1930s photo of statisticians compiling data
Back in the 1930s, improved mechanization became the driving force transforming society on all levels. Recall Charlie Chaplin's 1936 Modern Times. And who better to deal with mountains of data produced by those spinning mechanized gears, gyrating parts, people, places and things forming society than an accomplished statistician?
Juan Filloy's 1934 Op Oloop is about a Finnish statistician residing in Buenos Aires, a man obsessed with living according to a fixed method and rigid timetable. "Op Oloop was method personified - an accomplished executioner of spontaneity: method made word; all his hopes, desires, feelings channeled into the vessel of method." And Op Oloop calibrates his daily timetable down to the minute.
Op Oloop is a very funny novel written by one of the greatest overlooked Latin American authors of all times. Oh, yes, Juan Filloy (1894-2000) published twenty-seven novels but only two have been translated into English - Op Oloop and Caterva, both works drawing comparisons to Joyce's Ulysses.
A few quick strokes on Juan Filloy: He was born into a working-class family of immigrants from Córdoba in northern Argentina. Rather than moving to Buenos Aires, the epicenter of culture in Argentina, he spent his entire adult life in Río Cuarto, a city in the province of Córdoba. A accomplished swimmer, boxing referee, caricaturist, lawyer and judge, he could read and speak seven languages, was a lover of palindromes (he wrote over 6,000) and authored articles, stories, dramas, hundreds of sonnets and all those novels: 7 between age 36-45 and then, following a gap of 32 years, 20 between age 77-103, every single one of his novels having a title of seven letters. A true eccentric, Filloy usually published his works in self-funded editions with limited circulation.
The novel follows Optimus “Op” Oloop beginning at 10:00 on a Sunday morning and ending on 5:49 Monday morning. Noting exact times is requisite as Mr. Op Oloop thinks, speaks, moves and acts in accord with precise timetables – case in point: he must discontinue writing an invitation to his closest friend since it is now 10:00 and he scheduled his writing between 7:00 and 10:00. That's the rule and rules cannot be broken.
Op's Buenos Aires odyssey eventually takes him to a banquet he's hosting in honor of his getting married (actually, this evening dinner comprises the bulk of the novel with Op's guests being a string of his friends: a French pimp, a submarine captain, the head of city sanitation, a traffic controller and a career medical student) and then to a house of pleasure where he'll be with prostitute number one thousand (we can imagine Op Oloop keeping a log on things like various sexual positions and number of orgasms). However, I will loop back and begin with Op's mental meltdown at a health club when a pedicurist suggests he deal with his corns by soaking his feet every night.
"Sometimes impatience boils over in even the most phlegmatic of creatures. Op Oloop suffered from this fundamental weakness. It was surfacing. He couldn't bear having let slip, and spontaneously, a belief he ought to have guillotined with his two lips the moment it strayed into his mouth."
Nietzsche would nod in understanding. Dionysian fury possesses a power difficult to contain and once a crack opens in an otherwise rational and orderly mind, watch out. Op Oloop loses control and begins shouting at the pedicurist, repeating: “I have not got a single night to spare!” Matter of fact, Op even scrambles the letters in his tirade. “There was a moment when he believed chaos had entirely conquered his mind. The words tumbled about capriciously like a troupe of acrobats at a dress rehearsal. Never in his life had he endured such a sickening sensation.” From this point forward, Op becomes progressively more unwound and the tale's over-the-top hilarity reminded me of skits from Monty Python. Come to think of it, John Cleese would make a perfect Op Oloop.
“But sometimes this is impossible: the cerebral hemispheres, intricate labyrinths even when they fill the cranial cavity, are all the more impenetrable when they fill both cheeks of the posterior. As has already been stated: some people's brains border their anal regions. Thus, their senses are dulled, and the psychopathological pestilence is such that the intrepid scholar explorer inevitably butts up against a dead end.”
