Publication
Amsterdam Mouria cop. 2004
ISBN
9045851318 / 9789045851310
Language
Collections
Description
"Bluma Lennon, distinguished professor of Latin American literature at Cambridge, is hit by a car while crossing the street, immersed in a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems. Several months after her untimely demise, a package arrives for her from Argentina - a copy or a Conrad novel, encrusted in cement and inscribed with a mysterious dedication. Bluma's successor in the department (and a former lover) travels to Buenos Aires to track down the sender, one Carlos Brauer, who turns out to have disappeared." "The last thing known is that he moved to a remote stretch of the Uruguayan coastline and built himself a house out of his enormous and valuable library. How he got there, and why, is the subject of this seductive novel - part mystery, part social comedy, and part examination of all the many forms of bibliomania." "Illustrated by Peter Sis, The House of Paper is a tribute to the strange and passionate relationship between people and their books."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)
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Subjects
User reviews
LibraryThing member lujanjimenez
a beautiful "little" book. i can relate to it. i love spying in people's book shelves and there's an scene about that that shows my fear/rush when i perform that task.
LibraryThing member Jenson_AKA_DL
It is hard to know if this story is a bibliophiles most fond adventure or worst nightmare. Perhaps a bit of both as it all turns out. The book, told entirely by an unnamed narrator, is a little treasure trove of book related quotes, one of which is the reason for my interest in the story to start
Starting with the death of Bluma Lennon when she is struck by a car while crossing a street reading Emily Dickinson's poems, we are led on a simple yet mysterious quest brought on by the arrival of a book seemingly covered in concrete. The bibliophiles our narrator meets are arguably better read than I (at least they've read books which would be considered more literary than my usual fare) but I can still admire them, feel their fondness of literature in my bones and empathize with their chosen obsession.
Near the end there was a bit of jumping back and forth in the timeline which I found a bit annoying, but truly I felt that this was a special little story and a must read for those who love their books, seeing each tome as the individual that it is.
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with. If you're like me you can't help but identify with the thought......the books are advancing silently, innocently through my house. There is no way I can stop them.Starting with the death of Bluma Lennon when she is struck by a car while crossing a street reading Emily Dickinson's poems, we are led on a simple yet mysterious quest brought on by the arrival of a book seemingly covered in concrete. The bibliophiles our narrator meets are arguably better read than I (at least they've read books which would be considered more literary than my usual fare) but I can still admire them, feel their fondness of literature in my bones and empathize with their chosen obsession.
Near the end there was a bit of jumping back and forth in the timeline which I found a bit annoying, but truly I felt that this was a special little story and a must read for those who love their books, seeing each tome as the individual that it is.
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LibraryThing member PaulBerauer
“One day in the spring of 1998, Bluma Lennon bought a secondhand copy of Emily Dickinson’s poems in a bookshop in Soho, and as she reached the second poem on the first street corner, she was knocked down by a car.”
Its a slim book, that much is true, hardly over 100 pages. And yet in these
As he attempts to track down the sender, a mysterious Uruguayan bibliophile, he begins to see the relationship between the written word and life in a different light, and what it means to be obsessed, only to lose it all.
This is a true classic, a must have for all book lovers.
Its a slim book, that much is true, hardly over 100 pages. And yet in these
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hundred pages, are some of the most beautiful and interesting reflections I have ever read; reflections on books, life, love and obsession. The book starts us at the death of Bluma Lennon, a teacher in London, tragically killed in a car accident. Several weeks later, the narrator, her replacement, receives a package addressed to her: a book covered in Portland cement. As the narrator attempts to track down who exactly sent the package, first because he hopes to let them know of Bluma’s tragic death, and later because the quest begins to obsess him.As he attempts to track down the sender, a mysterious Uruguayan bibliophile, he begins to see the relationship between the written word and life in a different light, and what it means to be obsessed, only to lose it all.
This is a true classic, a must have for all book lovers.
