Las curas milagrosas del Doctor Aira (Biblioteca Era)

by César Aira

Book by Cesar Aira

Genres: Fiction, Novella, Literary Fiction, Latin American, Contemporary, Novels, Literature

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than eighty books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and now the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina’s ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, in 2002 he was short listed for the Rómulo Gallegos prize, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Just because there had not yet been any miracles, however, didn’t mean they couldn’t happen…’

We live in a world dominated by the media. In a world where nearly anyone can have a camera primed and ready in their pockets, where everything we say or do can be unearthed by digging around the internet, we are constantly under the threat of having any of our actions called to the table for mass public scrutiny. César Aira’s novel, The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira, written at the turn of the century as the internet media was rapidly booming, examines the shrinking place of miracles in a world where nearly anything can be scrutinized, compartmentalized, and rationalized while being broadcast to the masses. Aira, as author and narrator, unveils the plight of Dr. Aira, a producer of medical miracles, as he attempts to document his Miracle Cures while evading the skeptical eyes of the media controlled by his nemesis Dr. Actyn. In a fantastic, cyclical manner, Aira takes the reader on a highly abstract and metafictional examination of the Novel as a metaphor of miracles in a world where our reputation is foremost and fragile.

[T]exts withstand time only when they are associated with an author whose actions in life—of which their texts are the only tangible testimony—excite the curiosity of posterity.

One false step, one poor public display, can ruin an person forever. We place vast importance of a person’s personal reputation, which often overshadows their work. It only takes one ridiculous outburst from an actor or actress for the masses to forget the artist’s outstanding performances or only one embarrassing thread of personal detail has to surface can cause a public figures greatest works to be neglected. However, do the unsightly personal details really change the words written in a novel; the breathtaking stage delivery; the brushstrokes on a canvas? Aira, who is himself a bit shy of the public realm and rarely does interviews, fills his Miracle Cures with the public eye that is always watching and aching to witness the downfall of a fellow human. Dr. Aira’s nemesis will stop at nothing, resorting to highly elaborate play-acting in an attempt to catch a display of the ‘miracles’ on tape where they can be examines and stripped of their glory through (what he hopes to be) simple rationality and thusly destroying Dr. Aira’s glory. ‘Dr. Actyn had mobilized the mass media in his attempt to destroy his prestige.’ Whoever controls the media controls the context and therefor the message, and one can quickly understand why Aira would distrust the growing media that could ruin any artist with one out-of-context quotation, video clip or skewed representation.

The doctor’s attempts at writing his miracle cures echo author Aira’s own slim novels (as does the character’s name and hometown of Pringles). Aira attempts to usher us across the distinction between the particular and the general as he, like the doctor, doesn’t blatantly reveal his ideas, but offers us a window into them through a metaphoric representation, or ‘do-it-yourself-examples’. Dr. Aira’s miracles, written in numerous, short installments, were then veiled from scientific scrutiny.

he was a theoretician, one could almost say a “writer,” and the only thing that linked him to the Miracle Cures was a kind of metaphor…Hence, their miraculous charm would never coincide with any proof, and the underlying theory would be left untouched. Only by dint of useless miracles could one prevent a theory from degenerating into a dogma.

Much like the numerous, short novels by César Aira (this one being only 80pgs in length), Aira is able to create many particular stories that can be unpacked to unveil a general statement towards the world. In short, the miracle cure installments are a particular of the generalization of his literary projects.

The true genius of Aira is presented in the way the doctor’s miracles and literature coincide. For Dr. Aira, miracle are a work of art, much like how a novel is a work of art for César Aira. Miracles are only miracles when ‘the precise boundary between what was and was not a miracle had not yet been established.’ Through Actyn’s scrutiny, he could disenfranch any miracle by rationalizing what happened and transform the miraculous into a mere outlying—yet explainable—chunk of data for the masses to tear apart in their disillusioned fury. A novelist is under a similar scrutiny at all times, where a critic can undermine an entire book by illuminating an overlooked structural flaw. In Actyn’s world, there are no miracles, there is only cold science and reason.

Under these conditions, a miracle was simply impossible. But it could be created indirectly, through negation, by excluding from the world everything that was incongruent with it occurring.

Anything can occur if the forces that make it impossible are removed. Aira directs our attention to the way a novel works: any plot is possible if it is orchestrated to remove any obstacles of such-and-such event occurring. It’s as simple as putting a cellphone dead-zone into a horror plot to ensure the characters can’t simply call the police. Dr. Aira’s miracle cures (the explanation of which is quite incredible and well done, yet cannot be touched upon without ruining the novel and offering a premature explanation for his ‘labyrinthian past’ and somnambulistic nature) are reflective of the god-like abilities of an author to create and reshape reality to allow their stories to transpire. The author becomes a miracle worker of their own metaphysical universe, offering structured, realy-made, particular examples that hint at their generalizations.

The trick was to put into play the greatest of encyclopedias and to compile the relevant list from that. Who could do that? The customary response, the one that had been offered since oldest antiquity was: God. And to remain with that meant Miracles would have stayed within his jurisdiction. Dr. Aira’s originality was in postulating that man could do it, too.

