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The National Telepathy
A sloth with a special gift in a shocking, imaginative farce that queers and undermines the glories of great men and their thirst for power.At the port of Buenos Aires in September 1933, the Peruvian Rubber Company delivers nineteen indigenous people from the Amazon to Amado Dam, a highly respected citizen and member of a committee charged with creating the first ever Ethnographic Theme Park in Argentina. And among the human cargo is an unaccounted for box, harboring a sloth with a fascinating yet terrifying secret. How will this discovery become a state secret over time and under the control of the National Telepathy Commission? Roque Larraquy, one of the most original voices in contemporary Argentinean literature, brings us a shocking, bizarre, funny, imaginative novel that lays all-too-bare the secret longings and not-so-secret machinations of a social class that will stop at nothing in order to stay in power.
161 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
April 3, 2021
Roque Larraquy me cae muy bien. Me gusta su construcción y uso de discursos científicos y su destreza para explicar situaciones complejas que en otra pluma serían una calamidad. Ya lo había hecho en La comemadre, que a mí me pareció excelente, y ahora lo hace acá, aunque de forma totalmente distinta. Para mí, a La telepatía nacional le faltan unas 100 páginas (o una secuela): quedan ganas de saber cómo funciona la telepatía, otras posibilidades y combinaciones, y también qué pasó entre el apartado Dos y el Anexo. Pero reconozco que la novela no tiene ese alcance ni esos objetivos, porque no se trata de las aventuras de un perezoso en la gran ciudad, sino (creo) de la voracidad y la voluntad de apropiación de todo aquello que otros han descubierto: se despoja a las personas de sus pertenencias y rituales, las cuales se desnudan de significado y se venden al mejor postor, a los poderosos de siempre. Confieso que me extravié —y me decepcioné un poquito— con los textos de Perón, arquitectura porteña y el famoso decreto tal y tal, porque son demasiado particulares, pero, por un lado, es una porción mínima del libro y, por otro, se trata de ideas tan latinoamericanas que es fácil extrapolarlas y enojarse igualito, como siempre y por los mismos motivos de toda la vida.
December 21, 2024
Me interesaba plantear voces de hombres blancos cis heterosexuales, racistas, conservadores, y a través de esas voces manifestar sus propias limitaciones en la comprensión del mundo.
I was interested in presenting the voices of cisgender, heterosexual, white, conservative, racist men, and through those voices, exposing their inherent limitations in understanding the world.
(from an interview with the author at Eterna Candencia, translated by ChatGPT).
The National Telepathy (2024) is Frank Wynne's translation of the original La telepatía nacional (2020) by Roque Larraquy.
The author's Comemadre (2010), in Heather Cleary's translation (2018), was previously nominated for the National Book Award and for the Best Translated Book Award: my review of a fascinating if oddly flawed work.
His 2014 novel Informe sobre ectoplasma animal has, I believe, yet to be translated into English, and while the author has said they do not form a trilogy, he has said this novel closes a series (from the same interview):
It’s not something I planned from the beginning. I do think they form a set, though not necessarily a trilogy. It’s true that after La comemadre came out, followed by Informe sobre ectoplasma animal, I found it interesting to give those first two a kind of closure with a third novel that shared a certain connection to Argentine history, pseudosciences, and especially certain discourses of the conservative right. I’m interested in appropriating those discourses so they can be fully expressed in all their darkness on the surface of the narrative. So, “trilogy” might be too grand a term, but without a doubt, La telepatía nacional closes a series.
This novel is another fascinating work, although one where I'd love to see other readers' takes.
The novel opens in early August 1933 with a letter, almost a dispatch note, from D. Ontevero an official of the Peruvian Rubber Company to an Argentinian business man, Amado Dam. Dam is setting up a Ethnographic Park, and the consignment is one of his planned exhibits - a collection of 19 indigeneous people from as remote a tribe as the Company, who normally recruit the locals as labour (there's no need to make them slaves Ontevero casually mentions, since they can be paid very low wages as they have no concept of the value of money), can find.
The narrative then switches to Dam's assistant, in September 1933, with the arrival of the 'Indians' in Buenos Aires rather earlier than expected. Dam ends up housing the 19 of them in his own townhouse while he awaits for the architect to complete the Ethnographic Park on Dam's own farmland.
Today, the architect is proud to present Stage Three of the project. On the western edge of the maquette, in an area of dense forest, is the American Pavilion adorned with bas-reliefs that echo the lush jungle, together with an annex for housing national Indians decorated with an outline of the Andes. To the south, the African Pavilion, whose entrance is guarded by misshapen wooden idols. To the east, the Oceania Pavilion, as orange as the deserts of Australia. To the north, between the granite hills, the Asia Pavilion, with Indian-style friezes topped with a spire in the form of a pagoda. Depending on the budget allocated by the Committee, the pavilions will be clad either in stone or in carton pierre, like the pavilion in Coney Island.
Europe and Antarctica have been excluded since they have no ethnic tribes of interest, but if at some point Eskimos should become available he would consider adding a North Pole Pavilion. The overall design, he explains, relies on fantastical ornamentation in order to enhance the visitor experience and make it clear that these are modern living quarters that shelter the resident Indians from the vicissitudes of their natural outdoor habitat.
