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Shantytown
Shantytown | César Aira
3 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
At last, a noir novel from the Argentine master of suspense and surprises Maxi, a middle-class, directionless ox of a young man who helps the trash pickers of Buenos Aires’s shantytown, attracts the attention of a corrupt, trigger-happy policeman who will use anyone — including two innocent teenage girls — to break a drug ring that he believes is operating within the slum. A strange new drug, a brightly lit carousel of a slum, the kindness of strangers, gunplay... no matter how serious the subject matter, and despite Aira’s “fascination with urban violence and the sinister underside of Latin American politics” (The Millions), Shantytown, like all of Aira’s mesmerizing work, is filled with wonder and mad invention.
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review
bookwrm526
Shantytown | César Aira
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Mehso-so

I don't know if it was the wrong hook at the wrong time, or if I'm just fundamentally wired not to care for magical realism, but this one didn't work well for me. It was an interesting premise and the characters were fascinating, but I don't feel like I quite get it. Photo from a walk the family took today at a nearby national park.

blurb
bookwrm526
Shantytown | César Aira
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This is the #firstline of my #currentread...well, one of them, the one I started most recently! I always have a bunch going at once....#aprilbookshowers

review
tolmsted
Shantytown | César Aira
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Pickpick

This little novella is pure magic. Everything that is wonderful about Cesar Aira - the imagination, the imagery, the feeling of being in a place where fables and the modern world overlap - is in this book. When I get to the end I want to immediately begin again at page one. #Aira #translation #Argentina