The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s La confesión [The Confession]. This is another strange story from Aira, with most of the action taking place in a chair at a family reunion, where Count Orlov is seated. The Orlovs are descended from a distinguished Russian family that emigrated to Argentina. They are now quite numerous but Orlov is very much concerned that they are mixing with inferior people, particularly those of dark skin, one of whom, in fact, is sitting on the sofa next to him. The action start with an eight year old boy playing on a table on which there is an old-fashioned slide projector. As he clambers down, he knocks something on the projector and a piece of metal springs out of it and hits a young man on the sofa next to Orlov in the mouth. The man seems to be bleeding heavily so Orlov goes off to find a doctor. He does find one, who promises to return shortly but never does. Orlov returns to his chair, where he will spend the rest of the novel. Meanwhile, the man – Miguelito is his name, we later learn – seems to have fallen asleep or lost consciousness. Orlov chats to the other man on the sofa, an older man called Aniceto, whom Orlov vaguely recognises from previous family reunions. Orlov tells a fantastical tale about one of their relatives – Elena Moldova – who seems to be two people, is worried about atoms and dies but comes back to life, while Aniceto tells Orlov the story of Miguelito’s childhood with an abusive father. They talk about symmetry, Orlov watches the children playing and tries to work out the rules of the games they are playing and he ruminates on the family and his own fairly selfish life. As always with Aira, it is a story to think about, not one to try and make sense of but it is certainly original.