Hello Gentle Reader
As one gets older, there is this incomprehensible urge to view and admire the landscape; from viewing the backyard (or garden), to the park or even to looking at scenes and photographs of the natural landscapes of the world, via the internet. Cesar Aira’s novel follows or at least at the beginning traces the life of the German landscape painter Johann Maritz Rugendas. The very beginning of this novel has the wording and appearance of a non-fiction piece of work (something that is echoed throughout the novel, along with philosophical discussion, meditation on art and fantasy):
“Western art can boast few documentary painters of true distinction. Of those who lives and work we know in detail, the finest was Rugendas, who two visits to Argentina. The second, in 1847, gave him an opportunity to record the landscapes and physical types of the Rio de la Plata [the Plata River] – in such abundance that an estimated two hundred paintings remained in the hands of local collectors – and to refuse his friends and admirer Humboldt, or rather a simplistic interpretation of Humboldt’s theory, according to which painter’s talent should have been exercised solely in the more topographically and botanically exuberant regions of the New World.”
So begins a novel that in itself is a recordation of the experience of Rugendas; but by no means is documenting Rugendas life. His back story may be filled in, with recounts of his family’s tradition from being a clock maker to, evolution into painters:
“It was Johann Moritz’s great-grandfather, Georg Philip Rugendas (1666-1742) who founded the dynasty of painters. And he did so as a result of losing his right hand as a young man. The mutilation rendered him unfit for the family trade of clock-making, in which he had been trained since childhood. He had to learn to use his left hand, and to manipulate pencil and brush. He specialized in the depiction of battles, with excellent results, due to the preternatural precision of his draughtsmanship, which was due in turn to his training as a clockmaker and the use of his left hand, which, not being his spontaneous choice, obliged him to work with methodical deliberation. An exquisite contrast between the petrified intricacy of the form and the violent turmoil of the subject matter made him unique.”
Rather Rugendas as the painter and his life; which is weaved and knitted throughout this novel, becomes more of a vehicle or the eyes or filters that the reader views the world through. It is not a report that recounts Rugendas life. It is not some fictional biography that finds some mystical or hidden meaning in the life of Rugendas that can enlighten the reader. It is a meditation on art but also at times it felt like a love letter to Argentina from César Aira from an outsider’s perspective. An outsider who with Alexander von Humboldt’s theory:
“An all-embracing scholar, perhaps the last of his kind: his aim was to apprehend the world in its totality; and the way to do this, he believed, in conformity with a long tradition, was through vision.”
Is able to depict: “the mysterious emptiness to be found on the endless plains at a point equidistant from the horizons. Only there, he thought, would he be able to discover the other side of his art[. . .]”
Getting past the first bit of this dwarfish but well imagined and miniaturized novel, one experiences some great language and lush descriptions. As well as the German’s Rugendas and Krause (his friend, fellow compatriot as well as companion on his journey to Argentina) wonder and awe at the New World. His paintings and documentations (which would eventually be taken over by photographs) show an exotic world. One free of the polite society of Europe. A world that is run by unseen anarchic forces, mysticism alien culture. A place free of the constraints of enlightened Europe.
While traveling across the Pampas for Buenos Aires, it is revealed that Rugendas hopes to witness an earthquake and an Indian raid. However both are unpredictable, and the likeness of witnessing either was small and sat next to impossible. One of the greatest moments was when Rugendas and Krause think that they have reached the Pampas. How could it be possible to get even flatter? Though once San Luis is reached the true expansive nature of the word flat is seen. Locusts destroyed and tore apart the green colour of nature as is their brutal nature. The horses dehydrated and exhausted, and the mules perpetually cantankerous; that allow one to see the savagery viciousness of the land. The painters could not decide what to do; and so Rugendas suggested splitting up. Krause however had reservations about the idea; but Rugendas could not or rather would not take no for answers and quickly sped off on his panic and nerve wracked horse. As he cleared the mountain, Rugendas’s horse was frightened further by a thunderstorm. This is the climactic scene which brutally maims Rugendas described in vivid detail.
To be struck by lightning is the feeling of a quick flash; but in that quick flash time is disrupted. Where it once flows in a continual flowing river, when the electric current flows through the body it severs and divides the spliced and braided molecules of the river of time. It splinters off into small streams, while the energizing current of electricity courses through the body. In that electrifying shock of a flash, moments become life times. So is this novella.
It is a flash. A snap of the fingers novella. One of two that the author César Aira writes yearly. The author is known for his productivity, at the most he writes three novels yearly; but usually keeps a steady supply of writing two novellas a year. The late Chilean author Roberto Bolaño expressed great admiration for César Aira, even warmly comparing him to the Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas.
With atmospheric prose and very evocative; and brilliant descriptive language there is a justifiable need to concur with Mister Bolaño on this consensus of the authors talent and his truly literary outstanding originality. It is truly one of the most wonderful novella’s that personally I have read, as well as a novella that truly shows the novella’s capability as a literary art form separate from both the short story and the novel.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
