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Hades, Argentina
A decade after fleeing for his life, a man is pulled back to Argentina by an undying love.
In 1976, Tomás Orilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he has moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has long drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of the insurgency fighting an increasingly oppressive regime. Tomás has always been willing to follow her anywhere, to do anything to prove himself. Yet what exactly is he proving, and at what cost to them both?
It will be years before a summons back arrives for Tomás, now living as Thomas Shore in New York. It isn’t a homecoming that awaits him, however, so much as an odyssey into the past, an encounter with the ghosts that lurk there, and a reckoning with the fatal gap between who he has become and who he once aspired to be. Raising profound questions about the sometimes impossible choices we make in the name of love, Hades, Argentina is a gripping, ingeniously narrated literary debut.
In 1976, Tomás Orilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he has moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has long drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of the insurgency fighting an increasingly oppressive regime. Tomás has always been willing to follow her anywhere, to do anything to prove himself. Yet what exactly is he proving, and at what cost to them both?
It will be years before a summons back arrives for Tomás, now living as Thomas Shore in New York. It isn’t a homecoming that awaits him, however, so much as an odyssey into the past, an encounter with the ghosts that lurk there, and a reckoning with the fatal gap between who he has become and who he once aspired to be. Raising profound questions about the sometimes impossible choices we make in the name of love, Hades, Argentina is a gripping, ingeniously narrated literary debut.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 12, 2021
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February 15, 2021
The novel is devoted to the “Dirty War” in Argentina. It is also a story of a tragic first love. At the centre of the novel is the fate of a young woman, the member of a military revolutionary group, who has been disappeared. And, in the words of the author:
“A friend and former lover of hers plagued by guilt for his role in her fate descends into the warped underworld of memory and the 1970s Argentina he’d managed to escape, and there tries to bring her back to life and grant himself redemption.”
Usually for me the appearance of the ghosts as characters would be a red flag. I am not big fan of a gothic or magic realism. But here, the whole underworld frame is more like a metaphysical analogy - a trip though the main character’s memory lane. It reminded me another recent novel about the similar period of awful terror from another part of the world: The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. There, the ghost was the main narrator and the novel, in my view, lacked the moral complexity and was overloaded with well known tropes. Here, on the contrary, the moral complexity and the choices of each character is fully realised. This is probably the strongest feature of the novel. The ghosts are more like decorations of a scene along with the streets of Buenos Aires. I appreciated that this element did not go far beyond that of a metaphor.
Not all worked for me in this novel. It seemed slightly over-designed in some ways. The author is trying to spell out a few things which might be easily understood without it. For example, Tomas, the main character is initially accompanied by the Colonel, his mentor. And, we are literally pointed towards Virgil and Dante. Also sometimes, the research almost explicitly reveals itself in the text. There is a scene, albeit short, of a torture experienced by the main character from insight. And I could not make myself believe it. I do not think anyone could make such a scene credible first person without surviving something so horrific.
But the book’s strong feature is the authencity of feelings, unflinching look into the complexity of choices everyone had to make in such extreme situations. Were those actions really choices in a way how we understand the word?
I also enjoyed the quality of prose. It is spare, not rushed and contemplative. It has reminded me Javier Marias, but it is much less transgressive though.
It is a rare case in my experience when my impression after reading this book was boosted by reading the article by the author about how this novel has come to exist. His half-sister has been disappeared in Argentina in 1976. 10 years after that, he was born in America. She was the subject his Dad and the older half-brother did not talk about much. But when Daniel has become an adult, he decided to find out more about her and ended up responsible for the proper burial of her remains, which neither his dad not his half brother wanted to attend. So in fact, he has brought her back from oblivion in some way. And, I think this real attempt somehow is even more poignant that what he has done in the novel.
The article also raised two interesting points I end up thinking a lot. The first one, after the end of the Dirty War, the victims and the perpetrators needed to share their country. As Daniel mentions, one might accidentally meet her torturer in a cafe, but also “all of whom were eradicated, were viewed with suspicion and blame, and those who had kept quiet, passively acceding to the junta, continued to keep quiet. There is a reason my Argentine friend was squeamish at the thought of what happened in the ESMA and didn’t want to see it.” Some people like the main character of the novel have escaped the country. But all of them, it seems, struggled with a mixture of the guilt of complacency and a deep trauma. Understandably, unlike the main character, they did not want to bring those times and those victims back both into their private lives and in the public discourse. This is the question I always struggle with. What is the best way in such situations how to keep the memories without retaining anger, hate and bitterness. Is it at all possible?
For Daniel’s father, the act of investigating his daughter’s final hours and the subsequent burial of her remains did not bring any change. “There is no peace to this, he’d say. No redemption. No meaning.” It reminded me another book and another struggle I’ve read. In In Memory of Memory, Maria Stepanova asked herself a similar question albeit in a less tragic circumstances. She looked through the private correspondence of her deceased relatives and contemplated whether to quote them at length in her book. She said “To quote those letters would mean to save them; to leave then in a box - was to subdue them to another bout darkness (may be forever). Who apart from me would decide which course to chose. The dead do not have any rights. They are not asked” And that is the question. Do they have any rights or not? Would the girl who died at 22, killed in a political struggle, would she like the idea that her memory got a tribute in a piece of fiction? I do not know. But it seems these actions of writing a novel or of citing the old letters are meaningful. They seen to bring a closure to the next generation, not the ones who lived through. Those are silent. But to their children who have their own experience of a guilt, the guilt that they are not the ones who has been there.
PS
This the article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...
Thank you very much, Bert for pointing me that way.
“A friend and former lover of hers plagued by guilt for his role in her fate descends into the warped underworld of memory and the 1970s Argentina he’d managed to escape, and there tries to bring her back to life and grant himself redemption.”
Usually for me the appearance of the ghosts as characters would be a red flag. I am not big fan of a gothic or magic realism. But here, the whole underworld frame is more like a metaphysical analogy - a trip though the main character’s memory lane. It reminded me another recent novel about the similar period of awful terror from another part of the world: The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. There, the ghost was the main narrator and the novel, in my view, lacked the moral complexity and was overloaded with well known tropes. Here, on the contrary, the moral complexity and the choices of each character is fully realised. This is probably the strongest feature of the novel. The ghosts are more like decorations of a scene along with the streets of Buenos Aires. I appreciated that this element did not go far beyond that of a metaphor.
Not all worked for me in this novel. It seemed slightly over-designed in some ways. The author is trying to spell out a few things which might be easily understood without it. For example, Tomas, the main character is initially accompanied by the Colonel, his mentor. And, we are literally pointed towards Virgil and Dante. Also sometimes, the research almost explicitly reveals itself in the text. There is a scene, albeit short, of a torture experienced by the main character from insight. And I could not make myself believe it. I do not think anyone could make such a scene credible first person without surviving something so horrific.
But the book’s strong feature is the authencity of feelings, unflinching look into the complexity of choices everyone had to make in such extreme situations. Were those actions really choices in a way how we understand the word?
I also enjoyed the quality of prose. It is spare, not rushed and contemplative. It has reminded me Javier Marias, but it is much less transgressive though.
It is a rare case in my experience when my impression after reading this book was boosted by reading the article by the author about how this novel has come to exist. His half-sister has been disappeared in Argentina in 1976. 10 years after that, he was born in America. She was the subject his Dad and the older half-brother did not talk about much. But when Daniel has become an adult, he decided to find out more about her and ended up responsible for the proper burial of her remains, which neither his dad not his half brother wanted to attend. So in fact, he has brought her back from oblivion in some way. And, I think this real attempt somehow is even more poignant that what he has done in the novel.
The article also raised two interesting points I end up thinking a lot. The first one, after the end of the Dirty War, the victims and the perpetrators needed to share their country. As Daniel mentions, one might accidentally meet her torturer in a cafe, but also “all of whom were eradicated, were viewed with suspicion and blame, and those who had kept quiet, passively acceding to the junta, continued to keep quiet. There is a reason my Argentine friend was squeamish at the thought of what happened in the ESMA and didn’t want to see it.” Some people like the main character of the novel have escaped the country. But all of them, it seems, struggled with a mixture of the guilt of complacency and a deep trauma. Understandably, unlike the main character, they did not want to bring those times and those victims back both into their private lives and in the public discourse. This is the question I always struggle with. What is the best way in such situations how to keep the memories without retaining anger, hate and bitterness. Is it at all possible?
