Space Invaders by Nona Fernández (tr. Natasha Wimmer)

The publishing arm of Daunt Books has been on quite a roll over the past few years, issuing books by some of my favourite women writers in translation – Natalia Ginzburg, Madeleine Bourdouxhe and Elisa Shua Dusapin, to name but a few. Now I can add Nona Fernández to that list, courtesy of her remarkably powerful novella Space Invaders, recently released in this stylish new edition. (My thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.)

First published in Chile in 2013, this dazzling, shapeshifting novella paints a haunting portrait of a generation of children exposed to the horrors of Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1980s, a time of deep unease and oppression for the country’s citizens – several of whom were kidnapped, tortured and murdered for resisting the regime. The book focuses on a close-knit group of young adults who were at school together during the ‘80s and are now haunted by a jumble of disturbing dreams interspersed with shards of unsettling memories – suppressed during childhood but crying out to be dealt with now. Collectively, these striking fragments form a kind of literary collage, a powerful collective memory of the group’s absent classmate, Estrella González, whose father was a leading figure in the State Police.

Right from the very start, Fernández injects her narrative with a chilling sense of oppression, creating an ominous atmosphere that pulses through the book. Memories of the protagonists lining up in a regimented grid-like fashion at school – or later as adults marshalled together in the street – recur throughout the narrative, the context subtly shifting each time the passage appears.

Displaying clean fingernails, ringless hands, bright faces, hair brushed into submission. Singing the national anthem every Monday first thing, each according to their ability, in piercing off-key voices, loud and almost bellowing voices enthusiastically repeating the chorus, as up front one of us raises the Chilean flag from where it rests in somebody else’s arms. The little star of white cloth rising up, up, up till it touches the sky, the flag finally at the top of the staff, rippling over our heads in time to our singing as we stare up at it from the shelter of its dark shadow. (pp. 9–10)

Fernandez adopts a fascinating combination of form and structure for her book, using the popular Space Invaders game as both a framework and a metaphor for conveying the story. As such, the text is divided into four sections, each one focusing on a different time in the 1980s, with the title reflecting one of the lives assigned to a Space Invaders player during the game (e.g. ‘First Life’, ‘Second Life’ and ‘Game Over’). Moreover, the children’s situation can be likened to that of the targets in the Invaders game, their lives literally being shattered – both physically and psychologically – by the horrors of the Pinochet regime.

‘We’re pieces in a game, but we don’t know what it’s called,’ cites one of the protagonists as they recall those dictatorial line-ups at school – a statement that changes to ‘we’re pieces in a game that we don’t know how to stop playing,’ when it reappears towards the end of the book.’ As such, it implies that the battle seems never-ending, indicating a scenario where everyone feels trapped.

And when the last one died, when the screen was blank, another alien army appeared from the sky, ready to keep fighting. They gave up one life to combat, then another, and another, in a cycle of endless slaughter. (p. 16)

As the book unfolds, mostly through the sequence of dreams, partial recollections and letters between Estrella and her best friend, Maldonado, a composite picture of the missing girl emerges – a typical schoolgirl, alive to the wonders of life, despite her vulnerable situation. Each classmate sees Estrella slightly differently, viewing her from their own unique perspective; nevertheless, common threads are visible amongst the various voices, images and words.

One thing Fernández does brilliantly here is to draw on some remarkably striking imagery – often from the Space Invaders game itself – to convey the nightmarish world these children were exposed to. For instance, one of the group, a boy named Riquelme, is haunted by dreams of an army of prosthetic hands – an image prompted by the sinister wooden hand worn by Estrella’s father following his accident with a bomb.

Now Riquelme dreams about that never-seen cabinet full of prostheses and about a boy playing with them, a boy he never met. The boy opens the doors of the cabinet and shows him the prosthetic hands lined up one after the other, orderly as an arsenal. They’re glow-in-the-dark green, like the Space Invaders bullets. The boy gives a command and the hands obey him like trained beasts.

Riquelme feels them exit the cabinet and come after him. They menace him. They chase him. They advance like an army of earthlings on the hunt for some alien. (p. 19)

In some instances, dreams can provide an escape from the brutality of life, a safe space to retreat when seeking liberation or solace. However, in the scenario reflected here, any glimpses of freedom and joy are swiftly replaced by more frightening imagery, signalling grave danger as the threats close in.

The sand is swirling. Everything is draining. There’s a hole in the bottom of the pool and it’s beginning to swallow up my classmates. It swallows Bustamante. It’s swallows Fuenzalida. It swallows Maldonado. And I hear screams and the dream turns dangerous and I’m scared. I knew I shouldn’t have jumped into the water… (p. 67)

As the narrative continues, the story becomes progressively darker. More sinister signs and imagery appear. The relative familiarity of school assemblies, lessons and plays gives way to horrific events. Two active dissidents – young men barely out of school – are shot and killed by the State Police. Suspected militants are kidnapped, killed and dumped, their throats slit for all to see. Other individuals are abducted, arrested or beaten up; homes are searched; threatening phone calls are received. In short, the situation becomes increasingly gruesome. Suddenly, the signs of death prove impossible for the children to ignore as their understanding of the reality around them grows – a force they are powerless to tackle.

No one is exactly sure when it happened, but we all remember that coffins and funerals and wreaths were suddenly everywhere and there was no escaping them, because it had all become something like a bad dream. Maybe it had always been that way and we were only just realising it. Maybe Maldonado was right and we were too young. Maybe we were distracted by all that history homework, all those maths tests, all those enactments of battles against the Peruvians. Suddenly things sprang to life in a new way. The classroom opened out to the street, and, desperate and naive, we leaped onto the deck of the enemy ship in the first and final attempt doomed to failure. (p. 57)

It would be unfair of me to reveal what happened to Estrella during this time; you’ll have to read the book to discover it yourself. Suffice it to say we learn enough from the narrative to piece her story together (including the reasons for her disappearance) – a story inspired by actual events from the author’s childhood.

