For decades, the way that Latin American writers wrote about the tragic realities of their countries – the dictatorships, the violence, the crime, the corruption – was to cutesify them in a way that would make these horrors palatable and entertaining for foreign readers. This way of writing was called “magical realism,” and it soon spread to other third-world regions. Writers from desperately poor countries would compete as to who’d depict their tragic reality in the most cutesy, funky, and quirky way.

Finally, though, it seems like Latin American authors are ready to move on and stop exoticising the suffering that exists in their countries. Jorge Volpi’s recent La novela criminal is an example of a very different way of writing about Latin America. Volpi narrates the story of outrageous police misconduct, corruption, criminality and torture in today’s Mexico without the coy “well, this is just how we are” of the magic-realists. Volpi believes that it is a disgrace that Mexico should have such a ridiculously corrupt criminal justice system, and he doesn’t conceal his rage against the indignities of life in Mexico.

[To be continued…]

As someone said the other day, “Trump will win in 2020 because this is too much fun.” When I see things like the first sentence in this post or likethis truly ridiculous, pathetic meme, I realize it’s true.

If Trump is against “the invisible hand of the market”, then progressives will immediately become in favor.

Amongst all the stupidity people have spewed forth about Philip Roth, here is a great review by the always great Kenan Malik.

Sexual assault is not supposed to be funny. But it becomes so once college bureaucracies get involved. Check it out, folks, it has an interesting twist.

Only a woman gets this. Even the best, most intelligent, wonderful men simply can’t get it. But at least there are women who are not too cowed by incomprehending men to say it.

In my culture, we all know that “life only truly begins when you turn 40.” Which is why I was very confused by this article claiming that academics in my age group are particularly miserable. I mean, academics are always particularly miserable, it’s a requirement to join. But this kind of a twist on our gloominess is new to me.

An important article on workplace transformations. When I was saying these things only a few years ago, people debated ferociously.

When a teacher goes nuts. Sadly, it happens all too often.

How can anybody say that bringing back insane asylums is a bad idea? I’ve lived in places where severely disturbed people wandered the streets en masse, creating an intolerable situation for everybody and experiencing conditions of extreme indignity. Throwing them all out in the streets and destroying the institution of asylums was a huge victory for neoliberalism. It’s urgent that insane asylums should come back.

Life has reduced me to the indignity of eating vegan hot dogs. And you know what? They are not half bad. There are moments when they almost feel like the real deal.

N wants to take me out to a fancy restaurant for our 11th anniversary but now I’m thinking maybe I prefer to stay home, clutching a packet of these fake dogs in my hand.

Blogger Z came to stay with us here in Florida. Klara was overjoyed to have her around. She ran around for hours, laughing and jumping in delight.

A terrible suspicion visited me. I turned to N and exclaimed,

“Is this possible? Have we somehow managed to produce an extravert?? Does she actually like people?”

Of course, everybody is a born extravert before life messes them up, so it’s not really that surprising. It’s funny, though.

Here is how the union explains why we are in the habit of endorsing horrible candidates.

1. We don’t want to look partisan and like we always support the same party.

2. The evil candidate will win anyway and if we endorse we stand a chance of the evil candidate being open to hearing us out in the future.

I’m unconvinced because I asked for an example of when an evil candidate actually stood with us on an issue and none were forthcoming.

Unlike other people, I’m not leaving the union over this. But I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bother me.

There is a simple test one can use to check oneself for hypocrisy. The test is to ask oneself: Would I feel the same if somebody referred to Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama as cunts on TV?

Samantha-Bees and Trumps come and go. None of them is worth getting rid of one’s organizing principles.

Also, this week has done so much to demonstrate that women are capable of keeping their irrational emoting in check and behave professionally. What a great feminist advance.

This Samantha Bee, whoever she is, should, of course, be fired immediately and her show should be cancelled.

As with Roseanne, I don’t watch the show and have no interest in the genre. But this kind of behavior is not OK. Calling women cunts on TV is not OK.

People who see some sort of a difference between Barr and Bee are damn hypocrites. The so-called feminists who are justifying Samantha Bee are a disgrace. And the wails of “but she did it for the kiddies” are nauseating.

The only decent thing to do is to support the firing of both of these disgusting quacks, Barr and Bee.

N read my book and is wondering why it is that Spain produced such massive and amazing literature on the economic crisis while the Russian literature produced nothing whatsoever on any of the country’s important events. The collapse of the USSR, the economic crisis of 1998, the current events – there’s no literature at all.

Russian literary tradition is, of course, extremely young compared to Spain’s. When Spain was experiencing its Golden Age of the arts, Russia didn’t have any literature at all yet. In all textbooks Russian literature begins in the 18th century, when the first clunky imitations of the Enlightenment artists appeared in Russian. The farther you are from the place where your civilization originated, the more belated and feeble will your intellectual output be.

In 1935, Russia’s young and tenuous literary tradition was forcibly interrupted for decades. And literature doesn’t exist without a tradition. Every writer is a reader first. Of course, Spanish-language authors are producing like crazy. There is a robust and long-lived tradition that is feeding them.