For Daniel’s father, the act of investigating his daughter’s final hours and the subsequent burial of her remains did not bring any change. “There is no peace to this, he’d say. No redemption. No meaning.” It reminded me another book and another struggle I’ve read. In In Memory of Memory, Maria Stepanova asked herself a similar question albeit in a less tragic circumstances. She looked through the private correspondence of her deceased relatives and contemplated whether to quote them at length in her book. She said “To quote those letters would mean to save them; to leave then in a box - was to subdue them to another bout darkness (may be forever). Who apart from me would decide which course to chose. The dead do not have any rights. They are not asked” And that is the question. Do they have any rights or not? Would the girl who died at 22, killed in a political struggle, would she like the idea that her memory got a tribute in a piece of fiction? I do not know. But it seems these actions of writing a novel or of citing the old letters are meaningful. They seen to bring a closure to the next generation, not the ones who lived through. Those are silent. But to their children who have their own experience of a guilt, the guilt that they are not the ones who has been there.
PS
This the article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...
Thank you very much, Bert for pointing me that way.
May 15, 2023
کتاب کمتر خوانده شده جهان مردگان آرژانتین شرح با شکوهی ایست از آرژانتین و آنچه برمردمان آن در زمان حکومت وحشتناک نظامیان به رهبری خورخه رافائل ویدلا گذشته . دنیل لودل راوی دوران وحشتی شده که آنرا به نام جنگ کثیف می شناسند ، زمانی که هزاران یا شاید ده ها هزار نفر ربوده و کشته شدند و تا همین امروز هم هیچ اطلاعی از سرنوشت ، نحوه مرگ و محل دفن بیشتر آنها در دست نیست . حکومت ترور و وحشتی که آشکارا تحت حمایت آمریکا بوده وسی آی ای کمک هایی سخاوت مندانه و آموزش هایی حیاتی در ارتباط با شکنجه و اعتراف گیری در اختیار سازمان های امنیتی آن قرار می داد .
جهانی که زندگان را دربرگرفته سرشار از خیانت ، سیاهی ، تباهی ، خشونت و ناآگاهی و بی خبری ایست ، خشونت حاکم چنان آدمی را در برگرفته که او راهی برای کشف حقیقت ندارد . در چنین جهانی برای یافتن حقیقت ، حقیقتی که البته پایانش مشخص است باید هم به جهان مردگان سفر کرد و با آنان نظاره گر گذشته شد . لودل این گونه خیال و واقعیت را با هم در آمیخته و با استفاده از رئالیسم جادویی داستان پر درد خود را پیش می برد .
مسیری که توماس ، قهرمان وشاید هم ضد قهرمان کتاب باید طی کند از میان خیال و واقعیت و البته تاریخ است که طی می شود . درداستان غیر خطی نویسنده ، او برای درک آنچه در دوران وحشت بر او و ایزابل عشق دوران کودکی ، نوجوانی و البته جوانیش گذشته درسفری واقعی به سرزمین خود راهی سفری خیالی می شود تا آنچه بر سر خود آمده و آنچه او بر سر دیگران آورده را در جهان مردگان مشاهده کند . در کتاب نویسنده مرزهای میان خیال و واقعیت بسیار کم رنگ است ، تا جایی که راوی داستان هم نمی داند که آنچه که می بیند رویاست که با او حرف می زند یا خاطراتش است .
آنچه که نویسنده در کتاب بیان کرده را می توان بهترین شرح برای ابتذال شر ، تعبیر جاودانه هانا آرنت دانست . افرادی عادی چنان غرق در سیاهی و تباهی شده اند که فرقی با هیولایی مانند ویدلا ندارند . آدمی در کتاب جهان مردگان آرژانتین همواره در حال از دست دادن جنبه انسانی خود و تمایل به شر یا وجه هیولایی ایست . ایزابل ، توماس ، سرهنگ ، تریسته ، کشیش همگی یا انسانیت خود را کامل از دست داده اند و یا در حال از دست دادن آن هستند . گویی شر است که همواره در حال بزرگ تر شدن و فربه تر شدن است و در پایان همه را فرا گرفته .
پایان کتاب لودل عادی شدن شر را فریاد می زند ، تجاوز ، انتقام ، خیانت ، قتل و کشتار بخشی از زندگی همه شده است ،گویی که جهان همان شر است که همه را دربر گرفته و از آن نمی توان گریخت .
جهان مردگان آرژانتین کتاب خلاقانه و جسورانه ای است ، ترکیبی از داستان غیر خطی به همراه رئالیسم جادویی ، بر بستر تاریخ پر رنج و درد آرژانتین با ترجمه عالی شهرزاد بیات موحد و ویرایش بدون نقص نشر خوب ، کتاب لودل را به اثری فراموش ناشدنی تبدیل کرده است .
جهانی که زندگان را دربرگرفته سرشار از خیانت ، سیاهی ، تباهی ، خشونت و ناآگاهی و بی خبری ایست ، خشونت حاکم چنان آدمی را در برگرفته که او راهی برای کشف حقیقت ندارد . در چنین جهانی برای یافتن حقیقت ، حقیقتی که البته پایانش مشخص است باید هم به جهان مردگان سفر کرد و با آنان نظاره گر گذشته شد . لودل این گونه خیال و واقعیت را با هم در آمیخته و با استفاده از رئالیسم جادویی داستان پر درد خود را پیش می برد .
مسیری که توماس ، قهرمان وشاید هم ضد قهرمان کتاب باید طی کند از میان خیال و واقعیت و البته تاریخ است که طی می شود . درداستان غیر خطی نویسنده ، او برای درک آنچه در دوران وحشت بر او و ایزابل عشق دوران کودکی ، نوجوانی و البته جوانیش گذشته درسفری واقعی به سرزمین خود راهی سفری خیالی می شود تا آنچه بر سر خود آمده و آنچه او بر سر دیگران آورده را در جهان مردگان مشاهده کند . در کتاب نویسنده مرزهای میان خیال و واقعیت بسیار کم رنگ است ، تا جایی که راوی داستان هم نمی داند که آنچه که می بیند رویاست که با او حرف می زند یا خاطراتش است .
آنچه که نویسنده در کتاب بیان کرده را می توان بهترین شرح برای ابتذال شر ، تعبیر جاودانه هانا آرنت دانست . افرادی عادی چنان غرق در سیاهی و تباهی شده اند که فرقی با هیولایی مانند ویدلا ندارند . آدمی در کتاب جهان مردگان آرژانتین همواره در حال از دست دادن جنبه انسانی خود و تمایل به شر یا وجه هیولایی ایست . ایزابل ، توماس ، سرهنگ ، تریسته ، کشیش همگی یا انسانیت خود را کامل از دست داده اند و یا در حال از دست دادن آن هستند . گویی شر است که همواره در حال بزرگ تر شدن و فربه تر شدن است و در پایان همه را فرا گرفته .
پایان کتاب لودل عادی شدن شر را فریاد می زند ، تجاوز ، انتقام ، خیانت ، قتل و کشتار بخشی از زندگی همه شده است ،گویی که جهان همان شر است که همه را دربر گرفته و از آن نمی توان گریخت .
جهان مردگان آرژانتین کتاب خلاقانه و جسورانه ای است ، ترکیبی از داستان غیر خطی به همراه رئالیسم جادویی ، بر بستر تاریخ پر رنج و درد آرژانتین با ترجمه عالی شهرزاد بیات موحد و ویرایش بدون نقص نشر خوب ، کتاب لودل را به اثری فراموش ناشدنی تبدیل کرده است .
July 28, 2021
The darkness here is the darkness of memory, as a character goes back to his past, literally, figuratively, literarily. And this past is particularly harrowing, as the love of his life compels him to work in one of the worst places in the world, a place that his mentor (a fun character) knows all to well. I admired Loedel's direct gaze throughout - this is a smooth reading experience, thrumming with the sensory, and the surreal turn hooked me in.
