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Monterroso, Augusto. Complete Works and Other Stories. Trans. Edith Grossman. 1995. Review written by William Gillespie and broadcast on GLT radio, Normal, IL.
Complete Works and Other Stories is the first English translation of two collections of short stories by Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso. The first of these collections consists of 13 stories and essays ranging in length from a sentence to about 16 pages. The second consists of 32 stories and essays ranging in length from a sentence to about six pages. Altogether, two books under one cover consisting of 45 stories and essays in less than 150 pages. I was tempted to read the stories and essays in order from shortest to longest -- which worked out well, I found that the longest were the best -- but does it matter how you read it? Certainly not. If the author's parting story and essay, "Errata and Final Notice," can be considered the last word: "Except for the table of contents, which for unknown reasons comes last in Spanish, the book ends on this page, number 152, which does not mean it could not also begin here in a backward motion as useless and irrational as the one undertaken by the reader to reach this point." Useless? Irrational? I found the collection fantastic. These stories not only refer to different writers (such as Franz Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borges), but each appears to be written in a different style. So, on the one hand, these stories are all different, as if they were each written by a different person: they can be academic, sympathetic, frank or poetic. On the other hand, a lot of the writing by this writer is about, well, writers and writing. These are topics which may not interest everybody, but they are handled well by Monterroso. It is not necessary to have read Borges first, Monterroso may be the best introduction to him available. Although there is a variety of pleasures here, it is not like cable T.V. or a box of chocolates: a world of authors invites you to be a world of readers. In the strange intersection of Western European and South American literary traditions Monterroso's gems are cut. Yes but what are the stories about? They are about the rest of Schubert's unfinished symphony, a total eclipse of the sun, a dinosaur, Mr. Percy Taylor (a headhunter in the Amazon jungle), the ill-fated Swede Orest Hanson (the tallest man in the world), Leopoldo Ralón (who has spent years researching a story in which a dog fights a porcupine), Civilization and Progress, love, death, a cow, and flies. And flies. Many stories in Perpetual Motion concern flies. And each is prefaced with an epigram concerning... flies. It's kind of strange actually. To quote from the first story in the second book, which is called "Flies:" No true writer passes up the opportunity to dedicate a poem, a page, a paragraph, a line, to the fly; and if you are a writer who has not yet done so, I advise you to follow my lead and begin immediately; flies are the Eumenides, the Furies; they punish. They are the avengers of something, we don't know what, but you know they have pursued you on occasion and, as far as you can tell, will go on pursuing you forever. This prose combines beauty, intelligence, and strangeness with a sense of humor. If you are looking for a book that is new and classic, intelligent and funny, mysterious and academic, go get your bookstore to order Complete Works and Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso and set aside an hour to ten seconds a week to read it. It is less 34 stories and essays than it is a swarming mass of flies, and once you set them loose it will take weeks to swat them all. |