Fernández’s style is visual, engaging and stylishly poetic. While the world portrayed here is brutal, there is wonderful lightness of touch to the author’s approach – an exquisite layering of details for the reader to assemble. Despite its brevity, this is a novella with hidden depths, a highly memorable narrative for such a delicately-etched text. In particular, Fernández skilfully illustrates how in childhood we suppress thoughts and images of traumatic events, only for them to resurface later, often unexpectedly, to be filtered, aggregated and processed in the context of adult life. In short, this is a fractured narrative reflecting fractured lives. A stunning achievement by a remarkable writer – definitely someone to watch.

Valdesil Montenovo Godello 2019 – a Spanish white wine for #SpanishLitMonth

Seeing as Stu’s Spanish Lit Month has been extended from July through to the end of August, I thought I would sneak in a brief wine post to tie in with the event before the month runs away with me! Luckily, white wines from Spain form much of the backbone of my summer drinking – alongside Italian whites and my beloved rosés, of course.

Galicia, in northwest Spain, is an area famed for its albariño – a crisp, citrusy white wine, often displaying a minerally edge. (I’ve written about this grape variety in the past – mostly recently in 2016, also as a nod to Spanish Lit Month, by chance.) Nevertheless, albariño isn’t the only grape variety Galicia has to offer; there is godello, too, a white wine with a little more body or ‘weight’ than its regional stablemate.  

Valdesil Montenovo Godello (2019) is an excellent example, an unoaked wine that hails from the Valdeorras Denominación de Origen (reputedly the best region for this particular grape). The vineyards in the Valdesil estate are worked by hand, with the Montenovo being the youngest, freshest expression of godello this winery produces.

In terms of flavour profile, there are notes of pear, peach and apple here, maybe with a touch of something minerally too. It’s a little reminiscent of unoaked white Burgundy – a more interesting, layered version, perhaps? A very well-balanced wine with enough body to stand up to chicken, garlic and a bit of chilli heat. If you like unoaked chardonnay but have never tried godello, I can only encourage you to give it a go – hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!

I bought this wine from The Wine Society, where the 2020 vintage is currently available at £12.50 per bottle. (Disclosure: I have a link to The Society, so the vast majority of my wines are purchased there.) Alternatively, you can use Wine Searcher to look for stockists of this wine and other gorgeous godellos!

And if you’re looking for something to read while sipping a Spanish wine in the garden, here are the links to my latest reviews for Spanish Lit Month:

Ana Maria Matute’s The Island (tr. Laura Lonsdale), a darkly evocative coming-of-age novel that draws on the blistering heat of Mallorca to great effect; and a round-up post on my other reading recommendations, including books by Javier Marías, Valeria Luiselli, Enrique Vila-Matas, and many more. Happy reading (and drinking) for Spanish Lit Month!

The Island by Ana María Matute (tr. Laura Lonsdale)

The loss of innocence is one of my favourite themes in literature. It’s a thread that runs through many coming-of-age novels, including Agostino by Alberto Moravia, Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig and The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. Ana María Matute’s 1959 novella The Island – recently translated by Laura Lonsdale – is an excellent addition to the list, a darkly evocative narrative with a creeping sense of oppression. I loved it.

The story is set on the island of Mallorca, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. With her mother no longer alive and her father away in the war, Matia has been taken to the island to live with her grandmother (or ‘abuela’), Aunt Emilia and cousin Borja – not a situation she relishes. Also living in the house are the family’s housekeeper, Antonia, and her son, Lauro, who acts as the children’s teacher and companion. At fifteen, Borja is a duplicitous boy, smart enough to behave sweetly in the company of his grandmother but sufficiently malevolent to show his true colours when her back is turned.

He affected innocence and purity, gallantry and poise in the presence of our grandmother, when in reality […] he was weak, cruel and proud, just a good-for-nothing boy on the way to being a man. (p.5)

Borja is particularly cruel to Lauro, whom he calls ‘Chinky’, confident in the belief that he can leverage a shameful secret the tutor is harbouring. Matia, on the other hand, has been expelled from her former convent school for kicking the Prioress. Consequently, the children’s grandmother – a tyrannical old crone who keeps watch over the neighbouring tenants through her opera glasses – considers Matia to be disobedient and in need of taming. In truth, however, Matia is simply confused and lonely, the product of a disruptive childhood short on parental love and affection – now firmly in adolescence, a time of turbulent emotions for any young girl.

One of the things Matute excels at in this novel is her depiction of Mallorca as an alluring yet malevolent setting. While we might consider the Mediterranean islands to be idyllic, Matute’s Mallorca has a radically different atmosphere. In reality, it is a brutal and oppressive place, torn apart by familial tensions and longstanding political divisions.

Throughout the novella, the author makes excellent use of the natural world to reinforce this impression of danger. For example, the sun is frequently portrayed as intense, blistering and ferocious, mirroring the island’s capacity to breed violence and inflict damage on its inhabitants.

A cruel sense of violence, an irritated fire burned above, and everything was filled, saturated, with its black light. (p. 53)

The sea, too, can seem threatening, a volatile force with the potential to unnerve.

From high up in the square, where the Jews had been burned alive, the sea was like a deep, blue threat, terrifying and unsteady, mixing with the wind and sky. And it seemed that shining worlds could disappear there, and rootless echoes wander and be lost. Looking down, it seemed that everything must roll down to meet it. And life seemed both terrible and remote. (p. 80)

Menacing associations are everywhere on this island from the damaged agaves, their ‘edges withering like scar tissue’ to the stony soil, ‘an accretion of the dead upon the dead’. The torrid atmosphere is further augmented by the sickly aromas in the abuela’s house, a heady blend of jasmine, leather and cedar, plus the smoke from Aunt Emilia’s Turkish cigarettes.

