An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

César Aira (Author), Chris Andrews (Translator), Roberto Bolańo (Preface)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Paperbook | Publication Date: May 25, 2006

An astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a man's life that became a lightning rod for inspiration.

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Part travelogue, part meditation on art, this brief, increasingly riveting fictionalized history by Argentinean author Aira (How I Became a Nun) reinvents German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas's ill-fated 1837 South American journey. Rugendas, a genre painter influenced by naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, first recorded the "exotic" landscape of the New World in the early 1820s and had early success with the illustrated Picturesque Voyage Through Brazil (1827). Aira dwells on Rugendas's disastrous second journey to South America, when the artist had hoped to penetrate the immense plains of Argentina. Accompanied by younger German painter Robert Krause, Rugenda traveled through the Chilean Cordillera, over the Andes and to the border town of Mendoza, before heading east across the Argentinean pampas towards Buenos Aires. But they encounter a vast stretch of the plains devastated by locusts, and with their horses starving, Rugendas heads out by himself in search of verdant land. He is twice hit by lightning, then dragged by his terrified horse. Disfigured and dependent on morphine thereafter to quell paralyzing nervous seizures, Rugendas redoubles his dedication to his art. Aira's documentary achieves a skillful synthesis of fact and imagination.
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Review

“A book fueled by altered perception.” (Bondo Wyszpolski - Easy Reader )

“Aira oversteps the bounds of realism, forcing the world to live up to his imagination.” (Benjamin Lytal - New York Sun )

“The author who nowadays is perhaps the most original and shocking, the most exciting and subversive Spanish narrative writer.” (Ignacio Echeverri )

“May it herald many more such unsettling and elegant parables to come.” (Mark Doty - Los Angeles Times )

“An easy and diverting read.” (Claire Morris - Historical Novels Review )

“A spirit of wonderment and awe in the brave new world.” (Douglas Messerli, Otis College of Art & Design )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; Tra edition (May 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811216306
• ISBN-13: 978-0811216302
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Latin American

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stupendous short novel, January 5, 2008

By 

James Elkins (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

This is a stupendous novel, a real achievement in a very brief compass. Aira is a strange and somewhat scattered novelist -- I am not sure if he has control over his forms, and sometimes, as in "How I Became a Nun," he seems to want to relinquish control -- but his pace, his wit, his descriptions, and even his philosophic asides are tremendous. He is genuinely surprising. It's not just the plot twists that took me by surprise, it was individual descriptions and sudden parenthetical comments.

An aside on philosophic asides. This book is full of them, but none are over 1/2 page long. they aren't laboriously planned and unfurled with trumpet fanfares, like some of Milan Kundera's. They aren't faux-philosophy -- dogmas and cliches masquerading as paradoxes and profundities, as in Cees Nooteboom or Javier Marias. And Aira's philosophic asides aren't arch, ironic, and elliptical, as in Umberto Eco. When Aira wants to say something about representation, reality, expression, or communication, he does so brilliantly and quickly.

As an art historian, I wouldn't recommend this for understanding nineteenth-century painting, although there is some good material on Humboldt's theories of nature. No: it's fiction, and very inventive, odd, and unpredictable. If Aira can discipline himself the way Pynchon did to write "Gravity's Rainbow," he will be one of the principal novelists of the next few decades.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Episode of Life, June 1, 2007

By 

Donald W. Hines "Aloha-Don" (Sacramento, CA(N.H.)) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

Recently a friend of mine went to Buenas Aires and returned with this short novel. I'd been doing a little study on Monet lately and this title caught my eye. What an amazing writer this Aira is. Of cours his writing is in Spanish but this English translation I beleive fully capture the fullness of thought process. It is a story without chapter breakdown and yet,though full of eclectic content, it flows like a memoir related story. I'm taking up a research of the characters in this story as well as the technical terms because it was so intriquing, historically and artistically.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bold, Exciting Author from Argentina now in English Translations, June 13, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

César Aira, known to this reader first as a contributor to the commentary in the book 'ARGENTINA: THE GREAT ESTANCIAS', is surfacing in this country as a brilliant new voice in literature. Long famous in his native Argentina, his works are becoming available in English, in the case of AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER, through the fine translation by Chris Andrews. Aira is a writer of style, wit, immensely gifted descriptive prose, and a mind that pays homage to magical realism without mimicking it. He is an original!

In this short novel Aira blends history with fiction in his recounting the adventures of Johann Moritz Rugendas, a gifted draughtsman and painter who is making his second visit to South America to paint the landscapes of Chile and Argentina from 1831 to 1847. Trained and influenced by the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whose scientific vision of 'physiognomic totality' (definition of physiognomy:'a theory based upon the idea that the study and judgment of a person's outer appearance, primarily the face, may give insights into their character or personality. The term physiognomy is also used to refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain, without reference to its underlying or scientific characteristics') Aria wished to apply to painting. Rugendas is accompanied by a fellow German Robert Krause, a man whose paintings by Rugendas' standards were poor but whose demeanor made him the perfect friend and traveling companion. Together the travel through the Andes, longing for adventure such as Indian raids to paint, and eventually wander into the pampas of Argentina where they encounter life altering experiences: Rugendas is struck twice by lightning and dragged by his terrified horse, an accident which peels the skin from his face leaving him severely disfigured - but undaunted. The remainder of the 'episode' relates how Rugendas, now requiring massive doses of morphine to control his pain, encounters Indian raids that he and Krause sketch and paint.

In Aira's words 'An artist always learns something from the practice of his art, even in the most constraining circumstances, and in this case Rugendas discovered an aspect of the physiognomic procedure that had so far escaped his notice. Namely that it was based on repetition: fragments were reproduced identically, barely changing their location in the picture...the fragment's outline could be affected by perspective. As small and as large as the Taoist dragon....Repetitions: in other words, the history of art.' And just as Aira is able to address cerebral issues such as this and incorporate them into his character's mold, he is also able to write some of the most comical prose encountered in literature today. Aira's spectrum of writing skill, even in this small volume, is amazing. He is at once able to entertain with wildly inventive storylines while enhancing the reader's knowledge and wrapping it all in balanced comedic and dramatic terms. The next novel to be translated is HOW I BECAME A NUN - and we can only hope that the rest of his output is made available to us soon. Highly recommended author, highly recommended book! Grady Harp, June 07