The Tsar of Love and Techno

Abstract

Not only does Highway justify forgery, he also happily engages in plagiarism— in other words, intertextuality. He often quotes his “uncles,” including Juan Sánchez Baudrillard, Marcelo Sánchez-Proust, and other famous figures. These quotations shift the atmosphere of the text depending on the reader’s degree of familiarity with these authors, but they are playful enough for us not to get confused even if we don’t get the erudite allusions. Luiselli’s novel is not only for those initiated into postmodern theory. It is the result of meaningful engagement not only with literary giants but with the real world as well, an engagement that connects this otherwise lighthearted and elusive little book to the ground, injecting fresh blood into postmodern techniques. As Luiselli explains in her afterword, she was originally commissioned to write a work of fiction for the exhibition catalog of an art gallery that is funded by a juice factory. Instead, she decided to write a novel in installments , in collaboration with the workers of the factory, located in Ecatepec, outside Mexico City. The exposure of collaborative efforts involved in making this book would not be complete without making the translator ’s presence explicit. Luiselli’s translator , Christina MacSweeney, contributed a delightful timeline that is just as helpful as it is disorienting: besides giving signposts (political and literary events that took place during Highway’s lifetime), MacSweeney also added some random, insignificant events. Other insertions in the book include mottos by philosophers of language, aphorisms taken from Chinese fortune cookies, and a collection of photos of artwork as well as buildings and scenes in Ecatepec taken by factory workers. A fundamental openness and curiosity make Luiselli’s work fresh and exciting. She is serious in her engagement with art, literature, and society without being arrogant or sententious—she is part of all those games, and is happy to acknowledge it. The topic she explores—fiction enhancing the value of an object—is quite pertinent in an age when the fate of so many people depends on hyperbolic personal statements, résumés, or news items. Ágnes Orzóy Budapest Anthony Marra. The Tsar of Love and Techno. New York. Hogarth. 2015. 332 pages. After the signal achievement of Anthony Marra’s first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (2013), one returns with pleasure to Chechnya and Russia for more memorable characters, conflicts, and absurdity. This time, from the Russian perspective, there is less fatality in the air than individual deaths and disappearances, understood well enough so that those who adapt quickly might survive. If one is clever , one can even maintain certain constancies behind a chameleon exterior. One functionary has “ascended to the rank of commissar by welcoming the lunacy the world so graciously handed him.” There is a deputy curator whose art museum has been destroyed, with its best paintings sent to Moscow, who keeps damaged paintings in his apartment. In his new position as tourist director, he restores Grozny, rated the most devastated in the world, by painting word-pictures of buildings that were once standing for Chinese tourists. Or the former art student, now a leading censor of photographs, carefully airbrushing out disgraced persons from historic pictures, sometimes extending background, sometimes replacing the face with an unknown or anonymous person. His constancy consists in the face he repeatedly inserts, his brother at various ages, an unknown man who was executed, supposedly for being too religious. Naïm Kattan Farida Norman Cornett & Antonio D’Alfonso, tr. Guernica Editions Naïm Kattan places his sensual and passionate love story in a situation rife with conflict in Iraq before the advent of World War II. Religious, political, and cultural clashes are juxtaposed with intense matters of the heart as Farida, a Jewish cabernet singer, embarks on an ardent, tortured romance complicated by jealousy and ambitions. Kattan’s simple yet lush prose, ably rendered by Norman Cornett and Antonio D’Alfonso, draws the reader into this compelling tale set in a unique environment. Philippe Jaccottet The Pilgrim’s Bowl (Giorgio Morandi) John Taylor, tr. Seagull Books Words, though imperfect and imprecise, allow Philippe Jaccottet to develop and explore his reactions to the artwork of Giorgio Morandi...