The Absolute

by Daniel Guebel, Jessica Sequeira (Translator)

A provocative multigenerational exploration of creative genius, madness, and family relationships. With the ambition and density of style of Vladimir Nabokov or Olga Tokarczuk, this is a story both profound and handled with a light touch.

The Absolute is a sprawling historical novel about the Deliuskin-Scriabin family, made up of six generations of geniuses and madmen. Beginning in the mid-18th century in Russia, across Europe and ending in late 20th-century Argentina, the characters’ lives play out in different branches of art, politics and science in such radical ways that they transform the world and its reality. The narrator’s ancestor, Frantisek Deliuskin, invents a new form of music in the 18th century; his son, Andrei Deliuskin, makes some marginal annotations to the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola that are later interpreted by Lenin as an instruction manual to carry out the Russian Revolution of 1917; Esau Deliuskin, following the course of his father, creates a socialist utopian society; and down through the generations to the narrator, whose creation takes him back in time and space to the moment of the Big Bang.

The Absolute is a monumental work about the creation of art and about family, about spiritual traditions and about throwing oneself into the world not to capture life but to create it, in and through words.

Genres: Fiction

455 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2016

About the author

Daniel Guebel nació en Buenos Aires. Es escritor, periodista, guionista de cine y autor de las obras teatrales Adiós Mein Führer, Tres obras para desesperar, La patria peronista y Padre y coautor junto a Sergio Bizzio de Dos obras ordinarias (que reune "La China" y "El Amor"). Publicó también las novelas Arnulfo o los infortunios de un príncipe, La perla del emperador, Los elementales, Matilde, Cuerpo cristiano, Nina, El terrorista, El perseguido, La vida por Perón, El día feliz de Charlie Feiling (con Sergio Bizzio), Carrera y Fracassi, Derrumbe, El caso Voynich, Mis escritores muertos, Ella, Las mujeres que amé, y los libros de cuentos El ser querido, Los padres de Sherezade, La carne de Evita y Genios destrozados (tomos 1 y 2). Actualmente, trabaja como editor de libros de investigación periodística y colabora en distintos medios de comunicación.

Reviews

[Sebastian Uribe Díaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin temor a proclamarla como obra maestra de esta década. Vaya viaje que uno se mete al leer este libro de más de 550 páginas. Aún sigo procesando ese final a lo 2001: Odisea del Espacio. Ojalá pueda hacerle una digna reseña pronto

[Roberto Zreb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Una pérdida de tiempo.

[Helena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me embole y ya me queda cada vez menos tiempo para embolarme. Nada de tempo diría.

[Damián Lima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lejos, una de las mejores novelas que leí en mi vida, y digo esto después de mucho pensar si debería o no decir la mejor de todas. Resulta difícil reseñar una obra de tal magnitud y ambición en unas pocas líneas. Como lo dice el título –referencia a lo cosmológico, lo teológico, pero también a lo musical–, Guebel construye una obra majestuosa que intenta abarcarlo todo: un recorrido por la historia de seis generaciones de genios enloquecidos, desde comienzos del siglo XIX hasta mediados del XX –o desde el origen del Universo hasta el fin de la existencia– que aborda temas como la música, la composición, la historia, la política, las revoluciones, la filosofía, la mística, la religión, la matemática, la astronomía, los viajes en el tiempo, y un absoluto infinito que atraviesa cada una de las páginas y cada una de las historias. Todo esto sosteniendo, de principio a fin, una prosa exquisita, elaborada, cuidada, una escritura de un nivel altísimo, como la que sabía crear Borges en sus cuentos, pero que Guebel sostiene, sin respiro y sin descanso, durante 600 páginas maravillosas. Una lectura desafiante, intensa, dificultosa y profundamente intelectual. Por ahora, la mejor y más genial novela de Guebel; en un futuro no muy lejano, una de las obras maestras de nuestra literatura.

[Arthur Dal Ponte Santana · Rating 5 out of 5]

É interessante demais como o Guebel consegue trabalhar o desenvolvimento dos personagens, ou pelo menos uma certa forma de relação entre eles, por meio de uma temática mística/cósmica. Por vezes intimista, por vezes megalomaníaco, o livro é um tour de force muito bem construído, que oscila temática e narrativamente em torno dessa ideia, sabidamente tão complexa e do limiar, que é a ideia de gênio.