Matute is particularly adept at setting her narrator’s internal anxieties against the island’s broader political and racial conflicts. Consequently, as the novella unfolds, Matia becomes increasingly aware of the violence and injustice that surround her. At first, Matia falls in line with Borja, the two children playing chess with one another by day and holding whispered conversations together at night. Nevertheless, there are certain developments that Matia doesn’t fully understand, things that she hears or observes that seem confusing, particularly when taken at face value. Unsurprisingly, this strengthens her impressions of the adult world as a mysterious, potentially dangerous place.

But there was something about life, it seemed to me, that was all too real. I knew, because they never stopped reminding me, that the world was wicked and wide. And it frightened me to think it could be even more terrifying than I imagined. I looked at the earth, and I remembered that we lived upon the dead. (p. 76)

In her desire for a bit of warmth and friendship, Matia begins to gravitate towards Manuel Taronji, the son of a neighbouring family persecuted by the locals for their political allegiances and Jewish heritage. In effect, Matia sees Manuel as a kindred spirit, someone she can talk to openly despite his outsider status as a ‘Chueta’. Borja, however, takes a vehement dislike to Manuel, particularly when it emerges that he might be the illegitimate son of Jorge, the powerful islander whom Borja clearly worships.

During the novella, we learn that Manuel’s stepfather, José, was murdered by the local fascists – the jack-booted Taronji brothers – for his Republican leanings. The fact that José was killed by members of his own extended family illustrates the strength of feeling surrounding the Nationalist movement, with supporters being prepared to kill their own flesh and blood to further the cause. Moreover, it gives a sense of the complex network of connections between the island’s inhabitants, encompassing familial, racial and political dimensions.

While Borja and his teenage contemporaries fight one another with butcher’s hooks, these various episodes of violence are punctuated by reports of the broader conflict in mainland Spain, typically relayed through hearsay and secondhand information.

(‘They say they’re killing whole families over there, shooting priests and putting out their eyes…throwing people into vats of boiling oil…May God have mercy on their souls!’) My grandmother would look shocked, but her eyes would shift a little closer together, like siblings whispering dark secrets to one another, as she listened to these morbid tales. (p. 3)

Alongside these depictions of brutality at the time of the Civil War, Matute remains alert to the atrocities of the past, reminding us that the island has long harboured prejudices against the Jewish community. For example, there are mentions of ‘the square, where the Jews had been burned alive’ – a direct reference to a case in which three Jews – including one named Taronji – were burned alive for refusing to denounce their faith. These echoes between past and present acts of barbarism add another dimension to the narrative, reminding us that prejudices can run deep if they remain unchecked.  

As the novella draws to a close, Matia is left with few illusions about the adult world. The beloved fables and fairy tales of her childhood are revealed to be fallacies, contrasting starkly with the duplicity, betrayal and cruelty she sees being played out around her.

In summary, then, The Island, is a dark and visceral novella, beautifully executed through Matute’s lucid prose. This combination of a highly evocative first-person narrative and the oppressive atmosphere is somewhat reminiscent of Carmen Laforet’s Nada, another excellent Spanish novel set around the time of the Civil War.  

The Island is published by Penguin; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy. I read this book for Stu’s Spanish Lit Month – more details here.

Spanish Lit Month – some reading recommendations for July

As some of you may know, July is Spanish Lit Month (#SpanishLitMonth), hosted by Stu at the Winstonsdad’s blog. It’s a month-long celebration of literature first published in the Spanish language – you can find out more about it here. In recent years, Stu and his sometimes co-host, Richard, have also included Portuguese literature in the mix, and that’s very much the case for 2021 too.

I’ve reviewed quite a few books that fall into the category of Spanish lit over the lifespan of this blog (although not so many of the Portuguese front). If you’re thinking of joining in and are looking for some ideas on what to read, here are a few of my favourites.

The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan (tr. Paul O’Prey and Lucia Graves)

This is a marvellous novel, a great discovery for me, courtesy of fellow Spanish Lit Month veteran, Grant from 1streading. The House of Ulloa tells a feisty tale of contrasting values as a virtuous Christian chaplain finds himself embroiled in the exploits of a rough and ready marquis and those of his equally lively companions. This classic of 19^th-century Spanish literature is a joy from start to finish, packed full of incident to keep the reader entertained.

Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti (tr. Nick Caistor)

This intriguing, elusive novella by the Uruguayan author and journalist, Mario Benedetti, uses various different forms to examine a timeless story of love and misunderstandings. We hear accounts from three different individuals embroiled in a love triangle. Assumptions are made; doubts are cast; and misunderstandings prevail – and we are never quite sure which of the three accounts is the most representative of the true situation, if indeed such a thing exists. Who among us can make that judgement when presented with these individuals’ perceptions of their relationships with others? This is a thoughtful, mercurial novella to capture the soul.

Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli (tr. Christina McSweeney)

A beautiful collection of illuminating essays, several of which focus on locations, spaces and cities, and how these have evolved over time. Luiselli, a keen observer, is a little like a modern-day flâneur (or in one essay, a ‘cycleur’, a flâneur on a bicycle) as we follow her through the city streets and sidewalks, seeing the surroundings through her eyes and gaining access to her thoughts. A gorgeous selection of pieces, shot through with a melancholy, philosophical tone.

Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

Another wonderful collection of short pieces – fiction this time – many of which focus on the everyday. Minor occurrences take on a greater level of significance; fleeting moments have the power to resonate and live long in the memory. These pieces are subtle, nuanced and beautifully observed, highlighting situations or moods that turn on the tiniest of moments. While Fraile’s focus is on the minutiae of everyday life, the stories themselves are far from ordinary – they sparkle, refracting the light like the crystal chandelier in Child’s Play, one of my favourite pieces from this selection.

