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Southerly
On the eve of an important battle, a colonel is visited in his tent by an indigenous woman with a message to pass on. A man sets about renovating the house of his childhood, and starts to feel that he might be rebuilding his own life in the process. At a private clinic to treat the morbidly obese, a caregiver has issues of her own…
Acclaimed writer and poet Jorge Consiglio presents a universe of seemingly unrelated tales, linked perhaps by a certain rhythm in the prose or subtle dimensions of violence and perversion. These are stories of immigration, marginality, history, intimacy and obsession which are masterful and deeply touching, domestic yet universal. They each present their own distinctive view of the world through the lives of their respective characters – who are as dissimilar as they are complex – and the profound transformations they undergo. As reflections on the uncontrollable nature of life, as depictions of how even the most innocent detail can become a threat, these stories do not offer neat endings but rather remain open to the reader’s sense of inquisitiveness.
Southerly is a perfect introduction to what has been called ‘the Consiglian logic of story-telling’ (Cabezón Cámara), in which events don’t always occur sequentially, and where the reader quickly learns to tiptoe between the tiniest of details, as if they formed a minefield
Acclaimed writer and poet Jorge Consiglio presents a universe of seemingly unrelated tales, linked perhaps by a certain rhythm in the prose or subtle dimensions of violence and perversion. These are stories of immigration, marginality, history, intimacy and obsession which are masterful and deeply touching, domestic yet universal. They each present their own distinctive view of the world through the lives of their respective characters – who are as dissimilar as they are complex – and the profound transformations they undergo. As reflections on the uncontrollable nature of life, as depictions of how even the most innocent detail can become a threat, these stories do not offer neat endings but rather remain open to the reader’s sense of inquisitiveness.
Southerly is a perfect introduction to what has been called ‘the Consiglian logic of story-telling’ (Cabezón Cámara), in which events don’t always occur sequentially, and where the reader quickly learns to tiptoe between the tiniest of details, as if they formed a minefield
112 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2016
2 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Consiglio
20 books17 followersJorge Consiglio nació en Buenos Aires en 1962. Es licenciado en Letras por la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Publicó las novelas El bien (Premio Nuevos Narradores de Editorial Ópera Prima de España, 2001), Gramática de la sombra (Tercer Premio Municipal de Novela, 2003), Pequeñas intenciones (Primer Premio Municipal de Novela, 2011 y Segundo Premio Nacional de Novela, 2014) y Hospital Posadas (Eterna Cadencia, 2015); los volúmenes de relatos Marrakech (1992), El otro lado (Segundo Premio Municipal de Cuento, 2009), Villa del Parque (Eterna Cadencia, 2016; traducido al inglés) y los libros de poesía Indicio de lo otro, Las frutas y los días, La velocidad de la Tierra, Intemperie y Plaza Sinclair. Además, el libro de microrrelatos Las Cajas (2018), que recopila las colaboraciones realizadas en el blog de Eterna Cadencia.
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January 22, 2018
The perfect excuse to get lost in details, a silent stage-set, the ideal context for thinking about something else.
I like to think there are hidden connections in life. Any act, for reasons unknown, can be connected to another act.
Charco Press are an exciting new small independent press, focusing on literature from Latin America:
Southerly is a collection of 7 short-stories, of variable length (4 to 35 pages), by Argentine author Jorge Consiglio, his first book translated into English.
The original collection was called 'Villa del Parque', after the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires where the author was born, a choice of the author intended not to convey sense of that particular place, but rather a certain atmosphere associated with childhood and adolescent experiences.
But the English language version, ably translated by Cherilyn Elston, is entitled Southerly after the first story in the collection ('Diagonal Sur' in the original) , one which begins:
In June 1912 a merchant ship was delayed entering Buenos Aires. During the hours they were kept waiting, the passengers – all on deck – gazed ashore in search of clues about what the future held. They saw cranes, silos, a group of freezing people (the temperature was -2°C) and the serrated outline of a tower. Everything else was shrouded in fog. The chaotic disembarkation represented the conclusion of one chapter of their lives. Yet the minds of the new arrivals were already fixed on the next one. They believed that life was just beginning, that they were starting anew. A young man – tall, stocky and redheaded – broke away from the crowd and strode across the port as if he knew where he was going, heading towards the streets of the city centre. His name was Czcibor Zakowicz.
And the story that then follows is of his grandson Anatol, a third generation immigrant and an estate-agent.
