Ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

Ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

Chilean fiction

Original title Formas de volver a casa,

Translator – Megan McDowell

Source Review copy

I have read him before Kim from reading matters sent me The private lives of trees a couple of years ago ,I read it but never review it so with Spanish lit month  in July I decided to review this now and The private lives of trees .Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean born writer he studied in Chile  a degree in Hispanic languages  ,and currently teaches in Santiago and contributes to magazines and papers in Chile his first novel was describe stunningly as “The publication of Bonsai … marked a kind of bloodletting in Chilean literature. It was said (or argued) that it represented the end of an era, or the beginning of another, in the nation’s letters” in El Mercurio .

THE NIGHT OF THE EARTHQUAKE I WAS SCARED

But I also, in a way enjoyed what was happening .

In the front yard one of the house ,the adults put up two tents for the children to sleep in ,and at first it was chaos because we all want to sleep in the one that looked like an igloo

As I said halves scared /but enjoyed

SO we get to ways of going home it is one of those short novellas that seem much longer and deeper after you have put it down if you know what I mean .It’s a book of memory and halves .The book is in two section we meet a young boy in the dark days of Pinochet’ s regime ,but our narrator has a fairly normal life as it appears to him in fact if anything slightly boring ,but then there is an earthquake and almost like the Shibbolth artwork (the crack in the floor of the turbine hall of Tate modern Doris Salcedo a fellow Latin american ),out of this crack  of the earthquake appears Claudia a slightly older girl than him, we  sense our narrators immediate attraction and liking of this girl as he spies on her from afar but getting closer  ,they get to know one another and she gets him to look at her uncle to she what he is up to.No as quickly as she appears, no sooner  has her and her family disappeared from his life but he never forgets her  ,til they meet in adult life  ,he is full of remorse for the violence of the Pinochet years and how him and his family didn’t do a lot ,Claudia family did that is why she went ,find out how these two getting together changes our narrators life for ever .Also what really happened during those years though unspoken at times is always lurking in the background .

When I was a child I liked the word Blackout .My mother would come and get us and bring us into the living room.”In the past,people didn’t have electricity “, she would say as she lit the candles .It was hard to imagine a world without lamps , without outlets in the wall .

As an adult remembering the past .

I said this is a book of memories our narrator rather like my self ,ok I didn’t have a violent dictatorship ,but had a bad divorce of my parents a step father I didn’t get on with and a being clumsy skin and tall was a target for bullying .But now as I look back on my younger years these events thou there are second place to family holidays ,evening spent with friends ,day trips in fact all the best bits .I feel this is our narrators problem his is the reverse as a child to him it all seemed wonderful he almost blanked out the bad parts ,til they reappeared in adulthood .I also said halves well-being young /being old ,being safe /having to run ,being quiet like the narrators parents / speaking out like Claudia’s  parents ,moving on /not forgetting.Also the shadow of the dark days of being Chilean in the 80′s looms large in the background   .Zambra is a writer of true  style in fact that sparse writing style that yet seems fuller ,like Carver did in his short stories the novella has been worked to a delicate lace of words that thou fragile and thin is truly beautiful .

Have you read Zambra ?

Do you have a favourite Chilean writer ?

The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa

The dream of the Celt  by Mario Vargas Llosa

Peruvian Fiction

Translator – Edith Grossman

Original Title -El sueño del celta

Source Library

Just other two yyears ago after he had won the Nobel prize for Literature I reviewed his novel the bad Girl which I enjoyed ,this is his latest book published in Spanish in 2010 ,this translation was published last Year and done by the Wonderful Edith Grossman .Mario Vargas is easily the most well known name from Peruvian fiction this book is his 15th novel in a career that dates back to 1959 and the start of the Latin American Boom .

When in Liverpool with his cousins ,Roger sometimes conquered his timidity and Asked Uncle Edward about Africa ,a vontinent whose mere mention filled his head with Jungles ,wild animals and interpid men .

