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Μητροφάγος
Σε ένα σανατόριο των προαστίων του Μπουένος Άιρες το 1907 ένας γιατρός μπλέκεται σε ένα πείραμα που έχει στόχο να διερευνήσει το όριο μεταξύ ζωής και θανάτου. Εκατό χρόνια αργότερα, ένας διάσημος καλλιτέχνης φτάνει στα άκρα αναζητώντας την αισθητική μεταμόρφωση, μετατρέποντας τον εαυτό του σε έργο τέχνης. Ο κόσμος του Λαρράκι είναι ελκυστικός και αλλόκοτος: παράξενα μυρμήγκια που σχηματίζουν σχεδόν τέλειους κύκλους, ακρωτηριασμένα μέλη, εμμονικοί έρωτες και ανθρωποφάγα φυτά. Στο επίκεντρο αυτού του σατιρικού, ευφυούς και συναρπαστικού μυθιστορήματος, βρίσκεται το τερατώδες, όχι ως κάτι απόκοσμο, αλλά ως βασικό εργαλείο κριτικής στις χίμαιρες της προόδου, της τέχνης και του έρωτα.
184 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 485 reviews
August 14, 2021
No hay lirismo, todo es sequedad de telegrama. Un telegrama manchado de impiedad, de una frialdad de autopsia más cercana a un Di Benedetto que a un Cortázar, tan escueto, tan concentrado, y con una admirable maestría para decir mucho sin apenas decir nada.
Tiene momentos de una potente prosa, sobre todo en la inquietante y desasosegante primera parte que consigue tensar el hilo argumental hasta hacernos verosímil lo increíble (¿increíble?) del cruel experimento científico que centra su desarrollo.
La segunda parte me gustó claramente menos.
Larraquy me ha parecido un escritor que promete pero que aquí aun no cumple del todo. Aunque bien pudiera ser que me haya perdido algo entre el grupo de médicos nazis de la primera parte y los artistas (¿?) descerebrados de la segunda. No lo descarto.
Tiene momentos de una potente prosa, sobre todo en la inquietante y desasosegante primera parte que consigue tensar el hilo argumental hasta hacernos verosímil lo increíble (¿increíble?) del cruel experimento científico que centra su desarrollo.
La segunda parte me gustó claramente menos.
Larraquy me ha parecido un escritor que promete pero que aquí aun no cumple del todo. Aunque bien pudiera ser que me haya perdido algo entre el grupo de médicos nazis de la primera parte y los artistas (¿?) descerebrados de la segunda. No lo descarto.
August 16, 2018
Impressively creepy novel with an unusual structure - it's more like a novella and a short story set 100 years apart with some interconnections. The novella, set in an Argentinian mental ward in 1907, is the stronger of the two, with a narrative voice that stands out once "the experiment" gets going (I struggled in the first 10 or so pages). The mood and ambience are off the charts, and the detached violence and sexual drive of the lead kept me page turning. The short story, which is a first person account of an artist 100 years later, is creepier, but vague, with a supernaturalism that felt forced. But it's a quick, punchy read, and weirder than almost anything. For fans of the macabre.
December 20, 2024
That’s what we’ll do, because we have the means, and because we were first to think of it.
Comemadre translated by Heather Cleary (also translator of Sergio Chejfec) from Roque Larraquy's original has been longlisted for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award, and was also longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for translated literature.
It consists of two macabre novella length connected stories, the first 85 pages long set in a sanatorium in near to Buenos Aires in 1907, the second, shorter at just 50 pages, also based around Buenos Aires (but also internationally) and set in 2009.
The first is narrated by one of the Doctors, Quintana, his fellow medical staff as an odd bunch:
Doctor Papini trots toward me with his index finger to his lips in an appeal for silence. He has freckles and a habit of fondling the breasts of unconscious old ladies. He occasionally confides the details of his life to me, and I find his deliberate obscenity vaguely repulsive. He guides me to a small room.
“Do you know what’s in the morgue right now, Quintana?”
“The red wine you hid there on Tuesday.”
“No, that’s all gone. We had to give a few bottles to the cleaning lady to keep her quiet. Come with me.”
Papini opens a drawer and takes out an anthropometric instrument he bought on the Paseo de Julio and was never allowed to use in the sanatorium, on Ledesma’s orders. He is sweating, exophthalmic, and smells like lemon. This indicates that he is happy, or believes that he is happy. His personality is defined by this sort of thing.
and the contents of the morgue: a man who apparently killed his wife because she wouldn’t tell him what she was doing on the bidet (there is a small sub-plot about what women get up to there, or rather what their menfolk think they do) and who Doctor Papini believes, based on his anthropometric measurements, is representive of a sub-species of humanity.
This first story was, per the author (see below for source) inspired by a real-life advertisement for such a sanatorium from a 1907 copy of the then prestigious magazine Caras y Caretas:
The attentive reader might note an oddity in the advert - Edinburgh, England ? - and in this re-telling, where the advert is reproduced, that is a deliberate error.
The diseased individual travels to Temperley Sanatorium and asks for the cancer serum developed by Dr. Beard of the University of Edinburgh, in England. Edinburgh, however, is in Scotland: Mr. Allomby inserted this error to ward off knowledgeable or detail-oriented persons. Ledesma says that working with uneducated subjects will keep the accounts of death from being tainted by the inanities of polite speech. Those are his exact words.
Because in this story, the director of the facility, Ledesma, wants to carry out an experiment presumably inspired (although this isn't explicitly mentioned) by the infamous observations made in June 1905 by Beaurieux with the head of the guillotined criminal Henri Languille see e.g. https://guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html. In a secret known to Ledesma but also professional executioners:
It is a little-known fact among those outside the profession that the head remains conscious with full use of its faculties for nine seconds after being severed from the torso. Lifting the head, the executioner gives his victim one last, waning glimpse of the world. As such, he not only contravenes the very idea of punishment, he also turns the crowd into the spectacle. For the decapitated individual to remain lucid, certain rules must be observed:
a) He or she must be awake at the moment of decapitation. Observance of rule (a) is directly proportional to the individual’s courage.
b) He or she must face the blade; that is, he or she must face the heavens. This is not a metaphor for recovering one’s faith, but rather a practical consideration. Individuals who receive the blow on the backs of their necks are rendered unconscious by the impact.
c) Placement of the cleft. For men, below the Adam’s apple. For women, above the line of the rosary. Avoid cutting at an angle.
d) A boisterous crowd is preferred, to stimulate the decapitated individual.
Ledesma's proposed experiment involves first convincing the terminal cancer patient that unfortunately, largely due to their own failings or biological disposition, Dr. Beard's miracle serum has failed to work, their death is inevitable, but their life and death can be made meaningful by offering their body to medical science (the rather gruesome and pre-death nature of what is involved largely concealed at first, although Quintana has a contrary view that honesty may improve the results of both consent and the experiment).
And the aim of the experiment - to stimulate the heads of their patients with questions as to what they are experienced in the 9 seconds post their decapitation, and to record their words, to which the scientists involved impute an oracular significance:
If faith demands that each answer be an epiphany, then the Whole is not unlike this time, this space. Or perhaps our gaze has rested so intently on things that it’s taken on their form, their weight, their duration—immutably: one single habit, one continuous hat wrapping around heads, even across worlds. In either case, a cosmic disappointment. If intellectual honesty indicates, on the other hand, that waiting for an epiphany inherently means accepting failure, well then, there’s still time—not to abort the experiment, but rather to assign it a new goal. The next donor will separate the wheat from the chaff: some will cling to faith, others will not.
This part of the novel also contains a (fictional) botanical digression which gives the novel its title. We are told by Quintana:
Thompson Island, a small landmass in Tierra del Fuego, is the only natural habitat of comemadre, a plant with acicular leaves whose sap produces (in a leap between taxonomic kingdoms that warrants further study) microscopic animal larvae. These larvae devour the plant, leaving only tiny particles behind; the remains then spread to take root in the soil, and the process begins again. If the larvae are extracted under laboratory conditions, the plant grows unchecked until it can no longer support its own weight and dies without reproducing. The larvae, meanwhile, can easily survive in a liquid medium or hibernate indefinitely in the form of a black powder.
...
A few farmers in Tierra del Fuego have taken to planting comemadre as a measure against pests. It has been proven that rats love the taste of the plant and that they die within days of eating it, consumed from the inside out by the larvae.
Quintana suggest to the Director the use of the larvae, sourced by him a great cost (including a healthy mark-up in his favour), to dispose of the waste-products (i.e. headless bodies) of the experiments.
And the story plays out in a grisly, but morbidly intriguing fashion.
My review, like almost all I've read, focuses more on the first novella than the second, as the second, which was actually the original content on the novel, is rather less satisfying. It is narrated by a performance artist, in the form of his commentary on an unauthorised biography of himself:
What follows is her synopsis of me: I have a hand with four fingers; I lost the fifth. I have a body, which is my own, and a nonstandard head that cost me a lot of money. A museum in Copenhagen offered double that sum to cover me with plastic and put me on display when I die. Two Danish human rights organizations are suing the museum for promoting “a concept of the body as merchandise.” A lesbian collective had a sit-in at the entrance to the museum in solidarity with my right to put a price on my body, as is done with any art object.
