Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Katherine Silver – published César Aira

I argued many times for publishing the novels of authors such as Aira in pairs, so was delighted to see New Directions had decided to do this. I am a big fan of Aira and will read everything of his that is translated, but books of less than 100 pages are expensive.

Festival concerns an international film festival in an unnamed country, focused on its guest of honour, Belgian direction Alex Steryx, and the mundane chaos caused by the guest he brings, his elderly and frail mother. There are echoes of his wonderful The Literary Conference in the style this is presented, and that it is largely played for humour. Steryx is to chair the Grand Jury and to be present at the premier of his latest science fiction film.

Needless to say Steryx’s mother gets in the way as his priority has to be her needs, she is losing her sight, and has a continually bad temper. She immediately clashes with the Festival’s organiser, Perla Sobietsky, who is extremely competitive and author of a book of Steryx. They both demand his time.
The story of the days of the festival ticks over very pleasantly and is largely satirical until a rather tremendous punchline, or punch-paragraph. Aira signing off in typical fashion.

Though also dealing with science fiction, and being humorous, The Game of the Worlds is very different in its style and tone, but just as good, if not, a little better. Though it could be one of Steryx’s plots for a film.

The novel takes place in the undated far ahead future, and the ‘game’ is a virtual reality game played adolescent children of the narrator, who though knowledgeable of IT cannot understand the pull the game has. The game seems similar, though far more brutal, to the board game ‘Risk’, and involves (virtually) arriving on a planet, then taking it over by violent means, thereby committing genocide against the beings that inhabit it. As the novel proceeds, this worries the father, the narrator, more and more.

There is a horror element to the novel throughout, though this is Aira in a philosophical mood. The focus moves to the father’s additional concern that the ‘game’ may be priming humanity for the return of God, the notion of which died out many thousands of years before. The ‘game’ leads to some people becoming supreme, and that God might dispossess humanity.

The explanation of how God vanished for the world is a page of Aira at his very best; a blend of horror, humour, philosophy and fantasy.

Some great work is hard to finish though, and that is the case here. Whereas the finale to Festival is especially rewarding, here it falls a bit flat. The novel as a whole remains excellent, and it is the only disappointment in another wonderful piece of work from the great writer.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5