Given my inveterate habit of writing a chronicle every time I get invited to a strange place to do something weirs (over time I've realized that all places actually seem strange to me), I had the impression I was once again living through the beginning of a journey that could end up turning into a written tale, in which, as was customary, I would combine perplexity and my suspended life to describe the world as an absurd place arrived at by way of a very extravagant invitation.

Ένας ευχάριστα παράξενος φιλοσοφικός στοχασμός πάνω στη σύγχρονη τέχνη, με τον συγγραφέα να μιλάει για την εμπειρία του ως ένας εκ των καλλιτεχνών που προσκλήθηκαν στην Documenta 2012 στο Kassel της Γερμανίας, μια έκθεση πρωτοποριακής τέχνης καθιερωμένη από το 1955. Ο Vila-Matas απλώς περιπλανιέται στην πόλη κοιτάζοντας τα έργα τέχνης και καταγράφει σε ένα τύποις εσωτερικό μονόλογο τις σκέψεις του για εκείνα, για τον εαυτό του και την επιθυμία να δημιουργεί συγγραφικές περσόνες, για την ουσία του avant-garde συγγραφέα, για οτιδήποτε του έρχεται στο νου. Πρόκεται για μια, ως επί το πλείστον, μη φανταστική καταγραφή του χρόνου του εκεί χωρίς ωστόσο να είναι δυνατό να διαπιστωθεί τι από όλα αποτελεί αλήθεια και τι μυθοπλασία. Ευχάριστο, λίγο αργό, πλην άκρως ιδιαίτερο.

A true masterpiece. The end reminded me of "Le roi se meurt" and of "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", both briliantly written.

This small and rather depressing book originally came out in 1987—but the English translation is only from 2009.

 

Apparently semi-biographical (and, apparently, to what extent no one knows), Rosales focused this story on the residents of a Miami halfway house. William Figueras, the main character and perhaps the author's alter ego, takes up residence there amongst "the nuts".

 

And what a motley crew it is—two mentally disabled men, an old "grande dame", another old woman, a one-eyed old man with a bladder issue, the owner who comes and goes, the manager who is there 24/7 and distributes their medication and cigarettes while himself half drunk, and a host of others.

 

But this home is no panacea for the residents—the are abused, they abuse, they are barely fed, they are dirty, and they are ignored by their families and the agencies that should be watching the facility.

 

Though so much of the story focuses on abuse, just a little hope can keep everyone going. At least for awhile.

 

Best line: "They fix their rundown cars and listen, for hours on end, to loud rock or exasperating drum solos on their portable radios."

 

I have listened to too many exasperating drum solos myself.

Follow the historic figure of Bass Reeves from boyhood, growing up as a slave, to his service in the Civil War, and his time spent with the Native Americans. He is eventually inducted into the Marshal Service.

I enjoy books set in the Southwest as it has a rich history. While much of this book is not set in the desert Southwest, Bass Reeves eventually becomes an important figure in its history. The reader experiences Bass’s life through his eyes, growing up a slave he and his mother both live and work on the Reeves family plantation & farm. It is only through a series of events, including the Civil War, that Bass comes to see that there are other possibilities for a life.

The author strived to capture the slave dialect of the time. Part of me enjoyed this as it added to the reading experience of being transported to another time and place. On the other hand, it was sometimes clunky to read and therefore, it slowed down my reading in some parts. Most of Bass’s interactions are with Whites or Native Americans, so we get only a small taste of Black slave culture at that time. It’s a small criticism, but I would have liked to know more about what went on behind the closed doors of the slave quarters once the Whites had retired for the evening.

This was a very interesting book showing a spectrum of how slaves in the Mississippi area were treated. Bass’s owner, Mr. Reeves, was fairly decent for his time and culture, and yet still held to the belief that slavery was the way the world worked. We also see several instances of other Whites interacting with Bass, showing the crudest, lowest level of racism all the way to folks who believed in freedom for all people. I really liked the various ways the author showed this spectrum, painting a picture of just how complicated the slavery issue was at the time of the Civil War.

I especially liked Bass’s time with the Native Americans of a few different tribes. Most of these characters had Anglicized names and I am not sure if that was the norm for the time. We meet and see most of the Native Americans on reservations, and when no Whites are around. So, once again I wanted to see more of the Native American culture as it existed when Whites weren’t standing around criticizing or documenting the ‘life of the native’. Still, it was great to see how Bass’s friendship with these characters influenced his decisions later.

There is some gun play and a few deaths through out the book. I’m not a particularly squeamish person, but if you are, no worries with this book. I will also say that there are few female characters in this tale. They are mothers, wives, or sexual interests. Basically, they are backdrop to be kept safe or rescued. They were interchangeable with no real individual character traits. While Bass’s mother has some influence on him, especially when it comes to his faith, we learn little else about her.

There are two more books in this series and I look forward to reading them because Bass himself is a complex character and his story is a new one to me.

Have you ever read a book that’s reveals to you the ending, the factual ending, but doesn’t tell you why, just gives you little clues about the why, just pushes you and pushes you to get to the end because you have to know WHY everything just happened?

Of course you have, if you read mysteries. 

But this book, oh this book. 

Don DeLillo once said:
"When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book’s plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body or flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way. A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot, makes it less fearful by containing it in a kind of game format.” (http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...)

Muriel Spark wrote this novel as a direct counter to what normally happens in a mystery novel. And it’s fast, weird, FUNNY, and brilliant.

Read it and know this: the main character is infuriating but she’s funny in her comments, behaviors and thoughts. Things get grim, but I read this so fast and loved it.

[also posted on Goodreads.com]