Fulgentius

by César Aira, Chris Andrews (Translator)

By profession I am a soldier, a general in the glorious Roman army. As a playwright, I think of myself as a sublime amateur.

In Cesar Aira’s new novel, Fulgentius, a fictitious 67-year-old imperial Roman general—“Rome’s most illustrious and experienced”—is sent to pacify the remote province of Pannonia.



He is a thoughtful, introspective person, a Saturnine intellectual who greatly enjoys being on the march away from his loving family, and the sometimes deadly intrigues of Rome. Fulgentius is also a playwright (though of exactly one play) and in every city he pacifies, he stages a grand production of his farcical tragedy (written at the tender age of twelve) about a man who becomes a famous general only to be murdered “at the hands of shadowy foreigners.” Curiously what he had imagined as a child turns out to be the story of his life, almost. As the playwright-turned-general broods obsessively about his only work, the magnificent Lupine Legion, “a city in movement” of 6,000 men, an invincible corps of seasoned fighters, wearing their signature wolfskin caps, kill, burn, pillage, and loot their way to victory. But what does victory mean? As he leaves each conquered city behind, Fulgentius suspects that once Rome’s eyes are again elsewhere, the “subdued” provinces will go right back to their old ways. For it seems there is no end of rebellions to pacify—or opportunities to stage productions of his favorite play: Fulgentius takes his theater of war quite literally. 

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Spanish Literature, Novels, Literature, Ancient History, War

163 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than eighty books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and now the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina’s ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, in 2002 he was short listed for the Rómulo Gallegos prize, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This ruled. César Aira is a ton of fun. So much fun watching mass murdering Roman general Fulgentius march from town to town, forcing the locals to put on his play, which is part tragedy and part autobiography (but the tragedy doesn't overlap with the autobiography, nor vice versa). He doesn't learn, really, he just keeps going.

I wrote a bit more about César Aira and Fulgentius over on my substack.

[Allen Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review to come.

I finally settled on a rating for this book as I just had no idea how I felt about it. I think I'm more in awe of this book than I enjoyed it, as I think it's a better book than what I'm giving it credit for but it just tackles some big themes in--at least felt to me--a more nihilistic way than I'm comfortable with. It felt like a Parker novel, but I felt worse at the end.

Some brilliant writing with some fabulous quotes and a subject matter that I love but probably above my head. A book I can see a very specific person (Zara and others) absolutely loving while others (most other people I know) despising it lol

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de los buenos del gran César Aira. La historia es divertida y la narración también. Las descripciones de los paisajes, irónicas y muy buenas. Habla mucho de los escritores, poetas, artistas y demás personajes de la cultura, de la escritura del yo vs la fantasía, de hacer una gran obra o no (temas airanos por excelencia), muy genial y afilado como siempre, pero particularmente en este libro me hizo reír.

[Zara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was incredible. I loved the character of Fulgentius, who felt incredibly relatable despite being an almost 70 year old general. It's deeply philosophical and talked about some of my favourite themes.

I will be doing a full review on my channel so watch this space.

[Albert Marsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kickass. An aging Roman general goes off on campaign one last time, not for his legacy or for the glory of Rome, but to force provincial towns to put on productions of a play he wrote as a student. Truly brilliant. Found this through a review I read I think in someone's newsletters? Wouldn't have known about it otherwise. Gotta read more Aira now. Could read a dozen of these.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another delightful short novel from César Aira, who by now has probably written over a hundred of them at a steady rate of three a year. Fulgentius tells of a Roman general leading his legion to put down disturbances in Pannonia. He calmly sees to it that the wives of brigands are raped and their children are crucified. And, atr every opportunity, he arranges for a tragedy he had written at the age of twelve to be performed, the play being an imaginary autobiography of his (projected) adult life, in which he dies at the end.

There is something delightfully gonzo about Aira's stories. The legion marches to Pannonia, puts on the tragedy, successfully puts down the opposition, and after a year and a half returns to Rome. It's more like real life than real life is.

