The one before by Juan José Saer
Argentina fiction
Original title – La Mayor
Translator – Roanne L. Kantor
Source – Review copy
Message In A Bottle”
Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despairI’ll send an SOS to the world
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
(Message in a bottle)A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heartI strangely choose A old Police lyric just as one part of arguments is about throwing a bottle with the word message in into the sea .
Now when this a three other books from the american publisher Open letter arrived for review , I was pleased this book in Particular is by a writer that is on my list of writer to read . Juan Jose Saer born to Syrian parents in Santa Fe , he studied philosophy at Litoral University and after that taught history of cinematography , he later got the chance to studied in Paris where he stayed in Exile up to his death ,Exile , Santa Fe and twins are recurring themes in his fiction according to his wiki page .He passed away in 2005 .
I ate the foods of the world ,My hands touched the stones of famous cities and my body , shriveled now but fit and feral , walked the streets more numerous than ripples in a river ,What man have I not known ? what book have I not read ? What might there be in the warehouse od visible and invisible things that could still be sold to me as a novelty ?
A poet remembering the places he has been Memories serve a part , another story is called scent memory
This book is a triptych of stories . Arguments are snatches of stories range from a paragraph to a few pages , thin slices of stories that range from little piece of info , arguments about books , being an exile , and memories that stack up together to make you as the reader both think and feel . The second and third story are more straight forward Half erased and the one before . I read the intro by the translator and found that the Character Pigeon Garay is a character that has featured in other works by Saer ,here he first appears in arguments here ,we see him wrestling with leaving his life in the last story , but his home town is also wrestling with an on coming flood almost as thou it is trying to wipe clean where he was . But also may drown him where he is which isn’t where he wants to be .
“The best thing a message can say ” said Barco , “is just message .So even when everything would seem to indicate we should write HELP! , I’d suggest that we write this is a message , Or just message short and sweet .
Tomatis considered this a moment and at last agreed , only to encounter another question : who would write the word ?
I choose the police lyric due to these lines , I love the second part who should write the message .
Well this was my first collection by Saer , he is considered one of the main figures in Latin American fiction . For me I see lots of Borges in the first section .These stories are like tapas like little pieces of fiction and as I say they are thin slices so like tapas can be mixed together to everyone’s taste however each reader approaches them taken what you want from them , rather like Borges made the reader work at times to get to the centre of the labyrinth . For me I got out his love of fiction , his feelings of exile (the parts on exile remind me of Goytisolo another great writer on exile ) The second two stories have a more visceral feel to them more of a modern feel say like Aira and Bolano write and show how Saer was a writer that links the stylish style of Borges with that brutal cutting edge of prose of Bolano .A great first book from Open letter books , I have two others coming in the next week or two .
Have you read Saer ?