Here’s an example that sort of fits, and a true story at that. The night I finished this short book, I had done a bit too much drinking and thinking and in some strange depressive and frustrated funk, decided to delete my Goodreads account. The second I clicked the ‘ok’ button, regret and grief exploded in me and I began cursing the world around me. Then I realized that I couldn’t navigate to any other page, or even go back to Goodreads to see the void where my reviews once were, and realized at the exact moment I clicked ‘ok’ (I rapidly went through it like ripping a band-aid off because I’m guessing I subconsciously knew I’d stop myself if I didn’t), the internet went out temporarily. In fact, by the time I got back inside from my shame-cigarette, the internet was back up and my account was still active because I had been disconnected when trying to destroy it. Jules from Pulp Fiction would call that an act of God, some would call it luck, some would state the statistic probability of losing service at that moment, some would call me a liar, etc. All I know, and all I care about, is that somehow I lost internet service microseconds before pulling the trigger. Had this been a novel I was writing, I would have shaped the reality of the novel to make the possibility of deactivation incongruous with the events that transpired, almost like playing God with my characters. In Aira’s world, Dr. Aira would have altered all the facts of reality, the ‘encyclopedia’ of reality, to ensure that the internet would have went down at that moment. This anecdote is rather irrelevant, but it felt poignant having occurred the same night as completing this book about miracles.

This was a fun romp through Aira’s metafictional mind and ensured that I would be reading far more of him in the future. While An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter resided in a more grounded reality while offering a glimpse into the abstract, Miracle Cures floats in the peripheries of abstraction and looks back at how it can reshape reality. It is this abstract look that really won me over, and I am excited to learn that most of his novels (or novellas, depending on how you want to label them) are in this same vein that almost borders on magical-realism (enough so to warrant mention, but not enough so that it should frighten away any readers who interpret magical-realism as a sort of literary cancer). This book is best served to those who are already acquainted with Aira, since much of the joy comes from drawing up the parallel’s between the authorial voice and character as well as the discussions on the Miracle Cure installments, however, it can be enjoyed by anyone. Aira elevates authors to a god-like status in this tale of dodging the media’s noose and reminds us all how easily a public image can be shattered, and the lengths our enemies will go to allow the public to enjoy watching another fall from grace.
4/5

‘The plausible had completely changed. Laughter was justified; happiness needed no other motive.’

[Glenn Russell]

The astonishing meets the quirky absurd. Novel as mind-boggling lollapalooza - and all contained within a mere 80 pages. Now that's some miracle cure! A literary elixir made for the quaffing penned by that most singular of author from Argentine - none other than César Aira.

Having read several other of the author's short novels (his books are usually less than 100 pages), I prepared myself for another signature César Aira delectable chocolate covered candy treat: whimsical jaunt on the outside, philosophic musing on the inside. Turns out, my expectations were exceeded: The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira is all that and much, much more.

The somewhat farcical, waggish storyline runs as follows: Dr. Aira doesn't himself perform miracle cures so much as he considers strategies and methodologies on the ways such miracle cures might be performed. But his old nemesis, the evil Dr. Actyn, head of a large hospital, is forever attempting to extract information from Dr. Aira in order to reveal to the world that all miracle cures are bogus (I couldn't help picturing Dr. Actyn as a comic book villain) -villain since it appears Dr. Actyn represents those stifling forces in the modern world suffocating nonrational, linear thinking.

As to the philosophic dimensions of the novel, César Aira is all about taking digressions and tangents so as to lead a reader to colorful vistas of imagination where reflection can expand, even explode. Accordingly, I'll shift to coupling my observations with specific quotes from the tale:

"His life was that of a half-distracted, half-attentive walker (half absent, half present) who by means of such alternation created his own continuity, that is to say, his style, or in other words and to close the circle, his life." ---------- Dr. Aira's medical condition, a form of somnambulism, causes him to frequently wake up on an unknown city street, a condition linked with his capacity to see past memories as they bubble up on their own. Of course, we can make the connection between a practitioner of medicine and a writer of books, perhaps even César Aira's own experience of daydreams and memories. And this is but the first step in linking Dr. Aira with creativity and the writing process at each point in the narrative.

"His first encounter with the world of paranormal medicine had been through dogs." ---------- The good doctor, age eight, recounts how a photographer dubbed "the Madman" devised a unique method for neutering male puppies: he administered a series of painful penicillin shots to the dog owners. Absurd, I know, but then Dr. Aira reports, shortly thereafter, there was a scandal: a headless Cocker Spaniel was born on a nearby farm and the headless dog lived on until adulthood. People wondered: If this happened with a dog, why couldn't it happen to a man or woman? Dr. Aira expatiates on the philosophical implications of such happenings going counter to reason and the laws of nature.

Let me pause here to note César Aira recounts his own writing method: to let the natural momentum of his stories take over and lead him forever onward to the next sentence, to the next page; in other words, rather than revising his writing, César allows "a constant flight forward." Is César using the miracle cures in his little novel to stand in for artistic inspiration? A key question to keep in mind while reading this short novel.

"There was no point in denying it. He still couldn't believe that the ambulance, after such a long time, after so many twists and turns, had actually reached him." --------- One of the more humorous sequences is an ambulance pulling up to Dr. Aira on the street and those inside beseeching him apply his miracle cure to save the dying man they are taking to the hospital. Dr. Aira hops in but wonders if the ambulance is yet another masquerade devised by evil Dr. Actyn. After all, the ambulance is traveling in a straight line and Dr. Aira is more inclined to the nonlinear, to circles and curves.

"The intensive use of hidden cameras in the last few years (in order to pull off all kinds of pranks, but also to catch corrupt officials, dishonest businessmen, tax evaders, and criminal infiltrators into the medical profession) required using up actors at a phenomenal rate, for they could never be employed a second time because of the risk of blowing their cover." ---------- One of the novel's ongoing themes is the intrusive presence of the mass media with their omnipresent cameras. Are you being filmed by a camera as you are reading this? If you are in a public space, you never know.

"Actyn had the necessary prestige and charisma to keep acquiring new adherents to his cause, which he called the cause of Reason and Decency." ---------- Ha! The cause of Reason and Decency sounds like a catchphrase for the FOX network. And the arch enemy in the cause for Reason and Decency? Why, of course, literary fiction of the caliber of César Aira.

