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. 


 

Tidal Waters

Tidal Waters / Velia Vidal
trans. from the Spanish by Annie McDermott
Edingurgh: Charco Press, 2024, c2023.
113 p.

This was an odd one, a short read that says it's fictional, but has so many elements of the story that correspond to the author's life that it's hard to know how to categorize it. 

The main character in this book is named Velia, she moves back to the black community on Colombia's Pacific Coast that she grew up in to start a reading program for children (just like the author). The book is epistolary, told in a series of letters to a friend in the literary world, back in the capital. 

I thought this was interesting, with details about a community I didn't know anything about. I enjoyed the discussion of reading and working with families; much of that felt familiar to me, as a librarian. But I didn't fall for this the way so many other readers have. I didn't really connect to "Velia" as the character. There was a lot in the letters about her affairs and sexual life, which I wasn't as interested in reading as her more intellectual ponderings. And I'm not sure where the story was going, as it doesn't have much plot, it's more a thoughtful examination of a life and its development. 

I appreciated the focus on literature as a way to experience and engage with life, and the work that her organization Motete was doing. Not sure if this would be better placed as a creative memoir, though. 

In any case, much of interest here even if I didn't really love it as a whole. 

 

Eartheater

 

Eartheater / Dolores Reyes
trans. from the Spanish by Julia Sanches
NY: HarperVia, 2020, c2019.
224 p.

We meet our unnamed narrator in an Argentian barrio, where her mother has died violently and her aunt is now taking care of her and her brother Walter. Until she discovers that when she eats earth, she can see visions of how someone died. Her aunt is horrifed by this and leaves them to their own devices. 

Eating dirt, mainly from where a dead person has walked, gives her visions, and once this knowledge gets out she is inundated by requests from people with lost loved ones to help them find the truth. She is revered for her skill, while at the same time also avoided and shunned for the same thing. 

This book tackles the epidemic of femicide in Argentina, bringing up so many issues of violence against women which almost always goes unpunished. It also investigates poverty and class, showing the results very clearly in this small family of two. 

I was drawn into the story immediately, and felt that the first half was very strong, as she discovers her talents and begins to use them. In the second half, she finds herself a boyfriend (who is also a cop, something which adds to the social commentary of the storyline). And she and her brother and his friends try to avenge the death of one of their crowd when she discovers how he died. This section felt a bit like a different kind of story, to me. There is frequent description of she and her boyfriend and their sexual encounters, sometimes graphic. It didn't seem to serve any purpose in the narrative other than to be edgy, maybe? I felt uncomfortable with it, especially when I read the author bio and saw that her eldest son had the same name as the boyfriend in the book. And the big scene of violence at the end felt a bit too cinematic, like it was something observed, not real to the characters. 

Anyhow, this book has received a lot of attention, which is why I was able to find it in my library system. I thought the concept and the setup of the story, and most of the first half, really deserved all the hype - it had promise. But the second half let me down, like the author wasn't sure how to end it. Great idea, not so great book in the end. 

A Greek Love

 

A Greek Love / Zoé Valdés
trans. from the Spanish by David Frye
NY: Arcade Publishing, c2023.
104 p.

This was a chance discovery; the cover imagery and the setting really got me! It's another Spanish read, but this time from Cuba. 

Zé is a teenager in Communist Cuba, who hangs around the docks and has a fling with a young Greek sailor. Long after his ship has sailed, she realizes she's pregnant. The book opens as she's telling her parents, a dangerous prospect with her violently abusive father's response. He beats her and her mother badly, with the rest of the tenants of their apartment block pretending nothing is happening (as usual). But this time they escape, running into the street and ending up at the apartment of Osiris, a friend of Zé's who also happens to be a middle aged prostitute. But Osiris takes them in and cares for them, until the second part of the book begins, when they all leave Havana to move to the town of Matanzas, to live with Zé's aunt.

Years later, Zé and her son Petros, now a famed musician, are going to travel to Greece for a performance. Zé is going with him if they can get the required permissions from the government, and although they haven't really said so, they are going to try to find Petros' father, a man whom Zé has never forgotten and who changed her life completely. 

They get to Greece. They find Petros' father. It's an anticlimax. They wander around Greece a bit more and think about having to return to life in Cuba. The End. 

