Libromanía en Buenos Aires

Eterna Cadencia

Palermo, Buenos Aires

18/03/10

Buenos Aires es un paraíso para comprar libros.  Empiezo recorriendo la ciudad con una visita al barrio de Recoleta.  Después de saber que el shopping con el Village Cines Recoleta y una librería que me gusta está cerrada para renovaciones, regreso al microcentro y la famosa Avenida Corrientes.  Se puede encontrar librería tras librería acá, la mayoría un poco impersonal, pero es donde compro libros #1 y #2 de mis vacaciones a la Librería Hernandez (Av. Corrientes 1436, Buenos Aires; www.libreriahernandez.com): Cuentos completos (Alfaguara), de Fogwill, y El violento oficio de escribir: Obra periodística (1953-1977) (Ediciones De la Flor), de Rodolfo Walsh.  30 minutos más tarde, compro Diario argentino (Adriano Hidalgo editora), de Witold Gombrowicz, y El testigo (Anagrama), de Juan Villoro, a la Cúspide Libros ubicada a Av. Corrientes 1316 (www.cuspide.com).  No  encontré a La literatura nazi en América de Roberto Bolaño que quiero más de todos los libros en mi lista, pero de todos modos es un buen comienzo al viaje.

Buenos Aires is a book buyer's paradise.  I decide to begin my romp through the city with a visit to the barrio of Recoleta.  After finding out that the mall where the Village Cines Recoleta movie theater and a bookstore that I like is closed for renovations, I return to the "microcenter" downtown and the famous Avenida Corrientes.  Bookstore after bookstore can be found here, and while most are admittedly a little on the impersonal side this is where I buy books #1 and #2 of my vacation at the Librería Hernandez (Av. Corrientes 1436, Buenos Aires; www.libreriahernandez.com): Fogwill's Cuentos completos (Alfaguara) and Rodolfo Walsh's El violento oficio de escribir: Obra periodística (1953-1977). Half an hour later, I pick up Witold Gombrowicz's Diario argentino (Adriana Hidalgo publishing) and Juan Villoro's El testigo (Anagrama) at the Cúspide Libros located at Av. Corrientes 1316 (www.cuspide.com).  I didn't manage to find Roberto Bolaño's La literatura nazi en América, the book I most want out of all the books on my list, but it's a great start to my trip in any event.

"Piglia dice que Gombrowicz es el mejor escritor argentino del siglo XX.  Es sin duda una exageración irónica destinada a poner a prueba el nacionalismo argentino, pero no es totalmente inexacta: el tema witoldiano por excelencia, la inmadurez, lo inacabado que él atribuía a la cultura polaca venía siendo de un modo inequívoco, desde los años veinte, la preocupación esencial de los intelectuales argentinos".  --Juan José Saer

19/03/10

El próximo día, pasé la tarde en la parte del barrio de Belgrano cerca de la parada del subte Congreso de Tucumán.  Un lindo barrio estilo El hijo de la novia con muchos árboles y, parecería, gente adinerada.  Compré libro #5, Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí (Debolsillo), de Javier Marías, a la librería El Ateneo (Cabildo 2093, Buenos Aires).  Aunque este título no figuró entre los otros en la lista, estaba contento de encontrarlo acá porque es difícil encontrar en EE.UU por alguna razón.

The next day, I spent much of the afternoon in the part of the barrio of Belgrano surrounding the Congreso de Tucumán subway stop.  A pretty neighborhood with lots of trees and, it would seem, a lot of wealth that reminded me of the neighborhood in the film El hijo de la novia.  I bought book #5 here, Javier Marías' Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí (Debolsillo), at the El Ateneo bookstore (Cabildo 2093, Buenos Aires).  Although this title really wasn't on the list of things I was looking for, I was happy to find it here because it's difficult to come by in the States for some reason.

20/03/10

Después de pasar el día en la capital con mi esposa, paramos en la linda ciudad de Adrogué, cerca del pueblo donde viven mis suegros.  Sólo compro un libro, Glosa de Juan José Saer, pero siempre me entusiasma comprar libros cuando visita a Adrogué porque es la ciudad natal de Ricardo Piglia (uno de mis escritores argentinos preferidos).  La librería donde compré Glosa es una chiquitita que se llama López + Vergottini Libreros (Esteban Adrogué 1180, Adrogué; lopver@ciudad.com.ar).

