The 3 best books by Juan José Saer

Few writers in continuous transition, in that creative process that always looks for new horizons. Nothing to settle into what is already known. Exploration as a livelihood for those who entrust themselves to the task of writing as an act of sincere commitment to one's own creativity.

All of that practiced a Juan Jose Saer poet, novelist or screenwriter who in each discipline gave himself based on his creative phase. Because if something should be clear that we are never the same, that time is leading us through very different approaches, mostly it must be a writer who constant this evolution towards change.

The question is knowing how to express oneself with the same forcefulness, with the same quality, whether by telling realistic stories or by focusing on more avant-garde styles where language seeks itself between the lyrical and the metaphysical. And of course that is already a thing of the geniuses who can do it, who can change the register without blinking.

In this space we are going to stay with its narrative aspect, which is no small thing. Knowing that we are facing one of the greatest Argentine writers who at times disguises himself as Borges to later appear as a new Cortázar.

Top 3 recommended novels by Juan José Saer

The entenado

On some other occasion, I do not know if in some minor novel of Morris west, I was fascinated by the use of a remote island town to question all kinds of moral principles with unusual depth in the middle of an adventure novel.

This time something similar happens. Only we move to the days of "twinning" between Europe and America. After the arrival of Columbus, a new world opened up for those who came there in search of prosperity or adventure. The clash between cultures is evident in this novel that confronts us with everything.

The cabin boy of a Spanish expedition to the Río de la Plata, at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, is captured and adopted by the Collastine Indians. In this way, he knows some traditions and rituals that confront him with new perceptions of reality.

Why is the custom of the otherwise peaceful tribe of annually holding an orgy of sex and cannibalism? Why is the cabin boy not having the same fate as his companions?

In the best tone of the traditional Chronicles of the Indies, Saer places us in front of issues such as reality, memory and language, within a story that reads like an adventure book.

The entenado

The investigation

One of Saer's most avant-garde novels. Under the guise of a detective novel, little by little what is taking place is a kind of investigation into ourselves. Because the approach to the current case goes beyond crimes or mysteries, reaching our focus on appearances and realities, expert dancers in the costume ball of our daily carnival.

In this labyrinthine work, Juan José Saer leads us in two parallel investigations into the complexity of madness, memory and crime. The cases, the famous mystery of a series of murders in Paris and the search for the authorship of a manuscript among a group of friends, are the excuses that will provoke our reflection.
With keen wit and the wisdom of finding the exact word, Saer reveals our tendency to anticipate judgments about what we cannot know and reveals the difficulty of forming a realistic opinion in a non-simplifiable world, delving into the darkest corners of ourselves and pushing our capacity for perception and understanding to the limit.

The investigation

Gloss

The writer facing the blank page. No more accomplished metaphor than the one posed by this novel. Because the two friends could well be yourself and your imagination, in that necessary unfolding of any creative mission.

Learning to write is combining at least two focuses to make everything believable, so that things acquire more planes and dimensions. Just like the birthday party that is recreated in the imagination of two people who did not attend it, but who know of its most transcendent consequences for better or worse.

What happened that night at Jorge Washington Noriega's birthday party? During a walk through the city center, two friends, Leto and the Mathematician, reconstruct that party that neither of them attended.

Different versions circulate, all enigmatic and a bit delusional, which are reviewed, recounted and discussed. In that long conversation they cross anecdotes, memories, old stories and future stories.

Taking Plato's Banquet as a model, the argument would be close to the impossible attempt to reconstruct a story. How to narrate? How and what to narrate in a past story? How to count violence, madness, exile, death?

Gloss
5/5 - (13 votes)

2 comments on “The 3 best books by Juan José Saer”

  1. Excellent analysis, but I think Saer's best novel is La Grande. Yes, these are the most canonical novels of his, central to his work: Glosa, Nobody swims ever, The real lemon tree, but in La Grande he condenses all of his literary intention, all of his project, and takes the perfect writing of it. It is also his most sensorial and sensual book. Its only flaw: its unfinished condition. But if you look at it well, it even seems like a virtue, which exalts the magic of Saer's work: what matters is the narration.

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