Reviews

The Hare by César Aira

Only show reviews with written explanations

ferociablejbear's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

What starts out as something like a Jules Verne novel gets turned around and upside down, the plot shifting and “wait, what?” moments multiplying, until it starts to read like a soap opera. The main character of the novel, the Englishman Clarke, is never quite sure if the native Uruguayan authorities he relies on are pulling his leg. In the same why I’m not sure if Aira wanted to tell a story that is by all accounts totally absurd, or perhaps he’s parodying early European explorer adventure novels, or perhaps just laughing at our expense. Either way, he’s crafted a wild and fun ride.

toroyaguila's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging funny informative reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

nathaniel_1206's review

Go to review page

5.0

Ok, smarter people will see how this book ends once Clark, our English main character, tells his story a hundred pages in, but I didn't see the ending. So sue me.

The book is part Graham Greene, part epic quest, and part E. M. Forster. Our main hero, Clark, an English naturalist, gets roped into giving chase to someone who either has run away, been kidnapped, or just up and disappeared. There is numerous religious symbols, plenty of ruminations, and a lot of Graham Greene's version of "Stranger in a Strange Land."

There is a section near the end that my interest waned, but the end, that I probably should have seen coming, saved it, big time, for me.

Highly recommended.

nealadolph's review

Go to review page

2.0

An unbelievable romp through the plains and mountains of Argentina. A story of an Englishman searching for some Hare which is reported to fly when it is incapable of making an escape by running. It's a legend. Not a believable legend for the Englishman who seems just as interested in disproving - he is a naturalist, after all - as he is in discovering it. In the plot, he goes on many different adventures - one into a cavern, one into a war, one into a night-time raid, one onto a mountaintop. It isn't exactly clear why any of these adventures are of any importance, and this reader felt as though he was being strung along some underdeveloped storyline from the moment the Englishman naturalist left the first encampment in search of a kidnapped chiefdom. At times it was nice to be strung along. Even pleasant. Even entertaining. But it wasn't often enough to redeem this work. In the end it was unfulfilling.

sherbertwells's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

An English naturalist ventures into the pampas in search of an elusive treasure—a flying hare, a Mapuche chief or a Hapsburg diamond—and finds himself in a knotty adventure that overturns his world. All of Aira’s work makes me extravagantly happy, and although this has not unseated An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter among my favorites it is great work on colonialism, the mutability of race and the beauty of language.

“His emotional life had dried up years earlier—when in the first flush of his own youth, he had lost someone he loved who might have taught him to cry. From that day on, he had never felt the sense of dread that is a natural part of life: he cold see this now, when he was least expecting it, but in someone else” (66)

Content Warnings