After spending the day in the capital with my wife, we stopped in the pretty little city of Adrogué, which is close to where my in-laws live.  I only bought one book here, Juan José Saer's Glosa, but I always get an extra kick out of shopping here since Adrogué's the hometown of Ricardo Piglia (one of my favorite Argentinean writers).  The bookstore where I bought Glosa is a super tiny one called López + Vergottini Libreros (Esteban Adrogué 1180, Adrogué; lopver@ciudad.com.ar).

 Café Margot

Boedo, Buenos Aires

(foto: www.metroflog.com)

22/03/10

Paso la primera parte del día conociendo el barrio obrero de Boedo como una especie de homenaje al escritor argentino Roberto Arlt, que es afiliado con el barrio en cuanto a su historia literaria.  Me detengo para pedir un café con leche y un agua con gas al Café Margot (Av. Boedo 857), uno de esos espectaculares lugares porteños típicos donde "se respira la historia" como dice mi suegro.  Después, voy al barrio de Palermo donde compro una biografía sobre Arlt por Sylvia Saítta que se llama El escritor en el bosque de ladrillo (Debolsillo).  La librería: la hermosa Eterna Cadencia (Honduras 5582, Buenos Aires; www.eternacadencia.com).  Antes de salir del barrio, paso unos minutos a En el Camino Libros (J.L. Borges 1664, Buenos Aires; enelcaminolibros@yahoo.com.ar), que tiene muchos Bolaños pero no La literatura nazi en América que busco.  Compro un ejemplar de los Cuentos completos (Emecé), de Haroldo Conti.

I spend the first part of the day getting to know the working class barrio of Boedo as a sort of homage to the Argentinean author Roberto Arlt, who's strongly affiliated with the neighborhood in terms of its literary history.  I take a quick coffee and bottle of carbonated water break at the old school Café Margot  (Av. Boedo 857), one of those spectacularly "typical" Buenos Aires  places that "breathes history" as my father-in-law likes to say. Afterwards, I go the Palermo barrio where I buy a biography of Arlt by Sylvia Saítta called El escritor en el bosque de ladrillo [The Writer in the Brick Forest] (Debolsillo).  The bookstore: the beautiful Eterna Cadencia (Honduras 5582, Buenos Aires; www.eternacadencia.com).  Before leaving the neighborhood, I spend a few minutes at the nearby En el Camino Libros (J.L. Borges 1664, Buenos Aires; enelcaminolibros@yahoo.com.ar), which has a lot of Bolaños but not the La literatura nazi en América that I'm looking for.  I wind up buying a copy of Haroldo Conti's Cuentos completos (Emecé) here.

23/03/10

Libro #9 del viaje fue regalado a mí por parte de un viejo amigo de mi suegro: Bodegones de Buenos Aires (Planeta), escrito por Pietro Sorba.  Es un guía turística muy util; lo se porque visité a uno de los bodegones el próximo día en Palermo, y visité a otro durante mi visita a Boedo.  Ambos 10 a escala de 10.  ¡Gracias, Ignacio!

Book #9 of the trip comesin the form of a gift from an old friend of my father-in-law: Pietro Sorba's Bodegones de Buenos Aires [~Old Bars and Restaurants of Buenos Aires].  It's a very useful sort of tourist guide--I already know because I used it the next day at a Spanish restaurant in Palermo, and I visited another of the places recommended by the book during my visit to Boedo.  Both perfect.  Thanks, Ignacio!

El Ateneo Grand Splendid

Barrio Norte, Buenos Aires

(foto: longhorndave)

24/03/10

Aunque éste fue un día feriado en Bs.As. (un "Día de la Memoria" para reflejar sobre el golpe militar del 24 de marzo de 1976), regresé a Palermo y En el Camino Libros para comprar un Bolaño, La pista de hielo (Anagrama), y un Arlt, El paisaje en las nubes: Crónicas en El Mundo 1937-1942 (Fondo de Cultura Económica).  A pesar del hecho de que En el Camino Libros comparte un espacio muy chiquito con una disquería, tenían la mejor selección de títulos de Bolaño que vi en la capital durante mi viaje.  Antes de salir Palermo, también compré un libro de no ficción a Prometeo Libros (Honduras 4912, Buenos Aires; www.prometeolibros.com): Recuerdo de la muerte (Booket), de Miguel Bonasso.  Para mejor conocer a la Avenida Santa Fe, otra calle famosa por tener muchas librerías, decidí caminar a lo largo de la calle desde Plaza Italia hacia el centro (casi 40 cuadras).  De las muchas librerías que visité, dos me llamaron la atención suficimiente para comprar aún más libros.  Encontré un ejemplar de Vidas imaginarias (Longseller), escrito por Marcel Schwob y recomendado por Bolaño y Borges, a Librería Santa Fe (Av. Santa Fe 2376, Buenos Aires; www.lsf.com.ar), y otro Arlt, Los siete locos (Tolemia) con la tapa que más me gusta de esta  novela, a la Cúspide Libros ubicada a Av. Santa Fe 1818.  (Y aunque no compré ningunos libros a El Ateneo Grand Splendid a Av. Santa Fe 1860, sí hice una visita a esta librería espectacularmente hermosa para desfrutar del ambiente del lugar evaluado como la segunda más importante librería del todo el mundo según un periódico.) Después de recibir un sinnúmero de respuestas de "agotado", "agotadísimo" y "no" a la pregunta de la disponibilidad de un ejemplar de La literatura nazi en América, una empleada de la Librería Santa Fe finalmente me explicó por qué: la distribuidora del editorial recién cambió de dueños, y muchas obras bolañescas son completamente agotados por el momento.  ¡Qué pena!

