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3.0 AVERAGE
3.0 AVERAGE
The cover shows President Menem riding a plane marked "Republica Argentina" (rather than Aerolíneas Argentinas) that is on fire and about to crash into the middle of Buenos Aires. Menem's head is tacked onto somebody else's body. I quite like the cover. That Argentina is going to the dogs, the politicians are wrecking the country is a given. You don't have to talk to an Argentinian more than 0.3 of a second before they tell you that. You can join in too, and it's refreshing that one nationality is not overly sensitive to what foreigners say about them.
To the novel: Mallo is a good writer, but there are too many characters here. I'm looking for a Latin American author who can keep themselves to a tight, straight forward narrative. Magical realism, a narrator writing a novel about the story then gets pulled into the story, no full stops (Fernanda Melchor), and archaic vocab are all things which can trip me up when I read in Spanish. I also favour a straight forward story in general. The French seem to be able to do it. Camus, Sartre, Duras, Houellebecq, Voltaire for God's sake - profound yet easy to follow. I was relieved once to read a Vargas Llosa book in English and still get lost; I like a lot of his books but think he would have been better off without magical realism.
In Me Verás Caer characters enter as protagonists and then are left alone until way later in the book, some never come back. The portrait of Carlos (Menem), the president who just wants to party, is amusing. The baddies are a bit too evil to be interesting, and the use of a Islamic terrorist to kill the hero by chance was lazy - although I get the author was referencing one of the big events of the 90s, the bombing of AMIA, the Israeli association in Argentina.
At times I was anxious to know what would happen next. However, this novel is a bit like the story of Argentina: an impressive amount of talent, skill and resources leading nowhere. I have a feeling some of Mallo's other novels are good though. The title of the book comes from Soda Stereo's song Ciudad de la Furia, the most famous rock track about Buenos Aires. Along with Gustavo Cerati of Soda Stereo, Emile Cioran, one of my favourite philosophers, is quoted in the epigraph.
To the novel: Mallo is a good writer, but there are too many characters here. I'm looking for a Latin American author who can keep themselves to a tight, straight forward narrative. Magical realism, a narrator writing a novel about the story then gets pulled into the story, no full stops (Fernanda Melchor), and archaic vocab are all things which can trip me up when I read in Spanish. I also favour a straight forward story in general. The French seem to be able to do it. Camus, Sartre, Duras, Houellebecq, Voltaire for God's sake - profound yet easy to follow. I was relieved once to read a Vargas Llosa book in English and still get lost; I like a lot of his books but think he would have been better off without magical realism.
In Me Verás Caer characters enter as protagonists and then are left alone until way later in the book, some never come back. The portrait of Carlos (Menem), the president who just wants to party, is amusing. The baddies are a bit too evil to be interesting, and the use of a Islamic terrorist to kill the hero by chance was lazy - although I get the author was referencing one of the big events of the 90s, the bombing of AMIA, the Israeli association in Argentina.
At times I was anxious to know what would happen next. However, this novel is a bit like the story of Argentina: an impressive amount of talent, skill and resources leading nowhere. I have a feeling some of Mallo's other novels are good though. The title of the book comes from Soda Stereo's song Ciudad de la Furia, the most famous rock track about Buenos Aires. Along with Gustavo Cerati of Soda Stereo, Emile Cioran, one of my favourite philosophers, is quoted in the epigraph.