) and the dialect distracting. Certainly Beelzebub can come up with something more clever or profound than "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." It's this sort of thing that distracted me from being enchanted by the complex structure of the overall tale.

First person is always dodgy when you are dealing with someone who you want to come across as average but not exceptional. The problem with the narrator writing in retrospect in what attempts to be dialect is also distracting. The dialect does not come off as real enough, or necessary enough, to keep the reader from wondering why it is there at all. This probably won't be a problem for as many people as it was for me. It always came off as strained to me. Like somebody trying to guess at a Texan's dialect.

What dragged at times finally got going about 2/3 of the way through. The embedded tales were sometimes more interesting than the novel itself and the mostly seamless intertwining of story within story was the most effective and engaging part of the whole for me.

So to continue beating a dead horse: close but no cigar...… (plus d'informations)