Nada by Carmen Laforet (tr. Edith Grossman)

Carmen Laforet was just twenty-three when her debut novel, Nada, was published. It’s an excellent book, dark and twisted with a distinctive first-person narrative. Here we see the portrayal of a family bruised by bitterness and suspicion, struggling to survive in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. This is a wonderfully evocative novel, a mood piece that captures the passion and intensity of its time and setting. Truly deserving of its status as a Spanish classic.

The Infatuations by Javier Marías (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

My first Marías, and it remains a firm favourite. A man is stabbed to death in a shocking incident in the street, but this novel offers much more than a conventional murder mystery. In Marías’s hands, the story becomes an immersive meditation, touching on questions of truth, chance, love and mortality. The writing is wonderful – philosophical, reflective, almost hypnotic in style. Those long, looping sentences are beguiling, pulling the reader into a shadowy world, where things are not quite what they seem on at first sight.

Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo (tr. Daniel Balderston)

I love the pieces in this volume of forty-two stories, drawn from a lifetime of Ocampo’s writing – the way they often start in the realms of normality and then tip into darker, slightly surreal territory as they progress. Several of them point to a devilish sense of magic in the everyday, the sense of strangeness that lies hidden in the seemingly ordinary. Published by NYRB Classics, Thus Were Their Faces is an unusual, poetic collection of vignettes, many of which blur the margins between reality and the imaginary world. Best approached as a volume to dip into whenever you’re in the mood for something different and beguiling.

Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas (tr. Anne McLean)

Vila-Matas travels to Paris where he spends a month recalling the time he previously spent in this city, trying to live the life of an aspiring writer – just like the one Ernest Hemingway recounts in his memoir, A Moveable Feast. Vila-Matas’ notes on this rather ironic revisitation are to form the core of an extended lecture on the theme of irony entitled ‘Never Any End to Paris’; and it is in this form that the story is presented to the reader. This is a smart, playful and utterly engaging novel, full of self-deprecating humour and charm.

Do let me know what you think of these books if you’ve read some of them. Hopefully, I’ll be able to fit in another couple of titles during the month, possibly more if the event is extended into August, as in recent years.

Maybe you have plans of your own for Spanish Lit Month – if so, what do you have in mind? Or perhaps you have a favourite book, first published in Spanish or Portuguese? Feel free to mention it alongside any other comments below.

Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti (1953, tr. Nick Caistor, 2019)

My contribution to this year’s Spanish Lit Month is Who Among Us?, an intriguing, elusive novella from the Uruguayan author and journalist, Mario Benedetti, who uses a variety of different forms to examine this timeless story of love and misunderstandings.

Miguel and Alicia have been married for eleven years, but over time their relationship has drifted and soured, partly due to another element in the frame – that of their childhood friend, Lucas, whose shadow hangs over the couple like a ghostly presence. Many years earlier, it seemed as if Alicia might marry Lucas, the pair arguing passionately together, with Miguel observing quietly from the sidelines. However, it wasn’t to be; in time, Alicia became convinced that Miguel was the better of the two men, prompting her to choose him over Lucas when deciding on her future.

Miguel’s side of the story is presented as a series of undated diary or journal entries – possibly a notebook that Alicia may well get to read at some point. Through these reflections, Miguel comes across as a passive, unambitious man – neither jealous nor envious of Lucas and his position in their relationship. Rather, Miguel views himself as somewhat subordinate or second-rate; a spectator as opposed to a participator. Possibly as a consequence of this, he now sees his marriage to Alicia as something of a mistake.

The present crisis has arisen out of a gradual conviction: that Alicia has always preferred Lucas. I don’t think she was guilty of any kind of manipulation when she apparently chose me. She was terribly confused, that’s all. She couldn’t see clearly. I am the one who was responsible from the start. Even then I knew it wasn’t right; and yet I closed my eyes and pretended to believe in the unbelievable; it was a form of self-harm. (p. 53)

The turning point comes when an opportunity arises for Alicia to travel to Buenos Aires on a family matter. Miguel takes full advantage of this event, encouraging his wife to meet with Lucas while she is in the city – Lucas having moved there following Miguel and Alicia’s wedding several years before. 

In the book’s second, relatively brief section, we see another side of the story through a letter Alicia has written to Miguel. By contrast with the reflective nature of Miguel’s journal, Alicia’s missive is somewhat barbed and emotional, laying much of the blame for the breakdown at Miguel’s door.

You and I have made lots of mistakes, but I sense now that our greatest single, our most unpardonable, error has been never to talk about them. We missed out on that chance for openness, the one most couples seize as they daily insult and curse each other, finding equal pleasure in these moments of hatred as they do in those of appeasement. (p. 63)

My dearest, our marriage has not been a failure, but something far more terrible; a misspent success. All our happiness, which was more subtle than the usual kind, all our love, which was more honest than our fear, proved unable to prevail over all your pent-up rancour, all those compromises of pride and apathy, all that rigid, silent shame. (p. 66)

The triangle is completed with Lucas’s perspective, presented as a fictional version of his meeting with Alicia. It is, in effect, a short story, complete with footnotes which explain certain aspects of the text and their relationship to actual events.

What I really liked about this book was how each of the two subsequent sections – those from Alicia and Lucas – cast a different light on the reflections from Miguel, reframing his perception of events, thereby questioning our understanding of them too. Assumptions are made; doubts are cast; and misunderstandings prevail. We’re never quite sure which of the three accounts is the most representative of the true situation, if indeed such a thing exists – who among us can make that judgement when presented with these individuals’ perceptions of their relationships with others?

It’s also an interesting way of presenting what some might consider a rather familiar narrative – a love triangle involving three closely-connected individuals, where the relationships between them change and develop over the years. While Benedetti flexes his style from one section to the next, certain aspects of the book – Miguel’s account in particular – reminded me of some of Javier Marias’s work with its focus on self-examination and self-reflection.

In writing this thoughtful, jewel-like novella, Benedetti has given us a multifaceted story of love, missed opportunities and mismatched emotions. Recommended for those who enjoy character-driven fiction, particularly in a variety of different styles.  

