Chloe Aridjis

Another one of those dreamy books with considerable navel-gazing that keeps my interest but I'm not sure why. The narrator is seventeen and runs away from home and family with a mysterious, unresponsive man to Zipolite, a Oaxacan beach town with cosmic properties in search of a missing circus troupe of Ukranian dwarfs. Abandoning her companion for the most part, she takes up with a mysterious, unresponsive merman whom she meets nightly for drinks and one-sided conversations. I think of books by Olivia Laing or Deborah Levy in [b:Hot Milk|26883528|Hot Milk|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1461535043l/26883528._SY75_.jpg|46932640] or Laura van den Berg [b:The Third Hotel|36348514|The Third Hotel|Laura van den Berg|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1512550273l/36348514._SY75_.jpg|58029865]which I've read recently and wonder why I'm drawn to the Great Ennui of these writers.… (mais)

Essentially a brooding, atmospheric illumination of the city of Berlin. The city is certainly the co-main character of the novel, at least, and it feels here like a dark, dense stain sinking into the fabric of the universe. It is the shadowed spot left on the wall of the empty apartment above the protagonist that is not covered up even when a new tenant arrives to rehabilitate the space. It is the secret underground bowling alley of the Nazis, or the Stasi, it makes little difference which, where the ghosts impatiently wait to reclaim the place.

The tone is brilliantly set from the opening paragraph: "It was an evening when the moral remains of the city bobbed up to the surface and floated like driftwood before sinking back down to the seabed to further splinter and rot." Now there's a sentence to make any city's Chamber of Commerce fall to its knees in pain.

The narrative vehicle for this contemporary analysis of Berlin is the story of Tatiana, a young woman from a Mexican Jewish family, who has lived in Berlin for several years. She muddles along in the post-German reunification haze, working part-time for a historian, transcribing his spoken notes. She has difficulty making any real connection with people or work and bounces along on each path, unable to settle anywhere for long. Berlin's past seems to colonize her imagination, leaving her unbalanced in the present. Ultimately an act of violence (with a resolution from the school of urban magical realism) prompts her to sever ties with the city and return to her family in Mexico.

All in all, a well-written debut novel to be read for its take on the interplay of past and present.… (mais)

Aridjis' writing is dreamy in a way that I love, not quite surreal, certainly not magical realist, just... lulling the way that waves can be, if not for our protagonist. Mexico City is a star character in this story, and I'm a bit biased as I delighted in recognizing particular building characters as neighbors in my chosen adopted neighborhood in DF. I also greatly appreciate the reclamation of the bildungsroman, and how deftly literary reference and approachability were interwoven. I do think both the narrative and development lost a little cohesion towards the end, but it might be that world events changed my ability to immerse myself in the feeling of the story. Still enjoyed it and will look for more from this author.… (mais)