Op Oloop
Juan Filloy, translated by Lisa Dillman
2009, Dalkey Archive Press
251 pages
THE LIST at Dalkey just got a great deal richer with the publication of the first English translation of this classic work by the eccentric Argentine Juan Filloy, whose life which ended at the tender age of 106 was almost as strange as the characters he brought to life during his brief stay on this planet. First published in Spanish in 1934, Op Oloop tells the story of a Finnish statistician Optimus Oloop, whose methodical routines are thrown into chaos one day by an insignificant traffic delay. It is a masterpiece of comical writing in the tradition of great satirists. But the real story must always be Filloy himself, a polymath-cum-boxing referee who spent his life of letters practising as a judge in the small town of Río Cuarto. So perspicacious was his comic wit that Freud once sent him a letter congratulating him on his achievement. – EC