Grant (at 1streading) has also written about this book – you can read his review here.

Who Among Us? is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.

Your Face Tomorrow trilogy by Javier Marías (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

Regular readers of this blog may be aware of my fondness for the novels of Javier Marías, widely regarded as one of the preeminent writers of our generation. So, it was with a strong sense of anticipation that I picked up his epic trilogy, Your Face Tomorrow, generally considered to be his greatest work.

That said, I wasn’t sure about this series when I read the first volume, Fever and Spear, back in November last year, so much so that I didn’t write about it at the time. While thoughtful and philosophical (perhaps more so than some of the other Marías novels I’d previously read), this opening instalment was fairly slow going throughout, especially in terms of narrative drive. Nevertheless, I preserved with the series, returning to it during my recovery from a fracture earlier this year (big chunksters being very much the order of the day at that point). Now that I’ve read the other two books in this masterful trilogy, I can see what that first volume was setting out to achieve in laying the essential groundwork for the revelations to come.

In brief, the overarching story revolves around Jacques Deza, a Spanish man who has just moved to England following the recent split from his ex-wife, Luisa, and their two young children. (Those of you who are familiar with Marias’ earlier novel, All Souls, will recognise Deza from there.) Back in the UK, Deza reconnects with various former colleagues from a previous stint at Oxford University, through which he is introduced to the shadowy surveillance expert, Bertram Tupra – a man who appears to be linked to, or possibly employed by, MI6.

Tupra believes Jacques has a particular gift or sense of intuition – more specifically, an ability to assess a person’s inherent character and predict how they are going to behave in the future. In short, by looking at a person’s demeanour today, Deza can ‘foresee’ their face tomorrow.

With this in mind, Deza is recruited into Tupra’s organisation, a nameless group whose overall objectives remain something of a mystery. Ostensibly, Deza will be called upon to assess various individuals in the public eye – typically politicians, celebrities and other figures in positions of power. However, as the true nature of Tupra’s operations become increasingly apparent, Deza is drawn into a deeply sinister world, one where violence and torture are second nature and manipulative deceptions are frequently employed.

The state needs treachery, venality, deceit, crime, illegal acts, conspiracy, dirty tricks (on the other hand, it needs very few acts of heroism, or only now and then, to provide a contrast). If those things didn’t exist, or not enough, the state would have to invent them. It already does. Why do you think new offences are constantly being created? What wasn’t an offence becomes one, so that no one is ever entirely clean. Why do you think we intervene in and regulate everything, even where it’s unnecessary or where it doesn’t concern us? We need laws to be violated and broken. What would be the point of having laws if everyone obeyed them? We’d never get anywhere. We couldn’t exist. (p. 128, vol 3, Poison, Shadow and Farewell)

Almost without realising it, Deza finds himself intimately involved in Tupra’s dirty work, both indirectly as a hapless witness to scenes of a brutal assault and more directly as an active participant. His transformation from horrified onlooker to aggressive perpetrator is one of the trilogy’s key masterstrokes. Along the way, the narrative touches on incidents from the deeply personal, such as Deza’s ex-wife and her current relationships, to the broadly political – the latter including a devastating betrayal of trust from WW2 and horrific episodes from the Spanish Civil War.

Many of Marías’ familiar trademarks are present here, from the long, looping sentences and extended meditations that form a key part of his reflective style, to the key symbols and motifs which recur throughout – for instance, the image of a drop of blood on the floor, the rim of which proves particularly stubborn to remove. (The need to erase the final traces of a ‘taint’ or ‘stain’ crops up again and again, each time in a different context, resonating and reverberating with increasing power.)

The ongoing fascination with listening and surveillance is there too – an element which appears in some of Marías’ earlier books, perhaps most notably, A Heart So White. In some ways, the art of assessing character can be viewed as a form of interpretation or translation – another recurring theme in this writer’s work. Marías’ own particular brand of humour is also in evidence, providing some nicely judged moments of levity amidst the darkness of Tupra’s empire. Volume two of the trilogy, Dance and Dream, contains a fabulous disco scene, complete with wild dancing and some outrageously indecent behaviour before the violence kicks in. in this scene, Deza is observing an associate, the licentious attaché De la Garza, who appears to be taking quite an interest in , Flavia Manoia, the wife of an important contact.

He was clearly a man who had no time for good taste, or in whom bad taste was so pervasive that it crossed all frontiers, the clear and the blurred; more than that, he was someone capable of taking a lascivious interest in almost any female being – a rather smutty interest, verging on the merely evacuative – at Sir Peter Wheeler’s party, he had been capable of taking a fancy, and quite a large fancy at that, to the not-quite-venerable reverend widow or Deaness Wadman, with her soft, straining décolletage and her precious stone necklace of orange segments. (I mean, of course, an interest in any female human being, I would not like to insinuate things I know nothing about and of which I have no proof.) Flavia Manoia, who was of a similar age, but with considerably more style and dash (a dash of her former beauty, I mean), could easily turn his head after the couple of drinks he already had inside him or was planning to drink in the next few minutes. (pp. 65-66, book 2, Dance and Dream)

(For more wild nights at the disco, see the earlier Marias novel, All Souls.)

Overall, the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy is a tremendous achievement, a thought-provoking treatise on truth, betrayal, coercion and culpability. As a whole, the narrative raises some key questions about the nature of violence, particularly whether the final outcome can ever justify the means. It also forces us to question our own likely responses were we to find ourselves in Deza’s precarious situation. How can any of us ever know just how we would react in the face of extreme adversity? How far would we go to protect the life of a loved one or the safety of our children? It’s almost impossible to tell. The prediction of future behaviour or ‘your face tomorrow’ is more challenging than you might think.

Final notes: If you are thinking of embarking on this trilogy at any point, I would highly recommend you read both All Souls and A Heart So White first – the former to gain an appreciation of Deza’s backstory and earlier time at Oxford University (many of the individuals he encountered in his academic days are referred to again here); the latter for an insight into Custardoy, a rather brash copier of famous paintings who plays a key role in YFT volume three, Poison, Shadow and Farewell.

