Fireflies by Luis Sagasti

Fireflies by Luis Sagasti

Argentinean fiction

Original title – Bellas Artes

Translator – Fionn Petch

Source – Review copy

I’m so pleased when I discover a new publisher. Charco press is a new publisher and is based in Scotland and wanting to bring the brightest new talents from Latin America. The first of three books I have been sent to read by them. This is one of those books that makes you remember why as a reader I have chosen to read fiction in translation. Luis Sagasti is a writer, Lecturer and art critic. He s also Curator of the museum of contemporary art in Bahia Blanca, they have an interesting blog

Beuys’ deep blue eyes seem to have cracked. He places his hands on the woman’s shoulders.She blinks awkwardly. Amd asks him: “is the story of the Tartars true? is Karl with the Tartars?”

Beuys removes his felt hat and holds it to his chest.The woman gazes at his scars and understood what she need to understand.

The hare understands art

is the anything to understand?

without the slightest doubt, art is the answer.

What he can’t be sure about is the question

Beuys was an enigma and again even his hat linked to Crimea and the Tartars !

In his song, Fireflies John grant says ~”She catches fireflies at the ice cream social and oh we watch them take flight” The title of this book in English is fireflies and the fireflies in these books are ideas. The book has a sebaldian feel to it a book where each part interconnects with earlier part a collection of small pieces about famous and less famous people. The core of the book is a story of Joesph Beuys and the aftermath of his crash in the second world war in Crimea, where he survived by being wrapped in felt and fat. Then how Gagarin got picked for the space flight over another man un the end. Urban myths like was it Pete Best in the abbey road cover in the background. The death of Antoine de Saint Exupery all gets mention and link in as we have eight stories or vignettes interlinking.

Yuri Gararin was chosen from among 300 candidates to make the first manned voyage outside the earths atmosphere. The son of a milkmaid and carpenter upholds the spirit of Socialism better than one whose father is a teacher and has a foreign sounding name: Gherman Titov misses out after two tie-breaks.

How He ended up in space , remind me of an exhbition Star city about Soviet space flight and art.

As I said this is hard to pin down what it is as a book? It is my good friend Susan from Istros they have a word in Slovenian for good prose that walks the line between fiction and non-fiction like the great book Panorama this is a book that rips at the soul of the reader. For me, I love when a book connects to my own life and this is what has happened here, in particular, the piece about Joesph Beuys rung with me as I lived for a time in the town of his birth just as they were doing a museum at his birthplace and my partner of the time her father lived in Kassel where there is a number of Beuys installations the 700s oaks rung the connection to the crashing in the forest of Crimea he and other plants 700 trees each with a special stone marker. then remembering being amazed the first time I heard the story of the piece  Fettecke another line back to the Crimea and the fat the smothered his body. This is what great books like this do ignite a light in the reader’s mind. A Spanish review describes the book as being like opening pages and linking through a web browser. Fireflies is an apt title as they light up the dark and fly around so quickly, like them this is a book small but full of light easily read in an evening you’ll be thinking about it for days after and going back and rereading parts.