David BajoReseñas

Well-written prose, but ... seems like the author is focused a lot on sex, and it gets very confusing which woman the main character is with, it all blurs together. Which is maybe what the author intended, but I just wasn't getting enough out of it to stick with it. Does remind me of Kundera, and also Richard Powers.

On the California/Mexico border a newspaper is closing shop and three of their top reporters are given different assignments, that end up having eerie similarities. One involves a mysterious motel and a missing woman. This novel has a dream-like quality to it, involving a surveillance-minded society, where cameras document everything. There is also a connection to the “feminicide" in Ciudad, Juarez where scores of women have been murdered over the past 25-plus years. I should have loved this book. It's premise and style fit me perfectly but the trippy and unfocused, narrative kept me from fully locking in. It just missed the “mark”.

Bajo's novel is about mathematics, bookbinding, running, reading and lovemaking in a Borgesian, Cervantesian labryinth. It teases and intrigues, leading the reader on winding pathways of relationships with sensuous prose. Not for those who like their novels rational and straightfoward. I found it fascinating and seductive.½

Overall, this just wasn't my type of book. As such, I don't have much to say on it other than I found the story to be too hard to follow and the writing style not engaging. I'm sure others might find the story interesting, but I just couldn't get into it.

To view the full review go to my blog The Well-Read Wife.

Regular readers will remember that I recently reviewed another Unbridled Books title, the excellent Safe From The Sea by Peter Geye. Now I am finding myself singing the praises of yet another Unbridled Books title, Panopticon by David Bajo. Bajo’s novel about violence and voyeurism in the California borderlands at times evokes Cormac McCarthy’s tale of Texan border violence in No Country For Old Men. At other times however…there is nothing else that can possibly compare to it. The story is so innovative, original and complicated that I have a hard time even explaining the plot to my friends. But I keep trying to because I liked the book THAT MUCH.

What we are to books, what books are to us—what they offer to us and what we take from them—is the theme that runs through David Bajo’s seductive and sometimes puzzling novel The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri. The 351 books of the title are hand-bound hardcovers that Irma, a writer and book conservationist, has bequeathed to her long-time friend and sometime lover, a mathematician named Philip Mazyrk. The first Philip hears about the inheritance is in an email from Irma’s mother. Irma, apparently, is gone.



Not dead. Just gone. Disappeared from life. “Can one do that? Leave her own life? How does one do that?” asks Philip’s most recent ex-wife, who knew and liked this woman who drifted in and out of Philip’s life like an errant comet on an unpredictable orbit. “She left me her books, B.” answers Philip. It’s as final a statement as either of them can imagine her making.

Naturally Philip resolves to find her.

The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri is the kind of biblio-mystery that invites comparisons to Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind, or Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas. Plot, however, takes second place to descriptive power and sheer, breathless exultation in the magic of literature. It is not a mystery to be solved so much as an extended rumination on what it means to become lost in a book, and as such contains layer after layer of allusion and illusion, plots and subplot, metaphors that turn on themselves to become metaphors for something else. Don Quixote’s quest being the most glaringly obvious case, but there are implications and intimations throughout the story.

Because of this literary indulgence, the novel lacks a certain cohesiveness and focus (one can’t help wondering, for example, why no one ever takes a more prosaic approach to finding Irma—this is the age of the Internet, after all. It isn’t all that easy to fall off the grid) and there are some weak spots, one suspects, especially with regards to Philip’s mathematical approach to his search. For example, Philip often describes (very poetically) the equations he writes to discover any number of mysterious things, from how to find Irma to what might be bothering his saddened stepdaughter. But a mathematician would tell you that these are expressions, not equations. Expressions describe. Equations solve.

These are minor complaints, however, in a book that is rich in beautiful detail—especially in setting and in describing books. There are gorgeously-rendered descriptions of Philadelphia, Corsica, Mexico, Barcelona, Seville. But it is the books that get the most attention. The process of restoring and binding a book falls naturally into many parts of the story until the reader, like Irma, like Philip, can almost feel the texture of different linens and leathers, the rough edges of old paper, parchment and vellum, and smell the acrid scent of ink, tannic acid, and the dust that seems inherent in every old volume.

