Faction

The second of Argentinean eccentric Juan Filloy's novels to be translated into English—after Op Oloop—Faction tells the story of seven erudite, homeless, and semi-incompetent radicals traveling from city to city in an attempt to foment a revolution: conspiring with striking workers, setting off bombs, and evading the local authorities. But this is no political thriller. Like his literary “descendant” Julio Cortázar—who mentions this book in Hopscotch—Filloy is far more concerned with his characters’ occasionally farcical inner lives than with their machinations. While the action might seem to have a fairly straight forward trajectory, the story meanders wherever it pleases, from the increasingly paranoid theories of its seven protagonists to the peculiar countermeasures taken by the regime they are trying to topple. With its almost encyclopedic feel,and its satirical look at both solidarity and nonconformity, Faction is considered to be among Filloy’s greatest achievements.