The first time we see the draw of Africa on Roger Casement

This book focus on the well Known Irish nationalist figure Sir Roger Casement ,I say well-known before I read the book I knew he was associated with Ireland had been executed by the british and he was part of some sort of scandal .So to the book Yes Roger Casement was from Ireland and the book takes you through his youth there then to time spent in Africa ,Peru and the amazon basin then back to Ireland .The book is about a man’s journey  Form Idealist , British Diplomat to Disillusioned ,humanitarian and Irish freedom Fighter .We see  this youth In Ballymena (just thought mention this it isn’t a large part but my step mother is also from this town in Northern Ireland ) he is a quiet and quite shy young man growing up much different to the figure he later became ,Then in his late teens  joining the British government as a diplomat . Where he ends up being sent to Congo ,where he see the horrors of the dying embers of the slave traders and How the white Europeans treat the natives ,whilst in Congo he meet two well-known figures in History ,the Explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley and the Novelist Joseph Conrad .Then he is sent to sort out and report back on a dispute in Peru involving the Local tribes of Indians Seven in all and The rubber company .The Indians have decided they need more rights ,because we see people whip and mistreated for not following the company lines or doing what was expected .Following all this he returns to Ireland where his views on his own home land and nation have changed radically and he ends up on the Gaol waiting to be killed  .Well  a lot as you see ,oh and he was gay and tend to like younger men than himself (rather well handle by Llosa it is easy to make this the main theme of the book ,which it could but this is a book on the wrongs of Empire really ) at a time when this was against the law .

O what has made that sudden noise?
What on the threshold stands?
It never crossed the sea because
John Bull and the sea are friends;
But this is not the old sea
Nor this the old seashore.
What gave that roar of mockery,
That roar in the sea’s roar?

The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.

John Bull has stood for Parliament,
A dog must have his day,
The country thinks no end of him,
For he knows how to say,
At a beanfeast or a banquet,
That all must hang their trust
Upon the British Empire,
Upon the Church of Christ.

The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.

Instead of a second quote I choose to put two verse of the W B yeats poem about Casement which is also quoted in the book

So I suppose like me reading this book on the blurb , the first name that came to mind with this book Is Conrad ,Yes it is similar settings but this is more a view of the natives downfall through a European eyes that Conrad’s books are ,I was also reminded of the recent novels by Bernardo  Atxaga  seven house in France  which I review  here and other book dealing with  the horrors in the Congo at roughly the same time as this book .Another book Ithat sprung to mind was the last but one book by Juan Gabriel Vasquez which I also reviewed on here The secret history of Costaguana another book which set in Latin america and based on a Conrad novel .Vargas has tried to show through one man the wrongs of empire and also how empires are able to fall .The horror of the treatment the locals around the world is eye-opening to you as a reader ,but also to Casement and lead him down a new path seeing these horrors .

Have you read this book ?

Necropolis by Santiago Gamboa

Necropolis by Santiago Gamboa

Columbian Fiction

Original title Necropolis

Translator Howard Curtis

Source Review Copy

Well I had a load of long and complex novels last year but two I had left to mull over in my mind before reviewing .This was one the other being Laszlo Krasznahokai ‘s Satantango .So Santiago Gamboa is considered one of the rising stars of Latin American literature .He studied literature at Bogotá university before moving to Europe and settling in Paris where he furthered his studies studying Cuban literature .He published his first novel in 1995 aged 30 ,this Necropolis is his seventh novel and his first to be translated into English .The book won the  Premio La Otra Orilla award .

Dear writer ,in view of your work ,we have the pleasure of inviting you to the international congress on biography and memory (ICBM),to be held in the city of Jerusalem from 18 – 25 may

part of the invite that starts and is the framing device for the story .

