Ghosts by Cesar Aira

Ghosts

Cesar Aira

This short novel is an unusual mixture of the mundane and the supernatural. A Chilean immigrant and his family live in a condo under construction in Buenos Aires where he works as a night watchman. Their daily lives are recorded in absolute minute detail. Watching over this ordinariness is something extraordinary - a group of ghosts, all male and all naked … A philosophical book, humorous in parts, with good descriptive writing and a shock ending.

Extract
The little group hanging on his words, those remarried couples with their shared project of happiness, had been infiltrated by two individuals, two naked men covered in fine cement dust. They were listening too, but only as a pretext for bursting continually into fierce, raucous, laughter. Or not so much laughter as vehement, theatrically sarcastic howling. Since the others didn't hear or see them, the conversation continued at its polite and leisurely pace.
Parallels
  • Anything by Jorge Luis Borges
  • Remainder by Tom McCarthy

Rainy day reads