Inventing Love by Jose Ovejero

 

Inventing Love by Jose Ovejero

Spanish fiction

Original title – La invención del amor

Translators Simon Deerholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles

Source – Review copy

Well, I reach the last of the Peter Owen World series of books for Spain the second in a series they are doing three books twice a year from one country. I have now reviewed all six of the books. Simon Smith from Peter Owen was interviewed about the series recently on LARB  about the books so far and what is to come in the series. Jose Ovejero is a prize winning Spanish writer, he has written seven novels so far and this is his second book to be translated into English. This book Inventing love won the Premio Alfagura de Novela prize in Spain one of the biggest prizes there.

“What’s up?”

“I’m sorry Samuel, I’m really sorry,”

“I think you have got the wrong number “, I say , but my conviction falters when I realize that he’s calling me by my name .

“It’s about Clara.This evenong .Not long ago.Fuck ,I’m sorry.”

“Clara”, I say and I rack my brains, thinkinh that I don’t want him to hang up yet .Before I go to sleep I need to hear this story which is not my story, precisely so that it can become mine, too just as we read a novel in order to add storie to our lives, stories which , however dramatic they may be, are acctually innocuous, we think, because they can’t really affect us

Samuel drawn in straight away to the story of Clara like a Novel he thinks .

This book is based on what happens when a man Samuel in his forties gets a call out of the blue telling him a woman called Clara, the assumption that Samuel was her secret lover. He wasn’t but then decides to find out how the mistake happened and go to the Funeral and decides to invent the past these two had but never had. He meets at the funeral Carina the sister of Clara and she gives him a lift home.He feels bad for lying to her when she drops him off and the sense of closeness he has got to Carina, As the two are drawn together the imagine the past becomes too real at times and maybe stands in the way of moving forward. What happens when you Invent Love ? does Real love survive it?

I read the name on the card – Carina Alvarez – and suddenly I feel uncomfortable. I get the sensation that i’ve gone too far, althoug I also feel relieved that I ‘ve managed to get out of a tight spot rather well.For the sake of something to do, I take a card from my wallet as well and hand it to her, as if we ewere in a buisness meeting meeting , except the only thing written on my card is mynname, telephone  number and email.I’ve never liked buisness cards.She takes it reads it and leaves it on the dashboard.

“I’m pleased to have met you at last, even if the ocasion …Im mean …what a mess”

Samuel firstr meetinmg Clara sister at the fueral, where he likes Carina …

What I loved about this book is that it isn’t a straightforward love story. The real story is of  Samuel and Carina but then there is an imagined love story and the real sense of this almost being a pulp thriller at times as the story unfolds and Samuel discovers more about Clara and Carina he has to move like a detective and adjust his present and also his imagined past.This is one of those stories that happens from those moments that can happen by accident would we do what Samuel did in his position ? that is the question can the lie be kept alive through out and not be caught out.