The Literary Conference (New Directions Pearls)
As any proper mad scientist should, the narrator of prolific (70 books and counting) Argentinian writer Aira's antic novella wants to conquer the world, to effect which he has mastered portable cloning. Because money would help, he solves the mystery of the Macuto Line in Mexico and, claiming the treasure at the line's end in the gulf, proceeds to a literary conference in Venezuela, of which he and Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes are guests. His scheme is to clone a great genius—Fuentes, that would be—and thereby realize his fiendish ambitions, somehow. Of course, things go awry, and huge blue worms descend on the conference's host city. This not-unlikely-for-the-movies scenario is interestingly wrinkled by the fact that the mad scientist and Aira himself are one and the same (that's why the former is feted as the latter by the conference). Because fiction writers are often conflated with their protagonists, and actors with their roles, and writers and actors both may envy their characters' adventures, the story comes by its self-reflexiveness honestly. Hilariously, too. --Ray Olson