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LibraryThing member lucybrown
A House of Paper is a whimisical, soulful paean to books and their lovers, and especially those of us "who have loved books not wisely but too well." Anyone who is not just a reader, but a lover of the book form; from the pathways of white through the text, to the smell of the ink and paper, to the
True to the South American soul there is that element of tilted reality which lends a piquant nature to the story, which is further complimented by the Peter Sis surreal illustrations
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different qualities of whiteness of the pages, to say nothing of the bindings,in other words, those of us who are not rushing out to buy Kindles, will find a hundred little moments in this book where she feels she has met a kndred spirit. True to the South American soul there is that element of tilted reality which lends a piquant nature to the story, which is further complimented by the Peter Sis surreal illustrations
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LibraryThing member usnmm2
A Prof. of Latin American Literature is hit and killed by a car while reading a book of Emily Dickerson's poetry she has just purchased. The Prof. that takes over her classes receives a book for her that is covered in cement and contains an inscription to Carlos. Who is Carlos, and why the cement?
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This is the start of his quest to find the answer to this mystery. This short book (more of a long short story) and is more about peaple who collect books and how this hobby takes over their lives. The best part of this book is it's full of statements about books that any reader can relate to example, "...the books are advancing silently, innocently through my house. There is no way I can stop them" or "...Alexander Dumas complicated the lives of thousands of women, quite a few of whom were saved from suicide by cookbooks" I can say that I enjoyed this book but don't know why and will read it again in the future. Show Less
LibraryThing member goldiebear
What an odd, strange, yet wonderful little book. I finished this book in less than a day (it's only 103 pages). I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was actually quite fascinating. It's almost like a book-lovers min mystery. I didn't quite get all the Latin American literature references, but
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that's okay. I can't stop thinking about how someone would turn all of their books in to bricks with cement and then build a house out of them. I think it's going to be one of those images that it is going to stick with me. That is what I love about magical realism, I think. Anyhow, a perfect little book for any book lover. Show Less
LibraryThing member lilithcat
Whilst walking down the street and reading a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems, a professor of Latin-American literature is hit by a car. Some time later, a book which she gave to a former lover is returned, encrusted in cement. Her colleague travels to Argentina to find the sender and return the
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book, and finds himself tracking down a man who built a house from books. This is really a meditation on the relationship between people and their books. I certainly recognized myself here: "Every year I give away at least fifty of [my books] to my students, yet I still cannot avoid putting in another double row of shelves; the books are advancing silently, innocently through my house. There is no way I can stop them." Show Less
LibraryThing member vpfluke
I really enjoyed reading this book. The house built out of paper is a something of a conceit of how we get taken by our book collections. Can the structure of our books be permanent? How do weigh their physciality versus their information. What makes for a great collection and how do we access it
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and preserve it for ourselves, and maybe for others. It is layed in Argentina and Uruguay and is something of a window into an intellectual life with a different, if not more, texture than we encompass in the United States. There is a quest to find what happened to Carlos Brauer's books and the man. And we find a dissolution. But a great ride in getting there. Show Less
LibraryThing member riverwillow
This is a little gem of a book. I love the little illustrations throughout which just add to the joy of the text. The concept of judging a book by its pathways and the idea of not putting books by authors who disagreed in real life together is also lovely. I also really liked the idea that
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everything in the story wasn't wrapped up too neatly, as this has reinforced just how unsettling this story is, especially for someone who has far too many books already. Show Less
LibraryThing member JonArnold
And this is the other book I bought after reading Susan Hill's book-about-not-buying-books Howard's End Is On The Landing. I feel quite proud at having stopped at just two. And after finishing The Paper House, probably relieved that I went no further.
I'm sure some pedant somewhere will take umbrage
For all that, it's strangely compelling. Well, it would be for me since my bibliophilia meant I could empathise with the book collectors and lovers here, even if not always with their reasons. There's always a grim fascination with getting to the heart of a man in the grip of a mania, as the mysterious Carlos Brauer is. It's the love of books taken to the logical conclusion, once he's obsessed over them to the point of anthropomorphising his books to the point where his personal index system means authors with grudges or disagreements with one another cannot be shelved next to each other (Shakespeare and Marlowe to pick merely the most obvious example). He ends up living alone in a house of his books, within the worlds of paper and words. And yet the most troubling aspect is that it's clear he loves the books, he's not merely a collector. He reads and annotates them, to the obvious disapproval of the book collector who narrates part of his story to the main character. We never meet Brauer, never even come close to it, never know anything about him but his obsessive all consuming passion for literature, but this aspect of his personality's lucidly realised. He even predicts the exact manner of the death that begins the book, another logical end to an obsession.
Also integral to the book are the illustrations. Starting with the cover, they're allusive, illustrating the text without ever being straightforward. It's an approach I'm not overly familiar with from English literature, but it's a refreshing and engaging approach which complements the textual style of this book (and the South American literature that's been translated).
