by Tomas Eloy Martinez
translated by Helen Lane
‘He drove the truck along the avenues in silence. He shuddered. History: Was this what history was like? Could a person quietly enter and leave it? He felt light, as though he were inside another body. Perhaps nothing of what was apparently happening was happening at all. Perhaps history was not made up of realities but of dreams. People dreamed facts, and then writing invented the past. There was no such thing as life, only stories.‘
Here’s a story about a woman who entered history and was not able to leave it very quietly at all. Based on facts, with all the appearances of invention – ‘…the beginning of a true story that nonetheless seemed like a fable.‘
I loved this mix of fact and fiction, and the exploration of what (if anything) defines both. With an author who questions his role as the storyteller, and characters who are the invented but not necessarily less real versions of people who actually lived and breathed, and a story too fantastic to have been made up, this book absolutely writhed round in my hands. It could not be contained.
This book is loosely a revelation of Eva Peron’s life and death and death after life, the fascination that surrounded her metamorphosis from a poor B-list actress into the wife of the president of Argentina, and the adventures of her embalmed body after her death. Evita was a woman who could transform herself, but was equally well transformed by others – saint, mother, witch, and whore, whatever anyone wanted her to be. Feared and loved by more after her death than during it, her body became a political plaything – hidden, duplicated, stolen, buried, obsessed over by the men put in charge of its safety, hunted by the people who adored the woman it had been…
It’s an amazing tale, and Martinez tells it astonishingly well. It’s twisted and horrible and hilarious all at once – a fun and fascinating book. I was so pleased to once again be reading work by a Latin American writer, as I enjoyed so many books from this area of the world last year. Actually, there were quite a few references to some of the authors I read last year which made this one particularly fun for me. I wish I had more time to really dig into it, but it’s a crazy week for me… Suffice it to say that I’ve added a couple of movies about Evita to my Netflix list, and that I’ll definitely be reading more books by Martinez! The other members of our Non-Structured book group have some stellar posts about this one, collected here by Richard, who’s pick it was for this month. Join us in October for a reading of Tobias Wolff’s Old School!
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands – Bruno Barreto – Brazil – 1976
Alexandra – Aleksandr Sokurov – Russia – 2007
by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House is about a house that may or may not be haunted, may or may not be in the possession of evil spirits, may or may not be in itself a being of evil. Dr. Montague and three assistants intend to spend several weeks living in Hill House, investigating its paranormal tendencies, aware that for the past 20 years or so no human habitants have managed to stay there for more than several days.
While Poe’s poem didn’t make me tremble much, I was tormented by shivers aplenty – each ghastly swallow of Eel River Brewing Company’s Raven’s Eye Imperial Stout sent chills running the length of my spine. I’m a huge fan of dark beers, although high alcohol content in a dark beer can be a scary thing. The brew had Imperial written right on it, so I was forewarned. In the mouth the brew was sweet and nutty, and going down the throat it had a pleasant hint of coffee, but on the swallow a bizarre sourness flooded out all other flavors and turned the experience into something of an ordeal…! Plenty of perilous imbibing there – and I must say that I’ll take an interesting beer experience over an uninteresting one, even if the boring beer goes down easier, any day! 🙂
My foray into my R.I.P. challenge reading choices has been brief so far, although entirely satisfactory. I began with a few short stories by Poe – The Gold Bug, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue. I am impressed by Poe’s ability to conjure a sense of place. The description of the spit of island where Legrand and the unnamed narrator of The Gold Bug endeavor to solve a riddle is to the point, but vivid:
I love the autumn, and especially 
by William Carlos Williams
and my mind is still reeling from the unbelievably bad construction and execution and writing of Shadowboxer – although the premise is so strange that it kind of cracks me up: Helen Mirren is an assassin who is dying from cancer, and on her last job she is unable to shoot a pregnant woman who subsequently goes into labor and gives birth to a baby, which Mirren assists in delivering, and then charges her adopted son/lover (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) with the protection and care of both mother and son in the event of her death… Oh, and he’s an assassin too. Tagging along for the ride are Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young doctor, and Mo’Nique as his girlfriend/benefactor. Um…?? It’s all a bit much!
Throw Momma From the Train (Danny DeVito-USA-1987) was hilariously weird. DeVito is the harassed son of the mother from hell, who discovers that his community college creative writing teacher (played by Billy Crystal) is equally perturbed with his ex-wife, who supposedly stole his idea for a novel and shot to international acclaim. DeVito comes up with a scheme where he will kill the ex-wife and Crystal will kill DeVito’s mother and thus they will both appear to have no motive and will therefore never be suspected. His side of the deal seems to go off without a hitch, but Crystal is more than a little reluctant to hold up his end. Things get a little bit out of control. 🙂
Kelly’s Heroes is deadly serious in the sense that all its action revolves around an exhausted group of US soldiers during WWII. It’s about war, and its effect on the minds of the men caught up in it, and it has moments of intense sadness – but it’s actually a mad caper of a story, lighthearted and funny for the most part. Given a miraculous weekend off, but lacking sweet-smelling beds and pretty girls or any other kinds of entertainment, a group of soldiers decide to sneak across enemy lines to steal a copious amount of gold that is stockpiled in a Nazi bank. Led by the stiff determination of Pvt. Kelly (Clint Eastwood), assisted by the gruff daring-do of MSgt. Big Joe (Telly Savalas), and backed by the fire power of Sgt. Oddball (Donald Sutherland) and his tanks, they make it 30 miles behind enemy lines before anyone notices. According to IMDb trivia, the movie is based on true events, and pretty astonishing events they are. Clint Eastwood plays Clint Eastwood wonderfully well as can be expected, and the rest of the cast is spot on. Donald Sutherland blows everyone else out of the water though (quite literally) with the character of Oddball, a fun-in-the-sun loving, tank driving, mustache chewing fellow whose positive outlook obliterates the “negative waves” that he mourns the prevalence of in everyone else. I love him! With combat scenes that rival those in many great “war movies” balanced by a generous serving of black humor, this movie is, well…golden. 🙂
The Rizzos are a family of liars – they lie to each other about their work, their hobbies, their schooling, their after-dinner plans, their before breakfast plans, their past relationships, their present relationships, what they were doing five minutes ago, what they’re doing this moment… Or perhaps they’re all just very selective about the bits of truth they share with each other? Andy Garcia plays Vince, head of the clan – a corrections officer and secretly aspiring actor, whose discovery of a son from a 20-year-old fling threatens to bring his entire family’s web of deception down on their heads in a sticky mess. It’s the snarky snappy verbal battles that keep this movie hopping, and a brilliant performance from Garcia, not to mention Julianna Margulies as his wife or the rest of the fine cast. Quirky, interesting characters and a plot that has the perfect balance of the familiar and the creative. Nicely done. 
what we have here is a failure to communicate 