So Necropolis is a novel is  about an unnamed Columbian  writer,who has been struggling for a couple of  years with his craft of writing and illness .But he is very intrigued when he receives a very strange offer from the ICBM (International Congress on Biography and Memory ),Now at first he wonders why but it seems legitimate so he says he will attend ,even thou he hasn’t in his mind written anything overtly biographical .So he sets off from his base in Rome to the conference which happens to be in Jerusalem.So he receives a copy from the ICBM OF attendees at the conferences and it is far to say apart from one man who also comes from Columbia like the writer these people have little in common .So we go to the conference and we see the first speaker talk this is mixed with our narrator as he meets his fellow delegates and listens to the talk by Jose Maturana ,this is about a church he became involved in and the collapse of this  cult like church and how the main man one Walter De la salle disappeared  .Next think is this guy turns up dead and we have what maybe a murder or a suicide ? then the action moves away from this to the other people and there stories at the conference an Italian  porn star ,a businessman who has been trying to deals with the Farc ,( a terrorist group in Columbia )  and a pastor each of these stories we hear are about fifty pages long  finally we return to find out what happen to Jose and was it murder ?

  The life story I am about to relate is a harsh and sometimes even macabre one, so I hope there are no young people in the room ,There are situations that the inexperienced or the innocent may find disturbing .I’m not sure on the conferences policy on this ,and I shall certainly go ahead and tell my story anyway .But it might be a good idea to check at the entrance that all members of audience are of legal age just for today .

Sabina telling her story to the conferences

Well that is  brief description of  this.It is very hard to grasp without getting  to in-depth with the story or stories .This book has a feel of ambition about it and scope .The book is set up really as a collection of stories and a murder story ,it has a feel rather like those classic tales of literature .In  a number of reviews I saw The Decameron is mentioned as one such  collection ,but I felt Canterbury tales could also work as the book is set round the conference it is a framing device like the trip the pilgrims took,  these people have been drawn together  at the king David hotel too essentially tell their stories .The tales we are told by the delegates are about love ,sex ,good and evil . Ambitious as you can tell ,it works and one feels the could be a number of other stories come from this one book in the future . Santiago Gamboa has assumed the mantel of writers like Marquez and Bolano .

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite latin american work of fiction ?

The sound of things falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

The sounds of things falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Columbian fiction

Spanish title El ruido de las cosas al caer

Translator Anne McLean

Source Review copy

Jean Gabriel Vasquez is a Columbian writer ,This is his third novel ,he studied law ,after getting his degree he lived in france in the late 1990′s then Belgium finally settling in Barcelona in Spain .I have previously reviewed his second novel the secret history of Costaguana which was on the IFFP list two years ago .

The first hippopotamus ,a male the colour of black pearls weighing a ton and a half ,was shot dead in the middle of 2009 .He’d escaped two years before from Pablo Escobar’s old zoo in the Magdalena valley ,and during that time of freedom had destroyed crops ,invaded drinking troughs ,terrified fishermen and even attacked the breeding bulls at a cattle ranch .

the opening of the novel .

So I have read his previous two novel both set in the past ,as is this his latest but this is set more in the present past than his previous two .This is a close look at his homelands distant past .This book deals with the horror of the drug trade and its effects on people .I was struck by the opening of this book that sees a Hippo that has escape from the zoo that was owned by the notorious drugs baron Pablo Escobar ,this reminded me of the novella down the rabbit hole by Juan Pablo Villabos which saw a young boy wanting a pygmy hippo he was actually the sone of a Mexican drugs baron .Anyway back to this book the shooting of the hippo was read by Antonio Yammara now a teaching law ,but his has a Proustian moment reading this and is brought back to the mid 90′s and the hieght of the drug cartels stranglehold on Columbia .Yammara was a young lawyer not overly happy with his lot and spent afternoons in a pool hall this is where he meet Ricardo Laverde ,this guy is a pilot and is maybe mixed up with the wrong people but is someone the young Yammara made a connection with this guy he has spent time in prison and gives Yammara a tape and then is shortly gunned down ,This tape and his wanting to find out more about Ricardo Laverde and how he end up gunned down ,in doing so we see the start and the rise of the drug trade in Columbia .Added to that Ricardo’s daughter and a love story in a way you get a lot in this book.I saw this quest as Yammara trying to find himself as well as what happened and maybe find his place in the world .

