{"id":281966,"date":"2011-02-03T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/02\/03\/the-literary-conference-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:26:42","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:26:42","slug":"the-literary-conference-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/02\/03\/the-literary-conference-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/","title":{"rendered":"The Literary Conference [Why This Book Should Win the BTBA]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA<\/span> Fiction Longlist<\/a> over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, some more serious, some very funny, a lot written by people who normally don\u2019t contribute to Three Percent. Overall, the point is to have some fun and give you a bunch of reasons as to why you should read at least a few of the BTBA<\/span> titles.<\/em><\/p>\n

All posts in this series can be found here.<\/a> Today we look at the lastest from Cesar Aira\u2014an annual BTBA<\/span> author\u2014in a piece written by an extrapolation of my 15-year-old self.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Literary Conference<\/em><\/b> by Cesar Aira, translated by Katherine Silver<\/p>\n

Language:<\/b> Spanish
\nCountry:<\/b> Argentina
\nPublisher:<\/b> New Directions
\nPages:<\/b> 90<\/p>\n

Why It Should Win:<\/b> Cesar Aira is due (last year\u2019s Ghosts<\/em> was a finalist); Katherine Silver is due (two years ago, her translation of Senselessness<\/em> was a finalist); Spanish language is due (in the past three years, nine Spanish titles have been finalists, but none have won); mad scientists are \u201cin\u201d<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, I loved<\/em> comic books. X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, whatever. I still have two huge boxes of comics that represent every dime (and then some) that I earned during my summer jobs, working on golf courses and being pelted by balls from uppity country club members who were better at investments and hostile takeovers than actually golfing. And every time, while digging a sandtrap, a ball narrowly missed me, I wished I had superhero powers so that I could eradicate whatever polo-wearing d-bag just \u201cforgot\u201d to yell \u201cFORE<\/span>!\u201d I wanted to go all Psylocke on them. Or web them to a tree. Something juvenile, and something more akin to the motivations of the supervillains found in comics than the upstanding, moral superheroes. Cause the bad guys are always more fun.<\/p>\n

In addition to the cult of collecting (also loved baseball cards, but that\u2019s a different post), one of the things I loved about comics was the nature of the storytelling. Obviously, none of the comics I read (save maybe The Invisibles<\/em>) was anywhere near literary, but there was something intriguing and compelling about how the serial storytelling had to work . . . Every reader already knew the comic formula, especially in the 1980s\u2014bad guy tries to take over world, good guy nearly loses, good guy prevails\u2014and it was the goal of the comic writer to vary this in a way that made you want to pick up the next month\u2019s issue. (It was almost Oulipian in its constraints.) There had to be cliffhangers, the planting of seeds of future storylines, etc., etc.<\/p>\n

But to be honest\u2014in a maybe dark sort of self-punishing way\u2014what I kept reading for was the idea that one time the bad guy would win. The mad scientist maybe wouldn\u2019t take over the world, but would off at least one minor superhero. If nothing was at stake, if nothing terrible could happen to a character in this imaginary world, than everything I had wasted money and hours on meant exactly nothing.<\/p>\n

Which is why The Literary Conference<\/em> is so cool: it\u2019s about a literary translator turned mad scientist<\/p>\n

So, once upon a time . . . an Argentinean scientist conducted experiments in the cloning of cells, organs, and limbs, and achieved the ability to reproduce, at will, whole individuals in indefinite quantities. First, he worked with insects, then higher animals, and finally human beings. His success did not vary, though as he approached human beings the nature of the clones subtly changes; they became non-similar clones. He overcame his disappointment with this variation by telling himself that in the final analysis the perception of similarity is quite subjective and always questionable. He had no doubt, however, that his clones were genuine, legions of the Ones whose numbers he could multiply as often as he wished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point he reached an impasse and found himself unable to proceed toward his final goal, which was nothing less than world domination. In this respect he was the typical Mad Scientist of the comic books. He was incapable of setting a more modest goal for himself; at his level, it simply wouldn\u2019t have been worth his while.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And how is the narrator\/translator\/mad scientist going to take over the world? By cloning Carlos Fuentes.<\/p>\n

So yeah, on one level The Literary Conference<\/em> is an absurd book, one that ends with huge blue worms descending from the mountains, and our mad scientist turned hero being put in a position to possibly save the day and get the girl.<\/p>\n

But to draw out this out a bit more . . . The way Aira builds to this point is so mesmerizing that it\u2019s as if he does have superpowers. His narrator\u2019s tone and way of explaining his goals and ideas (the bit about a person\u2019s uniqueness being constructed from the specific books one has read is brilliant, as is the section on \u201ccerebral hyperactivity\u201d) is spectacular, and Katie did a marvelous job rendering these rhythms and peculiar word choices in English.<\/p>\n

In constructing this strange world of clones and world domination, there are hints of something larger, of this all being a crafty metaphor. The main character is named Cesar, who is also a writer of strange, metaphorical works. The idea of clones, of cloning Fuentes, of Aira\u2019s insane literary production (he\u2019s written more than 50 books), of writing unique books, of taking over the world . . . Reading this, I felt there was something more going beneath the comic book surface. That there was a sort of secret plot at the center of this book on secret plots. Or maybe that\u2019s my comic book loving 15-year-old self getting the better of me.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA Fiction Longlist over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[7656,37866,37856,866,696,56,6516,33146,37876],"class_list":["post-281966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-argentine-literature","tag-best-translated-book","tag-btba-2011","tag-cesar-aira","tag-katherine-silver","tag-new-directions","tag-spanish-literature","tag-the-literary-conference","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397562,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281966\/revisions\/397562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}