The informed reader will recognise this as a conscious rewrite of Borges 1944 'El Sud' ('The South'), an immediate acknowledgement of the master of the short story. Borges story begins:
There is even an explicit nod to the Borges story. Anatol, while feverish from his head injury, has a recurring dream he can’t get out of his mind. It is an image: a man dressed in the style of the 1950s, who is at once himself and another, is stroking an enormous cat in a public place which refers to, from the Borges original:
It horrified him that everything was just as he remembered it, and that this enduring character of things suggested not persistence, but rather apathy.
But as the story progresses, his work on the house and his encounters with figures from the past start to change his own perception on life, and the story has a particularly haunting, potentially violent, and highly ambiguous ending.
The mood conveyed by this ending is typical of the collection. Of the seven stories, 6 end with violence, sometimes explicit, sometimes implied: a mercy killing of a cow, a dog’s head kicked in with steel-toed boots, a decision to launch a major conflict, a road-rage incident, a car crash, a deliberate injection into a patient of an overdose.
And the ambiguity and contradictory nature of the characters is also a key thematic link. Consiglio has said in interviews: "For a character to be credible, they must be contradictory" (my, google assisted, translation).
A short but striking story is the 6th, The Night Before. 'Colonel Roca' is about to begin a military campaign against the indigenous people of Patagonia, when he is visited by the sister of one of the local Chiefs (the troops dub her La Mala, The Evil One) with a personal and powerful plea for peaceful co-existence. I think this imagined episode, refers to the real-life military figure and later President, Julio Argentino Roca and the campaign known in history as the Conquista del Desierto. The author has also acknowledged that the story contains deliberate (albeit much fainter than in Southerly) echoes of Borges as well as the classic story El matadero by Esteban Echeverría.
The story ends, after a troubled night of sleep as he contemplates his response, with the chilling line:
Su mano, endurecida por el rigor castrense, empuña, como única respuesta, el frío testimonio de la espada.
His hand, hardened by military rigour, clasps his only response: the cold testimony of the sword.
So why only 3 stars?
Having previously not been a big fan of short-stories, in 2017 I significantly increased my exposure to and appreciation for the form, courtesy of small independent publishers and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, first as a reader then as a judge. But that has also had the effect of raising the bar on what more specialist authors such as Eley Williams and Joanna Walsh can achieve from the form. Here I'm afraid I couldn't help but conclude that this was a nice taster, but what I would really love is to see a translation of Consiglio's novels, such as Hospital Posadas published the year before this collection.
Secondly, this is a volume that would have benefited from an afterword for English language readers less familiar with Argentinian history and literature e.g. pointing out the Borges link in Southerly, verifying (or otherwise) my guess as to the identity of Colonel Roca, and various other things I likely missed.
Author Interviews:
https://www.infobae.com/cultura/2016/...
http://evaristocultural.com.ar/2016/1...
I like to think there are hidden connections in life. Any act, for reasons unknown, can be connected to another act.
Charco Press are an exciting new small independent press, focusing on literature from Latin America:
This is the 3rd of their books I have read after Ariana Harwicz's Die My Love, deservedly featured in the 2017 Republic of Consciousness Prize (my review) and Ricardo Romero's deceptively simple The President's Room (my review), and the 4th, on my TBR shelves, Fireflies, looks perhaps the most interesting of all.
We select authors whose works feed the imagination, challenge perspective and spark debate. Authors that are shining lights in the world of contemporary literature. Authors whose works have won awards and received critical acclaim. Bestselling authors. Yet authors you perhaps have never heard of. Because none of them have been published in English.
Until now.
Southerly is a collection of 7 short-stories, of variable length (4 to 35 pages), by Argentine author Jorge Consiglio, his first book translated into English.
The original collection was called 'Villa del Parque', after the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires where the author was born, a choice of the author intended not to convey sense of that particular place, but rather a certain atmosphere associated with childhood and adolescent experiences.
But the English language version, ably translated by Cherilyn Elston, is entitled Southerly after the first story in the collection ('Diagonal Sur' in the original) , one which begins:
In June 1912 a merchant ship was delayed entering Buenos Aires. During the hours they were kept waiting, the passengers – all on deck – gazed ashore in search of clues about what the future held. They saw cranes, silos, a group of freezing people (the temperature was -2°C) and the serrated outline of a tower. Everything else was shrouded in fog. The chaotic disembarkation represented the conclusion of one chapter of their lives. Yet the minds of the new arrivals were already fixed on the next one. They believed that life was just beginning, that they were starting anew. A young man – tall, stocky and redheaded – broke away from the crowd and strode across the port as if he knew where he was going, heading towards the streets of the city centre. His name was Czcibor Zakowicz.