Two curious incidents take place, recounted by the assistant:
- the discovery that inside the sacred object of the people is concealed a sloth, which slashes with its claws at those that disturb it, starting with Dam:
The object looks like the base of a tree, complete with roots and the stumps of branches, but it is rounded, like a huge walnut shell that could contain many rats, or a medium-sized dog curled into a ball. On the surface, there are various slashes that look intentional.
From the front it has the look of a totem or a goddess.
According to the expert, it is a religious icon. A minor deity. It could well be.
[…]
One of the slashes in the wood looks deeper than the others. A notch. Dam sticks his finger into the groove. The shell creaks and opens into three parts.
The breathing thing within looks like a tumour in the wood covered with bristling hair. From this body contorted from lack of space and forced to adapt to the shape of the shell there emerges a leg, a pair of eyes opens where there were none, then an arm equipped with claws of rotting bone leaves a trail of blood on Dam's leg.
- one of the females escapes from the flat, seemingly more familiar with how to travel through a city than one might expect, and the assistant eventually has to rescue her from a window ledge in the Harrods branch in Buenos Aires (pictured here in 1939)
The 2nd part of the novel is in the form of a written account from Dam to one of the fellow Committee members responsible for the Ethnographic Park, a Doctor. Dam explains how the scratch he received from the sloth created a telepathic, and erotic, connection between him and the woman, leading them to each part inhabit each other's bodies:
To these Indians, what we call telepathy, what we imagine as a mental exchange, is in fact a secretion, something exuded from the body, like sweat. The verb they use to describe it includes the notions of sweating, of vomiting to cleanse the gut of excess alcohol, the idea of looking up and searching for the sky among the branches, and the idea of startling someone in the dark. It is a recreational activity. You and I would call it a vice.
When they feel so inclined, they open the shell and allow the sloth to scratch them.
And he undergoes the same mixing of concsiouness with his assistant, who is also scratched by the sloth, adding a layer of class conflict to the narrative.
The Appendix to the novel consists of four official documents - two I believe transcripts of real documents:
The first concerns the establishment under Peron's order in 1951 of the ATLAS building, later the Edificio Alas, in the Catalinas Norte district, for 40 years the tallest building in Argentina. This includes some fascinating architectural commentary on other buildings in the area, such as the Edificio Kavanagh, Comega and the SAFICO.
Edificio Alas
1936 - the Kavanagh Building (lower left), Comega (top left) and the SAFICO (top right)
The second reproduction is of the March 1956 Decree Law 4161/56, post the 1955 overthrow of Peron, and which forebade promotion of any Peronist thought.
However, the other two take us more into the realms of pseudo-science - purporting to be those from a National Telepathic Commission, based after it is built in the Edificio Ales, investigating and exploiting the discovery of the telepathic powers induced by the sloth.
Larraquy's mission, as he has said elsewhere (Chat GPT translation), is that "I’m very interested in the relationship between magical thinking and the conservative, white, Western, heteronormative, patriarchal ideology of South America—especially within a historical context that makes these qualities more visible" and the novel neatly skewers the racist pseudo-science that underlay, and perhaps still underlies, such thinking.
But this is also a novel that leaves the reader to make those connections, and indeed those to the Argentinian history and architecture featured. The author has said that it was originally over 300 pages but he, commendably, removed material to reduce it to its 150 page length.
Impressive.
I was interested in presenting the voices of cisgender, heterosexual, white, conservative, racist men, and through those voices, exposing their inherent limitations in understanding the world.
(from an interview with the author at Eterna Candencia, translated by ChatGPT).
The National Telepathy (2024) is Frank Wynne's translation of the original La telepatía nacional (2020) by Roque Larraquy.
The author's Comemadre (2010), in Heather Cleary's translation (2018), was previously nominated for the National Book Award and for the Best Translated Book Award: my review of a fascinating if oddly flawed work.
His 2014 novel Informe sobre ectoplasma animal has, I believe, yet to be translated into English, and while the author has said they do not form a trilogy, he has said this novel closes a series (from the same interview):
It’s not something I planned from the beginning. I do think they form a set, though not necessarily a trilogy. It’s true that after La comemadre came out, followed by Informe sobre ectoplasma animal, I found it interesting to give those first two a kind of closure with a third novel that shared a certain connection to Argentine history, pseudosciences, and especially certain discourses of the conservative right. I’m interested in appropriating those discourses so they can be fully expressed in all their darkness on the surface of the narrative. So, “trilogy” might be too grand a term, but without a doubt, La telepatía nacional closes a series.
This novel is another fascinating work, although one where I'd love to see other readers' takes.
The novel opens in early August 1933 with a letter, almost a dispatch note, from D. Ontevero an official of the Peruvian Rubber Company to an Argentinian business man, Amado Dam. Dam is setting up a Ethnographic Park, and the consignment is one of his planned exhibits - a collection of 19 indigeneous people from as remote a tribe as the Company, who normally recruit the locals as labour (there's no need to make them slaves Ontevero casually mentions, since they can be paid very low wages as they have no concept of the value of money), can find.
The narrative then switches to Dam's assistant, in September 1933, with the arrival of the 'Indians' in Buenos Aires rather earlier than expected. Dam ends up housing the 19 of them in his own townhouse while he awaits for the architect to complete the Ethnographic Park on Dam's own farmland.