You have to love the way Filloy employs artful language to allude to people whose brains are in their ass. Also, “butts up against a dead end” - an instance of the author's wordplay, bawdy and poetic, reminiscent of Cuban master wordsmith and pugnacious punster, G. Cabrera Infante. Special kudos extended to Lisa Dillman for her rendering Filloy's novel into smooth, eminently readable English.
“Again, that obese fellow blacked his way, his colossal jelly-belly quivering like some jury-rigged shock absorber.”
Ah, one of the many memorable metaphors and similes readers will enjoy on nearly every page. And there's neologisms aplenty - “They’ll never abelardize us!” For fans of Raymond Quineau and Geroges Perec, pre-Oulipoian Op Oloop will make for a frisky frolic.
And Op Oloop's actual mode of speech? Here's on main man responding to a stunned interlocutor witnessing his psychic clockwork gone haywire:
“Who could have imagined! You, so erudite, so strict, so exact...”
“Forget your compassion. Don't annoy me. Meticulousness can be flaunted only until one's instinct rebels. I was methodical in spite of myself, tempted by the tawdry, rational benefits of such a life. My entire existence had been channeled so as to flow freely into servitude. I'd obstructed convenience, constricting myself so as to make the best use of every single hour. Regimen, order, culture...trinkets garbage, baubles! True culture is a parrot's pstitacosis...Ha, Ha, Ha!...”
Oh, reader, if what I've written sounds in any way appealing, you are in for an exceptional literary treat. Pick up a copy of Juan Filloy's novel and linger and luxuriate with this overlooked classic.
“In effect, all men systematically distill themselves throughout their lives, increasing their internal extravagance while decreasing their external luminosity. How, then, are we to explain this manifest failure on the part of a thoroughly proper man to balance his humors? How to justify these oscillations, be they brusque or subtle, when in Op Oloop the equilibrium and tranquility of equinoctial well-being had always, to this point, reigned supreme?”
Argentine author Juan Filloy, 1894-2000 (yes, he lived to age 106)
Back in the 1930s, improved mechanization became the driving force transforming society on all levels. Recall Charlie Chaplin's 1936 Modern Times. And who better to deal with mountains of data produced by those spinning mechanized gears, gyrating parts, people, places and things forming society than an accomplished statistician?
Juan Filloy's 1934 Op Oloop is about a Finnish statistician residing in Buenos Aires, a man obsessed with living according to a fixed method and rigid timetable. "Op Oloop was method personified - an accomplished executioner of spontaneity: method made word; all his hopes, desires, feelings channeled into the vessel of method." And Op Oloop calibrates his daily timetable down to the minute.
Op Oloop is a very funny novel written by one of the greatest overlooked Latin American authors of all times. Oh, yes, Juan Filloy (1894-2000) published twenty-seven novels but only two have been translated into English - Op Oloop and Caterva, both works drawing comparisons to Joyce's Ulysses.
A few quick strokes on Juan Filloy: He was born into a working-class family of immigrants from Córdoba in northern Argentina. Rather than moving to Buenos Aires, the epicenter of culture in Argentina, he spent his entire adult life in Río Cuarto, a city in the province of Córdoba. A accomplished swimmer, boxing referee, caricaturist, lawyer and judge, he could read and speak seven languages, was a lover of palindromes (he wrote over 6,000) and authored articles, stories, dramas, hundreds of sonnets and all those novels: 7 between age 36-45 and then, following a gap of 32 years, 20 between age 77-103, every single one of his novels having a title of seven letters. A true eccentric, Filloy usually published his works in self-funded editions with limited circulation.
The novel follows Optimus “Op” Oloop beginning at 10:00 on a Sunday morning and ending on 5:49 Monday morning. Noting exact times is requisite as Mr. Op Oloop thinks, speaks, moves and acts in accord with precise timetables – case in point: he must discontinue writing an invitation to his closest friend since it is now 10:00 and he scheduled his writing between 7:00 and 10:00. That's the rule and rules cannot be broken.
