People in the Room

In the Introduction to People in the Room, César Aira informs readers that Norah Lange is known for her love of enigma. This love for enigma is extremely evident in People in the Room. The main character in the novel is a girl of seventeen that one day spots three mysterious figures in the house next door and becomes obsessed with watching them through the drawing room window. The preoccupation with these three dark figures becomes this girl’s life. All of her thoughts revolve around trying to assign distinguishing details to the three women, imagining their lives and what goes on in the moments that she isn’t watching them, and most importantly dwelling on guilt for a crime she imagines them to have committed. Her need to dream up details doesn’t go away when she begins to make a daily outing to their house. The mystery of these three figures remains entirely intact. The reader likewise experiences enigma in reading People in the Room and only being able to guess at what is going on with the three puzzling women and the young girl. Are the women real? Are they figments of her imagination? Is the main character suffering from anxiety or depression? There are so many questions that are simply never answered, thus making the whole story a fascinating, puzzling, yet brilliant enigma.