Month: June 2010

Martín Solares’ Mexican Noir Novel Reviewed at NY Times

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

Martín Solares novel The Black Minutes was reviewed by the NY Times. It is a positive review and for a crime novel it sounds a little atypical. Perhaps one of the reasons it was translated was it has a sense of the urgent with characters involved in the drug trade and corruption, something that is plaguing Mexico. While I don’t read much crime fiction, done right it can transcend the genre and become a report on its times. Considering Jorge Volpi’s call for a more committed literature, perhaps this novel is a good example in the Mexican context.

The best detective novels are those that go beyond the limitations of genre and a specific story to limn the broader society in which they take place. Mr. Solares does that in a profound but entertaining fashion here, revealing the surprising subterranean linkages that give politicians, the police, labor unions, drug cartels, the Roman Catholic Church, business interests and sectors of the press an interest in covering up the truth of the two cases.

To that end he makes especially effective and clever use of the separate time frames, one of whose purposes is to show how chronic, endemic corruption erodes the desire and ability of the individual to do the right thing, or even to act at all. Current-day Paracuán’s duplicitous police chief, Joaquín Taboada, is thus shown as a young, somewhat bumbling officer in the 1970s with the hilarious nickname El Travolta. There is also Fritz Tschanz, an immigrant Jesuit priest who knows so much and has heard so many sordid confessions over the years that his world-weariness has paralyzed him.

Over all it sounds good, but I’m not sure what ethnic types he is talking about:

But Mr. Solares is a graceful, even poetic, writer, especially in his hard-boiled dialogue and his descriptions of the wildly varied landscapes and ethnic types of northern Mexico. Though the world of “The Black Minutes” is one to inspire fear and revulsion, Mr. Solares’s descriptions of it are oddly beautiful and fascinating in the same way that overturning a rock and observing the maggots beneath can be a perversely edifying spectacle.

The Most Important Spanish Authors as Critic José María Pozuelo Yvancos Sees It

~ bythefirelight

ABC has an interview with Spanish critic José María Pozuelo Yvancos and an excerpt of his new book on the 100 most important writers in Spain today (link to book review in Spanish). I am familiar with many of them, even though I haven’t had a chance to read many of them. Some are obvious, such as Javier Marias and Enrique Vila-Matas. I’m in the midst of reading Cristina Fernandez Cubas work and I can’t say if she is one of the best in Europe, but she is a great writer and deserves to be know outside of Spain.  I ran this through Google Translate (I don’t have time to translate it) and fixed a few obvious problems although many more remain, but at least you’ll get a sense of them.

  • Armas Marcelo: “The reader sees at once that their literature is written in fury and win, who cares.”
  • Fernando Aramburu: “I appreciate it especially that a work of serious tone and follow other with mocking irony.”
  • Juan Pedro Aparicio, “His stories hide behind wit molla.
  • J. M. Caballero Bonald: “It is one of the few writers have total, so good storyteller as a poet.”
  • Casavella Francisco: “A case of genius cut short by a young death.”
  • Rafael Chirbes: “His novels will help us to trace the memory of the Transition.”
  • Luis Mateo Díez: “One who has conquered territories narrator’s own imagination and memory.”
  • Cristina Fernández Cubas, “In the first row of European short story writers.”
  • Juan Goytisolo: “A commitment-minded narrator essayist.
  • Luis Goytisolo: “It’s nice to see how being a senior makes in experimentation and search for many young people.”
  • Raul Guerra Garrido: “His novels are used to open our eyes on the situation of the Basque Country.”
  • Eduardo Lago: “Few can draw better connection of Spanish and American traditions.”
  • Luis Landeros’: The real disciple of Cervantes in themes and tone. “
  • Manuel Longares: “Example of stylistic requirement that the novel should not forget.”
  • José Carlos Llop: “His stories married life and fiction so intelligently.”
  • Javier Marias: “A great writer who created his own style by combining reflective and narrative voices.”
  • Jose Maria Merino: “To say that he is master of the story should not conceal their excellent novels.”
  • Antonio Muñoz Molina: “The mind is a large area of memory: the best has won.”
  • Ramiro Pinilla: ‘No person may have the same form that has been the formation of Basque History of the twentieth century. “
  • Alvaro Pombo: “He has the rare privilege of looking out the soul of his characters and showing the readers who are like them.”
  • Soledad Puértolas: “Their literature has the merit of linking personal and collective memories.”
  • Valenti Puig: “Reading it one thinks of Chesterton, the smart way to be English from Catalonia.”
  • Juan Pedro Quiñonero “His memoir shows the formation of a vocation as a reader as I have known few.”
  • Clara Sanchez: “He has the rare virtue of that side show their troubling everyday.”
  • Antonio Soler: “Literature made in forging a requirement.”
  • Enrique Vila-Matas: “Few like him can say creators of a unique style, original in the representation of a self.”

