The book is structured around a series of chance encounters, while also giving Aira some asides on broader concepts like the nature of perception, the promises of narrative form, and human thought.
Like so many of César Aira’s mesmerizing novels, Varamo springs from a deceptively simple mishap that enables the argentine author to take on some of life’s most intriguing questions through his trademark allegorical wit and humor. Here the titular narrator is a hapless Panamanian government worker who, after being paid with counterfeit money, wanders around the city all night as he frets about what to do next. But that long, odd night also becomes a font of inspiration, and Varamo soon writes what will become the most celebrated masterwork of modern Central American poetry, “The Song of the Virgin Boy.” And even more impressive is the fact that Varamo, at fifty years old, “hadn’t previously written one sole verse, nor had it ever occurred to him to write one.” As he does so well, Aira uses Varamo’s story of overnight success and fame to investigate what it means to be a poet, to be inspired, to be touched by genius. And from yet another viewpoint, he explores what it is that drives readers and critics to construct historical, national, psychological, and aesthetic contexts for works of art.
The book is structured around a series of chance encounters, while also giving Aira some asides on broader concepts like the nature of perception, the promises of narrative form, and human thought.
— Publishers Weekly
Each element Aira draws our attention to is placed into sharp focus before being discussed in short, entertaining digressions.
— The National
The brilliance lies in the way it treads this tightrope without ever revealing the central mystery, and without relaxing the tension.
— The Nation
In plain but meandering prose, Aira winds his off-kilter narrative into a metafictional loop in which Varamo, who has never written before, accidentally crafts a literary masterpiece.
— Critical Mob
Aira’s humorous writing style is absurd yet always ironic, simple in logic yet increasingly mystifying in message.
— The Harvard Crimson
…a sprint through multiple bizarre situations, a few philosophical digressions, a charming light-heartedness, and exquisite sentences.
— The Rumpus
Varamo, like all the Aira books in translation, is charming and infuriating, built of plain prose that blooms without warning into carbuncular visions.
— Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
The book teems with delightful, off-the-cuff metaphysical speculation.
— Giles harvey, The New Yorker
The eccentricity of plot here is its own pleasure, but the slow, carefully written digressions it enfolds are what make the work such extravagant fun.
— The Coffin Factory
Aira is a manifestly gifted writer who may find writing all too easy a job.
