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blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
Denouncing Reality
According to the philosophy of the 17th century Gottfried Leibniz, no one can know what constitutes reality. We are each trapped in our isolated existence, as if in a windowless room, experiencing things that are both incomplete and incommunicable. Hence everything we claim about the world is an unwitting lie. Truth is some sort 0f summary of what we experience collectively. In such a world, everything is coordinated, as it were, by a benevolent deity who sees to it that we mesh together with some kind of rational and just cohesion despite our inherent mendacity. This, of course, is nonsense. Not because our experience is incomplete or inadequately expressed, but because there is no coordinating God to ensure matters work out with a proper regard for rationality or justice.
On the other hand, perhaps what we call random chance is in fact divine intervention at its most subtle. The Dirty War in Argentina at the end of the 1970’s is Manguel’s point of departure for exploring this possibility from an unlikely angle, namely the unreliability (and irrelevance) of personal biography. Indeed, by recruiting almost every significant Argentine writer of the last century into his narrative of exile and suspicion, Manguel shows how truth emerges from falsehood in a most unexpected way - not through divine action but through the giving up of the endeavour to state the truth. This is the surprising discovery of his journalistic protagonist who is investigating a death in the emigre literary community.
It is intriguing that in order to pull this off, Manguel has to resort to the testimony of a dead man... after he is dead. The dead man is the only one who has the complete picture, who doesn’t lie unknowingly. It is he who has orchestrated the circumstances of the political exiles who find themselves in Madrid - by maliciously lying. But even the dead man, although resurrected for narrative closure, is subject to the laws of chance in both what he encounters and in the results of his actions. He is killed, for example, by another, the writer Bevilaqua, one 0f his victims, and who is already dead. And Bevilaqua never made a claim to know anything.
An Argentinian writer central to Manguel’s story is Enrique Vila-Matas whose study, Bartleby and Co. (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2779848058), is about the significance of the books that have never been written, and consequently never told lies. Bevilaqua, it turns out, never actually wrote a book. Ultimately this is why he is important - for not writing. The other writers in the story, both fictional and real, are actually unimportant because as one of the characters insists: “Believe me. Lying: that is the great theme of South American literature.” Only by not telling the story does it even have a chance to be true. This is an alternative that Leibniz had never considered: Truth requires silence; or at least the humility to know that silence has become appropriate.
According to the philosophy of the 17th century Gottfried Leibniz, no one can know what constitutes reality. We are each trapped in our isolated existence, as if in a windowless room, experiencing things that are both incomplete and incommunicable. Hence everything we claim about the world is an unwitting lie. Truth is some sort 0f summary of what we experience collectively. In such a world, everything is coordinated, as it were, by a benevolent deity who sees to it that we mesh together with some kind of rational and just cohesion despite our inherent mendacity. This, of course, is nonsense. Not because our experience is incomplete or inadequately expressed, but because there is no coordinating God to ensure matters work out with a proper regard for rationality or justice.
On the other hand, perhaps what we call random chance is in fact divine intervention at its most subtle. The Dirty War in Argentina at the end of the 1970’s is Manguel’s point of departure for exploring this possibility from an unlikely angle, namely the unreliability (and irrelevance) of personal biography. Indeed, by recruiting almost every significant Argentine writer of the last century into his narrative of exile and suspicion, Manguel shows how truth emerges from falsehood in a most unexpected way - not through divine action but through the giving up of the endeavour to state the truth. This is the surprising discovery of his journalistic protagonist who is investigating a death in the emigre literary community.
It is intriguing that in order to pull this off, Manguel has to resort to the testimony of a dead man... after he is dead. The dead man is the only one who has the complete picture, who doesn’t lie unknowingly. It is he who has orchestrated the circumstances of the political exiles who find themselves in Madrid - by maliciously lying. But even the dead man, although resurrected for narrative closure, is subject to the laws of chance in both what he encounters and in the results of his actions. He is killed, for example, by another, the writer Bevilaqua, one 0f his victims, and who is already dead. And Bevilaqua never made a claim to know anything.
An Argentinian writer central to Manguel’s story is Enrique Vila-Matas whose study, Bartleby and Co. (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2779848058), is about the significance of the books that have never been written, and consequently never told lies. Bevilaqua, it turns out, never actually wrote a book. Ultimately this is why he is important - for not writing. The other writers in the story, both fictional and real, are actually unimportant because as one of the characters insists: “Believe me. Lying: that is the great theme of South American literature.” Only by not telling the story does it even have a chance to be true. This is an alternative that Leibniz had never considered: Truth requires silence; or at least the humility to know that silence has become appropriate.
jdscott50's review against another edition
3.0
I'm usually a fan of unorthodox storytelling If it done well and not some parlor trick. Manguel's All Men Are Liars uses all the writing slight-of-hand he can muster, but it cannot hide the weak core of his story. It is a mask that hides nothing, a mystery easily solved, and a story that uses more tricks than content.
The story is being told to you, the reader, as a participant in a mystery. Who is this dead author? Is a struggling brilliant artist or a phony? Did he do it himself or was he killed as apart of a conspiracy? These questions attempt to make the story more interesting than it is. Cyrano de Bergerac meets Rashomon with very obvious similarities, even a confession beyond the grave (even though by then the story is pretty obvious).