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

La novela romana de Aira. Un general del Imperio que parece más griego que romano. Que se engendra a sí mismo en una mitología personal -lo mejor del libro, un parto desopilante, ecos del fiord-. Que reflexiona sobre el teatro, sobre el autor y su obra, sobre el imperio y el poder, sobre la experiencia y la enciclopedia, sobre el envejecimiento y la muerte. Todo motorizado por el recurso de la jugada filosófica casi de divulgación, pero que conserva la calidad conceptual. De un minimalismo barroco -imposible para cualquiera, pero factible para el César de la literatura argentina-. Son puros pretextos airanos para narrar. La diversión de contar historias. El combo incluye la reflexión sobre la narración, hasta la autodestrucción. Una belleza. ¿César le mojó la oreja al César, al otro, Julio? ¿Son los comentarios de la guerra de las Galias en versión corregida y actualizada?

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read while moving house, so no time to do an adequate review. Short version: A Roman general on what is likely his last tour of duty commands a legion of 6,000 compelling folks into the Roman fold and demanding performances of a play he wrote as a teenager.

[pelekas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gražu, kaip knyga atsiveria bekeliaujant jos puslapiais – dažniausiai taip nebūna, bet kadangi Aira rašydamas improvizuoja, tekstas ima priminti gyvenimą, kuris irgi gan aptakus ir kupinas galimybių, trajektorijų, kuriomis galėtų pasisukti veiksmas ir tema, juk dabarties momente niekad nežinai, kokią reikšmę jis įgaus visame paveiksle. Patiko teksto svajingumas, stilius, atsikartojantis sapno/sapnavimo/negalėjimo pabusti motyvas, panardino į kvarcu žibančias ūkanas. Ilgainiui vis baugiau ėmė atrodyti generolo atotrūkis nuo tikrovės, savęs paties ir kitų žmonių. Pasirodė simboliška, kad iš pradžių ta olimpinė distancija atrodė net žavi, tekste jaučiausi taip saugiai, bet galop suskamba tragiškai. Aišku, yra čia ir grotesko, šaipymosi, tvirtai išlaikyta ambivalencija.

[Chris Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting sort of book. The basic idea of a Roman general and his legion laying waste to everything around them to pacify the far reaches of the Empire whilst the general gets the local theatre groups to reproduce his childhood play is the backbone of the book. The narrative line though is peppered throughout with irony, endangered species become extinct species as the legion kills them all, glorious monuments are destroyed, a new bosom buddy is left to die and the suggestion is that the general realises what he is doing at every turn. Very droll writing style, quietly amusing and very short.

[Alex McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in the foreign authors section of an obscure bookstore. And wow was it incredible. Fulgentius is a novella about a famed Roman military commander that would rather put on productions of his play than lead an army or even attend to his familial duties at home. This book was weird! But it will probably make my top ten reads of the year.

[Oscreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Aira banger!

[Shannon Hong · Rating 1 out of 5]

A roman general on a final military assignment, his musings that seem so out of place and inevitable at the same time. realizing i'm not interested tbh in the nothingness of male thought

[Michael Jantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of an unusual piece for Mr. Aira. I enjoyed it enough, but the narrative lacks some of the zaniness for which he is known. Then again it provides plenty of nuggets for later sifting.

[Mozart Benedict]

DNF. Thus endeth Fake Parker.

[Jurgis Pakerys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pirmoji lietuviškai išėjusi Césario Airos knyga – „Vienas keliaujančio dailininko gyvenimo nutikimas“. Jo herojui – dailininkui Rugendui – jojant pasitaikė būti trenktam žaibo, tad nusprendžiau, kad „Fulgencijuje“ jis ir toliau joja persikūnijęs į Romos legiono generolą. Kad ten tas pats dailininkas, neabejoju ir dėl to, kad jį tebedomina peizažo anatomija: „Fulgencijus jautė, kad praėjus pamišimui viskas grįžo į savo vietas. Liūdesio privalumas tas, kad gali susitelkęs stebėti peizažą“.