“Most of us,” Irma once told Philip, “can’t accept being the protagonist of our own lives. Whether we only watch TV or sports or read thousands of books, we’re all just trying to find another protagonist for our lives. One besides ourselves.” Philip doesn’t watch television, and until he was sent Irma’s book collection, he didn’t read much—at least in the way of fiction. But as he makes his way towards his disappeared lover, guided by Borges and Cervantes, he discovers that he has become the protagonist—if not of his own life, then of hers. full review here

The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri is a rich and incredibly sensuous story about books, love, and the equations that make up our lives.

Philip Masryk is a brilliant mathematician/investment consultant who often finds himself scribbling mathematical formulas to represent the interactions and events around him. While he finds this to generally be a helpful way of viewing the world, people often become variables that are hard to predict. He's been married twice and has two ex-step-children, in whose lives he still plays a very minor role, but the only constant in his life has been his friend and lover, a book-binder named Irma Arcuri. The book opens as Philip is notified of her disappearance and the fact that she has bequeathed to him her collection of 351 books, all of which she had bound herself and a few of which she has written. No one seems to believe that Irma is actually dead, simply that she has chosen to disappear from her life and perhaps embark on some other adventure, but Philip wants to find her and believes that the secret to doing so lies within his newly inherited library.

Philip's search spans literature and continents, though many of his revelations are found within the people that make up Philip's life. The narrative goes back and forth in time, concerned not only with Philip and Irma's relationship but with Philip and Irma's individual relationships with others... such as Philip's two ex-wives, his best friend, Philip's two ex-step-children, and perhaps even a woman Philip meets in a bar after Irma has already disappeared. Philip, who has not read much of anything contained within Irma's library, selects which book to read next in a very calculated manner, believing that Irma has planned this.

The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri is clearly an homage to literature and the role it plays in our lives. Bajo chooses a very intriguing mix of titles to highlight here (including Borges, Cervantes, Camus, Sebald, and others), and makes things all the more interesting when Philip realizes that in re-binding these books, Irma may have made adjustments to the text within, too. In addition to presenting something that treats books as precious touchstones in our lives, Bajo has also captured the sensual experience surrounding literature and the intimacy of sharing stories with another. This is a very sexual book and Bajo doesn't shy away from dealing with sex quite directly. I never found it to be too ridiculous, though... just quite prevalent. (It was so very sensual, in fact, that even though I usually pass books along to my mother, I told her that this was unsuitable for parents and if she wanted a copy, she'd have to go and get one herself. My significant other, however, has already been told to move this up to the top of his list.)

For a true book lover, it's hard to not find something deeply seductive about the allure of books. And when you add a beautiful and sexy woman into the mix... well... let's just say that I would have crumbled just as easily as any other of Irma's conquests. There are some truly beautiful passages and ideas being expressed... in addition to the steamy sex scenes mentioned above. There were a few flaws within the narrative and I'm not entirely sure that the ending left me satisfied, but as I believe this is Bajo's first novel, I consider myself quite impressed. Selections from Philip's reading have the habit of flowing into the text without too much notation, so the reader must keep on his or her toes to understand just which writer is responsible for what he/she is reading. There were moments when it came to Philip's relationship with his ex-step-children where I wasn't convinced of the storyline's necessity, or at least of its prominence, but nothing too severe. The only thing that truly irked me with this book was the fact that nearly all of the characters in the novel are runners... and Philip seems to run so often that I was convinced his heart would burst. Is it possible for someone to run that often every day and still stand? Let alone participate in all those sex scenes? Sure, he was raised by steeplechaser parents, but even so! I felt like quite a sedentary creature as Philip sprinted through towns in multiple countries, no matter his occasional complaints about getting older. It seemed excessive.

On the whole, I loved this novel -- when you find yourself as a reader being seduced by the main characters, it's hard not to connect with it. If you're looking for a luscious read and you're up to being challenged by a twisting and turning storyline, then I sincerely recommend a comfy chair beside a fire, a glass of wine, and this novel. You'll find it to be a pleasurable experience.

