Synopses & Reviews
The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel) is the very definition of a novel written ahead of its time. Macedonio (known to everyone by his unusual first name) worked on this novel in the 1930s and early '40s, during the heyday of Argentine literary culture, and around the same time that
At Swim-Two-Birds was published, a novel that has quite a bit in common with Macedonio's masterpiece.
In many ways, Museum is an "anti-novel." It opens with more than fifty prologues — including ones addressed "To My Authorial Persona," "To the Critics," and "To Readers Who Will Perish If They Don’t Know What the Novel Is About" — that are by turns philosophical, outrageous, ponderous, and cryptic. These pieces cover a range of topics from how the upcoming novel will be received to how to thwart "skip-around readers" (by writing a book that’s defies linearity!).
The second half of the book is the novel itself, a novel about a group of characters (some borrowed from other texts) who live on an estancia called "la novella" . . .
A hilarious and often quite moving book, The Museum of Eterna's Novel redefined the limits of the genre, and has had a lasting impact on Latin American literature. Authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Ricardo Piglia have all fallen under its charm and high-concepts, and, at long last, English-speaking readers can experience the book that helped build the reputation of Borges's mentor.
Review
Praise for the original French edition:
“A text of luminous, intuitive grace.”—Christine Ferniot, Lire Magazine
“There is a Bobin style, a way of approaching literature through the joy that words radiate, the light they hold within.” —Guy Goffette, Le Monde
“A portrait full of empathy that cares little for chronology and facts, since what really matters to the author is elsewhere. . . . Bobin preserves Emily Dickinsons fervor, her attentiveness to small things, to nothing, to simplicity. . . . This is a biography full of grace and vision.”—Gérard Pussey, Elle Magazine (France)
Review
"Are thinness, youth and beauty really the ultimate values of the human race? Science fiction, allegory or parody, this tasty little novel serves up a witty parody of today's calorie-obsessed culture to sweeten its merciless, well-aimed bite."—Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle
Review
“Shua ridicules the idea of thinness as . . . an aristocratic model, as well as the institutions that promote that ideal. [
The Weight of Temptation] is a sharp, funny, acid, and entertaining novel.”—Patricio Lennard,
Radar: Página/12
Review
“Whos not afraid of those extra pounds? Who doesnt need the mirrors daily reassurance? Who doesnt fear ugliness and isolation as even more unbearable than death? In her latest novel, Ana María Shua tracks the unhappy path of the obese to those murky institutions that claim omnipotence.”—Magdalena Ruiz Guiñazu,
Perfil
Review
“Written in a rich, colloquial language stripped of euphemism, alternately raw and seductive.”—Marta Ortiz,
La CapitalReview
"[The Weight of Temptation] offers an incredible new look into the cyclic addiction to food and fans of dystopian literature, political parables, and food aficionados will find this to be a newly relevant twist on an old tale."—Three Percent
Review
"[The Lady in White is a] significant addition to the literature around Emily Dickinson."—M.A.Orthofer, Complete Review
Review
"This is an approach to storytelling that can leave the first-time reader feeling mired in its self-attentions. But that should be expected given that the novel wants to inculcate a sense of metaphysical entanglement as it explores two of the most rudimentary concerns of human life: love and death ... As a work of devout humanism, this novel is conceived around the best sorts of frustrations."-Christopher Byrd,
Barnes and Noble Review"One gets the sense that Fernández would be disappointed in the "progress" of the contemporary novel. Ours is a culture that values orderly stories, but "skip around" readers will enjoy meandering about Fernández's cabinet of wonders."-Jim Ruland, "
Review
"The Argentine novelist and sometime-philosopher Macedonio Fernandez is best known today in the English-speaking world as an early mentor of Jorge Luis Borges. Macedonio attended law school with Borges's father and during the 1920s, when Borges and other writers in Buenos Aires were expounding their avant-guard views in the magazine Martin Fierro, Macedonio acted as a sort of father figure to the group. He never learned to type, however, and most of his own work was still in manuscript when he died in 1952. In later life Borges's reminiscences fueled a mythic image of the elder writer as a quietist thinker who had no interest in courting renown, yet as Macedonio's own writings began to appear more widely in print posthumously, scholars came to suspect that quite a few of Borges's stylistic and conceptual trademarks could be shown to derive from the literary aesthetic of his early mentor." John Toren, Rain Taxi (read the entire Rain Taxi review)
Synopsis
"I imitated him, to the point of transcription, to the point of devoted and impassioned plagiarism. I felt: Macedonio is metaphysics, is literature. Whoever preceded him might shine in history, but they were all rough drafts of Macedonio, imperfect previous versions. To not imitate this canon would have represented incredible negligence."--Jorge Luis Borges
The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel) is the very definition of a novel written ahead of its time. Macedonio (known to everyone by his unusual first name) worked on this novel in the 1930s and early '40s, during the heyday of Argentine literary culture, and around the same time that At Swim-Two-Birds was published, a novel that has quite a bit in common with Macedonio's masterpiece.
