The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel)

[Dave Monroe]

The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel) is the very
definition of a novel written ahead of its time. Macedonio (known to
everyone by his unusual first name) worked on this novel in the 1930s
and early '40s, during the heyday of Argentine literary culture, and
around the same time that At Swim-Two-Birds was published, a novel
that has quite a bit in common with Macedonio's masterpiece.

In many ways, Museum is an "anti-novel." It opens with more than fifty
prologues—including ones addressed "To My Authorial Persona," "To the
Critics," and "To Readers Who Will Perish If They Don’t Know What the
Novel Is About"—that are by turns philosophical, outrageous,
ponderous, and cryptic. These pieces cover a range of topics from how
the upcoming novel will be received to how to thwart "skip-around
readers" (by writing a book that’s defies linearity!).

The second half of the book is the novel itself, a novel about a group
of characters (some borrowed from other texts) who live on an estancia
called "la novella" . . .

A hilarious and often quite moving book, The Museum of Eterna's Novel
redefined the limits of the genre, and has had a lasting impact on
Latin American literature. Authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio
Cortázar, and Ricardo Piglia have all fallen under its charm and
high-concepts, and, at long last, English-speaking readers can
experience the book that helped build the reputation of Borges's
mentor.

http://catalog.openletterbooks.org/authors/16-fernandez