April 12, 2021
Argentina, the 1970s, a coup and the disappeared, the torture, and a young man who gets caught in a horrific situation. How far would you go for love? I don't think I would go as far as Tomas did, but as a character I found him hard to dislike. This is a hard book to read because of the subject matter but also a book it was difficult not to admire. The writing is terrific, the portrays of this time period, the pain and anguish of so many and the accurate history. The use of magical realism I found was effective.
Reality blended into the fictional, sometimes it was difficult to discern which was which. Do you believe in second chances? How does one absorb the horrors of the past, your part in it and still have a future? All questions that form parts of this novel. The horrors and terrors, the torture of so many, families not knowing what happened to their loved ones, these were real. Groups that fought against the coup, like the Montonaros, which is how Tomas gets involved. In fact the book was inspired by the authors half-sister who was a Montonaro and one of the disappeared. She was only 22.
"Reality has a way of never letting even the direst of expectations catch up with it."
"Much to simple a notion, your regret. Do something, don't do something--as if actions could be reduced to such measly forks in the road."
Reality blended into the fictional, sometimes it was difficult to discern which was which. Do you believe in second chances? How does one absorb the horrors of the past, your part in it and still have a future? All questions that form parts of this novel. The horrors and terrors, the torture of so many, families not knowing what happened to their loved ones, these were real. Groups that fought against the coup, like the Montonaros, which is how Tomas gets involved. In fact the book was inspired by the authors half-sister who was a Montonaro and one of the disappeared. She was only 22.
"Reality has a way of never letting even the direst of expectations catch up with it."
"Much to simple a notion, your regret. Do something, don't do something--as if actions could be reduced to such measly forks in the road."
March 18, 2021
"You know there are no dead in Argentina, only disappeared"
According to the dictionary departure is the act of leaving, especially to start a journey. Tomas Orilla, a.k.a. Thomas Shore, escapes Argentina and the life he knew, but he cannot leave those memories and ghosts that haunt him. He has become a ghost of what he once was and the self he had hoped to be.
30,000 people "disappeared" during the Argentine terror called the dirty war (1976-1983). The government of Isabel Peron was overthrown by a military coup which was supported by the U.S., a part of Operation Condor. Political dissidents, socialists, union organizers and sympathizers were captured, tortured and killed. Such were the circumstances when the pre-med student Tomas arrived in Buenos Aires. Not an activist himself, little by little by "doing favors" for his unrequited love, he becomes complicit. His involvement results in horrendous torture. Before he is killed he is able to escape and eventually get to N.Y.C.
Hades, Argentina tells Tomas' story, both in the present as he travels back to Argentina for a funeral, and the past -his time and involvement in the terror. Accused of being emotionally dead by his N.Y. wife, he hopes this trip will banish those ghosts from the past, end the nightmares, perhaps save his faltering marriage. Do we ever get a chance to go back, change our history and youthful choices, fix mistakes? Will our ghosts always haunt us? As his friend the colonel tells him,"It may not get better with time. But it should get clearer."
Loedel easily moves from the past to the present, from the present back to the past, from the living characters to their ghosts. I am sure he is making a point that the past and the present blur and sometimes blend. There were times he deftly made this shift and sometimes it was confusing, but it was always powerful.
The author's sister was a casualty of the dirty war, "disappeared" at 22. This book is a tribute to her and a way to immortalize her. This period of human rights violations is one that Argentina would like to erase from history. Likewise, the ghost of Project Condor, the U.S. support of this and other intelligence operations is not often recalled just rewritten of eliminated from history books.
Daniel Loedel does a fine job of balancing history and creativity. It is the historical novelist who informs and teaches us about those past events governments may want to forget. Loedel is a talented writer with much potential. This is a very worthy debut novel.
* While the number of "disappeared" varies, 30,000 is the number cited in a declassified document detailing the U.S. role in Argentina's dirty war.
"We all want another chance in the end."
According to the dictionary departure is the act of leaving, especially to start a journey. Tomas Orilla, a.k.a. Thomas Shore, escapes Argentina and the life he knew, but he cannot leave those memories and ghosts that haunt him. He has become a ghost of what he once was and the self he had hoped to be.
30,000 people "disappeared" during the Argentine terror called the dirty war (1976-1983). The government of Isabel Peron was overthrown by a military coup which was supported by the U.S., a part of Operation Condor. Political dissidents, socialists, union organizers and sympathizers were captured, tortured and killed. Such were the circumstances when the pre-med student Tomas arrived in Buenos Aires. Not an activist himself, little by little by "doing favors" for his unrequited love, he becomes complicit. His involvement results in horrendous torture. Before he is killed he is able to escape and eventually get to N.Y.C.
Hades, Argentina tells Tomas' story, both in the present as he travels back to Argentina for a funeral, and the past -his time and involvement in the terror. Accused of being emotionally dead by his N.Y. wife, he hopes this trip will banish those ghosts from the past, end the nightmares, perhaps save his faltering marriage. Do we ever get a chance to go back, change our history and youthful choices, fix mistakes? Will our ghosts always haunt us? As his friend the colonel tells him,"It may not get better with time. But it should get clearer."
Loedel easily moves from the past to the present, from the present back to the past, from the living characters to their ghosts. I am sure he is making a point that the past and the present blur and sometimes blend. There were times he deftly made this shift and sometimes it was confusing, but it was always powerful.
The author's sister was a casualty of the dirty war, "disappeared" at 22. This book is a tribute to her and a way to immortalize her. This period of human rights violations is one that Argentina would like to erase from history. Likewise, the ghost of Project Condor, the U.S. support of this and other intelligence operations is not often recalled just rewritten of eliminated from history books.
Daniel Loedel does a fine job of balancing history and creativity. It is the historical novelist who informs and teaches us about those past events governments may want to forget. Loedel is a talented writer with much potential. This is a very worthy debut novel.
* While the number of "disappeared" varies, 30,000 is the number cited in a declassified document detailing the U.S. role in Argentina's dirty war.
"We all want another chance in the end."
August 16, 2021
4.50 Stars (rnd up⬆️) — I am not really ready enough to offer up my review of this most poignant and hidden-firecracker novel just yet. But I all ready to call it the most all-consuming read I have had in a while, and highly recommend that literally any adult, whom enjoys fiction of any variety or close to it, takes this journey into a but if a world — that is Hades, Argentina.
This Novel has such condensed, layered and brutally honest narrative, that it is hard to think about batting else while it is in your purview or even immediate vicinity! Taking on such heavy tropes like repentance, acceptance and personal-salvation — Loedel jas delivered a raw, lovely and pulsating novel that will stock with you for some time.
This Novel has such condensed, layered and brutally honest narrative, that it is hard to think about batting else while it is in your purview or even immediate vicinity! Taking on such heavy tropes like repentance, acceptance and personal-salvation — Loedel jas delivered a raw, lovely and pulsating novel that will stock with you for some time.
January 25, 2021
Daniel Loedel's prose has the same melancholic feeling as a tango song. It's tinged with nostalgia and sentiment. It's mesmerising and beautiful and it perfectly encapsulates the essence of the story being told: one of regret; fleeting youth and youthful love; and the search for atonement.
The novel opens in New York, 1986. Tomás Orilla, unhappily married, plagued by nightmares, receives a summons to come back to Buenos Aires to bid farewell to the dying mother of his first love, Isabel. It's been 10 years since he fled under a false name, at the height of Argentina's "Dirty War", when thousands of people were tortured and 'disappeared' by the military.
Under the guidance of his old mentor, the Colonel (the Virgil to Tomás' Dante), Tomás journeys through Hades, Argentina in search of his lost love Isabel. Along the way he must relive his memories and face up to the role he played in the torture centre, and the choices he made, and the paths he didn't take - what could've been.
I loved the way Loedel writes his characters. The Colonel represents the military; The Priest (one of the torturers) portrays the insidiousness of the Catholic Church and its' role in Argentine politics; Isabel is the fanatic rebel, ready to die for a cause she doesn't fully understand; and Tomás represents the everyman, the bystander. Guilty in his compliancy. They still remain, however, fully fleshed-out characters, far away from being caricatures.
