Contos frios: Seguidos de outros contos

by Virgilio Piñera

Portugese (translation)
Original Spanish

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Latin American, 20th Century, Latin American Literature, Latino

Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Virgilio Piñera Llera was a Cuban author, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and essayist.
Among his most famous poems are "La isla en peso" (1943), and "La gran puta" (1960). He was a member of the "Origenes" literary group, although he often differed with the conservative views of the group. In the late 1950s he co-founded the literary journal Ciclón. Following a long exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Piñera returned to Cuba in 1958, months before Fidel Castro took power.
His work includes essays on literature and literary criticism, several collections of short stories compiled under the title of Cold Tales, a great number of dramatic works, and three novels: La carne de René (Rene's Flesh), Presiones y Diamantes (Pressures and Diamonds), and Las pequeñas maniobras (Small manoeuvres). His work is seen today as a model by new generations of Cuban and Latin American writers. Some believe that his work influenced that of Reinaldo Arenas, who wrote in his memoir Before Night Falls of Piñera's time in Argentina and friendship there with Witold Gombrowicz.
The magazine Unión posthumously published autobiographical writing by Piñera in which he discussed how he concluded he was gay. However, his work can not be reduced to his open discussions on homosexuality in a time when such a topic was taboo, especially in the Spanish Caribbean. Piñera's literary and cultural perspective went beyond sexuality, to express concerns on national and continental identity, philosophical approaches to theater, writing and politics. This focus drew fire from the Spanish American literary establishment of his time, including Cuban poets Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and leaders like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Due to Piñera's social points of view and especially to his homosexuality, he was censured by the revolution, and died without any official recognition. As more of his work has been translated into English, Piñera's work has been rediscovered by American academia as a testimony of 20th century resistance against totalitarian systems.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold Tales are hilariously chilling… They are some sort of absurdist horror fables…

The moment we set foot on the ground, we saw a man as small as the smallest dwarf in the world coming through the door at the far end of the black and yellow marble floor. He walked on two stilts that were as tall as the second gallery, which permitted him, without any effort, to stick his body through any of the portholes. This was precisely what he did: inserting his body through one of the portholes, he caught three small children and headed toward the center of the patio formed by the black and yellow marble floor. With the end of the right stilt, he set a spring in motion next to a sort of cage, and at that moment a trapdoor opened through which he threw one of the small children, and did the same with the other two in two cages placed next to the first one.

The stories go like some sticky nightmare without intermission and any purpose…
And of course Virgilio Piñera offers his own versions of horrendous metamorphoses…

When the twins celebrated their sixth birthday, their parents became children…
The day they celebrated their tenth birthday, the parents made the twins wipe their backsides. Both the father and the mother were soiling their pants and wearing diapers. This was the beginning of the childhood of Arturo and Olga’s parents.

And we all wish to dwell in paradise and are afraid to end up in hell…

When we are children, hell is nothing more than the devil’s name on our parent’s lips. Later, this notion becomes more complicated, and we toss in our beds through the interminable nights of adolescence, trying to extinguish the flames that burn us; the flames of imagination! Still later, when we no longer look in the mirror because our faces have begun to resemble that of the devil, the notion of hell is reduced to an intellectual fear, and in order to escape so much anguish, we attempt to describe it.

In a hanged man’s house, enjoy talking about rope.

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virgilio Piñera (1912 - 1979) from Cuba - novelist, poet, essayist, playwright, short story writer. An author who refused to become part of any party, group or literary movement, an author who valued his extreme independence and bohemian lifestyle above all else. For example, as a student at the University of Havana he refused to defend his dissertation before a “bunch of donkeys." Now this, my friends, is an man and artist I can relate to. It gives me great joy to share my review of his outstanding collection of 43 short stories, some as short as 1 or 2 pages and others as long as 10, 20 or 30 pages. Below are two complete Virgilio microfictions followed by my write-up of a short story I'll never forget.

