Five Great Books with Numbers in the Title

This is a fun post where I have highlighted five excellent books I read over the last three years based on a single element that binds them together. These books are different in terms of themes and styles but what they do have in common is a number in the title.

So without further ado, here are the five books listed in the order in which I read them beginning with the latest.

TWO SHERPAS by Sebastián Martínez Daniell (tr. from Spanish by Jennifer Croft)

In the beginning, two Sherpas peer over the edge of a precipice staring at the depths below where a British climber lies sprawled among the rocks. Almost near the top of Mount Everest, the silence around them is intense, punctuated by the noise of the gushing wind (“If the deafening noise of the wind raveling over the ridges of the Himalayas can be considered silence”). Wishing to emulate the feat of many others before him, the Englishman had aimed to ascend the summit but that ambition now is clearly in disarray. Assisting him in the climb are two Sherpas, one a young man, the other much older, but with this sudden accident, the Sherpas are in a quandary on how to best respond.

Thus, in a span of barely ten to fifteen minutes and using this particular moment as a central story arc, the novel brilliantly spins in different directions in a vortex of themes and ideas that encompass the mystery of the majestic Mount Everest, its significance in the history of imperialist Britain, the ambition of explorers to ascend its summit, attitudes of foreigners towards the Sherpa community to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and Rome. This is a brilliant, vividly imagined, richly layered novel that gives the reader much to ponder and think about.

TWO THOUSAND MILLION MAN-POWER by Gertrude Trevelyan

Two Thousand Million Man-Power is a brilliant, psychologically astute tale of a marriage with its trials and tribulations, the indignity of unemployment, and the wretchedness of poverty…in a seamless blend of the personal with the global.

The book centres on the relationship and subsequent marriage of Robert Thomas, a scientist at a cosmetics firm, and Katherine Bott, a teacher at a council school; both idealists who believe in progress and prosperity. As they marry, they enjoy a brief period of comfortable suburban living only to be followed by crippling poverty when Robert loses his job. Interwoven with Robert and Katherine’s lives and peppered throughout the novel are snippets of headlines depicting both national and international events; encompassing a period from the early 1920s to a couple of years before the advent of the Second World War; Robert and Katherine’s relationship is placed in a wider context of astonishing technological advancements but also disturbing political developments. 

It’s this placing of the personal against a broader economic and political landscape that makes the novel unique and remarkable.

CHECKOUT 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

Checkout 19, Claire-Louise Bennett’s latest offering, is a difficult book to write about. It’s a dazzling feat of imagination, smart and profound, a book that defies the conventional methods of categorizing. Is it a novel? Is it a compilation of short stories? It can’t be neatly slotted into either of the two, but it most certainly is an unforgettable experience, and the one pulse that throbs throughout its pages is our love for books and literature.

It crackles with a slew of themes – the pleasures of books and how they can change our perception of the world, the creative process and its vision, feminism, and women living life on their terms, the working class existence, suicide, and so on. But the real tour-de-force is Bennett’s prose – a stunning spectacle of language and voice that is utterly singular. With her flair for astute observations and an uncanny ability to look deep into your soul, as a reader, I often asked myself, “How did she just do that?” On a sentence level, the writing often soars to poetic heights, and I was often spellbound by her creativity and originality. Ultimately, this is a wonderful book about books.

THREE SUMMERS by Margerita Liberaki (tr. from Greek by Karen Van Dyck)

Bursting with vibrant imagery of a sun-soaked Greece, Three Summers is a sensual tale that explores the lives and loves of three sisters who are close and yet apart given their different, distinctive personalities.

First published in 1946, the novel’s original Greek title when literally translated means The Straw Hats. Indeed, like the first brushstrokes in a painting, the first image presented to us is of the three sisters wearing their newly bought straw hats – Maria, the eldest, wears a hat adorned with cherries, Infanta has one with forget-me-nots perched on her head, while the youngest and also the book’s narrator – Katerina – has donned a hat with poppies “as red as fire.”

Gradually as the novel unfurls, the varied personas of the three sisters are revealed to us – the sexually bold Maria, the beautiful and distant Infanta, the imaginative and rebellious Katerina, also the narrator of the story.

Three Summers, then, is a lush, vivid coming-of-age story that coasts along at a slow, languid pace…it drenches the reader with a feeling of warmth and nostalgia despite moments of piercing darkness. With its rich evocation of summer and luscious descriptions of nature, the narration, in keeping with Katerina’s personality and penchant for telling stories, has a dreamy, filmic, fairytale-like vibe to it.

STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

I read Station Eleven in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic had just begun and lockdown looked imminent, especially since the premise of the book was eerily familiar to what we were witnessing then. The novel centers around the Georgian Flu disease that sweeps over America, its aftermath, and the events leading to it, all the while focusing on a certain group of characters.

