The Sixty-Five Years of Washington

September 27, 2010
Argentinian Saer (1937–2005) sets his novel during a walk through the streets of a seaside Argentinian city in the early '60s with a conversation comprising memories, images, and digressions in the mode of Proust and Laurence Sterne. Two characters meet in the street and walk together while discussing Washington Noriega's 65th birthday party, which neither of them attended. The elegant aristocratic Mathematician missed the soiree because he was in Europe; the plebeian Angel Leto wasn't invited. The two men veer off topic to consider the behavior of mosquitoes and whether a horse can stumble, frivolous subjects that contrast with visions of Argentina's harsh political turmoil that would occur in the near future when the mathematician's wife will be killed and Leto will disappear, suicide pill in hand. Saer reaches deep into the psychology of his characters, yet for all his skill, the streams of consciousness become arduous as does identifying with the characters on an emotional level. Think Berman film, difficult but worth the effort.

November 15, 2010

Instead of going to work one October day in 1961, Angel Leto, a bookkeeper at a chemical company, decides to get off the bus and just start walking. Along the way, he meets the Mathematician, an engineer at the company, and they start discussing the 65th birthday party of famous politician Jorge Washington Noriega (hence the title), which neither attended. The novel's three parts, covering seven blocks each, alternate between the events of the walk (interrupted by mundane occurrences like a near-miss with a bicyclist) and the chronicling of the party. By tossing us more details about the present (Leto's care for his cancerous mother) and the future (the assassination of the Mathematician's wife during the repressive 1970s), the author compresses all actions--past, present, and future--into this one-hour walk. Though not very much happens, the power of this work is in the narrative, which emphasizes the literary importance of discourse, be it oral, written, or thought. One should keep in mind that the Spanish title, Glosa, more accurately identifies the narrative's purpose as a "gloss" of the events. VERDICT A rewarding read from the prize-winning Saer, his fifth novel to appear in English (after The Witness), best read in one sitting.--Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2010
In Dolphs confident translation of Saers The Sixty-Five Years of Washington, the reader will find a world distinct from the worlds commonly offered by contemporary American literary fiction. It is not the South American setting that is distinct, however, so much as the style. The characterssome with simple names like Leto, others with grand titles such as the Mathematiciancould be talking and walking anywhere, and talking and walking are mostly what they do. What feels foreign is the late Argentine authors leisurely syntax and villanella-like repetition. This is an abstract novel, and often the abstraction feels more elliptical than profound, though Saer sometimes offers an idea so compelling and immediately recognizable, one cannot help but feelor perhaps wishone has had the very same thought: In the half-empty cabin his sudden and at the same time slow gesture contrasted with the illusory stillness of the airplane, which floated in a bank of the gray clouds like a fragile object wrapped in cotton packaging.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)