Today, the architect is proud to present Stage Three of the project. On the western edge of the maquette, in an area of dense forest, is the American Pavilion adorned with bas-reliefs that echo the lush jungle, together with an annex for housing national Indians decorated with an outline of the Andes. To the south, the African Pavilion, whose entrance is guarded by misshapen wooden idols. To the east, the Oceania Pavilion, as orange as the deserts of Australia. To the north, between the granite hills, the Asia Pavilion, with Indian-style friezes topped with a spire in the form of a pagoda. Depending on the budget allocated by the Committee, the pavilions will be clad either in stone or in carton pierre, like the pavilion in Coney Island.
Europe and Antarctica have been excluded since they have no ethnic tribes of interest, but if at some point Eskimos should become available he would consider adding a North Pole Pavilion. The overall design, he explains, relies on fantastical ornamentation in order to enhance the visitor experience and make it clear that these are modern living quarters that shelter the resident Indians from the vicissitudes of their natural outdoor habitat.
Two curious incidents take place, recounted by the assistant:
- the discovery that inside the sacred object of the people is concealed a sloth, which slashes with its claws at those that disturb it, starting with Dam:
The object looks like the base of a tree, complete with roots and the stumps of branches, but it is rounded, like a huge walnut shell that could contain many rats, or a medium-sized dog curled into a ball. On the surface, there are various slashes that look intentional.
From the front it has the look of a totem or a goddess.
According to the expert, it is a religious icon. A minor deity. It could well be.
[…]
One of the slashes in the wood looks deeper than the others. A notch. Dam sticks his finger into the groove. The shell creaks and opens into three parts.
The breathing thing within looks like a tumour in the wood covered with bristling hair. From this body contorted from lack of space and forced to adapt to the shape of the shell there emerges a leg, a pair of eyes opens where there were none, then an arm equipped with claws of rotting bone leaves a trail of blood on Dam's leg.
- one of the females escapes from the flat, seemingly more familiar with how to travel through a city than one might expect, and the assistant eventually has to rescue her from a window ledge in the Harrods branch in Buenos Aires (pictured here in 1939)
The 2nd part of the novel is in the form of a written account from Dam to one of the fellow Committee members responsible for the Ethnographic Park, a Doctor. Dam explains how the scratch he received from the sloth created a telepathic, and erotic, connection between him and the woman, leading them to each part inhabit each other's bodies:
To these Indians, what we call telepathy, what we imagine as a mental exchange, is in fact a secretion, something exuded from the body, like sweat. The verb they use to describe it includes the notions of sweating, of vomiting to cleanse the gut of excess alcohol, the idea of looking up and searching for the sky among the branches, and the idea of startling someone in the dark. It is a recreational activity. You and I would call it a vice.
When they feel so inclined, they open the shell and allow the sloth to scratch them.
And he undergoes the same mixing of concsiouness with his assistant, who is also scratched by the sloth, adding a layer of class conflict to the narrative.
The Appendix to the novel consists of four official documents - two I believe transcripts of real documents:
The first concerns the establishment under Peron's order in 1951 of the ATLAS building, later the Edificio Alas, in the Catalinas Norte district, for 40 years the tallest building in Argentina. This includes some fascinating architectural commentary on other buildings in the area, such as the Edificio Kavanagh, Comega and the SAFICO.
Edificio Alas
1936 - the Kavanagh Building (lower left), Comega (top left) and the SAFICO (top right)
The second reproduction is of the March 1956 Decree Law 4161/56, post the 1955 overthrow of Peron, and which forebade promotion of any Peronist thought.
However, the other two take us more into the realms of pseudo-science - purporting to be those from a National Telepathic Commission, based after it is built in the Edificio Ales, investigating and exploiting the discovery of the telepathic powers induced by the sloth.
Larraquy's mission, as he has said elsewhere (Chat GPT translation), is that "I’m very interested in the relationship between magical thinking and the conservative, white, Western, heteronormative, patriarchal ideology of South America—especially within a historical context that makes these qualities more visible" and the novel neatly skewers the racist pseudo-science that underlay, and perhaps still underlies, such thinking.
But this is also a novel that leaves the reader to make those connections, and indeed those to the Argentinian history and architecture featured. The author has said that it was originally over 300 pages but he, commendably, removed material to reduce it to its 150 page length.
Impressive.
January 7, 2025
A wildly inventive endeavor. This book is doing a lot and it’s all over the place and I loved it.
After a group of Indigenous people are captured from the Amazon and transported to Buenos Aires for the purpose of “displaying” them in an Ethnographic Theme Park, a curious artifact is discovered among their few belongings: a hibernating sloth. But this isn’t just any sloth, this sloth has the power to create a telepathic connection between the two people it has most recently lacerated. And not just any telepathic connection, but one that builds into a mutual sexually stimulating event for both parties. Yeah.
Through the process of the Indigenous’ capturing, transporting, and discovery of the sloth and its powers, there are several vividly imagined scenes that give this book life and levity. It’s sarcastic and it’s funny because the joke is always on the bumbling men obsessed with their own power and intellect.
Mixing a bit of real history with a dash of science fiction and incorporating fictional documents along with a few real, Larraquy criticizes the hubris of history’s power hungry men and the pseudoscience they’ve often relied on to justify their sense of self-importance.
A fun one.
After a group of Indigenous people are captured from the Amazon and transported to Buenos Aires for the purpose of “displaying” them in an Ethnographic Theme Park, a curious artifact is discovered among their few belongings: a hibernating sloth. But this isn’t just any sloth, this sloth has the power to create a telepathic connection between the two people it has most recently lacerated. And not just any telepathic connection, but one that builds into a mutual sexually stimulating event for both parties. Yeah.