A black cassette with an orange label .On that labe a single word BASF

“it is just side A ” ,Consu told me “when your finished listening to it ,leave it all beside the stove .There where the matches are .And make sure the door’s closed properly when you leave “

The tape from Ricardo that sets Yammara on his quest .

Well this book gives you a real insight into how Columbia fell apart and is slowly dragging its self out of the dark times .I felt in parts this was a personnel story Vasquez was telling a story of his homeland and its distant past through his eyes in a way he did study law and in some ways you could see Yammara as maybe an alternate Vasquez had he stayed in Columbia and not gone to France.What we get is an unflinching portrait ,we all remember the names of people like Escobar ,but until I read this I had not seen the newtons cradle like effect of the drugs trade on every one in Columbia .As ever you can’t pick fault with the twice IFFP winning translator Anne Maclean work on this book it won the Premio Alfaguara on of the best regard and richest literary prize for spanish language fiction other recent winners include Santiago Roncagliolo and Andres Neuman both of which are under review here at winstonsdad .

Have you read Juan Gabriel Vasquez ?

Advento no brasil Feliz Natal advent in Brazil

Sorry for my Portuguese speaking  friends if my title isn’t  quite right , Well I ve been going on for months if not years about the rise in Chinese fiction I felt was due (although I’ve not overly connect with Chinese fiction ) I have also had a back of my head that Brazil is going be a world power soon if it is  not already  I ve been wanting to do something Brazilian fiction as a little introduction and to build to a bigger Project when they host the  world cup in 2014 I m sure that Brazilian fiction may be the next Nordic crime  as these events get nearer people will want to learn and hopefully read fiction from Brazil .They also Have the  next Olympics in 2016 .So When Kimbfo ask for Brazilian books to read recently it set me thinking about my lack of Brazilian reading ,I have two books I ve reading recent  weeks .There is also the recent Michael Palin series set in Brazil which has given me a little background and knowledge of brazil as a whole  to also give me a nudge .So over next month December I will post on the books read and some I am getting ,also maybe talk a bit about things Brazilian I ve enjoyed over the years .I promise it won’t all be football but there will be some I mean to me as a child Brazil meant foot ball names like Pele ,Carlos Alberto ,Zico and Socrates conjured images of sun and great football skills .So you will learn maybe who Neymar is as well as who Joaquin Maria Machado de Assis .

Recent books from Brazil I ve read -

House of the Fortunate Buddhas by João Ubaldo Ribeiro

the second a new offering from Machlehose press

The Spies by Luís Fernando Veríssimo

Then the new issue of Granta is a Brazilian writer collection ,and I seen my library system has a Clarice Lispector novel(not the new ones thou if I get chance I may get one of these ). so that makes four books from Brazil at the moment  and a chance to turn December into a celebration of Brazilian Fiction for myself and Hopefully you as well ,so lets Samba on down over the end of year and Christmas .So if you’d like join and read some books from Brazil  please  tell me and we can all Samba in the cold of our December or the heat if your down under  .

 

 

 

 

 

The islands by Carlos Gamerro

The Islands by Carlos Gamerro

Argentinian fiction

Translated by Ian Barnett with Carlos Gamerro

source review copy

Carlos Gamerro  born in 1962 ,studied literature  in Buenos Aires .He then became a visiting fellow in Cambridge .He is also a translator of English into Spanish he has translated Auden and Harold Blooms works into Spanish,He has also lived in Gibraltar for a time so has a small insight into the british side of the story   .Although this is his  second book published in English ,this was actually  his début novel he has so far written five novel .This book is also now a play as well .

