It was truly magical: names came to their lips with enormous facility and in abundant quantities. This is important, as the narrator had hoped to ask him for a loan to start up a new business.Īt the dinner, the mother and friend gossip incessantly, talking about the inhabitants of the town and coming out with long lists of names of families and inhabitants, past and present. I say apparently because, though the narrator maintains that he is rich, his mother later says that he, too, is broke. He is apparently rich, having made his money in construction.

He lives on his own in a large house, full of curios and curiosities. He spends much of his time channel surfing the seventy TV channels available, too depressed to seek work or do anything else.Īt the start of the novel, the narrator and his mother are going to dinner with the narrator’s only remaining friend. He is living with his mother in her flat, with the sole income of the two being her pension. Our hero/narrator is a sixty-year old man, whose businesses have failed and who is now bankrupt. The setting is Coronel Pringles, Aira’s home town and the setting for many of his works. With my limited knowledge of the topic, I am guessing this novel is not your typical zombie work, though it certainly incorporates tropes from the standard zombie book/film. I am not an expert on the zombie novel – there is only one on this site – but I must admit to having seen the odd zombie film, both the standard horror type and the spoof zombie film. Home » Argentina » César Aira » La cena (Dinner) César Aira: La cena (Dinner)Ĭésar Aira has covered a variety of subjects in his novels so it is perhaps not surprising that he gives us a zombie novel.

Dinner by César Aira