Station Eleven is excellent, but to label it a science fiction novel would in some sense be inaccurate. Yes, the central premise is certainly dystopian – a lethal virus contaminates a world and destroys humanity. But the author is much more interested in the human angle of this development and how people adapt to two different realities rather than describing the minute details of an altered world. It is what makes the novel very rich, immersive, and absorbing.

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A Month of Reading – February 2023

February was another excellent reading month in terms of quality if not quantity; mostly a mix of translated lit (from Germany, Chile & Argentina) and 20^th century women’s literature. I continued to participate in the #NYRBWomen23 reading project, and also made a couple of contributions to #ReadIndies.

So, without further ado, here’s a brief look at the five books…You can read the detailed reviews on each one by clicking on the title links.

GRAND HOTEL by Vicki Baum (tr. from German by Basil Creighton)

Grand Hotel is a resounding triumph, in which by focusing the spotlight on five core characters from varied walks of life brought together by fate, Baum dwells on their internal dramas as well as their interactions; these are tragic, haunting characters grappling with their inner demons and insecurities while also wrestling with some of the bigger existential questions. The novel sizzles with a vivid sense of place (1920s Berlin) and the language is wonderfully tonal and visual. Also, Baum has a striking way with words that captures the essence of her characters in a few sentences. I read this for #NYRBWomen23 and it was great.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE by Nona Fernández (tr. from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer)

Using the motif of the 1950s popular science fiction/fantasy show The Twilight Zone, Fernández delves into the unimaginable spaces of horror, violence and murkiness of the cruel Pinochet regime where beatings, torture and unexplained disappearances disturbingly became a part of the fabric of everyday life.

In March 1984, Andres Morales, a government security services agent, labeled by our narrator as “the man who tortured people” walks into the offices of the “Cauce” magazine and offers his testimony in exchange for safe passage outside the country. After years of imposing torture tactics on Pinochet’s detractors – members of the Communist party, resistance movements, and left-leaning individuals -something inside Morales snaps (“That night I started to dream of rats. Of dark rooms and rats”). Possibly aghast at the monstrosity of the crimes committed, Morales wishes to confess and in the process hopes to be absolved of those horrific acts.

Much of the book highlights crucial moral questions at play, and the fate of the man who tortured people is central to it – Should he be absolved of his crimes because he had a change of heart and now wants to do right? It’s a powerful, unforgettable book about loss, repression and rebellion where the premise of the TV show is used to brilliant effect – an exploration of that dark dimension where strangeness and terror rule the roost, and is often unfathomable.

TWO THOUSAND MILLION MAN-POWER by Gertrude Trevelyan

Two Thousand Million Man-Power is a brilliant, psychologically astute tale of a marriage with its trials and tribulations, the indignity of unemployment, the wretchedness of poverty…in a seamless blend of the personal with the global.

The book centres on the relationship and subsequent marriage of Robert Thomas, a scientist at a cosmetics firm and Katherine Bott, a teacher at a council school; both idealists who believe in progress and prosperity. As they marry, they enjoy a brief period of comfortable suburban living only to be followed by crippling poverty when Robert loses his job. Interwoven with Robert and Katherine’s lives and peppered throughout the novel are snippets of headlines depicting both national and international events; encompassing a period from the early 1920s to a couple of years before the advent of the Second World War; Robert and Katherine’s relationship is placed in a wider context of astonishing technological advancements but also disturbing political developments. 

It’s this placing of the personal against a broader economic and political landscape that makes the novel unique and remarkable.

TWO SHERPAS by Sebastián Martínez Daniell (tr. from Spanish by Jennifer Croft)

In the beginning, two Sherpas peer over the edge of a precipice staring at the depths below where a British climber lies sprawled among the rocks. Almost near the top of Mount Everest, the silence around them is intense, punctuated by the noise of the gushing wind (“If the deafening noise of the wind raveling over the ridges of the Himalayas can be considered silence”). Wishing to emulate the feat of many others before him, the Englishman had aimed to ascend the summit but that ambition now is clearly in disarray. Assisting him in the climb are two Sherpas, one a young man, the other much older, but with this sudden accident, the Sherpas are in a quandary on how to best respond.

Thus, in a span of barely ten to fifteen minutes and using this particular moment as a central story arc, the novel brilliantly spins in different directions in a vortex of themes and ideas that encompass the mystery of the majestic Mount Everest, its significance in the history of imperialist Britain, the ambition of explorers to ascend its summit, attitudes of foreigners towards the Sherpa community to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and Rome. This is a brilliant, vividly imagined, richly layered novel that gives the reader much to ponder and think about.