Aquí su síntesis sobre mí: tengo una mano de cuatro dedos, el quinto se me perdió. Tengo un cuerpo que es mío, y una cabeza de perfil anormal que me costó mucho dinero. Un museo de Copenhague ofrece el doble por plastificarme y exponerme al público cuando muera. Dos asociaciones de derechos humanos de Dinamarca demandan al museo por estimular “una mirada del cuerpo como mercancía.” Un colectivo de lesbianas organiza una sentada en la puerta del museo, en solidaridad con el derecho de ponerle precio a mi cuer.
That the missing figure was severed as a performance art piece and the "nonstandard head" also another piece of art, rather sums up the again rather grisly nature of his art, which pushes boundaries in the same way as the experiments in the first half (the opening quote to my review features as a call-to-arms in both sections).
The two stories are at first completely unconnected but the great-grandson of Dr Quintana appears and one of his inheritances is the surviving specimens of comemadre, which prove to be easily able to be re-animated after 100 years with the addition of water, enabling the narrator to use their flesh-eating properties in another gruesome work of art.
Another, almost Oulipan link, which at first I didn't pick up, is that in the words of the translator- see source below):
My own list of the first 7 victims
1 "si"
(not sure)
2 [no record]
3 "Been better, the ceiling is really low"
(there is a reference in the 2009 section to high ceilings in the sanitorium)
4 "What did you do to my neck"; "I’m not sure"
(could apply to the 2nd head of a deformed baby who also features in the art in 2009)
5 [screams]
6 "I’d like some water"
(possibly a reference to the rehydration of the comemadre in 2009)
7 "There are people who don’t exist"
(not in 2009, but actually the opening words of novel)
This link feels both key to the overall novel but oddly under-realised.
Nevertheless a worthwhile novel - probably just outside the shortlist for me on the BTBA but definitely worth its longlisting. 4 stars.
Interview with author: https://believermag.com/logger/roque-...
Interview with the translator: http://www.latinamericanliteraturetod...
Comemadre translated by Heather Cleary (also translator of Sergio Chejfec) from Roque Larraquy's original has been longlisted for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award, and was also longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for translated literature.
It consists of two macabre novella length connected stories, the first 85 pages long set in a sanatorium in near to Buenos Aires in 1907, the second, shorter at just 50 pages, also based around Buenos Aires (but also internationally) and set in 2009.
The first is narrated by one of the Doctors, Quintana, his fellow medical staff as an odd bunch:
Doctor Papini trots toward me with his index finger to his lips in an appeal for silence. He has freckles and a habit of fondling the breasts of unconscious old ladies. He occasionally confides the details of his life to me, and I find his deliberate obscenity vaguely repulsive. He guides me to a small room.
“Do you know what’s in the morgue right now, Quintana?”
“The red wine you hid there on Tuesday.”
“No, that’s all gone. We had to give a few bottles to the cleaning lady to keep her quiet. Come with me.”
Papini opens a drawer and takes out an anthropometric instrument he bought on the Paseo de Julio and was never allowed to use in the sanatorium, on Ledesma’s orders. He is sweating, exophthalmic, and smells like lemon. This indicates that he is happy, or believes that he is happy. His personality is defined by this sort of thing.
and the contents of the morgue: a man who apparently killed his wife because she wouldn’t tell him what she was doing on the bidet (there is a small sub-plot about what women get up to there, or rather what their menfolk think they do) and who Doctor Papini believes, based on his anthropometric measurements, is representive of a sub-species of humanity.
This first story was, per the author (see below for source) inspired by a real-life advertisement for such a sanatorium from a 1907 copy of the then prestigious magazine Caras y Caretas:
The attentive reader might note an oddity in the advert - Edinburgh, England ? - and in this re-telling, where the advert is reproduced, that is a deliberate error.
The diseased individual travels to Temperley Sanatorium and asks for the cancer serum developed by Dr. Beard of the University of Edinburgh, in England. Edinburgh, however, is in Scotland: Mr. Allomby inserted this error to ward off knowledgeable or detail-oriented persons. Ledesma says that working with uneducated subjects will keep the accounts of death from being tainted by the inanities of polite speech. Those are his exact words.
Because in this story, the director of the facility, Ledesma, wants to carry out an experiment presumably inspired (although this isn't explicitly mentioned) by the infamous observations made in June 1905 by Beaurieux with the head of the guillotined criminal Henri Languille see e.g. https://guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html. In a secret known to Ledesma but also professional executioners:
It is a little-known fact among those outside the profession that the head remains conscious with full use of its faculties for nine seconds after being severed from the torso. Lifting the head, the executioner gives his victim one last, waning glimpse of the world. As such, he not only contravenes the very idea of punishment, he also turns the crowd into the spectacle. For the decapitated individual to remain lucid, certain rules must be observed:
a) He or she must be awake at the moment of decapitation. Observance of rule (a) is directly proportional to the individual’s courage.
b) He or she must face the blade; that is, he or she must face the heavens. This is not a metaphor for recovering one’s faith, but rather a practical consideration. Individuals who receive the blow on the backs of their necks are rendered unconscious by the impact.
c) Placement of the cleft. For men, below the Adam’s apple. For women, above the line of the rosary. Avoid cutting at an angle.
d) A boisterous crowd is preferred, to stimulate the decapitated individual.
Ledesma's proposed experiment involves first convincing the terminal cancer patient that unfortunately, largely due to their own failings or biological disposition, Dr. Beard's miracle serum has failed to work, their death is inevitable, but their life and death can be made meaningful by offering their body to medical science (the rather gruesome and pre-death nature of what is involved largely concealed at first, although Quintana has a contrary view that honesty may improve the results of both consent and the experiment).
And the aim of the experiment - to stimulate the heads of their patients with questions as to what they are experienced in the 9 seconds post their decapitation, and to record their words, to which the scientists involved impute an oracular significance:
If faith demands that each answer be an epiphany, then the Whole is not unlike this time, this space. Or perhaps our gaze has rested so intently on things that it’s taken on their form, their weight, their duration—immutably: one single habit, one continuous hat wrapping around heads, even across worlds. In either case, a cosmic disappointment. If intellectual honesty indicates, on the other hand, that waiting for an epiphany inherently means accepting failure, well then, there’s still time—not to abort the experiment, but rather to assign it a new goal. The next donor will separate the wheat from the chaff: some will cling to faith, others will not.
This part of the novel also contains a (fictional) botanical digression which gives the novel its title. We are told by Quintana:
Thompson Island, a small landmass in Tierra del Fuego, is the only natural habitat of comemadre, a plant with acicular leaves whose sap produces (in a leap between taxonomic kingdoms that warrants further study) microscopic animal larvae. These larvae devour the plant, leaving only tiny particles behind; the remains then spread to take root in the soil, and the process begins again. If the larvae are extracted under laboratory conditions, the plant grows unchecked until it can no longer support its own weight and dies without reproducing. The larvae, meanwhile, can easily survive in a liquid medium or hibernate indefinitely in the form of a black powder.
...
A few farmers in Tierra del Fuego have taken to planting comemadre as a measure against pests. It has been proven that rats love the taste of the plant and that they die within days of eating it, consumed from the inside out by the larvae.
Quintana suggest to the Director the use of the larvae, sourced by him a great cost (including a healthy mark-up in his favour), to dispose of the waste-products (i.e. headless bodies) of the experiments.
And the story plays out in a grisly, but morbidly intriguing fashion.
My review, like almost all I've read, focuses more on the first novella than the second, as the second, which was actually the original content on the novel, is rather less satisfying. It is narrated by a performance artist, in the form of his commentary on an unauthorised biography of himself:
What follows is her synopsis of me: I have a hand with four fingers; I lost the fifth. I have a body, which is my own, and a nonstandard head that cost me a lot of money. A museum in Copenhagen offered double that sum to cover me with plastic and put me on display when I die. Two Danish human rights organizations are suing the museum for promoting “a concept of the body as merchandise.” A lesbian collective had a sit-in at the entrance to the museum in solidarity with my right to put a price on my body, as is done with any art object.
Aquí su síntesis sobre mí: tengo una mano de cuatro dedos, el quinto se me perdió. Tengo un cuerpo que es mío, y una cabeza de perfil anormal que me costó mucho dinero. Un museo de Copenhague ofrece el doble por plastificarme y exponerme al público cuando muera. Dos asociaciones de derechos humanos de Dinamarca demandan al museo por estimular “una mirada del cuerpo como mercancía.” Un colectivo de lesbianas organiza una sentada en la puerta del museo, en solidaridad con el derecho de ponerle precio a mi cuer.
That the missing figure was severed as a performance art piece and the "nonstandard head" also another piece of art, rather sums up the again rather grisly nature of his art, which pushes boundaries in the same way as the experiments in the first half (the opening quote to my review features as a call-to-arms in both sections).