"If he didn't do it now at fifty, he never would. One effect of his age was that he had lately begun to appreciate in all its magnitude the responsibility incumbent upon him as a creator of symbolic material." ----------- Perhaps not so coincidentally, César Aira wrote this novel hovering around age fifty, a prime time for any novelist, an age when experience intersects with energy.

"Therein lay the secret of the Cures, the secret he was aiming for, and therein lay the key to his entire enterprise: to give maximum visibility." ----------- Again, linking medicine with writing. One key for any writer of literature: to reach as wide an audience as possible.

"A miracle, in the event that once occurred, should mobilize all possible worlds, for there could not be a rupture in the chain of events in reality without the establishment of another chain and with it a different totality." --------- One prime reason to engage with literature and the arts: great art isn't an inferior mirror of everyday reality; rather, great art creates its own reality. To discover the profundity of this statement, I recommend treating yourself to The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira.


Argentine author César Aira, born 1949

[Irem 🍉 · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5
Komikti, sanırım. Oradan oraya atlayıp durduğu için 80 değil de 180 sayfa gibi hissettim.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much as I loved it, I don’t think The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira is a good jumping-off point for someone new to Aira. All of Aira’s short books are loads of fun, but sometimes that fun is had because you see how Aira is playing games that relate to books he’s already written. I think that’s the case here. If you love Aira, you’ll appreciate the fun going on here; if you don’t know him, you may actually be turned off, so strange is the meta-dialogue, and that would be a real shame. Then again, I say that as a devoted fan who doesn’t know how this book would read if I didn’t know Aira. Anyway, if you don’t know Aira, you owe it to yourself to read him, wherever you start.

I think in each of the reviews I’ve written about Aira, I’ve mentioned his writing technique. I’ll briefly mention it here again. Aira sits down everyday in one of the local cafés and writes a page and a half. When he’s done, he leaves, and his project the next day is to write another page and a half while attempting to find his way out of any problems he created for himself the day before. He claims he never revises. Also, and this is extremely interesting to me, he will place in his writing things that are going on around him in the café. For example, he tells of one instance when a bird flew in, and that bird found its way into his story: “Even if a priori it doesn’t relate to anything, a posteriori I make it relate.” What we get, then, is a book that can go anywhere. Fortunately, Aira sets himself up the task of making things fit and relate, so this isn’t just a random assortment from a mad mind. Aira trusts us as readers to go along on these experiments with him, and it pays off, so we trust him too.

All that said, The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira is, for me, one of his simpler books in terms of plot. We meet Dr. Aira when he finds himself waking up on an uknown street. He suffers from somnambulism, so this isn’t unheard of, as disorienting as it continues to be. He continues walking, reflecting on his blunders and the fear of future blunders.

"Time lifted him out of the shame of the past . . . It had already done so; it had already carried him into the present. Such blunders were cessations of time, where everything coagulated. They were mere memories, stored away in the most impregnable of safe boxes, one no stranger could open."

He is highly cautious. He doesn’t like making these blunders. Unfortunately for him, he has a nemesis named Actyn whose sole purpose in life is to expose Dr. Aira, a miracle worker, as a fraud. Actyn goes to all ends to do this. He’ll hire a large staff of actors, enact an elaborate death scene, all to get Dr. Aira to fail on camera. Dr. Aira is, consequently, suspicious of anyone’s request for a miracle cure, going so far as to walk away at the patient’s last breath when all physical signs say that person really is dying and then dead. He feels a mixture of shame and vindication when the dead person whispers “jackass” to him as he walks away.

To avoid getting caught by Actyn, Dr. Aira performs no miracle cures. In fact, he has never done one. It’s all theory, and he guards it so closely nothing can prove it wrong. Here is an example of how he reconciles this in his mind:

"What he imagined was the existence of a unique pair of truly “magic gloves,” made out of thick red leather with angora fur lining — hence very thick — that would have the property of giving the hands that wore them (but only while they were wearing them) the sublime piano-playing virtuosity of an Arrau or an Argerich . . . but they would be useless because one obviously cannot play the piano wearing gloves, and less so with such uncomfortable polar gloves. Hence, their miraculous charm would never coincide with any proof, and the underlying theory would be left untouched. Only by dint of useless miracles could one prevent a theory from degenerating into a dogma."

I love Aira.

The middle part of the novel is a rather extensive explanation of how Dr. Aira performs (or would perform) his miracle cures. In essence he creates miracles “indirectly indirectly, through negation, by excluding from the world everything that was incongruent with it occurring. If one wanted a dog to fly, all one had to do was separate out each and every fact, without exception, that was incompatible with a flying dog.” In the final part of the novel Dr. Aira finally agrees to perform a miracle, and it results in both success and disaster.

It’s very clever and a lot of fun, just on a surface level. But where it really starts paying of is when, as I mentioned above, we see how this relates to his other works and to the aesthetic theories he performs in each book. Dr. Aira is Aira; the miracle theories relate to Aira’s aesthetic theories. Obviously, the miracles themselves are Aira’s books.

[jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

embarking upon a newly translated césar aira novella is often as exciting an experience as the story itself. given that the argentine author is so astonishingly prolific, one never really knows quite what to expect from his fiction- save, of course, for the creativity and originality so common in his writing. with this, even when a particular aira story fails to be as captivating as the last one, it is nonetheless an enjoyable read.

the miracle cures of dr. aira (curas milagrosas del doctor aira) is the slim tale of a preternaturally gifted and beleaguered doctor constantly set upon by his colleague, detractor, and nemesis, dr. actyn. in the author's hometown of coronel pringles, dr. aira finds himself reluctant to share his impressive talent of late on account of the ongoing ridicule it seems to attract. whether the good doctor can be convinced to employ his curative skills at the risk of further humiliation may well determine the course of both his professional career and personal life.

among the many marvels of césar aira's fiction is the way in which he deposits the reader directly into his story, free from excessive or extraneous introduction and exposition. aira seems to trust his reader enough that this direct immersion into whatever world he has created (one that does not always conform precisely to reality) will not prove to be a hindrance. known as he is for writing directly and without revision, aira's novellas are thus marked by an unpolished quality that perhaps paradoxically lend his works a transcendent aesthetic, as if maybe he had indeed mapped out the entire story all along. this is not likely a strategy that would work well for most authors, but with aira it infuses his writing with a certain and distinctive charm. not knowing himself how a particular story may turn out as he is writing it, aira eliminates (or at least ought to) the latent tendency in a reader to attempt a guess at where the plot may be headed. the miracle cures of dr. aira, to this reader at least, is not aira's finest tale, yet it still somehow comes off as compulsory and delighting a work as any that have yet been translated into english.

he looked at the trees along josé bonifacio street, and it occurred to him that they were machines designed to crush the world until the atoms were released. that's how he felt, and this was the natural effect of theater. who said that lies lead to the truth, that fiction flows into reality? theater's misfortune was this definitive and irreversible dissolution. that was also its gravity, above and beyond the iridescent lightness of fiction.

*rendered from the spanish by katherine silver (the literary conference, castellanos moya, martín adán, daniel sada, et al.)

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yine saçma sapan bir Aira kitabı. (Burada iyi bir şey söylemeye çalışıyorum.) Yani ne diyeyim, süper uçuk. Daha önce hiç Aira okumadıysanız zırva gelebilecek ama kendisini biraz tanıyanların çok seveceği bir kitap bence bu. Çeşitli bilinç üstü yöntemlerle hastaları iyileştirebileceğini düşünen bir doktorun öyküsünü okuyoruz bu küçük novellada. Karakterin adının yazarın adıyla aynı olması elbette bir şeyler söylüyor; pek çok fikir ortaya atılabilir ama acaba Aira, mucize tedaviler derken kendi kitaplarını ve onlarda ortaya koyduğu bazı tuhaf teorileri mi kastediyor diye düşünüyor insan. Velhasıl, yüzeyinde eğlenceli ama bir yandan da tüm Airalar gibi o yüzeyin altında bir şeyler de anlatan, metafiziğe, estetiğe, sisteme dair örtülü teoriler / fikirler barındırıyor. Aira’nın büyülü gerçekçiliğe hem benzeyen hem benzemeyen, üstkurmacayı bolca kullandığı acayip ve nefis tarzına alışmakta olduğumu hissettirdi bana. Ki bu da ne güzel bir şey.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Argentinean author César Aira, The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira fills a similar role to Federico Fellini's film 8-1/2: it is an autobiographical attempt to justify his methods of artistic creation. In fact, the main character is named Dr. Aira, a man from Coronel Pringles (the city in which the author was born and raised), who is known for performing miracle cures. He has an enemy, a certain Dr. Actyn, who has it in for him and wants to discover the secret of his art for his own nefarious purposes.

The opening of this short novel tells us a lot about Cesar Aira and how he creates:

One day at dawn, Dr. Aira found himself walking down a tree-lined street in a Buenos Aires neighborhood. He suffered from a type of somnambulism, and it wasn't all that unusual for him to wake up on unknown streets, which he actually knew quite well because all of them were the same. His life was that of a half-distracted, half attentive walker (half absent, half present) who by means of such alternations created his own continuity, that is to say, his style, or in other words and to close the circle, his life; and so it would be until his life reached its end -- when he died.

In many ways, the rest of The Miracle Cures is a development or gloss on the opening paragraph. For Aira is perhaps the most approachable writer of our times who has managed to free himself from the godlike narrators of the Nineteenth Century novel. He is the anti-Trollope, the anti-Dickens, the anti-Tolstoy. He creates his own reality as he goes, and his stories reflect that.

There is no development as such in an Aira novel. It is a vector that keeps going forward, without ever wrapping all of its reality into one neat package for our delectation at the end. We start at Point A, and progress through Points B, C, D ... X, Y, Z until we reach the point that the story stops.

In such a seemingly structureless reality, what keeps us entertained? For one thing, Cesar Aira is very funny and a man with keen perceptions. Sometimes, he reminds me of Georges Perec, whose Life: A User's Manual has a similar quality, though without Aira's lightness. And lightness is a notable quality in all his works that I have read. Are there any obstacles? Aira merely leaps over them, shrugs, and smiles. And yet, in the end, we recognize that it has been a good trip.

Originally, I though The Seamstress and the Wind, which was the first Aira that I read, was his best novel; but now I place The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira on the same plateau.

[Rise]

César Aira is flooding the market with his books—at least the Spanish-reading market (the English translation market cannot catch up). His is a thorough and deliberate exercise in style: each novel a miraculous variation of each other. The words within a single work are often self-referential, both to the work and to Aira's entire oeuvre itself. Consider a passage in the middle of The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira.

The first thing was to begin publishing his installments of the Miracle Cures. First of all, obviously, he had to write them ... But at the same time he didn't need to write them because throughout the last few years he had filled an unbelievable number of notebooks with elaborations on his ideas; he had written so much that to write any more, on the same subject, was utterly impossible, even if he'd wanted to. Or better said, it was possible, very possible; it was what he had been doing year after year, in the constant "changing of ideas" that were his ideas. Continuing to write or continuing to think, which were the same, was equivalent to continuing to transform his ideas. That had been happening to him from the beginning, ever since his first idea.

