Tag: Latin American literature

Book Notes: Claudia Piñeiro’s The Time of the Flies

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

In spite of the inane quotes from Angela Davis and Rebecca Solnit, I still decided to give Claudia Piñeiro’s novel a chance and ploughed on until the bitter, bitter end. And bitter it was, indeed, because it turned out that the whole point of The Time of the Flies is that any man has “the right to be a woman” and it’s “a right that must be recognized.” These are quotes, in case anybody didn’t catch on.

As I’ve been saying, the narrative of “rights” leads to very insane places if we don’t approach this concept carefully and intelligently.

Aside from Piñeiro’s insistence that it’s crucial to trans children in schools and keep it secret from their parents (which is hard to ignore because it’s what the novel is about), nothing about the book works. The way it’s put together is clumsy. The characters make no sense. Everything is fake. And I swear, she used to be an excellent writer. When she wrote about Argentina and things that are happening in Argentina and are relevant to Argentineans, she was an excellent bloody writer. But then, for some utterly confusing reason, she decided to abandon all that and write for the English-speaking admirers of Angela bloody Davis, and I’m so upset because this was one of my favorite Latin American authors and now she’s all “rah-rah, let’s prattle on about the stupid Anglo fixation on transing kids like it’s the most important issue on the planet.” It’s so subservient, so pathetic. The woman threw away her God-given talent for … this? To appeal to some marginal group of overheated Anglos?

I’m really upset right now. I could have spent these two days reading something worthwhile and instead got saddled with this crap.

That Stupid, Stupid Borges

~ Clarissa ~ 21 Comments

A student writes, “The entire first page of Borges’s short story “The South” is completely irrelevant to everything that happens after.”

And later, “Borges obviously didn’t know hot to explain this legitimately, so he just came out with something completely improbable.”

And then some more, “Obviously, not enough planning on the writer’s part went into the creation of this short story.”

I wrote “let’s not condescend to Borges” in the comments. Is there anything else I can add?

A healthy self-esteem is great but I’m not sure how healthy it is to consider oneself so much smarter than Borges.

Vargas Llosa to Speak at St. Louis University!

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

You probably think we have all just fallen off our pumpkin carts here, in St. Louis Metro area, right? Well, think again. Our cultural life is rich and vigorous. Next Monday, for example, Mario Vargas Llosa, the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, the greatest Peruvian writer and my favorite living Latin American writer (and he’s just one person, too), will be speaking at St. Louis University:

Noted author Mario Vargas Llosa will receive the 2011 Saint Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates at a special event from 5:30-6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, in the Anheuser-Busch Auditorium at SLU’s John Cook School of Business, 3674 Lindell Blvd. A book signing with the author begins at 4:30 p.m., followed by the presentation of the award and a conversation with Vargas Llosa led by Olga Arbeláez, Ph.D., professor of Spanish in the University’s department of modern and classical languages.

To say that I’m excited is an understatement of the month.

If you haven’t read anything by Vargas Llosa, please, please do. He is really amazing. Garcia Marquez doesn’t deserve to bring him his slippers (in my highly subjective opinion). The writer’s books are all translated into English.

You can start with his early work Cubs. It’s short and much easier to read than the writer’s longer novels. And, of course, Vargas Llosa’s great novel The War of the End of the World is highly recommended. People often disagree but I think this novel is his masterpiece. For the romantically minded, Vargas Llosa’s attempt at a non misogynist Latin American novel about love, The Bad Girl, might be of interest.

If you follow the links I provided, you will see that Vargas Llosa’s books can be acquired very cheaply.

My sincere gratitude goes to Nancy P, a long-time reader of this blog who informed me of this important event.