It is almost a self-acknowledged fact by the author about its use of obvious techniques and allusions. He even brings in Enrique Vila-Matas' Bartleby & Co. to suggest the non-story here is purposeful. While many of the points and the prose are excellent, it's not enough to hold the story together. The last sections are completely ridiculous. A good story on a writing mystery, but comes up short due to writing parlor tricks.
Favorite parts:
"It is strange how one afternoon can prolong itself to infinity, and several years be reduced to five words. p. 35
"...but when one takes a backward look at history, every decision, every move, each step contributes to the grand finale, complete with drums, clockenspiel, and cymbols." p. 46
"Violent acts render familiar things alien..." p. 71
"I suppose that if we read about ourselves in a book, we wouldn't recognize ourselves..." P 100
We know the game in which the threat is never voiced but the imagination is left to build its own hell, in which the fear of what can happen lends a face and claws to a monster that always remains inside your mind. P 106
Writing is a way of threatening what is not spoken aloud; the shadow of the letters taunts us from between the lines. P 106
Lying that is the great theme of South American literature p 107
The story is being told to you, the reader, as a participant in a mystery. Who is this dead author? Is a struggling brilliant artist or a phony? Did he do it himself or was he killed as apart of a conspiracy? These questions attempt to make the story more interesting than it is. Cyrano de Bergerac meets Rashomon with very obvious similarities, even a confession beyond the grave (even though by then the story is pretty obvious).
It is almost a self-acknowledged fact by the author about its use of obvious techniques and allusions. He even brings in Enrique Vila-Matas' Bartleby & Co. to suggest the non-story here is purposeful. While many of the points and the prose are excellent, it's not enough to hold the story together. The last sections are completely ridiculous. A good story on a writing mystery, but comes up short due to writing parlor tricks.
Favorite parts:
"It is strange how one afternoon can prolong itself to infinity, and several years be reduced to five words. p. 35
"...but when one takes a backward look at history, every decision, every move, each step contributes to the grand finale, complete with drums, clockenspiel, and cymbols." p. 46
"Violent acts render familiar things alien..." p. 71
"I suppose that if we read about ourselves in a book, we wouldn't recognize ourselves..." P 100
We know the game in which the threat is never voiced but the imagination is left to build its own hell, in which the fear of what can happen lends a face and claws to a monster that always remains inside your mind. P 106
Writing is a way of threatening what is not spoken aloud; the shadow of the letters taunts us from between the lines. P 106
Lying that is the great theme of South American literature p 107
gabsimoneau's review against another edition
4.0
I love the way manguel writes. This book stands between a thriller and literary fiction, which i surprinsingly enjoyed. However, if you are not a real book nerd or do not really love the south american way of writing you won’t like this as the most enjoyable part is the omnipresent and underlying love for literarure and language.
libromancy's review
3.0
I wouldn't be surprised to see All Men are Liars entered into the Tournament of Books next year. It's the kind of novel that usually appears in the brackets; it's artful, readable, and benign.
The book is divided into five narrative sections, each describing how Alejandro Bevilacqua, author of the acclaimed work In Praise of Lying ended up dying below Alberto Manguel's balcony. (Yes, Alberto Manguel is the real life author of this book. And no, Bevilacqua is not real.) The five narrative versions are reminiscent of The Usual Suspects or [b:The Savage Detectives|63033|The Savage Detectives|Roberto Bolaño|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327882402s/63033.jpg|2503920]. It's not as messy and painful and dangerous as Bolano's work, which is a great pity to this reader, although it's exactly what will make it more accessible to others. It also borrows from The Savage Detectives an interest in Latin American literature and the literary scene; it sprinkles theories and platitudes in liberally. (To stick with the lying theme Manguel says that all Latin American authors are liars.)
Maybe a better book to compare it to would be [b:Scars|12087796|Scars|Juan José Saer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1314210085s/12087796.jpg|17055978] by [a:Juan José Saer|199815|Juan José Saer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1283738436p2/199815.jpg]. Scars also follows a death from different perspectives. But even though Manguel's book claims there can be no single truth, it presents a less complex scenario than Saer's, even though Saer's pretends to be the more straightforward of the pair. Scars was painful for me in a way that All Men was not. And that's why Scars will never win the Tournament of Books, but All Men are Liars very well could.
The book is divided into five narrative sections, each describing how Alejandro Bevilacqua, author of the acclaimed work In Praise of Lying ended up dying below Alberto Manguel's balcony. (Yes, Alberto Manguel is the real life author of this book. And no, Bevilacqua is not real.) The five narrative versions are reminiscent of The Usual Suspects or [b:The Savage Detectives|63033|The Savage Detectives|Roberto Bolaño|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327882402s/63033.jpg|2503920]. It's not as messy and painful and dangerous as Bolano's work, which is a great pity to this reader, although it's exactly what will make it more accessible to others. It also borrows from The Savage Detectives an interest in Latin American literature and the literary scene; it sprinkles theories and platitudes in liberally. (To stick with the lying theme Manguel says that all Latin American authors are liars.)
Maybe a better book to compare it to would be [b:Scars|12087796|Scars|Juan José Saer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1314210085s/12087796.jpg|17055978] by [a:Juan José Saer|199815|Juan José Saer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1283738436p2/199815.jpg]. Scars also follows a death from different perspectives. But even though Manguel's book claims there can be no single truth, it presents a less complex scenario than Saer's, even though Saer's pretends to be the more straightforward of the pair. Scars was painful for me in a way that All Men was not. And that's why Scars will never win the Tournament of Books, but All Men are Liars very well could.
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