Can Crime Fiction Be Funny?

~ bythefirelight

Colin Bateman at the Guardian UK asks whether crime fiction can be funny. While I don’t read much crime fiction, I do find something refreshing in his question in part because the constant repetition of  the serial killer and as he puts it, torture porn, is tiresome tedious and has seeped into so many TV and movies that the serial killer is can seem everywhere. While crime by its definition something bad, serial killers leave little room for individual decisions, and instead presents an implacable evil that is uninteresting, more horror than crime. I still remember a Thanksgiving some years ago when an 19 year-old proudly gave a run down of serial killers he knew of. He seemed proud of them, some how, and I thought what is the point? Are you getting some sort of sexual excitement from this? Perhaps the serial killer just reflects a sense of helplessness before something unknown.

However, as the most successful of all popular fiction genres, crime fiction rapidly descended into formula, with thousands of not very subtle variations of little old ladies investigating cosy murder mysteries or tough talking PI’s with a cool line in sardonic put-downs flooding the market. They not only became cliched, but even worse, the subject of parody from which they have never really recovered. Once Woody Allen sent up Bogie in Play it Again, Sam and Steve Martin weighed in with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, there was really nowhere else to go.

Crime fiction was forced to reinvent itself, almost literally, in a new skin, and in doing so it caused not only a seismic shift in public taste, but also in how it was sold. Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs and Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem became super sellers 20 years ago – laughs were out, torture porn was in – and their influence is still apparent in bookshops and supermarkets up and down the country; they and their successors actually form the bedrock of publishing in this country today. Pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap.

Jorge Volpi Interview at El País: History Is Often More Important Than Fiction in a Novel

~ bythefirelight

El País offered readers a chance to submit questions to Jorge Volpi for a form of on-line interview. I took the opportunity to submit a question about Season of Ash which I reviewed for the Quarterly Conversation and found to be more interested in writing history than a novel, sacrificing character development to his thesis. I wanted to know if he thought the history was more important than the fictional elements:

When you write fiction mixed with history, what do you think is more important: the narrative and characters, or the history? I noticed in Season of Ash that at times the narrative served more to explain the history, and the characters became a method for arriving at the history.

My intention is for history and fiction to complement each other, though it is certain that in this novel I wanted the History in capital letters to have an importance as clear as the history of the characters, perhaps this provokes the sensation that the characters serve the grand History.

¿Cuando escribes ficción mezclada con historia, cual piensa es mas importante: la narrativa y los personajes o la historia? Noté en ” No será la tierra” que a veces la narrativa sirve mas para explicar la historia y los personajes se convierten en un método para llegar a la historia.

Mi intención es que historia y ficción se complementen, si bien es cierto que en esta novela quería que la Historia con mayúsculas tuviese una importancia tan clara como las historias de los personajes, acaso eso provoque la sensación de que los personajes ficticios “sirven” a la gran Historia.

It is an honest answer and confirms to his interest in writing politically engaged novels. Many of the other questions in the interview make it obvious that he is a political writer, by which I mean he wants to comment on politics and history and use fiction to explore ways of getting at these ideas. He doesn’t write from to serve a specific political base, such as the PRI or PAN, which would make him a hack. He is certainly not a hack and his commitment to working with politics and history is commendable, but it comes with risks. I think Elias Khoury from Lebanon use politics and history in his works with much better affect. Or Fernando Del Paso’s News from the Empire which has the grand sweep of history that Volpi wanted, is also a good example of how to mix the two.

As he mentioned in his lectures for Open Letter Press, he sees the younger generations as less politically engaged:

How do you see the lack of political literature and authors, lets say, or how they called it during the Boom “committed” on a continent that in the midst everything it is very political in those countries that often only breathe politics?

In effect, if we compare the present Latin American literature with that of the 60s and 70s (and after), we find an absence of political literature. On one hand, the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the USSR contributed to the disappearance of committed literature. And on the other hand, the gradual democratization of our countries made it so that politics stopped being regular material of those intellectuals and passed to the political scientists and political analysts that are part of the media. In addition, the latest generation are not only apolitical, but very apolitical. However, there continue to be examples of political literature in Latin America, you only have to mention the novel of Edmundo Paz Soldan, Ivan Thays, or Santiago Rocagliolo. And, in one sense, the literature about the violence that fills a good part of the region should also be considered political. Even this way, it is certain that writers don’t have a direct interest in contemporary politics, even the most authoritarian and picturesque.

