|
| Senselessness | 
| Author: Horacio Castellanos Moya
Creator: Katherine Silver
Publisher: New Directions
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $8.00
You Save: $7.95 (50%)
New (36) from $8.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 86703
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0811217078
Dewey Decimal Number: 863.64
EAN: 9780811217071
ASIN: 0811217078
Publication Date: May 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A Rainmaker Translation Grant Winner from the Black Mountain Institute: Senselessness, acclaimed Salvadoran author Horacio Castallanos Moya's astounding debut in English, explores horror with hilarity and electrifying panache.
A boozing, sex-obsessed writer finds himself employed by the Catholic Church (an institution he loathes) to proofread a 1,100 page report on the army's massacre and torture of thousands of indigenous villagers a decade earlier, including the testimonies of the survivors. The writer's job is to tidy it up: he rants, "that was what my work was all about, cleaning up and giving a manicure to the Catholic hands that were piously getting ready to squeeze the balls of the military tiger." Mesmerized by the strange Vallejo-like poetry of the Indians' phrases ("the houses they were sad because no people were inside them"), the increasingly agitated and frightened writer is endangered twice over: by the spell the strangely beautiful heart-rending voices exert over his tenuous sanity, and by real danger—after all, the murderers are the very generals who still run this unnamed Latin American country.
|
| Customer Reviews:
A literary tour of the paradox of empathy and fear November 1, 2008
The novel _Senselessness_ is the most stylistically challenging contemporary novel I've ever read, or am likely ever to encounter. The fact that this novel went from author Castellanos Moya's mind onto the page, through the editorial and publication process, and into English translation--and that the author has evidently survived the process--is a miracle for the reading public and the literary world at large. The fact that this novel exists and is well-received will make life easier for anyone else who attempts to dream a similar novel into being; no more will publishers be able to complain that a writer's novel is "too difficult" for readers, isn't "marketable," or "won't sell," and therefore can't be published.
I've written these words of praise just now because I've put my entire reading, writing, and scholarly experience into carefully considering _Senselessness_. This novel is a tour-de-force of interior consciousness, told entirely from the point of view of one person. Other reviewers of this novel have wondered why the paragraphs and sentences are so breathlessly long: This novel never steps outside the consciousness of the main character who is also the narrator. Having said that, I can now say that I have mixed emotions about the author's intention and the style in which he accomplished his supposed intention. And, how could I not have deep reservations about a novel that pushes the boundaries? And yet, I don't want my opinion to appear hegemonic like some of the people the novel is about.
Where do I begin to describe my reading experience? Well, at first I thought the title, _Senselessness_, referred to how humane people perceive genocide (or any form of domination and violence), and I expected the novel's main character to show me how senseless genocide is, and to teach me something about the insensitive people--men, most often--who perpetrate that violence. I expected the novel to be something like Kertesz's _Detective Story_ or Lemebel's _My Tender Matador_ in which both authors dip in and out of the consciousness of more than one character. The results of showing the interior monologue of more than one character, in some sort of stream-of-consciousness technique, are that the reader will be shown the workings of several minds and thus see a broader view of how men become murderers, or how a protagonist or main character challenges such thought processes. In contrast, _Senselessness_ never allows the reader to go outside the limited consciousness of the narrator; as a result, the novel has a feeling of claustrophobia, of hopelessness, and helplessness. The narrator/main character never has a paradigm shift which would take the reader outside the one mind; the author's craft does not allow us outside. The result of this one-person, confined viewpoint is to distance the reader from the topic of genocide and turn us instead toward the experiences of just this one particular person. If my fault is that I'm looking for a novelist to teach me about the sort of people who become genocidal or take joy in slaughtering people, then I am indeed too practical and _Senselessness_ is a post-modern novel with dubious moral grounding.
I hesitated to send this "negative" review, but today (Nov. 1) is El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, and it seems appropriate. I wish there were some way that the author could respond to these reviews. Maybe you can get an invitation to appear at Colorado College.
Perhaps, the short version of the difficulties I'm having with a 142-page interior monologue can be described thus: If the first line of the novel--"I am not complete in the mind"--is about the novel's narrator and not the man who wrote it (the man who witnessed his family's murder), then the novel is about the sanity of the narrator and is not intended to shed light on the mind of the man, the survivor of genocide (who is writing his testimony). By page three, the author shows us that the novel is indeed about the narrator, when the narrator says, "I am also not complete in the mind." It would seem then that the narrator's life or mental processes are being stressed because the survivor's testimony is driving him nuts, so to speak; it seems that the narrator thought he knew what he was doing when he accepted the job of editing the survivors' testimonies. But there is never any evidence that the narrator was a well-adjusted, mature person to begin with--before the novel began. In other words, there is no inside-outside the novel, no inside-outside the narrator's mind. Well then, I said to myself, if this novel is about the narrator, for me to continue reading I would have to care about him. Then what qualities does this narrator possess that would interest me? (String of negative qualities deleted by me). Sure, the narrator is human. I got his humanity and I feel for his situation. But there's got to be more. (It's okay if you don't read more of this review; ever since I first heard this novel was being translated, I wanted to read it, and I wanted to write an unconditional love letter-review to the author, so I'm dealing with my disappointment in the face of what I know literature can be.)