At its' heart, the novel poses some pretty heavy questions about morality and the nature of choices and free-will. It's a captivating read and a fascinating look at an extremely disturbing period of Argentine history. Don't ignore it!
The novel opens in New York, 1986. Tomás Orilla, unhappily married, plagued by nightmares, receives a summons to come back to Buenos Aires to bid farewell to the dying mother of his first love, Isabel. It's been 10 years since he fled under a false name, at the height of Argentina's "Dirty War", when thousands of people were tortured and 'disappeared' by the military.
Under the guidance of his old mentor, the Colonel (the Virgil to Tomás' Dante), Tomás journeys through Hades, Argentina in search of his lost love Isabel. Along the way he must relive his memories and face up to the role he played in the torture centre, and the choices he made, and the paths he didn't take - what could've been.
I loved the way Loedel writes his characters. The Colonel represents the military; The Priest (one of the torturers) portrays the insidiousness of the Catholic Church and its' role in Argentine politics; Isabel is the fanatic rebel, ready to die for a cause she doesn't fully understand; and Tomás represents the everyman, the bystander. Guilty in his compliancy. They still remain, however, fully fleshed-out characters, far away from being caricatures.
At its' heart, the novel poses some pretty heavy questions about morality and the nature of choices and free-will. It's a captivating read and a fascinating look at an extremely disturbing period of Argentine history. Don't ignore it!
April 13, 2021
I bought this book (bookshop.org) because the description of the theme interested me - the time of the military dictatorship in 1970’s Argentine. According to the New York Times review of this novel (read it after you read the book as it is full of spoilers), fiction about this era is known as “Argentine Gothic”. This genre is full of ghosts, spooky descriptions of Buenos Aires, and overall a haunted atmosphere. On my first trip to Santiago, Chile in 1999, riding in a taxi, we passed the National Stadium. Although I didn’t immediately know what I was looking at, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of chilly sadness. The taxi driver identified it for me. The National Stadium was the site in 1973, where up to 20,000 people were imprisoned, tortured, and many executed. I truly sensed their ghosts that day. The 1970’s was also the era of thousands of disappearances in Argentina. Most of these individuals were young people, suspected of subversive activity, and they were subsequently murdered by the military. As the net spread, many of those who were “disappeared” were intellectuals, such as college professors, and only guilty of “thinking” in a way that was left of the government
The narrator of this novel, Tomás Orilla has been living in New York as Thomas Shore. He is married but he and his wife are experiencing an estrangement as she feels he is concealing too much of his past, and who he really is. He learns a beloved relative is dying and returns to Buenos Aires after living in exile for 10 years after fleeing the country. Close friends, who were involved with a guerilla group, the Montoneras, had been arrested. Tomás has been working in a torture center and prison. His primary responsibilities are cleanng and cooking. He was asked to get this job by his love interest, Isabel, and to feed information to the Montoneras. Throughout this part of the novel, Tomás straddles the world of his friends, the subversives, and the military regime.
When Tomás returns to Argentina, he starts seeing people he believed were dead. This is Buenos Aires, so immediately the reader may wonder if they are survivors or ghosts. He wanders Buenos Aires, and returns to his hometown of La Plata. These are sad and worn places. The story moves between the past and the present. The episodes from the past detail Tomás’s dangerous involvement with both his subversive friends and the military regime. He has come to Buenos Aires from La Plata to study medicine. His mother is reluctant to see her only child leave for this dangerous place, and asks an old friend, a Colonel in the military, to watch over him. It is the Colonel who helps Tomás to get the job in the torture center. Throughout the story, he risks discovery, and at times finds himself fleeing for his life. The tension is real. In the contemporary part of the story, he sees Argentina as it is ten years later, and interacts with people (or ghosts?) from the past.
I feel it is important to say that this novel includes scenes involving torture and for that reason may not be the book for some readers. Overall, I sped through this book as the story evolved. This is a first novel of a writer who works primarily as an editor. Loedel’s half sister, and a member of the Montoneras, was murdered by the dictatorship at the age of 22. He and his Argentine family are Jewish, which is a minor theme in the story. Highly recommended.
The narrator of this novel, Tomás Orilla has been living in New York as Thomas Shore. He is married but he and his wife are experiencing an estrangement as she feels he is concealing too much of his past, and who he really is. He learns a beloved relative is dying and returns to Buenos Aires after living in exile for 10 years after fleeing the country. Close friends, who were involved with a guerilla group, the Montoneras, had been arrested. Tomás has been working in a torture center and prison. His primary responsibilities are cleanng and cooking. He was asked to get this job by his love interest, Isabel, and to feed information to the Montoneras. Throughout this part of the novel, Tomás straddles the world of his friends, the subversives, and the military regime.
When Tomás returns to Argentina, he starts seeing people he believed were dead. This is Buenos Aires, so immediately the reader may wonder if they are survivors or ghosts. He wanders Buenos Aires, and returns to his hometown of La Plata. These are sad and worn places. The story moves between the past and the present. The episodes from the past detail Tomás’s dangerous involvement with both his subversive friends and the military regime. He has come to Buenos Aires from La Plata to study medicine. His mother is reluctant to see her only child leave for this dangerous place, and asks an old friend, a Colonel in the military, to watch over him. It is the Colonel who helps Tomás to get the job in the torture center. Throughout the story, he risks discovery, and at times finds himself fleeing for his life. The tension is real. In the contemporary part of the story, he sees Argentina as it is ten years later, and interacts with people (or ghosts?) from the past.
I feel it is important to say that this novel includes scenes involving torture and for that reason may not be the book for some readers. Overall, I sped through this book as the story evolved. This is a first novel of a writer who works primarily as an editor. Loedel’s half sister, and a member of the Montoneras, was murdered by the dictatorship at the age of 22. He and his Argentine family are Jewish, which is a minor theme in the story. Highly recommended.
May 16, 2020
(thanks to Netgally for the free ARC, which was given to me in exchange for an honest review)
I can't say enough good things about Hades, Argentina. This is the type of writing that crawls under your skin and makes a home somewhere deep inside you, never to be forgotten.
The story is made up of haunting descriptions of the life of an incredibly complex and compelling main character, Tomas - a former medical student at a torture center in Argentina in 1976, immediately after the military coup. Tomas returns to Argentina a decade after he escapes, hoping for some sort of closure, when the ghost of his former mentor The Colonel comes to him. The Colonel tells Tomas that he could break his former lover, Isabel, out of the underworld. Thus begins a quest similar to that of Orpheus to rescue Eurydice, in which Tomas must travel back through his own memories of his time working at the torture center, nicknamed Automotores, as he descends deeper into Hades.
Throughout the story, readers slowly encounter the insidiousness and hardships of the 1976 regime in Argentina, described in such a way that American audiences rarely experience. Reading this novel felt like walking through a dream, you don't know if what you're reading is real or a memory or an imagined past, but it doesn't ultimately matter. The scenes piece together like a puzzle, ultimately allowing the reader to step back and marvel at the immensity of the story. It's easy to empathize with each character, to understand why they're doing what they do even if their actions are objectively horrible.
The guiding question, so to speak, of this book can be summed up in the following quote: "Maybe we get choices, but what good are they when they're like that?" The writing explores the idea of choice, the decisions people make when forced into dangerous and terrifying situations, and the possibility of striving for morality in a world with no concept of it.
Overall, Hades, Argentina, is a heavy story, but it is also illuminating and human and important. Do yourself a favor and read this book!
I can't say enough good things about Hades, Argentina. This is the type of writing that crawls under your skin and makes a home somewhere deep inside you, never to be forgotten.
The story is made up of haunting descriptions of the life of an incredibly complex and compelling main character, Tomas - a former medical student at a torture center in Argentina in 1976, immediately after the military coup. Tomas returns to Argentina a decade after he escapes, hoping for some sort of closure, when the ghost of his former mentor The Colonel comes to him. The Colonel tells Tomas that he could break his former lover, Isabel, out of the underworld. Thus begins a quest similar to that of Orpheus to rescue Eurydice, in which Tomas must travel back through his own memories of his time working at the torture center, nicknamed Automotores, as he descends deeper into Hades.