Vis dėlto generolas Fulgencijus, palyginus su „Nutikimo“ dailininku, turi kitą talentą – būdamas 12 metų, lavindamasis juokais parašė tragediją apie save ateityje – legiono vadą, žūstantį dėl priešo klastos. Ta tragedija po Romos imperiją pasklido Fulgencijui nė nesistengiant, tad dabar generolas su jauduliu ją stato kiekviename didesniame mieste, į kurį misijos metu legionas užsuka. Bet nemanykim, kad Fulgencijus yra koks išvėsęs humanitaras – jo legionas žiaudrus, mūšiuose ištemptų lietuviškų kadrų nėra, pergalių režisūra lakoniška.

Kaip suprantu, Airą domina eksperimentai, kur galima stebėti skirtybes: štai dabar pažiūrėkim į teatro užburiamą žmogų generolo kailyje, o dabar stebėkim, kaip nirtingi vyrai palaipsniui atvėsta ir legionas įsikuičia žiemoti prie ežero ir pan.

Apskritai žiūrint į dabar prieinamų lietuviškų Airos knygų trejetuką, rekomenduočiau pradėti nuo „Nutikimo“: jis trumpiausias, intensyviausias ir keisčiausias. Net jei „Nutikimą“ padėsit į šalį, vis tiek būtų verta pabandyti „Vaiduoklius“ ir „Fulgencijų“.

Airą ir toliau tik lietuviškai skaitysiu – jį puikiai verčia Aistė Kučinskienė („Nutikimas“, „Fulgencijus“) ir Alma Naujokaitienė („Vaiduokliai“). O sklandi „Fulgencijaus“ redakcija – Rimos Bertaševičiūtės dėka.

Visàs Airos knygas „Rara“ yra nusprendusi leisti tuo pačiu mažu formatu – kad būtų patogu pasiimti į misijas. Viršelis, sakyčiau, geriausias „Fulgencijaus“ (Linas Spurga jaun.).

Baigdamas dar turiu pažymėti, kad knygoje minima Lazdynų gatvė.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

besides, it was wrong to speak of a delay: rome was eternal, and the empire encompassed the world, transcending petty domestic calculations of time and space.

aira's twentieth(!) book published in english translation, fulgentius is as fun and frolicsome as any of its forerunners. our titular lead — a sensitive sixty-something general at the helm of the large lupine legion laying waste across the roman empire — cares less for his military feats than he does the constant (re)production of an autobiographically prefiguring play penned as a preteen. with comic absurdity, pillaging aplenty, and ample battlefield philosophizing, fulgentius is aira as enjoyable as ever.

the cause of the anguish is simply having lived, not having lived well or badly. that's it. i lived. that's what i regret. but there was nothing else i could do. if there were other lives, none of them was mine.

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

[David Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great novel, maybe my favorite Aira -- a wild, hilarious concept that opens out into some very compelling and moving territory, even more so than could have been expected. An extremely sad book as well.

[Anna Port · Rating 4 out of 5]

ADHD geezer leads an army. Charming, quietly funny, like reading historical fiction about your “back in my day” senile grandpa

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Chance directed by the forces of nature was a divine artist, whose whims had to be indulged.”

[Kip Kyburz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One hell of a book. Bursting with confidence and creativity, an aging Roman general journeys forth with his legion for the express purpose of having the tragedy he wrote as a youth performed in the towns and cities conquered along the way. That’s more or less the entire premise and it is perfect for it. Most of the book is told with deep interiority in the mind of General Fulgentius, while also extolling the brutalities and inevitability of an immortal Rome.

[Dovydas Kiauleikis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Išrašyta opera.

[verda neverda · Rating 3 out of 5]

pusė velnio!
jau trečia Cezario lietuviška knyga, kaip ir kitos prasmenganti savo peizažuose, dūmuose, sapningose mintyse.
ir tie čakšt momentai: tęsias, svaigina ir - nebėr.

