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Abstract
In this essay, I will analyse a dozen fictional narratives written by César Aira (b. 1949) paying special attention to the effacement of his characters’ bodies and bodily life. Two complementary explanations for this effacement are explored. The first, rooted in Argentinian national literary tradition, considers it a manifestation of the author’s ‘literary posture’, notably built through close links with the Argentinian journal Babel (1988–1991). The second explanation goes beyond the national framework to suggest that Aira perpetuates a deconstruction of the literary character as observed, theorized and diffused by the French nouveaux romanciers.
Notes
1 Alan Pauls, ‘El revés del sentido’, Babel. Revista de Libros, III:21 (1990), 5; available online at <https://ahira.com.ar/ejemplares/babel-revista-de-libros-no-21/> (accessed 13 October 2021).
2 To celebrate the publication of his one-hundredth book in 2014, César Aira: un catálogo, prólogo de Ricardo Strafacce (Buenos Aires: Mansalva) was published. The edition was entrusted to writer and literary critic Ricardo Strafacce.
3 Vincent Jouve, L’Effet-personnage dans le roman (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 2014 [1st ed. 1992]), 132.
4 See Mariano García, ‘¿Queer o post-queer en la literatura de César Aira?’, in Lecturas ‘Queer’ desde el Cono Sur, ed. José Amícola, Lectures du Genre, 4 (2008), 9–16; and also Sergio Delgado, ‘El personaje y su sombra: rerealismos y desrealismos en el escritor argentino actual’, BOLETÍN/12 del Centro de Estudios de Teoría y Crítica Literaria (December 2005), 1–22 (available online at <https://www.cetycli.org/cboletines/delgado_b_12.pdf> [accessed 13 October 2021]).
5 María del Carmen Bobes Naves, El personaje literario en el relato (Madrid: CSIC, 2018), 35.
6 Jérôme Meizoz, Postures littéraires: mises en scène modernes de l’auteur. Essai (Genève: Slatkine Érudition, 2007), 18.
7 See Meizoz, Postures littéraires. Meizoz addresses the concept of the discursive ethos (as theorized previously by Dominique Maingueneau) in the following appendix to Postures littéraires: ‘Ce que l’on fait dire au silence: posture, ethos, image d’auteur’, in Ethos discursif et image d’auteur, ed. Michèle Bokobza Kahan & Ruth Amossy, Argumentation et analyse du discours, La Revue Electronique du Groupe ADARR, 3 (2009); available at <https://journals.openedition.org/aad/667> (accessed 4 November 2020).
8 ‘Speaking of an author’s “posture”, we want to make a link between the description of textual effects and social behaviours. In other words, in methodological terms, this notion combines rhetoric and sociology. Indeed, it does not consider the textual inside without its outside counterpart and vice versa; finally, far from treating literary discourse as a document without specificity, the concept of “posture” allows it to be anchored to a formal fact so as to make full use of its effects in communication’ (Meizoz, Postures littéraires, 21–22; my translation).
9 For such allegorical interpretations of Aira’s work, see, for example, Héctor Hoyos, Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel (New York: Columbia U. P., 2015), or Martín Kohan’s recent article, ‘Otra novela política de Aira’, in Écritures scéniques et dramatiques d’Amérique latine: quelles émancipations?, ed. Collectif QUETZAL y Comité de rédaction d’Amerika, Amerika. Mémoires, Identités, Territoires, 21 (2021), n.p. (available at <https://journals.openedition.org/amerika//13273?lang=es> [accessed 27 August 2021]). The narratives that are dealt with in the present study have been approached in this way too: Carmen de Mora reads Cómo me hice monja as an allegory of Peronism in her article ‘Del hielo de Macondo al helado de Rosario: el espacio narrativo y otras cuestiones en Cómo me hice monja de César Aira’, in El espacio en la narrativa moderna en lengua española, ed. Gabriela Menczel & László Scholz (Budapest: Eötvös József Könyvkiadó, 2003), 164–77.