I thought this book was fabulous for most of it. The last couple of chapters are abrupt and the ending trails off. It doesn't feel like there was any closure to the story for the reader, or even for Zé. What now? Is she going to defect? To go back to Cuba? How will her life change now that's she met her old lover and it was no big deal? I feel like this would be a huge turning point for her, and wish we could find out what happened! 

It's too bad that I felt let down by the conclusion, because I was impressed with the rest of it. The male violence and the female resistance to it were powerful. The household of women in Matanzas was great: Osiris and Zé's mother end up as a couple despite social condemnation of same sex relationships, they are a bit suspect in the government's eyes. Her academic aunt stands up for all of them all the time. All these characters are wonderful and the settings were lush, evocative, beautiful. I was engaged in their life stories and just wanted more. I may explore some of this author's other work now that I have found her, though, as I enjoyed her style a lot. 

Elena Knows

 

Elena Knows / Claudia Pineiro
trans. from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
Edinburgh: Charco Press, 2021, c2007.
143 p.

I picked up this book thanks to the many recommendations I've seen for it, and for this writer in general. But I didn't know much about the actual story going in. That made it a surprise in many ways, and a very good one. I really liked this; the style, the character development and the structure of the book all impressed me. 

Elena has Parkinson's. And this plays a big role in how she can function in the story, and why. She has lived with her adult daughter Rita for a long time; but Rita has just been found hanged in the bell tower of the local church. Elena knows that there is someone responsible - there is no way Rita would have even gone near the church on a rainy day, to begin with.

Her quest for someone to listen to her takes her across Buenos Aires to call in a debt, to get another woman's help. The book is broken into sections "Second Pill", "Third Pill" etc, as Elena has to depend on her medication taking effect to be able to continue moving, quite literally. Her journey is an epic one, by train and taxi to get to an outlying suburb and find the woman she's looking for. When she gets there, assumptions are turned upside down, truths come out, and Elena must question what she thinks she knows. 

The structure is fantastic: it really highlights Elena's restricted physical movement, contrasted with the constant refrain of the things Elena knows. Pineiro is a crime novelist and uses some crime tropes here - there is the mystery of who killed Rita to drive the story - but it's not about crime and it's not easily wrapped up. 

Pineiro uses this setup to explore women's lives in many different aspects. It looks at women as bodies: where is the bodily autonomy for women in a society that places so much judgement and control on women's freedom -- whether that's in the form of disability, reproductive rights, marital norms, religious control, sexual violence or just freedom of movement? This book points out so many shades of patriarchal control. It's a powerful read, with strong characters and a writing style that drew me in completely. Highly recommend reading this - maybe it isn't pleasant, but it's so meaningful. 

Jazmina Barrera's Cross-Stitch

 

Cross Stitch / Jazmina Barrera
trans. from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
San Francisco: Two Lines Press, 2023, c2021.
224 p.

When I first heard about this book during Women in Translation month, I knew it would be one I would have to read. It's a translation of a novel by a Mexican writer, which explores the role of female friendship, interspersed with the history of embroidery, to create a resonant feminist narrative. I really loved it. 

Our narrator, Mila, is now a young mother and a writer whose book on needlework was recently published. But as the story opens, she hears about the drowning death of her old friend Citlali, who along with another friend Dalia, made up a high school triangle of best girlfriends. 

Mila's narrative spools back in time, to go back to the beginnings of their friendship, to illuminate how the balance of power shifted between them, and how there were experiences that they kept private from one another even with their strong bonds. Like the author noted in an interview, there is always something that we won't know about another person, no matter how close. 

The friendship covers many tumultuous years of adolescence and young adulthood. They face sexual harrasment, abuses, everyday misogyny, as well as the trials and disillusionments of growing into adulthood. At one point, the three plan to meet in Europe (where Citlali is already living) to have a Big Trip together. But it doesn't go quite as planned - Citlali doesn't meet them in England, only making it to Paris later on; Dalia and Mila have different ways of travelling and sightseeing and have to negotiate daily routines. This felt so realistic, how you have to manage these close relationships and can be utterly annoyed with one another even while remaining the same depth of friend. 