Irma Arcuri desapareceu e ninguém sabe se ela está viva ou morta. Mas deixou sua biblioteca para um amigo, o estatístico Philip Masryk. Para descobrir o paradeiro de Irma, Philip começa a procurar pistas nos livros, tarefa nada fácil para quem está acostumado com a frieza dos números. As obras dos maiores clássicos da literatura universal não o fazem apenas mergulhar no até então desconhecido universo das letras, mas parecem ser também a chave para compreender a vida da enigmática Irma. Um romance sobre sexo, matemática, literatura e amor. Um livro para quem ama livros.

The basic premise of Bajo's novel is that Philip Masryk, a mathematician, is looking for his friend/lover who has disappeared from her own life, bequeathing to Philip her collection of 351 books. What makes this collection so special is that Irma, the disappeared, is a book conservator of sorts who sometimes enhances the texts with her own additions, renderings, and special bindings. Through the collection of books, Irma leaves clues for Philip to come find her. Philip uses his mathematical intellect to solve the puzzle and... well, I'm not entirely sure what the outcome is supposed to be.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. First of all, my husband got it for me as a gift, and it's always nice to enjoy a gift. When I read the back cover I became doubly excited, since George Singleton has declared that "It's as if Stranger Than Fiction were codirected by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gottlob Frege." Doesn't that sound fantastic? Doesn't that make you want to dive right in? And with an image of a page from Don Quixote on the cover, it's a bibliophile's dream. Or so it would seem.

The problem, though, is that the story is really jumbled and doesn't seem to come to any logical conclusion. There's a certain element of suspense that guides the plot, but it falls rather flat and seems to be developed almost as an afterthought. For example, when Philip interacts with some of the other main characters in the novel, he will suddenly reveal information that he has figured out -- stating rather than developing his sudden understanding. In a good mystery, the reader gets to play super sleuth right along with the main character, figuring out tiny details as each works their way through the plot. In this book, however, Philip's sudden announcements leave the reader consistently one step behind.

There's also a problem of overburdened text. Need a metaphor for running away, as Irma seems to be doing? Look no further than every page of the text! Every few paragraphs, it seems, Philip is getting set to go for another run. (Philip pretty much does three things throughout the text, with or without the help of a variety of other characters: 1) have sex, 2) look for Irma, and 3) go running.) The mathematical elements of the text are also highly unnecessary. After Bajo makes his point that every human action can be mapped out mathematically, usually with a corresponding equation, he really should have left the point alone. Or, if he really needed to include all the mathematical calculations, he should at least have been clearer on the conclusion the reader is to draw from these calculations. Sometimes it seems that Philip is doing math just for math's sake, without any real relevance to, well, anything. Even The Celestine Prophecy does it better.

And what of the ending? The narrative seems to drop off rather suddenly, as if Bajo changed his mind about how he wanted to end it but didn't get around to writing the new revised ending. It's cute, but a lot of the meaning is lost. The tilting-at-windmill's theme is enticing, but it doesn't go anywhere, and doesn't even end in a broken lance.

Again, I really wanted to like this book, but I found the characters vacuous, the prose ponderous, and the ending highly dissatisfying. It has a great premise, but unfortunately the execution is rather insufficiently polished.

An unusual, dreamy, erudite book that was truly able to transport me elsewhere, out of the real world while I read it. I do hate to be cliché, but it's sort of a smarter, sexier version of "Shadow of the Wind", with a more ethereal beauty to it than that – almost like having a novel-length dream. When Irma mysteriously disappears one day, she leaves Philip all 351 books in her library and he uses his own mathematical formula for selecting the order in which to read them, to better understand where Irma may have gone. There is a certain mystery element here, but, like it does with Philip, this becomes secondary to learning more about who Irma and Philip are, both together and apart. Beautifully written – a magnificent debut.

This book was very promising in terms of theme and plot - just my kind of book - but the author flails about in the middle and quickly loses the reader's interest. It ended up taking me three months to finish, and I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone.

I found this to be a very interesting but challenging story and would probably appreciate it even more with a second reading. There are lots of layers and plenty of depth that will be missed by readers like me who only want to get to the end to find out what the mystery is and how it is resolved. By the end I was a bit disappointed at the lack of resolution.