A Russian Doll - fiction by master of the craft Adolfo
Bioy Casares (1914-1999) from Argentina. I'll focus on the title story, a
tale of the fabulous containing jaw-dropping shock value - and I'm not
just a'woofin.
A RUSSIAN DOLL
We're talking an old-fashioned frame story here: at a hotel in France, the tale's narrator meets up with one of his good buddies from Argentina. This friend shares his story that will in the end explain why everyone at the hotel treats him like a king.
The friend's name is Maceira and Maceira admits he traveled to Europe for one purpose: to find a rich French girl he could marry.
On one occasion Maceira manages to sneak into a posh ball given by the big industrialist in the region, a ball put on for his daughter Chantal. Maceira dances with all the ladies until, most unexpectedly, a blonde beauty demands his undivided attention. Who is this ravishing lovely? None other than Chantal herself.
Maceira and Chantal chat and she's eager to tell him all about how she and her uncle are active in an ecological group undertaking a campaign against her father's company, targeting the main factory contaminating Lake Bourget. As Maceira tells the narrator, "It was not to be believed: she (Chantal) was resolved to wage war against her own interests."
In the ensuing weeks, Chantal and Maceira tour the resort areas in Southern France. But Chantal continues to be serious about her ecological campaign. In order to determine the extent of damage to Lake Bourget, scientists will lead a team to conduct underwater exploration. Chantal asks Maceira to join the team (one team member is Chantal's father). Never one to take serious risks, Maceira agrees but only as a way to prove his dedication and love for Chantal.
The fateful morning arrives and four men outfitted in deep sea diving gear take the plunge. Once hundreds of meters below the surface, Maceira detects two yellowish blue lights in the upper half of the mouth of a tunnel. Maceira thinks they are fog headlights, oval-shaped lights like the eyes of an enormous car. The lights begin to advance toward them. Wow, is this a truck at the bottom of a lake?
The lights grow larger. Maceira has time to see an extremely long animal slide out of the tunnel - "an enormous blue caterpillar that diligently, but without any hurry, devoured, one by one, Monsier Cazalis (Chantal's father), the zoologist, the botanist."
Having taken it all in, Meceira rapidly ascends to the surface and thus develops a case of the bends. He's transported to the local hospital where he can recover.
Merceira decides to tell the truth. After relaying the specifics about the sea monster's feast, one journalist asks him, "Have there been any cases of madness in your family? "Where you ever confined in a mental hospital?"
Adolfo Bioy Casares' extraordinary tale continues with one more unexpected twist at the end. Read all about it.
For readers of English, your book is A Russian Doll and Other Stories published by New Directions
A RUSSIAN DOLL
We're talking an old-fashioned frame story here: at a hotel in France, the tale's narrator meets up with one of his good buddies from Argentina. This friend shares his story that will in the end explain why everyone at the hotel treats him like a king.
The friend's name is Maceira and Maceira admits he traveled to Europe for one purpose: to find a rich French girl he could marry.
On one occasion Maceira manages to sneak into a posh ball given by the big industrialist in the region, a ball put on for his daughter Chantal. Maceira dances with all the ladies until, most unexpectedly, a blonde beauty demands his undivided attention. Who is this ravishing lovely? None other than Chantal herself.
Maceira and Chantal chat and she's eager to tell him all about how she and her uncle are active in an ecological group undertaking a campaign against her father's company, targeting the main factory contaminating Lake Bourget. As Maceira tells the narrator, "It was not to be believed: she (Chantal) was resolved to wage war against her own interests."
In the ensuing weeks, Chantal and Maceira tour the resort areas in Southern France. But Chantal continues to be serious about her ecological campaign. In order to determine the extent of damage to Lake Bourget, scientists will lead a team to conduct underwater exploration. Chantal asks Maceira to join the team (one team member is Chantal's father). Never one to take serious risks, Maceira agrees but only as a way to prove his dedication and love for Chantal.
The fateful morning arrives and four men outfitted in deep sea diving gear take the plunge. Once hundreds of meters below the surface, Maceira detects two yellowish blue lights in the upper half of the mouth of a tunnel. Maceira thinks they are fog headlights, oval-shaped lights like the eyes of an enormous car. The lights begin to advance toward them. Wow, is this a truck at the bottom of a lake?
The lights grow larger. Maceira has time to see an extremely long animal slide out of the tunnel - "an enormous blue caterpillar that diligently, but without any hurry, devoured, one by one, Monsier Cazalis (Chantal's father), the zoologist, the botanist."
Having taken it all in, Meceira rapidly ascends to the surface and thus develops a case of the bends. He's transported to the local hospital where he can recover.
Merceira decides to tell the truth. After relaying the specifics about the sea monster's feast, one journalist asks him, "Have there been any cases of madness in your family? "Where you ever confined in a mental hospital?"
Adolfo Bioy Casares' extraordinary tale continues with one more unexpected twist at the end. Read all about it.
For readers of English, your book is A Russian Doll and Other Stories published by New Directions
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