Op's Buenos Aires odyssey eventually takes him to a banquet he's hosting in honor of his getting married (actually, this evening dinner comprises the bulk of the novel with Op's guests being a string of his friends: a French pimp, a submarine captain, the head of city sanitation, a traffic controller and a career medical student) and then to a house of pleasure where he'll be with prostitute number one thousand (we can imagine Op Oloop keeping a log on things like various sexual positions and number of orgasms). However, I will loop back and begin with Op's mental meltdown at a health club when a pedicurist suggests he deal with his corns by soaking his feet every night.
"Sometimes impatience boils over in even the most phlegmatic of creatures. Op Oloop suffered from this fundamental weakness. It was surfacing. He couldn't bear having let slip, and spontaneously, a belief he ought to have guillotined with his two lips the moment it strayed into his mouth."
Nietzsche would nod in understanding. Dionysian fury possesses a power difficult to contain and once a crack opens in an otherwise rational and orderly mind, watch out. Op Oloop loses control and begins shouting at the pedicurist, repeating: “I have not got a single night to spare!” Matter of fact, Op even scrambles the letters in his tirade. “There was a moment when he believed chaos had entirely conquered his mind. The words tumbled about capriciously like a troupe of acrobats at a dress rehearsal. Never in his life had he endured such a sickening sensation.” From this point forward, Op becomes progressively more unwound and the tale's over-the-top hilarity reminded me of skits from Monty Python. Come to think of it, John Cleese would make a perfect Op Oloop.
“But sometimes this is impossible: the cerebral hemispheres, intricate labyrinths even when they fill the cranial cavity, are all the more impenetrable when they fill both cheeks of the posterior. As has already been stated: some people's brains border their anal regions. Thus, their senses are dulled, and the psychopathological pestilence is such that the intrepid scholar explorer inevitably butts up against a dead end.”
You have to love the way Filloy employs artful language to allude to people whose brains are in their ass. Also, “butts up against a dead end” - an instance of the author's wordplay, bawdy and poetic, reminiscent of Cuban master wordsmith and pugnacious punster, G. Cabrera Infante. Special kudos extended to Lisa Dillman for her rendering Filloy's novel into smooth, eminently readable English.
“Again, that obese fellow blacked his way, his colossal jelly-belly quivering like some jury-rigged shock absorber.”
Ah, one of the many memorable metaphors and similes readers will enjoy on nearly every page. And there's neologisms aplenty - “They’ll never abelardize us!” For fans of Raymond Quineau and Geroges Perec, pre-Oulipoian Op Oloop will make for a frisky frolic.
And Op Oloop's actual mode of speech? Here's on main man responding to a stunned interlocutor witnessing his psychic clockwork gone haywire:
“Who could have imagined! You, so erudite, so strict, so exact...”
“Forget your compassion. Don't annoy me. Meticulousness can be flaunted only until one's instinct rebels. I was methodical in spite of myself, tempted by the tawdry, rational benefits of such a life. My entire existence had been channeled so as to flow freely into servitude. I'd obstructed convenience, constricting myself so as to make the best use of every single hour. Regimen, order, culture...trinkets garbage, baubles! True culture is a parrot's pstitacosis...Ha, Ha, Ha!...”
Oh, reader, if what I've written sounds in any way appealing, you are in for an exceptional literary treat. Pick up a copy of Juan Filloy's novel and linger and luxuriate with this overlooked classic.
“In effect, all men systematically distill themselves throughout their lives, increasing their internal extravagance while decreasing their external luminosity. How, then, are we to explain this manifest failure on the part of a thoroughly proper man to balance his humors? How to justify these oscillations, be they brusque or subtle, when in Op Oloop the equilibrium and tranquility of equinoctial well-being had always, to this point, reigned supreme?”
Argentine author Juan Filloy, 1894-2000 (yes, he lived to age 106)
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