[Betty-Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has an interesting cover in mauve and yellow. It has only 162 pages. Some humour was present. For those 3 things, this book got 3 stars. 😆

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I strongly recommend this book. César Aira's novella tells the fictional story of Fulgentius, a Roman general in the imperial era who has been dispatched to Pannonia (modern-day Austria, Slovenia and Hungary) to pacify and civilize the province. There are some minor skirmishes but the efficient legion quickly suppresses any dissident resistance. Fulgentius, however, is more interested in theater. At each new city they come to, he stages a play—a spoof autofictive tragedy about his imagined life and death which he had composed as a young pupil in imitation of the style of Livius Andronicus. He is constantly beset with challenges: the provincials are not educated Romans; the audiences do not have a cultivated appreciation for the theater; the actors are untrained, too effeminate, or their Latin is poor; and their amphitheaters are not right. Yet all these same challenges become a creative impetus. The fact that the audience is uneducated means that he is not appealing to pompous connoisseurs but to ordinary people; when one of his actors overshadows all the other performers on stage, Fulgentius is pleased with the weird sense of alienation it engenders; he comes to like the foreign and stilted recitations of the half-literate actors; when the actor for the major female role cannot speak Latin, he decides to make her a mute spectator, spoken to but never speaking back; finally, he realizes that the grand amphitheaters of the Greek tradition don't lend themselves to intimacy or pathos—what he seems to want is small indie theaters. Ironically, as he travels through ancient Vienna and presses against the outermost margins of the Roman empire, he comes to dislike the sonorous grandeur of the Roman stage. Miraculously, he discovers theatrical Verfremdungseffekt and anticipates Brechtian drama.

This novella is similar to another recent NDP publication, Harald Voetmann's Awake, a satirical portrait of Pliny the Elder presented as a bumbling encyclopedist callously inured to the horrific specter of violence around him. In Aira's novel, Fulgentius is a pensive general, more of a distracted professor than a militant conquistador. He orders crucifixions and slaughter, but the cruel brutality reads like dispassionate bureaucracy rather than blood-lust. Both Awake and Fulgentius show elite Romans dutifully executing the cruel logic of colonial conquest but introspectively wrapped up in philosophical dialectics and ponderous abstraction. Their intellectual curiosity runs counter to their roles as Roman masters and colonizers. What I like about Fulgentius is the delicate irony as its protagonist slowly realizes that his vaunted literary tradition, the cultural heritage of Rome, the whole colonial agenda of Romanization, is hollow. Only by escaping to the outer perimeter of "civilization" can he truly become creative. And as he and his soldiers march over the untrammeled hillsides of Austria, intent on subjugation, urbanization and commodification, he ruefully wishes they could appreciate the beauty of nature more. He is a Romantic poet, a ruminating—if not a reluctant—colonizer.

The novel cleverly plays on the etymology of "avant-garde". As Fulgentius leads the vanguard to the edges of Roman civilization, he suddenly discovers avant-garde forms and new possibilities of theater. Far from being barbarian lands in need of Roman governance and redemption, these margins of the empire foster and embolden literary experimentation. He starts to see Homer as antiquated and absurd. In the denouement, when he meets a curious polymath, who can recite Archilochus and Celtic curses and the history of the Hittites and the discoveries of botany, he is suddenly filled with a desire to learn about the world, to learn all its languages and sciences. The novel is a brilliant piece of historical fiction that undoes the colonial supremacy animating the Roman empire. Fulgentius wants to be a true cosmopolitan, not a Roman.

(An annoyingly pedantic aside, it's not very accurate historically—it repeatedly talks about hexameters in tragedy, rather than iambs; it mentions a love affair of a soldier who wanted to marry a local woman, though soldiers were bound by an oath not to marry; it mentions a married woman as a "substitute vestal", though this is all-round nonsense).

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

César Aira, "Fulgentius." Chris Andrews, translator. New Directions Press, 2017/2020.

