Fate by Jorge Consiglio

Fate by Jorge Consiglio

Argentinian fiction

Original title – Tres Monedas

Translators – Carolina Orloff and Fionn Petch

Source – Personal copy

Another gem from Charco Press. I didn’t get his first book from them Southerly. But ordered this the other week as it appealed. Jorge Consiglio has published four novels as well as Poetry and Short stories. He has won a number of prizes in his native Argentina and in Spain as well.  This is the second of his books to be translated into English. There is a great intro about the book by the writer where he mentions a woman that missed a train that crashed in Buenos Aires a crash in which 51 people died. This leads to a thought about Fate what is our fate and then he said whilst writing the book he was also watching and was drawn into the story of the film “The Third man”.

The Colombian disappeared into the subway Karl walked down Corrientes towards Pueyrredon. He was taller than everyone else. He crossed Uruguay Street and stopped short in front of a bookshop. His eye roved over the window display beofre he carrid on. Marina  Kezelman was turning forty in two weeks and he wanted a gift that would suprise her. They had met in a bar in Madrid a decade before. Everything had happened very quickly. Moved by desire and, above all, an extaggerated sense of honesty, they’d made their decisions.

KArl has no idea of what lies ahead here in his first chapter.

The book is two stories intertwined both are about relationships but one is starting that of Amer an up and coming taxidermist he is in a  therapy group where he falls for the younger than him Clara. This relationship is just beginning, But Clara is the one person in the book that is just told through the eyes of another Amer he has a view of her and you hope that the real Clara is near that or will Fate interrupt them ! then we have a relationship at the other end of the spectrum and that is  Karl an Oboist and his meteorologist wife Marina we meet her as she is trying to kill the ants in her house and her Son Simon. Then as the story unfolds in the short chapters that shift from one character to another Marina is having a fling with a work colleague Zarate. This leads to a violent scene that affects Karl’s oboe playing and reminds me of the sudden burst of violence that was in the third man which is the link to the whole story who was the third man when the body appears. Then later on in the book, there is another nod when the son Simon has a love of The Ferris wheel.

Clara also changed position – and subject. She talked about life after her separation. Dammed blessed happiness, she said. Amer put the kettle on again to prepare some more mate. They say beekeeping is good for reducing stress, Clara remarked. Amer felt as if he were watchoing a performance, but this impression didn’t weaken Clara’s words. She was silent for a few seconds.

Amer views clara through his rose tinted glasses.

This is a well-paced novel that follows two relationships but like a train, on the track, the fate of all those involves seems on a track the marriage breaking up, but also the workings of having a failing marriage what to do with Simon this is sort of a rerun for Karl as he has another child back in Germany from an earlier marriage. Then we have Amer a man that works very hard on his animals and maybe he is building a Clara like one of his dead animal the outside of them appears perfect but then he has worked her to be maybe more than she was. The nods to the Third man like Simon liking a Ferris wheel which of course is where there is a great monologue from Harry Lime. This follows four well five if you include Marina’s affair with Zurate over what are two of the hardest things starting a relationship making the right move what card has fate dealt you and then the break up of marriage but when that path is changed what happens when fate intervenes! Have you read either of his books ?