Insomnia
The man goes to bed early. He can’t fall asleep. He tosses and turns in bed, as might be expected. He gets tangled in the sheets. Hi lights a cigarette. He reads a little. He turns out the light again. But he can’t sleep. At three o’clock, he gets out of bed. He wakes his friend next door and confides that he can’t sleep. He asks the friend for advice. The friend advises him to take a short walk to tire himself out. And then, right away, to drink a cup of linden blossom tea and turn out the light. He does all that, but is unable to fall asleep. He gets up again. This time he goes to see a doctor. As usual, the doctor talks a lot but the man still doesn’t fall asleep. At six in the morning, he loads a revolver and blows his brains out. The man is dead, but hasn’t been able to get to sleep. Insomnia is a very persistent thing.
--------------------
Swimming
I’ve learned to swim on dry land. It turns out to be more practical than doing it in the water. There’s no fear of sinking, for one is already on the bottom, and by the same token one is drowned beforehand. It also avoids having to be fished out by the light of a lantern or in the dazzling clarity of a beautiful day. Finally, the absence of water keeps one from swelling up.

I won’t deny that swimming on dry land has an agonized quality about it. At first sight, one would be reminded of death throes. Nevertheless, this is different: at the same time one is dying, one is quite alive, quite alert, listening to the music that comes through the window and watching the worm crawl across the floor.

At first, my friends criticized this decision. They fled from my glances and sobbed in the corners. Happily, the crisis has passed. Now they know that I am comfortable swimming on dry land. Once in a while I sink my hands into the marble titles and offer them a tiny fish that I catch in the submarine depths.
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Black humor mixed in with the grotesque and absurd, anyone? With short stories like this one, is it any wonder in 1961 at age forty-nine, a couple of years following his return to his native Cuba from Argentina, Virgilio Piñera was jailed for “political and moral crimes.” After his eventual release, the author continued to live independently on the extreme margins, refusing to bow or answer to anybody or anything. ALERT: The below direct quotes from Virgilio’s story along with my comments are soaked in the blackest grotesque humor - not intended for the squeamish.

Meat
Bon Appétit, One: During a meat shortage, the townspeople initially protested but soon started devouring vegetables. However, a Mr. Ansaldo didn’t follow the order of the day. No, not at all. “With great tranquility, he began to sharpen an enormous kitchen knife and then, dropping his pants to his knees, he cut a beautiful fillet from his left buttock. Having cleaned and dressed the fillet with salt and vinegar, he passed it through the broiler and finally fried it in the big pan he used on Sundays for making tortillas.” This absurdist scene is vintage Virgilio Piñera. Many of his stories are laced with body parts cut, pasted or transformed in bizarre, impossible combinations.

A True Gentleman: Mr. Ansaldo begins to enjoy his meal but there’s s a knock at his door. Turns out, Ansaldo’s neighbor, sick of eating veggies, wants to vent his frustration. But then, “Ansaldo with an elegant gesture, showed his neighbor the beautiful fillet. When his neighbor asked about it, Ansaldo simply displayed his left buttock. The facts were laid bare.” Love the play on words. Also, Ansaldo’s great willingness and neighborliness to share his ingenuity during a meat shortage.

The Body of Comrades: Overwhelmed with admiration, the neighbor returns with the mayor of the town. “The mayor expressed to Ansaldo his intense desire that his beloved townspeople be nourished – as was Ansaldo – by drawing on their private reserves, that is to say, each from their own meat.” This whole scene and play on words has echoes of communist slogans, writing I suspect not particularly appreciated by the leaders of the new Cuban communist regime.

Bon Appétit, Two: After silencing grips from the well-educated (damn those elitist intellectuals!) the major invites Ansaldo to provide instruction and a demonstration for the masses in the town square. With the bravado of a sage on the stage, Ansaldo gives it his all (no pun intended). Following detailed instructions, the townsfolk, knives in hand, start cutting enough fillets to last each man and women one hundred and forty days (calculations provided courtesy of a distinguished physician). Tongues, lips and other delicacies are relished. But there are some minor drawbacks, such as “The prison warden could not sign a convict’s death sentence because he had eaten the fleshy tips of his fingers, which, according to the best “gourmets” (of which the warden was one), gave rise to the well-worn phrase “finger-licking good.”” Too bad such practices are restricted in modern consumer societies. I can picture a TV commercial with fingers so “finger-licking good,” - by far the most memorable commercial in the history of TV.