Through the process of the Indigenous’ capturing, transporting, and discovery of the sloth and its powers, there are several vividly imagined scenes that give this book life and levity. It’s sarcastic and it’s funny because the joke is always on the bumbling men obsessed with their own power and intellect.
Mixing a bit of real history with a dash of science fiction and incorporating fictional documents along with a few real, Larraquy criticizes the hubris of history’s power hungry men and the pseudoscience they’ve often relied on to justify their sense of self-importance.
A fun one.
December 1, 2021
Una ficción científica pero en el pasado. En una época donde la ciencia recién está despegando. Nunca leí algo así pero tampoco es que haya leído tanto del género.
Está narrada de manera formal como si fueran reportes. Pero a eso se le agrega la ironía y lo absurdo. La historia está llena de situaciones que ponen en ridículo a personajes y ciertas ideas de la época. Con humor se critica una clase que no solo posee el poder económico sino que también dispone y se apropia del conocimiento a partir del cual se construye la verdad. Igualmente me hubiera gustado saber más del Comisión de Telepatía Nacional porque sentí que la novela terminó cuando recién arrancaba.
Está narrada de manera formal como si fueran reportes. Pero a eso se le agrega la ironía y lo absurdo. La historia está llena de situaciones que ponen en ridículo a personajes y ciertas ideas de la época. Con humor se critica una clase que no solo posee el poder económico sino que también dispone y se apropia del conocimiento a partir del cual se construye la verdad. Igualmente me hubiera gustado saber más del Comisión de Telepatía Nacional porque sentí que la novela terminó cuando recién arrancaba.
March 8, 2025
A quick reflection on The National Telepathy.
Ok plot: some rich racists in the 30s decide to make a zoo of indigenous peoples. They kidnap some Indians from the Amazon and get em all set up and ready to be on display in the zoo on some fancy private property in Argentina. Then, among the natives’ belongings, this like million year old sloth pops out of a shell crying like a baby and scratches folks. It makes the last two people it scratched telepathic with each other for a short time. That’s the idea.
There is a complex, subtle meditation on how the wealthy annihilate nature by way of all the bad -isms you can come up with. This novel set me up for a wild ride based on, well, what I told you above, but I ended up reading a much more complicated journalistic sort of telling about the politics and political ramifications of how evil people capitalize on the disenfranchised, natural resources, and even the supernatural.
I had a hard time reading this more than a handful of pages at a time. It’s pretty dense reading, strangely enough. It’s not the book I expected it to be, so I’m having a hard time saying I enjoyed it, but I don’t like telling you I didn’t enjoy it just because my expectations were different. Literally, honestly, let’s be real, I came here for the sloth. I got a lot more than the sloth, but there is some sloth content.
I think the book is likely brilliant. It sure crammed a lot into its few pages, but the textbook quality of the majority of it kept me at bay a bit.
If you’re interested in reading about colonialism and racism from a very different slant, try this out. The only comparable title I can think of is The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara, but don’t come here for Yanagihara-esque storytelling.
Have you read this bizarre little book?
Ok plot: some rich racists in the 30s decide to make a zoo of indigenous peoples. They kidnap some Indians from the Amazon and get em all set up and ready to be on display in the zoo on some fancy private property in Argentina. Then, among the natives’ belongings, this like million year old sloth pops out of a shell crying like a baby and scratches folks. It makes the last two people it scratched telepathic with each other for a short time. That’s the idea.
There is a complex, subtle meditation on how the wealthy annihilate nature by way of all the bad -isms you can come up with. This novel set me up for a wild ride based on, well, what I told you above, but I ended up reading a much more complicated journalistic sort of telling about the politics and political ramifications of how evil people capitalize on the disenfranchised, natural resources, and even the supernatural.
I had a hard time reading this more than a handful of pages at a time. It’s pretty dense reading, strangely enough. It’s not the book I expected it to be, so I’m having a hard time saying I enjoyed it, but I don’t like telling you I didn’t enjoy it just because my expectations were different. Literally, honestly, let’s be real, I came here for the sloth. I got a lot more than the sloth, but there is some sloth content.
I think the book is likely brilliant. It sure crammed a lot into its few pages, but the textbook quality of the majority of it kept me at bay a bit.
If you’re interested in reading about colonialism and racism from a very different slant, try this out. The only comparable title I can think of is The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara, but don’t come here for Yanagihara-esque storytelling.
Have you read this bizarre little book?
July 8, 2025
I saw another review describe this as dense, and that’s really the best way to sum this up. A lot of big ideas about racism, politics, globalization, environmental destruction and corruption are squeezed into 154 pages. If that feels like a lot, trust me, it is.
This is a book much less about a telepathic sloth (which turns out to be a very minor character in the end) and much more about the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the peoples who have served as its custodians for thousands of years, who continue to exist in spite of rather than because of the “development” of modern civilization.
Just when I had felt settled in to the somewhat jarring and almost whimsical voice, the main story ends and pivots into a series of Appendices that delve into experimentation and exploration of the telepathic sloth connection by the Argentine government for decades after. I’m not entirely sure I understood everything going on here, but I do know I wish there was more of it. There’s brief reference to the dictatorship and how the telepathy program changes post-regime, but it’s not elaborated upon in any substantive way. Selfishly I would have loved to see more of that, much more sloth, and much less discussion of the bodily functions of every man in this story (vomit, poop and semen oh my! — those with sensitive stomachs, this may not be for you!)