It will not be a spoiler, for it is already obvious, if we say that Dr. Aira's "miracle cures" are also the real César Aira's extra-large quantity of publications. The miracle worker is the novelist himself, but the novelist is not trying to be subtle about it. That both of them share a name only indicates that one of them, or either of them, may be trying to pass himself off as the other.

Every other statement in that passage is a contradiction of the previous one (he had to write them ... he didn't need to write them; to write any more, on the same subject, was utterly impossible ... it was possible, very possible). He attributed this self-contradiction to his perpetual "changing of ideas" ("perpetual flux", he later said) or continuous transformation of ideas. He said it "had been happening ... from the beginning", from the get-go. Let us then consider here the beginning, the first paragraph of the novella.

One day at dawn, Dr. Aira found himself walking down a treelined street in a Buenos Aires neighborhood. He suffered from a type of somnambulism, and it wasn’t all that unusual for him to wake up on unknown streets, which he actually knew quite well because all of them were the same. His life was that of a half-distracted, half-attentive walker (half absent, half present) who by means of such alternations created his own continuity, that is to say, his style, or in other words and to close the circle, his life; and so it would be until his life reached its end—when he died. As he was approaching fifty, that endpoint, coming sooner or later, could occur at any moment.

Almost every other phrase or clause (unknown streets ... he actually knew quite well) is either a send-up or a comic reinforcement of the preceding. At the level of the sentence, Dr. Aira constantly revises his ideas, inverting the sense where possible.

His miracle cures are much sought after because they are "real" cures for the sick. However, his mortal enemy, Dr. Actyn (the name is quite meaningful), wants to expose the good doctor's methods and so keeps taunting him by setting up a trap for him one after another. That is partly the reason why Dr. Aira is wary of patients propositioning him.

One of the doctor's escapes from this paranoid state of affairs is writing. He decides to publish his miracle cures in installments. Hence, the implied comparison of dispensing miracle cures to novella-writing is so obvious it does not even need to be concealed.

This work, however, turns out to be not only an allegory for writing or the creative process but for the actual publishing process as well. The doctor worries too much about how to include diagrams and illustrations in his planned installments and what other materials to put in, say, an "autobiographical component". He seems to be more concerned about the additional "textual apparatus" and physicality of the text than the contents.

As opposed to other objects, texts withstand time only when they are associated with an author whose actions in life—of which their texts are the only tangible testimony—excite the curiosity of posterity. Such posthumous curiosity is created by a biography full of small, strange, inexplicable maneuvers, colored in with a flash of inventiveness that is always in action, always in a state of "happening".

With this passage as a clue to interpreting the writer's work (and vice versa, a la Varamo), some of his publishing quirks will no longer puzzle us. It partly explains why in Ema, la cautiva (1981), a very early "installment" of the real Aira, a letter is addressed to the "agreeable reader" at the back of the book. Or why the writer takes pains to bring out his installments in as many venues as possible, in as many small presses as possible, including one that bounds books in between cardboards.

More than the art of self-blurbing, more than self-advertising or trying to gain the world record for having the most number of ISBNs, Aira seems to be concerned with encapsulating the modes of production into his own books, dissolving the base into the superstructure, so to speak. More than the commercial and literary considerations of the texts/installments, the accretion of published texts is their concretion, a way to increase a writer's exposure and ubiquity, a way for the writer to actively participate in the merchandise of memory and posterity. Hence, the novels, in addition to being novels, function as their own textual apparatus as well.

And it's not the same César Aira production if there's none of the usual idiosyncratic exploration of the novelist's instantaneous (moment-by-moment) method of writing. The way Dr. Aira performs his "miracle cures" at the final section of the book is very instructive in this regard, at least in terms of understanding the novelist's writing and publishing process. Partly revealed is the secret mechanism behind the doctor and the novelist's careful selection of bibliographic (biographical, fictional) details, the material forces that go into book production.

The doctor's final miraculous act is a scene to behold: "He looked like Don Quixote attacking his invisible enemies". (His actuations are actually similar to that of Tom Cruise in the movie Minority Report [2002, as in this scene, spoiler alert].) Like the other installments in the series, this book provides another peek into the workings and theatrics of the Airaesque.

[Joni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraño rejunte de Aira. Tres novelas, tres apéndices.
Las curas milagrosas del Doctor Aira se podría resumir en una oración y una escena.
El resto es meditación filosófica existencialista y explicaciones científicas y o místicas muy poco probables que al menos a mí se me hizo muy largo.

Tilo es el Aira que más me gusta. Hay una historia simple, sin delirio, terrenal, observador.
En base a recuerdos y relatos hace una interesante observación de la irrupción del peronismo en el país en una novela con muchas facetas.

Fragmentos de un diario en Los Alpes es una bitácora mínima que está bien, por corta es efectiva.

Los apéndices son mini ensayos, observaciones literarias muy interesantes.

Si es por Tilo cinco estrellas de cabeza..

