Posted in 9c-2009 Reviews, Argentina, Brazil, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir on Jan 18th, 2011
One of the most original and delightful novels of 2005, Borges and the Eternal Orangutans is simultaneously a literary detective thriller, a parody of the detective story, and an anti-detective story. Taking its title (and one of its primary images) from Elizabethan writer John Dee, who wrote that if an orangutan were given enough time, he would eventually produce all the books in the world, the novel takes place in Buenos Aires, where an international group of Edgar Allan Poe specialists gathers for a meeting of the mysterious Israfel Society.Brazilian author Luis Fernando Verissimo creates as his narrator, a 50-year-old man named Vogelstein, who has led a cloistered life, “without adventures or surprises.” He believes that he has been called to the conference by destiny–“some hidden Borges”–and the convenient death of his cat confirms this belief. When a real murder occur, the speaker and Borges team up to solve the mystery. Hilarious, clever, and very literary. (On my Favorites list for 2005)
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Mma Precious Ramotswe, warm-hearted proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana, is drinking tea at an outdoor café when she witnesses the theft of a bracelet. In her haste to apprehend the female thief and return the bracelet to the poor vendor, she leaves her table without paying her bill. The waitress hurries after her, accuses her of intentionally neglecting her bill, and then offers to “forget” about it if she pays her an extortionate fee. Mortified, Mma Ramotswe hopes that no one else has seen the waitress berating her. When the woman at the next table, accompanied by her two children, smiles at her, Mma Ramotswe is relieved that she has not seen the incident. Then the woman comments, “Bad luck, Mma…They are too quick in this place. It is easier to run away at the hotels.”
Distressed by what she sees as the significant loss of some of Botswana’s traditional values, Mma, a “traditionally built” woman, believes ever more fervently in setting a good example and upholding these values in her own life. . Mma Ramotswe is revealed to have a very deep secret, something she has not shared even with Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni.
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Writing one of the must unusual and imaginative books I’ve read in a long time, Tasmania native Richard Flanagan presents a multi-leveled novel which is full of wry, sometimes hilarious, observations about people and history. At the same time, it is a scathing indictment of colonialism’s cruelties and its prison system, in particular. Almost schizophrenic in its approach, the novel jerks the reader back and forth from delighted amusement to horrified revulsion in a series of episodes that clearly parallel the unstable inner life of main character William Buelow Gould, who lives in “a world that demanded reality imitate fiction.” Sentenced to life imprisonment on an island off the coast of Tasmania, Gould cleverly plays the survival game, ingratiating himself with the authorities through his willingness to paint whatever they want–species of fish for the surgeon, fake Constable landscapes for the turnkey Pobjoy, murals for the Commandant’s great Mah-jong Hall, and backdrops for his railroad to nowhere.
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When an unnamed speaker is contacted by a gravedigger and his “depraved friend” to write a biography of the recently deceased philsopher Abd al-Rahman, “the existentialist of Baghdad,” he is told that the biography will be financed by a wealthy merchant and that they have documents to give him for his research. Though the writer knows that these people are scoundrels, he is so destitute that he agrees to accept the job. Part II, “The Writing Journey,” consists of biographical snippets by the writer/biographer, though the presentation of information is not chronological. Flashing back to the life of Abd al-Rahman in the 1960s, the story unfolds, a challenging story in which the philosophy of Sartre becomes irrevocably intertwined with the pleasure-seeking desires of the well-off Abd-al-Rahman, who is always seeking the goal of “nausea” through wine, women, and self-indulgence. Iraqi author Ali Bader, now living in Jordan, has written a novel which is fascinating for the glimpses it offers of the cultural life of Baghdad in the 1960s, even though some aspects of this life are satirized for their pretentions.
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Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, often at odds with the government of Czechoslovakia during the 1970s and 1980s, first published this tragicomic novel as a typescript in 1979, and later in book form in 1983. Hrabal and fellow-members of the Jazz Section of the Czech Musicians’ Union distributed it secretly for two years before many were arrested and sentenced to jail for their efforts. Hardly what modern readers would consider subversive or dangerous, the novel is a first-person account by Ditie, who begins his story as a teenage busboy at a rural hotel, progresses to waiter, and eventually to successful hotel owner. It gives nothing away (and the book cover itself includes this summary) to say that when the Czech government falls to communism, Ditie ends up working the roads in a mountain village. The picaresque plot is the least important aspect of the book, since it is merely the framework for a series of often hilarious stories about the people he works with, the lives they have led, the values they maintain, their hopes for the future, and the sometimes large chasm between their dreams and reality.
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