Books like On Heroes and Tombs

"I can feel the passageof time, as thought it werecoursing through myveins, along with my blood"It's not often I turn to google maps whilst reading a book. In the case of Ernesto Sabato's 1961 novel I found it helpful but not essential. The first third of the novel there didn't seem to be a moment without the mention of a specific area within the city, add to that an abundance of street names, landmarks and buildings, which initially bothered me. Because the city in question and the setting for Sabato's unsettling masterpiece is Buenos Aires, a place (apart from being in Argentina) I knew absolutely nothing about. It wasn't my intention to turn the city inside out, upside down and learn every street corner off by heart, but just to get a rough idea of the city's layout (especially the area around the port).On finishing 'On Heroes and Tombs' one of the most important things to mention is just how dark it was, and not just it's chilling tone. It felt the whole city sat under a blanket of perpetual black skies, two of the three main characters suffered with great inner turmoil and suicidal madness, most of the novel takes place in the late evenings or the dead of night, there are dark rooms, hallways, and tunnels existing in an almost Kafkaesque like subterranean world, and to top it all off the Blind are obsessed over. There is doomed love, a crazed family, terrorism, political unrest and eventually murder. If Sabato's seminal short novel 'El Túnel' (1948) owed a debt to French existentialists, this mighty beast feels more like a love letter to Buenos Aires . But a letter covered in tears, sickness and blood. Even poor old Jorge Luis Borges gets a cameo appearance, wondering down the street on a stick.The novel predominantly follows two narratives and various sub-plots, the opening starts with young star-crossed lovers Martín and Alejandra Vidal Olmos, who meet by chance near a monument. Martín is just an ordinary man trying to find his way in the city, he loves her more than she loves him, but Alejandra does have some serious issues, she is, to put it bluntly, insane.She takes him to the house of her family one night, where things turn eerie and creepy for the reader, building a slow sense of dread. There is a crazy uncle who plays a musical instrument, and an elderly woman who has been living upstairs for decades without ever leaving the room, with only a mummified head for company. Once Martín gets over the shock he doesn't really care, just wanting to be with her. Martín is as sincere as he is bewildered in his amorous aspirations towards Alejandra, he seems a heartbroken sweetheart. Whereas she is needy, demanding and cruel towards him. On seeing her with another man he wants to know who 'Fernando' is (believing it's her lover, when he is actually her father). The moment he mentions this name the relationship is heading in the direction of emotional disaster and psychological carnage, thus leading to an act of madness. All this is the past, looked back on by Martín and Bruno (Bruno being a writer who knew Alejandra's family, and had feelings for her mother.The narrative then switches to Alejandra's father, Fernando Vidal, a quite morbid man, who has a ludicrous and damn right terrifying obsession with the Blind (as a youngster he poked the eyes out of a sparrow and watched as it flew around the room in great pain and fear), he believes Blind people are part of some sort of secret sect, he watches them, follows them, and is the creator of the bizarre 'Report on the Blind'. Fueled by paranoia and intrigue he ends up in an old apartment building after seeing two individuals leave (thinking they are part of the sect). He enters...The next 30-40 pages were filled with what can only be described as an hallucinogenic, claustrophobic, nerve shredding, heart-stopping fear. It felt like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock under psychosis and Dante's Inferno, Sabato used such wild and inventive imagery I just couldn't believe my eyes, and simply couldn't put the book down!. In fact for long spells I couldn't put it down. Around this point (about half-way through) it was THAT GOOD!.Everything I have mentioned above only happens on the surface, the novel goes deeper than that, making it exceptional to read. It could be seen simply as a chilling love story, or tale of madness. But more than anything it's just as much a philosophical wonder on history. The novel expands on landowning baronies and industrial development, civil war, and social and economical problems. There are moments included that many non-Argentinians may fail to fully understand.I don't want to give the impression that 'On Heroes and Tombs' is a tedious allegorical book on Argentinian history. Other sub-plots do exist, but they are only important if you choose them to be, they can stay in the background if one pleases. There is a certain type of fictional narrative whereby the writer endeavors to free himself of an obsession that is not clear, even to himself. This appears to be the only sort Sabato could write.The novel was like entering a dark labyrinth of insanity, going on a guided tour, before being thrown back into our world. A stunningly powerful and haunting piece of work.