The two stories are at first completely unconnected but the great-grandson of Dr Quintana appears and one of his inheritances is the surviving specimens of comemadre, which prove to be easily able to be re-animated after 100 years with the addition of water, enabling the narrator to use their flesh-eating properties in another gruesome work of art.
Another, almost Oulipan link, which at first I didn't pick up, is that in the words of the translator- see source below):
the oracular utterances of the participants in [the] experiments are phrases taken from the text of the second part of the novel (some of these are central to the narrative, others are incidental)The odd thing, though, is that this doesn't seem to be followed to the letter. I'm indebted to this review of the excellent novel - https://michellepodsiedlik.wordpress.... - for trying to trace the listed utterances of the 8th to 19th severed heads, which are numbered and listed in the book, in the 2009 section, but some don't seem to appear.
My own list of the first 7 victims
1 "si"
(not sure)
2 [no record]
3 "Been better, the ceiling is really low"
(there is a reference in the 2009 section to high ceilings in the sanitorium)
4 "What did you do to my neck"; "I’m not sure"
(could apply to the 2nd head of a deformed baby who also features in the art in 2009)
5 [screams]
6 "I’d like some water"
(possibly a reference to the rehydration of the comemadre in 2009)
7 "There are people who don’t exist"
(not in 2009, but actually the opening words of novel)
This link feels both key to the overall novel but oddly under-realised.
Nevertheless a worthwhile novel - probably just outside the shortlist for me on the BTBA but definitely worth its longlisting. 4 stars.
Interview with author: https://believermag.com/logger/roque-...
Interview with the translator: http://www.latinamericanliteraturetod...
March 2, 2025
absolutely rivetingly absurd and dark and funny and intelligent. this ruled
May 4, 2018
Tómala, qué escritor tan brillante. Es algo frío, pero la historia y su manera de contarla son muy buenas. Se ve que va para largo el Larraquy, es lo primero que leo suyo, pero seguro viene más, tiene una voz muy clara y contundente, y aunque me gustó más la primera parte que la segunda, me gusta mucho esta voz.
August 16, 2024
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book.
I enjoyed the use of repetition to tie the 2 parts of the stories and the writing style was interesting. It's a book that one can really sit with and think about for a while which is also a plus.
I liked the second part a lot more than the first simply because it felt more complete.
Every character in this book is rather despicable in their own way and there is a lot of potentially triggering stuff which is treated as if it was entirely mundane (it's part of the point) and sometimes it got a little meh.
I enjoyed the use of repetition to tie the 2 parts of the stories and the writing style was interesting. It's a book that one can really sit with and think about for a while which is also a plus.
I liked the second part a lot more than the first simply because it felt more complete.
Every character in this book is rather despicable in their own way and there is a lot of potentially triggering stuff which is treated as if it was entirely mundane (it's part of the point) and sometimes it got a little meh.
April 17, 2023
Στα περίχωρα του Μπουένος Άιρες μια ομάδα γιατρών ή κάποιος πιο επίμονος επιστήμονας προσπαθεί να εξερευνήσει και να να ανακαλύψει το όριο μεταξύ ζωής και θανάτου.
Το σχέδιο περιλαμβάνει γκιλοτίνα σε ασθενείς που βρίσκονται στο τελικό στάδιο του καρκίνου.
Από την άλλη υπάρχει υπάρχει ένα ανθρωποφάγο φυτό που σκοτώνει με τις προνύμφες που παράγει σε άτακτο και περιοδικό χρόνο κάπου κοντά στα οκτώ δευτερόλεπτα.
Μητροφάγος.
Εκατό χρόνια μετά ένας καλλιτέχνης της avant-garde ξεπερνά τα όρια της τέχνης του σώματος.
Όριακό, γκροτέσκο, απεχθές, αληθινό, υπερβολικό, φρικτά αγωνιώδες μπροστά στο άγνωστο που δεν έχει εξερευνηθεί και ούτε πρόκειται.
Η επιλεκτικά αδύνατη κατανόηση του αγνώστου, το χάος των σωμάτων, το γένος των υπάρξεων, τα φύλα και τα γένη των ανθρώπων που προσπαθούν συνεχώς να πετύχουν μια ζωή ή μια κατανοητή παρεμβολή για να ζήσουν πέρα από αυτό που από πάντα προορίζεται για το ανθρωπίνως δυνατό, το γνωστό . Μια υπερπροσπάθεια ανίερης φρίκης και μπερδεμένων
βιοψυχολογικών ταυτοτήτων να βιώσουν αυτό που ξεπερνά το συνηθισμένο, το γνώριμο, το νόμιμο, το απλώς προορισμένο για εμάς χωρίς καν δυνατότητα να σκεφτούμε ή να προχωρήσουμε βήματα παραπέρα.
Στο άγνωστο, στο σκοτεινό , στο ανυπέρβλητο, στο φρικιαστικά διαφορετικό.
Μπορούμε μα εξαπατήσουμε τον θάνατο. Μπορούμε μα ζούμε και να επικοινωνούμε με τον θάνατο. Ποιος μεταβατικός, δέσμιος χώρος μεταξύ ζωής και θανάτου κρύβει το μυστικό και την απάντηση.
Ίσως τελικά να είναι πολύ απλό.
Για μα εξαπατήσεις την πεπατημένη του θανάτου και της κοινής ανθρώπινης μοίρας προς το αναπόφευκτο το ελιξίριο αυθεντικότητας είναι απλά να αφήσεις το στίγμα σου.
Να κανεις κάτι υπερβολικά βολικό ή αντισυμβατικά θεμελιωμένο από κρυφούς νόμους επιστήμης και τέχνης έτσι ώστε σιγουρεύεσαι με κάθε επιφύλαξη και πάλι πως κανείς δεν θα Σε ξεχάσει στο διηνεκές.
Δεν ενδείκνυται για όλα τα αναγνωστικά γούστα. Είναι στρεβλά σαγηνευτικό, τρελό, ανατριχιαστικό, μεγαλειώδες μάλλον για τους αρρωστημένους ( σαν και εμένα) τερατώδες και ψυκτικό μέχρι το μεδούλι.
Μητροφάγος.
Αποφασισμένο να σοκάρει το αναγνωστικό κοινό σε σημείο που πολλές φορές χάνει από λυρικότητα, πετυχημένη πρόζα και ανάπτυξη ολοκληρωμένων χαρακτήρων.
Συνιστάται αυστηρά η σκληρή αναγνωστική σας συναίνεση και ίσως και μια γονική παρέμβαση για τους πιο αναποφάσιστους.
Καλή ανάγνωση (ναι, καλά)
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.
Το σχέδιο περιλαμβάνει γκιλοτίνα σε ασθενείς που βρίσκονται στο τελικό στάδιο του καρκίνου.
Από την άλλη υπάρχει υπάρχει ένα ανθρωποφάγο φυτό που σκοτώνει με τις προνύμφες που παράγει σε άτακτο και περιοδικό χρόνο κάπου κοντά στα οκτώ δευτερόλεπτα.
Μητροφάγος.
Εκατό χρόνια μετά ένας καλλιτέχνης της avant-garde ξεπερνά τα όρια της τέχνης του σώματος.
Όριακό, γκροτέσκο, απεχθές, αληθινό, υπερβολικό, φρικτά αγωνιώδες μπροστά στο άγνωστο που δεν έχει εξερευνηθεί και ούτε πρόκειται.
Η επιλεκτικά αδύνατη κατανόηση του αγνώστου, το χάος των σωμάτων, το γένος των υπάρξεων, τα φύλα και τα γένη των ανθρώπων που προσπαθούν συνεχώς να πετύχουν μια ζωή ή μια κατανοητή παρεμβολή για να ζήσουν πέρα από αυτό που από πάντα προορίζεται για το ανθρωπίνως δυνατό, το γνωστό . Μια υπερπροσπάθεια ανίερης φρίκης και μπερδεμένων
βιοψυχολογικών ταυτοτήτων να βιώσουν αυτό που ξεπερνά το συνηθισμένο, το γνώριμο, το νόμιμο, το απλώς προορισμένο για εμάς χωρίς καν δυνατότητα να σκεφτούμε ή να προχωρήσουμε βήματα παραπέρα.
Στο άγνωστο, στο σκοτεινό , στο ανυπέρβλητο, στο φρικιαστικά διαφορετικό.
Μπορούμε μα εξαπατήσουμε τον θάνατο. Μπορούμε μα ζούμε και να επικοινωνούμε με τον θάνατο. Ποιος μεταβατικός, δέσμιος χώρος μεταξύ ζωής και θανάτου κρύβει το μυστικό και την απάντηση.
Ίσως τελικά να είναι πολύ απλό.
Για μα εξαπατήσεις την πεπατημένη του θανάτου και της κοινής ανθρώπινης μοίρας προς το αναπόφευκτο το ελιξίριο αυθεντικότητας είναι απλά να αφήσεις το στίγμα σου.
Να κανεις κάτι υπερβολικά βολικό ή αντισυμβατικά θεμελιωμένο από κρυφούς νόμους επιστήμης και τέχνης έτσι ώστε σιγουρεύεσαι με κάθε επιφύλαξη και πάλι πως κανείς δεν θα Σε ξεχάσει στο διηνεκές.