This is a book much less about a telepathic sloth (which turns out to be a very minor character in the end) and much more about the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the peoples who have served as its custodians for thousands of years, who continue to exist in spite of rather than because of the “development” of modern civilization.
Just when I had felt settled in to the somewhat jarring and almost whimsical voice, the main story ends and pivots into a series of Appendices that delve into experimentation and exploration of the telepathic sloth connection by the Argentine government for decades after. I’m not entirely sure I understood everything going on here, but I do know I wish there was more of it. There’s brief reference to the dictatorship and how the telepathy program changes post-regime, but it’s not elaborated upon in any substantive way. Selfishly I would have loved to see more of that, much more sloth, and much less discussion of the bodily functions of every man in this story (vomit, poop and semen oh my! — those with sensitive stomachs, this may not be for you!)
March 8, 2025
Sometimes it's the writer's fault; sometimes the reader's. I'll take the blame here. Because I loved the synopsis:
At the port of Buenos Aires in September 1933, the Peruvian Rubber Company delivers nineteen indigenous people from the Amazon to Amado Dam, a highly respected citizen and member of a committee charged with creating the first ever Ethnographic Theme Park in Argentina.
The perspective is, at first, Amado Dam's assistant's, and then Dam's. The assistant's version was especially comical; Dam's, more elucidating.
But it got weird. Along with the indigenous peeps was a shell, an artefact, and inside the shell was a sloth. The sloth invariably will claw someone, and then someone else, before it returns to the shell. The consciousness of one such clawed is telepathically transferred to the other one such clawed. I'm not sure if it is a complete exchange of telepathy. Anyhow, Amado Dam gets the best of the telepathy.
So things went from anthropological to, kinda, science fiction-al. Which is nothing if not more freewheeling. Not that it isn't as profound as anything else, or could be, but not everyone gets it. See, above.
I was reading this on a plane. So, as I had never heard of cannulas, I couldn't really look it up right then. I thought, wrongly, it was a made-up word. It's not. It's, I'm informed: a small, flexible tube inserted into a body cavity, vein, or duct to perform a variety of medical procedures.
But here, in a series of appendices, it's explained that Señor López and a number of the sales assistants take cannulas from beneath a table, and screw them into their respective porcelain orifices and shudder. I don't know from porcelain orifices.
But the funny parts were really good.
At the port of Buenos Aires in September 1933, the Peruvian Rubber Company delivers nineteen indigenous people from the Amazon to Amado Dam, a highly respected citizen and member of a committee charged with creating the first ever Ethnographic Theme Park in Argentina.
The perspective is, at first, Amado Dam's assistant's, and then Dam's. The assistant's version was especially comical; Dam's, more elucidating.
But it got weird. Along with the indigenous peeps was a shell, an artefact, and inside the shell was a sloth. The sloth invariably will claw someone, and then someone else, before it returns to the shell. The consciousness of one such clawed is telepathically transferred to the other one such clawed. I'm not sure if it is a complete exchange of telepathy. Anyhow, Amado Dam gets the best of the telepathy.
So things went from anthropological to, kinda, science fiction-al. Which is nothing if not more freewheeling. Not that it isn't as profound as anything else, or could be, but not everyone gets it. See, above.
I was reading this on a plane. So, as I had never heard of cannulas, I couldn't really look it up right then. I thought, wrongly, it was a made-up word. It's not. It's, I'm informed: a small, flexible tube inserted into a body cavity, vein, or duct to perform a variety of medical procedures.
But here, in a series of appendices, it's explained that Señor López and a number of the sales assistants take cannulas from beneath a table, and screw them into their respective porcelain orifices and shudder. I don't know from porcelain orifices.
But the funny parts were really good.
January 29, 2025
My first Latin American read of the year and my first 5 star. This book has absolutely blown my mind. It won't be for everyone as it's a real strange mix of literary fiction, speculative fiction, satire and political commentary, but for me this was just an incredible book in how unique and strong the voices were.
A group of Indigenous people from the Amazon are captured by a committee of white men and brought to Buenos Aires in the hope of opening Argentine's first Ethnographic Theme Park where they will be put on display for the world to see. In the cargo that comes with them is a sloth which the men discover has the ability to give telepathic powers to whoever it scratches, 'bonding' the two minds so that they can share memories and experience each others perspective.
The satirical tone in this book was perfect and it really focused on the megalomania of the committee and their desire for power and gain. Some of the sentences in the beginning section of the novel were hilarious but frightening in how ignorant they were to the indigenous tribe. Once the book started to venture into the speculative realm it got super interesting and I found myself gasping at what I was reading. It really takes you on a wild ride but I thought it was absolutely fascinating, and also shed light on how those in power will take the most amazing phenomenon and supernatural artifacts and just use it for political gain. It was quite a stark comment on the Argentine political situation and history and how warped the government and paranoia surrounding it has become.
All-in-all, this is a novel about corruption and how the western world and it's politics smothers and destroys everything it comes into contact with. I absolutely loved this book and thought it was one of the most unique things I have ever read. I'd love to see it on the IB 2025 longlist.
A group of Indigenous people from the Amazon are captured by a committee of white men and brought to Buenos Aires in the hope of opening Argentine's first Ethnographic Theme Park where they will be put on display for the world to see. In the cargo that comes with them is a sloth which the men discover has the ability to give telepathic powers to whoever it scratches, 'bonding' the two minds so that they can share memories and experience each others perspective.
