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.