Pedro Mairal

War and Peace in Montevideo

Translated by Jennifer Croft
Read by David Desantos
Length:~4 hours

Up until the last 10 pages I thought I’d found a perfect gem of a book, but even though the ending seemed rushed, I will always remember it fondly.

It’s essentially a comedy of a man’s errors as he, a married middle-aged writer called Lucas tries to satisfy his lust for a girl called Guerra. Lucas has just one day to accomplish this act that he has dreamed of for six months.

Guerra is bold and beautiful. Lucas has arranged to meet her for lunch during his one day trip from Buenos Aires to Uruguay where Guerra lives. I liked Guerra from the moment she said, on realizing Lucas’s sole intention was to bed her, that men with fck anything that moves, and the only reason they don’t have sex with their sisters is that their sisters won’t let them. And even perhaps their mothers…though Lucas, horrified cuts her short on this.

From the moment Guerra turns up at the restaurant we realize things will not run smoothly for Lucas. Guerra brings a borrowed pit bull to their lunch meeting.

“Years and years of genetic manipulation had edged it toward what it was today: a jaw of a dog, rough, tough, a canine cudgel of lethal chomps, a Tasmanian devil with a huge square head.”

They go shopping, get high on beer and marijuana, visit a tattoo parlor . Lucas who has never had a tattoo in his life has a one inked onto a shoulder. Stoned, he chooses a Celtic symbol for war to remember Guerra, and considers having Paz tattooed on his other shoulder but Guerra tells him his wife may find it suspicious.

We follow Lucas’s trip and trips from his home to Uruguay and back . We meet his fellow travelers who annoy him, as he only wants to think of Guerra and how on earth he’s going to explain his tattoo to his wife.

‘Toward the middle of the bus across the way a guy answered his cellphone and started screeching into it. He was eplaining something to his secretary coordinating shifts. He was a doctor. He was imposing his bellowing upon the sleep and daydreams of all the other passengers, his scheduling issues, his abuse of that woman who was just trying to put his messy commitments in order. “You can put off the medical group thing until October. For the love of god Isabel don’t plug everything into the same week. Give it just a tiny bit of thought.” I’ve never liked male doctors.’

As Lucas lurches from one comedic disaster to another we realise he is writing the novella as a confession to his wife.

There are plenty of side events as Lucas’s conquest becomes increasingly unlikely, and the main disaster which I can’t mention here for spoiler reasons keeps the reader engrossed.

But toward the end, Pedro Mairal appears to lose interest and rushes through the denouement and its aftermath. A pity as the book is as funny as hell and it’s disappointing that the ending disappoints.

Still it’s all worth it. I recommend this novella. A short but smart read.… (mehr)

Si la historia de un país retrocediera hasta su fundación, ¿cómo sobreviviríamos?

«Yo, que unos meses atrás atendía el teléfono en oficinas alfombradas, que traducía cartas al inglés vestida con mi tailleur azul y mis sandalias, ahora hundía las manos en la sangre caliente, separaba vísceras, abría al medio los animales, despellejaba, buscaba coyunturas con el filo.»

La intemperie avanza implacable, cercando la ciudad de Buenos Aires, convirtiendo los barrios en descampados y borrando a su paso las costumbres civilizadas. En un mundo que parece estar volviendo a sus orígenes, donde reina el caos, se pudren los alimentos, brotan las epidemias y las mujeres ven recortados sus derechos drásticamente, María deja atrás su trabajo como secretaria y se adentra en la barbarie: de los prostíbulos del puerto a las extensiones de la pampa, sus pasos la llevarán a olvidar de dónde vino, su relato le permitirá recordarlo.

El año del desierto es una asombrosa distopía, metáfora de la eterna crisis argentina, que nos invita a reflexionar sobre la inquietante deriva de nuestras sociedades. Publicada en 2005 y convertida en una novela de culto en su país, es una pieza imprescindible del extraordinario universo literario de Pedro Mairal.… (mehr)