The satirical tone in this book was perfect and it really focused on the megalomania of the committee and their desire for power and gain. Some of the sentences in the beginning section of the novel were hilarious but frightening in how ignorant they were to the indigenous tribe. Once the book started to venture into the speculative realm it got super interesting and I found myself gasping at what I was reading. It really takes you on a wild ride but I thought it was absolutely fascinating, and also shed light on how those in power will take the most amazing phenomenon and supernatural artifacts and just use it for political gain. It was quite a stark comment on the Argentine political situation and history and how warped the government and paranoia surrounding it has become.
All-in-all, this is a novel about corruption and how the western world and it's politics smothers and destroys everything it comes into contact with. I absolutely loved this book and thought it was one of the most unique things I have ever read. I'd love to see it on the IB 2025 longlist.
July 27, 2021
“En la narrativa de los periódicos y los folletos de turismo nacionales se llamó ‘proa altiva de la ciudad’, ‘emblema metropolitano’ y ‘faro de modernidad nacional’. Se lo menciona en treinta y dos novelas publicadas entre 1936 y 1950, veintinueve de género policial (en cuanto el edificio es escena de un crimen), tres novelas románticas y una novela ‘experimental’ de tema erótico (‘Te erizas en el secreto húmedo del llano’)”.
Al leer este fragmento de ‘La telepatía nacional’ mi perplejidad ante lo que creía que era otro delirio de la novela me llevó a pensar que la “novela experimental” mencionada tenía que ser precisamente la que estaba leyendo y que, paradójicamente, el edificio no existía. Tras comprobar en Google que la torre Kavanagh es uno de los grandes rascacielos art decó de Buenos Aires recordé otro fragmento inmediatamente anterior del libro. En el informe del que forma parte se habla de una ciudad contigua a Buenos Aires. “en este caso Baires, es un espacio situable, de existencia comprobada, con el que mantenemos un enlace escópico unilateral por medio de paraintrusión. Baires no es ilusoria, no es la figuración de una conciencia alterada (…) Coincide en el setenta y dos por ciento de los edificios y paseos públicos, y tiene un sesenta y cuatro por ciento de replicación de ciudadanos, de los que sólo un tercio corresponde a los casos de coincidencia especular o replicación completa (…)”.
Como explicación me pareció bastante satisfactoria. Sobre todo porque antes de eso ‘La terapia nacional’ es una amalgama de informaciones sobre un proyecto de zoo humano en los años 30, una ucronía semiperonista, la descripción de la cosmogonía de un pueblo originario que podría haber sido escrita para ‘Las ciudades invisibles’ de Calvino, los propios personajes se convierten en narradores omniscientes que saben lo que hacen otros personajes y algunos prodigios más que sólo son posibles gracias a que, eso sí, afortunadamente existe la literatura.
Al leer este fragmento de ‘La telepatía nacional’ mi perplejidad ante lo que creía que era otro delirio de la novela me llevó a pensar que la “novela experimental” mencionada tenía que ser precisamente la que estaba leyendo y que, paradójicamente, el edificio no existía. Tras comprobar en Google que la torre Kavanagh es uno de los grandes rascacielos art decó de Buenos Aires recordé otro fragmento inmediatamente anterior del libro. En el informe del que forma parte se habla de una ciudad contigua a Buenos Aires. “en este caso Baires, es un espacio situable, de existencia comprobada, con el que mantenemos un enlace escópico unilateral por medio de paraintrusión. Baires no es ilusoria, no es la figuración de una conciencia alterada (…) Coincide en el setenta y dos por ciento de los edificios y paseos públicos, y tiene un sesenta y cuatro por ciento de replicación de ciudadanos, de los que sólo un tercio corresponde a los casos de coincidencia especular o replicación completa (…)”.
Como explicación me pareció bastante satisfactoria. Sobre todo porque antes de eso ‘La terapia nacional’ es una amalgama de informaciones sobre un proyecto de zoo humano en los años 30, una ucronía semiperonista, la descripción de la cosmogonía de un pueblo originario que podría haber sido escrita para ‘Las ciudades invisibles’ de Calvino, los propios personajes se convierten en narradores omniscientes que saben lo que hacen otros personajes y algunos prodigios más que sólo son posibles gracias a que, eso sí, afortunadamente existe la literatura.
November 16, 2020
Con toda certeza puedo decir que se trata de mi mejor lectura del año.
March 9, 2025
The large part of this unconventional short novel is narrated firstly by the unnamed assistant to Amado Dam, a 1930s rubber magnate, then by the deeply unpleasant Amado himself.
A Peruvian ship is delivering 19 undocumented indigenous Indians to an ‘ethnopark’, destined to be the first ever ‘human safari’. On docking and being unloaded a sloth is discovered, and after a lengthy inspection it is found that a scratch from its claw can connect two people in orgasmic, telepathic euphoria.
The scheming Dam sees past its potential to unlock the reciprocity of all living beings and cynically recognises a business opportunity, though the idea of unadulterated pleasure clashes with his own contemptuous prejudices.
In its second part there follows a complex, subtle meditation on how the wealthy destroy nature. This is a much more difficult and less-rewarding reading experience than the first half of the book, concerning the political consequences of how immoral people capitalise on natural resources and the disenfranchised.