[Derian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mis libros favoritos de Aira son los que escribió en la década de los noventa porque tienen los mejores argumentos: el doctor Aira tiene que practicarle una cura milagrosa a un multimillonario de Puerto Madero.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Aira novella centres around Dr.Aira, a man who has, at the age of 50, withdrawn into himself, become preoccupied by his own thoughts and mortality even when he is in the company of others. He does however, have a reputation, and is called upon to intervene in two hopeless cases, terminally ill patients, using his 'Miracle Cures'. He is reluctant though, more intent on writing a memoir, with details of his cures. It’s a mid-life crisis type of novel, with it very clear in the Doctor’s chosen name that it is somewhat autobiographical. It’s no surprise also, that the exact nature of the ‘cures’ remain undefined.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a mind-game of the kind readers of Sherlock Holmes will be familiar with. Dr. Aira, the main (truly the only) character, is abducted in the first pages by men he suspects of being hired by his nemesis, Dr. Actyn. This Holmes/Moriarty framework conditions everything that happens in these brilliant novella. Instead of a detective driven by an all-consuming logic, however, Aira gives us a theorist of miracle cures, a brilliant eccentric (more eccentric than brilliant, maybe) whose flaring insight into the nature of reality reveals the true roots of miracles. Of course, "true" in a César Aira novel is always a provisional thing, and it proves to be so here. But the heady, sometimes hallucinatory journey to the story's "man behind the curtain" climax is deeply entertaining. It's the kind of entertainment you'll find yourself puzzling over weeks or months later with a feeling of sly delight, though you may never quite figure out why the author has given his own last name to his hapless hero.

A small sample from the book:

"One effect of his age was that he had lately begun to appreciate in all its magnitude the responsibility incumbent upon him as a creator of symbolic material (and who isn't creating this, in one way or another, all the time?). Because this material was virtually eternal: it traveled through time and shaped future thoughts. And not only thoughts but also everything that would be born from them. The future itself, the block of the future, was nothing more than what was enclosed in and exemplified by these forms that emerged from the present.

"Of course, the transformations the forms undergo during their voyage through time render their destinations fairly unpredictable. [...] The true cultivator of worlds sows his seeds in change itself, in the maelstrom."

[Gabriel Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cada nuevo acto de Aira, desde Las curas milagrosas sigue siendo imprevisible, manejando a la perfección esa máquina de ficcionar que devela siempre su propia y natural imperfección. La de Aira se convierte así en una literatura imperfecta, discontinua, pero al mismo tiempo brillante y genial a la hora de construir inverosímiles, fábulas y todo tipo de construcciones sobre asuntos cotidianos. En el aspecto, puro y duro, de la importancia de Las curas milagrosas en la obra de Aira, habría que marcarla como uno de sus momentos de alta trascendencia. Es el momento exacto en que expone el pánico al gran papelón, a la sensación de que la frontera entre el milagro y el ridículo es apenas imperceptible. La novela se divide en tres partes: una primera en la que el Dr. Aira se niega a exponer su milagro, por miedo al fracaso y ser expuesto públicamente al ridículo (el contexto es una sociedad hiper-paranoica, repleta de equipos audiovisuales que buscan generar cámaras ocultas y hacer trastabillar el secreto del Dr. Aira), una segunda parte donde discurre el contenido filosófico y conceptual de su gran obra (el llamado milagro, porque toda novela es en esencia un milagro), y una tercera parte donde termina cayendo en la trampa, o sea en la trama de su propio milagro, burlado por el Dr. Atcyn.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth Aira book read in a row, and while I enjoyed parts of it - "Such things to say to a tree!" is a good line early on - the premise is weak, and, to my taste, not as much fun is had with it. That said, even a less than stellar Aira novel has its joys, and there is much to find amusing in it. But compared to what came before it does suffer.

[Franziska (tintenklexxe) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Aira's writing, but thematically this one wasn't for me.

[Airácula · Rating 4 out of 5]

baia baia.
Si bien, empecemos con el hecho concreto, es un gran libro, lo que más me ha gustado es todo el discourse que trae en la plataforma.

Hay gente que lo ama y gente que lo detesta... y tiendo a simpatizar más con este segundo grupo. No porque odie el libro, es uno de los mejores jaja de Aira. Es porque, quienes dicen amarlo, alaban su "capacidad de abstracción", su "vuelo metafísico", su "puesta en evidencia de los medios de comunicación masiva", etc.

Recuerdo aproximar a una de mis profesoras de Literatura Alemana y comentarle lo que, aseguraba yo, era el fuerte tono homoerótico en Demian de Hesse, recuerdo la cara que hizo y me dijo, con suma educación, que estaba haciendo una lectura un poco superficial de la obra. El comentario no me fue agradable pero el tiempo y la relectura le dieron la razón.
Algo así pasa con este libro; Aira suele escribir sobre algo mientras escribe sobre otra cosa; me parecen interesantes las lecturas que asocian al personaje y al autor, crear y sufrir haciendo estas pequeñas curas y vivir bajo el escrutinio de otro (Dr./escritor) es, en cierta medida, una presunción válida. Tener miedo a hacer el ridículo, a que te capturen con las manos en la masa haciendo el ridículo.
Y es por eso mismo que tomarse al protagonista muy en serio es hacer una contralectura del libro.

Don César suele hacer énfasis en que le parece aburridísimo escribir a un personaje tonto como tonto y a uno inteligente como inteligente; en ese sentido un "aparato airano" recurrente es poner a los fanfarrones, estafadores y honestos tontos a hablar como si fuesen los pensadores más avezados. La gran ironía es que muchos lectores ven al personaje del Dr. Aira como un genio martirizado que lucha por cierta magia en el mundo real. La realidad, estimo yo, es que el Dr. Aira es una burla del autor para el autor. Y ese acto final de hacer el papelón funciona en dos niveles: El Dr Aira ha hecho un papelón con su cura y lo han grabado / El Autor Aira ha hecho un papelón con este libro y tú, querido lector, lo has presenciado.

Demás está decir por qué, digo, bastará con resaltar, en las últimas páginas, cuando el Dr. Aira está ejerciendo un ritual digno de las mejores novelas de ciencia ficción y, por qué no, hasta fantasía; se narra con un apego a esta realidad "mágica" (por poner un nombre) y, en realidad, el tipo está bailando y saltando y haciendo muecas como si la nariz le hubiese hecho un golpe de estado... parece que está en una dosis de tusi durísima jsjsjsjajajajajajaja. Y el narrador nos lo deja ver, el chiste no es un secreto, ni siquiera es sutil.
Creo que la confusión viene porque el autor Aira siente genuina pena por el condenado. Pero de que se está burlando del Dr. Aira se re mega está burlando del Dr. Aira.

