La erÃ3tica del relato

WÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The most beautifulinventions have beautifulstoriesbehind them, musesJeanEchenoz;and indeed his book has a greatdeal to say about inventions and storiesboth.Creativityis verymuchat issue in Gregor's life,just as it was in the two other "lives" towhichEchenozhas turned his attention.Yet creativity is also a centralconcernin the veryform ofthisbook, in whichEchenoz borrows techniques and conventions fromthenovel and biography,casting them in a hybrid formin an effort to suggestnew directionsfor prosenarrative. Havingbroughtthis particularset of experimentsto a close, it will be intriguingto see what kinds of inventionshe comes up withnext. mÊÊÊÊ^^^^mm^m^^^^^^m^^^^^^^^^^^^mmÊÊÊÊÊÊÊm man of science.Born on a predictablystormy nightina darkcornerof eastern Europe,Gregorwillmakehis way to America,and therehis gifts willbe put to thetestin a varietyof ways. Gregor'smindis a fertile one; he engendersnew ideas ceaselessly, and as ifwithoutconsciousthought. Thoseideas traverse a broadhorizon ofscientific inquiry, buttheonesthat produce the most brilliantsparks focusupon thenew scienceofelectricity , and thatis whereGregorwill make his most indelible mark. He mighthave made his fortune there, too,had he been a bit moreworldly , but he must settlefor making fortunes forothers,people such as Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse , and JohnPierpontMorgan. Thoughat thepeak ofhis notoriety Gregoris fetedas theworld's bestknown scientist,and is regularly invitedto dine with contemporary luminaries likeMarkTwainand WilliamJames , he is essentially a loner, ill at ease in thecompanyofmenand stillmoreuncomfortable in the companyofwomen.He will electto spendhisfinalyearsamongpigeons. Warren Motte University ofColorado La erótica del relato: Escritores de la nueva literaturaargentina. Jimena Nèspolo & Matías Nèspolo, comp. Buenos Aires.Adriana Hidalgo. 2009. 293 pages, isbn 978-987-1556-03-8 The twenty-first centuryhas witnessed theemergenceofa new generationofwriters groupedunderthe "new Argentinenarrative"rubric. This anthologyadds to the corpus startedby La joven guardia:Nueva narrativa argentina(2005) and continued by Una terrazapropia:Nuevas narradoras argentinas (2006) and other, morethematic, anthologies.In a prologue-manifesto toLa erótica del relato: Escritores de la nuevaliteratura argentina, theseheraldos (thename is taken fromCésar Vallejo's famous poem) profess a vitalism where words are "erectionsofthetongue," thus the "storyerotics"of the title. For all theposturingand parricides ("We're fedup withtheblindlibrarian ,"theysay,referring toBorgesian HHhHHH aesthetics), theirproposal is almost bland: "We teUstories." Those stories,however,denote some characteristics thatmightbe a cause for reflectionabout the currentstateoftheArgentineshort story.Forthemostpart,thesewriters are sons and daughters of the economic and political debacle of 2001,but,at first glance,social and political issues are conspicuously absent. The preferredterritory for the short story seems to be the strange.The shorterstories (Casiraghi , Brito Barrote,Feld, Levin, Manzano, Murphy, Matías and Jimena Nèspolo, Peverelli) tend to work toward a revelation or epiphany,as a classic storywould. Of these, Brito Barrote's tale of a nightmarishbirth on water, the strange obsession over a tile in Murphy's, and the compilers' stories (Jimena's is about a strange woman who's pregnantand Matías rewrites Quiroga's "Adrift" and "The Dead Man") are the most effective. The longer stories (Coelho , Damiani, Hardmeier, Heffes, Pron, Romero, Ronsino, Vecchio) are almostalways morose;some of them show experimentationwith form(Damiani) or constructa parallel , imaginative world (Heffes), but ultimatelylose tension. Others are competentin the constructionof suspense (Coelho) or mood (Romero). The best one (imaginative , satiric,funny;it's about art, sex, and family relationships) is Vecchio's. Sold as a "literaryand cultural intervention" thatwantstoreinstate desireinliterature, La erotica delrelato : Escritores de la nueva literatura argentina ends up understanding fictionas a refuge from theworld.This "erotics"symbolizes,then,the trip taken by individual desire toward the social and the political. This anthologyoffers readersmanyways tocontemplate thefireworks. PabloBrescia University ofSouthFlorida Flix. Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil. Hamburg, Germany. Carlsen. 2010. 95 pages, ill. €14.90. isbn978-3-55178977 -8 German comic author Flix's latest work,Faust: Der Tragödieerster Teil,is both a departurefromand a returnto his earlierwork. It is a returnto the subject matterof his firstpublished comic, which was also a versionof Goethe's Faustset in present-dayGermany.As such, italso departsfromthesortofautobiographicalnarrativeforwhichhe isbestknowninworkslikeHeldand Sag Was. The storyis a goofy,modern reworking of classical literature in the vein of O Brother Where Art 6oiWorldLiterature Today

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