Now this is the second book by Carlos Gamerro I’ve read in the last twelve months the first was open secret a story about the dirty war and the aftermath on one village in Argentina .Now in this book ” The islands” (Las Isla )is another story set in Argentina recent past .This time it is set in 1992 but looking back at the Falklands war .For those of you outside the UK I explain The Fakland islands are archipelago  of  2 large islands and 700 small islands that over its history had swapped through many hands til in 1833 it came under British rule ,but it has been disputed with its nearest neighbour Argentina that state a claim on the islands or as the call them Las Malvinas .This book is timely with the 30th anniversary of the war and also a recent heightening of the tension between the UK government and Argentina government over the sovereignty  of the islandsthis year   .So this dispute reach a new height in 1982 when Argentina invade the islands .This is where The Islands starts in 1992 a Computer Hacker Felipe Felix  is summoned to the Headquarters of a large company and the boss Fausto Tamerlan .Fausto wants Felipe to find out who witness a crime committed by his son  .Another son was in the Falklands .Then add in a armadillo shell stuffed with treasure and we have the start of a novel of multiple strands and some dead ends .

He opened them to look at me .

” My son killed someone ” ; he said .” in this very room .Threw him out of that window “.He pointed to the one immediately behind me .”Five nights ago .To explain what your job will be .You’ve been allowed a privilege reserved for a happy few ;to penetrate to the heart of the diamond .

Sr Tamerlan tells Felipe why he summoned him to the office .

 

Now Felipe is a man scared by the war himself his is a sort hacker come private investigator ,he spent the last ten years since the war in drugs and the virtual on-line world trying to escape the horrors he saw and the time he spent in a freezing trench on the islands .Now Felipe still knows all the right people knowing some veterans from the conflict ,via this he knows some one in SIDE the Argentina’s secret services .He finds out via hacking the computer files at SIDE that a certain major may have been involved in the son’s crime via the majors wife .But this major was also a dark figure from dirty war that wrote his diary about his time on the island .we view his world via his diary

25TH May 1982 – A glorious national holiday .We celebrated with a barbecue ,which improved the morale of the rank and file ,in spite of the two sheep that we sacrifice barely satisfying our hunger . The scarcity of provisions is alarming .Later ,after handing round some steaming mugs of mate ,which the Kelpers eagerly drank .I made a sort speech declaring them full Argentinian citizens .

from the diary of Major x ,Kelpers is the nickname for the Faklander islanders .

Oh rather like open secret was The island is a complex piece of writing crossing genres part war novel,part crime story ,part spy novel ,part road trip ,part confessional ,part cyber thriller .The  list is endless .a stream of different styles that take you into a mad world of broken men ,dead men ,dreams of grandeur and nightmares of defeat all play a part .We see the reasons for the war and the outfall from the Argentinian  point of view .Now I was only ten when the war happened and my memories are of the British side of the war .But I found this interview with Carlos on line quite enlightening .The war was quite horrific for both sides and as much as my memories before reading this novel are of the union jack flying and some of our troops that suffered horrific injuries ,this book opened my eyes to the suffering and the broken dreams of the men that went to chase a dream of capturing what to them was a dream of a better future and Felipe is one of those men . And in that future men of power still try to cover the crimes that are going on in the present as well as the past.He said Burroughs and Pynchon were influences whilst writing this book and I can see it has a twisted style like Burroughs and the scope of Pynchon works .This another read for spanish lit month

Have you read Carlos Gamerro ?

 

The she devil in the mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya

The she devil in the mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya

Salvadorian fiction

Translator Katherine Silver

Source – personnel copy

I read a couple of years ago Senselessness by Moya .He is one of the hidden gems of south american writing able to open the lid on all that is brutal in latin america .I feel he is best summed up by his friend Roberto Bolano in this quote from the cover .

The only writer of my generation who knows how to narrate the horror ,the secret Vietnam that Latin America was for a long time .

He has spent a long time away from Salvador ,first he went Mexico where he was a newspaper editor ,then Spain and germany he did briefly return to Salvador in the early nineties but currently lives in Mexico .

Weill the she devil in the mirror ,could be called a detective novel ,but it is a detective novel in the latin american vein IE not really a straight forward detective novel , a crime as happened we see it solved through some one but not the detective .The crime a woman has been killed her name is Olga Maria ,she owns a boutiquein the posh part of town and is in her late twenties .The person telling the story is her best friend Laura Rivera .We get the story told in one long monologue .This is a different vision to most Latin american novels as these are the upper class. We also meet the detective Deputy chief Handal .We follow Laura as she sees her friend’s life taken apart to find out what happened .