Δεν ενδείκνυται για όλα τα αναγνωστικά γούστα. Είναι στρεβλά σαγηνευτικό, τρελό, ανατριχιαστικό, μεγαλειώδες μάλλον για τους αρρωστημένους ( σαν και εμένα) τερατώδες και ψυκτικό μέχρι το μεδούλι.
Μητροφάγος.
Αποφασισμένο να σοκάρει το αναγνωστικό κοινό σε σημείο που πολλές φορές χάνει από λυρικότητα, πετυχημένη πρόζα και ανάπτυξη ολοκληρωμένων χαρακτήρων.
Συνιστάται αυστηρά η σκληρή αναγνωστική σας συναίνεση και ίσως και μια γονική παρέμβαση για τους πιο αναποφάσιστους.
Καλή ανάγνωση (ναι, καλά)
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.
December 30, 2024
کاش ذهن انسان قابلیت حذف اطلاعات داشت تا بتونم این کتاب رو ازش پاک کنم!
ایده نویسنده بسیار هوشمندانه و جالبه اما به بدترین روش ممکن ازش استفاده کرده تا خواننده با هر جملهای که میخونه پوکر فیس به شکاف دیوار خیره بشه و با خودش بگه عجب گیری افتادیم با این نویسنده احمق!
اما ایده حیف شده چه چیزی هست؟(فاقد اسپویل)
در سال 1907 جمعی از پزشکان برای انجام آزمایشی غیرقانونی و بدون بازگشت از بیماران سرطانی لاعلاج سؤاستفاده میکنند در حالی که خودشون اطلاع درستی از کم و کیف ماجرا ندارند. سرمایه گذاری برای کنکاش در جهان پس از مرگ دست به دامن پزشکان شده و با کمک اونها آزمایشی طراحی کرده تا فرد نیمهجان قبل از مرگ قطعی دنیایی که پیشرو داره رو توصیف کنه. به این صورت که بعد از قطع سر با گیوتین مرگ حتمی هست اما آنی نیست. سر بعد از جدا شدن چیزی در حدود نه ثانیه به حیاطش ادامه میده و اگر در این فرصت کوتاه متوفی که بین دو دنیا گیج شده بتونه چند کلمه از ظاهر جهان آخرت بیان کنه دروازه جدیدی به روی مرگ باز میشه!
پن: خواننده تیزبین ممکن هست به این فکر کنه که خب دستگاه صوتی انسان بدون وجود هوا کار نخواهد کرد و این آزمایش عملا غیرممکن خواهد بود. درسته ولی نویسنده یه جورایی با چسب نواری روی این مورد رو پوشونده و داستان رو پیش برده. هرچند که خیلی باب طبع من نبود.
داستان پردازی ضعیف
شخصیت پردازی ضعیف و مصنوعی
وجود روابط انسانی و عاطفی نامعقول و مضحک
نامشخص بودن وضعیت نویسنده با خودش
دیالوگ های عجیب و نامفهوم(تعداد اندکی که از زیر دست نویسنده قابل قبول خارج شده هم توسط مترجم سلاخی و نابود شده.)
وقایع درهم و غیرجمعپذیر
به هرجایی که از این کتاب نسبتا کوتاه نگاه میکنم چیزی برای دفاع پیدا نمیکنم جز ایدهای که قابلیت بالایی در بکارگیری داشت و رفت به زبالهدان تاریخ
فارغ از ضعف هایی که بالا یاد شد مترجم محترم هم درخور این کتاب عمل کرده و تا جایی که توان داشته از کیفیت کار کم کرده.
در جای جای کتاب ضعف های ترجمه مشهود هست.
جملات درهم و نامعلوم
جملاتی که کلمهای داخلش جا افتاده
جملاتی که دوبار ترجمه شده و به دو روش مختلف!
پانویس های نامفهوم و گمراه کننده
به نظر من که از این کتاب دوری کنید اگر سلیقهای منطبق با من دارید.
یازده دی صفرسه
ایده نویسنده بسیار هوشمندانه و جالبه اما به بدترین روش ممکن ازش استفاده کرده تا خواننده با هر جملهای که میخونه پوکر فیس به شکاف دیوار خیره بشه و با خودش بگه عجب گیری افتادیم با این نویسنده احمق!
اما ایده حیف شده چه چیزی هست؟(فاقد اسپویل)
در سال 1907 جمعی از پزشکان برای انجام آزمایشی غیرقانونی و بدون بازگشت از بیماران سرطانی لاعلاج سؤاستفاده میکنند در حالی که خودشون اطلاع درستی از کم و کیف ماجرا ندارند. سرمایه گذاری برای کنکاش در جهان پس از مرگ دست به دامن پزشکان شده و با کمک اونها آزمایشی طراحی کرده تا فرد نیمهجان قبل از مرگ قطعی دنیایی که پیشرو داره رو توصیف کنه. به این صورت که بعد از قطع سر با گیوتین مرگ حتمی هست اما آنی نیست. سر بعد از جدا شدن چیزی در حدود نه ثانیه به حیاطش ادامه میده و اگر در این فرصت کوتاه متوفی که بین دو دنیا گیج شده بتونه چند کلمه از ظاهر جهان آخرت بیان کنه دروازه جدیدی به روی مرگ باز میشه!
پن: خواننده تیزبین ممکن هست به این فکر کنه که خب دستگاه صوتی انسان بدون وجود هوا کار نخواهد کرد و این آزمایش عملا غیرممکن خواهد بود. درسته ولی نویسنده یه جورایی با چسب نواری روی این مورد رو پوشونده و داستان رو پیش برده. هرچند که خیلی باب طبع من نبود.
داستان پردازی ضعیف
شخصیت پردازی ضعیف و مصنوعی
وجود روابط انسانی و عاطفی نامعقول و مضحک
نامشخص بودن وضعیت نویسنده با خودش
دیالوگ های عجیب و نامفهوم(تعداد اندکی که از زیر دست نویسنده قابل قبول خارج شده هم توسط مترجم سلاخی و نابود شده.)
وقایع درهم و غیرجمعپذیر
به هرجایی که از این کتاب نسبتا کوتاه نگاه میکنم چیزی برای دفاع پیدا نمیکنم جز ایدهای که قابلیت بالایی در بکارگیری داشت و رفت به زبالهدان تاریخ
فارغ از ضعف هایی که بالا یاد شد مترجم محترم هم درخور این کتاب عمل کرده و تا جایی که توان داشته از کیفیت کار کم کرده.
در جای جای کتاب ضعف های ترجمه مشهود هست.
جملات درهم و نامعلوم
جملاتی که کلمهای داخلش جا افتاده
جملاتی که دوبار ترجمه شده و به دو روش مختلف!
پانویس های نامفهوم و گمراه کننده
به نظر من که از این کتاب دوری کنید اگر سلیقهای منطبق با من دارید.
یازده دی صفرسه
no
January 25, 2024Every time I opened the novel Comemadre and began to read, it felt like some big hulking horrible thing had just grabbed me by the wrist and wouldn't let go. I couldn't get away. Then I remembered. I could close this book. I could let it go. I could pick up Wind in the Willows and never think on this book again.
April 28, 2018
i'm not entirely sure what the fuck just happened, but, whatever you might say about roque larraquy's comemadre (la comemadre), you sure as hell will have something to say. a dizzying, macabre, yet ultimately deliriously delicious tale of medical testing, decapitations, botanically-born flesh-eating larvae, unrequited love, deformities, and extreme art, comemadre won't soon be easily forgotten (if ever it is). larraquy, an argentinean director who has also penned two books (comemadre being the first translated into english), is whirlwindishly creative and evidently possessed of a prodigious, if darkly tinged imagination.
two distinct narratives, ultimately linked yet set 102 years apart, combine to grotesque and lasting effect. larraquy writes fantastically and, however unlikely it may seem given its obsessive subjects, with considerable humor. the same unsettling, disquieting feeling one might be left with after engaging, say, georges bataille's the story of the eye or fellow argentinean author samanta schweblin's fever dream is present in spades. comemadre never flinches, however much its readers inevitably must. comemadre lures, bedevils, and ultimately enamors – distending reality (and decency) in the process. feral fiction at its finest, larraquy's comemadre is beach reading if you inexplicably find yourself marooned with piggy, jack, ralph, and the rest of golding's deserted island boys.
*translated from the spanish by heather cleary (chejfec's the dark and the planets, girondo's poems to read on a streetcar), former btba and pen translation award jurist
4.5 stars
two distinct narratives, ultimately linked yet set 102 years apart, combine to grotesque and lasting effect. larraquy writes fantastically and, however unlikely it may seem given its obsessive subjects, with considerable humor. the same unsettling, disquieting feeling one might be left with after engaging, say, georges bataille's the story of the eye or fellow argentinean author samanta schweblin's fever dream is present in spades. comemadre never flinches, however much its readers inevitably must. comemadre lures, bedevils, and ultimately enamors – distending reality (and decency) in the process. feral fiction at its finest, larraquy's comemadre is beach reading if you inexplicably find yourself marooned with piggy, jack, ralph, and the rest of golding's deserted island boys.
he falls into a bug-eyed silence. he thanks us for casting off the shackles of good manners in the name of scientific audacity and calls for a round of applause. for me. starting tomorrow, the entire sanatorium will dedicate itself to making my vision a reality.