And through their years of friendship, they all embroidered together. From samplers and unique projects in high school (like Citlali's ambitious goal to embroider an Arachniary of all known spider species) to more complex art based embroideries as they grow up - like Mila's monochrome black on black embroidery meant to emphasize texture - they've always stitched together, despite it being a bit of an outlier hobby. 

Barrera includes small sections interspersed with the fictional narrative which detail and reflect on the history of stitching, mainly as it applies to women's lives and whatever is going on in the story. There are mentions of embroidery around the world, and how it appeared both as a language and means of expression whether personally or politically. And what the role of art is, and the relation to stitching. These are facts drawn from embroidery history texts, which the author also shares in a bibliography. 

Eventually Mila and Dalia resolve their memories and come together to create a memorial for Citlali in their own neighbourhood, even including Citlali's mostly awful father. The final scene is memorable, and involves Citlali's stitching. 

I found this book thoughtful and stylistically engaging. The tone is clear and nostalgic in one sense, though never sentimental. The writing style is natural but also has a poetry to it, with imagery, resonance and the inclusion of other women's words; I appreciated the style of this novel. The way that fiction and fact are interwoven throughout the story was smoothly accomplished, and I felt that it added an extra layer of interest both in subject matter and in style. 

The characters are also fascinating. The three girls are different in many ways, but the development of their friendship felt so true to high school dynamics, as did the way they grew apart as they became adults. I think if you read for writing and characters, you will appreciate this book. And, if on top of that you are also a stitcher and appreciate the role of embroidery in women's history, I think you will love this book. 

Highly recommend. 

You can read more about it, including author interviews and a reader's guide, at the publisher's website if you are interested.

(first published at FollowingTheThread)

The Touch System

Touch System / Alejandra Costamagna
trans. from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
Berkeley, CA: Transit, 2021, c2018.
200 p.

I've been meaning to read this for a while. It's actually a little odd how many books I'm reading lately have typewriters in them. This one uses typing and a typing course as part of the storyline, though; our main character Ania is asked to go from Chile across the Andes to Argentina, to visit her dying uncle Agustin. 

In the home he lived in, one half was his and one half was his parents', and has been left unused for many years since their deaths. Ania is thrown back into memories of spending long summers with her grandparents, with cousins, in Argentina, through her stay in the house. She also sifts through piles of ephemera -- from family photos to letters, old etiquette guides, and yes, dictations from typing classes which Agustin took. 

It's a bit circular, with memory overlapping with current day realities, and with many realizations about her family arising through Ania's isolation. It's about her own alienation from her Argentinian family, and from her own father, as well as his own from his family when he left Argentina for Chile -- so close and yet a world away, for him. 

There is of course the presence of dark political history in this story, as both countries suffered from repressive governments during the timeline of the novel. But there's also the stories of families breaking apart, of stagnation in those who didn't make a move, and issues for those who did. 

I thought it was well done, with a writing style that captures the content well. I admired it but I did find it a little harder to get into this story than others I've been reading recently. Ania wasn't a strong lead, for me, I didn't feel much for her or her quest for understanding and acceptance. There were definitely parts that were more engaging than others, and I did skim a little from time to time. But it is a rather claustrophic family story that has strengths, the writing style and setting among them. I guess it's that I didn't fall in love with it, but still found a lot to appreciate.
 

Space Invaders

Space Invaders / Nona Fernandez
translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2019, c2013.
96 p.

This slim book seems straightforward, but it's really not.

The action is in the recollection of 1980s Chile, during the authoritarian Pinochet years. It's the story of a group of friends recalling their memories of a childhood classmate, Estrella. They dream about her, remember specific events and interactions both at school and at her home. They reveal letters that Estrella wrote, letters that at one point stopped coming.

The children are fairly innocent, but slowly come to realize that Estrella's father is someone high up in the government, someone involved in the arrests and murders of resistance fighters. Despite their growing sense of what's going on in their world, they are still young, "we're kids" as one of them says -- they're powerless to do much to change their situation. Space Invaders is a game that Estrella has; some of them go over to her fancy rich house to play, and the symbolism of fighting against invaders is carried on throughout the book. Even the sections are named after video game elements. 

This is quite short, but surprisingly dense. The recollections and dreams of Estrella overlap and create a polyphonic image of her, and of all their childhoods. It's powerful and evocative.