Although the 24th was a holiday (a "Day of Memory" for reflection upon the military coup that took place in Argentina on March 24, 1976) in Bs.As., I returned to Palermo and En el Camino Libros to buy a Bolaño, La pista de hielo (Anagrama), and an Arlt, El paisaje en las nubes: Crónicas en El Mundo 1937-1942 (Fondo de Cultura Económica).  In spite of the fact that En el Camino Libros shares a super small space with a record store, they had the best selection of Bolaño titles I saw in town during my visit.  Before leaving Palermo, I also bought a nonfiction work not too far away at Prometeo Libros (Honduras 4912, Buenos Aires; www.prometeolibros.com): Miguel Bonasso's Recuerdo de la Muerte (Booket).  To better get to know the Avenida Santa Fe, another street famous for its quantity of quality bookstores, I decided to walk the whole length of the avenue from Plaza Italia toward the city center (something like 40 blocks).  Of the many bookstores that I stopped in along the way, two caught my attention sufficiently for me to stop and buy a book.  I found a copy of Marcel Schwob's Bolaño y Borges-approved Vidas imaginarias (Longseller) at the Librería Santa Fe (Av. Santa Fe 2376, Buenos Aires; www.lsf.com.ar) and another Arlt, Los siete locos (Tolemia, with the cover I most like of this novel), at the Cúspide Libros located at Av. Santa Fe 1818.  (And while I didn't buy any books at El Ateneo Grand Splendid at Av. Santa Fe 1860, I did pay a visit to this spectacularly beautiful site to soak in the atmosphere at the bookstore judged to be "the second most important in the whole world" according to one British newspaper.)  After receiving an endless number of replies of "sold out," "completely sold out" and just plain "no" to the question of whether or not a bookstore had a copy of La literatura nazi en América for me to bring home, an employee of the Librería Santa Fe finally explained to me why I couldn't find the novel in the entire city: the publisher's distributor apparently underwent a change in ownership recently, and a lot of Bolaño's works are hence completely unavailable for the moment.  What a drag!

26/03/10

Porque es casi tiempo de preparar la maleta, estoy contento de decirles que el fin de la locura de comprar libros en Bs.As. sucediera así.  Después de almorzar con una amiga estadounidense que está pasando un año en Uruguay, visité a La Librería de Avila (Alsina 500, Buenos Aires.; www.libreriadeavila.servisur.com) cerca de la Casa Rosada.  Compré El pasado (Anagrama), de Alan Pauls.  Después, compré el "mellizo" de Los siete locos de Roberto Arlt, Los Lanzallamas (Tolemia), a la Cúspide Libros a Av. Corrientes 1316 (segunda visita).  Libro #17, probablemente el último del viaje, fue encontrado a El Ateneo en Florida 629.  Se llama El optimismo de la voluntad: Experiencias editoriales en América Latina (Fondo de Cultura Económica) por el editor de Anagrama Jorge Herralde.  Es probable que voy a llenar este post con más detalles y algunos enlaces cuando regreso de mis vacaciones, pero por el momento ya basta.  Mientras tanto ¡Feliz lecturas a todos!