And the story that then follows is of his grandson Anatol, a third generation immigrant and an estate-agent.
The informed reader will recognise this as a conscious rewrite of Borges 1944 'El Sud' ('The South'), an immediate acknowledgement of the master of the short story. Borges story begins:
The man who landed in Buenos Aires in 1871 bore the name of Johannes Dahlmann and he was a minister in the Evangelical Church. In 1939, one of his grandchlidren, Juan Dahlmann, was secretary of a municipal library on Calle Cordoba, and he considered himself profoundly Argentinian.In Consiglia's retelling we have the same story revolving around a near-fatal head wound caused by rushing in excitement and tripping on stairs, although the excitement here is from a discovery of a crucial chess move rather than a rare book.
There is even an explicit nod to the Borges story. Anatol, while feverish from his head injury, has a recurring dream he can’t get out of his mind. It is an image: a man dressed in the style of the 1950s, who is at once himself and another, is stroking an enormous cat in a public place which refers to, from the Borges original:
He quickly recalled that in a cafe on the Calle Brazil (a few dozen feet from Yrigoyen's house) there was an enormous cat which allowed itself to be caressed as if it were a disdainful divinity. He entered the cafe. There was the cat, asleep. He ordered a cup of coffee, slowly stirred the sugar, sipped it (this pleasure had been denied him in the clinic), and thought, as he smoothed the cat's black coat, that this contact was an illusion and that the two beings, man and cat, were as good as separated by a glass, for man lives in time, in succession, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.And the knife-fight of the original is, fittingly for the 21st Century, replaced by a road-rage confrontation, although in each case the reader is left, as per Borges original, to wonder if the character is actually imagining this, still actually on his hospital bed, as an idealised death:
He felt that if he had been able to choose, then, or to dream his death, this would have been the death he would have chosen or dreamt.My favourite of the stories was the 3rd, 'Travel, Travel', which starts with a 37 year-old married man returning, alone, to his family home, after his father's death, to prepare it for sale. Initially he is surprised, even disturbed, how little his adolescent home town has changed:
It horrified him that everything was just as he remembered it, and that this enduring character of things suggested not persistence, but rather apathy.
But as the story progresses, his work on the house and his encounters with figures from the past start to change his own perception on life, and the story has a particularly haunting, potentially violent, and highly ambiguous ending.
The mood conveyed by this ending is typical of the collection. Of the seven stories, 6 end with violence, sometimes explicit, sometimes implied: a mercy killing of a cow, a dog’s head kicked in with steel-toed boots, a decision to launch a major conflict, a road-rage incident, a car crash, a deliberate injection into a patient of an overdose.
And the ambiguity and contradictory nature of the characters is also a key thematic link. Consiglio has said in interviews: "For a character to be credible, they must be contradictory" (my, google assisted, translation).
A short but striking story is the 6th, The Night Before. 'Colonel Roca' is about to begin a military campaign against the indigenous people of Patagonia, when he is visited by the sister of one of the local Chiefs (the troops dub her La Mala, The Evil One) with a personal and powerful plea for peaceful co-existence. I think this imagined episode, refers to the real-life military figure and later President, Julio Argentino Roca and the campaign known in history as the Conquista del Desierto. The author has also acknowledged that the story contains deliberate (albeit much fainter than in Southerly) echoes of Borges as well as the classic story El matadero by Esteban Echeverría.
The story ends, after a troubled night of sleep as he contemplates his response, with the chilling line:
Su mano, endurecida por el rigor castrense, empuña, como única respuesta, el frío testimonio de la espada.
His hand, hardened by military rigour, clasps his only response: the cold testimony of the sword.
So why only 3 stars?
Having previously not been a big fan of short-stories, in 2017 I significantly increased my exposure to and appreciation for the form, courtesy of small independent publishers and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, first as a reader then as a judge. But that has also had the effect of raising the bar on what more specialist authors such as Eley Williams and Joanna Walsh can achieve from the form. Here I'm afraid I couldn't help but conclude that this was a nice taster, but what I would really love is to see a translation of Consiglio's novels, such as Hospital Posadas published the year before this collection.
Secondly, this is a volume that would have benefited from an afterword for English language readers less familiar with Argentinian history and literature e.g. pointing out the Borges link in Southerly, verifying (or otherwise) my guess as to the identity of Colonel Roca, and various other things I likely missed.