César Aira is an extraordinarily prolific and inventive writer. In "Ghosts," he spin out a story of ghosts at a Buenos Aires construction site. In "An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter," he writes about an episode in the life of a actual 19th century German landscape painter, Johann Moritz Ruguendas, who spent many years in Latin America. In "Fulgentius," Aira writes an intellectual and aesthetic biography of a fictional Roman general on his last campaign for the Empire.

Fulgentius is both a general and a playwright. To be more precise, he has led many successful campaigns of conquest for the Roman Empire, and when he was 12 he wrote a tragedy. After Fulgentius and his legion conquer a region, he has his play staged, usually in the largest city in the region, which will have actors and/or theater troupes. Thus, Fulgentius balances the bloody inexorable reason of conquest (that is, the Empire will prevail) with the performance of the tragic death of a hero (who is also named Fulgentius) at the hands of foreigners. For Fulgentius the general, conquest is almost a formulaic affair. He knows what his army needs to do to conquer, decimate, and subjugate the regions he attacks in order to make them part of the Roman Empire. He doesn’t find much meaning in what he does, although he sometimes is annoyed by how much effort his army must put out to subjugate resistant populations who have not yet realized the inevitable logic of Roman rule.

To compensate for the formulaic tedium of a career of conquest, Fulgentius rewards himself by having the play he wrote performed after a conquest. Because he is more interested in art and aesthetics, the play reinforces his identity as Roman more effectively than the conquests, which are almost forgettable because they are formulaic. For Fulgentius, the play is the thing, and the conquests are simply the work he does for the Empire. In the play, which he has seen staged many, many times, he finds meaning–new insights, engaged emotions and intellect–in the archetype of the tragic hero, which the sameness, boredom, and annoyances of actual conquest do not give him. The Ideal versus the Real.

Aira effectively contrasts the bloody violence of conquest–always told through the distanced, distracted point of view of Fulgentius’s military mind–with the articulate engagement of Fulgentius as aesthete, philosopher, playwright, and poetic observer of the world. That Aira has Fulgentius maintain this bizarre balance in his life is fascinating. But perhaps it is not so bizarre if we consider that Fulgentius has received both military training and an early form of humanities training (literature, language, rhetoric, and philosophy), so he simply finds a way to balance the two.

On the return home from the far reaches of the empire, Fulgentius is charged with disappearing a Roman patrician who had led a counterfeiting ring in the frontier. Because he is from a powerful family, Rome wants him neither killed not returned to Rome. As it turns out, he is very smart and highly educated and provides the perfect foil for Fulgentius' liberal, inquiring mind.
Fulgentius does his duty as required, but he returns to Rome with a new purpose in life: to start a school. Out of violence comes enlightenment? Reminds me a little of Japanese Noh plays, which are often about samurai finding a path out of their violent pasts.
"Fulgentius" is a story about western conquest and the beginnings of liberal thought. Aira is a really interesting writer.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes the author offers a more concise overview of the work than can be found on the back cover:

But the discrepancy in this case gave him food for thought. The plan had been to skip from city to city, from one performance of his play to the next. A neat chain of productions, each standing out against a background of sameness, the marches between them dotted here and there with brisk massacres; all this without compromising his official mission, since his eagerness to reach the next stopping place (and performance) would impart an urgency to the military tasks. Of course it had not turned out like that. Although he had thought that his tragedy was the only thing that mattered to him, he had been distracted by other events and characters. He wondered whether in making his plan he might have been influenced by the structure of literary works, with their cantos or chapters of similar length, each containing an episode. Real life didn't unfold with that sort of regular rhythm.

In this novella Aira pits literature against philosophy, as he often does, and portrays its pitched battle in such a way that only one victor can emerge at its conclusion. That conclusion is completely contained within the pages of each of his novellas, and in this case comes in at 162 pages.

Fulgentius didn't have much faith in the dominant philosophy or in any other. He found them all too general. He was more at home in the particular, where all philosophies were of equal value. That was why he let events take their course and contemplated their unfolding from an Olympian distance. The world around him was too busy with its own processes to pay attention to him or anyone else. People could do what they liked without being brought to account. Gazing at one of the little flowers peeping out of the mud, he thought: "If it's true that some flowers are hermaphrodites, I'm allowed to do anything."

