The Wonders

The Wonders / Elena Medel
trans. from the Spanish by Lizzie Davis & Thomas Bunstead
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2022, c2020.
229 p.

Two women's lives collide in this Spanish story; Maria, in her 70s and participating in a protest march in downtown Madrid, and Alicia, long time worker at a convenience store at the train station, who is trying to leave work, not protesting. 

These two women are connected in ways they don't realize. The narrative jumps between decades, giving us glimpses of both of their lives, the ways in which their experience echoes one another in regards to family, motherhood, money or lack of it, power, hyperindependence, politics and more. There are similarities, and as the reader gets further in, we begin to sense these connections more clearly. 

Maria is from a small town, but moves to Madrid while very young, to work as a cleaner. She sticks with this profession her whole life, but is also a reader and thinker, and gets involved with women's solidarity groups as she gets older. This leads to her participation in the women's march at the conclusion of the book. Alicia, on the other hand, is much younger, of another generation. She started out with wealth, but her family lost it all in tragic circumstances. This has shaped her personality, and as an adult she has cut herself off from others, including her own family. 

I enjoyed the way that this story is structured. We learn more about each woman bit by bit, with a writing style that is pretty straightforward, but also has resonance (Medel is a poet as well). The hidden feelings and thoughts of these women are the interesting bits for Medel; she investigates the motives behind their decisions, and why they might have chosen paths that differ from the expectations of others. Self-determination and no self-definitions based on motherhood are important themes as well, which I found compelling. 

This book is really character focused, much more than plot - it meanders a bit, and there is no startling conclusion. It's an examination of lives lived in changing circumstances, and I found the pacing and mood of the book just to my liking. It hit at exactly the right moment. Topics of politics, protest, and wealth distribution are raised in this story, which is also so timely.

The title is another point of discussion; does it refer to the wonders of wealth, the multiple tvs and new clothes that one character is so lucky to have in comparison to her schoolmates, an indelible memory for them -- or does it refer to the wonders of family and routine and comfort, which these young girls are so happy to return to? Lots to talk about and think about in this book for sure. 


 

When I Sing, Mountains Dance

When I Sing, Mountains Dance / Irene Sola
trans. from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2022, c2019.
216 p.

Here's another book I picked up after some recommendations in last year's WIT Month. It's a wild read, so inventive in narrative choices that I had to read carefully. 

It begins in the Pyrenees, with a man going out to gather mushrooms and check on his cows, but there is a storm raging. He is hit by lightning, and the narrative is told from the point of view of the storm. Then by the three ghostly witches who come across him and take the mushrooms he had gathered. Then by the mountains, some deer, his widow, her children, and more.

You will be getting the sense by now that this is an unusual story. However, it's not too experimental to understand -- there is a through-line, and all the separate stories combine to create a rich image of this small countryside village, the people there and their ancient beliefs. It's quite an orchestral effect.

It's difficult to describe this one, but it contains many stories of different people, both tragic and gentle. It's a bit hard to grasp at times; I wasn't sure if these three witches were real, imaginary, or ghosts, for a while, and had to flip back a couple of times to keep straight who it was that was talking. 

But the language is so beautiful and full of poetry and imagery, even if it's bleak at times. And there is a sense of time that permeates the book. It's a book to throw yourself into, immerse yourself in the writing and just go with it. 

The author is also a visual artist, and a poet, and I think that way of looking at the world comes through in this unique novel. If you want to explore this part of the world with a compelling story, I'd say give this one a try. There are some beautiful moments, and some sad ones, and it's a satisfying read as a whole.

 

Threads of the Heart

The Threads of the Heart / Carole Martinez
trans. from the French by Howard Curtis
NY: Europa, 2012, c2007.
399 p.

As mentioned in my last Thursday's post, I just started this one last week, and I finished it quickly. I was drawn to it by the description -- some magical embroidery in there is just what I needed to put this on my TBR, and then I found a copy at a thrift store. It was meant to be! 

It was written in French, but is set in a remote hill town in Spain. There are elements of magical realism; the previously mentioned embroidery, for example. It is basically the story of a family, told by Soledad, the youngest surviving child, in her own adult years. 