Un libro, si me permiten la ligereza, metairano.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got an advance copy of this book at my first-ever literary world party in the New Directions offices during BEA 2012, but it languished around on my shelf for a while, mostly because I had never read (or previously even heard of) César Aira, but also because it's such a small book, and I had a big goal in my head to read some damn big books this year (see: previous review of Ulysses). Anyhow, time passes, as it does, and that's an important thing in this stupid little personal review, because time is at the heart of this little work of genius, human time, that is, and one day I came across a review of this little book on Bookslut called "Dr. Aira: In Defense of Short Books," written by Elvis Bego. It seems that Bego, like me, had never read Aira before, and was also impressed by the note in this book that the author has produced over SEVENTY other short novels and books of essays (wtf!), several of which have been published by the legendary New Directions.

Anyways, back to the book, it's short, and it's brilliant, and I can't really tell you what it's about, other than the Dr. Aira at the heart of the book (but he's not the narrator) is a performer of Miracle Cures (with capital letters) and is at war with himself (self-doubt's a sonofabitch) and his arch-nemesis Dr. Actyn, the chief of the hospital trying to prove Aira is a quack. So that's about the closest thing to a plot you're going to get. But this book really reminded me of Sergio Chejfec's My Two Worlds, especially in how the narrator uses time and space as layers in which all mankind and all history are constantly interacting, layers upon layers within layers, constantly moving, constantly working themselves into new spaces, new proportions, new distortions:

"In practical, everyday terms, time is constantly producing a mutation of the world. After one minute, even a hundredth of a second, the world is already different, though not different in the catalogue of possible worlds but rather a different possible-real one, which is the same, because it has the same degree of reality."

I should be on a short book kick. Especially by Argentinians obsessed with time and space, like Aira and Chejfec, and . . .

P.S. I read this novel over the course of a few hours in about three sittings as I was traveling to and after seeing the Carolina Ballet's production of the Nutcracker, which added another layer of mindfuckery to this reading. Talk about time and space in a weird orbit with one another, the Nutcracker is demented, as my wife calls it, "Clara's fucked-up fever dream of weird sexuality and candy."

[Susana Terciado · Rating 1 out of 5]

Viendo la calificación que tiene este libro seguramente sea yo que no le he cogido el punto por ningún sitio. Tiene un vocabulario taaan rebuscado que en vez de meterme en la historia me ha hecho rechinar y perderme continuamente.
Porque era para un reto, que sino lo abandono seguro.

[ed_ nuovo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bazen sevmeyi çok istersin ama olmaz. Bu da öyle bir kitaptı. #cesaraira latin edebiyatının yaşayan en üretken yazarlarından biri. Çok uzun bir bibliyografyaya sahip -yüzün üzerinde basılı eser. Modern latin edebiyatında şimdiden yerini sağlam tutan biri.

#drairanınmucizevitedavileri sürrealist bir stile kayan ama tam da orada durmayan, durağan denilebilecek bir momentuma sahip bir kitap. Birşey olacakmış hissiyle bitiyor. Ama olmuyor. Oldukça kişisel olduğunu düşündüğüm bazı söz dizimleri ve buluşları nedeniyle kendimi tam da veremedim okumaya. Yazarın eserlerini yazım ve basım sürecini anlatmak için böyle bir atmosfer yarattığını düşündürdü. Ancak keyif verdi mi bu çaba emin değilim. Uzun bir süre görüşeceğimizi sanmam aira.

"Elbette bu his belli bir yaşa özgü değildir. Her şey bireysel değişkenlere bağlıdır, ki zaten bütün değişkenler bireyseldir, çünkü yaşam denen şey onları biriktirmekten ibarettir."

Değişken konusunu derslerde çok anlattığımdan bu alıntıyı yaptım. Değişkenler değil ölçümler bireyseldir ama neyse :) buradan datascience a bağlamayayım o başka platformun tartışması.

#cesaraira
#lascurasmilagrosasdeldraira
#drairanınmucizevitedavileri
#canyayınları
#okumaklazım

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think i have codified exactly what it is that i like about many of the authors that fall into the "metaphysical" or "magical realism" swerve that i apparently only seem to read through translation. so things like this, amos tutuola, mayyybe rushdie. it is the clinical documentation of the miraculous - like if in the matrix instead of talking vague pseudo philocrap about how the spoon doesn't exist, you just have to understand everything in the universe that is not the spoon - the knife, the fork, the table - and then not bending those things in such and such a way. that is really cool and perhaps a patently obvious facet of magical realism that i just never actively acknowledged before due to being dumb

another cool thing is ending the book with, i.i.r.c., "Sincerely, Dr. Aira, Pringles" because pringles is an actual place but it can also mean the tube chips

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably the most philosophically dense of Aira's short little wonders I've read. I don't think more than maybe 5-6 pages of it are in anyway concerned with the 'plot' per se, and while I read Aira precisely for his gorgeous metaphysical reveries about every day life, about time and memory and space and simultaneity... somehow a book composed of nothing but those heady things just doesn't work for me.

If you've never read him before, I would say start with "An episode in the life of a landscape painter" or "The literary conference." Those books are all the more powerful for their more plot driven structure. This was just a bit too navel-gazing for me.