Imaginitive speculation is something like a natural gift for Aira. He produces two to five novellas a year and has over a hundred to his name, crossing many genres and particularities. This one was a historical novel, which is not unfamiliar from Aira, but something revolving around the classical period is unusual (at least to me).

What happened once they got into the mountains contradicted each and every word he had said, inevitably, since facts are not words. Nights and days followed one another, always similar but never exactly the same. The sense of being on a journey deepened, and the men felt a vague compulsion to make the most of it. Having abandoned the peaceable routines of home, they naturally wanted to take something to compensate for the trials and hardships of an expedition in the wilderness. And since for the moment there were no material spoils to be taken, all that remained was thought: the spontaneous ideas from which they might draw interesting conclusions. What a true blessing, reflected the Legate, that thought and the words that conveyed it went everywhere with the thinker, weighed nothing, and were always available.

[Alfonsas Andriuškevičius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smagus skaitymėlis! Siužetas neįmantrus: Romos legatas Fulgencijus (dvilypė figūra: karvedys+menininkas) su šešių tūkstančių vyrų legionu žygiuoja per Panonijos provinciją. Atliekami du darbai. Pirmasis - ten, kur ima rastis netvarka, atkuriama tvarka. Antrasis - kadangi F. paauglystėje yra parašęs tragediją, tai visuose didesniuose miestuose (jis taip elgėsi ir ankstesnių savo karinių žygių metu) stengiamasi ją pastatyti vietiniame teatre su vietos aktoriais: o kaip atrodys jos (tragedijos) naujasis įsikūnijimas? Užtat Airos stilius - gyvas, sraunus, vaizdingas, šmaikštus, kibirkščiuojantis. Rasi ir ironijos, ir sukomedinimo, ir fantazijos pliūpsnių, ir smagių pafilosofavimų, ir siektelėjimų kai kurių mūsų dabarties problemėlių link. Drauge - esama ir šiokio tokio melancholijos bei skepsio ūkelio: mat viską mato, girdi, apmąsto, vertina ir režisuoja ne tik senstelėjęs karvedys, drausmingai įgyvendinantis Romos karo principus, bet - ir jame glūdįs filosofuojantis menininkas.

Štai keli gamtos "kadrai". "Naktys pūtėsi tartum sočiai mintantis banginio žinduklis." "Jie marširavo apsupti gėlių ir paukščių, akyse plytėjo didžiulė žydra purslojanti upė, kupina žuvų baltutėle mėsa /.../." "Mėnulis toliau kopė aukštyn dangumi, kuriame įsigalėjo autobiografiška vienatvė, visų melancholijų motina."

O šičia - žygio, karo vaizdeliai. "Legionas buvo kaip vaikščiojantis miestas." "Taigi reikėjo juos išvilioti į lygumas - deginti kaimus, prievartauti moteris, ant mažų atitinkamo dydžio kryželių nukryžiuoti vaikus." "Mursa pakils iš dugno, joje galios geležies ir marmuro įstatymai, net žiurkės ir skruzdėlės čia bus romėniškos."

Dabar - keletas "filosofinių įžvalgų". "Tačiau dabar staiga atsirado galimybė savo gyvenimą įvertinti kaip dvasinę kelionę, o karą laikyti tam tikros formos askeze." "Vis dėlto jo mintis nuodijo pati tikimybė, kad tuštuma ir pilnuma gali niekuo nesiskirti." "Pati mirtis yra tik pusiau tikra: viena jos pusė neabejotinai reali, ją pažymi įvairūs įvykiai, o kita - absoliučiai nepažini."