Its appendices tell of the sloth’s adoption by other governments for the purpose of surveillance and propaganda.
A Peruvian ship is delivering 19 undocumented indigenous Indians to an ‘ethnopark’, destined to be the first ever ‘human safari’. On docking and being unloaded a sloth is discovered, and after a lengthy inspection it is found that a scratch from its claw can connect two people in orgasmic, telepathic euphoria.
The scheming Dam sees past its potential to unlock the reciprocity of all living beings and cynically recognises a business opportunity, though the idea of unadulterated pleasure clashes with his own contemptuous prejudices.
In its second part there follows a complex, subtle meditation on how the wealthy destroy nature. This is a much more difficult and less-rewarding reading experience than the first half of the book, concerning the political consequences of how immoral people capitalise on natural resources and the disenfranchised.
Its appendices tell of the sloth’s adoption by other governments for the purpose of surveillance and propaganda.
March 21, 2025
Really effective thematic execution for such a short novella; I loved the line-level writing and this is truly original storytelling.
I do think the most compelling parts of the plot are in the synopsis. I sometimes found I couldn’t read a lot at a time because of the novel’s structure, which made me a little less fond of the second half compared to the first half.
I do think the most compelling parts of the plot are in the synopsis. I sometimes found I couldn’t read a lot at a time because of the novel’s structure, which made me a little less fond of the second half compared to the first half.
May 13, 2025
This was something.
Read
June 28, 2021Abandonado en la página 100.
No podía más.
No podía más.
May 28, 2025
3
Short review. This is a very original, short, funny book. It's absurd, really, in the classic and fun sense. An indigenous woman literally crashes through a Harrods in Buenos Aires because she's moments away from a telepathically-induced orgasm - I mean, this sentence alone would give Camus a run for his money.
On the other hand, its brevity worked against the story, particularly in the second part, where we move beyond the 1930s and into the 1950s. Yes, it is written through the 'found texts' format, kind of like Handmaid's Tale, but there is too much missing between the 1933 section and the 1950s establishment of the National Telepathy department. I felt the second part was quite underdeveloped. Honestly, even some parts of the first section, such as the establishment (and later selfish abandonment) of the ethnographic park - was it just a device used to highlight Amaro Dam's colonial mentality? If so, it could have been omitted entirely; the rest of the story lends itself well enough to highlighting the genuine absurdity of colonialism and white supremacy. Instead of telling me Amado Dam has plans to group different Indigenous peoples within a 'human zoo' - a plan he abandons anyway - I would rather have more scenes of him being surprised that the Indigenous woman is more complex than his own (white, we are guessing) servant.
Despite my misgivings, this is definitely worth a read, and I will be following Larraquy's future works.
Short review. This is a very original, short, funny book. It's absurd, really, in the classic and fun sense. An indigenous woman literally crashes through a Harrods in Buenos Aires because she's moments away from a telepathically-induced orgasm - I mean, this sentence alone would give Camus a run for his money.
On the other hand, its brevity worked against the story, particularly in the second part, where we move beyond the 1930s and into the 1950s. Yes, it is written through the 'found texts' format, kind of like Handmaid's Tale, but there is too much missing between the 1933 section and the 1950s establishment of the National Telepathy department. I felt the second part was quite underdeveloped. Honestly, even some parts of the first section, such as the establishment (and later selfish abandonment) of the ethnographic park - was it just a device used to highlight Amaro Dam's colonial mentality? If so, it could have been omitted entirely; the rest of the story lends itself well enough to highlighting the genuine absurdity of colonialism and white supremacy. Instead of telling me Amado Dam has plans to group different Indigenous peoples within a 'human zoo' - a plan he abandons anyway - I would rather have more scenes of him being surprised that the Indigenous woman is more complex than his own (white, we are guessing) servant.
Despite my misgivings, this is definitely worth a read, and I will be following Larraquy's future works.
January 7, 2021
Me gusta de Larraquy cómo trabaja con los discursos científicos de principios del siglo XX, algo que ya hacía en La comemadre (el otro, Informe..., no lo leí). En este caso se trata de un proyecto de “etnoparque��� tipo museo de etnias donde se pudieran ver en vivo ejemplares de indios de distintas partes del mundo. Algo que realmente sucedió, sin ir más lejos en el Museo de Cs Naturales de La Plata. Están muy buenas las discusiones del comité, los intereses y cuestiones personales, las ideas de nación y demás. Y más allá de la parte de ciencia ficción, me gusta también cómo vincula esos discursos con otros proyectos de país, peronismo/rev libertadora. Igualmente el vínculo es bastante directo, qué sé yo. Me gusta la literatura “de ideas” pero te tiene que re flashear la idea para funcionar. Igual me gustó.
December 31, 2020
Una historia diferente y muy bien contada, utilizando recursos y formas de narrar particulares. A pesar de todo eso tan positivo, no me llegó, quizás sea una falta mía, no lo sé. Es como que la técnica es tan perfectamente buena que la historia deja de ser humana. Qué sé yo.
December 17, 2022
«El perro se lame el ano y lame la mano del amo»
Trabalenguas popular
Trabalenguas popular
November 18, 2023
«La proximidad física impulsa el contagio de las lenguas.