Author Interviews:
https://www.infobae.com/cultura/2016/...
http://evaristocultural.com.ar/2016/1...
January 3, 2020
Read in anticipation of his upcoming novel Fate, Jorge Consiglio’s Southerly (translated by Cherilyn Elston) offers seven subtle stories about changing circumstances. The change is often unexpectedly violent, sometimes epiphanic. As often happens with short story collections – and for some reason this appears to happen with Latin American collections, as if I were always missing one piece of the puzzle – I found Southerly somewhat intangible and unmemorable. However, I assume it has more to do with my lack of knowledge of the literary tradition, including certain classic authors such as Borges whose influence is allegedly present here. Even after reading several in-depth reviews commending the novel (Splice, The Culture Trip), I’m having trouble seeing its full merit, although I appreciate the rhythm of Consiglio’s compact sentences.
January 24, 2019
Wow, what WEIRD and experimental short stories! As a bonus the book is very short. 3 1/2 stars
“Southerly” - a retelling of Borges’ classic “El sur.” Would be really interesting to teach this alongside Bolaño’s retelling! (“The insufferable gaucho”)
“Correspondence” - maybe one of my favourites. A very strange and short piece. A woman finds a manila envelope filled with papers and photos on top of her wardrobe and develops an obsession.
“Travel Travel”- a longish story about a man fixing up a ranch to sell it. Also reminiscent of “El sur.” Hella creepy and surreal ending that will really stick with me. It involves being lost in a marsh in the middle of the night, definitely one of my worst nightmares.
“Jessica Galver” - the longest piece in the book, about a clinical trial for weight loss. I liked this one - I liked the pacing, the weird twists and turns as the narrator develops a crush on one of the patients, and the odd details (for instance, the narrator’s boyfriend does the dub-over voice for Walter White).
“The Running Man” - I didn’t really get this one. It felt very existential. A man goes on a run and sees strange things. The epiphany-style ending felt forced to me.
“The Night Before” - the shortest piece in the book. A colonel meets with an indigenous woman in his tent. This one felt too preachy and unsurprising to me.
“The Terrace” - I liked this one too but it is also very strange. Deals with a group of teenage boys who have a secret terrace on school grounds where they do naughty things. Reminded me of Alejandro Zambra.
Overall I enjoyed this, because strange Rio Plata literature is exactly my cup of tea. If you like Argentinean fiction or experimental translated works, check it out. Might be a bit too weird for a “beginner.”
“Southerly” - a retelling of Borges’ classic “El sur.” Would be really interesting to teach this alongside Bolaño’s retelling! (“The insufferable gaucho”)
“Correspondence” - maybe one of my favourites. A very strange and short piece. A woman finds a manila envelope filled with papers and photos on top of her wardrobe and develops an obsession.
“Travel Travel”- a longish story about a man fixing up a ranch to sell it. Also reminiscent of “El sur.” Hella creepy and surreal ending that will really stick with me. It involves being lost in a marsh in the middle of the night, definitely one of my worst nightmares.
“Jessica Galver” - the longest piece in the book, about a clinical trial for weight loss. I liked this one - I liked the pacing, the weird twists and turns as the narrator develops a crush on one of the patients, and the odd details (for instance, the narrator’s boyfriend does the dub-over voice for Walter White).
“The Running Man” - I didn’t really get this one. It felt very existential. A man goes on a run and sees strange things. The epiphany-style ending felt forced to me.
“The Night Before” - the shortest piece in the book. A colonel meets with an indigenous woman in his tent. This one felt too preachy and unsurprising to me.
“The Terrace” - I liked this one too but it is also very strange. Deals with a group of teenage boys who have a secret terrace on school grounds where they do naughty things. Reminded me of Alejandro Zambra.
Overall I enjoyed this, because strange Rio Plata literature is exactly my cup of tea. If you like Argentinean fiction or experimental translated works, check it out. Might be a bit too weird for a “beginner.”
June 21, 2017
Leí este libro a partir de las actividades de Literatura en el Boulevard centradas, en este período, en los textos de Consiglio. Por ahora, es el primero que leo, vamos a ver qué nos depara el futuro. Es un libro de cuentos, por lo que voy a dar una mini reseña de cada cuento en particular y, finalmente, una conclusión del libro en general, como suelo hacer.
