Scan barcode
A review by sarahreadsaverylot
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
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.