Con tiempo suficiente, en un mismo metro cuadrado terminan hablando todos igual. Eso pasa porque el léxico es la huella de un estímulo exterior a la consciencia y la prueba de que ese exterior existe y nos toca. Las palabras vienen de afuera. El primer simio que entierra los pies en la arena recibe un verbo que separa la acción de enterrar los pies en la arena de cualquier otra acción. Usa el verbo y lo mete en los demás simios como una idea que para formularse no requiere de la experiencia.»
Con tiempo suficiente, en un mismo metro cuadrado terminan hablando todos igual. Eso pasa porque el léxico es la huella de un estímulo exterior a la consciencia y la prueba de que ese exterior existe y nos toca. Las palabras vienen de afuera. El primer simio que entierra los pies en la arena recibe un verbo que separa la acción de enterrar los pies en la arena de cualquier otra acción. Usa el verbo y lo mete en los demás simios como una idea que para formularse no requiere de la experiencia.»
November 8, 2025
Sometimes it’s good to read a book that doesn’t require you to think too deeply.
And sometimes it’s good to read a Roque Larraquy novel that rewires your brain so fully that you don’t quite know what to make of anything anymore.
And sometimes it’s good to read a Roque Larraquy novel that rewires your brain so fully that you don’t quite know what to make of anything anymore.
January 21, 2021
Me gustó, aunque siento que le falta un poco al libro como que algo no me cerró .O sea tampoco me pareció que tuviera un final abrupto porque termina cerrando la mayoría de los hilos aunque algunos un poco forzados pero me preguntó cómo sigue la historia. Me gustaría una sequela aunque la veo poco probable.
Me gusta la prosa del autor en especial después de haber leído la come madre. Es muy digestible y agilice la lectura.
Me gusta la prosa del autor en especial después de haber leído la come madre. Es muy digestible y agilice la lectura.
December 23, 2025
Ah yes the classic “magic sloth that creates erotic metaphysical links between people by scratching them” trope
July 15, 2025
An absolute absurd premise which I delighted in, but, ultimately, felt like the way this slim book was divided into three separate (and quite different) parts didn't quite adhere in a way I found satisfying. I suspect this one had a lot more to say about Argentine politics and history than I truly had the context/knowledge to appreciate in full. But who among us hasn't toyed with the notion of importing a native population for an ethnographic human zoo only to find a magical sloth opens up a portal into another dimension and way of communicating that derails the whole project? Life is weird and we're fortunate to have Larraquy as a navigator.
June 15, 2025
um... huh? I only read this because the description sounded insane, and the book definitely was that so I can't really complain that none of it made any sense to me xxx
2.5 stars rounded up
2.5 stars rounded up
February 23, 2025
not enough sloth content
February 28, 2021
Me encanta cómo escribe Larraquy. Tiene un paso rápido, un trabajo minucioso de las relaciones interpersonales que muestra por ventanas - los personajes son verosímiles y sus intereses se entrecruzan, se chocan; pero de una manera muy práctica, muy de acciones, es un choque de gestos o de microinteracciones: “Dam ocupa el sillón y le pide al botones que nos deje solos y cierre la puerta. Me invita a sentarme en el apoyabrazos.”
No hay un monólogo de más, un hilado de pensamientos tedioso.
Me gusta la premisa, me gusta la ejecución. No sé si es ciencia ficción, es como un hiperrealismo de ciencia ficción.
No hay un monólogo de más, un hilado de pensamientos tedioso.
Me gusta la premisa, me gusta la ejecución. No sé si es ciencia ficción, es como un hiperrealismo de ciencia ficción.
August 8, 2024
El tío escribe bien y las premisas son buenísimas, pero no se puede ser tan flojo ni tan vago (ni justificar todo ello como genialidad o esteticismo).
Al libro, en tanto que novela, le falta una buena vuelta técnica, porque lo que es lamentable a estas alturas es que si te falta algo por decir (la historia de la Comisión de Telepatía Nacional, por ejemplo), te fusiles el tono narrativo, el lugar de enunciación, la coherencia para decirlo...y lo cuentes como lo hace al final.
Una lástima.
Al libro, en tanto que novela, le falta una buena vuelta técnica, porque lo que es lamentable a estas alturas es que si te falta algo por decir (la historia de la Comisión de Telepatía Nacional, por ejemplo), te fusiles el tono narrativo, el lugar de enunciación, la coherencia para decirlo...y lo cuentes como lo hace al final.
Una lástima.
October 22, 2025
i literally dont even know what this book was - i feel like i understand what the book was intending, in terms of being a ‘satire’ of the working class, treatment of indigenous peoples, and colonial powers and their need to appropriate and steal everything. but the last bit was way too technical for me, and i felt like the rest of the book made me feel uncomfortable, and not in an ‘intended literary choice’ sort of way. i apologise to the sweet old lady who asked me what i was reading when she saw me with this book, because i fear i should have never taken it out the walls of my house.
Read
August 3, 2025as expected, the best parts of this book were the sloth-induced telepathic connections, though they read much differently than expected. I’m glad I got to experience Larraquy’s ideas of what might happen if you got full access to the conscious happenings of another person’s mind. Have to think more on this one. From the creation of ethnographic parks to the construction of tall geometric buildings…
November 15, 2025
i despised this book. the plot was all over the place (and frankly gross, racist and just plain weird). the idea with the sloth could've been interesting had it not been so convoluted with this insane jumble of a book. omg i am begging you do not waste your time on this please it was absolute agony from start to finish. watching paint dry or coloring with a white crayon would've been more fun than reading this
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