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Polaroids
Paperback
Published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Jorge Lanata
16 books19 followersPeriodista y escritor argentino. Ha incursionado en diversos géneros como el periodismo de investigación, la literatura, el documental, la televisión, el cine y el teatro de revista. Ha intervenido en la fundación de diarios, revistas y portales de noticias.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 25, 2013
Meh.
I'd love to leave it at that. But it wouldn't be fair.
"I could start this story with the sentence: 'Right now, somewhere in the city, my executioner is frying eggs."(99) * Lanata leaves the punch 'til the end. Most of the short stories in this book provoke the "meh". I was looking forward to the story based on Cortázar´s time in Mendoza, having walked those halls myself,and being such a fan of Cortázar. It was almost there. The other story, based on Raymond Carver´s travels to Argentina, is close, as well (although I´ve never read Carver, so I can´t say if it approximates in any way his style or is good as an homage). The title story also comes sooo close, and I still have to think about that one some more.
But the last story, really more of a meta-testimonial, begins with the line above and packs a punch. Initially, when recounting how the factions of the UOM began splintering off and betraying each other, the story-surely based one of the author's newspaper pieces- reads like a contemporary Argentine Iliad: several pages are filled with the names of people who carried out this vendetta, and how they were related to or knew the others in the car, then we begin with the list of those suffering the vendetta, etc. You find yourself simultaneously trying to remember these names/details, as if they'd be crucially important in the last 7 pages, and telling yourself that it's like a Borges story: in the end, they won't be pivotal to the real story, so skim over them (I'm not trying to be at all dismissive of or insensitive to the fact that we're talking about real people who died, just looking at the way the story's structured).
It's when he leaves the newspaper story, and moves on to its aftermath, that Lanata communicates to the reader how the Dirty War didn't really end in 1985. The court case that his ¨executioner¨ filed against him for libel is officially over, and the man was pardoned for his war crimes as were many other officers of the time. But the wariness lingers: I've never seen him again. I don't walk against traffic, I don't watch my back and I'm not boasting about that, either. We get used to fear like we get used to failure, or to absence. It's such an all-encompassing feeling that it shapes us, until it reaches the point where it's the norm. It's strange, this city in which executioners and their victims can run into each other as they turn the corner."(122)
And yet, the awareness is there, the story is unforgotten, the possibiity remains: "Right now, somewhere in the city, my executioner is frying eggs."(123)
If we had halves, I'd probably leave it at 3.5/5.
*all translations, for better or worse, are mine.
I'd love to leave it at that. But it wouldn't be fair.
"I could start this story with the sentence: 'Right now, somewhere in the city, my executioner is frying eggs."(99) * Lanata leaves the punch 'til the end. Most of the short stories in this book provoke the "meh". I was looking forward to the story based on Cortázar´s time in Mendoza, having walked those halls myself,and being such a fan of Cortázar. It was almost there. The other story, based on Raymond Carver´s travels to Argentina, is close, as well (although I´ve never read Carver, so I can´t say if it approximates in any way his style or is good as an homage). The title story also comes sooo close, and I still have to think about that one some more.
But the last story, really more of a meta-testimonial, begins with the line above and packs a punch. Initially, when recounting how the factions of the UOM began splintering off and betraying each other, the story-surely based one of the author's newspaper pieces- reads like a contemporary Argentine Iliad: several pages are filled with the names of people who carried out this vendetta, and how they were related to or knew the others in the car, then we begin with the list of those suffering the vendetta, etc. You find yourself simultaneously trying to remember these names/details, as if they'd be crucially important in the last 7 pages, and telling yourself that it's like a Borges story: in the end, they won't be pivotal to the real story, so skim over them (I'm not trying to be at all dismissive of or insensitive to the fact that we're talking about real people who died, just looking at the way the story's structured).
It's when he leaves the newspaper story, and moves on to its aftermath, that Lanata communicates to the reader how the Dirty War didn't really end in 1985. The court case that his ¨executioner¨ filed against him for libel is officially over, and the man was pardoned for his war crimes as were many other officers of the time. But the wariness lingers: I've never seen him again. I don't walk against traffic, I don't watch my back and I'm not boasting about that, either. We get used to fear like we get used to failure, or to absence. It's such an all-encompassing feeling that it shapes us, until it reaches the point where it's the norm. It's strange, this city in which executioners and their victims can run into each other as they turn the corner."(122)
And yet, the awareness is there, the story is unforgotten, the possibiity remains: "Right now, somewhere in the city, my executioner is frying eggs."(123)
If we had halves, I'd probably leave it at 3.5/5.
*all translations, for better or worse, are mine.
Displaying 1 of 1 review