Clemente Palma - lost Liman decadent (etc.)

Is anyone here familiar with late 19th-early 20th century Peruvian writer, Clemente Palma? I would enjoy hearing from anyone who has information on him or knowledge of his writings. Anyone familiar with the writings (etc.) of the Argentinian Leopoldo Lugones might find Palma worth seeking out. I am mainly interested in someone familiar with his life, his family - and access to his writings (particularly XYZ). Gracias!

i am aware of Lugones from having read an extensive Borges biograhy. if anyone knows anything about Palma it may be Iriley.

nice to have another person on this group.

i am currently reading Martinez' The Tango Singer- a mysterious tale of the tango tradition and the labyrinth in the great city of BsAs.

Yes - I think that is the book in which Borges recalls how the older writer once challenged him to a duel. I whighly recommend Lugones's Strange Forces; like Palma's Malignant Tales, and Horacio Quiroga's stories, they are wonderful examples of teh Latin American contibution to the uncanny or decadent horror literature, in the line of Poe, Hoffmann and Villiers.

Asw to Tango - have you read Manuel Puig's Heartbreak Tango?

Sorry I've heard of Lugones but not of Clemente Palma. Gothic style horror from South America brings to mind Virgilio Pinera though.

I would actually put Palma, and even Lugones more in the camp of the uncanny tale or the "conte cruel" rather than gothic horror. Clemente is the son of the famous Ricardo (in Peru). Where Palma, R. was concerned with tradition - glorious past of Peru, Clemente, in his fiction, was conscious of European and American trends; his stories typically were centered in European or North American cities. He is also regarded as the father of Peruvian Science Fiction (for his novel XYZ - based upon Villier's L'Eve Futur). The Cuban Pinera, certainly a grotesque, is at least a generation after Palma and Lugones.

Well I was making reference more to the Poe and Hoffmann comparisons--both kind of spooky at times. Makes me wonder if you've ever heard of Tommaso Landolfi--particularly An Autumn story?--or to go back to South America--Ernesto Sabato--The angel of darkness and On heroes and tombs.

Yes indeed - An Autumn Story - one of my favorites and one I often recommend. I loved Sabato's Heroes and Tombs, but have not read Angel of Darkness; I keep meaning to get to more of his stuff, but, as is the case with many others here, I'm sure - TIME. I also enjoyed Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps - which I came across accidentally while malingering in the campus library 20 years ago... the bored urban aesthete who returns to the seething tropics after a European lull. There is a Columbian author I've just discovered, whom some of you probably know: José Asunción Silva. The only thing in English I've been able to find is his After-Dinner Conversation: The Diary of a Decadent. He was a contemporary of Palma and Lugones, and also associated with modernista and decadent themes.

Well though sometimes it might not seem apparent everyone has holes. I'll have to look up Mr. Silva as I've never heard of him either. I'm quite familiar with Carpentier as I think I've read 5 of his works including the Lost steps. That was many years ago though if I remember correctly and I'm a bit foggy on it now which is one reason I like writing reviews so I can go back much later too them and not give myself a headache trying to remember what they were all about. My favorite work of his would be The kingdom of this world. A Colombian writer I particularly like would be Alvaro Mutis whose main character is a sailor (sometimes an itinerant sailor) name of Maqroll. A lot of it is sea yarnish--mysteries and adventures both natural and supernatural. Of Sabato I didn't particularly care for 'The tunnel' which to me was too histrionic. The other two I liked however very much--and 'The angel of darkness' is IMO more in the vein of 'On heroes and tombs'.

I think you have touched upon a fundamental truth, re your opening sentence :^). I will look up Mutis - I don't think I have anything of his. As far as reading and amnesia goes, I can sympathize and am trying to come up with my own mnemonic... Sven Birkerts has a great essay on the topic, but, as you might guess, I have forgotten the title.