Also, do persevere with the trilogy even if you find it slow going at first – it really does pay off by the time you get to volumes two and three, I promise!

(This is my contribution to Stu’s Spanish and Portuguese Literature month – you can find out more about it here.)

My edition of the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy was published by Vintage Books; personal copy.

Football in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano (tr. Mark Fried)

If you’re experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the thrills and spills of the 2018 World Cup, this could be the ideal book for you: Football in Sun and Shadow by the eminent Uruguayan journalist, novelist and writer Eduardo Galeano.

First published in 1995 and subsequently updated to 2010, Football in Sun and Shadow is a marvellous collection of short essays/vignettes focusing primarily on each World Cup from the first in 1930 to the nineteenth in 2010. By adopting this approach, Galeano charts the development of the contest, touching briefly on the multitude of stars and the numerous dramas that have emerged both on and off the field over the years. In addition to providing an array of facts, this book is a wonderful paean to the artistry of football, capturing as it does the sheer grace, poetry and magic of the beautiful game.

The book begins with short sketches of the key ‘players’ and elements of the sport, from ‘The Goalkeeper’, ‘The Idol’ and ‘The Fan’ through to ‘The Referee’, ‘The Manager’ and ‘The Theatre’. While the goalkeeper is ‘the first to pay – it is always the keeper’s fault’, somewhat unsurprisingly, the idol is the star – ‘the ball seeks him out, knows him, needs him.’

These initial snippets are followed by others which offer a potted history of the origins of football, its early development in Britain and subsequent arrival on the shores of South America via the sailors, diplomats and traders of the UK. Here the game is enthusiastically embraced in the early years of 20^th century, particularly by the poor and underprivileged, blossoming in the slums of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil where it requires little more than a makeshift ball and the sheer desire to play.

Football had made a lovely voyage: first organized in the colleges and universities of England, it brought joy to the lives of South Americans who had never set foot in a school. (p. 25)

Once the timeline reaches 1930, Galeano turns his focus to the World Cup, reflecting some of the highs and lows of each tournament, the main players and incidents with a particular emphasis on the most skilful goals. To give you an example, here is the writer’s portrait of Didi, the hub of the Brazilian team and leading playmaker of the 1958 World Cup.

He was a master of the deep pass, a near goal that would become a real goal on the feet of Pelé, Garrincha or Vavá, but he also scored on his own. Shooting from afar, he used to fool goalkeepers with the ‘dry leaf’: by giving the ball his foot’s profile, she would leave the ground spinning and continue spinning on the fly, dancing about and changing direction like a dry leaf carried by the wind, until she flew between the posts precisely where the goalkeeper least expected.

Didi played unhurriedly. Pointing at the ball, he would say: ‘She’s the one who runs.’

He knew she was alive. (pp. 84-85)

Each tournament is placed within the broader political, cultural and social landscape of the day by way of a brief summary covering key developments on the world stage – a technique which works brilliantly as an introduction, effectively putting football on a par with the other significant international events. The following passage is taken from the scene setter for the 1978 World Cup hosted by Argentina.

In Germany the popular Volkswagen Beetle was dying, in England the first test tube baby was being born, in Italy abortion was being legalized. The first victims of AIDS, a disease not yet call that, were succumbing. The Red Brigades were killing Aldo Moro, and the United States was promising to give Panama back the canal it had stolen at the beginning of the century. Well-informed sources in Miami were announcing the imminent fall of Fidel Castro, it was only a matter of hours. (p. 121)

That final line about the imminent fall of Castro is repeated in Galeano’s introduction to every World Cup from 1962 to 2006, acting a kind of running joke on the dictator’s position in Cuba.

The vignettes that follow give a flavour of each tournament, the sights and sounds of some of the most significant matches and moments from the Cup.

During the days that followed, TV showed images of the ’82 Cup: the billowing tunic of Sheik Fahad […], who ran onto the field to protest about a goal by France against Kuwait; the goal by Englishman Bryan Robson after half a minute, the quickest in World Cup history; the indifference of German keeper Schumacher, who once was a blacksmith, after he knocked out French striker Battiston with his knee. (p. 127)

Fundamental changes to the game also merit a mention – for example, the introduction of red and yellow cards for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, and the decision to award three points for a win in 1994 to discourage teams from playing for a draw.

While the book gives a truly international perspective on the sport, Galeano’s passion for the game stems from his early love of the football played in his native continent of South America. He writes enthusiastically of a fluid, open kind of football, typified by Argentina’s River Plate team in the early 1940s, in which the players ‘traded places in a permanent rotation’ – in addition to their natural roles, defenders attacked and attackers defended.

In particular, Galeano laments the decline of creativity and flair over the years, the increasing dominance of a ‘staid and standardized’ kind of football, ‘a game of speed and strength, fuelled by the fear of losing’. What saddens him most is the move towards teams of ‘functionaries who specialize in avoiding defeat’ rather than artists who have the freedom to express themselves with all the vision and imagination this unleashes. When a relatively rare example of creativity breaks through, it is a joy to behold.

At the World Cup in 1970, Brazil played a football worthy of her people’s yearning for celebration and craving for beauty. The whole world was suffering from the mediocrity of defensive football, which had the entire side hanging back to maintain the catenaccio* while one or two men played by themselves up front. Risk and creative spontaneity were not allowed. Brazil, however, was astonishing: a team on the attack, playing with four strikers – Jairzinho, Tostão, Pelé and Rivelino – sometimes increased to five and even six when Gérson and Carlos Alberto came up from the back. That steamroller pulverized Italy in the final. (p. 109)

*‘Door-bolt’ or backline defence.

There is praise too for the Colombian team of the early ‘90s and Nigerian team of 1998.