*translated from the spanish by heather cleary (chejfec's the dark and the planets, girondo's poems to read on a streetcar), former btba and pen translation award jurist
4.5 stars
October 29, 2023
performance artists annoy me
September 17, 2022
La Comemadre consists of two parts which read like two independent novellas but are actually connected to each other in many ways. The first part is set in 1907 in a Buenos Aires clinic and focuses on a group of doctors (and one nurse that all of them admire) who attempt to carry out an ethically very controversial experiment with the use of a larvae-producing plant called “comemadre”, to get a glimpse at what happens after death. It is a dreadful imagination of scientists gone wrong, and the whole atmosphere of madness, of doctors who lost their direction is nicely executed.
The second part takes place about a century later and consists of a letter from an unnamed Argentine performance artist to a researcher writing his biography against his will. The artist is a wunderkind who has reached fame at a very early age and later found another artist who looks like his double and who has been fixated on our artist his whole life. The two of them collaborate in macabre art projects that push the limits of convention and taste, thus mirroring the behavior of the doctors who preceded them and prompting questions like what or who is science for, or what is art for? Is exploitation in their nature?
This is a very small book and although I thought I'd quickly finish it, I still needed to ponder on a lot and that made the read longer. Still, in the end, there are some questions that went unanswered for me; for instance, there are some connections between the two stories, the repetition of elements like phrenology, bidets, even some sentences that the subjects in the first experiments utter... I may re-read this book some time to see if it is me who is missing something or if these are random connections meant to hold the two stories together.
I was smitten by the style and language in the beginning but it kind of tired me towards the end and I needed to make a few pauses to collect my thoughts. It had a very concise, overpowering ring to it. I have read a translation and maybe that's the reason for that and also the reason for the main characters in both parts sounding same to me. But as I said, there may be a nuance that got lost.
All in all a cerebral, provocative and macabre reflection, I would recommend it if that sounds good to you.
The second part takes place about a century later and consists of a letter from an unnamed Argentine performance artist to a researcher writing his biography against his will. The artist is a wunderkind who has reached fame at a very early age and later found another artist who looks like his double and who has been fixated on our artist his whole life. The two of them collaborate in macabre art projects that push the limits of convention and taste, thus mirroring the behavior of the doctors who preceded them and prompting questions like what or who is science for, or what is art for? Is exploitation in their nature?
This is a very small book and although I thought I'd quickly finish it, I still needed to ponder on a lot and that made the read longer. Still, in the end, there are some questions that went unanswered for me; for instance, there are some connections between the two stories, the repetition of elements like phrenology, bidets, even some sentences that the subjects in the first experiments utter... I may re-read this book some time to see if it is me who is missing something or if these are random connections meant to hold the two stories together.
I was smitten by the style and language in the beginning but it kind of tired me towards the end and I needed to make a few pauses to collect my thoughts. It had a very concise, overpowering ring to it. I have read a translation and maybe that's the reason for that and also the reason for the main characters in both parts sounding same to me. But as I said, there may be a nuance that got lost.
All in all a cerebral, provocative and macabre reflection, I would recommend it if that sounds good to you.
November 24, 2018
Strange and off-beat novels interest me and this one is most definitely one of these.
The doctors in a sanatorium just outside Buenos Aires in 1907 are a lively group. They chase after a young nurse, and joke with their patients many of whom are terminally ill and have their last hopes pinned on a supposed cure from Edinburgh. What appears at first to be a comedic tale soon takes a very dark turn as the doctors come up with an experiment to test a theory of theirs, Larraquy with an nod (no pun intended...) to Poe’s M. Valdemar .
For its last third the novella jumps to 2009 where a young artist who favours macabre displays teams up with a contemporary. Between them they conceive a gruesome installation.
It’s all very Hammer, a dark horror story some daring laughs. The link between the two timelines is tenuous, but nonetheless this is a short read and whole lot of fun.
The doctors in a sanatorium just outside Buenos Aires in 1907 are a lively group. They chase after a young nurse, and joke with their patients many of whom are terminally ill and have their last hopes pinned on a supposed cure from Edinburgh. What appears at first to be a comedic tale soon takes a very dark turn as the doctors come up with an experiment to test a theory of theirs, Larraquy with an nod (no pun intended...) to Poe’s M. Valdemar .
For its last third the novella jumps to 2009 where a young artist who favours macabre displays teams up with a contemporary. Between them they conceive a gruesome installation.
It’s all very Hammer, a dark horror story some daring laughs. The link between the two timelines is tenuous, but nonetheless this is a short read and whole lot of fun.
January 10, 2024
Just finished this for the second time (original review from 2018 is below). It's still disconcertingly brilliant. (2023)
------------
Whoa.
There's definitely a horror aspect to much of it, but odd/bizarre horror (not scare you in a dark room horror). And amidst the horror, there are a few very, very darkly funny moments.
I read strange books & I can definitely say this is one of the strangest (& most intriguing) ones I've read in quite awhile.
Definitely recommended for those that can handle weird horror & oddness in general.
Kudos to the translator (Heather Cleary) & to Coffee House Press (an indie publishing house I like) for getting this to other audiences.
------------
Whoa.
There's definitely a horror aspect to much of it, but odd/bizarre horror (not scare you in a dark room horror). And amidst the horror, there are a few very, very darkly funny moments.
I read strange books & I can definitely say this is one of the strangest (& most intriguing) ones I've read in quite awhile.
Definitely recommended for those that can handle weird horror & oddness in general.
Kudos to the translator (Heather Cleary) & to Coffee House Press (an indie publishing house I like) for getting this to other audiences.
Read
March 11, 2019Elem ovako.
Prve dve trećine (dakle recimo osamdeset strana) Comemadrea tj. Majkoždera su briljantne. Retro, crnohumorno, groteskno ozbiljno razvijanje sulude premise (hajde da smrtno bolesnima odsecamo glave specijalnom giljotinom da bi nam opisali prvih devet sekundi života posle smrti!) uz mnogo detalja koji kao da su dignuti pravo iz one krasne bolesne fantastike s početka dvadesetog veka (recimo opsesija jednog lika bideima, gle čuda, lik se zove Papini, niko neće moći da kaže kako Laraki krije svoje uticaje).
A onda se desi sledeće: kompozicija knjige počne da imitira upravo tu glavu razdvojenu od tela koja brblja nešto sasvim deseto nego maločas. Tj. priča se naglo i užasno nezadovoljavajuće prekine uz neki pseudorasplet, usledi vremenski skok od sto godina i jedna beskrajno manje zanimljiva ali srećom i znatno kraća priča koja je navodno povezana s prethodnom. I dok poštujem autorovu hrabrost, moram da kažem kako druga priča niti obogaćuje niti razrešava prvu niti, bogami, sama za sebe ima neke posebne vrednosti. Jedino bih pomenula da marginalno koristi motiv koji je meni lično oduvek drag (šifra Enkvistov Pali anđeo ili, mnogo jednostavnije, Vejtsova pesma Poor Edward) ali nažalost i on zapne i ostane na simboličkom nivou.
Prve dve trećine (dakle recimo osamdeset strana) Comemadrea tj. Majkoždera su briljantne. Retro, crnohumorno, groteskno ozbiljno razvijanje sulude premise (hajde da smrtno bolesnima odsecamo glave specijalnom giljotinom da bi nam opisali prvih devet sekundi života posle smrti!) uz mnogo detalja koji kao da su dignuti pravo iz one krasne bolesne fantastike s početka dvadesetog veka (recimo opsesija jednog lika bideima, gle čuda, lik se zove Papini, niko neće moći da kaže kako Laraki krije svoje uticaje).
A onda se desi sledeće: kompozicija knjige počne da imitira upravo tu glavu razdvojenu od tela koja brblja nešto sasvim deseto nego maločas. Tj. priča se naglo i užasno nezadovoljavajuće prekine uz neki pseudorasplet, usledi vremenski skok od sto godina i jedna beskrajno manje zanimljiva ali srećom i znatno kraća priča koja je navodno povezana s prethodnom. I dok poštujem autorovu hrabrost, moram da kažem kako druga priča niti obogaćuje niti razrešava prvu niti, bogami, sama za sebe ima neke posebne vrednosti. Jedino bih pomenula da marginalno koristi motiv koji je meni lično oduvek drag (šifra Enkvistov Pali anđeo ili, mnogo jednostavnije, Vejtsova pesma Poor Edward) ali nažalost i on zapne i ostane na simboličkom nivou.