El primer cuento, Diagonal Sur,es una especie de re-telling de El Sur de Borges. Estamos en una época editorial donde los re-tellings son bastante populares y me parece una idea acertada arrancar el libro con uno. Este cuento en particular no me llamó demasiado la atención, pero no me disgustó para nada, creo que el trabajo de re-componer El Sur en términos más modernos está bien hecho y se nota la impronta autoral en las decisiones de qué cambiar y cómo, así como qué mantener y cómo. Eso es lo más interesante en los re-tellings y lo que busco mirar cuándo los leo. Me parece que el final es mi parte favorita, la forma en que Consiglio reemplaza la idea de "masculinidad bonaerense" de la pelea de cuchillos que elegía Borges por algo más moderno pero no menos acertado.
Correspondencia, el segundo cuento, es mi favorito en el libro. Me gustó mucho la construcción del personaje/narradora, los detalles que hacen a su personalidad sin tener que decirnos mucho pero mostrándonos lo suficiente, y el final es sublime. Este es el cuento en el que veo mucho más clara esa idea de "deshilachar" finales de Consiglio, es un final orgánico pero que despierta preguntas e inquietudes, como una picazón lectora. Creo que, para mí, es el más exitoso en este método de contar que comparten todos los cuentos del libro.
Viajar, viajar, el tercero, es probablemente mi segundo favorito. Es una historia completamente imprevisible, como si se quisiera marear al lector para que no se espere nada de lo que va a ir aconteciendo y, en su estado inesperado permanente, es donde logra capturar mejor la esencia de la realidad, lo auténtico de la vida misma. Este cuento es, probablemente, el que mejor logra mezclar la progresión orgánica de este tipo de narración impredecible con un remate final de un cuento más clásico, más tradicional, y ahí es donde brilla. Probablemente sea el mejor de todos, objetivamente hablando, teniendo en cuenta las partes que lo componen y la complejidad de su armado.
Jessica Galver fue el que menos me gustó, pero no por los motivos por los que creí. Al saber que iba a ser la historia de una chica de 207 kilos en un tratamiento extremo para bajar de peso, todas mis barreras se alzaron, porque esperaba lo peor. Me cuesta mucho encontrar autores que sepan cómo manejar el tema del cuerpo y sepan hablar de eso sin caer en la gordofobia. La protagonista, la narradora en el cuento, es bastante gordofóbica en el sentido de la discriminación positiva (dice de Jessica cosas como que "es un monumento", "una madonna renacentista", "un vasto continente", "en ella, la gordura es un adorno, un complemento ideal", etc), pero eso puede ser atribuido a una intención interesante del cuento, si lo miramos de cierta forma, en que la protagonista tiene una perspectiva de Jessica opuesta al resto del equipo médico (que la discriminan de forma negativa), pero no por eso menos perjudicial para Jessica. En ese sentido, el uso de la discriminación positiva es completamente entendible para la idea de la historia y lo respeto como parte de la construcción de una voz verosímil, a pesar de no estar de acuerdo con la protagonista. No tenemos por qué estar de acuerdo con todos los protagonistas que leemos.
Mi problema con Jessica Galver fue que me costaba muchísimo creer que la primera persona fuera mujer. No me convenció la autenticidad de su voz, siento que fue construida como con una mirada masculina sobre lo que debería ser una mujer. En Correspondencia no tuve ese problema de forma tan clara, no me impidió leerlo o creerle, en este sí se me complicó. La forma en que habla de Jessica, la forma en que habla de los hombres, la forma en que se desenvuelve con este otro personaje femenino ("la Dirty"), no me terminó de cerrar más que como una lente masculina sobre lo femenino. Hay una escena que me molestó más que las otras, en la que ésta protagonista toca a Jessica de una forma más que inapropiada y la escena, en lugar de ser vista como tal, es vista como algo "de mujer a mujer", una visión romántica sobre la intimidad femenina donde Jessica era objeto de algo fuera de su control y donde la mirada estaba puesta en eso como una normalidad, como si entre mujeres el propasar ciertos límites está bien, a través de una mirada masculina. Me recordó a esas películas donde el lesbianismo está idealizado desde la masculinidad y no visto como desde su propia identidad femenina. En fin, mi problema con el cuento fue más en ese punto que en el que inicialmente creí que sería un problema.
El que corre es mi tercer cuento favorito del libro. Lo que más me fascinó fue el manejo del tiempo, el uso del pasado para narrar y el presente para los recuerdos. Un giro super inteligente que hace cosas increíbles por la narrativa de la historia y la perspectiva del protagonista. Otro final interesante. Es uno para leer más de una vez.