They let me know right away :Sergio ,Olga Maria’s brother called my house and said something terrible had happened ,Olga Maria had been “mortally wounded “during an attempt robbery .That’s what he said “mortally wounded” .I couldn’t believe it – I’d been with her just half hour earlier .

Laura learns her friend is dead .

The main thing we see through Laura’s monologue is what secrets do ,the is a feeling that the husband was wrapped up in something very suspect to do with money .As we she her try to find out among the people they knew in the upper reaches of Salvadoran society .Which may to be blame for the death of Olga Maria .Also what her husband was up to as the past starts to unfold his part in this maybe more .

This cappuccino is delicious ,Isn’t it ? you can tell it’s a real cappuccino ;in most places they just whip up the milk a little and pour it into any old coffee and call it a cappuccino ;what a fiasco .

Laura is a very lady like lady .

That quote shows how the monologue does sometimes get sidetracked by Laura as she tells us about the world around her and like in this example where to get the perfect coffee .We also maybe wonder at times how close Laura was to Olga and how reliable is what we seeing through her eyes is .So the journey isn’t straight forward to who killed Olga Maria but it is an interesting and eye-opening one .Also with a twist in a tail as Laura and Handal find out the truth .

Moyahas pulled a gem here ,Monologues are hard to write ,with seeming stayed or contrived .I read Trevor’s review last year he compared it with Hamid’s reluctant fundamentalist ,I agree with his view that this works better than the Hamid did ,Moya tends to turn the screw of the case being solved a little smoother than Hamid did .But I also think he may have used Camus.He also used monologue in his last novel” the fall “I do wonder if that book is maybe nearer Moya’s vision in this book as like Camus this book sometimes drifts into the dark places humans can make for them selves .

Have you read Moya ?

Traveller of the century by Andres Neuman

Traveller of the century by Andres Neuman

Argentina fiction

Translators Nick Casitor and Lorenza Garcia

Now when you read on the front cover this quote from Roberto Bolano ,which came from a piece called Neuman ,touched by grace (available in Bolano’s between parentheses)

The literature of the twenty first century will belong to Neumann and a few other blodd brothers of his

So when your faced with that you know you arte in for something special .Andres Neuman is Argentina born in 1977 ,he grew up in Buenos Aires and now like many of his fellow Argentinian writers lives in Spain ,he has a degree in Spanish Philology and has taught spanish american literature .He published his first novel age 22 .He has won a number of big Spanish lit prize with this and his earlier books .,this one the prestigious national critic awards .It is his fourth novel and the first to be translated to English .

Traveller of century is one of those hefty book that you know is going to be deep and meaningful before you open the cover and like a lot of very long books is hard to describe without writing a super long post and giving away too much . So I ll just be giving a flavour of the book .We meet the traveller of the title in a mystical nineteenth century Europe ,well what is modern Germany now , the strange city of Dessau .So Hans the traveller arrives he is on a long journey and this is a stop for him so armed with a huge case of books as he is a reader and translator himself , he enters the city.But this city is all that it seems ?So he goes to stay in the Inn in the town and over the next few day we see this strange town open up through the eyes of Hans .I decide to do some research on the town mention in the book I came to a work by the Asturian composer called Winterreise (winter journey) which sees a man on a journey stop at the town of Dessau songs include one about a Inn and one about a hurdy gurdy man who also appears in the book by Neuman .So it seems in part that is one influence for the book .Back to the story Hans falls for a pretty young girl in the village Sophie Gottlieb but she is with another man .We see Hans slowly woo Sophie and interact with the towns folk innkeeper Herr Zeit (zeit german for time ) .Hans is a translator and a philosophical type guy so there is much discussion of the philosophical movements of the time and writers like Goethe are mention .