November 24, 2021
The first part of this novel was actually fascinating. It seemed to be a take on what Nazi scientists would be doing in Argentina after escaping Germany. A scientist decides to begin a clinical study cutting people's heads off and seeing if they speak to figure out anything about the afterlife. In order to get the participants, the hospital fakes a cancer miracle drug for terminally ill patients and thus in a highly unethical way tell them that the treatment did not work and would they want to donate their body to science (omitting the fact that the donation would occur prior to their death)
The second part follows an artist and it's really weird. I'm not really sure what I read or what point the story really served.
If it were up to me I would have just cut this short story to the first half.
read as part of spooky season haunted tales that hopefully keep me up till the witching hour
🕸 picture of dorian gray
🕸 we have always lived in the castle
🕸 rules for vanishing
🕸 dracula
🕸 dangers of smoking in bed
🕸 fever dream
🕸 dr.jekyll and mr.hyde
🕸 the houseguest and other stories
🕸 frankenstein in baghdad
🕸 the woman in black
🕸 carmilla
🕸 the collector
🕸 the only good indians
🕸 the black spider
🕸 to break a covenant
🕸 comemadre
The second part follows an artist and it's really weird. I'm not really sure what I read or what point the story really served.
If it were up to me I would have just cut this short story to the first half.
read as part of spooky season haunted tales that hopefully keep me up till the witching hour
🕸 picture of dorian gray
🕸 we have always lived in the castle
🕸 rules for vanishing
🕸 dracula
🕸 dangers of smoking in bed
🕸 fever dream
🕸 dr.jekyll and mr.hyde
🕸 the houseguest and other stories
🕸 frankenstein in baghdad
🕸 the woman in black
🕸 carmilla
🕸 the collector
🕸 the only good indians
🕸 the black spider
🕸 to break a covenant
🕸 comemadre
July 31, 2022
I'm not quite sure about how to review this own without giving anything away.
If you've ever watched a horror movie from the early 2000s, you have probably watched some about asylums haunted by patients that had been experimented with by mad doctors. Comemadre is comprised of two novellas that are interconnected and, at the core of it, there's a cancer hospital, a very human scientific curiosity to know what is after death, and immoral staff.
I feel this book is better if you approach it without knowing much about it. It's not gory or tries to depict any of the brutality that occurs. Rather, it shows how people convince themselves to do evil stuff out of curiosity or sympathy. I personally enjoy horror books where the real monsters are real people, and this book sort of felt like that at the beginning, but I ended up comprehending why they did this or that, and I was even curious at points.
So yeah, 4 stars. I thought about giving it 5 stars, but the narration confused me at times where I wasn't sure if the narrators were describing what was happening or just merely 'talking to themselves' (I only struggled with this in the first novella, though). Also, I wish we had had some closure or answers to 'some stuff', but I am pretty sure that's intentional and... ugh, I hate that I love it.
If you've ever watched a horror movie from the early 2000s, you have probably watched some about asylums haunted by patients that had been experimented with by mad doctors. Comemadre is comprised of two novellas that are interconnected and, at the core of it, there's a cancer hospital, a very human scientific curiosity to know what is after death, and immoral staff.
I feel this book is better if you approach it without knowing much about it. It's not gory or tries to depict any of the brutality that occurs. Rather, it shows how people convince themselves to do evil stuff out of curiosity or sympathy. I personally enjoy horror books where the real monsters are real people, and this book sort of felt like that at the beginning, but I ended up comprehending why they did this or that, and I was even curious at points.
So yeah, 4 stars. I thought about giving it 5 stars, but the narration confused me at times where I wasn't sure if the narrators were describing what was happening or just merely 'talking to themselves' (I only struggled with this in the first novella, though). Also, I wish we had had some closure or answers to 'some stuff', but I am pretty sure that's intentional and... ugh, I hate that I love it.
September 13, 2018
"At night we come up with daring plans that would change us completely, were they to become a reality. But these plans dissolve in the morning light, and we go back to being the same mediocrities as before, doggedly ruining our own lives."
Comemadre by Roque Larraquy, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary, is one of the most bizarre, darkly comic and fascinating books that I've read this year. This very short book, that you could probably read in one sitting, actually contains two storylines: the first part is set in 1907 in a sanatorium in Argentina, close to Buenos Aires, and follows a group of doctors that are conducting gruesome experiments in order to investigate the threshold between life and death, and the second part is set in 2007 and follows an avant-garde artist, and former child prodigy, that is ready to go to extreme lengths to push the boundaries of art, and to leave his mark on the World.
I hadn't heard much about this book and picked it up on a whim because I was drawn to the striking pink cover and the intriguing title, and this book did not disappoint. Although, in retrospect, I don't think I was prepared to find out what the title was referring to...*shudders*
From the very first pages, it became clear that this was going to be a wild ride. The author was very successful at creating a sense of dread and keeping me on the edge of my seat as I was reading the story. The book essentially explores the lengths that people will go in pursuit of their goals, and to peek behind the curtain at something mysterious and metaphysical.
While both of the sections were very interesting, I must admit that I was more engrossed in the first storyline following the group of doctors at the sanatorium. It was quite disturbing, yet morbidly fascinating, to read about their "scientific" methods, and the manipulative ways that some of the doctors tried to establish some kind of dominance over their colleagues either to advance their career or to impress a woman. This book contains some excellent examples of "toxic masculinity".
What stuck out to me most in the book was its tone; the narrative is a rare mix between the macabre and the darkly funny, and often makes you, as the reader, nervously chuckle at some of the scenes that you probably wouldn't normally consider as funny.
"This fellow killed his wife because she wouldn't tell him what she was doing on the bidet?"
"It's a metaphor, Quintana."
This is definitely not a book for people who are easily offended, or sensitive to scenes of violence. For fans of weird fiction, like Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, this is a must read.
November 28, 2025
بخش اول یک داستان بیمارگونه، تاریک، خلاقانه و جسور بود. ترکیبی از طنز سیاه، نقد علم، وسواسِ بدن و یک راویِ عجیبوغریب که آنقدر صدا و لحن دارد که بعد از خواندنش میمانی این آدم واقعاً بیمار است یا فقط تمام جهان را بیمار میبیند. فضای آسایشگاه، گفتوگوهای پزشکان، جنون علمیـاخلاقی، و آن آزمایش وحشتناک… همهچیز ریتم دارد، کشش دارد و مثل یک کابوسِ روشن مینشینَد روی ذهن.
اما بخش دوم به شکل واضح از کیفیت میافتد. بیشتر از اینکه ادامهٔ منطقی داستان باشد، یک برداشت هنریـمفهومی است که نه شخصیت میسازد، نه تعلیق دارد و نه حتی میتواند آن سیاهی هوشمند قسمت اول را تکرار کند. انگار نویسنده خواسته یک «انعکاس مدرن» از همان وسواسها بدهد، اما نتیجه بیشتر شبیه یک اتود تجربی است که به سختی با بخش اول گره میخورد و عملاً جذابیت داستانی ندارد.
اما بخش دوم به شکل واضح از کیفیت میافتد. بیشتر از اینکه ادامهٔ منطقی داستان باشد، یک برداشت هنریـمفهومی است که نه شخصیت میسازد، نه تعلیق دارد و نه حتی میتواند آن سیاهی هوشمند قسمت اول را تکرار کند. انگار نویسنده خواسته یک «انعکاس مدرن» از همان وسواسها بدهد، اما نتیجه بیشتر شبیه یک اتود تجربی است که به سختی با بخش اول گره میخورد و عملاً جذابیت داستانی ندارد.
May 19, 2022
«Η Μενέντες μού δίνει το μισθό σε ένα φάκελο. Η βασική πρόοδος στη σχέση μας είναι το πέρασμά της από την ενόχληση στην απόλυτη αδιαφορία. Το επόμενο σκαλοπάτι θα πρέπει να ’ναι ο έρωτας.»
«Η καλύτερη συμβουλή που έχω να σου δώσω για ένα ευχάριστο δείπνο με φίλους, Λίντα, είναι να μην τους πεις ποτέ πόσο άλλαξε την αντίληψή σου για τη ζωή η σχέση που έχεις με έναν working class lover τον οποίο γνώρισες πριν από μια βδομάδα σε ένα ακατανόμαστο μέρος. Δεν είναι απαραίτητο.»
«Η καλύτερη συμβουλή που έχω να σου δώσω για ένα ευχάριστο δείπνο με φίλους, Λίντα, είναι να μην τους πεις ποτέ πόσο άλλαξε την αντίληψή σου για τη ζωή η σχέση που έχεις με έναν working class lover τον οποίο γνώρισες πριν από μια βδομάδα σε ένα ακατανόμαστο μέρος. Δεν είναι απαραίτητο.»
May 2, 2025
‘I ask him what cheap brand of romanticism led him to view pain as a form of artistic honesty.’
