Lands of Memory (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

Felisberto Hernández (Author), Esther Allen (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2008 | Series: New Directions Paperbook (Book 1110)

A superb fiction collection by the great Uruguayan writer: "If I hadn't read the stories of Felisberto Hernández in 1950, I wouldn't be the writer I am today." —Gabriel García Márquez

Lands of Memory presents a half-dozen wonderful works by Felisberto Hernández, "a writer like no other," Italo Calvino declared, "like no European or Latin American. He is an 'irregular,' who eludes all classifications and labellings—yet he is unmistakable on any page to which one might randomly open one of his books."

Named a Guardian Best Book of the Year by Alfred Brendel and a TLS Best Book of the Year by Michael Hofmann (who calls Felisberto "a loopier, vegetarian Kafka, inhabiting his mazy personal baroque"), Lands of Memory collects four astonishing stories and the two dreamlike novellas "Around the Time of Clemente Colling" and "Lands of Memory."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A giant of Latin American letters and precursor to the magic realist writers is well served by this absorbing translation of some of his most acclaimed works. The two novellas and four short stories reveal an exacting sensibility that defies the categories to which Latin American writers are usually assigned. Once a pianist who accompanied silent films, the Uruguayan Hern ndez (1902-1964) crafts luminous works that reflect the guileless drama and visual intensity of silent films. His characters, all pianists of one level or other, are constantly reliving a past recital or pondering their next performance. Music is the subtext for narratives that plumb aspects of memory and thought, without a definable plot. Hern ndez revels in images that are simple and repetitive: arms, light and shadow, the houses of the wealthy and their odd contents. The stories acquire a luxurious sheen from the ease with which they navigate memories, taking pleasure in recounting them with no intention other than tracking the mind's twists and turns. The collection includes the acclaimed novella "Around the Time of Clemente Colling," the dreamy "Lands of Memory" and the Buster Keaton-like short story, "The Crocodile." Allen has done a masterful job with this translation, rendering the innocence of the original Spanish while retaining the poetic aesthetic Hernandez aspired to.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Hernández is a writer like no other, like no European or Latin American. --Italo Calvino”

“Felisberto, I will always love you! --Julio Cortázar”

“A giant of Latin American letters and precursor to the magic realist writers is well served by this absorbing translation of some of his most acclaimed works. The two novellas and four short stories reveal an exacting sensibility that defies the categories to which Latin American writers are usually assigned. Once a pianist who accompanied silent films, the Uruguayan Hernández (1902-1964) crafts luminous works that reflect the guileless drama and visual intensity of silent films. His characters, all pianists of one level or other, are constantly reliving a past recital or pondering their next performance. Music is the subtext for narratives that plumb aspects of memory and thought, without a definable plot. Hernández revels in images that are simple and repetitive: arms, light and shadow, the houses of the wealthy and their odd contents. The stories acquire a luxurious sheen from the ease with which they navigate memories, taking pleasure in recounting them with no and turns. The collection includes the acclaimed novella "Around the Time of Clemente Colling," the dreamy "Lands of Memory" and the Buster Keaton-like short story, "The Crocodile." Allen has done a masterful job with this translation, rendering the innocence of the original Spanish while retaining the poetic aesthetic Hernández aspired to.” --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (July 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811217531
• ISBN-13: 978-0811217538
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #456,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth getting to know, March 28, 2010

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R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lands of Memory (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

Felisberto Hernández (1902-1964) was a Uruguayan writer and pianist. (As a boy, he played piano accompaniment to silent films during screenings in the theater.) As a writer, he was not prolific, but he was influential. Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, "If I hadn't read the stories of Felisberto Hernández in 1950, I wouldn't be the writer I am today." Julio Cortázar and Italo Calvino also acknowledged their admiration and indebtedness.

LANDS OF MEMORY contains two longer pieces (about sixty pages each) and four shorter ones. It seems a little forced or odd to call them "stories" (or "novellas", in the case of the two longer ones), because they are rather thin on plot. The first-person narrator in all of them is someone who is bemused and mystified by random encounters and commonplaces of life, any of which is likely to be a trapdoor to the past and a dreamlike world of memories, all slightly whimsical and gently mad, but for all of that touching and memorable. The voice of Felisberto (according to the introduction, no one refers to him by his surname) is a singular one; try as I might, I can't come up with a satisfactory comparison to another writer. The best I can do is quote Esther Allen, who in addition to her superb translation also provided the excellent introduction: "His work will bring Magritte or Joseph Cornell to mind. * * * He plays with the association of ideas but his riddles are not meant to be solved. His purpose, if he has one * * * is to immerse the reader in a shifting sequence of states of being and mysterious mental processes, repeating, amplifying, and transforming certain elusive themes that are always accompanied by the counterpoint of memory."

The best pieces are the two longer ones - "Around the Time of Clemente Colling" and "Lands of Memory" - which are placed in this volume as bookends. Even though I don't "get" them (though I rather doubt that at bottom there is anything to "get") I am quite taken by both of them, and I have made a note to myself to re-read them in another year or so. The four shorter pieces are not on the same plane, but they too contain some wonderful images and descriptions, such as this one (from "My First Concert in Montevideo"): "One of the waiters was nearsighted and moved around behind a pair of thick glasses which would advise him, very slowly, of where he might find a thing, whereupon his nose would oscillate like a compass until finally it pointed towards its objective. In one hand he carried a tray and with the other he groped his way through the crowd. * * * We contemplated him as if he were a steamer navigating among islands, running aground every so often and unloading the orders in all the wrong ports."

I am pleased to have stumbled upon the work of Felisberto Hernández (there is one at least one other work of his readily available in English translation, "Piano Stories"). I don't find him one of the great writers of the past century -- in part, I suppose, because he does not (obviously) wrestle with the "big" themes and mysteries of life -- but his work and its unusual aesthetic are worth getting to know.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, October 13, 2008

By 

A. D. hodgson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lands of Memory (Hardcover)

These stories could be compared with Street of Crocodiles, a rather famous collection of short stories; similar mood, elegaic, quiet, but with feel, like a good piano concierto. "Crocodile" is a good one- who knew selling pantyhose could make such a good tale. "Around the Time of Clemente Colling" also lingers for me. The other writer I would group these stories with is Marcel Proust; meditative, detailed, and definitely looking backward, with cerebral sentences, etcetera. If you like short stories with grace and skill (but no explosions or sex) or Latin American writers, then I recommend this.