That is one reason I find this to be such a great site. Now I can at least look back at things from a distance if I so choose. Mutis might be someone you like. He's a close friend from what I understand of Garcia-Marquez. I also believe if I remember rightly he's had a stint or two in prison and at least for a time was living in exile in Mexico. His stories tend to come in novella form and in the three translations I've seen have come 3 to 5 to 7 of them per book and if you get the 7 you get them all--I think.

I was thinking of a couple other things and one of them I've forgotten at least for now. But a book somewhat similar in some respects in intent to Landolfi's autumn story is Witold Gombrowicz's Possessed: The secret of Myslotch which is a kind of gothic/romantic style of horror story with haunted castles etc. set out in a bleak Polish countryside. Of course Witold with great humor blows it up (the story that is--not the castle) towards the end. I've always wondered why when the Nobel committee decided to give its award to an existentialist they picked the pretty nearly humorless Sartre over Gombrowicz but c'est la vie--what's done is done.

Anyway as for decadents--Huysmans etc. there is also Barbey d'Aurevilly. French author from the 19th century. I used to have a book of his I picked up at a library sale--Les Diaboliques. My favorite writer Louis Ferdinand Celine was quite taken with him when he was a young man.

Eavesdropping on the conversation, I was interested in your description of Mutis - checking Amazon, there is a collected Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. He had a new novel (in English) published a couple of months ago, The Adventures of a Cello, which is a biography of a 300 year cello.

Have either of you read any Soriano? I thought A Funny Little Dirty War was a very good satire of the end of the Peron era.

From Soriano I've read 'A funny dirty little war' and also 'Shadows'. I liked the first but the second not so much.

On the Mutis 'The adventures and misadventures of Maqroll' has all 7 novellas--the ISBN is 0940322919. Mutis is the winner of the Neustadt prize which is a International literature prize given every other year--and although not well known maybe--is all the same highly prized (a few of its winners have won the Nobel)--and also the Prix Medicis etranger.

Well, considering the house of Nobel was built on TNT (speaking of blowing things up), it is not surprising that humor might be in short supply . Though I do not think that Gombrowicz, like Sartre, was one dimensional enough to be called an (pure) existentialist, I agree - I'd much prefer he got it - though I suppose all that bland being and nothingness stuff and resistance work factored in. I have not yet read The Possessed, but have had it on the list for years (I just replaced my old "from the french" translations with the ones just englished from the Polish).

"Anyway as for decadents--": Barbey of course! et je vous inviterai la-bas (here goes)..

Never heard of the Neustadt Prize, which is shocking as I read the online version of the World Literature Today magazine - some good essays published in it. (Ben - you may be interested in the latest issue, I know from other threads you have an issue in Arabic literature, there is a good essay on Arab-American authors - the website is WorldLit Today).

Back to the Neustadt Prize - it's an interesting list of winners, they appear more adventurous than the Nobel Committee. I looked at some names and the recognition factor was absolutely zero, but I am seeing what I can find out about them. (Proof that prizes work?).

In 1992 the Brazilian author Joao Cabal de Melo Neto won, and that made me wonder - are Brazilian writers separate from the tradition of the rest of Latin America due to the language difference? Off the top of my head I can't think of a Brazilian writer of the same international reputation of the leading Spanish speaking writers. (Paulo Coelho may be very popular but IMO his novels resemble new age spiritual books).

Gombrowicz's international reputation was only starting to grow when Sartre won the prize, and he died relatively soon after, thereby really having little chance to win.

Other international prizes you might take a look at--the Jerusalem prize--also Premio Grinzane Cavour--although I don't read Italian--then there are the Prix Femina etranger and Prix Medicis etranger.

jargoneer: thanks for the heads-up on WorldLit Today. I share, btw, your opinion of Coelho's novels. Clarice Lispector enjoyed a degree of name recognition... but she has been dead for 20 years.

I'd be curious also to know of Brazilian authors who might have been writing in a vein similar to the modernista/decadent theme in Spanish speaking Latin America at the turn of the last century.