The story continues with hilarious jabs at society run according to uniform, scientific rules. What really comes through is Virgilio Piñera’s disdain for a public or government having little respect for privacy, nonconformity or individuality. As G. Cabrera-Infante writes in this collection’s introductory essay, “When I tell you that by reading these stories you’ll get a kick out of them I don’t mean champagne or cocaine. I’m talking of a true kick. A kick in the groin or in the stomach but most of the time a kick in the soul, where it hurts metaphysically and you bleed eternally.”

[sandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fate brought me to this book and I feel honored to have been able to read it. It felt as though Piñera was supposed to be an illustrious author, but was not given the opportunity in both his life and the time after.

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

A primeira vez que ouvi falar sobre Virgilio Piñera foi por meio de um querido amigo luso-cubano, doutor em Filologia e grande sábio que conheci durante os longos anos em que morei em Lisboa, Portugal. Assim como o nome Piñera, também permanecem sentimentalmente os nomes de Carilda Oliver Labra, Dulce María Loynaz, José Lezama Lima (de quem li o monumental "Paradiso"), dentre outros.

E finamente tive a oportunidade de ler a seleção de contos que resultou em "Cuentos frios" de Piñera, que além de trazer os contos constantes do livro original de 1956, traz também contos de suas obras, "El que vino a salvarme" (1970), "Un fogonazo" (1987), "Muecas para escribientes" (1987), além de alguns contos que permaneceram inéditos até algum tempo atrás.

De certo modo, quando lemos um autor pela primeira vez, tendemos a buscar as referências, as inspirações que motivaram a construção de sua obra ou comparações com outros autores. Instintivamente é o que me ocorreu quando iniciei a leitura de "Cuentos frios". Mas a escrita Piñera, apesar de me recordar alguns estilos, mostrou-se única. Penso nele como precursor e não seguidor.

Talvez o que mais caracterize os seus contos sejam a ironia, a sátira, o absurdo, a subversão, a provocação. Por meio desses elementos, Piñero fala-nos essencialmente da condição humana, por vezes de forma claustrofóbica como nos desenhos e litografias de M. C. Escher, em que os personagens parecem repetir incessantemente um mesmo ritual/processo; outras vezes, fala-nos de processos de alienação como no conto "El albúm" ou "Otra vez Luis Catorze", apenas para citar alguns; a sátira subversiva que brilha em "El muñeco"; o absurdo do processo de autofagia, talvez uma releitura do mito grego de Erisícton, em "La carne"; etc. Cada conto, a seu modo, vibra intensamente.

Incito a todos para que leiam Piñera, autor imensamente necessário.

[Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange collection. I give it 5 stars simply for the stories “Meat” and “A Few Children” alone, though there are many others that are effectively creepy, hilarious, and bizarre. Impacting when it hits, astounding when it (just) misses. Piñera’s is an overlooked master.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelves for many years. In the 1980s and 1990s, Eridanos Press published quite a few beautiful volumes of translations of authors from around the world. The paper is high quality and thick; the book cover is gate-folded, the paper is quite heavy, and the art and design are striking. It was easy to find these books in a bookstore.

Virgilio Piñera(1912-1979) was a Cuban writer of the same generation as the early 20th Century Latin American writers, like Jorge Luis Borges. He was openly gay, which gave him some difficulties but did not get him in real trouble until after the Cuban Revolution, which he supported. He lived in Argentina between 1943-58 before returning to Cuba to work for the revolution. After being ostracized by the Cuban government in 1971 , Piñera stuck it out rather than emigrate and suffered the consequences.

The majority of the stories in this volume, the first thirty-three, are dated between 1944 and 1958; the last ten stories are dated after the revolution, between 1959 and 1978. 

The most abiding influences for these stories are Poe and Kafka. In many of these stories, there is a creepiness that verges on horror but then diverges into absurdity, the uncanny, existential angst, and the grotesque. Although there are a few stories here that are political, most are not and exist in a rootless literary landscape outside of Cuba and seem similar to Borges’s stories that are not set at a particular time and place in Argentina. I prefer Piñera’s shorter stories in the volume, and most of the stories are quite short. The shorter stories seem to function primarily as parables or fables: sketches of circumstances, events, images, or symbols, which through striking juxtapositions and combinations provoke the reader (me) to arresting and creative rethinking of conventional assumptions and perceptions. ←Such challenging work is what all great literature should elicit from the reader.