In many ways, Museum is an "anti-novel." It opens with more than fifty prologues--including ones addressed "To My Authorial Persona," "To the Critics," and "To Readers Who Will Perish If They Don't Know What the Novel Is About"--that are by turns philosophical, outrageous, ponderous, and cryptic. These pieces cover a range of topics from how the upcoming novel will be received to how to thwart "skip-around readers" (by writing a book that defies linearity ).
The second half of the book is the novel itself, a novel about a group of characters (some borrowed from other texts) who live on an estancia called "la novella" . . .
A hilarious and often quite moving book, The Museum of Eterna's Novel redefined the limits of the genre, and has had a lasting impact on Latin American literature. Authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and Ricardo Piglia have all fallen under its charm and high-concepts, and, at long last, English-speaking readers can experience the book that helped build the reputation of Borges's mentor.
Macedonio Fernandez was one of the most influential--and strangest--Argentine authors ever. He was Borges's mentor; he campaigned for president by leaving notecards with the word "Macedonio" in cafes; he started a utopian society. He also wrote the "Last Bad Novel" (Adriana Buenos Aires) and the "First Good One" (The Museum of Eterna's Novel).
Margaret Schwartz is an assistant professor at Fordham University. She was a Fulbright fellow to Argentina in 2004, during which time she researched the life and works of Macedonio Fernandez.
Adam Thirlwell is the author of the novels Politics and The Escape. His book about literature and translation, The Delighted States, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2008. He has twice been named as one of Granta's "Best Young British Novelists."
Synopsis
A novel decades ahead of its time, and the only work by Jorge Luis Borges's mentor available in English.
Synopsis
Written by Borges's mentor in the 1930s, but unpublished until after Fernandez's death, Museum is an "anti-novel," opening with more than fifty prologues—some philosophical, some outrageous—and ending with a novel featuring characters who are aware they're in a novel. Incredibly innovative, Macedonio deemed this "The First Good Novel," a counterpart to his very conventional "Last Bad Novel." A true masterpiece.
Synopsis
To this day, Emily Dickinson remains a beloved and enigmatic figure in American poetry. This “lady in white,” who shut herself away from the world and found solace alone with her words, has since her death been viewed primarily through the lens of her poetry, which afforded her beauty and hope amid the agony and loneliness of her life.
As a reclusive writer himself, contemporary French author Christian Bobin felt a kindred tie to the poetess, and his book The Lady in White honors Dickinson in the form of a brief, poetically imagined account of her life and the work that she gave the world. This fresh and personal interpretation of Dickinsons life leaves one with an impression of knowing Dickinson both through her poetry, as recalled by Bobin, and as he senses the person she was through her work and the sparse facts we have about her life.
Synopsis
Dystopian fantasy, political parable, morality tale—however one reads it, this novel is first and foremost pure Ana María Shua, a work of fiction like no other and a dark pleasure to read. Shua, an Argentinian writer widely celebrated throughout Latin America, frames her complex drama in deceptively simple, straightforward prose. The story takes place at a fat farm called The Reeds, a nightmare world that might not exist but certainly could. The last resort of the overweight wealthy (or sponsored), The Reeds subjects its “campers” to extreme measures—particularly the regimented system of public humiliation imposed by its director, a glib and sharp-minded sadist called the Professor.
Into the midst of this methodical madness comes Marina Rubin, who experiences all the excesses of The Reeds. The pervasive cruelty of this refined novel distances it from facile conclusions. Amid the mordant social satire, The Reeds obese campers are far more than merely victims of the system, subjected to impossible social demands for physical perfection. Out of control, fierce, rebellious, or subjugated, they are recognizable human beings, contending with an unjust but efficient authority in their unique and solitary ways.
About the Author
Macedonio Fernández is considered one of the greatest Argentine writers of the twentieth century. He was a close friend of Jorge Luis Borges, and Macedonio's metaphysical and aesthetic ideas greatly influenced Borges's generation. The mythical life of Macedonio is almost as interesting and fun as his books. Some of the stories about his life include: his campaign for president, which consisted of leaving notecards with the word "Macedonio" on them throughout Buenos Aires' cafes; his attempt to found a utopian society, only to be thwarted by pesky mosquitoes; and his belief that he shouldn't publish, instead allowing his work time to "age." He passed away in 1952, and the first edition of Museo de la Novela de la Eterna was released in 1967.