Dare I trust pretty covers of (highly deceptive) bubblegum pink again? Oh, I’m not sure at all. Miri Yu’s Tokyo Ueno Station sharing the same shade of optimistic, adolescent joy, bursting with promising hues was just as sly. Larraquy’s novel is a fantastically and brilliantly written work perfumed with so much ‘absurdism’. Don’t think there was a ‘true’ or ‘main’ plot, but a cheeky few minor plots braided together. It did blend well together at the end which is always a satisfying experience for (most) readers; and I for one, do appreciate that kind of ending instead of a looser, messier sort. However, it doesn’t really matter in Larraquy’s novel (whether or not the stories relate to one another). I think it can be savoured separately, but also together? The way he had structured his novel felt almost like a literary flex, I must say. A very well-constructed, well-written novel. Haven’t I already mentioned that – yes, but I feel the need to emphasize. It’s certainly the kind of novel that one would appreciate more for the style rather than the plot, yet I can’t say it hasn’t got substance because there’s just so much of it. So much so that one can’t help but be like, ‘alright, that’s enough, thank you.’ A bit of an overload.
‘A Big Mac doesn’t taste the same in Beijing as it does in Toronto or Lisbon, but travelers believe in a universal flavor that takes them home in a single bite: they eat McDonald’s name-first. That’s what I want for myself. At twenty-two, on a government fellowship to study art, I realize that the doors my father was talking about aren’t found in minor galleries or by word of mouth; they aren’t in competitions or fellowships: they’re in having a name. My plan is to stamp mine on the forehead of a mainstream audience overlooked by the art world, to make it grow inward from the margin until it reaches the real consumers at their doorsteps. Everyone debates the ethics of images: matrons clucking over the crassness of the latest ass on the cover of some magazine, sports fans scrutinizing the photo of a foul to justify a free kick, children cracking open a medical textbook in search of deformities. My first piece needs to make people cringe, to be in poor taste.’
It’s very intense and darkly comic; Larraquy has no literary boundaries. Read with caution. Not for the easily offended. Kind of reminds me of Moshfegh if she was (more) politically inclined. But also, there’s a sense of a very meticulous form of storytelling which reminds me a lot of Wes Anderson’s films. Satirical to a certain extent – yet not in a way that feels like Larraquy’s advocating such and such. A cleverly composed work of literature; surely, Larraquy is very aware of what he’s doing – like a shameless playwright who takes pleasure in playing with the emotions of the audience. I prefer the first part of the novel more than the second/last. The latter was a bit too much for me to stomach/take in/digest. I’m in awe of how much control Larraquy is able to have over the writing of such a repulsive and revolting tale. Very impressed in every way. It’s not easy to deliver a story like such without getting either too self-indulgent or carried away – and rushing it – turning it into an ugly mess.
‘The bodies and their diseases belong to the patients, sure, but we’re the ones who have to smell their innards, and if things go badly, we’re the ones who’ll take the blame. If things go well, on the other hand, God gets all the credit.’
‘He is sweating, exophthalmic, and smells like lemon. This indicates that he is happy, or believes that he is happy. His personality is defined by this sort of thing.’
‘This fellow killed his wife because she wouldn’t tell him what she was doing on the bidet?’
I’ve not mentioned anything about the plot at all. Well that’s because the plot’s (if there is even a ‘true’ plot – I’d argue that there isn’t really one) hardly the highlight of the novel. What I find remarkable about Larraquy’s novel are the (surely intentional and precisely placed) bombs of extremely well-written lines scattered and sprinkled all over like sweet, rainbow confetti, and you just kind of want to savour every bit of it even if it doesn’t make much sense at all – even if they don’t play well with your personal taste. I suppose that makes Larraquy’s novel rather poetic? Definitely not in a Mishima/Woolf kind of way. I find it difficult to think of any author to compare him to, perhaps a bit of Pinter now that I’m thinking of it. Pinter could never manage such beautiful prose though; I believe that Pinter is more of a stubborn, old geezer who’s too comfortable with himself – constantly taking long baths in his tub of buttery, greasy pride, extravagantly.
‘She heard me. She saw me going through her things. She’s smoking in there, shut in the bathroom for her five minutes, because she knows I spy on her. In her smoky discretion, she seems to be saying, “You can still leave. We can pretend this never happened.’
‘Mr. Allomby will try to dazzle you with his red hair and his status. I hope you are the woman I hope you are. When he walks up to you and talks through his teeth at you, I want you to lift your chin as if to say, “What?” like he’d just asked you to manage a brothel. I trust you will.
Could my sense of urgency be robbing me of my style? I’d like to think you want a man with style.’
The first half of Larraquy’s novel is primarily set in a sanatorium where the doctors are self-proclaimed medical visionaries – but actually they’re simply dodgy as fuck. And they spend their time lusting after a certain ‘nurse’ working in the same sanatorium. This part of the novel is so fucking Wes Anderson it would be a massive shame if he never picks this up and turn it into some kind of film. Anyway, Anderson’s recent films have been slightly underwhelming – mediocre at best (in my own opinion, of course). I think the best and most well-done ‘scene’ in the first part of Larraquy’s novel is the bit where the protagonist was shuffling through the aforementioned nurse’s things – and at some point, he panicked and quickly imagined her in the next room waiting for him to be done with it. It’s obviously less beautiful when I summarise it like this, but the way it was composed was just so fucking cinematic (chef’s kisses).
‘The best advice I can offer…is to avoid any reference to how much your relationship with your working-class lover, the one you met a week earlier in an unmentionable place, has changed the way you see the world. There’s no need for it.
I fall in love with Sebastian in three days, just as he predicted, but love turns my head as soft as an old lady’s slipper, and I demand that he quit his job and find something more hygienic. I tell him that monogamy, like all artificial things, is absolutely necessary because man invents only what he needs. My aphorism leaves him speechless.’
‘Sebastian takes the story of my childhood lightly: I’m selling a tragedy, but he buys a vaudeville. He can’t stop laughing. I tell the story twice, but his reaction doesn’t change.’
Even though I do think the second half of Larraquy’s book is equally well-written (as the first part), I was shocked and grossed out – not excessively, but enough to make me stop reading and be like ‘what the fuck have I just read?’ My final rating for the book is highly influenced by how I felt – so essentially it’s the result of my most immediate emotions/reaction to the text. And since I haven’t fully processed all of it, I have to go with 4-stars. Vicariously traumatic (a slight overstatement, but if you read the entire book, you’ll know what I meant). The only way I can try to explain it is probably like – well – it feels like getting absolutely shitfaced and then accidentally chugging 5 litres of canola oil. Not pleasant at all (not like I’ve tried it but it’s not hard to imagine), and I doubt I’ll have the guts to read this novel again. But it doesn’t make me think any less of Larraquy; he’s undoubtedly a brilliant, brilliant writer. I have no more words. Read this only if you think you have the stomach for it. Otherwise, it might be sort of – nauseating for the less adventurous reader.
‘I sense the trap inherent to love and its by-products: give up being what you want, abandon your whims, offer an ear, a shoulder, a hand; offer yourself up entirely and piecemeal to sign on the romantic line, when it’s obviously impossible to love someone all the time. These concessions will be my payment when I’ve got you by the neck and have torn you a few new holes.’
‘A few days later, the groundskeeper’s shed catches fire again. The night shift observes the blaze, noting that bad luck tends to come in threes. Ledesma, more practical than intrigued, says we need to find the pyromaniac before he destroys something more expensive or harder to replace. The flames lap at the nearest tree. A delightful scent filters between our faces.’
‘I use the blazing wall to light a cigarette: as studied gestures go, it is by far the best I’ve ever made.’
‘You should remove the phrase “seed of his future talent” and the eight pages about the scandal with Damien Hirst. They’re awkward, both for me personally and for the dissertation.’
March 11, 2023
A unique narrative structure with creepy and fantastic plot.
January 9, 2024
Λοιπόν θα -προσπαθήσω να - είμαι σύντομη:
Το πρώτο μερος που διαδραματίζεται το 1907 παρουσιάζει μια ιδιαιτερότητα κι ένα ενδιαφέρον παρ ολη τη δυσκολία του κειμένου. Είναι ενας πυκνογραμμένος σουρρεαλισμός, στον κόσμο του οποίου αργήσεις ίσως λίγο να βουτήξεις, όταν όμως τα καταφέρεις να εναρμονιστείς με τις δονήσεις του θα βρεις μέσα εντυπωσιακά πραγματακια.
Το δεύτερο μέρος (2009) πώς να το θέσω; Είναι απλά μια παραφωνία
ένα λάθος
κι ενα μεγάλο ΟΧΙ.
Ένα ΓΙΑΤΊ
ενα wtf τέλος πάντων
Κι ένα άντε να τελειώνουμε
#γνωμη_μου
Τρια γενναιόδωρα αστέρια αν και ζοριστηκα να το τελειώσω, παλευοντας με την παρόρμησή μου να το πετάξω στο τζάκι - ίσως έπαιξε έναν ρόλο που την γλίτωσε το ότι δεν έχω τζάκι - και το έφτασα στο τέλος μόνο κ μόνο για να δω πού στον διάτανο ενώνονται οι δυο, πανάσχετες μεταξύ τους, ιστορίες.