Throughout the story, readers slowly encounter the insidiousness and hardships of the 1976 regime in Argentina, described in such a way that American audiences rarely experience. Reading this novel felt like walking through a dream, you don't know if what you're reading is real or a memory or an imagined past, but it doesn't ultimately matter. The scenes piece together like a puzzle, ultimately allowing the reader to step back and marvel at the immensity of the story. It's easy to empathize with each character, to understand why they're doing what they do even if their actions are objectively horrible.
The guiding question, so to speak, of this book can be summed up in the following quote: "Maybe we get choices, but what good are they when they're like that?" The writing explores the idea of choice, the decisions people make when forced into dangerous and terrifying situations, and the possibility of striving for morality in a world with no concept of it.
Overall, Hades, Argentina, is a heavy story, but it is also illuminating and human and important. Do yourself a favor and read this book!
March 3, 2021
Daniel Loedel’s Hades, Argentina is a liminal novel, with its story playing out on the boundaries between the real and the imagined, the moral and the immoral, and the now and the remembered then. It occurs in the mid-1970s, as Argentina deteriorated into societal and political chaos: the ruling establishment and its fearsome agents of state torturing and “disappearing” of its opponents, and its opponents gaining adherents as the depravities and horrors of the ruling establishment became more common and better known. It also occurs in the mid-1980s, as Tomás Orillo (AKA Tom Shore), its story-teller and main character, returns from his escape and exile in first Rome and the U.S.A. to revisit an Argentina recovering from the depredations of the previous regime.
The strengths of Hades, Argentina lies in its recreation of the era, time, events, and relationships of the mid-1970s, as seen from Tomás’ vantage point of ten years later. The weaknesses of Hades, Argentina similarly derive from its sometimes clunky attempt to position Tomás’ memories as ghosts accompanying or imagined by him. Unfortunately, Loedel’s frequent crossing of boundaries is not always successful.
The subtleties of Loedel’s story-telling, and subtleties there are, lie in his evocation of the moral ambiguities of Tomás’s actions, in the contrast between his rich emotional life with his ghosts and his sterile emotional life with his wife, and especially in questions about whether Tomás acts out of horror at the regime or out of his slavish devotion to Isabel. Is Tomás an opponent of the regime, a pawn of the regime, or merely a pawn of his adolescent adoration of Isabel?
Daniel Loedel’s Hades, Argentina is powerful, affecting, and thought-provoking, despite its shortcomings. It’s an important novel, well worth reading as literature and also as a sobering warning. And don’t skip the ending Acknowledgements, which are as gutting as any part of the preceding novel.
3.5 stars
The strengths of Hades, Argentina lies in its recreation of the era, time, events, and relationships of the mid-1970s, as seen from Tomás’ vantage point of ten years later. The weaknesses of Hades, Argentina similarly derive from its sometimes clunky attempt to position Tomás’ memories as ghosts accompanying or imagined by him. Unfortunately, Loedel’s frequent crossing of boundaries is not always successful.
The subtleties of Loedel’s story-telling, and subtleties there are, lie in his evocation of the moral ambiguities of Tomás’s actions, in the contrast between his rich emotional life with his ghosts and his sterile emotional life with his wife, and especially in questions about whether Tomás acts out of horror at the regime or out of his slavish devotion to Isabel. Is Tomás an opponent of the regime, a pawn of the regime, or merely a pawn of his adolescent adoration of Isabel?
Daniel Loedel’s Hades, Argentina is powerful, affecting, and thought-provoking, despite its shortcomings. It’s an important novel, well worth reading as literature and also as a sobering warning. And don’t skip the ending Acknowledgements, which are as gutting as any part of the preceding novel.
3.5 stars
January 12, 2021
Visceral, haunting, and utterly magnetic, HADES, ARGENTINA is the story of a man who returns to Argentina and is forced to confront the ghosts of his past—including the love of his life, who was disappeared during the Dirty War. This stunning book is about the impossible choices we make for love, the complex nature of guilt, and the lingering pull of the past. It’s both political and deeply intimate—and based on the author’s own family history, making it all the more powerful. It’s genuinely narrated and truly unlike anything else I’ve ever read. HADES, ARGENTINA is a novel I won’t soon forget and one I really hope you’ll read!
March 16, 2021
Actually, this is just poorly written. The sentences are so awkward. For example, he says many times "If I was you..." instead of "If I were you". (This is narration, not a character saying this). He writes in incomplete sentences, trying to sound poetic but it comes across as clunky and awkward. Here's an example: "He shrugged his shrug". (wth?), and "I looked at her. Overtly, lingeringly." He loves adverbs and at one point says "dumbly" which despite being a word, is just him dumbly looking for smart expressions. haha I should say that I've read several (15+) novels about the Argentine Dirty War and Mr. Loedel's handling of the historical context is problematic. But the most disappointing part of this novel is the crude and uninspired writing. He included many sexual moments and innuendos that are frankly unnecessary and in my opinion, announce his lack of desire to create something truly artistic. I highly recommend that instead of this novel, you read Carolina de Robertis' PERLA which is everything that this novel is not. It too is a mystical and magical presentation of the Argentina Dirty War, but the language is stunningly beautiful and memorable and not this clunky stuff in "Hades, Argentina". I'm actually shocked at how many reviewers say that the prose is beautiful because I could NOT disagree with them more. It greatly disappointed me.
May 14, 2022
Do you ever notice your reading takes on an accidental theme and start to notice the large number of similarities between books you read in close succession? I’m not sure quite how this has happened but I seem to be picking up a lot of novels recently which centre on a protagonist returning to a place which has a troubled history where they spent their childhood/formative years, and in returning there they reflect on their life and how said place has shaped their experiences and their relationship with a specific person from this place and formative period in their life (Four Minutes, Bolla, Playing in the Light, and The Promise - this last one is a bit more tenuous but kind of fits the theme).
This novel is yet another example of this theme, and is one of the more successful of those books listed above (although Bolla was definitely my favourite). Argentina has a complex recent history, and this novel focuses on the late 70s when many citizens were being “disappeared” and tortured.
Hades, Argentina is a very personal novel (see the epilogue), and it goes to some very dark places. The structure is rather complex but this doesn’t prevent the story from being incredibly readable and compelling. Highly recommended!
This novel is yet another example of this theme, and is one of the more successful of those books listed above (although Bolla was definitely my favourite). Argentina has a complex recent history, and this novel focuses on the late 70s when many citizens were being “disappeared” and tortured.
Hades, Argentina is a very personal novel (see the epilogue), and it goes to some very dark places. The structure is rather complex but this doesn’t prevent the story from being incredibly readable and compelling. Highly recommended!
April 22, 2021
3.5 stars but I can't round it up for any enjoyment or even resolution. Prose is revealing and soulful while at the same time it cores a touch of artistic meandering excellence. But the flow seems to be my problem. I can't get entire sections except for the pain. Maybe that's my own problem? I'm sick of all the political venal viscous vindictive "other" posited as worthy under any form. True believers of every ilk! Not anywhere near my favorite type of read this category of guilt angst. Aftermaths of past sacrifices and duplicities.
May 2, 2024
خواهر ناتنی نویسندهی رمان یکی از همون «ناپدیدشدگان» بوده. من دوست داشتم، البته کتاب آریل دورفمان در مورد این برهه از تاریخ آرژانتین رو بیشتر دوست دارم.
February 12, 2021
Loedel's half sister's demise at the hands of the military became the impetus for this ghostly haunting exploration of Argentina's dirty war during 1976-1983. She was a part of the Montoneros rebel group which figures prominently in this novel. Underpinning the novel is an unrequited love between the narrator, Tomas and his childhood friend Isabel who has been heavily entrenched in the Montoneros movement. Unfortunately his love for her eventually leads to his downfall. We first meet Tomas in 1986 when he is a hallowed out shell from his former self, anesthetized with lethargy and indifference. However, 10 years ago in 1976, Tomas was a medical student in Buenos Aires. Tomas is lured back to this beginning to re -examine his agonizing role in the past and to observe the decisions he made which led to his escape from Argentina. Isabel wanted him to join the movement and to volunteer at the Automotores Orletti, a detention center for "disappeared" prisoners while functioning as a Montonero undercover agent, asking his military friend the "Colonel" to get him a position. This traumatic experience unravels him as he witnesses unspeakable depravities but is helpless in redressing the situation.