This is the heterogenous basis of our thoughts,feelings and writings .In order to avoid getting lost in metaphor and upsetting you ,I shall try to give you a concrete example professor ,Does Goethe feel German on the one hand and the other speak in six languages ? or rather ,as an individual who speaks and reads several different languages,does Goethe feel in a specific way that is peculiar to him and which is this case expressed itself in the german language ?

So as you see deep stuff at times .

Well if you want to know Hans gets on does he get the women ,does he ever leave Dessau ? this and many other answers you will find out by reading the book .So how to place the book it is hard as it is epic in scale and due to that I ve struggled to cover it and feel I ll need to reread it at some point .But it has flavours of all those epic European writers Thomas Mann is the one that cropped up in the reviews and his Magic mountain a classic in the bildungsroman style (this will be another one day I feel) and is mention in a quote from a review in the back cover ,but I also felt bits of Calvino something of “if on a winter’s night ..2 expanded out to wide-screen ,also the early books of Orhan Pamuk sprung to my mind the books where things like thought ,philosophy and being are all brought together in a wonderful stew .I like Neuman’s little touches like the clever surnames zeit – time ,Gottlieb – god’s love and others just seems a clever wordplay .The way the city of Dessau seems to drift ,this in particular remind me of Calvino’s invisible cities a city that every time we see Hans in it seems to be different yet the same ,like Calvino managed in Invisible cities .SO what we get is book that on the surface seems like a European book but I feel at the heart of it is something very Argentina and that maybe is the struggle for identity the way writers like Neumann span continents and in a way manage to bring the best of europe and Latin american writing together ,so yes I agree with Bolano the twenty-first century does belong to Neuman and his blood brothers .This is another book for Spanish language lit month .

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite Argentinian writer ?

Antwerp by Roberto Bolano

Antwerp by Roberto Bolano

Chilean fiction

Translated by Natasha Wimmer

Well I wasn’t going to cover Bolano over Spanish lit month .But then I was in library and saw they had this one ,which had been one I wanted to try of the seemingly endless number of books after the Late Roberto’s death as it was his first try at Novel writing having started as a poet .So this book written when Bolano was 27 and was living in Barcelona ,this is around the time he meet his future wife Carolina Lopez .This book is set in the area round Barcelona called the Costa Brava .

The only novel that doesn’t embarrass me is Antwerp

A quote on the front cover from Bolano .

When I first saw this book which is a loose crime novel ,that is made up of 56 connect /unconnected narratives .My first thoughts was Borges I don’t know why I ve read many interviews where Bolano mention the Argentina master .But then my mind drifted to the experiential nature of the book and books like if on a winter’s night as Bolano appears to be one of the mostly unnamed narrators of this book .Like Italo Calvino’ the book seems to want you to be drawn in and maybe connect the snippets that we are given to make a whole picture ,thus making the reader work as they read which is a wonderful tool  .I also thought of  the book by B.S Johnson The unfortunates which like Antwerp is a collection of vignettes mostly from unnamed narrators  around a football match  and some one suffering cancer .But it  can be mixed up apart from the last and first chapter  I felt this book could be just the same and would maybe felt  different every time you read  as you remember different bits and piece them in a different way .So what is the book is a patchwork of incidents ,policemen having sex with a girl in a seedy hotel room ,a red-headed girl who is camping ,A hunchback  and of course Roberto himself .Small piece non more than three pages . Each piece is like a memory or dream you’re not sure which adding to the mystery of the book .

19 romantic novel

I was silent for a moment and then I asked whether he really thought Roberto Bolano had helped the hunchback just because years ago he was in love with a mexican girl and the hunchback was mexican too ,Yes said the guitarist ,it sounds like a cheap romance novel ,but I don’t know how else to explain it mean in those days Bolano wasn’t overflowing with solidarity or desperation ,two good reasons to help the Mexican but nostalgia ,on the other hand .

One vignette but also a classic Bolano I felt .