And the finale, in the contemporary timeline, which explains why they are all thinking about her...well, it was unexpected. A bit shocking, but all connected to the controlled violence that runs rampant in this story. 

Definitely one to read if you have any interest in poetic language describing innocence under dictatorship. It's haunting, really. 

 

Violeta

 

Violeta / Isabel Allende
trans. from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
NY: Ballantine, c2022
336 p.

This new book by Allende came into my library shortly after I'd finished reading Dora, Doralina, a novel of Brazil. This is similar in many ways, roving over the long life of Violeta, born in Chile and experiencing financial ups and downs as well as passionate relationships with violent men. I couldn't help but compare Dora and Violeta, even though the eras they lived in only overlapped slightly.

Violeta is born into a fairly wealthy family; the book opens with her birth in 1920. She the youngest, the only girl in a family of boys. And her life is affected by world events from the beginning - the Spanish Flu epidemic rips through Chile just as she's born. (Honestly, reading about this was a bit stressful in light of our own recent experiences with pandemic). Her family makes it through that, only to lose everything in the Crash. They have to leave their city dwellings and find a home in a rural area with relatives of a friend - Violeta, her mother and aunts all find a new home there, while her brothers fan out to make a living. 

It's one of those books where the main character is involved in a lot of things that allow for a country's bigger story to be told. There is a great deal about Chilean politics -- upheaval almost constantly. Class, money, misogyny, world events; they are all here. 

Viioleta grows up and then there is, just like with Dora's story, an incompatible marriage at a young age, only to be superseded by a relationship with a tempestuous, philandering man who operates on the edge of legality. While there is no official marriage for Violeta, she still deals with all the harrassment of a partnership with a man like this. However, she is clever, and still has a hand in running a housing business with her brother, so ends up being financially secure on her own. This gives her many more options once her romance with this bullying man changes. 

The story is theoretically being told as a letter from Violeta to her grandson, although this conceit only partially works. Sometimes the narrative kind of forgets it is a letter - I don't think that the epistolary form is necessary to this book. The ending, especially, doesn't make sense in a letter format, but we'll forgive that, since the narrative is flowing and engaging. Violeta is a great character who finds her own route through life despite obstacles and terrible events. She has a handful of close relationships, including a moving connection to her governess early on, and is indefatigable. It's an interesting look at a Chilean woman's experiences, although perhaps the last years of her life are glossed over pretty quickly. Still, really interesting and a great accidental companion read to Dora, Doralina for a look at South American women's lives over the last century. 

Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire / Mariana Enriquez
trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
London: Hogarth Press, 2017, c2016.
208 p.

I finished this right at the end of August; I read it in audiobook format and had been listening while working on other things, bit by bit. I think this is a good way to listen to stories, you can let one sit before tackling the next. 

However, not being able to skim over some parts of this book like I would have if I was reading it means that there are some strong images that I wish I wasn't remembering! This is a set of stories that are really on the edge of horror. About as horrory as I get, anyhow. 

There are haunted houses, missing children (lots about missing and murdered children), mysterious figures only seen by one person, political danger, marital discord, and more. The stories themselves are haunting, some more poetic and some much more graphically grotesque -- I wasn't as fond of those ones for my own tastes. All of the stories combine some kind of innocence with the realities of adulthood, politics and history, and the ever-present threat of violence. 

There are a couple of stories that are more political, which were very interesting -- looking at the history of Argentina and its long echoes. They are also ones that are more realistic, comparatively speaking. My favourite stories were the ones with children as the characters; one in which two siblings see the disappearance of a friend in a haunted house, but nobody believes them, and one in which two adolescent girls try to wreak revenge on a hotel owner who fired one's father, but end up terrorized by ghostly apparitions of past governmental thugs. They are both finely tuned episodes in which children see things that aren't believed, and both are strong narratives. There is also a story about women rebelling against rampant domestic violence by setting themselves on fire -- very disturbing and powerful.

I've seen this book compared to Shirley Jackson, and I can see that in some of the stories. There is a lurking horror around every corner of daily life in this collection, and if you like that kind of tense, spooky reading, you may also like this collection. I found it really even -- each story stands up, and there are many elements to admire in their structure and narrative styles. I was taken by a few of the stories in particular, but I am not sure that I'll read her next one; as mentioned, horror is not really my genre, and although real horror readers would scoff at my characterization, I did find this quite disturbing in parts. An excellent written collection, though, and one that I would recommend if this is your kind of reading. 