I found it hard to inhabit his world..I became disoriented as to what was real, what was a dream, what rabbit hole I was funneling through. The power of the book and the complexities of that time period and Peronism felt like an anvil on my chest. I appreciated the artistry and ghoulish underworld that the author created, but I am afraid I fell into Hades myself.
I found it hard to inhabit his world..I became disoriented as to what was real, what was a dream, what rabbit hole I was funneling through. The power of the book and the complexities of that time period and Peronism felt like an anvil on my chest. I appreciated the artistry and ghoulish underworld that the author created, but I am afraid I fell into Hades myself.
February 9, 2021
Book Review-Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel
This first novel by the writer David Loedel is a winning effort. Set during the tumultuous years 1976 to 1986 we follow the main character, Tomas Orilla, as he attempts to revisit and reclaim his life. Growing up in Mar del Plata he is entwined with his mother’s friend Pichuca and her two daughters, Isabel and Nerea. Enamored he develops a lasting crush on Isa, a strong willed, beguiling, mysterious young woman.
As the military dictatorship takes hold both sisters become active members of the Montaneros, urban guerillas who form a revolutionary cadre inspired by the Argentine Che Guevara. Tomas, more interested in his studies, chess and obsessive love allows Isa to recruit him. As a young boy, Tomas is mentored in his chess studies by The Colonel, a military man whose childless marriage feeds a paternal relationship with Tomas.
The book captures well how a young man’s first crush can be hard to navigate on an emotional level yet this tale, with the overload of the military dictatorship reign of terror, results in it being even more devastating.
At Isabel’s direction Tomas ingratiates himself to The Colonel and weasels his way into a part-time job at the Automotores, a converted garage in the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he spies for the Montaneros. There he cleans rooms and, as a medical student, is instructed to give injections of sodium pentothal which are disguised as mere vaccinations to the prisoners who are “drugged and then dropped into the depths of the Rio de la Plata”. He struggles to balance his secondary role in the torture process with the knowledge that he is providing valuable information to the revolutionary effort. This becomes an even heavier endeavor when he reveals to Isa the identity of one of the main torturers called, The Priest, who is then assassinated which leads to an investigation at the Automotores. While Tomas evades suspicion, it later comes back to him when he aids a Uruguayan activist and a young female American prisoner whom he is attracted to. They escape, a guard is killed and, shortly thereafter, the Automotores is shut down. Tomas is helped by the Colonel to obtain a passport and escapes to Rome and then the United States.
The story nimbly moves to and fro between the years 1976 when the events occurred, and 1986 when Tomas returns to visit Pachuca on her deathbed. The story exists in both time zones and are intertangled with dreams and ghosts which are fueled by his own unresolved feelings of guilt, remorse, and unrequited love.
Daniel Loedel, impressively here in his very first novel, has created a touching, sometime riveting tale, much in the tradition of great Argentine literature. The writer he most reminds me of is the late Tomas Eloy Martinez and his books, Purgatory and The Tango Singer (as I make this connection I wonder if the main character’s name influenced my association or is it purposeful on the author’s part).
The author states that this book was inspired by his own sister’s disappearance at the hands of the military dictatorship. This work is a testament to her memory, and is a great addition to the literature of these times.
This first novel by the writer David Loedel is a winning effort. Set during the tumultuous years 1976 to 1986 we follow the main character, Tomas Orilla, as he attempts to revisit and reclaim his life. Growing up in Mar del Plata he is entwined with his mother’s friend Pichuca and her two daughters, Isabel and Nerea. Enamored he develops a lasting crush on Isa, a strong willed, beguiling, mysterious young woman.
As the military dictatorship takes hold both sisters become active members of the Montaneros, urban guerillas who form a revolutionary cadre inspired by the Argentine Che Guevara. Tomas, more interested in his studies, chess and obsessive love allows Isa to recruit him. As a young boy, Tomas is mentored in his chess studies by The Colonel, a military man whose childless marriage feeds a paternal relationship with Tomas.
The book captures well how a young man’s first crush can be hard to navigate on an emotional level yet this tale, with the overload of the military dictatorship reign of terror, results in it being even more devastating.
At Isabel’s direction Tomas ingratiates himself to The Colonel and weasels his way into a part-time job at the Automotores, a converted garage in the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he spies for the Montaneros. There he cleans rooms and, as a medical student, is instructed to give injections of sodium pentothal which are disguised as mere vaccinations to the prisoners who are “drugged and then dropped into the depths of the Rio de la Plata”. He struggles to balance his secondary role in the torture process with the knowledge that he is providing valuable information to the revolutionary effort. This becomes an even heavier endeavor when he reveals to Isa the identity of one of the main torturers called, The Priest, who is then assassinated which leads to an investigation at the Automotores. While Tomas evades suspicion, it later comes back to him when he aids a Uruguayan activist and a young female American prisoner whom he is attracted to. They escape, a guard is killed and, shortly thereafter, the Automotores is shut down. Tomas is helped by the Colonel to obtain a passport and escapes to Rome and then the United States.
The story nimbly moves to and fro between the years 1976 when the events occurred, and 1986 when Tomas returns to visit Pachuca on her deathbed. The story exists in both time zones and are intertangled with dreams and ghosts which are fueled by his own unresolved feelings of guilt, remorse, and unrequited love.
Daniel Loedel, impressively here in his very first novel, has created a touching, sometime riveting tale, much in the tradition of great Argentine literature. The writer he most reminds me of is the late Tomas Eloy Martinez and his books, Purgatory and The Tango Singer (as I make this connection I wonder if the main character’s name influenced my association or is it purposeful on the author’s part).
The author states that this book was inspired by his own sister’s disappearance at the hands of the military dictatorship. This work is a testament to her memory, and is a great addition to the literature of these times.
March 17, 2021
“Certain places in the world, they keep calling you back the way they did in life. They’re not homes per se, more like portals, gateways, that propel you on the way they did in life too. Only problem is, the deeper down you go, the more muddled they get.”
Tomas Orilla is called back to Argentina after a decade abroad in the U.S. to visit the mother of his one-time love, who is dying of cancer. He has not set foot in the country since 1976, when he disappeared with an altered passport, yet he has been haunted ever since. All those years back, he was held thrall to a mostly unrequited love with a leftist insurgent --- a woman named Isabel who fought to dismantle the deadly authoritarian regime responsible for the Dirty War.
Besotted with love for her he allowed himself to become her tool as a double agent: spgying against a man known as the Colonel—his benefactor—and using his medical skills in a concentration camp for dissidents. There he is complicit in the detailed tortures that go on while reporting names and details to Isabel to ultimately save more lives.
This elegantly written book is all about hauntings and combines the horrors of past memories with the surreal. Tomas’ own ghosts appear everywhere—in his memories, in the streets, in the Automotores, the auto plant that he worked in that was used for ultimate tortures. The author, whose own half-sister Isabel was “disappeared” in the Dirty War, does not hold back in his description of what went on and as a result, there is an authenticity that cannot be replicated by hobbyist writers.
It is the themes, rather than the plot itself, that are showcased. What happens when we confront monsters? How do we keep ourselves from becoming one? What choices do we have and which ones do we own? How do we cope with the guilt and regret that continue to rule and shape our lives?
Tomas’ benefactor – himself a ghost – aptly defines why Tomas has come back: “Fleeing your life, abandoning your marriage. Venturing to the underworld for the disappeared to pluck a sexy, lovey one out, disturbing all those who griever here just to heal your itty-bitty little bit of emptiness.”