[Carl Korn · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointing read. Guebel may be a great author, but reading this made my brain hurt. Too many rambling asides, theorems, discourses etc. that it made the plot -- albeit a creative one -- generations of family genius -- difficult to follow. I only finished The Absolute because I was on a long, international trip and needed something to read.

[Luis E. Campagnoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Com a ponta do dedo presa na ratoeira do mercado editorial, tentei indicar este livro para publicação no Brasil. Infelizmente, não consegui, mas, segundo e-mail da agente literária, outra editora daqui fez uma oferta para adquirir os direitos de publicá-lo. Fico contente, então, que em breve os brasileiros terão oportunidade de ler, se divertir e se modelar com romance tão perspicaz.
É uma pena que o comércio de livros dentro da América Latina não nos permita comprar fácil livros em espanhol. El absoluto, tive que mandar trazer da Argentina através de minha amiga Eliška, que passava por Buenos Aires em direção a São Paulo. Não fosse ela, teria que importar o livro por R$150 com previsão de entrega a perder de vista. Não tendo quem me trazer do México outro livro que andei namorando, gastei outra pequena fortuna e nem sei quando terei em mãos a história dos espanhóis que invadiram o império asteca e, depois, penaram, morrendo por dele querer sair, sem êxito ao que parece. Além do mais, convenhamos, quem lê em português lê em espanhol. Não sem problemas em nenhuma das duas línguas, claro.

[Taylor Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intellectual exercise, Guebel gleefully seeks to capture the Hegelian concept of “The Absolute”, taking readers on a dizzying ride across genre, history, and narrativity. He toes the line between madness and genius, weaving in esotericism, Christian mysticism, eroticism, philosophical, political and cosmological theory; culminating in a work that is hard to distill into a single paragraph review. The power games of the warden and Esau as microcosm of cyclical oppressor-oppressed relationship were a particular highlight for me, likely due to that portion stemming from Kafka’s “The Trial” if I had to guess. I don’t think that this book will appeal to many readers, but it certainly appealed to me.

[Alberto de Jolocho · Rating 4 out of 5]

El dominio del castellano escrito sigue obrando sus prodigios. Y es un consuelo.

[Lisa]

Like his characters-madman or genius? Too intense to follow. Each page a challenge.

[Cherish Behrendt · Rating 1 out of 5]

???

[Ivo Marinich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sufrida lectura. El entusiasmo se apaga rápido, como una mecha. Lo abandoné en honor a mi tiempo.

[Anthony Immergluck · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm surprised to see how well-reviewed this book has been. I read it for a book club, but I wouldn't have finished it otherwise. It tells an impossibly complex story of multiple generations of self-proclaimed geniuses pursuing a variety of mad follies and falling short. Their exploits are often bawdy and absurd, and they have a Forrest Gump-style habit of bumping into and influencing major historical figures.

There are plenty of wonderful ideas and vignettes throughout this novel, but they simply don't have room to breathe. Single pages will cover years at a time. Every time something compelled me, the author moved on briskly to something else. This book is so dense with "stuff" that nothing really stands out. It loses any sense of rhythm or intrigue in its desperation to cram in new layers of complexity. It feels like a million paragraph-long summaries of other, smaller books.

The obvious inspirations, I'd say, are Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Miguel de Cervantes, all of whom I love. The difference is that those writers were hysterically funny and deeply engaged with human feeling. Guebel has taken cues from their playful use of alternate history, arcane knowledge, and opulent detail, but he's left behind the emotion.

[Brian Grover · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guebel is a popular Argentinean author, this novel won some awards in his native country when it was written in the mid 2010s. It's the story of several generations of a family of eccentric geniuses. I didn't care for it - it felt like I was reading a bad, more boring version of a Tom Robbins book. There's a small section towards the end of the book that I enjoyed, which made me think that it's possible I'd enjoy something else of Guebel's more than this, but generally this was a chore that took up too much valuable reading time.

[Javier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una obra maestra. Son de esos libros que no olvidás más. Y cuando los recordás sentís ese sabor de placer.