La noche anterior es un re-telling histórico, algo que también está en boga ahora, con casos como Hamilton y demás. En este caso, si mi conocimiento no me falla, el protagonista es José Segundo Roca, el padre de Julio Argentino, que era coronel del Ejército Argentino, mientras que otro personaje mencionado es Yanquetruz, cacique mapuche huilliche, que se presenta a través de su hermana, a la que refieren como "La Mala". Si bien no está mal como cuento y abre muchas puertas, tiene muchas ideas interesantes en la forma de narrar, no me llamó la atención demasiado entre el resto de los cuentos.
La terraza, el último de los cuentos, me gustó pero no tanto como los tres más destacables. Me pareció muy bien armada la idea del contexto, está muy bien contado el especio y la perspectiva del protagonista, hay detalles que hablan por sí solos y dicen mucho (mi favorito, personalmente, es esta imagen de una compañera del colegio que se compra siempre 2 sanguches de miga en el recreo y los come rápido, sin placer; una imagen que vale mil descripciones). No estoy muy segura del tratamiento del narrador para con la edad que se supone que tiene, pero visto desde un futuro del mismo narrador, es entendible, no es motivo para generar problemas en la verosimilitud (como me pasó con Jessica Galver). Vale señalar que el autor tiene un poema con el mismo título. Dato de color, tal vez, tal vez no.
En conclusión, Villa del Parque fue, para mí, un libro con más aciertos que desaciertos. No estoy muy segura del hilo conductor del libro, tengo entendido que el título iba a ser originalmente como el del primer cuento, Diagonal Sur, que tal vez hubiera funcionado mejor. Sin embargo, se nota una cohesión narrativa en las historias, en un modo de contar de un autor que presta atención al detalle y cuenta de una forma desestructurada y orgánica, que no responde necesariamente a estructuras particulares sino a sensaciones, donde cada lector le da una identidad personalizada a lo que lee. Hay mucho respeto, me parece, hacia el lector y a su agencia generadora de significado, y ese es el tipo de libro que más vale la pena leer.
El primer cuento, Diagonal Sur,es una especie de re-telling de El Sur de Borges. Estamos en una época editorial donde los re-tellings son bastante populares y me parece una idea acertada arrancar el libro con uno. Este cuento en particular no me llamó demasiado la atención, pero no me disgustó para nada, creo que el trabajo de re-componer El Sur en términos más modernos está bien hecho y se nota la impronta autoral en las decisiones de qué cambiar y cómo, así como qué mantener y cómo. Eso es lo más interesante en los re-tellings y lo que busco mirar cuándo los leo. Me parece que el final es mi parte favorita, la forma en que Consiglio reemplaza la idea de "masculinidad bonaerense" de la pelea de cuchillos que elegía Borges por algo más moderno pero no menos acertado.
Correspondencia, el segundo cuento, es mi favorito en el libro. Me gustó mucho la construcción del personaje/narradora, los detalles que hacen a su personalidad sin tener que decirnos mucho pero mostrándonos lo suficiente, y el final es sublime. Este es el cuento en el que veo mucho más clara esa idea de "deshilachar" finales de Consiglio, es un final orgánico pero que despierta preguntas e inquietudes, como una picazón lectora. Creo que, para mí, es el más exitoso en este método de contar que comparten todos los cuentos del libro.
Viajar, viajar, el tercero, es probablemente mi segundo favorito. Es una historia completamente imprevisible, como si se quisiera marear al lector para que no se espere nada de lo que va a ir aconteciendo y, en su estado inesperado permanente, es donde logra capturar mejor la esencia de la realidad, lo auténtico de la vida misma. Este cuento es, probablemente, el que mejor logra mezclar la progresión orgánica de este tipo de narración impredecible con un remate final de un cuento más clásico, más tradicional, y ahí es donde brilla. Probablemente sea el mejor de todos, objetivamente hablando, teniendo en cuenta las partes que lo componen y la complejidad de su armado.