Galeano is equally scornful of the monetisation of the game – the increasingly lucrative television rights and advertising contracts play a crucial role here, often influencing the timing of World Cup matches to maximise the revenue gained from the European markets. Unsurprisingly, the dominance of FIFA merits a few mentions in this context, driven by the hard-nosed commercial strategy of its former president, João Havelange, a dominant force from the mid ‘70s to the late ‘90s. ‘I have come to sell football,’ he announces on taking up the presidency, a statement which seems to typify his values and general approach.

Politics and money matters aside, what really shines through from Football in Sun and Shadow is the author’s sheer love of football – the myriad of myths and legends, the stories of heroes and villains, and perhaps most of all, the sense of artistry and magic that can emerge on the field. This is a wonderful testament to the creativity of football, written by a true poet and admirer of the game.

I read this book for Richard and Stu’s Spanish and Portuguese Lit event which is running in July and August. Grant has also written an excellent review of it here.

Football in Sun and Shadow is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.

The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (tr. Ruth L.C. Simms)

When I put together my list for the Classics Club back in December 2015, I included a few translations just to mix things up a bit. The Invention of Morel (first published in 1940), was one such book. It’s an early novel by the Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, whose joint novella with his wife, Silvina Ocampo, Where There’s Love, There’s Hate – a thoroughly entertaining take on the traditional detective story – made my end-of-year highlights in 2014. While I didn’t love Morel as much as the Casares-Ocampo co-production, I did enjoy it. It’s an intriguing story, one that keeps the reader guessing until certain revelations come to light.

The story centres on the fate of an unnamed narrator, a fugitive who is hiding out on a supposedly uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere in the hope of evading the authorities following his conviction for a serious crime. It is said that the island is home to a mysterious, fatal disease, one that attacks the human body from outside in. Nevertheless, the narrator is prepared to take his chances; it’s either that or run the risk of recapture by the police.

When we join the story, the narrator has been on the island for a few months, typically taking shelter in a museum, one of two buildings constructed by the previous inhabitants. One day his peace is disturbed by the sudden appearance of a crowd of people – it is almost as if they have come out of nowhere.

When I was finally able to sleep, it was very late. The music and the shouting woke me up a few hours later. I have not slept soundly since my escape; I am sure that if a ship, a plane, or any other form of transportation had arrived, I would have heard it. And yet suddenly, unaccountably, on this oppressive summerlike night, the grassy hillside has become crowded with people who dance, stroll up and down, and swim in the pool, as if this were a summer resort like Los Teques or Marienbad. (pp. 10-11)

Fearing for his safety, the narrator moves to the least habitable area of the island where he can observe the strangers from a suitable distance. As it turns out, the interlopers spend much of their time dancing to the same two records which they play on a phonograph, irrespective of the weather. The arrival of these figures raises various questions in the narrator’s mind (and in that of the reader). Is this a strange hallucination, the consequence of exposure to extreme heat perhaps or the after-effects of eating a poisonous plant? Is it all an elaborate a ruse by the authorities to lure the narrator into submission – and if so, why go to such lengths? Or are these images ghosts, no longer living but returned from the dead?

The narrator seems no nearer to solving the mystery when he tries to make contact with one of the strangers, a beautiful woman named Faustine who sits on a rock observing the sunset on a daily basis. The narrator is fascinated by Faustine and her gypsy-like sensuality; to him, she represents a kind of hope where before there was none. However, when the narrator tries to make contact with Faustine, all his dreams are dashed; either she cannot see his figure or she is ignoring him, defying his presence as she sits by his side.

It has been, again, as if she did not see me. This time I made the mistake of not speaking to her at all.

When the woman came down to the rocks, I was watching the sunset. She stood there for a moment without moving, looking for a place to spread out her blanket. Then she walked toward me. If I had put out my hand, I would have touched her. This possibility horrified me (as if I had almost touched a ghost). There was something frightening in her complete detachment. But when she sat down at my side it seemed she was defying me, trying to show that she no longer ignored my presence. (p. 29)

There are also occasions during the story when the author ratchets up the tension, the narrator fearing for his safety and freedom in this strange, unfathomable environment.

I started to walk down the hall, feeling that a door would open suddenly and a pair of rough hands would reach out and grab me, a mocking voice would taunt me. The strange world I had been living in, my conjectures and anxieties, Faustine – they all seemed like an invisible path that was leading me straight to prison and death. (pp. 48-49)

Casares plants clues throughout the story as to what is happening on the island, but there comes a point when all is revealed. I don’t want to say a lot more about it here, other than it’s a very clever explanation with nods to both science and art. Morel is a novel which explores ideas around mortality, the pursuit of immortality, the nature of happiness and the enduring power of love. As long as the narrator can stay close to Faustine, in whatever form this may take, then there is hope for the future; but without this, what is there to live for?

Several other bloggers have reviewed this book as Richard and Stu hosted a readalong a couple of years ago. Here’s a link to Grant’s excellent review which I recall seeing in the past. I’m sure there are many others too.

The Invention of Morel is published by NYRB Classics; personal copy.

Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún (tr. Sophie Hughes)

First published in Spanish in 2015, Affections is the second novel by the Bolivian writer Rodrigo Hasbún (his first to be translated into English). Hasbún is something of a rising star in Latin American literature circles. In 2007 he was named as one of the Bogotá 39, the 39 most important Latin American writers under the age of 39; moreover, in 2010 he was included in Granta’s list of the twenty-two best young writers in Spanish. (Hasbún was born in 1981.) In light of this pedigree, I was keen to read Affections, especially given the timing as July is Spanish literature month.

The focus of Affections is an unusual one. Hasbún’s novella is work of fiction inspired by real figures and historical events from the 1950s and ‘60s. The story revolves around the work and family life of Hans Ertl, the renowned cinematographer who is perhaps most famous for his collaborations with the German film-maker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. (Triumph des Willens and Olympia, both filmed in the 19030s, were two of Riefenstahl’s best-known works.) Affections, however, concerns itself with a later period in Ertl’s life, the time directly following his move to Bolivia in the mid-1950s.