It almost feels wrong that a book exploring the love of books dwells so much on the unhealthy aspects of it, it's almost an anti-book in parts. It'd no doubt raise a smile from my long suffering wife as books continue to pile up around the house. Actually that's a touch unfair, if anything it's a parable about the dangers of obsession lensed through a literary passion probably drawn from the author himself. But in warning of the perils an obsession with beauty, it finds a strange beauty of its own.
I'm sure some pedant somewhere will take umbrage
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with The Paper House's self-description of itself as a novel. It barely breaks the hundred page barrier, taking the plentiful full page illustrations into account it probably wouldn't even get close to that. And, for such a short novel, it moves at a somewhat languid pace. Yet it has much to say about bibliophiles and the love of books, but never feels forced or hurried in what it says. It probably helps that it's a translation from a Spanish language original and, as with the few other authors I've read whose first language is of Mediterranean origin, the language feels poetic, helping to compress ideas and meaning without . How much of this is down to the author and how much the translator is difficult to know (perhaps translators have in mind that all South American authors should be as strange and beautiful as Marquez or Borges), but it's a stylistic translation tic I adore. It's a feeling of craftsmanship with words that never gets tired for me, but might be too rich for other readers, one that makes me feel there are sensations, feelings and happenings that the English language is inadequate for. In this case, the brevity means that richness never quite cloys as it does in longer, denser works from the South American continent. Adding to the slight dislocation caused by thoughts and ideas from one language being translated to another is the tale's structure. There's no real action, it simply follows the main character as he tries to track down the origins of a mysterious book sent to a colleague of his. Much of this involves him being told stories by others who knew the story of the man who sent the book, so the story at the heart of the book is always told at one remove, through the eyes of others. For all that, it's strangely compelling. Well, it would be for me since my bibliophilia meant I could empathise with the book collectors and lovers here, even if not always with their reasons. There's always a grim fascination with getting to the heart of a man in the grip of a mania, as the mysterious Carlos Brauer is. It's the love of books taken to the logical conclusion, once he's obsessed over them to the point of anthropomorphising his books to the point where his personal index system means authors with grudges or disagreements with one another cannot be shelved next to each other (Shakespeare and Marlowe to pick merely the most obvious example). He ends up living alone in a house of his books, within the worlds of paper and words. And yet the most troubling aspect is that it's clear he loves the books, he's not merely a collector. He reads and annotates them, to the obvious disapproval of the book collector who narrates part of his story to the main character. We never meet Brauer, never even come close to it, never know anything about him but his obsessive all consuming passion for literature, but this aspect of his personality's lucidly realised. He even predicts the exact manner of the death that begins the book, another logical end to an obsession.
Also integral to the book are the illustrations. Starting with the cover, they're allusive, illustrating the text without ever being straightforward. It's an approach I'm not overly familiar with from English literature, but it's a refreshing and engaging approach which complements the textual style of this book (and the South American literature that's been translated).
It almost feels wrong that a book exploring the love of books dwells so much on the unhealthy aspects of it, it's almost an anti-book in parts. It'd no doubt raise a smile from my long suffering wife as books continue to pile up around the house. Actually that's a touch unfair, if anything it's a parable about the dangers of obsession lensed through a literary passion probably drawn from the author himself. But in warning of the perils an obsession with beauty, it finds a strange beauty of its own.
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LibraryThing member ignorantleafy
For a book that can be read in an hour, it takes itself awfully seriously. I went into this book with no expectations, and came out equally apathetic. It is a book about being obsessed with books: what that feels like, what that looks like, the potential consequences. Maybe it was my translation,
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but for me it completely failed to elicit the intense hunger of POSSESSING NEW BOOKS. It's a dry, academic book. Show Less
LibraryThing member FPdC
A story about how books can change a person's life ad also how a person can change the ''life'' of books. About the passion for books and a bibliophile's loss of reason that leads him to build a house out of his library, literaly: by cementing his books into the walls of his residence. A beautiful
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and at points disturbing story that left me pondering about the ephemeral nature of much of humanity's treasures. Show Less
LibraryThing member Beamis12
A book about books, the different meanings that books have for us. How an addiction for books can be taken too far, so maybe a bit of a precautionary tale as well. A very interesting book, with vivid and quotable prose.