 

 

I was astound he didn’t decide to publish it till twenty years after he wrote .I personally feel  that it was maybe the second favourite book of his I ve read. But also was maybe a signpost to all that followed in  Bolanos writing life . The crime element and a murder you can see in the skating rink which is set in the same area of Spain .The vignette style is maybe expanded in nazi literature of america another book with a non linear narrative  but where the idea surround the book is the main drive .The main drive in this book is tackling the crime novel ,but also maybe a way to bring poetic values to a fiction novel .I felt he tackled a way to bring a more poetic form to narrative fiction .Maybe the chaos of the book and how it can be read in different ways is like his two epics 2666 and savage detectives where you can feel lost at times but also draw your own views as your lost in his proses .Also Mexico creeps in the book via Mexican Hunchback .So If David lynch moved to spain and had written novels this would be by him .In fact I expand on that David Lynch could work this into a wonderful series there is so much in this for so little I feel this is a book I ll buy and re read time and time again .Another Spanish lit month read .

Have you read this book ?

The shadow of what we were by Luis Sepulveda

The shadow of what we were by Luis Sepulveda

Chilean Fiction

Translated by Howard Curtis

Luis Sepulveda is a real character of chilean fiction and politics ,his bio reads like a huge novel.A student activist then a member of the Allende regime in the late sixties ,where he was involved in the culture department one thing he did was make cheap copies of classic books available to all in Chile .When Pinochet came to power ,he flew the coup set up a drama group protesting at the Pinochet regime He was caught and tried ,then sentenced to life in prison then reduced to 28 years and then finally  8 years   in exile after he had spent two years in prison .He then spent time in Germany as he had loved reading German literature in prison, Argentina and Uruguay he is involved in teaching indians to read to help them selves .He is involved with Greenpeace and goes on their ships round the world  .All that he has written over 15 novels and made four films as a director .Quite a life .

To my comrades ,male and female

who fell ,and picked themselves up ,

Licked their wounds .cultivated their laughter ,

Preserved their Gaiety ,and carried on regardless .

A preface from Luis I felt caught the spirit of this book well .

So the shadow of what we were ,what is it about well it is a story of old rebels meeting .These three friends who all fought in the socialist liberation army as supporters for the Allende regime after the coup by Augusto Pinochet .They meet after a request from an old comrade an anarchist known “the shadow ”  .But he has been held up and they ve  got to sort it for him themselves and these three aren’t the best at planning lets say .They on a hunt for some money that was from a bank robbery that the Shadows grandfather had carried out in 1925 ,he was a sort of Chilean Robin Hood of his day .So they ve been asked to rescue it and are in a whare house   .But this is thirty years on from their days as freedom fighters and they have maybe settled and have other lives in exile .So  they drift into conversations on the trivial in their own lives  Chilean wine ,coffee why they are so good and such .So a plan is hatched and the man chosen to do the Job is Coco Avarena ,he is the butt of the jokes in the past from his fellow comrades  ,a bit of a disaster area I picture a frank spencer type guy a nice chap but one hell of whirlwind of things going wrong . So I let you find out if they find the money or not .

They ate,drank ,and talked of their lives ,while the rain ,which showed no sign of stopping clattered on the roof .They didn’t say so ,but the three of them felt good here ,by the fire they talked ,reviving the lost custom of a good chat over wine .

They meet and chat away .

Well Luis Sepulveda is a new writer to me ,this is the first book I’ve read by him and I now ask myself why I d not tried him before but that said it looks like he has only had a couple of books translated .The book is filled with a wry dry humour of people looking back after time with lighter eyes on their past .But also a large chunk of sadness at fallen comrades things that were lost when Pinochet took over .This is one of those books you love from Europa editions  maybe not  a straight forward choice for translation as it is a little left field . But I learnt a lot about how it felt to be involved in Chile at the time  the way people just disappeared ,went in exile and were just killed by the Pinochet regime .We also  see how time affects people who were fierce in there youth and maybe have mellowed over time  .Sepulveda is maybe best placed having lived in  the times of the characters  and also been involved in the resistance to Pinochet .I really hope some of his other books make it to English I was moved by this book from laughter to tears .

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite Chilean writer ?