Adolfo Bioy Casares: A Plan For Escape

[Heteronym]

A Plan for Escape narrates the journey of lieutenant Henrique Navers, in exile from France for mysterious reasons, to an unnamed prison archipelago in the French Guiana, where he’ll take charge of the penitentiary. Before departing from the mainland he hears ominous concerns that the prison governor, Pedro Castel, may be a crazed anarchist preparing the inmates for a revolution. Navers isn’t very interested since he wants to leave as soon as possible and return to the woman he loves, and any investigation would only delay his departure; but as Navers arrives to the island, the atmosphere of mystery, madness and deceit starts taking a toll on his curiosity and he is irreversibly forced to find the truth. And so begins one of the most labyrinthine novels I’ve ever read.

Casares was a genre fiction lover: with his friend Jorge Luis Borges he wrote detective fiction and composed an anthology of fantastic creatures. On his own he wrote fantasy, surreal and science fiction. He edited crime novels. Like Borges, he found realism a farse, an illusion, a mistake in a 3000-year-old history that started with the tales of gods like Gilgamesh, and which would be rectified one day.

In Borges’ prologue for The Invention of Morel (by Casares too), he claimed that the 20th century was the century of narratives; that the previous centuries paled in comparison to the intricate plots a Kafka, a Chesterton or a Casares created. Nothing supports his contention better than this short novel: the atmosphere is sometimes unbearable, as if the reader were dreaming about drowning and couldn't wake up; the author conjures horrors with a minimum of words, sets up intense scenes and vivid characters with a few sentences. Like in the detective fiction he admired, the plot takes precedence.

This is not to say there isn’t a psychological component. Indeed the narration itself has the intricateness that I’ve come to expect from South American writers. A relative of Navers narrates the action, which he learned from the letters he received; sometimes he even mixes his words with quotes from the letters. But he’s not passive: sometimes he disagrees with what Navers says, sometimes he mocks him, sometimes he wonders if he isn’t insane. And through his words we see Navers being sucked to a horror he wants to reject but is compelled to pursue.

Anyone who loves mystery, oppressive settings, and madness; anyone who loves the nightmarish parables without end that Kafka created; or anyone who loves elegant, complex prose should love A Plan for Escape.

[elcalifornio]

Thanks for the review Stewart. The books sounds like it must be read. Now, which Casares to read first, Morel or A Plan to Escape?

Also, are you aware of any English versions of the Bustos Domecq stories that ABC and JLB put together?

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by elcalifornio

Thanks for the review Stewart.

I'd love to take the credit but that belongs to Heteronym.

Also, are you aware of any English versions of the Bustos Domecq stories that ABC and JLB put together?

I've never seen any in print at the moment. A quick look on Amazon Marketplace shows a few but they were printed in the seventies and the sellers aren't giving them up cheap.

[elcalifornio]

Oops! My apologies Heteronym.

Well, if any of the translators on this forum are ever looking for a Spanish-language project, might i pitch a new collection of JLB and ABC? I might do it myself, but i have precious little time...maybe i'll just try to read it in Spanish.

[Heteronym]

I'd recommend the "Chronicles of Bustos Domecq," one of the later collaborations between the two writers. It's a fun, charming collection of stories about literature, music, painting and even gastronomy, perfect for anyone who liked "Pierre Menard" and "Herbert Quain" by Borges.