Publisher's Weekly Review
The indefatigable Aira's (The Hare) latest is an excellent place to encounter his logic-defying brilliance for the first time, and will likewise please existing fans. Our narrator starts by recalling his practice of revisiting the day's conversations every night before falling asleep. In this case, the conversation concerns a movie in which a gold Rolex can be seen plainly adorning the wrist of the actor playing the goatherd. Is it an error on the part of the filmmakers? Or, as the narrator's friend argues, a portal into a subjective third reality somewhere between real life and film, actor and fictional character? One thing is certain: this telltale watch explodes the differences between the two men and opens up a dazzling inquiry into subjects as far ranging as eastern European political instability, the fragmentary nature of fiction, Kant's critiques, and the film's equally oddball plot (featuring mutant algae and feral beauty queens). Short enough to read in a single sitting, this book is, like all Aira's work, fodder for the kind of late-night speculations that lend themselves to seamless dreaming. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In the habit of meeting a friend at a cafe each day for long talks that he replays later in his mind, the narrator of Argentine writer Aira's hybrid title, which melds fiction and reality, has developed a deep and sharp appreciation for conversations and memory. Later, at his leisure, recalling the meandering rhythms of the talks, the narrator reconsiders the circularity of their conversations. He ponders how conversations and memories of conversations overlap with other memories to form a stream of consciousness that erases the boundaries between the individual's thoughts and those of others, a kind of echoing of talk and thoughts, so that, ultimately, it's not clear who said what, whose position has subtly shifted over time, and how sensibilities have blended. The narrator and his friend ponder the incongruities in movies and in life. The impetus to speak and to remember what was spoken, though the same, were charged with distinct and incompatible energies, he observes in this at times hilarious social commentary on the inanities of modern life and the significance of conversation.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The prolific and prodigiously talented Aira (The Hare) can make much with a little, as exemplified by this slim and effortlessly entertaining book. When two friends discuss a movie they had seen on TV, the narrator laughs about the gold Rolex watch inadvertently revealed on the wrist of the actor playing a lowly goatherd. The puzzled reaction of his friend, who missed the scene, sets off a spiraling conversation about art, politics, killer algae, Hollywood stars, and Immanuel Kant. It's witty, but it also shows how everything connects. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.