i would like to hear more of the little buddhist monk ( )

Worst book I ever read. Almost. Both stories. Can't even go into it. I spent 9 weeks slogging through it. I am now FREE. ( )

This small double-feature novella surprised me. I had only read My Life as a Nun by Aira. He’s an odd writer. Like Calvino and Bolano, but containing something of his own as well. He is memorable and forgettable at the same time. He’s easy to read, which is a plus, but only re-readable in bits and pieces. At least that is the feeling I get from these two novellas. They seem like the work of an amateur who has mastered what amateurs only dream of doing. He tells a compelling tale which is entirely absurd and unbelievable. He purposefully makes it difficult to suspend disbelief, but at the same time knows how to absorb the reader. I found the story of the Buddhist monk surprising because of the twist ending but also because of the shifting perspective. You get things wholly from the monk’s viewpoint at first, but then it starts shifting until the world takes on the likeness of a photograph. The art of the storytelling takes on the dimensions of its own story. The second novella, called The Proof, only justified the events it depicted in the last line. The last line was brilliant and surprising. The escalation from verbal to physical dread and horror was abrupt in the way that a lot of horror movies advance in fits and starts. The delightful conversation and shifts in attitude that occur seemed nonetheless realistic despite their extreme unbelievability. ( )

This slim volume contains two novellas by Argentinian author César Aira. The first ostensibly takes place in Korea and the second on the streets of Buenos Aires, but really they both take place in the realm of the senses and the imagination. What they also have in common is that both begin in relatively commonplace settings with seemingly realistic characters, and then spin gradually but inexorably into the realm of the hallucinatory. They are meditations on the nature of reality, perception and cultural expectations. That's a fairly cliched phrase I just wrote, I know, but it Aira's deft way with phrasing and description and, not incidentally, his sense of humor, these swift rides are actually (or at least were to me) happily refreshing and even thought-provoking. ( )