¿Cómo ves la poca presencia de literatura política y autores digamos o como se decia en la epóca del boom “comprometidos” en un continente que en medio de todo es muy político en los países muchas veces tan solo se respira política?

En efecto, si comparamos la literatura latinoamericana actual con la de los sesentas o setentas (e incluso después), nos encontramos con la ausencia de literatura política. Por una parte, la caída del Muro de Berlín y el fin de la URSS contribuyeron a que desapareciera la literatura comprometida. Y, por la otra, la paulatina democratización de nuestros países hizo que la crítica política dejara de ser materia habitual de los intelectuales para pasar a los politólogos y a los analistas políticos de los medios. Además, las últimas generaciones no son sólo apolíticas, sino un tanto antipolíticas. Sin embargo, sigue habiendo ejemplos de literatura política en América Latina, baste mencionar las novelas de Edmundo Paz Soldán, de Iván Thays o de Santiago Roncagliolo. Y, en un sentido, la literatura sobre la violencia que prevalece en buena parte de la región también debe considerarse política. Aun así, es cierto que no parece haber un interés directo por parte de los escritores hacia nuestros políticos actuales, incluso los más autoritarios o pintorescos.

Finally, he talked about his latest novel, a free verse novel that is part fable, part history of the Holocaust. Mixing the Holocaust with non realistic elements could be interesting, or just lend itself to silliness. Hopefully, it isn’t the latter. It is an interesting approach and I would like to look it over someday, if not read it.

What made you write Dark Forest Dark, your latest novel, like a fable?

Dark Forest Dark is meant to reflect on the way everyday people can become an active part of a genocide, with Nazism in the background. However, in this meditation about innocence it seemed to me I could establish a connection between the massacres of Jews in the forests of Poland and the Ukraine, and the forests in the stories of the brothers Grimm, stories that Germans read obligatorily in those years. From this starting point I included many of their stories in the book.

¿Qué te llevó a construir Oscuro bosque oscuro, tu última novela, como una fábula? Gracias por tu literatura.

“Oscuro bosque oscuro” intenta reflexionar sobre la manera en la que la gente común se puede convertir en parte activa de un genocidio, con el nazismo como telón de fondo. Sin embargo, en esta meditación sobre la inocencia me pareció que podía establecerse una conexión entre las masacres de judíos que se producían en los bosques de Polonia y Ucrania, y los bosques de los cuentos de Grimm, que los alemanes leían obligatoriamente en esos años. De allí la inclusión de muchas de sus historias en el libro.

Javier Marias – I Would Like to Be Sherlock Holmes – Spanish Only Video

~ bythefirelight

El País in celebration of the Madrid Book Fair has a video of Javier Marias explaining that if he were to be any character he would like to be Sherlock Holmes. It is a brief interview, but fun for its willingness to pick a character that might not seem the most literary—although, that is not something I would claim as I like the early stories of Doyle. Unfortunately, it is only in Spanish.

Review of Chilean Author Alberto Fuguet’s New Novel

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

Moleskine Literario has an lengthy and well reasoned review of Alberto Fuguet’s newest book, which is not quite a novel and not quite non-fiction. It is a book based on his own family and his own experience. The narrator, who is also named Alberto Fuguet, is trying to find out more about his uncle, Carlos, who led a Bohemian life in the US during the 60s. Estranged from his father, a man who says

“Stop bothering me,” he said by telephone one night, “cease to exist. You don’t exist for me. You have only brought me problems. We don’t want to see you ever again. I don’t care that you are my son.”

“Deja de molestarnos”, le dijo por teléfono una noche, “deja de existir. No existes para mí. Sólo me has traído problemas. No queremos verte nunca más. No me interesa que seas hijo mío” (25).

While this could become, perhaps, just a tale of family strife, Luis Hernán Castañeda, notes that he uses the search not only to imagine what could have been, but to avoid the malicious that often comes with family investigations.

Missing (an investigation), is, most of all, a touching text: the material is intense, per se, and the treatment of this material does justice to its intensity. Nerveless, it is also a lucid and ambitious textual artifact, in which the gaze of the narrator Fuguet is  sharpened to penetrate the cloudy and confusing and hurtful, with the artistic intention, completely achieved, of returning to the transformed light -perhaps exalted-of a skillful and complex text of elaboration.