[Evan]

A bit too on the nose by the end for my taste. I like Aira’s explorations but this one felt less fun than THE CONVERSATION or THE LITERARY CONFERENCE. Metafiction can quickly become predictable once you know it’s an option for an author, and maybe this just felt too reliant on the obvious to effect me well. basically, it’s really obvious that the miracle cures are novels and that creating a new world will be bother his blunder and his success. I wonder if the 3rd section alone would’ve been more effective?

[Eric NYOB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three thoughts:

1. What is Aira writing about? It always seems: something other than what he is writing about. Somehow impossible to fix an interpretation. This makes his novels highly enjoyable or interesting.

2. Metaphysics! Does Aira get his (pseudo?) mathematics from logic or from reading Badiou or something like this?

3. Madness.

[Arlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

"..but if the Novel is good, if it is a work of art and not merely entertainment, it takes on the weight of reality as well." --

Surreal metafiction-- if there is such a genre put this at the top of the list.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one took a little more effort to get into for me (an odd thing to say about such a short book), but the final section is really remarkable. Aira is a writer who keeps my interest even if I don't love everything he does, because even when it doesn't quite work his stuff remains interesting.

[Zoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is very difficult to describe Cesar Aira's novels. You simply have to read them yourself. Be smarter than the Nobel Prize Committee and start reading Aira.

[Woraphol Thawornwaranon · Rating 4 out of 5]

คนชอบพูดถึงไอร่าในฐานะของนักด้นสด คือเขาไม่สนใจความสอดคล้องกลมกลืนหรือความสมเหตุสมผล เวลาเขียนแล้วตันไอร่าจะด้นไปเรื่อย เรื่องมันเลยไปออกอะไรไม่รู้ แถมเขียนจบแล้วก็จบเลย ไม่แก้ เราอยากลองสัมผัสงานไอร่าบ้างเลยหยิบเล่มนี้มา แล้วก็พบว่าพลาดมาก ในเรื่องนี้ไอร่าคงไม่มีอะไรให้ด้นเท่าไหร่เพราะเนื้อเรื่องมันมีอยู่สัก 20% ได้มั้ง ที่เหลือมันคือการนำเสนอแนวคิดทางการเขียนของไอร่าล้วนๆ โดยเฉพาะในบทที่สองที่ถ้าตัดออกมา ปรับแก้เล็กน้อย ก็ตีพิมพ์เป็นบทความเดี่ยวๆ ได้

ทีนี้เมื่อมันเป็นงานที่นำเสนอไอเดียเฉพาะตัว พอแนวคิดในการเขียนของเรากับเขามันต่างกัน การอ่านมันเลยกลายเป็นแค่รับรู้เฉยๆ แต่ถึงอย่างนั้นก็มีหลายท่อนเหมือนกันที่น่าสนใจ เช่นเรื่องของธรรมชาติของก้อนความคิดที่จะ Transform อยู่ตลอด จนจุดเริ่มต้นกับตอนจบอาจไม่เหมือนกัน หรือการกั้นเอาตัวแปรที่ทำให้ปาฏิหาริย์บางอย่างเกิดขึ้นไม่ได้ออกไปเพื่อให้มันเกิดขึ้น

จริงๆ ความสนุ���ของเรื่องมันมาในบทที่สาม เพราะไอร่าใช้คำว่า "การรักษาสุดปาฏิหาริย์" แทนคำว่า "การเขียน" (และไม่ใช่ในลักษณะของอุปลักษณ์) ดร. ไอร่าจึงต้องแสดงวิธีการรักษาที่ว่าให้ผู้อ่านเห็น แต่ทำยังไงการเขียนนิยายถึงรักษามะเร็งได้? คือแน่นอนว่ามันไม่มีการรักษาจริงๆ หรอก แต่การอ่านไอร่าสาธยายไอเดียเรื่อง "การสร้างปาฏิหาริย์" โดยมีดร. ไอร่าแสดงไอเดียที่ว่าอย่างเป็นรูปธรรม เป็นอะไรที่บ้าและอ่านเพลินดี

[Merve Büker]

Arjantinli yazar Cesar Aira ile ikinci buluşmamız Dr.Aira’nın Mucizevi Tedavileri. Yazarın zihin dünyası öyle farklı ki elinize aldığınız her metinde ‘ben ne okuyorum’ sorusunu sormak zorunda kalıyorsunuz. Farklı metinler okumak isteyenler için birebir.

Kitap doktorumuzun zihin dünyasında geçmiş ve şu an arasındaki gezinmelerle açılıyor. Ne anlatıldığına dair bir fikrimizin olmadığı satırlar hızlıca geçiyor ve geliyoruz başkarakterimizin ana gayesine: Mucizevi tedaviler içeren kitabını basılı hale getirmek. Doktorumuz hastaların alternatifin de ötesinde bazı tedavi yöntemleri ile iyileştirilebileceğine inanıyor. Ve bu yöntemleri kitaplaştırmak istiyor. Ama ne istemek, ne arzu, ne inanmışlık..

Kitabı çok sevdim. Özellikle finali ile ters köşe oldum. İlk okuduğum kitabı olan Nasıl Rahibe Oldum’un finalinde de ağzım açık kalmıştı. Yine bir şaşırma eşliğinde bitirdim bu kitabı da.

Metin herkese hitap etmeyecektir. Konfor alanından çıkabilen ve biraz deli işi bir şeyler okumak isteyen okurlar mutlaka yazara bakmalılar.

“Bir mucize, gerçekleştiği takdirde, olası bütün dünyaları harekete geçirmeliydi, zira gerçeklik zincirinin kırılması, başka, bambaşka bir bütünlük zinciri tesis edilmedikçe mümkün olamazdı.”

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que se sequen todos los árboles de Buenos Aires.

[Misch]

this is the most fishsauce book ive ever read