Since it's almost time to pack my bags, I'm happy to tell you that the end of my book-buying craze in Bs.As. went something like this.  After having lunch with an American friend who's spending a year in Uruguay, I visited La Librería de Avila (Alsina 500, Buenos Aires; www.libreriaavila.servisur.com) near the Casa Rosada and picked up a copy of Alan Paul's El pasado (Anagrma).  A little later, I found the "twin" of Roberto Arlt's Los siete locos, Los Lanzallamas (Tolemia), at the Cúspide Libros site at Av. Corrientes 1316 (round two).  Book #17, probably the last purchase of the trip, was found at El Ateneo on Florida 629 downtown.  It's called El optimismo de la voluntad: Experiencias editoriales en América Latina (Fondo de Cultural Económica) and was written by Anagrama publisher Jorge Herralde.  I'll probably fill out this post with more details and a few links here and there when I get back from my vacation, but for the moment, enough already.  In the meantime, happy reading to all of you!

Una nota sobre los precios: Durante mi visita, el tipo de cambio fue 1 USD = 3.85 ARG pesos.  El libro más caro: El paisaje en las nubes, de Arlt, a 120 pesos.  Los libros más baratos: Los siete locos y Los Lanzallamas, también de Arlt, a 18 pesos cada uno.//A note on prices: During my visit, the rate of exchange was something on the order of 3.85 Argentine pesos to the dollar.  The most expensive book: Arlt's El paisaje en las nubes at 120 pesos.  The least expensive books: Los siete locos and Los Lanzallamas, also by Arlt, at 18 pesos each.

The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana (New Directions, 2009)
by Tennessee Williams
USA, 1961

With practically every reason in the world to take a swipe at this work, I have to admit that I actually enjoyed this Tennessee Williams play in spite of its stereotypical characters, fairly heavyhanded symbolism, and that "theatrical" timing thing where major characters conveniently die at the end of an act.  Although the idea of a platonic love story of sorts having to do with a defrocked cleric turned jailbait-obsessed tour guide and a spinsterly New England portrait artist still sounds like a really bad idea to me, Williams must have done something right to make their hunger for connection between people feel real by the end of Act Three.  Maddeningly, what that something was isn't entirely clear to me at this point.  While the dialogue's snappy enough and occasionally even very striking, certain exchanges among the characters seem dated beyond belief.  Making allowances for the possibility that the playwright might have intended this anachronistic vibe given the Mexico 1940 setting, I'm still not sure I can explain away either the overheated tone or how extremely annoying most of the characters are.  In short, I'm essentially mystified by how Williams turned such a corny story into a feat of emotional legerdemain.  While you ponder whether that was a backhanded compliment or not, I will return to my vacation and the important business of eating empanadas and such in a city way more happening than my own.  Later.  (www.ndpublishing.com)

 Tennessee (in a) Tuxedo

 Night of the Iguana was the March shared read selected by my reading group friends Claire from kiss a cloud, Emily from Evening All Afternoon, Frances from Nonsuch Book, and Sarah from what we have here is a failure to communicate.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Talented Mr. Ripley (W.W. Norton, 2008)
by Patricia Highsmith
USA, 1955

"Five days passed, calm, solitary but very agreeable days in which he rambled about Palermo, stopping here and there to sit for an hour or so in a café or a restaurant and read his guidebooks and the newspapers.  He took a carrozza one gloomy day and rode all the way to Monte Pelligrino to visit the fantastic tomb of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, depicted in a famous statue, which Tom had seen pictures of in Rome, in one of those states of frozen ecstasy that are given other names by psychiatrists.  Tom found the tomb vastly amusing.  He could hardly keep from giggling when he saw the statue: the lush, reclining female body, the groping hands, the dazed eyes, the parted lips.  It was all there but the actual sound of the panting."  (The Talented Mr. Ripley, 175)

I saw the 1999 Matt Damon/Jude Law/Gwyneth Paltrow film adaptation of Ripley back when it first came out and remember it as an OK movie that didn't blow my mind or anything like that.  So imagine my surprise when I suddenly started craving a Patricia Highsmith read a few months back, and the book that kept calling my name was The Talented Mr. Ripley!  Strange how these things work, no?  A mischievous reworking of Henry James' The Ambassadors imbued with an almost palpable sexual tension, TTMR is a crackerjack travelogue of sorts in which the 20-something title character resorts to murder, identity theft, and forgery to extend his stay in Europe as the most nouveau of nouveau riche American expats.  Highsmith seems to get a lot of love from the critics for having developed a sociopath in Tom Ripley who's so psychologically complex that even non-sociopaths like some book bloggers can understand and empathize with him to a certain extent, but that's hardly all that this novel has going for it.  To me, Highsmith's wicked sense of humor = the real key here--both in the way she teases the audience by constantly putting Ripley in more and more dicey situations where he's in danger of being exposed for all his crimes and in the casual way Ripley can whine about certain trivial offenses just after having clubbed a random friend or acquaintance to death.  Given the questions about Ripley's identity that surface during the course of the novel and the character's understandable reasons for wanting to annihilate his troubled past, I also have to hand it to Highsmith for touching on sexual orientation and class identification issues with her poor, "sissy" protagonist in a manner that feels perfectly natural on the one hand but can also be read as a mocking indictment of the so-called American way of  life on the other.  Surprisingly good, slyly subversive fun--and maybe even the Gatsby of McCarthy Era crime fiction, who knows?  (http://www.wwnorton.com/)

