Gilbert Adair: Buenas Noches Buenos Aires

[Shade]

It is possible, I suppose, to miss the cleverness of Gilbert Adair's Buenas Noches Buenos Aires, as one Amazon reviewer has, and dismiss it as crude, banal and filled with unsympathetic characters. But the observant reader will note the clues which demand that we treat the narrator with suspicion, and cast doubt on everything he says, as early as page 2 when he tells us, impossibly, of placing a bookmark between pages 17 and 18 of a book (if you don't see why, try it yourself). Yes, we are in the realms of unreliable narrative and postmodernity, Adair's favourite twins.

As such this novel is his best since 1992's The Death of the Author, and indeed because the cleverness is so well subsumed (that's my way of admitting I haven't entirely worked it out myself) into the surface story - which is attractive enough in itself - you get two books for the price of one. Adair is a whizz with a neat one-liner ("homosexuality," reflects the narrator, whose initials are also GA, on discussing the anonymous promiscuity and casual contact-making of his 1980s gay milieu, "the love that dare not speak its name, but is more than happy to leave its number") and the more erudite sort of pun (a ribald story is credited to "Onanymous"). Indeed the writing is so good that the content of the book becomes almost secondary.

But the story is interesting too, and unlike many almost-too-clever-by-half writers, Adair delineates his characters effectively and effortlessly. There is even a heartfelt mixture of real comedy and gripping tragedy in one scene, which begins with a tooth falling out and ends with a world, literally ("I use the word 'literally' figuratively, of course" as Adair's narrator would say), falling apart. If the end subject matter is not that surprising - gay life in the 1980s, what do you think is coming next? - then its delivery is: a black comedy, in fact, of a big disease with a little name. And that's before you even consider whether what we're being told is fictionally true, or fictionally false. Figuratively, I mean. I think.

 

[Stewart]

That Gilbert Adair’s Buenas Noches Buenos Aires opens with an emphasis on how true the ensuing story is, the reader has every right to be suspicious. But, other than a noticeable handul of clues, I’m at a loss as to why such dubiety need be cast upon the text. Adair has a reputation for novels with more tricks up their sleeve than most, but it feels like a straight story all the way. Despite the subject matter, of course.

Gideon A. - same initials as the author - is a young homosexual, nescient to the world he craves but with a handful of embarrassing sexual failures behind him. He leaves his Oxfordshite home and moves to Paris, taking a job as an English teacher at Berlitz. There he’s happy to discover that the majority of the all male common room is gay. Here he listens to the stories of their varied conquests and, in order to fit in, imagines and tells his own sex-laden anecdotes.

It’s okay for a while but, this being the early eighties, there comes the arrival of a “gay cancer”, initially dismissed by one character as no more probable than gay gallstones. It’s not a big issue at first, given that the disease is prevalent in America. But when symptoms start showing closer to home, the reality of it becomes apparent. Gideon, however, sees it as his chance to become more sexually active. If more gay men abstain from sex then, in all probability, that would make him a highly sought after partner. It’s a twisted logic, but it seems to work for him.

The storyline of Buenas Noches Buenos Aires sometimes feels secondary to Adair’s - or should that be Gideon’s? - erudition and verbal games. There’s all manner of references to literature, artists, and architecture - mostly French- and sometimes famous novels, with utmost subtlety, get namechecked (e.g. Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre). The wordplay is a virtuoso performance, puns and poetry coming together to form descriptions, jokes, and more. Then there’s the sex. Plenty of it, all told in a no holds barred stream of graphic prose, illuminating all manner of sexual quirks.

So how much of Buenas Noches Buenos Aires are we meant to take as canon in Gideon’s life? Admittedly, it’s unknown. There are perhaps a few clues within his narrative:

A timid soul, was my report card’s conclusion., an appraisal that had me spluttering with rage. Something of a poseur, was the overall view. Which I suppose I was, except that, if you imitate something for long enough, you eventually turn into it.
​

And:

It was a good story, well told, and I seriously doubt that any of my listeners were capable of spotting the joins - which is to say, working out where reality ended and fantasy began.
​

But who really cares what’s fact and fiction when it’s this good? Buenas Noches Buenos Aires is a tricksy little novel that turns its attention to the advent of the AIDS epidemic amongst libertarian circles. It’s witty, stylish, immensely readable, somewhat reminiscent of Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat but with much more substance. And despite the saddening subject matter it’s a novel that certainly has a good air about it.