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nini23's review
5.0
And however many leaves and sheets of paper I folded down the middle, origami wasn’t going to give meaning to anything at all, because symmetry wasn’t a material state but an invention of the mind; half a sheet of paper was always imperfect and, therefore, the cranes, frogs, pagodas, and kimonos made of folded paper had a lie at their very cores, as do, of course, flesh-and-blood humans: we, too, are formed from a fundamental lie, or at least a fiction (a redemptive lie). If the fold that is the basis of origami rests on a false premise, the same can be said of the innermost folds of our personalities, the fold no one can access, the fold of our selves - the dolorous reverse side we hide, conceal like a secret letter in the night table of life;......
Originally published as El Nervio Principal in Spanish (Mexico City, 2018), the 2020 English translation released by Coffee House Press with Christina MacSweeney as translator is a treat. Not surprised to learn author Daniel Saldaña París in addition to being a novelist is also a poet, so beautifully does he wield words and language.
Originally published as El Nervio Principal in Spanish (Mexico City, 2018), the 2020 English translation released by Coffee House Press with Christina MacSweeney as translator is a treat. Not surprised to learn author Daniel Saldaña París in addition to being a novelist is also a poet, so beautifully does he wield words and language.
Memories are fabrications that bear little relationship to their supposed origins, and each and every time we recall something, that memory becomes more autonomous, more detached from the past, as if the cord holding it to life itself is fraying until one day, it snaps and the memory bolts, runs free through the fallow field of the spirit, like a liberated goat taking to the hills.
Remembrance is destructive. Not just in terms of the memory … but also for the subject who remembers … The memory and the subject wipe each other out in the exercise of remembering, until the memory becomes an invention and the subject is more alone than before, because the thing recalled no longer exists, is just a replica of a replica of a replica.
Emotionally devastating, the ending revelation particularly disturbing.
Bumping up my rating since this book is still lingering in my mind a week later.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment, Bullying, and Murder
danni_faith's review
Exquisite prose.
This reminded me a lot of OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Peterson. I feel similar ways about them.
Commonalities: A older man traces the trajectory of his life back to a singular event in his youth, plotless novel, backdrop of historical political event.
My one critique is the mystery of the letters' contents. The plot was thin and wasn't going anywhere (WHICH I ENJOY) yet the ending got pacy; I got the impression that the editor encouraged París to reveal the contents of the letters last to create a forward momentum and a bit of a mystery engine. This clashed with the mood + atmosphere of the novel for me.
However my critique brings up perhaps a philosophical question of why one would keep reading a novel if the entire story is given to you before the ending. I don't know the answer but it is interesting to puzzle out.
MacSweeney's translation was beautiful. She made some interesting wore choices which led me to wonder if the original Spanish uses regional terms. For example, the text says tennis shoes which although is an accurate term for footwear is highly regional. For example, people in eastern states in the US, where I'm from, are far more likely to say sneakers. Or perhaps this is an instance of the translator being British and not overly aware of the differences within American English.
This reminded me a lot of OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Peterson. I feel similar ways about them.
Commonalities: A older man traces the trajectory of his life back to a singular event in his youth, plotless novel, backdrop of historical political event.
My one critique is the mystery of the letters' contents. The plot was thin and wasn't going anywhere (WHICH I ENJOY) yet the ending got pacy; I got the impression that the editor encouraged París to reveal the contents of the letters last to create a forward momentum and a bit of a mystery engine. This clashed with the mood + atmosphere of the novel for me.
However my critique brings up perhaps a philosophical question of why one would keep reading a novel if the entire story is given to you before the ending. I don't know the answer but it is interesting to puzzle out.
MacSweeney's translation was beautiful. She made some interesting wore choices which led me to wonder if the original Spanish uses regional terms. For example, the text says tennis shoes which although is an accurate term for footwear is highly regional. For example, people in eastern states in the US, where I'm from, are far more likely to say sneakers. Or perhaps this is an instance of the translator being British and not overly aware of the differences within American English.
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