Patricia Highsmith

The Monk

The Monk: A Romance (Oxford World's Classics, 2008)
by Matthew Lewis
England, 1796

While I'm not about to backtrack from my assertion that almost all British literature in the post-Shakespeare/pre-Sex Pistols period is as overrated as that famous boy band the Beatles, even I have to admit that The Monk was a pretty cool read!  Kind of a fun gothic novel and a fundamentally anti-gothic novel all rolled into one, this 18th-century trash masterpiece takes genre stereotypes to new heights--or new lows, depending on your point of view--in its dogged pursuit of the details behind Madrid monk Ambrosio's spiritual downfall and subsequent punishment. "Lust, murder, incest, and every atrocity that can disgrace human nature, brought together, without the apology of probability, or even possibility, for their introduction" brayed one early reviewer (vii), a description that's less off base for its accuracy than for its failure to acknowledge the novelist's decidedly impish sense of humor.  The now archaic language is predictably hilarious when it comes to portraying Ambrosio's increasingly carnal tendencies (a voyeuristic gem on page 271: "The amorous Monk had full opportunity to observe the voluptuous contours and admirable symmetry of her person"), but it's similarly amusing to discover the variety of sly religious digs aimed at the unnaturalness of celibacy and the undue influence of Catholic "superstition" peppered throughout the work.  In one of the high water moments in this regard, an overprotective mother tries to shield her virginal daughter from temptation by editing out "all improper passages" in the Bible to make it a more age-appropriate means of instruction!  All howlers and morality gibes aside, The Monk was also interesting to me for its blurring of the lines between gothic and realist modes of narration.  For, in between all the supernatural episodes dedicated to Bleeding Nuns and Wandering Jews and the summoning of demons by black magic and such, Lewis also invokes a graphic form of realism that includes a sexual assault scene in a sepulcher and a torture scene in an Inquisition trial.  If The Monk doesn't exactly express a "modern sensibility" or anything like that with any consistency, it's still easy to understand why folks like the surrealists saw something of a kindred spirit in its frisky, teenaged author when you consider all the tension between his overtly fantastic scenes and his uncomfortably realistic extremes.  Wild and sometimes over the top with an ending that's pure genius! (www.oup.com/worldsclassics)

Matthew Lewis

An Invitation

Now that the modernist boot camp that was Woolf in Winter is over, I'm happy to bring you news of ten more shared reads I'll be participating in through the end of the year to be co-hosted with my blogging buddies Claire of kiss a cloud, Emily of Evening All Afternoon, Frances of Nonsuch Book, and Sarah of what we have here is a failure to communicate.  I hope that each and all of you who read this will consider joining us for discussion of at least one of the following books, so here's a list of the titles (and the names of the people who proposed them, for those interested in that sort of book psychology thing!) for you to look over to help you decide.

March: Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana (Frances)

April: Georges Perec's Life a User's Manual (me!)

May: Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels (Sarah)

June: Gabriel Josipovici's Moo Pak (Emily)

July: Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter (Claire)

August: William Carlos Williams' In the American Grain (Frances)

September: Tómas Eloy Martínez's Santa Evita (me!)

October: Tobias Wolff's Old School (Sarah)

November: Ricardas Gavelis' Vilnius Poker (Emily)

December: Gabriel García Márquez's Clandestine in Chile (Claire)

Since this'll mostly be a laid-back affair befitting a book group that doesn't even have a name, feel free to leave a comment here or at any of the other host blogs if you think you'd like to join us for a particular read or if you have any questions.  Since all our "conversations" will take place on the last Friday of each month, you could also just read the work and then tell us about it if you want to join in the fun but not the commitment.  Although I'm stoked to continue reading on with such a great group of bloggers, it'd be cool if you could join us too. Please think about it!

P.S. Frances and Sarah, who have already posted about these plans on their own blogs, have links to actual pictures and descriptions of all of the books above here and here.