How I Became a Nun Book

We lost ourselves in a labyrinth that I can reconstruct step by step.

'How I became a Nun' introduces us to an exceptional and somewhat intimidating architect who generously makes use of imagination for constructing a unique narrative. Something keeps on happening here; if not in the form of reality then in the infinite space of fiction. Our belief or disbelief in the strange lives this book depicts is our own business only and whether we derive from it a healthy dose of entertainment or an inedible diet of perturbation hardly matters. What really matters is that nobody and nothing remains homeless in this world. That was the tragedy of my childhood and my whole life...My vision couldn't be satisfied with what was visible, it had to go rushing on, beyond, into the abyss, dragging me along behind... Here's another knock on the door of childhood with twists and turns galore. With W or the Memory of Childhood and The Notebook The Proof The Third Lie Three Novels, I already had my fair share of unexpected journeys into the erratic minds of children but guess every childhood is different irrespective of the happiness or unhappiness it experiences. The same holds true for this book also. This is the story of Argentina, relocation, parents, kids, ice-cream, hating the ice-cream, school, hating the teachers, deconstructing the reality and inventing a fiction which in turn befuddles the life of our protagonist, who is a 6 year old, César Aira. Although with that name enters the spirit of metafiction in this story but rest assured, whatever is in store for a reader is anything but clichéd tricks.

This is my second Aira read after An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter where I did realize that he was an 'almost' great writer and wholeheartedly wanted to believe in Bolano's enthusiastic recommendation too but a small link between really liked it and it was amazing was missing for me. So I was vigilant with this book and kept looking for that 'almostness' but all I got was a unique blend of perfection and perfectly acceptable flaws chapter by chapter. There's only so much one can demand from a novella and Aira, with his compelling ingenuity and spirited writing has delivered a lot here.

That space, that happiness had a color: rose-pink. The pink of the sky at sunset, a vast, transparent, faraway pink whose absurd apparition represented my life. I was vast, transparent and faraway, and my absurd life represented the sky. Living was painting: coloring myself with the pink of the inexplicably suspended light...