LibraryThing member LynnB
This is an amazing book about obsession. Our unnamed protagonist receives a book in a strange condition, and decides to find out who sent it and why. He discovers the sender, Mr. Bauer and his obsession with books. This short book is about the power of books to shape our lives. Beautiful writing.
LibraryThing member pw0327
A lovely and somewhat disturbing book. very short. It makes its point in a magical realism sort of way and then like a whisper, it is gone.
The book is about the unfortunate and sudden death of Blouma Lennon, a lecturer in Hispanic Studies in Cambridge. She was run over by a car as she was crossing
What follows is a bizarre narrative concerning bibliophiles and their obsessive whims. The author/narrator answers some of the questions he raises but not all of it. It was a fun and interesting read. I am sure I will stay up nights obsessing over it, but then again, I obsess over a lot of things.
The book is about the unfortunate and sudden death of Blouma Lennon, a lecturer in Hispanic Studies in Cambridge. She was run over by a car as she was crossing
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a street whilst reading a book of Emily Dickinson poetry.What follows is a bizarre narrative concerning bibliophiles and their obsessive whims. The author/narrator answers some of the questions he raises but not all of it. It was a fun and interesting read. I am sure I will stay up nights obsessing over it, but then again, I obsess over a lot of things.
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LibraryThing member dawsong
Carlos Maria Dominguez
The House of Paper
Fiction
Carlos Maria Dominquez turns prose into poetry. He bequeaths visual treasures that you will turn over and over in your mind's eye as if exploring the facets of a rare gem. The House of Paper is a mystery, a quest, a dreamlike parable, and an expose
"One day in the spring of 1998, Bluma Lennon bought a secondhand copy of Emily Dickinson's poems in a bookshop in Soho, and as she reached the second poem on the first street corner, she was knocked down by a car."
Warning: This book is infusive and in the event that you ever need a transplant will render you only compatible with other people who have been exposed to this book's transformative power.
Recommended January 2006
The House of Paper
Fiction
Carlos Maria Dominquez turns prose into poetry. He bequeaths visual treasures that you will turn over and over in your mind's eye as if exploring the facets of a rare gem. The House of Paper is a mystery, a quest, a dreamlike parable, and an expose
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of bibliomania. Take comfort that the characters and locales are exotic because the psychology and motivation will be disarmingly personal. Curiosity, passion, obsession, fear, and the sordid degradation and murder of that most cherished is all contained in these few pages beginning with the most intriguing of first lines: "One day in the spring of 1998, Bluma Lennon bought a secondhand copy of Emily Dickinson's poems in a bookshop in Soho, and as she reached the second poem on the first street corner, she was knocked down by a car."
Warning: This book is infusive and in the event that you ever need a transplant will render you only compatible with other people who have been exposed to this book's transformative power.
Recommended January 2006
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LibraryThing member ValerieAndBooks
I loved this little novella that imagines a scenario where bibliomania is carried too far. But, there's lots we book lovers can relate to, also.
"Books change people's destinies. Some have read The Tiger of Malaysia and become professors of literature in remote universities. Demian converted tens of
The lovely, but symbolic rather than literal interpretation of the text, illustrations by Peter Sis complement this novella.
I believe this is the only one of Carlos Maria Dominguez's works that is translated in English, and unfortunately apparently out of print as well. The House of Paper , which was also published under the title The Paper House is definitely worth hunting down an used copy.
"Books change people's destinies. Some have read The Tiger of Malaysia and become professors of literature in remote universities. Demian converted tens of
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thousands of young men to Eastern philosophy, Hemingway made sportsmen of them, Alexander Dumas complicated the lives of thousands of women, quite a few of whom were saved from suicide by cookbooks."The lovely, but symbolic rather than literal interpretation of the text, illustrations by Peter Sis complement this novella.
I believe this is the only one of Carlos Maria Dominguez's works that is translated in English, and unfortunately apparently out of print as well. The House of Paper , which was also published under the title The Paper House is definitely worth hunting down an used copy.
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LibraryThing member tuckerresearch
Mentioned in a book about books, I can't remember which now. A short story about obsessions, book ones and others. A decent diversion, and a quick, well-written read. But, no Borges. Not a life-changer. Better stories of bibliomania in the works of Basbanes, but charming nevertheless. That's the
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word: charming. If you like books a tad too much, a nice read. Charmingly illustrated. Show Less
Original publication date
2004 (original Spanish)
2005 (English: Caistor)