Frasquita is the mother, the woman who has inherited a gift that is passed on from mother to daughter in her family. There is a blindfolded ritual in the night, and the daughter must then wait to open a box in which her gift resides. Frasquita's gift was sewing, and her gowns can make someone beautiful for the first time in their lives, or hide a pregnancy, or stitch life back into someone on death's door. Her skill attracts the attention of a local aristocrat, however, and he becomes locked into a cycle of rooster fighting and bets with Frasquita's husband José with his ultimate aim being to gain Frasquita. 

This is a middle aged woman with four children by this time, and an unusual patience for her lumpish husband. But José's greed gets the best of him and he gambles away Frasquita. This moment sets her on her own road, and she takes her children and a cart, and sets off walking all across southern Spain and into Africa, dragging her children behind her for years. They encounter civil war, revolutionaries, a kindly Arabic woman who rescues them, and much more. The stories are larger than life, political, romantic, dreadful, fantastical, until finally Soledad decides to end this legacy of the family curse herself. 

Sewing is not only a plot element, it's also a strong metaphor for a lot of what goes on in this book. When Soledad is still young, Frasquita is dying. And this is what Soledad says:

I found this an engrossing read, definitely in the tradition of magical realism, but with a starker setting. It's Martinez's first novel, and it's a strong debut. Apparently it is also going to be made into a film, and it would be interesting to see if that ever shows up in the English world as well. 

If you are also drawn to this kind of storytelling, and the idea of stitching the world in place appeals to you, give this one a try yourself. Just allow yourself some time to get into the rhythm of the book, and you may find that this lengthy book flies by. 

Desire for Chocolate

Desire for Chocolate / Care Santos
trans. from the Catalan by Julie Wark
Richmond, Surrey, UK: Alma Books, 2015, c2014.
448 p.

I enjoyed this book, another told in three parts. I started it in July to prepare for the #WITMonth proceedings but I did find it slow going at first -- the first story was the least compelling for me, so I had to keep going and find my pace in the book. I did get there, and the next two parts were delightful. 

The book is loosely based around a chocolate pot, just big enough for three cups.The book begins with the chocolate pot being knocked off a table and broken into pieces, and Max trying to fix it, and we follow this fateful pot to its origins through the stories to come.  We are first introduced to it in a contemporary story of Barcelona, a love triangle of sorts featuring Sara, daughter of a chocolate making family, her husband Max and their friend (and Sara's sometime lover) Oriol -- they met in a chocolatier class as young people. It's told in the third person and is very modern and edgy. I wasn't taken with this story, and the affairs, and the sexual content, and the fixations of the various characters, so I did nearly put this down shortly after starting. But there was enough promise that I picked it up again and kept reading. 

The second section goes back to the 19th C. where we meet Aurora, daughter of a maidservant who has a very unexpected life ahead of her. When her mistress runs off with another man, Aurora is cast out of the house under suspicion of aiding her -- untrue, and in her anger, Aurora takes with her the chocolate pot that she'd had to prepare for that feckless mistress each morning (and was fond of scooping the dregs out for herself later.) She guiltily tries to return it for years but no luck. Her new position is as housemaid to an eccentric doctor, and over the years they develop their own charming relationship, intellectual and emotional as well. I liked this story; interestingly, it's told in the second person, a hard thing to do, but it mostly works here. 

And then the finale of the book takes us back to 17th C. Barcelona where Mariana, the wife of a famous chocolate manufacturer and official purveyor to the French court, is struggling to keep her business going in her husband's absence (pretty final absence though she is hiding that). A French delegation has come to Barcelona to find out the secret of the new chocolate mill that she has invented, carrying with them the gift of a chocolate pot made by a French princess. One of the delegates falls in love with Mariana despite himself, and this is the romance we follow. And of course, it's told in the first person. This story was swashbuckling, colourful, engaging, and lots of fun. It finishes with the moment of creation of our trusty chocolate pot, an object that now holds much more interest for the reader.

It was a risky choice to write this book in reverse chronology. The further back it went, the more interesting it got -- but I nearly didn't get there because the opening did not draw me in in the same way at all. I admired the concept though, and the decision to change the narrative perspective, too. Once I got into it, I enjoyed this book a lot, especially the second and third stories, and loved the overall arc of the narrative following an object. I did find that I had a craving for hot chocolate even in the heat wave that was occurring while I was reading this though, so beware!

I do recommend it, as it is clever, with lots of great detail, and a good concept. You might also like one story more than the others, but do give them all a chance, and you'll find they work together neatly.