The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires
by Eric Stener Carlson
The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires had been on my wishlist for ages, until, feeling in the mood for it, I finally downloaded it as an ebook and read it through in a matter of a few days.
Eric Stener Carlson’s novel is set in Buenos Aires, where the novel’s narrator – failed philosopher/academic Miguel – lives and works as a lowly bureaucrat at the Ministry of Parks, Public Monuments and Green Areas. He is married to loving, sexy Julieta, and a father of a little boy, but the daily frustrations at his office increasingly seep into his private life, making him question his past choices – including his marriage to Julieta. One day, browsing through the books at an old second-hand shop, Miguel stumbles across an edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints containing cryptic handwritten annotations by a previous owner. These turn out to be part of a diary kept by a fellow civil servant some years before, recounting this mysterious personage’s quest to control and turn back Time. Miguel soon becomes obsessed with this account, following its trail to seek other annotated volumes with occult instructions. Miguel hopes to obtain membership of the elusive club of the title and, ultimately, the supernatural powers described in the diary. But others seem to be onto the same secrets – including his old philosophy lecturer and, possibly, even his wife. Can anyone be trusted?
I was drawn to this novel
because its blurb gave off dark academia vibes. And there are indeed plenty of Gothic elements
and tropes both in its narrative structure (the incorporation into the
narrative of “found artefacts”, in this case a diary) and in its plot (references
to the occult; reworkings of supernatural legends particularly those referring
to the salamanca where witches meet; nightly shenanigans and orgies; psychogeography;
Faustian pacts). What I wasn’t prepared
for – and possibly wasn’t quite in the mood for either – was the novel’s
humour. Indeed, despite its dark
elements, there is, throughout the book, a farcical undercurrent. Admittedly,
the humour is acerbic and cynical, but, nonetheless, creates a contrast with
the more overtly horrific elements. Both aspects of the novel support what is
ultimately a philosophical question – if
we had the power to turn back time, would that really be a gift? Or would we be
better off making the best of our present and future? Perhaps – in the real world – the answer is
staring us in the face. Short of discovering the powers of the mysterious
Argentine bureaucrat, we’re lumped with our past. Rather than recriminating our life-history, we
should embrace the here and now...
- 209 pages, Kindle Edition
- April 18, 2016 by Tartarus Press
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