Discussion Literature / OnHeroesAndTombs

What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome? has been renamed to Mundane Made Awesome. The following looks like the sort of misuse that triggered the rename, but it's detailed enough that I don't want to just delete it outright. If someone can find more appropriate tropes (or rephrase this so that it better fits the trope's new name), that would be great.

• What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: at some point in his Writing, Fernando proposes a solution for the staggering amount of assholes in the world, including himself: at the shout of "Imbeciles MARCH" they should all walk towards a gigantic machine that makes them eat their own physical feces, and that collects the new supplies made due to the eating for them to eat them again, ad infinitum. This and other comically witty parts in the Writing on the Blind become a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment when you remember just who are you laughing with.

Please don't cut. The weird name comes from a bad link — it's really On Heroes And Tombs. The very odd first paragraph was taken from the book's prologue, itself rather complex: out of context it was quite bamboozling. I cut it — hope the "owner" is OK with that. The "owner", the guy who added this Work Page is an Unknown Troper who perhaps does not have English as his first language: I fixed up quite a few errors of various sorts, and some link problems too. I got it onto an index too so. Hopefully we can keep this one.

Since I made so many changes, I'll keep the original text here for reference for a while.

"The first investigations reveal that the only watcher used by Alejandra as room was locked from the inside by Alejandra herself. Later (even though, logically, it is impossible to know exactly when) she killed her father with four shots with a 32 caliber gun. Finnaly, she set fire. This tragedy, that has affected all Buenos Aires due to the relevanc e of this old argentine family, may seem initially as the consecuence of a sudden attack of insanity. But now a new element has appeared on the crime. A strange "Witing about the Blind" that Fernando Vidal finished writing the exact same night of his death, has been found on the appartment that, with a fake name, he lied on in Villa Devoto. This is, according to our references, the writings of a paranoid. And yet it is said that from this it is possible to infere certain interpretations that shed light on the crime, and led from the hypothesis of the act of insanity to wards a far more sinister one. Should this inference be correct, this might also explain why Alejandra did not commit suicide with one of the two remaining bullets of the gun, choosing to set herself on fire."

-Preliminar news that works as a sort of prologue.

Chaotic and surreal book written by argentine author Ernesto Sabato telling the story of different characters that relate in Buenos Aires. The story has as its protagonists Alejandra Vidal, a young, beautiful and [[Understatatement rather unstable]] woman and Martin del Castillo, the shy homeless teenager that sees her as the only reason to keep on living. Also pivotal to the plot, whichever it may be, are Bruno, a writer that has never have the courage to publish anything that is also a childhood friend of Alejandra's mother and Fernando Vidal, Alejandra's father and a damn complex character. Worth mentioning is that this is an extremely complex story with a nonlinear time sequence and long philosophical panderings at the middle of the narration. Also worth mentioning is that it is told as a remembrance conversation between Martin and Bruno years after Alejandra's death; which complicates things; and that at times it randomly narrates the escape of a legion of soldiers at the country's war who after having lost any hope of winning escape in the desert with the other troops close behind, first to regroup then to save the corpse of their general; all of which happened years before the story itself but of which a lot of characters are mentioned and a lot more are ancestors of those in the story, which complicates thing even further.

Also very much indeed worth mentioning is the third chapter,called "Writing on the Blind" which has sometimes been published as a completely separate book. This section, narrated by Fernando Vidal, resident squizofrenic/Magnificent Bastard, breaks with the realism and narrative line of the rest of the book by interrupting the story with a chaotic and nihilistic description of Fernando's dellusional mission, in which he believes bling people are secretely a sect of non-entirely-human creatures that control everything and everyone and it is his goal to infiltrate in this dangerous associations of unlimited powers. Needless to say, this chapter alone has more Mind Fuck, Paranoia Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel than complete liraries and it is near impossible to fully understand it and its relevance in the story. It does have a very important allegorical value, both towards Real Life and the sotry itself, and it shed lights ona portion of Fernando's true motives, which are never completely clear and of which he might not know himself.

Second book of the trilogy of Sabato, preceded by "The Tunnel" and followed by "Abbadon the Extermiantor". "Writing on the Blind has been adapted both to movie format and comic book format. YMMV as to how succesful this was.

Contains example of the following tropes:

• Ancient Conspiration: Fernando thinks blind people are this
• Author Filibuster: see Jorge Luis Borges below
• Emo Teen: Matin maybe, but he has more than enough reasons to be like he is. This reason vary from the ordinary (his father was distant and disappointing, he is rather shy), to the downright traumatic (his mother directly admits to consider him a disgrace and to have tried repeatedly to gave herself abortion whose failure is the only reason Martin lives). Having Alejandra as a sort-of gf and having no job or home probably didnt help eother.
• Everybodyis Jesusin Purgatory: probably cultivated knowingly, as the story has a lot of obviously allegorical elements, especially in "Writing on the Blind", but what exactly do this represents is never clear. Different people propose the Decadence of Argentina, the Growth from youthful idealism to mature nihilism, and the slow destruction of all hope in one's life.
• Eye Scream: in one of his dellusions in "Witing on the Blind", Fernando has gigantic pterodatils/vultures/bats pierce his eyes and snatch both of them while he is trapped in the mud helpless
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: in an island Fernando visits in his dellusions, there is a gigantic old cyclop as big as the sky, raising from the horizon always looking at you.. Also the little gem of a story he tells at some point in the witing in which a couple isleaving their appartment when the caretaker, believing everybody has gone on vacations turns off the elcetricity and trapps them in an old elevator until, after trying to eat their own feces, the man kills the woman and eats her, only to starve a little later.
• Jorge Luis Borges: appears walking on the streets and is greeted by Martin and Bruno, giving an opportunity for Sabato to make one character voice his criticism on his writings
• Killitwith Fire: Alejandra believes fire purifies. She wants to purify herself.
• Last Stand: subverte in th story of the Legion. They have no hope left, all that they want is their leader's body not to be dishonored.
• Magnificent Bastard: Fernando Vidal. He married a young, rich woman, flirted with his mother, befriended her husband, set him against his wife and made the mother and daughter fight over him while doing it.
• Tsundere: Alejandra works as a very dark spin of this. Martin describes their realtionship as if the prince came to battle the dragon and save the princess, only to realize the dragon and the princess were one and the same creature.
• Writeron Board: no matter how traumatic things get, Sabato likes to take time to explore the nature of the Nation of Argentina, hope and other philosophical tracts.