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forever_amber's review against another edition
4.0
Като казва „епизод“, Сесар Айра наистина има предвид епизод.
Книжката е малка и на всичкото отгоре е първата ми среща с този писател. Мисля, че инстинктът ми не ме подведе за това, защото, колкото и да е странна, ми хареса, понеже говори за изкуство, а в тази сфера мога да понеса безкрайно много откачени неща.
Не съм чела нещо аналогично досега, но съм сигурна, че хората, които имат вкус като моя - които обичат да се движат и да ги водят по границата на неразбираемото, но без да става дума за празнословия и малостойностна литература - ще харесат книгата. Трябва повече да се размисли върху нея и то в контекста на самия автор, когото аз не познавам. Има нещо много дълбоко, което си струва да бъде изговорено.
Стилът на Айра ми хареса много, включително размислите за изкуството и за всичко останало, което още се случеше да спомене. Епизодичността, резкият край - всичко това напълно се вписа в основната му идея - съсредоточаването на големия миг в малкия; плътната маса на живота, родена от отрязъка от деня, нощта, ежедневието. Това е и хубава теория за изкуството, но най-вече за съзнанието, в която тоталността може и да бъде изфантазирана дори ако разполагаме само с един фрактал от нея (което вече е и физика и математика де :-) Тъй или иначе е безсмислено да пиша повече, защото книгата трябва да се прочете и от другия, за да може да се беседва върху нея.
Препоръчвам на хора като мен, които обичат да осмислят заобикалящто ни чрез по-абстрактни идеи.
Книжката е малка и на всичкото отгоре е първата ми среща с този писател. Мисля, че инстинктът ми не ме подведе за това, защото, колкото и да е странна, ми хареса, понеже говори за изкуство, а в тази сфера мога да понеса безкрайно много откачени неща.
Не съм чела нещо аналогично досега, но съм сигурна, че хората, които имат вкус като моя - които обичат да се движат и да ги водят по границата на неразбираемото, но без да става дума за празнословия и малостойностна литература - ще харесат книгата. Трябва повече да се размисли върху нея и то в контекста на самия автор, когото аз не познавам. Има нещо много дълбоко, което си струва да бъде изговорено.
Стилът на Айра ми хареса много, включително размислите за изкуството и за всичко останало, което още се случеше да спомене. Епизодичността, резкият край - всичко това напълно се вписа в основната му идея - съсредоточаването на големия миг в малкия; плътната маса на живота, родена от отрязъка от деня, нощта, ежедневието. Това е и хубава теория за изкуството, но най-вече за съзнанието, в която тоталността може и да бъде изфантазирана дори ако разполагаме само с един фрактал от нея (което вече е и физика и математика де :-) Тъй или иначе е безсмислено да пиша повече, защото книгата трябва да се прочете и от другия, за да може да се беседва върху нея.
Препоръчвам на хора като мен, които обичат да осмислят заобикалящто ни чрез по-абстрактни идеи.
anushree's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
He was like a drunk at the bar of a squalid dive, fixing his gaze on a peeling wall, an empty bottle, the edge of a window frame, and seeing each object or detail emerge from the nothingness into which it had been plunged by his inner calm. Who cares what they are? asks the aesthete in a flight of paradox. What matters is that they are.
With precise and concise language, Aira's novella envisions a bizarre, sublime landscape that thwarts the staminas of the rugged colonial adventurer. Through Rugendas's physiognomic ruin, it posits that one cannot be a mere observer, a simple painter in search of harmonious and depopulated vistas devoid of any fraught histories. No, the land bites back in this story. There's also a tension running through the story: Rugendas claims that art is a tool that allows a kind of transcendence from the teleology of history, making history unnecessary in the understanding of the past. But as we approach the end of the narrative in all its psychotic, gruesome detail, we realize that the the artists bring with them everything they know into their paintings, making the histories they've heard about indigenous peoples inseparably intertwined with their own work. There are no first encounters, no blank slates here.
ben_t_g's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.25
What a fascinating historical fiction - the key incident infuses what starts as a well-explained painting course into an actual freaking adventure. Really felt inhabited and true to the characters and the country - no mean feat.
feastofblaze's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
theeternaldodo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
ridaakhtar_'s review against another edition
4.0
Read this on my trip to Skardu. I'll remember segments from her: on S-1, the noise of the Indus, my family complaining about how tiring sitting in a car for eleven hours is. That segment where I was sitting in our lobby with two cold cups of tea, the Shangrila lake right in front, the rain.
100reads's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Magnificent. Need to reread this to appreciate it more. Need to read more Aira.
jared_davis's review against another edition
5.0
I feel it best to read Cesar Aira slowly, deliberately, occassionally passing back over a passage as if practicing a new song on an old, familiar instrument.
sarahreadsaverylot's review against another edition
4.0
Historical fiction that plays with the very notion of historical fiction.
