The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira [Paperback]

C?sar Airas newest novel in English is not about a conventional doctor. Single,in his forties, and poor, Dr. Aira is a skeptic. His personality  his weaknesses,whims, and pet peeves  is summed up in a series of digressions and regressions but he has a very special gift for miracles. He no longer cares about miracles,however, and has no faith in them. Perhaps he is even a little ashamed about his supernatural powers. Such is Dr. Aira, who also has to confront his arch-enemy chief of the Pi?ero Hospital, Dr. Actyn  who is constantly trying to prove that Dr. Aira is a charlatan. Poor Dr. Aira is indeed a worker of miracles, but C?sar Aira  the magesterial author  sends the very human doctor stumbling toward the biggest trap of all, in this magical book.Aira's literary significance, like that of many other science fiction writers, comes from how he pushes us to question the porous line between fact and fantasy, to see it not only as malleable in history, but also blurred in the everyday. The engrossing power of his work, though, comes from how he carries out these feats: with the inexhaustible energy and pleasure of a child chasing after imaginary enemies in the park.C?sar Aira's is a fine short book, imaginative and entertaining, but finally and essentially, it's not about the size, it's about the transmogrified truths, the art of the prose and its necessity.C?sar Airas novels are the narrative equivalent of the Exquisite Corpse, that Surrealist parlor game in which players add to drawings or stories without knowledge of previous or subsequent additions. Wildly heterogeneous elements are thrown together, and the final result never fails to surprise and amuse.Aira's latest concerns a reluctant but powerful doctor who finally decides to use his healing powers to help a hopeless patient.