More often than not at the center of Piñera’s stories is some kind of bodily pain: disfigurement, injury, dismemberment, and/or death. Through the imagery of pain, Piñera configures the meaning–or perhaps it would be better to say the reactions to–the tales. A few examples. In “The Album,” everyone at a boarding house attends an eight month long description by one of the boarders of the pictures in her wedding album: one paralyzed boarder dies, and everyone defecates in their seats so they don’t have to leave the performance. In “The Park,” the bodies of dead workers are sealed in the concrete of a new city park. In “The Battle,” the troops won’t fight, so the two opposing generals fight to the death: final image, a dog chewing the hand of one of the generals. In “Indestructible Union,” the love between a man and woman begins to fade, so they soak themselves in tar, lie down next to each other, and let the tar harden. There are many similar stories in the volume that juxtapose the conventional and the grotesque, transforming the conventional into the uncanny.

A couple of longer stories that are more political. In “The Philanthropist,”Piñera details capitalism as sado-masochistic practice. A banker, named Coco, offers $1 million dollars if one writes “Coco: I want a million” a million times, while inhabiting a cell in the banker’s Kafkaesque fortress home. The task is impossible, driving those who attempt it insane. The banker keeps the million and recruits the victim’s family to work for him, accepting his “philanthropy” while being exploited as low wage workers. An inventor of mechanical devices narrates “The Dummy.” He becomes aware that the country’s president is using a double for appearances. Finding his way to the president, the inventor convinces him that a stand-in is politically dangerous and  to replace with a rubber dummy.The dummy is so well made that the people cannot tell the difference between the two. Other government officials want rubber dummies. Confusion reigns. The dummies replace the humans in power, and the humans mysteriously end up in boxes in toy stores, where they are bought and then dismembered by the children for whom they were bought.

Piñera wrote “Hot and Cold” in 1959 after the Cuban revolution. It is longer and realistic, telling a very site-specific story of Cuba in the twentieth century, and it is not marked by the grotesque or uncanny.  The narrator, Rafa, comes from a middle class family, but he has been on the make his entire life, beginning as a loan shark in the 1920s and then shifting through lots of exploitative money-making schemes. He succeeded so well that he became a political operative under Batista, handing out favors and getting rich on the graft. Under Fidel he makes use of his well-honed skills as a grifter, but his stature is reduced and reduced and reduced until he is guessing the ice cream flavors customers at the Miami restaurant are choosing. Although most of Rafa’s family has fled Cuba, Rafa won’t leave. He believes he had his good ride and now he’ll just take his knocks. The story seems all-too-prescient for the remaining years of Piñera’s life.

[Carlo Bugni · Rating 4 out of 5]

La caduta ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
La carne ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½
Il caso Atteone ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Le parti ⭐️⭐️ ½
Il cambio ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
La cena ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Progetto per un sogno ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Il ballo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
L’album ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½
Il parco ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Il negozio ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Le nozze ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
La battaglia ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nell’insonnia ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
L’inferno ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cose da zoppi ⭐️⭐️ ½
La faccia ⭐️⭐️⭐️
La decorazione ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Come ho vissuto e come sono morto ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ½
Il viaggio ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Il conflitto ⭐️⭐️ ½
Il Gran Baro ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

«Qual è la cosa che più desidererebbe possedere?», le dissi ridendo con palese nervosismo.
«Uno non desidera niente» mi rispose «riceve solo sentenze». «Di morte?», dissi.
«O di vita», sottolineò.

Scrittura fredda (per l’appunto), distaccata, per parlare invece di argomenti crudi e spesso truculenti. I primi racconti sono molto simili e più si va avanti più si perde la fascinazione morbosa che creano. Piñera però si rinnova presto, abbandonando i risvolti più grafici e sprofondando in quotidianità alienanti o in situazioni di stallo à la Kafka. Queste ultime producono i racconti un po’ più macchinosi (soprattutto Il conflitto, che è anche il racconto più lungo, rischia di essere soporifero), ma in generale è una scrittura straordinariamente calibrata per la narrativa breve e brevissima, e sempre stimolante.

Peccato solo che l’edizione italiana non abbia tradotto tutti i racconti, eliminandone una bella ventina che appaiono invece nelle edizioni ispanofone e anglofone.

