When I Sing, Mountains Dance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

A Shortcut to Paradise

A Short Cut to Paradise / Teresa Solana
Translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush 
London: Bitter Lemon Press, 2011, c2008.
310 p.

After reading and enjoying Solana's short story collection in August, I decided to pick up this mystery to try next. I was hoping it would be as entertaining as the first book. It sort of was, but didn't quite hit the mark for me. 

A Short Cut to Paradise is the name of a novel within the book, the last novel written by Marina Dolc before she was brutally murdered, immediately after winning a big literary prize. Twin detectives Borja and Eduard are asked by a literary agent to investigate, as her client, fellow writer Amadeu Cabestany has been arrested although he maintains that he's innocent. 

The reader knows that he is innocent, as we see him elsewhere during the time of the murder, on the first few pages. But Solana takes advantage of this setup to skewer Barcelona's literary establishment, the police and government, and the actions of everyday society as well.

There are some funny bits as the twins encounter suspects and sources, trying to behave like 'real detectives'. And the experiences of Amadeu Cabestany in prison are rather ironically amusing (as is his final outcome). However, the book dragged on a bit, going in circles in the middle and feeling like it was just being padded a bit. There was a completely unnecessary scene that added nothing to the mystery or its solution, it felt like a set piece dropped into the book -- an orgy at a literary party caused by hallucinogenic appetizers. 

The elements of literary pretension and satire definitely entertained me, and the mystery made sense once the solution was revealed (it was actually a bit sad). The Barcelona setting was also a strong element of this story, one of the most absorbing bits really. I found the characters of Eduard and Borja interesting enough to perhaps pick up another title in this series in future, but this is very light reading indeed and another might have to wait until next summer when I need something frivolous to read on the beach ;) 

The Vestigial Heart

The Vestigial Heart / Carme Torras
trans. from the Catalan by Josephine Swarbrick
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018, c2007.
262 p.

Now this was an unusual read. The author is a professor of robotics in Barcelona, and writes her academic work in English and fiction in Catalan. This one is a bit of both, really -- fiction about the ethics of robots and AI. 

The book opens in a future a few hundred years from now. Human emotion is almost extinct; people seem to drift through experience, never really maturing, dependent on their personal robot assistants -- everyone has one.

Silvana is a researcher who reads old books to try to understand emotion; she's part of a group who is anti-tech. Leo is a robotics researcher working on a "creativity prosthesis" under the auspices of one of the biggest tech companies. Lu is a youngish woman who decides she wants to adopt a child (due to a shortage of children many adoptees are children cryogenically frozen in the past when cures for their diseases were unknown). And Celia is the 13 yr old from the 20th century who is unfrozen to become Lu's daughter -- full of memories and human emotion. 

These lives intertwine to reveal many philosophical issues about robotics, AI, their effects on users, and the responsibility of creators when developing these kinds of things -- the idea that humanity needs to be part of robotics is strongly emphasized.  In fact there is a reader's guide at the end which poses ethical questions for discussion, noting the relevant chapters. 

Despite this, it's a pretty good read as a novel as well. I enjoyed the academic tone and the characters. It reminded me a bit of The Forever Formula, a book I read in junior high about a cryogenically frozen teen awoken in a dystopian future -- slightly different ethical questions in that one but the same sense of examination of where tech might take us. 

In any case, the author of this one has a vested interest in robotics so the anti-tech group in her novel isn't going to come out well. Silvana's choices at the end of the book felt a bit sudden in one way, although they are partly driven by the emotions she's been trying to grasp. But if you like intellectual speculative fiction that makes no bones about being a study of ethics you might want to give this a try also. It's an intriguing concept and I found it interesting in a few different ways. 
 

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer & Other Stories

 

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer & Other Stories / Teresa Solana
trans. from the Catalan by Peter Bush
London: Bitter Lemon Press, c2018.
210 p.

I have been meaning to read Teresa Solana for a while, and when I saw this collection of short stories available in my library, I knew it was time! How can you resist a title like this?

It was a very entertaining read -- crime fiction with a lot of satire and black humour in it. The title story opens the collection, and it is just as ridiculous as you might imagine; I found it very amusing. The book is divided into two parts: Blood, Guts & Love (5 stories) and then Connections (8 stories). In the second section, each of the stories are connected to another in some small way -- it's kind of fun to recognize the character or event that links a story to another. 

I found many of the stories clever and amusing. Some were frothy and slightly silly in the best ways (especially in the first section) while others had a slightly more bleak conclusion, even amongst the satire. But I really enjoyed the style and the setting, in the seedier parts of Barcelona. I thought this was an engaging read, and one that was a satisfying intro to this crime writer's work. I do like crime writing that's not horrifying and gory, so these kinds of satirical crime stories appeal to me. Last year's reading of An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good had a similar feel, and in fact, two of the stories in this collection especially reminded me of Tursten's work. 

This was great for some light reading this week, and I definitely recommend it. She has a quirky eye for strange situations, and the stories really arise out of the characters, which I liked a lot. Since there are a variety of stories here, you may find a couple at least that you really enjoy! There were two or three real standouts for me, but I did like the collection as a whole, with only one story (I Am a Vampire) that I wasn't as keen on. 

If you are up for some entertaining crime fiction with only a bit of gore involved, this is a good choice, I think. Now I'll have to try one of her novels, too! 

This review was featured on Twinkl as part of their Literary Lovers campaign.

Desire for Chocolate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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