Variations on the Body

Variations on the Body / Maria Ospina
trans. from the Spanish by Heather Cleary
Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, c2021.
136 p.

These six loosely connected short stories, set in Bogota, were wonderful. They all revolve around women's lives, different kinds of women and varied aspects of life, and were all enthralling. Each one had its own charm and I couldn't put this book down. 

The first story, Policarpa, is a fascinating look at a former guerilla fighter who is rehabilitating into society with a job at a grocery store. Marcela is trying to fit back in but has a PTSD response to an elderly woman shopping in her line, and we hear about the elderly captive she guarded before escaping from her life in the mountains. She's also telling her story to an editor who keeps changing details to make the story more commercially appealing; Marcela will have to escape that as well. It was a fantastic opening to this collection, rooted in the country's history and with a very complex and strong main character.

The next story, Occasion, is also strong, and has a connection to the first; the lead character here is the long estranged sister of Marcela. In this one, Zenaida works as a maid in a house where her young charge Isabela tries to create some control of her life by eating dirt each afternoon. The subtle ways that Ospina shows the lack of agency in Zenaida's life as well as Isabela's are memorable and effective.

I also loved the title story, which comes last in the collection, and also inspired the cover design. A widowed older lady collects scissors of all kinds - her husband was a collector of all things so now she's decided to create a collection of her own. She lives alone but also ends up taking care of her granddaughter weekly. As she admits to her beautician, she actually doesn't like her granddaughter much, to her great disappointment. The big old house, the routine, it's all getting to her. So one day she simply walks out of the house, with a large pair of scissors in her purse, to start a new life.

The other three stories are just as intriguing, full of detail and complexity. There are strange workplaces, references to the lure of America, and workarounds that women make to smooth their existences.

There are also resonances in each story, to the other stories and to earlier literature - one story's connections to a 16th century poem are noted in the translator's preface. And the writing is so precise, fluid, and evocative. An atmosphere is created, of an unsettled country and the ways in which women manage their lives. There's not a false note here; you could turn to the beginning and read them all over again as soon as you finished and find more to admire. This was a great discovery, one that impressed and delighted me. Definitely recommended.

Faces in the Crowd

Faces in the Crowd / Valeria Luiselli 
trans. from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 2014, c2011.
146 p.

I've always meant to read Valeria Luiselli, and saw this book in my library's audiobook collection, her first novel. So I picked it up to give it a try. I found it clever, and interesting in its metafictional approach -- the character in Mexico City is remembering her time as a translator in NY City, and the object of her research. She's writing a novel about him. Meanwhile, the character she is researching is narrating his own story, and they cross over strangely in the end, both becoming equally real and fictional, and existing in the same space. 

I listened to this one, and the two narrators were both very good, especially the woman reader. I think listening made this a bit of a different reading experience, as the different voices really made the two storylines distinct, and the merging at the end particularly startling. 

The setting ranges between Mexico City (mainly in the character's home), NY City, and Philadelphia. The characters shift around in time and place as they recall their pasts and situate themselves in "then" or "now". It gives an expansive feeling to a small book. 

There is an uncertainty about the solidity of existence in both characters, the male author feeling like he's wasting away, and being separated from his children. The female character doesn't leave her house and feels absorbed in her children. This vagueness about individual reality reflects the structure and theme of the book too, and it makes it a bit of an unsettling read. At the end I wasn't quite sure what I thought of it, or if I really understood what she was going for. 

The style is compelling, the characters are intriguing, and as mentioned I found the narrators excellent. I can't stop thinking about parts of this story. However, I don't know if I can say that I "liked" it or not -- it felt a bit prickly and as if it was keeping itself at a remove, somehow. I might have to reread it in a paper copy to really get a handle on it. For now, I'll say that it was an interesting experience, and a clever read that appeals to the intellect. 

The Wind that Lays Waste

The Wind that Lays Waste / Selva Almada
trans. from Spanish by Chris Andrews
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2019, c2012.
124 p.