Jessica Galver fue el que menos me gustó, pero no por los motivos por los que creí. Al saber que iba a ser la historia de una chica de 207 kilos en un tratamiento extremo para bajar de peso, todas mis barreras se alzaron, porque esperaba lo peor. Me cuesta mucho encontrar autores que sepan cómo manejar el tema del cuerpo y sepan hablar de eso sin caer en la gordofobia. La protagonista, la narradora en el cuento, es bastante gordofóbica en el sentido de la discriminación positiva (dice de Jessica cosas como que "es un monumento", "una madonna renacentista", "un vasto continente", "en ella, la gordura es un adorno, un complemento ideal", etc), pero eso puede ser atribuido a una intención interesante del cuento, si lo miramos de cierta forma, en que la protagonista tiene una perspectiva de Jessica opuesta al resto del equipo médico (que la discriminan de forma negativa), pero no por eso menos perjudicial para Jessica. En ese sentido, el uso de la discriminación positiva es completamente entendible para la idea de la historia y lo respeto como parte de la construcción de una voz verosímil, a pesar de no estar de acuerdo con la protagonista. No tenemos por qué estar de acuerdo con todos los protagonistas que leemos.
Mi problema con Jessica Galver fue que me costaba muchísimo creer que la primera persona fuera mujer. No me convenció la autenticidad de su voz, siento que fue construida como con una mirada masculina sobre lo que debería ser una mujer. En Correspondencia no tuve ese problema de forma tan clara, no me impidió leerlo o creerle, en este sí se me complicó. La forma en que habla de Jessica, la forma en que habla de los hombres, la forma en que se desenvuelve con este otro personaje femenino ("la Dirty"), no me terminó de cerrar más que como una lente masculina sobre lo femenino. Hay una escena que me molestó más que las otras, en la que ésta protagonista toca a Jessica de una forma más que inapropiada y la escena, en lugar de ser vista como tal, es vista como algo "de mujer a mujer", una visión romántica sobre la intimidad femenina donde Jessica era objeto de algo fuera de su control y donde la mirada estaba puesta en eso como una normalidad, como si entre mujeres el propasar ciertos límites está bien, a través de una mirada masculina. Me recordó a esas películas donde el lesbianismo está idealizado desde la masculinidad y no visto como desde su propia identidad femenina. En fin, mi problema con el cuento fue más en ese punto que en el que inicialmente creí que sería un problema.
El que corre es mi tercer cuento favorito del libro. Lo que más me fascinó fue el manejo del tiempo, el uso del pasado para narrar y el presente para los recuerdos. Un giro super inteligente que hace cosas increíbles por la narrativa de la historia y la perspectiva del protagonista. Otro final interesante. Es uno para leer más de una vez.
La noche anterior es un re-telling histórico, algo que también está en boga ahora, con casos como Hamilton y demás. En este caso, si mi conocimiento no me falla, el protagonista es José Segundo Roca, el padre de Julio Argentino, que era coronel del Ejército Argentino, mientras que otro personaje mencionado es Yanquetruz, cacique mapuche huilliche, que se presenta a través de su hermana, a la que refieren como "La Mala". Si bien no está mal como cuento y abre muchas puertas, tiene muchas ideas interesantes en la forma de narrar, no me llamó la atención demasiado entre el resto de los cuentos.
La terraza, el último de los cuentos, me gustó pero no tanto como los tres más destacables. Me pareció muy bien armada la idea del contexto, está muy bien contado el especio y la perspectiva del protagonista, hay detalles que hablan por sí solos y dicen mucho (mi favorito, personalmente, es esta imagen de una compañera del colegio que se compra siempre 2 sanguches de miga en el recreo y los come rápido, sin placer; una imagen que vale mil descripciones). No estoy muy segura del tratamiento del narrador para con la edad que se supone que tiene, pero visto desde un futuro del mismo narrador, es entendible, no es motivo para generar problemas en la verosimilitud (como me pasó con Jessica Galver). Vale señalar que el autor tiene un poema con el mismo título. Dato de color, tal vez, tal vez no.
En conclusión, Villa del Parque fue, para mí, un libro con más aciertos que desaciertos. No estoy muy segura del hilo conductor del libro, tengo entendido que el título iba a ser originalmente como el del primer cuento, Diagonal Sur, que tal vez hubiera funcionado mejor. Sin embargo, se nota una cohesión narrativa en las historias, en un modo de contar de un autor que presta atención al detalle y cuenta de una forma desestructurada y orgánica, que no responde necesariamente a estructuras particulares sino a sensaciones, donde cada lector le da una identidad personalizada a lo que lee. Hay mucho respeto, me parece, hacia el lector y a su agencia generadora de significado, y ese es el tipo de libro que más vale la pena leer.
April 17, 2018
Varied, unrelated stories, meticulously detailed and precise, whilst also managing to be vaguely dream-like. Often with the threat of violence. Cumulatively, patterns and themes are hinted at, but so subtly I might be imagining that.
