Fuera de la jaula

by Fernanda García Lao

Fuera de la jaula comienza con la muerte inesperada de su protagonista. En plena celebración patriótica, un elepé se incrusta en el cuello de Aurora mientras entona la canción a la bandera. Aunque en el “delirio marcial” la acompañan el marido, coronel retirado, el hijo bicéfalo y la mucama insolente, ninguno repara en su muerte. Transfigurada en narradora, Aurora deviene testigo incorpóreo de su propia ausencia mientras Lana Carne, una criatura fabricada por el coronel, ocupa su lugar. Desde un más allá cercano, la conciencia de Aurora interpreta una realidad habitada por personajes atípicos y situaciones de un erotismo absurdo.

Fuera de la jaula, relato fechado, induce a una lectura alegórica que coincide con tres momentos clave del peronismo: el 56, el 75 y el 89. Historia íntima que contiene en lo doméstico los reflejos de lo colectivo, interpela las instituciones básicas, que se ven reducidas al ridículo y la impostura. La patria, la familia, el matrimonio, el arte, la maternidad, el amor, el deseo, las relaciones filiales son simulacros perversos que enmascaran la abyección, la mentira y la violencia.

Mediante una escritura feroz, Fernanda García Lao construye una trama hilarante y surrealista, narrada con lirismo brutal y humor negro por la voz desesperada de una muerta.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism

296 pages, Paperback

First published June 26, 2014

About the author

Fernanda García Lao es una escritora, dramaturga y poeta argentina.

Hija del periodista Ambrosio García Lao. Se exilió, junto a sus padres y hermanas, en Madrid donde vivió desde 1976 hasta 1993. Allí hizo sus estudios primarios, secundarios y universitarios. Estudió piano, danza clásica, actuación y periodismo. A su regreso a Buenos Aires, se formó como actriz con Norman Briski y Ricardo Bartís y como dramaturga con Mauricio Kartun. Su primera experiencia como directora de teatro fue en el Sportivo Teatral con la obra de Witold Gombrowicz Ivonne, princesa de Borgoña.

Primero como actriz, más tarde como dramaturga y directora, se dedicó al teatro independiente tanto en Buenos Aires como en Madrid. Escribió y dirigió varias piezas con las que viajó por Latinoamérica. Su obra La mirada horrible obtuvo 1º premio de la Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación, a obras estrenadas en el 2000. Ser el amo, estrenada en el Sportivo Teatral en 2002, el Subsidio a la creación Antorchas 2002. Por su obra La amante de Baudelaire, recibió el Auspicio de la Embajada de Francia y el Apoyo de Proteatro.

En el año 2004, su novela Muerta de hambre resultó merecedora del Primer Premio de Novela por el Fondo Nacional de las Artes. Desde entonces, ha publicado en editoriales argentinas, más tarde francesas. Ha sido traducida al inglés, al portugués y al sueco. Colabora en medios a ambos lados del océano y desde 2010 coordina talleres de escritura. Ha participado en Ferias y Festivales literarios en México, Perú, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Cuba, Uruguay, España y Francia.

Fue seleccionada por la Feria Internacional de Libro de Guadalajara 2011 como uno de «Los secretos mejor guardados de la literatura latinoamericana».

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up out of admiration for its bravura

The Publisher Says: Out of the Cage opens in 1956, in Argentina, with the freakish death of Aurora Berro, and descends into a dark philosophical exploration of humanity and mortality. In the midst of her family’s celebration of a national holiday, an LP, careening through the air like a “demented boomerang,” severs her jugular. Her family—an agglomeration of perversions, deformities, and obsessions—seems at first not to notice, singing on. Aurora is left behind in a voyeuristic limbo as an omniscient first-person narrator, to observe the depravity of her family and reflect on the farce of her life and human existence.

Fernanda García Lao has been called “the strangest writer of Argentine literature,” and in Out of the Cage, she lives up to that distinction. The book is saturated in strangeness, a blend of formal experimentation, eroticism, grotesque theatricality, and dark humor that evokes the absurdist fictions of Witold Gombrowicz and the style of Silvina Ocampo. The result is a macabre and fantastic vaudeville, a tragicomedy, a kind of Dadaist opus against ideas of eternal beauty and fixed identity, against absolute concepts and universality.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Whatever you're thinking about this book from its cover and/or title, stop thinking it now. Aurora is our cicerone through a family of grotesques, a collection of tics and crotchets defined by their obsessive, angry sexual energy. They—Aurora's husband and conjoined-twin sons—are locked inside a bizarrely passionate, deeply damaged psychosexual cyst on Argentina's Body Politic...and that is the clue to what this book is on about. Noting the years in which this hideous agglomeration of sideshow freaks...brothers locked in sibling rivalry inside one body, a father who manufactures a glamourous Lana Turner sex doll to replace the wife he's simply forgotten has died...the next generation, son of a prostitute fathered by one of those men...all take place in 1956 (post-Perón), 1975 (Los Desaparecidos and the Dirty War), and 1989 (hyperinflation and Menem's economic crisis). Major turning points in the history of the country, all embodied in the person of Aurora of the truly peculiar death and even weirder substitution, Norma the pregnant prostitute with the paralyzed leg seeking one of the Berro men's support for her child, then finally Severino the child of Norma and...?... left to make sense of the previous generations' mishegas and puerility.

