Niña - 24 March 2024

 

Of Argentine autor César Aira my grandmother would have said, “En su casa lo conocen,” or “They know who he is at home.” Somehow this author, still alive, escaped my discovery of him.

In this first novel, La Princesa Primavera, of his that I finished today I must state that it is unique. It has only one chapter and it runs to about 206 pages so it is, technically, a novella.

While I will not give out the plot, the novel is about a fake princes who lives on an island off Panama who translates bad romantic novels from French and English into Spanish. Because Aira has been a translator there is some autobiography in this.

And here is the wonder of the protagonists besides the princess: Toscanini’s daughter, Horowitz’s mummy, a gay Frenchman, a small Christmas tree and an ice cream cone (both talk), a blind sheep, and a handsome young man called Picnic. There is an ominous black battleship parked near the island whose captan is called Mr. Winter,

Where am I right now after reading this novel? I feel absolutely alive in spite of my grief for Rosemary. There is this excitement of planning for tomorrow. I feel like a dog sticking his head out the window of a moving car. In spite of my 81 years, knowing that statistically I have little time left, I want to plan activities and perhaps even trips as if I were a young man.

Is it possible that a novel of extreme magic realism is the culprit?

I believe so.