I want to 5-star this courageous and intricately layered book. Only one thing stops me. I had a hard time suspending belief that an ordinary person with intrinsically good values could allow himself to be a long-time pawn of a manipulative woman such as Isabel. The experiences he has would, I think, break most of us or at the very least, make us want to abandon his mission quickly. Tomas may, indeed, be an empty cipher but I wonder how even someone who is half-empty could bear all that he is forced to bear. Still, this novel will certainly haunt my own dreams.
Tomas Orilla is called back to Argentina after a decade abroad in the U.S. to visit the mother of his one-time love, who is dying of cancer. He has not set foot in the country since 1976, when he disappeared with an altered passport, yet he has been haunted ever since. All those years back, he was held thrall to a mostly unrequited love with a leftist insurgent --- a woman named Isabel who fought to dismantle the deadly authoritarian regime responsible for the Dirty War.
Besotted with love for her he allowed himself to become her tool as a double agent: spgying against a man known as the Colonel—his benefactor—and using his medical skills in a concentration camp for dissidents. There he is complicit in the detailed tortures that go on while reporting names and details to Isabel to ultimately save more lives.
This elegantly written book is all about hauntings and combines the horrors of past memories with the surreal. Tomas’ own ghosts appear everywhere—in his memories, in the streets, in the Automotores, the auto plant that he worked in that was used for ultimate tortures. The author, whose own half-sister Isabel was “disappeared” in the Dirty War, does not hold back in his description of what went on and as a result, there is an authenticity that cannot be replicated by hobbyist writers.
It is the themes, rather than the plot itself, that are showcased. What happens when we confront monsters? How do we keep ourselves from becoming one? What choices do we have and which ones do we own? How do we cope with the guilt and regret that continue to rule and shape our lives?
Tomas’ benefactor – himself a ghost – aptly defines why Tomas has come back: “Fleeing your life, abandoning your marriage. Venturing to the underworld for the disappeared to pluck a sexy, lovey one out, disturbing all those who griever here just to heal your itty-bitty little bit of emptiness.”
I want to 5-star this courageous and intricately layered book. Only one thing stops me. I had a hard time suspending belief that an ordinary person with intrinsically good values could allow himself to be a long-time pawn of a manipulative woman such as Isabel. The experiences he has would, I think, break most of us or at the very least, make us want to abandon his mission quickly. Tomas may, indeed, be an empty cipher but I wonder how even someone who is half-empty could bear all that he is forced to bear. Still, this novel will certainly haunt my own dreams.
June 16, 2022
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» تمام شد و خواندن این کتاب ۳۰۹صفحهای تاریک، برای من ۷ساعت و ۳۰دقیقه بهطول انجامید.
🔶آیا برای کسانی که انتخابهایشان جز رنج برای دیگران حاصلی نداشته، راهی برای جبران مافات هست؟
آیا رفتن یا تبعید راهیست برای نجات یافتن یا خیانت به ماندهگان؟
تاریخچهی خانوادگی «دَنیِل لودل»، نویسندهی «جهان مردگان آرژانتین»، این امکان را به وی میدهد تا با شیوایی به تفاوتهای ظریف این سؤالها بپردازد.
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» را به جرأت میتوان دنبالهای از ادبیات معاصر آرژانتین دانست که از دستآوردهای مهماش، شرح و بیان تاریخ معاصر تاریک کشور آرژانتین، خصوصن تروریسم دولتی دهههای ۷۰ و ۸۰ میلادی و بحران اقتصادیای که فقرا را قلع و قمع کرد دانست و هدایتش به سمت داستانهای ارواح. کتابی درخشان و شجاعانه که در آن، این بازماندگان هستند که به وسعتش دامن میزنند.
🔶با این که «جهان مردگان آرژانتین» اولین رمان «لودل» است، اما او توانسته در نمایشی ستودنی یک داستان گوتیک آرژانتینی تمامعیار خلق کند و عشقی که طرفیناش هر دو به دست نیروهای دیکتاتوری دههی ۷۰ آرژانتین ناپدید میشوند که برای «توماس» راوی کتاب و جاسوس نیروهای مقاومت، این ناپدید شدن بهمعنای هویتی جعلی و تبعید از کشور است و برای «ایسابل» که این کتاب اساسن بر اساس سرنوشت خواهر نویسنده با همین نام نوشته شده است، این نابودگی معنایی جز مرگ ندارد. «دَنیِل لودل» توانسته با مهارت هرچه تمامتر به زیر پوست یک رژیم سرکوبگر بخزد و محل تلاقیای برای درگذشتهگان و بازماندهگان خلق کند.
«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» در حقیقت برزخیست که در آن ارواح ناآرام، به امید آرامش، سرگردان هستند. اما همانطور که «دانته» در ابتدای برزخ خود توضیح داده، اینجا مکانیست برای عمل: "قلمرو دومی که در آن روح انسان از گناه پاک می شود".
🔶در ۱۹۷۶، «توماس»، راوی کتاب، که دانشجوی پزشکیست بهامید پیوستن به عشق دوران کودکیاش «ایسابل» به بوئنوسآیرس نقل مکان میکند اما، اشتیاق بیپروایی که مدتهاست «توماس» را بهسوی «ایسابل» کشانده، با همان شدت، «ایسابل» را به عمق صف مخالفان رژیم سرکوبگر آرژانتین کشانده است. «توماس» همیشه سعی کرده تا دست به هر کاری بزند تا خودش را به «ایسابل» ثابت کند، اما او دقیقن به دنبال اثبات چیست و این، چه سرنوشتی را برایشان رقم خواهد زد؟
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» کتابیست چندبُعدی و هولناک که مطمئنن پایان خواندن اوراقش به معنی پایان ادامهی دنبالهدارش در ذهن خوانندهاش نیست...
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» تمام شد و خواندن این کتاب ۳۰۹صفحهای تاریک، برای من ۷ساعت و ۳۰دقیقه بهطول انجامید.
🔶آیا برای کسانی که انتخابهایشان جز رنج برای دیگران حاصلی نداشته، راهی برای جبران مافات هست؟
آیا رفتن یا تبعید راهیست برای نجات یافتن یا خیانت به ماندهگان؟
تاریخچهی خانوادگی «دَنیِل لودل»، نویسندهی «جهان مردگان آرژانتین»، این امکان را به وی میدهد تا با شیوایی به تفاوتهای ظریف این سؤالها بپردازد.
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» را به جرأت میتوان دنبالهای از ادبیات معاصر آرژانتین دانست که از دستآوردهای مهماش، شرح و بیان تاریخ معاصر تاریک کشور آرژانتین، خصوصن تروریسم دولتی دهههای ۷۰ و ۸۰ میلادی و بحران اقتصادیای که فقرا را قلع و قمع کرد دانست و هدایتش به سمت داستانهای ارواح. کتابی درخشان و شجاعانه که در آن، این بازماندگان هستند که به وسعتش دامن میزنند.
🔶با این که «جهان مردگان آرژانتین» اولین رمان «لودل» است، اما او توانسته در نمایشی ستودنی یک داستان گوتیک آرژانتینی تمامعیار خلق کند و عشقی که طرفیناش هر دو به دست نیروهای دیکتاتوری دههی ۷۰ آرژانتین ناپدید میشوند که برای «توماس» راوی کتاب و جاسوس نیروهای مقاومت، این ناپدید شدن بهمعنای هویتی جعلی و تبعید از کشور است و برای «ایسابل» که این کتاب اساسن بر اساس سرنوشت خواهر نویسنده با همین نام نوشته شده است، این نابودگی معنایی جز مرگ ندارد. «دَنیِل لودل» توانسته با مهارت هرچه تمامتر به زیر پوست یک رژیم سرکوبگر بخزد و محل تلاقیای برای درگذشتهگان و بازماندهگان خلق کند.
«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» در حقیقت برزخیست که در آن ارواح ناآرام، به امید آرامش، سرگردان هستند. اما همانطور که «دانته» در ابتدای برزخ خود توضیح داده، اینجا مکانیست برای عمل: "قلمرو دومی که در آن روح انسان از گناه پاک می شود".