10 Diego Molina, ‘Babélicos versus Planetarios. Puro grupo’, in De Alfonsín al menemato 1983–2001, comp. Rocco Carbone & Ana Ojeda, dir. David Viñas (Buenos Aires: Paradiso, 2010), 205–15 (p. 207).
11 José Agustín Conde de Boeck, ‘Exotismo, transgresión y actitud de culto: la revista Babel (1988–1991) y la representación del espacio marginal’, Jornaler@s. Revista Científica de Estudios Literarios y Lingüísticos, 3 (2017), 165–78 (p. 167) (available online at <http://www.fhycs.unju.edu.ar/documents/publicaciones/revistas/jornales3/013-Art_Conde.pdf> [accessed 14 October 2021]); and Sylvia Saítta’s comment in VV.AA, Lo que sobra y lo que falta en los últimos veinte años de la literatura argentina. Ciclo de mesas redondas del Centro Cultural Rector Ricardo Rojas. 4 al 18 de marzo de 2004 (Buenos Aires: Libros del Rojas, 2004), 17.
12 Verónica Delgado, ‘Babel. Revista de Libros en los 80: una relectura’, Orbis Tertius, 1:2–3 (1996), 275–302.
13 Jorge Dorio & Martín Caparrós, ‘Caballerías’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 1 (1988), 3.
14 Martín Caparrós, ‘Nuevos avances y retrocesos de la nueva novela argentina en lo que va del mes de abril’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 10 (1989), 43–45 (p. 43); original emphasis.
15 No name is explicitly mentioned in Caparrós’ text but one novel is: Rayuela. Before Babel, in 1981, César Aira himself had already showed little regard for Cortázar’s fiction. In a review of the collection of short stories Alguien que anda por ahí (1977) written for the journal Vigencia, Aira first mentions the narcissism of Rayuela, before asserting that ‘Un tal Lucas, desdichada impasse de la nada, erizaba la piel ante la posibilidad infernal de una adolescencia perpetua’. He then describes Alguien que anda por ahí as a brilliant book, but not without launching this stinging attack: ‘Como curiosidad, se incluye un cuento extraordinariamente malo (pero fechado en 1954) con correcciones que lo empeoran: un auténtico tour de force’ (César Aira, ‘Cortázar, Puig: conjurar la literatura argentina’, Vigencia, 49 [1981], 68–69 [p. 68]).
16 Caparrós, ‘Nuevos avances y retrocesos’, 43.
17 Caparrós, ‘Nuevos avances y retrocesos’, 43–44.
18 Caparrós, ‘Nuevos avances y retrocesos’, 45.
19 César Aira, ‘Novela argentina, nada más que una idea’, Vigencia, 51 (1981), 55–58 (p. 55).
20 César Aira, ‘Evasión’, in his Evasión y otros ensayos (Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House, 2018 [1st ed. Barcelona, 2017]), 9–41 (pp. 36–37).
21 César Aira, Madre e hijo (una pieza en un acto) (Buenos Aires: Bajo la luna, 2004 [1st ed. 1993]), 9.
22 César Aira, Embalse (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 2003 [1st ed. 1992]), 80.
23 See César Aira, El llanto (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 1992), 31; La serpiente (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 1997), 40; and ‘El espía’, in El cerebro musical (Buenos Aires: Penguin Random House, 2016), 199–209 (p. 205).
24 With regard to the critical commentaries on the frivolity of César Aira’s fiction, see, for instance, Reinaldo Laddaga, ‘Una literatura de la clase media: notas sobre César Aira’, Hispamérica, 30:88 (2001), 37–48 (p. 37); Graciela Speranza, ‘César Aira: manual de uso’, Mil Palabras, 1 (2001), 2–13 (p. 2); also her Fuera de campo: literatura y arte argentino después de Duchamp (Barcelona: Anagrama, 2006), 292; Pablo Decock, ‘El simulacro de la desidentidad: las figuras autoriales en el espacio autoficcional de Aira y Vila-Matas’, Pasavento. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 3:1 (2015), 15–28 (p. 21); and with time, Sandra Contreras would herself adopt a less nuanced position on the matter, as reflected in the introduction of her famous essay Las vueltas de César Aira (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2002), 30.