I can't recommend it to the sexually prudish, or the easily distracted. It was ably, and intelligently, translated by Will Vanderhyden.

[Alejandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novela de capítulos cortos de ritmo fluido. Fernanda García Lao escribe muy bien, tiene pasajes realmente originales y la visión que otorga de la muerte y lo que genera en los personajes es interesante. La novela esta divida en dos partes, en la segunda pierde un poco de fuerza y el final me pareció un tanto abrupto y un tanto forzado para cerrar ambas partes y unificarlas.

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Juan Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy buena.los capitulos cortos y la trama hacen que la lectura sea super agil. La historia es muy original. Es bastante fuerte ver a esos personjes que transitan la novela. Por momentos tuve que pausar la lectura porque te deja 🥺.Tiene frases para subrayar que son tremendas.

[Nathaniel Chaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of the Cage is equal parts dream and nightmare. The main premise follows the death of Aurora in 1956 and the horrors she witnesses as her family spirals out of control. The second half of the book follows another set of characters and links them, somewhat heavy-handedly by the conclusion. I cannot say I fully grasped each of the short chapters and suspect this is a book I'll come back to in the years to come.

Warnings for sexual content and dark imagery.

[Oscreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange novel. Would love to read more from this writer though.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of fiction I adore: sorta weird, taken seriously, and well-written. I loved this odd family, POV is from mom (who has died after a flying LP sliced her jugular) watching her family after-the-fact: dad is an Argentinian Colonel, sons are conjoined twins with, at one point, three personalities. There's a housekeeper/maid/grandmother figure, and, of course, dad's automaton wife/living sex doll. Despite the absurd set up, the writing treated each character seriously, treated their needs, wants, desires seriously (yes, even the automaton's). I couldn't get enough--but then...the book switched gears and POVs, and focused on a sex workers child (who may have been fathered by dad or one of the conjoined twins). The book seemed to lose focus for me (or I lost focus on it) and it didn't feature the original cast of characters anymore, at least not in a way I found satisfying. Either keep writing that original family, or end the book!

4 stars on the strength of the first 60% of the book. The rest I could take or leave.

[Rosa Angelone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am giving it 5 stars because the book is so clearly written by someone in control of her art. The sentences flow and stop with precision and are a joy to read. The story..well the first half is told by a ghost who can't cross over (we find out why) and the end I kept going just from curiosity of where the story could possibly go.

The bit at the back says the author Fernanda Garcia Lao is referred to as "the strangest writer of Argentine literature" and yeah. that tracks.

It is a messy book full of unhappy people muddling a long but for whatever reason I liked it and what is more I am glad I read it.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... Out of the Cage is a grim tragicomedy, a family saga that parallels the absurdities of political upheavals. Related with a short crispness that makes the novel fly by even without much action, it contains a wealth of subtext for continued analysis and appreciation."

Read my entire review of Out of the Cage HERE at Speculative Fiction in Translation.

[andie · Rating 2 out of 5]

la historia de la primera muerte me gustó, era una historia fuerte con deformes, engaños y personajes llenos y llenas de inconformidades. se retrata la muerte desde el rápido olvido y sin importancia, se descubren secretos. la segunda parte me confundió, al final no sabía cuál era el punto de mezclar tantas historias y personajes, el final no resuelve ninguna de todas las historias que se cuentan.

[Jesika Monet · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was almost a dnf for me, but i forced myself to push through. definitely strange, which was the plot but idk maybe there was a disconnect for me or things got lost in translation making it hard for me to follow along or maybe im just stupidly amer*can LOL.

2 stars because it’s well written, some parts were interesting and i respect the craft- it just didn’t connect for me.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird, subversive, and perverted. I couldn’t put it down. It made me wonder if we truly want to know what our friends and family are up to after we die. Maybe it’s better to stay ignorant in bliss.

Thank you to Deep Vellum and edelweiss for my gifted eCopy!

[Cherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can life’s meaning only be found in death? If yes, then is the natural response to this absurdity, complete surrender to pleasure n ultimately the complete decay of life?

[Agus · Rating 3 out of 5]

no entendi nada pero muy buena escritura