The Musical Brain: And Other Stories

I had never heard of Cesar Aira until I came across a recent review of this book of short stories, his first to be translated from the original Spanish. It has been my loss. Aira is an endlessly fascinating spinner of extraordinary surreal tales - some springing from his own life as a boy and young man in Buenos Aires, others from some off-world premise entirely of his own. Part of the charm of his writing as translated is his chatty style of taking you into his confidence, like someone starting a conversation on a long bus ride or over a glass of wine in a summer twilight and then leading you further and further into his Daliesque universe of invention. Full of surprises and magic tricks but also of some intricately brain-teasing philosophical ideas. My favourite is probably the story of God's multi-dimensional tea party for the apes, gatecrashed by a subatomic particle - even that summary gives some idea of the extraordinary fertility of Aira's imagination. Highly recommended.

Enigmatic and enthralling, Cesar Aira's short and almost micro "fictions" in THE MUSICAL BRAIN morph effortlessly from mundane, yet eloquently written surfaces into fantasias of the highest order. Forget preconceived notions of linear logic, the act of reading itself reading, and any ideas of parseable comprehension. Read as if reading for the first time,

I can only say that i did not finish this book. I got tired of it so I cannot write a review. On the other hand I just finished "The door" by M. Szabo and it is superb and I will write a review if you wish

Several of the twenty stories in this collection mention the fact that you cannot fold a sheet of paper in half more than nine times. The fact is not really essential to any of the stories in which it occurs, except that it sets up the legend of the tenth fold, that speculative but impossible extension to everyday logic to which only God and the mind of César Aira have access.Those who have read Aira before will not look to him for a story in the normal narrative sense. He will start with a premise, a childhood memory or something quite simple and everyday. Before long, he will either be philosophizing on its implications or striking off in some totally unexpected direction. The "Musical Brain" of the title story, some kind of music-playing device, is only one of a number of oddities in a story that involves a restaurant where people pay with used books, a comedy theater, a circus, a love triangle between three midgets, and a flying mutant. The title of the opening story, "The Brick Wall," refers to the movie THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, one of the thousand or more Aira reckons he saw as a child, yet by a deliberate feat of misdirection he abandons that tack altogether and tells a story based on quite another movie, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, before that too is abandoned and the story ends.The spirit of Borges hovers over many of these tales, yet it is a Borges with a lighthearted sense of humor. Aira's attempts to bring out a literary "Athena Magazine" in his youth becomes an intricate series of minute calculations balancing the page count of the first issue against the publication's further prospects. The competition between the middle-aged patrons in "In the Café" to fold origami animals out of napkins to delight a four-year-old girl escalates until they are making intricate model universes, each of which the girl soon destroys in her childish glee. In "A Thousand Drops," the Mona Lisa dissolves into minute particles of paint which wander the universe, creating minor miracles or cosmic catastrophes wherever they touch down. In yet another story, two women friends who chat with each other incessantly while working out in the gym are seen as oracles for all the crises in the world.It is bizarre stuff and curiously fascinating, but too rich to read all in a day or two. So I have paused at the halfway point, and will return later. But not without identifying my personal favorite, "God's Tea Party," in which God traditionally celebrates His birthday by throwing a party for the apes. By the end of it, by contrasting the grandeur of God with the tiniest imaginable subatomic particle, Aira has covered much the same ground as Stephen Hawking's A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, but in a marvelously entertaining way. Alas, not all the stories are as much fun or as meaningful, but Aira's particular brand of convoluted philosophy can be glimpsed throughout. Here, for example, is his explanation of the bad behavior of the apes at the tea table:"The problem of the bad behavior might be due to the fact that God doesn't preside. Or rather, He does and He doesn't. As we know, God is omnipresent, which turns out to be very handy for carrying out His functions, but it has the drawback of preventing Him from being visibly present in a particular place, for example sitting at the head of the table, keeping things under control. His absence (if His omnipresence can be counted as an absence) could be regarded as a discourtesy that legitimates all the subsequent discourtesies of his guests: a host who fails to turn up to his own party thereby authorizes his guests to behave as they like." The excellent translation is by Chris Andrews.

The Musical Brain, a beautifully done cloth bound edition with a shiny laminated cover is by notable Latin American author Cesar Aria (translated by Chris Andrews). These 20 original unique short stories rich in observational detail and at times, mathematical formulas illustrate the brilliant mind and intellect of the author.In the first story, "A Brick Wall" a youth recalls his time spent at the cinema and great love for movie classics especially Alfred Hitchcock thrillers. There are many stories about writing and literary themes: "Athena Magazine" features the story of a magazine editor that becomes fixated on the appearance (including mathematical design and format) rather than original goal of bringing poetry, love (stories) and revolutionary ideas to readers. Another writer focus is on the autobiographical elements in the work of "Picasso" ( also the story title) for his inspirational notebook writing."The Dog" is one of the shortest stories about a man that becomes terribly annoyed and fixated on a barking dog in his neighborhood. In "The Musical Brain" a young girl recalls her 1950's childhood visit with her family members to the circus in Pringles. It is unclear why this may have been the highlight of the story collection. The girl became fearful after seeing some of the circus acts, suggesting a surreal theme. Speaking of surreal themes, the shortest most enjoyable story was "No Witnesses" though there was foul play involved the story had a simplistic quality and wasn't over written or analyzed. "The Two Men" is a longer story, where a student of social work attempted to assist two men who lived in isolation. Unable to photograph these men, the worry is about how he will portray them for his assignment. The last story, "Cecil Taylor" begins with the observations of a weary prostitute, before it switches over to a bluesman who supports himself with menial labor jobs while trying to find work as a musician.The book includes pages of rave reviews from notable publications and authors. The literary themes and literature references in the stories may be of particular interest for readers, the story details were typically extensive. The appeal was rapidly lost when the narratives often went off on various tangents. Despite rereading several stories and passages, the story themes, ideas, and meanings were often lost in overwhelming observations, or it wasn't clear what the author was attempting to say. This may have been due to the translation (though it seemed alright), or cultural differences. ~ Many thanks and much appreciation to New Directions Books for the ARC for the purpose of review.

great stories