This brief novel, set in rural Argentina, reminded me of Hemingway. Short sentences, brief dialogue, rough weather, macho men and fights in the rain. Unfortunately, I don't like Hemingway. 

In this story, an itinerant preacher and his daughter are brought into contact with a mechanic and his apprentice when their car breaks down on a rural road. The mechanic, Gringo Brauer, and his young assistant Tapioca (actually his son, though the boy doesn't know it) fix the car over the length of a hot, still day, and meanwhile have to listen to Reverend Pearson proselytize and his teenage daughter Leni respond with sarcasm. 

We learn about all their backstories, and the similarities between them, especially Leni and Tapioca. And we see Reverend Pearson becoming obsessed with the "purity" of Tapioca's soul and the resultant desire to take Tapioca away with them when they finally leave. 

Gringo Brauer doesn't say much, but he's not a fan of the ravings of the Reverend. And in the end, after a fist fight in the storm that's broken over them, he doesn't protest much. 

The pathetic fallacy of the storm representing their emotional showdown is a bit over the top, for me, and there are many sections where a sermon of the Reverend's is just inserted. I listened to this one on audio, and while the narrator was very good, and especially talented at performing these sections, I wasn't impressed with them. Why exactly were they there? It didn't seem to serve much purpose other than to reveal the religious mania of the Reverend. They irritated me, and in the end the reader can't really tell what the author thinks of any of the characters or their behaviour or beliefs. 

This one wasn't for me, I guess. I appreciated the way Almada could tell a story with so many constraints -- isolated locale, four characters, restricted range of language -- but I didn't connect with it and wasn't interested in the outcome. 

Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate / Laura Esquivel
trans. from Spanish by Thomas Christensen and Carol Christensen
NY: Anchor, 1994, c1989
242 p.

I found a pristine copy of this book at my favourite used book shop recently (Attic Books in London, Ontario). I read this when it was first published, and remember it being a high demand, popular title at the library I was working in, even a few years after publication. But since it had somehow been so long -- 30 years! -- since I read it, I decided that this was the perfect time for a reread. 

And I really enjoyed it! I recalled most of the gist of the story, but had forgotten many of the details, and much of the charm of its style. So this time around it was like rediscovering something faintly familiar. I remember liking it way back when, and there was no change there; I enjoyed this read. 

Tita is the youngest of three girls, and as the youngest, a family tradition rules that she must never marry but remain home to care for her mother until she dies. Mama Elena is strict and cruel, and when Tita finds a sweetheart, Pedro, he is married off to her sister instead. Tita only expresses herself through her cooking, and when she's forced to make the wedding cake for her sister's wedding, she weeps into the icing, and everyone who eats it is overcome with illness and sorrow. 

The title comes from Tita's emotions as well:

"Tita was literally 'like water for chocolate' -- she was on the verge of boiling over. How irritable she was!"

This emotional resonance with her cooking appears a few more times in the book, and it's always told straight -- the magical realism is folded into the narrative seamlessly. 

The structure of the book is also tied to food; each chapter is a month, and each one starts with a recipe, and then someone cooking it. It's like a serial novel in a women's magazine in some ways, with food and romance and True Love as themes. And in other ways it feels like a fable. 

The idea that true love is all consuming is a bit questionable, at a distance. Should one really be willing to die for love? As an older reader, the ending isn't as satisfying as Tita's possible other choice might have been. But this isn't a realistic, serious tale, it's a romance, a fairy tale of sorts. 

I appreciated the structure, the earthiness of the story based in food and relationships, and the writing style. I also found the depiction of the characters well done. Nearly all the important characters are women, and they are all different. From Tita -- sweet and sad but very skilled at cooking -- to her sister Gertrudis, adventurous and tough and sexual; to Rosario, the eldest sister who weds Pedro and is a sour, suspicious woman; to Mama Elena, cruel and selfish; to the old cook who taught Tita everything and was more of a mother to her than Mama Elena ever was. The women represented are complex; good and evil, generous and selfish -- not all one type of being. 

While this is a bit of a light read, it was delightful to reread, and felt just as charming as it was 30 years ago. 

The Time in Between

The Time In Between / Maria Duenas;
trans. from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn

NY: Atria, 2011, c2009.

615 p.

