jeremy's Reviews > The Linden Tree

the fifteenth of césar aira's many books (over eighty!) to be translated into english, the linden tree (el tilo) is a "fictional memoir" of growing up in coronel pringles during the post-perón era. entirely devoid of the genre-shifting narrative for which the prolific argentine author is well known, aira's novella offers glimpses and recollections of his parents, small-town life, and near poverty. while grateful for any autobiographical insight (however fictionalized) into the life of an enigmatic writer, the linden tree provides mere sketches, reminiscences, and a fondness for childhood memories. nonetheless, hit or miss, aira is always a delight to read and each new english-language entry commands an ardent look.

a child's father is a model, a mirror, and a hope. more than that, he's a typical man, a specimen of fully formed, adult humanity. a kind of adam constructed from all the fragments of the world that the child progressively comes to know. it's hardly surprising that some parts don't fit and the whole turns out to be rather mysterious. the father is like a big, complex riddle whose answers appear one by one over the course of the child's life. i would even venture to say that those answers are our instructions for living.

*translated from the spanish by chris andrews (bolaño, et al.)