“Missing (una investigación)” es, sobre todo, un texto conmovedor: su materia es intensa per se, y el tratamiento de esa materia le hace entera justicia a su intensidad. Sin embargo, también es un artefacto textual lúcido y ambicioso, en el que la mirada del narrador Fuguet se afila para penetrar en lo turbio y lo confuso y lo hiriente, con el propósito artístico plenamente logrado de devolverlo a la luz transformado -quizá enaltecido- en un texto de elaboración diestra y compleja.

What sounds particularly interesting is his use of multiple modes of story telling. If you’ve read Short Cuts you will know that he does like to play with form some what, although this seems like the farthest hes gone.

The formal complexity of the the novel does not respond to a gratuitous pyrotechnic effort but the requirements of dark and tangled material. In the ample formal repertory we find, for example, one whole section dedicated to commenting on the origin of the book that the reader has in his hands, a very short chronicle that appeared in the magazine Etiqueta negra; there is also a section constructed from the Diary of the Psychiatrist, composed of annotations in which Fuguet, transformed into a detective, explains the progress of his investigation; another part of the book gives two interviews conducted by Fuguet with his uncle, en which the uncle expresses himself in the first person, even though it is clear after hearing him that there are enigmatic areas, secret territories that he refuses to reveal. Lastly, the center of the novel, both in terms of expansiveness and importance, emerge in the eighth part, titled The Echoes of his Mind. Carlos Talks [title is in English]. It is about a long narrative and autobiographic poem, one where an imaginary Carlos, fruit of an amalgamation of observation and fantasy, narrates his intire life and seeks to impress a feeling of him for himself and for others.

La complejidad formal de la novela no responde, pues, a un gratuito afán de pirotecnia sino a los requisitos de una materia oscura y enmarañada. En el amplio repertorio formal encontramos, por ejemplo, toda una sección dedicada a comentar el origen del libro que el lector tiene entre manos, una crónica muy breve que apareció publicada en la revista “Etiqueta negra”; existe también una parte construida a partir de un “diario de la pesquisa”, compuesto por anotaciones en las que Fuguet, transformado en detective, va dando cuenta de los progresos de su investigación; otra zona del libro ofrece dos entrevistas realizadas por Fuguet a su tío, en las que éste se expresa en primera persona, aunque queda claro tras escucharlo que hay una zona enigmática, un territorio secreto que se niega a revelarse. Por último el centro de la novela, tanto en términos de extensión como de importancia, eclosiona en la octava parte, titulada “The Echoes of his Mind. Carlos talks”. Se trata de un largo poema narrativo y autobiográfico en el cual un Carlos imaginario, fruto de una amalgama de observación y fantasía, narra su vida entera y procura imprimirle un sentido, para sí mismo y para los otros.

I hope someday it will come out in English, especially since he has had one book published in English already.

Update (6/2/10): I have been informed by @ezrafitz that they are working on a translation right now. No ETA as yet.

Satirizing Modern Spain on the Edge of Crisis: Robert Juan-Cantavella at the Quarterly Conversation

~ bythefirelight

The Quarterly Conversation has a very good article on the young Spanish novelist Robert Juan-Cantavella and his satires of modern Spain on the edge of the current crisis. Whether or not you will ever read him, it is a very good summary of many of the cultural trends that have afflicted Spain in the last few years as the country moves farther from the transition to democracy after the death of Franco. While one article can’t describe a literary scene, he does sound like part of the literary scene where there is quite a bit of playfulness in stories. You can see some of that in my reviews of Fernando Iwasaki and Hipolito Navarro. The segment of from his novel is quite short, but looks like it has promise. Perhaps he’ll be translated or I’ll get a copy in Spanish one of these days.

Ever since the publication in 2001 of Otro, his first novel, Robert Juan-Cantavella has seemed to position his work as a continuation of a certain Spanish literary tradition as much as a cheeky raid on its vaults and a blithe taunt to anyone wishing to hold him accountable for his hijacking of or attacks on sacred cows. In Proust Fiction (2005), a story collection, Juan-Cantavella introduces into several of the pieces a character called Escargot—not really an alter-ego or a pseudonym, probably a heteronym . . .—and we learn that, were it not for him killing them all beforehand, a bunch of giants really would have been waiting for Don Quixote on that fateful day at the windmills. This is no mere comic gesture, not any more than an attempt by a bold young man to pretend that Spanish literature owes him something; it’s also, and more importantly, a way to insist that all creation is also recreation (in more than one sense of the word).