The astonishing meets the quirky absurd - novel as mind-boggling lollapalooza. And all contained within a mere 80 pages. Now that's some miracle cure! Literary elixir made for the quaffing penned by that most singular of author from Argentine - César Aira.
Having read several other of the author's short novels (his books are usually less than 100 pages), I prepared myself for another signature César Aira delectable treat, whimsical jaunt on the outside, philosophic musing on the inside - and The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira did not disappoint.
The somewhat farcical, waggish storyline runs as follows: Dr. Aira doesn't himself perform miracle cures so much as he considers strategies and methodologies on the ways such miracle cures might be performed. But his old nemesis, the evil Dr. Actyn, head of a large hospital, is forever attempting to extract information from Dr. Aira in order to reveal to the world that all miracle cures are bogus (I couldn't help picturing Dr. Actyn as a comic book villain) -villain since it appears Dr. Actyn represents those stifling forces in the modern world suffocating nonrational, linear thinking.
As to the philosophic dimensions of the novel, César Aira is all about taking digressions and tangents so as to lead a reader to colorful vistas of imagination where reflection can expand, even explode. Accordingly, I'll shift to coupling my observations with specific quotes from the tale:
"His life was that of a half-distracted, half-attentive walker (half absent, half present) who by means of such alternation created his own continuity, that is to say, his style, or in other words and to close the circle, his life." ---------- Dr. Aira's medical condition, a form of somnambulism, causes him to frequently wake up on an unknown city street, a condition linked with his capacity to see past memories as they bubble up on their own. Of course, we can make the connection between a practitioner of medicine and a writer of books, perhaps even César Aira's own experience of daydreams and memories. And this is but the first step in linking Dr. Aira with creativity and the writing process at each point in the narrative.
"His first encounter with the world of paranormal medicine had been through dogs." ---------- The good doctor, age eight, recounts how a photographer dubbed "the Madman" devised a unique method for neutering male puppies: he administered a series of painful penicillin shots to the dog owners. Absurd, I know, but then Dr. Aira reports, shortly thereafter, there was a scandal: a headless Cocker Spaniel was born on a nearby farm and the headless dog lived on until adulthood. People wondered: If this happened with a dog, why couldn't it happen to a man or woman? Dr. Aira expatiates on the philosophical implications of such happenings going counter to reason and the laws of nature.
Let me pause here to note César Aira recounts his own writing method: to let the natural momentum of his stories take over and lead him forever onward to the next sentence, to the next page; in other words, rather than revising his writing, César allows "a constant flight forward." Is César using the miracle cures in his little novel to stand in for artistic inspiration? A key question to keep in mind while reading this short novel.
"There was no point in denying it. He still couldn't believe that the ambulance, after such a long time, after so many twists and turns, had actually reached him." --------- One of the more humorous sequences is an ambulance pulling up to Dr. Aira on the street and those inside beseeching him apply his miracle cure to save the dying man they are taking to the hospital. Dr. Aira hops in but wonders if the ambulance is yet another masquerade devised by evil Dr. Actyn. After all, the ambulance is traveling in a straight line and Dr. Aira is more inclined to the nonlinear, to circles and curves.
"The intensive use of hidden cameras in the last few years (in order to pull off all kinds of pranks, but also to catch corrupt officials, dishonest businessmen, tax evaders, and criminal infiltrators into the medical profession) required using up actors at a phenomenal rate, for they could never be employed a second time because of the risk of blowing their cover." ---------- One of the novel's ongoing themes is the intrusive presence of the mass media with their omnipresent cameras. Are you being filmed by a camera as you are reading this? If you are in a public space, you never know.
"Actyn had the necessary prestige and charisma to keep acquiring new adherents to his cause, which he called the cause of Reason and Decency." ---------- Ha! The cause of Reason and Decency sounds like a catchphrase for the FOX network. And the arch enemy in the cause for Reason and Decency? Why, of course, literary fiction of the caliber of César Aira.
"If he didn't do it now at fifty, he never would. One effect of his age was that he had lately begun to appreciate in all its magnitude the responsibility incumbent upon him as a creator of symbolic material." ----------- Perhaps not so coincidentally, César Aira wrote this novel hovering around age fifty, a prime time for any novelist, an age when experience intersects with energy.
"Therein lay the secret of the Cures, the secret he was aiming for, and therein lay the key to his entire enterprise: to give maximum visibility." ----------- Again, linking medicine with writing. One key for any writer of literature: to reach as wide an audience as possible.
"A miracle, in the event that once occurred, should mobilize all possible worlds, for there could not be a rupture in the chain of events in reality without the establishment of another chain and with it a different totality." --------- One prime reason to engage with literature and the arts: great art isn't an inferior mirror of everyday reality; rather, great art creates its own reality. To discover the profundity of this statement, I recommend treating yourself to The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira.
Argentine author César Aira, born 1949
Comments
Post a Comment