Okay, the title of this post is a little misleading, sorry….literary blog Conversational Reading recommends Manuel Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages: “this is an extremely Freudian book. The old man has son issues and the caretaker has father issues and, well, they’re pretty Freudian.” ….. that certainly sounds like it has the Buenos Aires influence!
I’ve not read the book but hear that it is pretty good. I know a porteña who gave the book to her mother for her birthday this past year. Hmmm, some psychoanalysis needed there? :-)
If you’re not familiar with Puig, then you may want to browse the overview of Puig I wrote back in December.
I saw most of the Italy-Germany game at home but had to skip the overtime to meet Ceci at the cardiac institute where her father had a procedure on Tuesday. (He’s doing fine). Got to the hospital just in time to hear the cheers as Italy won. Suddenly the street was full of cars honking their horns again. Of coure, Argentines were happy to see Germany lose after Germany’s recent defeat of the Argentine team.
The game also reminded me that there are a lot of Italians in Buenos Aires. A lot are like Ceci and have dual citizenship but a lot are like her mother who immigrated here after World War II and remained simply Italian, never obtaining Argentine citizenship; needless to say, she was very happy after the game (and that her husband’s procedure went well).
I wonder: during the Argentina-Germany game did the cardiac institute have to keep an extra close eye on its patients?
Some words about the cardiac institute, Fundación Favaloro: it’s a very nice, modern facility and there’s an interesting history behind the foundation. René Favaloro was one of the foremost heart surgeons in the world. In 1967, at the Cleveland Clinic in the U.S., Favaloro pioneered the coronary artery bypass graft surgery, a procedure that has impacted the lives of millions.
Favaloro returned in 1971 to Argentina from the U.S. to create the first thoracic and cardiovascular center in Buenos Aires. Over the years Favaloro developed Fundación Favaloro, the Universidad Favaloro, and the non-profit Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery.
Sadly, Favaloro committed suicide on July 29, 2000 by shooting himself in the heart.
Favaloro was a strong supporter of universal health care, treating the uninsured and wealthy without discrimination. At the time of his death the foundation was owed millions but also was itself deeply in debt and almost bankrupt. Just before his death, Favaloro wrote a letter to Argentine president Fernando de la Rua pleading for financial assistance to the foundation. I don’t know the full story about the financial problems of the foundation at that time, which undoubtedly were complex, but the foundation has recovered.
In so many ways, Favaloro is a very admirable person…a child from a working class family who became a great surgeon; a man that left behind the immense personal wealth of a medical practice in the U.S. in order to promote healthcare in Latin America; someone who devoted his life to helping others.
If you’re interested in learning more about René Favaloro:
- Fundación Favaloro page about his life (in Spanish)
- A memorial tribute to Favaloro by the Texas Heart Institute is a well-written essay that should inspire anyone, not just medical students.
- An excellent article in the New York Times, Argentina Searches Its Soul Over a Suicide, is particularly poignant considering what happened in Argentina in the years after that article was written, a reminder that the country’s collapse didn’t start in 2001.
Favaloro, isn’t that name Italian? I thought today that I was just going to watch a football game, but I learned about so much more.
Someday we’ll make it up to Brazil to attend the Festa Literária Internacional de Parati, which surely must be one of the world’s great literary festivals. The festival, August 9 -13, will open with a concert by Maria Bethânia. According to the just released festival program, it looks like a great few days. The main international star of this year’s festival is Toni Morrison.
I’m mentioning the festival on the Baires blog because one of the participating authors is Ricardo Piglia, who will speak at a talk titled The Last Reader:
Can literary criticism be a form of autobiography? This is what Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia asks in his exquisite reflections on the great works of literature. “Writing fiction changes the way we read, and a writer’s criticism raises a secret mirror to his own work,” he claims in Formas breves. For this extraordinary event, Argentina’s most celebrated novelist and literary essayist, author of Respiración artificial and El ultimo lector, will consider the extent to which his forays into literary criticism are a reflection of his own very private reading history.
The festival is actually quite affordable. No doubt thanks to festival president Liz Calder, one of the founders of the publisher Bloomsbury. Costs for the opening concert and each of the author’s readings is 17 reais, which is about 8 dollars.