25 Sandra Contreras, ‘César Aira: el movimiento de la idea’, Boletín del Grupo de Estudios de Teoría Literaria, 4 (1995), 45–64 (p. 57; original emphasis); available online at <https://www.cetycli.org/cboletines/contrerasb4.pdf> (accessed 14 October 2021).
26 Aira, Embalse, 113–15.
27 Aira, Embalse, 11.
28 Aira, Embalse, 70.
29 Aira, Embalse, 66 & 53.
30 Aira, Embalse, 119.
31 Aira, Madre e hijo, 7–11.
32 Aira, Madre e hijo, 61–62.
33 César Aira, Cómo me hice monja (Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, 1998 [1st ed. Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 1993]), 79.
34 Various commentators have emphasized this same point, which decisively contributes to undermining Cesitar’s consistency as a character. See, among other references: José Amícola, ‘Autoficción: una polémica literaria vista desde los márgenes (Borges, Gombrowicz, Copi, Aira)’, Olivar. Revista de Literatura y Cultura Españolas, 9:12 (2008), 191–207 (p. 205) (available online at <http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/bitstream/handle/10915/12261/Documento_completo__.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y> [accessed 15 October 2021]); Patricio Pron, ‘De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de autor: la autoficción de César Aira en Cómo me hice monja’, in La obsesión del yo. La auto(r)ficción en la literatura española y latinoamericana, ed. Vera Toro, Sabine Schlickers & Ana Luengo (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2010), 111–21 (p. 112).
35 Kristine Vanden Berghe, ‘Retrato del autor como sujeto postmoderno y escritor autoficcional en Cómo me hice monja de César Aira’, Anales de Literatura Hispanoamericana, 41 (2012), 265–76 (p. 271).
36 Aira, Madre e hijo, 16, 36 & 41.
37 Aira, Cómo me hice monja, 58.
38 César Aira, ‘La costurera y el viento’ (1994), in his Diez novelas de César Aira, selección & prefacio de Juan Pablo Villalobos (Buenos Aires: Penguin Random House, 2019), 33–128 (pp. 39–41).
39 Aira, ‘El espía’, 205.
40 ‘[The individual] disappears in the blank (in English: unoccupied, empty space). He keeps his life as a blank page so as not to lose himself or run the risk of being involved, of being touched by the world. He remains in the indifference of things, relieved of the effort of being himself, sometimes he does not really know who he is nor where he is anymore, he no longer bears any responsibility towards others or for his own existence. He does not care for the world anymore, he wanders in a no man’s land in order to catch his breath, to relax his tension. He floats in limbo, neither inside life nor connected to society, neither utterly in nor utterly out. We sometimes say: “My mind went blank”, to evoke an omission, an absence, a kind of parenthesis’ (David Le Breton, Disparaître de soi: une tentation contemporaine [Paris: Métailié, 2015], 18; my translation).
41 Le Breton, Disparaître de soi, 17.
42 Aira, El llanto, 59–60.
43 Aira, El llanto, 60–61.
44 Aira, El llanto, 63.
45 Aira, El llanto, 19, 19, 20, 24, 44 & 62.
46 César Aira, El juego de los mundos. Novela de ciencia ficción (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2019 [1st ed. La Plata: Ediciones El Broche, 2000]), 56.