[yo JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Studenej vývar. Spíše cronenbergovina, v duchu body horroru. Krátké povídky, které se často soustředí na jednu věc a hrabají se v motivu, namísto v zažitém, z nových úhlů, nebo z podezřelých způsobů myšlení, které člověka provokují přemýšlet nad záměrem autora. Čím kratší je text, tím obvykle zajímavější a samozřejmě víc k věci. Srovnání s Kafkou, na něž jsem párkrát narazil, mi připadá jako povrchní a chtěné. "Kafka Karibiku" Kafku spíše pouze připomíná. I navzdory nelehké životní situaci (homosexuál, co píše tohle takhle na Kubě) a známostem s řadou předních latinskoamerických autorů (mezi něž je sám počítán jako velké jméno, ač utajované a ne příliš známé, podle mě), nemůžu říct, že by mi Virgilio Piñera nějak učaroval, nebo mě nějak zaujal. Možná, že jeho nejznámější román 'La carne de René' by stál za to, ale i z tohohle výběru, který je v rozpětí let 1942-1978, prakticky až do autorovi smrti, jsem se neměl moc čeho chytit.

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way Piñera delivers his horrific tales. He writes in a cold, detached, matter of a fact way that makes each story even creepier. I feel horror and fantasy stories can rely to heavily on dramatic language and supernatural setting/events/characters. I love these tales because everyday people, dry humor, and mundane events are mixed with the horror of death, cannibalism, and absurdity. I also prefer the shortest stories (one paragraph) to the longer ones. I have never read such witty, creepy, and existential short stories.

My favorites are "The Fall" "Meat" "The Dummy" "Insomnia" "How I lived and How I died" (reminds me of a combo of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground) "Swimming" "A Few Children""Indestructible Union" "Argument Against the Free-Standing Bathtub"

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Izjemno besedilo velikana kubanske literature. Ironično, zajedljivo, fantastično. Kako je sicer mogoče kritizirati avtoritatni režim kot s temi orodji, ki jih je Virgilio Pinera izbrausil do popolnosti?

[Andrew Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

all the daniil kharms and robert walser stans would eat this shit up if it were republished. sad that it’s impossible to find.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

DWA MIESIĄCE. Tyle czytałam opowiadania Pinery. Co za wstyd!
Od razu śpieszę z wyjaśnieniem, że to nie wina książki - ach nie, gdy wreszcie udawało mi się zebrać w sobie, po prostu opowiadanka połykałam. Nie w nadmiarze, bo jeszcze bym posmutniała, a na co mi to.
Takie rzeczy się zdarzają, gdy któregoś letniego dnia rozreguluje się aparat odpowiedzialny za utrzymywanie uwagi. Na swoje usprawiedliwienie mogę tylko powiedzieć, że przejechałam dużo na rowerze, dużo przebiegłam i zrobiłam parę zawodowych rzeczy, z których mogę być dumna. Książeczce byłam lojalna, tachałam ją wszędzie - do Krakowa, do Wrocławia, do Szczecina, gdzie równie lojalnie jej nie tykałam. Teraz mam nadzieję, że blokada się skończy - ale czelendżu rocznego nie pokonałam. No ale spójrzmy na moją półkę - serio, dwa tomiszcza reportaży czarnego, serio 2666 Bolano - takich książek się nie kupuje, gdy powinno się iść w ilość. Do takich książek kupuje się stoliczek do czytania, coś na kształt średniowiecznego pulpitu.
Dzielny Pinera, że towarzyszył mi w tych dziwnych dziwnych czasach. Gorąco polecam miłośnikom stylu Gombrowicza, światów rodem z Ionesco i smutku z gorącej i pełnej generałów Ameryki Łacińskiej.

[Samantha]

This was an extremely challenging read.
I had read "La Carne" before and I thought I would enjoy reading more from this author. Now, I never thought I would say this, but a good number of the stories are "too out there". Surreal to the a degree that they become pointless to me.
That being said, I enjoyed a few of the stories. In particular I enjoyed the sense of humor embedded in them.
This book goes to the list of "unfinished" reads.

[Larry-bob Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great surrealist short fiction by this Cuban writer.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

"a few children" takes swift's "modest proposal" to a whole new crazy place...

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

didn't speak to me

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Templado