As a reader, I don't demand a classic realist text, or magical realism, or flash backs, etcetera, but I don't want to be confined inside one consciousness unless it is a very fine, discerning consciousness. I don't see the humor in the narrator's sexual escapades; I thought that surely even a man of moderate intelligence would be able to see that his hyperventilating venom against women--his narrow minded, repetitive references to females--is very much like a man's impulsive, insane, senseless moment during which he might murder a woman, moments of hate which create the genocidal mind. (Actually very finely written, here, though without a clearly-defined context.) Nowhere in _Senselessness_ does Castellanos Moya show that his narrator gets this connection between his sexuality and genocide except--perhaps?--in chapter 9 when the tortured woman whose testimony he edits appears in the courtyard of the Archbishop's palace. And even then, the narrator fears her, does not want to meet her, perhaps because she, the survivor of genocide, has kept her sanity and her moral grounding, while the narrator fears a confrontation.
If you have read this review up to this point, let me reward you with something--the other side of the paradox--namely, that there are incredible scenes in this book for which--you will recall--I confer the highest praise. The downward spiral of the narrator (from an already weak mind?) into increasing paranoia is painted with a fine brush. The Chapter 10 scene in Johnny Silverman's house, when the narrator's "escape" out the French windows with the frosted-glass panes, is surely worthy of . . . well, of Alfred Hitchcock. My critical consciousness was swept away in the scene until I was right inside the narrator's mind and cowering in the corridor--becoming one with the story--without *being* it myself. And the scene following that of the stressed-out escape from the country retreat house is indeed an incredible moment in literature. But, to me, a man who doesn't know his own mind is not the most responsible person for editing the testimonies of survivors of genocide.
Brilliant, deft, utterly unputdownable October 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am only a quarter of the way through this small explosion of a novel and already know it is worth 5 stars. I will be finished tonight, tomorrow at the latest. It's that good. The writing is dark, cynical and very funny. It's a little cyclical and reminded me of Thomas Bernhard.
I do hope the rest of Moya's novels are translated and soon. Katherine Silver does a wonderful job translating. Highly recommended.
Hilarious, biting, long paragraphs! August 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Terrif mordantly scathing black fun, in the shadows of genocide and the worldwide collapse of the Left, this Honduran-born Salvadureno-in-exile's novel set in Central America is fast, a harrowing blast. Sustaining the razor irony and breathtaking pacing is the hilarious stylistic innovation of nearly chapter-long paragraphs.
a great read June 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
.......fearless and heartbreaking. I couldn't put this book down. The writing style, with its long beautiful sentences that are anything but languorous, and the setting are exotic but it's easy to connect to because the characters are so well thought out and so universally human. From the first sentence, you immediately enter into the main character's head, a sometimes shocking reality, and the book just clips along and keeps you in suspense until the very last paragraph.
How can a book this terrifying be so funny? June 3, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Reading Senselessness is like being sucked into a literary whirlwind-- it pulls you in immediately and intensely, and it never lets go. It is above all else a great read. Fortunately it is short, or you might starve, it is that compelling. And it is very, very funny, though be warned: its humor is always ironic and on-the-edge.
Imagine Lenny Bruce writing a Graham Greene novel where the narrator is Lenny Bruce imagined by Graham Greene. Imagine a situation where style itself is politically volatile and editing akin to the erasing of memory and people, literally "rewriting" history (not in the "as if" vein of Saramago, as a counter-argument to the idea of history, but as the accepted standard version at the heart of politics and power.)
And finally, consider: the narrator-editor is a loquacious, paranoid, horny, and non-pc yet politically fastidious and sensitive observer. Worried that he himself has become entangled in the violent politics surrounding the book he is editing and possibly about to become the next victim, he is also moved by the stories he edits-- testimonies of indigenous witnesses to atrocities who are not "native" speakers of the language (Spanish) in which they give testimonies, testimonies already professionally "cleaned up" by sociologists and oral historians. So in some ways, the book's problem is to "restore" the truth and speak the unspoken, perhaps the unspeakable, indeed locate a reliable author/authority.
Senselessness is a serious piece of post-modern literature that offers the fun and thrills of a roller coaster ride-- total loss of gravity in the hands of a master of panic.
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