June 21, 2020
3 stars
Jorge Consiglio's 'Southerly' is a collection of interesting short stories which have been admirably translated from the native Spanish into an English narrative that is, while at times rather vague, certainly engrossing in its unsaid complexity.
The stories - all fragments detailing the lives of a wide variety of characters - embody that peculiar Latin American tradition of describing the ordinary in such terms, with such emotion, that it is elevated into something extraordinary. Although not quite magical realism, there is a definitely magical quality to much of the text. Consiglio's prose tells far more than it shows, but this can be forgiven because the language is so vivid and the narration so poetic. He shares with his reader the characters' immediate surface thoughts and actions, leaving just enough ambiguity and uncertain for the reader to draw their own conclusions, rather than being directed to a definitive interpretation.
Some of the stories are perhaps too short to actually go anywhere (a problem I have encountered with other authors, such as Kafka), but they are on the whole interesting enough to make 'Southerly' a decent read, especially for those interested in translation and the difficulties of capturing all the subtleties and nuances of one language in another.
Jorge Consiglio's 'Southerly' is a collection of interesting short stories which have been admirably translated from the native Spanish into an English narrative that is, while at times rather vague, certainly engrossing in its unsaid complexity.
The stories - all fragments detailing the lives of a wide variety of characters - embody that peculiar Latin American tradition of describing the ordinary in such terms, with such emotion, that it is elevated into something extraordinary. Although not quite magical realism, there is a definitely magical quality to much of the text. Consiglio's prose tells far more than it shows, but this can be forgiven because the language is so vivid and the narration so poetic. He shares with his reader the characters' immediate surface thoughts and actions, leaving just enough ambiguity and uncertain for the reader to draw their own conclusions, rather than being directed to a definitive interpretation.
Some of the stories are perhaps too short to actually go anywhere (a problem I have encountered with other authors, such as Kafka), but they are on the whole interesting enough to make 'Southerly' a decent read, especially for those interested in translation and the difficulties of capturing all the subtleties and nuances of one language in another.
September 22, 2018
This writing felt so very real that it kept me reading. I read this book in two sittings and now I want to read more, more, more. The details in this book create an atmosphere that fills the entire space, each story is about a moment, a life decision/happening and the richness made everything feel starkly real and alive to me.
January 1, 2019
I loved this collection of short stories. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is for the abrupt endings, something I'm not a fan of. However, there is a certain consistency in these endings, in that they end in violence, or in the expectation of violence.
October 18, 2019
En syg ko aflives ved pistolskud for pande. En hund får sparket hovedet ind af en sømbeslået støvle i en flok skoledrenges machismoleg. En banal trafiksituation fører til slagsmål mellem to ophidsede trafikanter. En oberst tager sig til sin sabel, før han iværksætter en udryddelseskrig mod et indiansk folk. En sygepasser sprøjter bevidst en overdosis ind i årerne på en patient.
Seks ud af syv noveller i samlingen “Southerly” af argentinske Jorge Consiglio kulminerer i en eller anden form for voldsom eller voldelig udgang. Men derudover er der ikke meget, der binder dem sammen.
Læs min anmeldelse på K’s bognoter: https://bognoter.dk/2019/10/13/jorge-...
Seks ud af syv noveller i samlingen “Southerly” af argentinske Jorge Consiglio kulminerer i en eller anden form for voldsom eller voldelig udgang. Men derudover er der ikke meget, der binder dem sammen.
Læs min anmeldelse på K’s bognoter: https://bognoter.dk/2019/10/13/jorge-...
March 29, 2024
I got a creepy unpleasant feeling from the way this author wrote about women, which I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not. I did like "Jessica" quite a bit, with its unreliable narrator and unspooling tangle of desire and hatred.
October 29, 2018
There was one or two stories in this collection that piqued my interest, but overall I didn't feel like this really moved me in any significant way.
February 14, 2019
I couldn't connect with these stories; perhaps not the fault of the author, but it just wasn't working for me.
March 10, 2020
Medio desparejo. No me terminó de cerrar la resolución de casi ningun cuento. Pero tampoco es malo
July 2, 2020
First 3 stories + Running Man were really great.
less so the others
less so the others
October 5, 2022
hard to say what connects these stories, but the shorter pieces had a tightness i quite enjoyed. the longer ones fell short when the characters didn't quite come together maybe.
October 17, 2023
Shorty September 2023: Lederhosen (a translated book)
July 20, 2023
How do you make a character that’s lonely but not boring to read about? I don’t know, and neither does Consiglio. “Jessica Galver” is a masterpiece though.
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