The novella opens in 1955, just over a year after Ertl, his wife (Aurelia), and their three daughters (Monika, Heidi and Trixi) travelled to Bolivia to settle in the city of La Paz. I say ‘settle’, however nothing about the family’s new life feels very stable; right from the start they consider themselves outsiders, interlopers from a very different part of the world. Here’s Heidi’s perspective on their situation.

La Paz wasn’t so bad, but it was chaotic and we would never stop being outsiders, people from another world: an old, cold world. (pg. 13)

Keen to embark on a new mission in Bolivia, Hans Ertl sets off in search of Paitití, an old Inca city hidden deep in the midst of the Amazon rainforests. Accompanying him on the visit are his two eldest daughters, Monika and Heidi, plus a fellow adventurer, Rudi, and an entomologist by the name of Miss Burgl.

What starts out as the story of the early stages of the group’s expedition soon morphs into something very different indeed. As the chapters slip by, it becomes increasingly clear that Affections is primarily concerned with the falling apart of Ertl’s family as their lives start to unravel on the page.

Leave, that’s what Papa knew how to do best. Leave, but also come back, like a soldier returns home from the war to gather his strength before going again. – Heidi (pg. 12)

Out of all of us Mama had suffered the most. – Trixi (pg. 32)

In some ways, Affections feels like the literary equivalent of a collage, a series of snapshots and scrapbook entries conveyed by way of a sequence of loosely connected chapters. The role of narrator passes backwards and forwards from Heidi to Trixi to Monika; other sections are reflected through the eyes of some of the other main players in the girls’ lives, most notably Monika’s brother-in-law and brief lover, Reinhard.

While various things happen to the family over the course of some 20 years, Hasbún seems more concerned with feelings and experiences than conventional aspects of plot and character development. In some respects, Affections is a novel about the different phases of our lives, the various endings and new beginnings we all experience as we move from one stage in our transitory existence to the next.

I knew I couldn’t leave without finding Monika first, without convincing her to forget all that, to start a new life with me where nobody knew us. Our parents had done it, and Heidi too, in her own way.

They were the worst years of my life and my only consolation was to convince myself that it was possible to start again far away. They were devastating years and my answer, time and time again, wherever I happened to be, was to make myself think like this. – Trixi (pg. 135)

As a novel, it also has much to say about the various facets of our character, how different people tend to views us, and the challenges of reconciling these different identities into a complete whole. Never is this more relevant than when the focus falls on Monika, a woman who seems to represent so many disparate things to those around her.

Yes, there are people for whom one life is not enough. I often think this, in the darkness of my living room, glass of whiskey in my hand, at the epicentre of my new circumstances. How hard it is to assemble all the different people some people were, to reconcile, for example, the intriguing Monika from the early days with the impossible Monika later on. – Reinhard (pg. 38)

There is a strong sense of dislocation and isolation running through this intriguing collection of snapshots, especially when we hear from Monika herself – the use of a second-person narrative gives her vignettes a very distinctive feel.

You are the fine young thing the businessmen try to seduce, the self-assured sibling who sees one of her sisters every once in a while and has lost all contact with the other, the one she never really got along with. You are the motherless daughter who never stops thinking about her father, half of the time hating him profoundly, and the other half admiring and loving him unconditionally. You are the woman who speaks to the people who turn up at the shelter, who is interested in what they have to say, who is weighed down by their stories, even though they tend to be quiet types, men and women who vanish as silently as they appear. You are the woman who remains a stranger to herself. – Monika (pg 64)

Ultimately, Affections is a mercurial, shapeshifting work, a disorientating novella that raises as many questions as it answers. As a piece of art, it leaves much to the reader’s curiosity and imagination, and that’s no bad thing in my book.

Grant and Stu have also reviewed this one for SLM.

Affections is published by Pushkin Press; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.

Pazo de Villarei Albariño, 2015 – a wine for #SpanishLitMonth

Seeing as July is the month for all thing Spanish (see here for a link to Richard and Stu‘s Spanish Lit Month), I thought I would take the opportunity to post a short note on an Albariño I tasted recently. It doesn’t take much for me to get excited about Spanish whites as they constitute much of my summer drinking along with Italian whites and Provençal/Corsican rosés.  The wine in question is the Pazo de Villarei Albariño, 2015, from the Rías Baixas region in north-west Spain. (I’ve already written about a previous vintage of this wine, but the 2015 is the latest release.)

It’s a lovely wine; lemony, minerally and very refreshing. Plus it has a slight spritz that gives it a sort of joie de vivre which seems perfect for this time of year. If you’ve never tried Albariño before, the Villarei would make a good introduction to this grape variety, a staple of the Galicia area of Spain. This is a fresh, zingy, unoaked white wine which is light on its feet yet satisfying too. Shellfish or sea fillets would make a nice partner. As for a suitable book match, I have just the thing in mind: The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán, a Spanish classic set in Galicia. A review will follow later this month.

Most of my favourite Albariños seem to clock in at the £12-14 level – Pazo de Señorans and Fefiñanes are terrific quality, but at > £10 pb they might not be everyone’s idea of an everyday wine. Up to until last year, I’d struggled to find a reliable Albariño at the sub £10 level, but the Villarei is keenly priced at £8.50. I think it’s great value for money.

I bought this wine from The Wine Society (I have a link to The Society, so the vast majority of my wines are purchased there). Alternatively, you can use Wine Searcher to look for stockists. If you can’t find the Pazo de Villarei, then the Pazo de Señorans and Fefiñanes are truly excellent wines, albeit a little more expensive.

My notes on another couple of favourite Spanish white wines can be found here, The Gaba do Xil is an unoaked Godello from Galicia while Las Olas is a Verdejo from the Rueda region. Enjoy.