Op Oloop by Juan Filloy

 

Op Oloop by Juan Filloy

Argentinean fiction

Original title – Op Oloop

Translator – Lisa Dillman

Source personnel copy

I was first attracted to the title when it came out a number of years ago so when I saw they had a reduced the price of it a few weeks ago I felt I had to get a copy. The first thing that grabbed me about the writer was his Bio. Juan Filloy was a Hellenist, swimmer boxing referee, and talented Caricaturist. He spoke seven languages. He was a lawyer and Judge in the small town of Rio Cuarto. He made over 8000 palindromes in his life and only used seven letters in his book titles. He died in 200 just before his 106 birthday. There is part of me feels he maybe is a non de plume for a more modern writer this book came out in 1934. He was to inspire both Borges and Cortazar. If he was real he led a life worthy of an epic biography.

The statistician hadn’t noticed. Everything, in fact, was slipping by him unnoticed. He couldn’t focus. His eyes had tuned into the droning, thereby affecting his ability o hear – which ability hoovered awkwardly in the midst of all the urban traffic noise around him. Neuropathy jad attacched the characteristics of various other senses to Op Oloop’s sight. He sat, preplexed the sensorial wires leading to his brain having been switched around, as though he could listen with his sight or touch with his smell

His brain has been wired by his habits in a way.

The book follows a day in the life of Mr. Optimus Oloop. The Op Ollop of the title. This man is a Finnish statistician living in Buenos Aires. We join him on what turns out to be the day of his engagement party. We see how this guy is timed to times his life is ruled by a rigid set of rules and schedule. We first see this when he is writing letters, in fact, is in the middle of a  letter when the clock strikes ten and he must finish where he is with the invitations he has been writing out. Then he has his regular appointment at the Turkish bath.  That he has at the same time each day. Then a taxi ride that needs to reach an exact price that means for a later event in the day he will have the right money. This shows the running of this man’s mind the day is leading to his Engagement party where we meet his group of unusual friends a German submarine captain, a pimp, a white slave trader the had of sanitation and the head of air traffic control. Also at the party is the Finnish Ambassador that gives Oloop a head injury. The other activity that Mr. Oloop loves is visiting the many and varied prostitutes he has met since arriving in the Americas. So yes even thou he is due to get engaged to Fransiska. He is also due to sleep and writes down about the 1000 prostitute he will never forget this day. As the later events in the book are marred by the fact he is running late an event that makes Mr. Op Oloop act differently from he usually would.

I’d be delighted. The first entry coincides with my arrival in America : August 7, 1924. I won’t bother reading the columm headings

BIRDIE, 17 years old. Blonde, cheveux de lin. Chorus girl from Ziegfeld. Unbelievable  tit! my hands still cupped

SOLANGE, 38. Brunette. French Thin forur sisters, all prostitutes, Chiqueteuse. Fifteen dollars!

MERKEL, 26 , Lituanian. Almost Albino. Scar deoma caesarian pudgy , foul smell presliration. repulsive

DELORES , 15 Andalusian. Olive-skinned. The beauty of a murillo, with a dark background …worty of Valdes Leal

His entires on the prostitutes he has slept with the 1000th is the same noght as his engagement part

 

This book is what we have publishers like Dalkey Archive for those odd strange books that need be in English. This book has a bit of Ulysses and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway as it follows the event of one person over the course of time. It also shows what happens when events take an unexpected turn. I see comparisons with Bloom arguing with the Loyalist in the pub and leaving the pub early leads to events later is similar to the events around Mr. Oloop. For me, the one comparison I would make is to the film Clockwise with John Cleese that showed what happens when Time runs against you and events run out of Control. Like the events that lead Oloop to act out of sorts. It’s strange that he was mention as an influence to Cortazar as this has a feeling of a book that the Oulipo group would write using Oloop Time and other ticks to control the narrative this is a precursor to that movement. A challenging book about one mans obsessive life from his time keeping to his sexual desires and writing down every woman he has slept with.

Have you read Filloy ? is he real?