This sprawling saga was exactly the satisfying read that I was looking for. It follows Sira Quiroga, a young woman who grows up as a dressmaker's apprentice alongside her mother, in prerevolutionary Spain. She doesn't know who her father is, at least not until she is in her late teens.

When she becomes engaged to a quiet, meek young man of her own social class, she thinks she knows how the future will unroll. But she's so wrong. When they go to buy a typewriter (her fiancé is convinced that learning to type so that she can become a civil servant rather than a dressmaker is the best idea for them) she meets a charming, charismatic salesman. And her life changes.

As the civil war in Spain heats up, Sira and her lover flee to Morocco; then Sira moves on when she's abandoned, to form a new life as a society dressmaker -- which requires quite a few shenanigans to get started. And her dressmaking leads her to more: to spying, using her dress patterns and sketches to communicate her results.

The story is a series of obstacles put into Sira's way, and the revelation that she can manage all of them despite thinking of herself as a meek girl from the lower working classes. She forms and reforms herself to shape her life to what is given to her. She's a fascinating character, a very likeable main character who does what she has to but never hardens. The setting is fabulous -- I learned a lot about Spain in the era, including the geographical as well as political realities.

Sira even goes to Portugal near the end, to act as a spy in the guise of a fabric buyer; there are barely any good materials left in Spain. Her fake name is quite literally her real name backwards, which seems just a bit amateur to me. But she infiltrates the office of the man she's to track down. However, as a good dressmaker, she's distracted by the quality of the silks and fabrics he has for her and for a moment forgets the other part of her mission. I could relate!

I loved the way that sewing is an integral part of this story, not just a tacked on profession to give the main character something to do. Her sewing and designing changes her life, it gives her the ability to reinvent and better herself, to continue to live and to create, and leads to her involvement in the spy world. In the disaster of war and abandonment, she finds herself again when she picks up her needle once more:

There is verisimilitude to the sewing parts that makes me feel that I can trust the other more historical elements as well. It's an entertaining, absorbing spy novel; a historical context which breathes; and has some fabulous characters. I really loved this one and the 615 pages flew by as I could not put it down. It has romance, intrigue, smoothly flowing writing, a great setting, and strong female characters. Recommended!

Umami

Umami / Laia Jufresa; translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes
Oneworld Publications, 2016, c2015.
276 p.

Mexico City: a mews, four families, five voices. Umami takes its name from the courtyard with five houses clustered around it. Alfonso, owner and professor, named it Umami when he bought it, being a food specialist and all. 

But the term also highlights the five voices telling the story - a mix of all the flavours to be found in life. 

We hear from three young characters: Ana, 12 yrs old, her friend Pina, and Ana's young sister Luz whose death colours the entire narrative. And there are additional chapters from Alfonso, who is also grieving for his recently deceased wife, and Marina, a young woman who's just moved in to one of the houses and has her own struggles. 

All of these stories wrap around one another; the propinquity of the homes and the characters mean they are all telling sides of the same story -- with additional personal details. 

It's a wonderful concept, and the story is overall absorbing and full of description of life, from gardens and dirt to music to colour and beyond. But some voices were stronger than others, for me. Ana's narration is clear and straightforward; her sister Luz's chapters are less successful, partly because reading a five year old's thoughts and 'cute' language mishaps isn't appealing to me at all. Also I felt terribly anxious all the time while reading Luz's story, afraid I was about to stumble upon the scene of her drowning. (spoiler: it's not described). 

My favourite voice was Alfonso's -- his experience, his overwhelming grief and how he managed it, his study of amaranth and food history -- all of this combined with his style to engage me in his story most strongly. But I am sure a favourite character will be different for everyone who reads this.

I thought it was a fresh, intriguing book, one which I haven't read before. But there are flaws. And unfortunately, the biggest flaw was the ending. The book is going along strongly, it's building up the tension and the detail, and then the end kind of peters out weakly, like the air going out of a balloon. 

I'm not sure why Jufresa made this choice, but as a reader I felt there was no climax, no resolution that a reader would hope for. I was disappointed in the ending and felt like there was something missing. I'm not 100% enthusiastic about this book because of that.

For the characters and the setting, and the writing (even if the British translation choices showed at times), this is worth reading. Plus the cover of this edition is just gorgeous. But, a little more story with an actual conclusion would make this a more satisfying read.