🔶در ۱۹۷۶، «توماس»، راوی کتاب، که دانشجوی پزشکیست بهامید پیوستن به عشق دوران کودکیاش «ایسابل» به بوئنوسآیرس نقل مکان میکند اما، اشتیاق بیپروایی که مدتهاست «توماس» را بهسوی «ایسابل» کشانده، با همان شدت، «ایسابل» را به عمق صف مخالفان رژیم سرکوبگر آرژانتین کشانده است. «توماس» همیشه سعی کرده تا دست به هر کاری بزند تا خودش را به «ایسابل» ثابت کند، اما او دقیقن به دنبال اثبات چیست و این، چه سرنوشتی را برایشان رقم خواهد زد؟
🔶«جهان مردگان آرژانتین» کتابیست چندبُعدی و هولناک که مطمئنن پایان خواندن اوراقش به معنی پایان ادامهی دنبالهدارش در ذهن خوانندهاش نیست...
December 20, 2022
I was attracted to this book because who doesn't love Dante and my dad fled the junta in the late 1970s, but I was left very disappointed. Dante this aint.
It is the author's first novel and it very much reads like a debut. Clunky writing and the author loves his unnecessary adverbs and incomplete sentences. I see other reviews suggesting that reading this book is like dancing the tango....I suspect these people would step on the toes of their partner.
My biggest hangup was with the characters. I found Tomas incredibly unlikable and his fawning over Isabel equally irritating as she wasn't much better. Their relationship was quite cliche. He is the dorky guy who wants to impress the rebel idealist. This obsession leads Tomas to treat his girlfriend like shit and dumping her unceremoniously. He abandons his mother whose money he wastes. And he caps it off by later treating his wife like shit
Further evidence of Tomas's lack of will is his decision to join the revolution, which is not made due to any sort of belief system, but because he wants to get laid, quickly agreeing to betray a friend in the process. It really is the tale of a lovesick follower driven entirely by his teenage obsession. The fantastical elements made it a bit more interesting, but the history between Isabel and Tomas just dragged.
I had to chuckle at all the cliche and forced Argentinian references. Got to pepper those in so the reader feels it's authentic. Mate, check. Dulce de leche, check. Sandwhiches de miga, check. Empanadas, check. People saying "boludo" constantly as if that was she only slang word known to Argentinians, check.
I'm surprised the portal to Hades wasn't a pool of chimi churri.
It is the author's first novel and it very much reads like a debut. Clunky writing and the author loves his unnecessary adverbs and incomplete sentences. I see other reviews suggesting that reading this book is like dancing the tango....I suspect these people would step on the toes of their partner.
My biggest hangup was with the characters. I found Tomas incredibly unlikable and his fawning over Isabel equally irritating as she wasn't much better. Their relationship was quite cliche. He is the dorky guy who wants to impress the rebel idealist. This obsession leads Tomas to treat his girlfriend like shit and dumping her unceremoniously. He abandons his mother whose money he wastes. And he caps it off by later treating his wife like shit
Further evidence of Tomas's lack of will is his decision to join the revolution, which is not made due to any sort of belief system, but because he wants to get laid, quickly agreeing to betray a friend in the process. It really is the tale of a lovesick follower driven entirely by his teenage obsession. The fantastical elements made it a bit more interesting, but the history between Isabel and Tomas just dragged.
I had to chuckle at all the cliche and forced Argentinian references. Got to pepper those in so the reader feels it's authentic. Mate, check. Dulce de leche, check. Sandwhiches de miga, check. Empanadas, check. People saying "boludo" constantly as if that was she only slang word known to Argentinians, check.
I'm surprised the portal to Hades wasn't a pool of chimi churri.
March 22, 2021
What a well done, tragic novel. I am really at loss for words on this one - it moved me so much. I think the author perfectly portrays the horrors of the political climate (military coup vs those who want change) in Argentina at the time. But the bigger impact of this book is the incredible emotional and psychological toll that this environment and choices made within it take upon a young man. I agree with Jill regarding the fact that it was a bit of stretch that the main character, Tomas, didn't "wake up" and leave. I wanted to shake him numerous times! Maybe he didn't have the strength or emotional ability to escape his environment, but I do think most people would have tried to determine a way out. He just went deeper and deeper and it was really hard to watch/read. That said, this was an excellent novel. It is also very Latin in the sense that there is a good bit of magical realism which doesn't always work for me but did in this case.
February 5, 2021
I chose this book because it took place during the time period in which I was born in Buenos Aires. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I never quite connected with the main character, Tomas. I also felt lost in the second half of the book, I never knew what was real what wasn’t, what time period we were in. It did not flow for me like it did for some of the other readers, and it just frustrated me. I will say that there’s some interesting (and sad) history here but if you don’t know the background, you will have to go research it. To me the historical aspects were interesting but as I mentioned the story did not do it for me. Hope it does for you!!
January 22, 2021
A compelling look at the La Dictatura (the Dirty War) in Argentina in 1976. The more simply told, realistic chapters of this book worked best for me. I sped through these chapters with feelings of horror and heartbreak. Loedel writes from a personal history: his half-sister was "disappeared" under the military junta. At times, I wondered what this book might have looked it if the writer had chosen to tell this story as a work of family history + nonfiction. I got a bit lost in the more surreal venture into the Underworld, and the time travel tricks. I almost felt like it detracted from the pain & gravity of the historical events written about. I had some trouble with the treatment of rape as well, in particularly since violence against women is still a very real issue for the country (see Ni Una Menos). At times, I thought Loedel was trying to hard to convincingly set us in Argentina and it feels like he is ticking off a list of "authentically or iconically Argentine" things to include in his book: Fernet and coke, asados, sandwiches de miga, the diminutive -ito, Carlos Gardel, Boca vs River (there are many, many other teams in BsAs people are mad for), the Bosques of Palermo + the Barrancas of Belgrano. Finally, two different Argentine characters refer to themselves as members of the "third world," something most Argentines today have told me is a pretty offensive/out-dated term. For readers w/o knowledge of this period in Argentine history, I'd recommend this wholeheartedly (5/5), but for those familiar with the history and/or have spent time living in the country, you might find little new here and some things a bit cliche (3/5).
July 17, 2021
This was such an interesting read. I was totally caugh off guard by the plot...like I wasn’t expecting it to go on that route. Even the synopsis of this book doesn’t warn you but I loved where it went. I do have to mention that the writing in this debut surprised me as well. Great prose. I do think the book drags in places but i truly enjoyed my time with this one. I definitely learned a little bit about Argentina’s history, which I’ve been interested in for a while now. The book does well in telling that history through this story. Overall, not a bad book at all.
January 18, 2021
beautiful writing and characters but the story moved a lot slower than i prefer
loved learning about argentinian history and culture
loved learning about argentinian history and culture
February 20, 2021
Most people have an impression of who they are and can identify their futures based on their values. Then life happens to them and they wonder how much freedom they really had in self determination. They question how their lives ended up where they did and when they veered off their original course. I imagine few lives get derailed as much as during war. This novel describes this introspection of a man disappeared during the Dirty War in Argentina after he fled the resistance against the military dictatorship then returned 10 years later. Trust and betrayal go both ways when everyone is trying to survive and he learned more about the depth of betrayal in his reflection as he was led through Dante’s Purgatorio. The surrealism and blurred timeline gets clunky in places but the novel is intense and interesting.
February 7, 2021
Tomas Shore, returns to Argentina after running away from himself and his role in a dictatorship that made 30.000 persons disappear during the 1970’s to find himself overwhelmed by memories of those years and the people he used to know.
I think Loedel’s narrative is a perfect illustration of places where meanings collapse: reality and dreams, past and present, right and wrong, love and jealousy overlapping allowing the reader to feel in a similar daze to the one Tomas experience is his return to the chaos of Buenos Aires.
If you don’t know anything about Argentinian history, don’t worry, the author manages to sum up the countries convoluted history in paragraphs that made make you feel it’s vertiginous nature.
Personally, I hadn’t feel like this about a books in a while. I’m grateful he wrote this in English, nothing gets lost in translation and every word he writes matters. Lastly, it’s nice to read a Latin American perspective about life in Latin America and not only about life in the US for a change.
I can’t recommend this book enough!
March 6, 2022
4.5 stars. Incredible story and beautiful prose.
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