Το πρώτο μερος που διαδραματίζεται το 1907 παρουσιάζει μια ιδιαιτερότητα κι ένα ενδιαφέρον παρ ολη τη δυσκολία του κειμένου. Είναι ενας πυκνογραμμένος σουρρεαλισμός, στον κόσμο του οποίου αργήσεις ίσως λίγο να βουτήξεις, όταν όμως τα καταφέρεις να εναρμονιστείς με τις δονήσεις του θα βρεις μέσα εντυπωσιακά πραγματακια.
Το δεύτερο μέρος (2009) πώς να το θέσω; Είναι απλά μια παραφωνία
ένα λάθος
κι ενα μεγάλο ΟΧΙ.
Ένα ΓΙΑΤΊ
ενα wtf τέλος πάντων
Κι ένα άντε να τελειώνουμε
#γνωμη_μου
Τρια γενναιόδωρα αστέρια αν και ζοριστηκα να το τελειώσω, παλευοντας με την παρόρμησή μου να το πετάξω στο τζάκι - ίσως έπαιξε έναν ρόλο που την γλίτωσε το ότι δεν έχω τζάκι - και το έφτασα στο τέλος μόνο κ μόνο για να δω πού στον διάτανο ενώνονται οι δυο, πανάσχετες μεταξύ τους, ιστορίες.
September 27, 2024
Unlike anything else I've read. So bold and unique. Where would we be without Latin American authors?
August 6, 2020
La verdad es que no sé muy bien cómo hablar de La comemadre.
Es una novela dividida en dos relatos diferenciados, aparentemente independientes. El primero de ellos nos habla de un grupo de médicos de comienzos del siglo XX que se embarcan en un experimento científico mediante el cual tendrán que engañar a pacientes de cáncer avanzado, ofreciéndoles una posible cura (ahí el engaño) que no surtirá efecto. En ese momento, y ante la inminencia del final, les pedirán que donen sus cabezas a la ciencia. Sí, sus cabezas. Porque han descubierto que cuando una cabeza es guillotinada tiene algo así como vida propia durante 9 segundos, y en ese lapso de tiempo intentarán descubrir la verdad universal.
Una locura, pero muy bien contada, muy perturbadora y largamente inquietante.
El segundo relato está situado a principios de siglo XXI, y en él encontramos a unos personajes que parecen capaces de todo por triunfar y ser reconocidos en el mundo del arte.
El cuerpo como ente que se puede intervenir, como deformación, como algo antinatural a veces (dedos amputados, manos sin cuerpo, niños de dos cabezas, cirugías para mimetizarse con otra persona). Y la obsesión cercana a la locura por intentar trascender a través de ello. Todo esto contado sin paños calientes, con una sequedad característica.
Tengo que decir que el primer relato me sumergió muchísimo más en esas profundidades que propone Larraquy, y creo que en el segundo algo me perdí, una llave, algún detalle que me abriera las puertas del misterio que sin duda se encuentra en las letras de este libro.
Lo que sí es cierto es que incomoda, y mucho, como cuando te cuenta que existen dos hermanos que, más allá de compartir apellidos, tienen el mismo nombre de pila.
Así que quedo con la sensación de no haber sido capaz de entrar del todo por esos pasadizos, pero también con la convicción de que nos encontramos ante un libro único que no es para todos los públicos.
Es una novela dividida en dos relatos diferenciados, aparentemente independientes. El primero de ellos nos habla de un grupo de médicos de comienzos del siglo XX que se embarcan en un experimento científico mediante el cual tendrán que engañar a pacientes de cáncer avanzado, ofreciéndoles una posible cura (ahí el engaño) que no surtirá efecto. En ese momento, y ante la inminencia del final, les pedirán que donen sus cabezas a la ciencia. Sí, sus cabezas. Porque han descubierto que cuando una cabeza es guillotinada tiene algo así como vida propia durante 9 segundos, y en ese lapso de tiempo intentarán descubrir la verdad universal.
Una locura, pero muy bien contada, muy perturbadora y largamente inquietante.
El segundo relato está situado a principios de siglo XXI, y en él encontramos a unos personajes que parecen capaces de todo por triunfar y ser reconocidos en el mundo del arte.
El cuerpo como ente que se puede intervenir, como deformación, como algo antinatural a veces (dedos amputados, manos sin cuerpo, niños de dos cabezas, cirugías para mimetizarse con otra persona). Y la obsesión cercana a la locura por intentar trascender a través de ello. Todo esto contado sin paños calientes, con una sequedad característica.
Tengo que decir que el primer relato me sumergió muchísimo más en esas profundidades que propone Larraquy, y creo que en el segundo algo me perdí, una llave, algún detalle que me abriera las puertas del misterio que sin duda se encuentra en las letras de este libro.
Lo que sí es cierto es que incomoda, y mucho, como cuando te cuenta que existen dos hermanos que, más allá de compartir apellidos, tienen el mismo nombre de pila.
Así que quedo con la sensación de no haber sido capaz de entrar del todo por esos pasadizos, pero también con la convicción de que nos encontramos ante un libro único que no es para todos los públicos.
December 3, 2018
4.5 stars
Wildly funny, brilliantly structured dark comedy that brings together the sanitarium and the experimental artist's studio in the most trenchant and richly satirical of ways. Saying too much would give away some of the joy of reading this antic and absurd yet never less than wholly convincing bizarro world meditation on image, identity, the afterlife, science, and art, so I'll just note that Larraquy is a masterful storyteller who manages to wring pathos out of the most ridiculous situations and insights out of the most grossly self-absorbed characters, all in a brief, breathless, rollicking tale so hard to put down that I felt I'd almost finished it before I started. Perhaps the most fun I've had reading a book this year.
Kudos to Heather Cleary for her bravura translation and to Coffee House Press for publishing this. How this book didn't make the short list for the 2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature prize is beyond me.
Wildly funny, brilliantly structured dark comedy that brings together the sanitarium and the experimental artist's studio in the most trenchant and richly satirical of ways. Saying too much would give away some of the joy of reading this antic and absurd yet never less than wholly convincing bizarro world meditation on image, identity, the afterlife, science, and art, so I'll just note that Larraquy is a masterful storyteller who manages to wring pathos out of the most ridiculous situations and insights out of the most grossly self-absorbed characters, all in a brief, breathless, rollicking tale so hard to put down that I felt I'd almost finished it before I started. Perhaps the most fun I've had reading a book this year.
Kudos to Heather Cleary for her bravura translation and to Coffee House Press for publishing this. How this book didn't make the short list for the 2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature prize is beyond me.
February 10, 2022
Me parece hasta ridículo que mientras algunas personas escriben sobre amor, otras inventan historias sobre cabezas que hablan después de ser decapitadas, niños con dos bocas y piernas siendo devoradas por larvas como parte de una exposición. El libro es fuerte, pero no tan fuerte. Sí tremendamente inusual. Bizarro, lleno de escepticismo y humor negro. La historia, eso sí, explota de originalidad. Es pitiá, pero completamente atrapante, sobre todo por su escritura maravillosa. No puedo dejar de insistir en lo mismo: me encanta cuando lo horrible y lo bello se encuentran en el mismo lugar.
Las dos historias, conectadas y reflejándose la una a la otra, revelan la perversión del mundo, y sobre todo, la del cuerpo. De pronto, mi cuerpo parece un monstruo que no me pertenece. Y no sé, luego de pasar por este tipo de libros, el resto de la literatura me parece tan aburrida como una película muda.
Las dos historias, conectadas y reflejándose la una a la otra, revelan la perversión del mundo, y sobre todo, la del cuerpo. De pronto, mi cuerpo parece un monstruo que no me pertenece. Y no sé, luego de pasar por este tipo de libros, el resto de la literatura me parece tan aburrida como una película muda.
July 28, 2023
الخط السردي والزمني الأول كان في غاية الجمال ، عجبني جداً جداً ، شخصيات مجنونة و تصرفات غريبة في مجتمع طبي يحاول الوصول إلي ماهية الموت ، الكثير من الأطباء المُختلفين عن بعضهم البعض في التفكير والاخلاق المهنية ، يُحاول أكثر من طبيب بينهم الفوز بقلب رئيسة التمريض
مواقف كوميدية بالكامل
و حتماً ستضحكك .
ولكن ما هي كيفية التصرف في المعضلات الاخلاقيه التي سوف يواجهونها ؟
الخط السردي والزمني الثاني لم يعجبني للأسف ، تطرق الكاتب لأشياء سيئة جداً جداً و أنقصت جودة العمل بالتأكيد .
الترجمة في غاية الجمال ومتعوب عليها جداً جداً ويكفي انها حفظت على روح النص الأصلي .
مواقف كوميدية بالكامل
و حتماً ستضحكك .
ولكن ما هي كيفية التصرف في المعضلات الاخلاقيه التي سوف يواجهونها ؟
الخط السردي والزمني الثاني لم يعجبني للأسف ، تطرق الكاتب لأشياء سيئة جداً جداً و أنقصت جودة العمل بالتأكيد .
الترجمة في غاية الجمال ومتعوب عليها جداً جداً ويكفي انها حفظت على روح النص الأصلي .
August 31, 2024
Absolutely deranged. A deliciously twisted ride.
February 21, 2025
A horrific work of genius. I have never read anything like this.
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