Ir pabaigai - šiek tiek erotinės druskelės. "Jaunos egzotiško grožio moterys, dėkingai besišypsančios stipriesiems legionieriams, prie jų artinosi tartum stirnaitės prie šaltinio." "Tokių glamonių nebuvau niekad patyręs, mes susiliedavome permirkę auksiniu prakaitu, slysdavome vienas kito degančiu kūnu /.../; buvau it geležis, o ji - lyg šilta virpulių drebinama masė." "Jam prajojant pro šalį geidžiamiausios moterys apnuogindavo krūtis."

Na, tenka pasakyti, kad Aistės K. vertimas - tiesiog nepriekaištingas.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Children ran to see them, and storks took flight as they went by, unfolding like beautiful ideas about nothing in particular."

My first time reading Aira and passages like the above are casually, beautifully slipped into the text never really out of place or time. There's some overbaked metaphors for my liking like the chapter that describes a flower opening as the 6,000-man legion awakens in spring that's lacking a subtlety inhabited by the prose. But that's all personal, I suppose.

The tone of the story is low-frequency, with feeling but never rising too high or falling too low. We ride along with Fulgentius, a 67-year-old general in the Roman army and his Lupine Legion of 6,000 men and thus, the perspective is of professional warriors, invincible killers and we get matter of fact passages like:

"The legionaries were not mountain goats adept at scaling crags; even if they had tried, they would never have been able to compete with the natives. So the enemy soldiers had to be drawn out onto the plain by burning their villages, raping their women, and crucifying their progeny on little child-sized crosses. If that didn't bring them down from the mountains, it was proof of their heartlessness."

More than anything, it's the "crucifying their progeny on little child-sized crosses" that's described as disinterestedly as a tactic any of us may use to get results in our jobs that caught me and exemplifies the relatively flat tone - even something as nightmarish as crucifying children on "little child-sized crosses" is merely a fact, a footnote less remarkable than the endless and occasionally tactless babbling of a consul in a recently-conquered city.

Even in its flatness (that's not a critique), Aira makes Fulgentius human, insecure, unsure, prone to committing to an idea in his head and planning out an entire life ahead of him only to have said idea smothered by a cold and critical rationality. We are all flawed, have always been flawed, regardless of our station or the time we lived on this rock. Fulgentius is both a man of renown and insecurity, capable and unsure, confident and melancholic.

In a compact 160-some pages, Aira excels at bringing those dichotomies to life against a massive and historic backdrop, but never letting the scale of the era overshadow its main character. I don't know if I liked it, but it was extremely well done.

[Zach]

An aging general, Fulgentius, leads a campaign to pacify the province of Pannonia. Along the way, he obsesses about a tragic play, a farcical version of his won life, that he had written as a child. He also has made a point to have this play produced in various cities across his military career, so that what was once farce and comedy has now become a reflection of his reality.

Fulgentius is extremely vain, comically so, embracing poetry while rejecting anything resembling philosophy because it would only serve to depress him.

“The relentless nervous tension of life at the center of imperial power was such that men went to war for relief.” (16)

The way he normalizes violence and the murder of innocent people gives us a window into him as leader-figure and his complete lack of regard for anything outside of his immediate needs or self aggrandizing (he absolutely hates talking to normal people and doesn’t look at most people as human).

“As part of an empire that spanned the world, they were the ones who got to impose norms of behavior and thought. Understanding the casual chains that shaped reality had cost them centuries of work, which consisted basically of annihilating anything that was different.” (67)

This is my first time reading Aira, and I’m impressed. The writing is dense but flows right along, throwing details of landscape and war maneuvers along side inner turmoil and Fulgentius’ philosophical meanderings…it makes for something unique and is incredibly engaging.

“He had to kill, of course, but once the corpses were piled high, he had to be able to map out the route to prosperity.” (130)

He changes at the end of the book, wanting to become a man of knowledge rather than war: “What was the world for if not to be absorbed by thought and used to build beautiful castles, interesting stories, and poetry?” (158) Almost immediately, though, he realizes that he’s too old to start such pursuits in earnest, that he has wasted his life, trying and failing (with his play) to recapture it.

[review copy provided by New Directions]