47 César Aira, ‘Suscripción’, in his Artforum (Buenos Aires: Blatt & Ríos, 2019 [1st ed. 2014]), 25–36 (pp. 35–36).
48 César Aira, ‘El todo que surca la nada’, in his El cerebro musical, 121–38 (p. 137).
49 César Aira, ‘A Brick Wall’, in El cerebro musical, 9–22 (p. 22).
50 Aira, Cómo me hice monja, 97–98.
51 Aira, Madre e hijo, 68.
52 Nathalie Sarraute, L’Ère du soupçon. Essais sur le roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1987 [1st ed. 1956]), 61–62. ‘Today, a constantly rising tide has been flooding us with literary works that still claim to be novels and in which a being devoid of outline, indefinable, intangible and invisible, an anonymous “I”, who is at once all and nothing, and who as often as not is but the reflection of the author himself, has usurped the role of the hero, occupying the place of honour. The other characters, being deprived of their own existence, are reduced to the status of visions, dreams, nightmares, illusions, reflections, quiddities or dependents of this all-powerful “I” ’ (The Age of Suspicion: Essays on the Novel, trans. Maria Jolas [New York: George Braziller, 1990], 49–50).
53 Jean Ricardou, ‘Le nouveau roman existe-t-il?’, in Nouveau roman: hier, aujourd’hui, ed. Jean Ricardou & Françoise van Rossum-Guyon, 2 vols (Paris: Union Générale d’Éditions, 1972), I, Problèmes généraux, 9–20 (p. 13).
54 Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pour un Nouveau Roman (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 2013 [1st ed. 1963]), 42; original emphasis. ‘For the artist, […] despite his firmest political convictions—even despite his good will as a militant revolutionary—art cannot be reduced to the status of a means in the service of a cause which transcends it, even if this cause were the most deserving, the most exalting; the artist puts nothing above his work, and he soon comes to realize that he can create only for nothing’ (For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction, trans. Richard Howard [New York: Grove Press, 1965], 37).
55 Jouve, L’Effet-personnage dans le roman, 103.
56 Manuel Alberca, El pacto ambiguo: de la novela autobiográfica a la autoficción (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007), 302–07.
57 See Nicolas Licata, ‘Robbe-Grillet en el ropero del señor Bellatin. Autoficción fantástica, nouveau roman y nouvelle autobiographie’, in La invasión de los alter egos: estudios sobre la autoficción y lo fantástico, ed. Nicolas Licata, Rahel Teicher & Kristine Vanden Berghe (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2021), 179–204.
58 VV.AA., ‘Dossier. ¿Por qué escribe?’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 1 (1988), 23–28.
59 Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Ricardou, Jorge Semprún & Yves Berger, ‘La literatura’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 2 (1988), 24; VV.AA., ‘Homenajes. El último texto de Samuel Beckett’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 15 (1990), 32–34.
60 See Alain Robbe-Grillet, ‘La narrativa francesa después del nouveau roman’, Babel. Revista de Libros, 18 (1990), 43; and also his ‘El orden y su doble’, trad. Roxana Levinsky, Babel. Revista de Libros, 19 (1990), 22–23.
61 ‘In any cultural field it is not possible to be original except on a basis of tradition’, writes Donald Woods Winnicott, in Playing and Reality (London/New York: Routledge Classics, 2005 [1st ed. London: Tavistock Publications, 1971]), 134. Though I explore the relation between César Aira and tradition, this does not impede the existence of specific differences. On the contrary, the manner in which he pushes invention and improvisation to its extreme limits distinguishes him from the nouveaux romanciers, as well as from the modernist writers mentioned below. As a matter of fact, his idiosyncratic style, radical even among radicals, might be one of the factors explaining the considerable attention Aira still enjoys in the present, while the nouveau roman waned only two decades after the Second World War, to which it was intimately tied. Concerning the invention and the improvisation in César Aira, see among other references Sandra Contreras’ aforementioned Las vueltas de César Aira, and Reinaldo Laddaga, Espectáculos de realidad. Ensayo sobre la narrativa latinoamericana de las últimas décadas (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2007). I have examined this issue in my article entitled ‘Simple como un juego de niños: la literatura según César Aira’ (forthcoming 2022).
62 Sarraute, L’Ère du soupçon, 11.
63 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask, with an intro. by Edward W. Said (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 2003 [1st German ed. 1946]), 646.
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.