What does it mean to see, to perceive, to sketch, to recreate, and to reconstruct? There is a moment in the story when Krause is not at all sure whether he is seeing or remembering. "He marvel[s] at the faculty of sight, its prodigious, ultra-physiognomic capacities, the dilation of the pupil, the brain's interpretations..."
What does it mean, and what does it mean for art? For the artist?
"There is an analogy that, although far from perfect, may shed some light on this process of reconstruction. Imagine a brilliant police detective summarizing his investigations for the husband of the victim, the widower. Thanks to his subtle deductions he has been able to "reconstruct" how the murder was committed; he does not know the identity of the murderer, but he has managed to work out everything else with an almost magical precision,, as if he had seen it happen. And his interlocutor, the widower, who is, in fact, the murderer, has to admit that the detective is a genius, because it really did happen exactly as he says; yet at the same time, although of course he actually saw it happen and is the only living eyewitness as well as the culprit, he cannot match what happened with what the policeman is telling him, not because there are errors, large or small, in the account, or details out of place, but because the match is inconceivable, there is such an abyss between one story and the other, or between a story and the lack of a story, between the lived experience and the reconstruction...that the widower simply cannot see a relation between them; which leads him to conclude that he his innocent, that he did not kill his wife."
Aira's Episode is brief, direct, forthcoming, confounding. An elaborately simple meta-commentary, if you will.
What does it mean to see, to perceive, to sketch, to recreate, and to reconstruct? There is a moment in the story when Krause is not at all sure whether he is seeing or remembering. "He marvel[s] at the faculty of sight, its prodigious, ultra-physiognomic capacities, the dilation of the pupil, the brain's interpretations..."
What does it mean, and what does it mean for art? For the artist?
"There is an analogy that, although far from perfect, may shed some light on this process of reconstruction. Imagine a brilliant police detective summarizing his investigations for the husband of the victim, the widower. Thanks to his subtle deductions he has been able to "reconstruct" how the murder was committed; he does not know the identity of the murderer, but he has managed to work out everything else with an almost magical precision,, as if he had seen it happen. And his interlocutor, the widower, who is, in fact, the murderer, has to admit that the detective is a genius, because it really did happen exactly as he says; yet at the same time, although of course he actually saw it happen and is the only living eyewitness as well as the culprit, he cannot match what happened with what the policeman is telling him, not because there are errors, large or small, in the account, or details out of place, but because the match is inconceivable, there is such an abyss between one story and the other, or between a story and the lack of a story, between the lived experience and the reconstruction...that the widower simply cannot see a relation between them; which leads him to conclude that he his innocent, that he did not kill his wife."
Aira's Episode is brief, direct, forthcoming, confounding. An elaborately simple meta-commentary, if you will.
jimmylorunning's review against another edition
5.0
Part fiction, part non-fiction, part poetic description, part philosophy. Aira examines the depths of history, the meaning of repetition, reproductions and its role in art, compensation, and much more, and in the context of a very specific, relatable person and his predicaments. Often zooming into an idea or description with intense precision, then moving on, this book is able to contain big ideas without sounding pretentious, or bloated. In fact, the entire book is less than 90 pages, though it tells a story that could be told in 500 pages. It's really some of the best writing I've read. Also, I had no idea it wasn't a completely true story, because it was told as if it was pieced together from accounts and letters. But there were points where he could not have been so intimately in the character's head. Only after I read it did I find out that this is a perfect combination of history and novelistic invention. Some excerpts:
Peaks of mica kept watch over their long marches. How could these panoramas be rendered credible? There were too many sides; the cube had extra faces. The company of volcanos gave the sky interiors. Dawn and dusk were vast optical explosions, drawn out by the silence. Slingshots and gunshots of sunlight rebounded into every recess. Grey expanses hung out to dry forever in colossal silence; airshafts voluminous as oceans.
p. 14
A drove of mules the size of ants appeared in silhouette on a ridge-top path, moving at a star's pace. The mules were driven by human intelligence and commercial interests, expertise in breeding and blood-lines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability, and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation. The infinite orography of the Cordillera was a laboratory of forms and colors.
p. 16
Peaks of mica kept watch over their long marches. How could these panoramas be rendered credible? There were too many sides; the cube had extra faces. The company of volcanos gave the sky interiors. Dawn and dusk were vast optical explosions, drawn out by the silence. Slingshots and gunshots of sunlight rebounded into every recess. Grey expanses hung out to dry forever in colossal silence; airshafts voluminous as oceans.
p. 14
A drove of mules the size of ants appeared in silhouette on a ridge-top path, moving at a star's pace. The mules were driven by human intelligence and commercial interests, expertise in breeding and blood-lines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability, and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation. The infinite orography of the Cordillera was a laboratory of forms and colors.
p. 16