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN by Dorothy Baker

Young Man with a Horn has been inspired by the “music of Bix Beiderbecke”, an influential jazz soloist and composer in the 1920s, although the life and music trajectory of its protagonist Rick Martin has not been modeled on Bix’s life. The prologue at the start of the novel gives the reader a fair idea of Rick Martin’s short but dramatic career as a jazz musician – his gradual ascent in the world of music to become the golden boy of jazz only to culminate in a string of disappointments, heavy drinking and death.

Rick is an orphan but from the very beginning he displays talent and flair for music, although with not much opportunity to harness that passion largely because of his circumstances. Once employed at Gandy’s Pool Hall, he meets Smoke Jordan, a black aspiring drummer and a tentative employee and the two immediately slide into an easy friendship fuelled by their passion for jazz. At its very core, Young Man with a Horn is an exploration of music, male friendship, ambition, obsession and transcending racial boundaries. Some of the racial terms used in the book might be hard to digest for modern readers (I did find quite a few of them jarring), but I was reluctant to judge Baker by today’s sensibilities given that the book was published in 1938. The novel is not always perfect, but Baker’s rendering of the jazz world – practice sessions, recordings, the kinship between musicians – and her beautiful portrayal of male friendship alone make it well worth reading. This was the second book I read for #NYRBWomen23.

That’s it for February. In March so far, I’ve read Death at La Fenice, the first of Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series set in Venice followed by Dorothy B. Hughes’ In A Lonely Place and Barbara Pym’s Crampton Hodnet – all three were excellent. I’m also reading The Springs of Affection by Maeve Brennan and All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg, so it’s shaping up to be another terrific month.

Two Sherpas – Sebastián Martínez Daniell (tr. Jennifer Croft)

I’ve read some excellent Charco Press titles in the past; Carla Maliandi’s The German Room, Margarita Garcia Robayo’s Fish Soup and recently Claudia Piñeiro’s Elena Knows are ones that particularly come to mind. Sebastián Martínez Daniell from Argentina is a new author to join the Charco stable, and his book Two Sherpas, translated by Jennifer Croft, is among the first titles from Charco’s 2023 catalogue. My verdict – I thought it was excellent.

In the beginning, two Sherpas peer over the edge of a precipice staring at the depths below where a British climber lies sprawled among the rocks. Almost near the top of Mount Everest, the silence around them is intense, punctuated by the noise of the gushing wind (“If the deafening noise of the wind raveling over the ridges of the Himalayas can be considered silence”). Wishing to emulate the feat of many others before him, the Englishman had aimed to ascend the summit but that ambition now is clearly in disarray. Assisting him in the climb are two Sherpas, one a young man, the other much older, but with this sudden accident, the Sherpas are in a quandary on how to best respond.

Thus, in a span of barely ten to fifteen minutes and using this particular moment as a central story arc, the novel brilliantly spins in different directions in a vortex of themes and ideas that encompass the mystery of the majestic Mount Everest, its significance in the history of imperialist Britain, the ambition of explorers to ascend its summit, attitudes of foreigners towards the Sherpa community to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and Rome.

Interwoven with these swirling eddies of facts and snippets of information is a character study of the two Sherpas – an examination of those immediate seconds before the Englishman’s fall to dramatic forays into their pasts giving the reader a glimpse of their thoughts and their worldviews.  

Referred to as the young Sherpa and the old Sherpa throughout the text, we are also privy to their opinions of each other. While their vocation is the common factor that binds them, it becomes apparent that the two Sherpas barely know each other and don’t necessarily share their inner thoughts and feelings.

The fact that there’s not much trust between the two is revealed in the unfurling of those moments before the British climber’s fall, an accident that none of the two Sherpas witness. We are told that the old Sherpa led the way, the British climber was in the middle and the young Sherpa brought up the rear. Approaching a bend in the mountain and looking ahead, the young Sherpa sees his older colleague and the Englishman disappear. The young Sherpa has those brief seconds all to himself until he comes around the bend and sees his compatriot leaning over and staring into the abyss. With no knowledge of the real chain of events, the young Sherpa is left to wonder whether it was a genuine accident or a deliberate push by his partner.

With this locus of the immediate present, the novel reaches dizzying heights with its detours and digressions into a range of topics that cover history, topography, drama, Impressionism (“If the two Sherpas were Impressionist painters, the older man would be Renoir, and the younger Monet”)and so on. In terms of structure, the book comprises 100 chapters in the form of vignettes and snapshots that either displays a number or a title.  As far as length goes, most chapters are either a single paragraph or a couple of pages long, while a few run into 4-5 pages when they are delving into the protagonists’ pasts.

A TALE OF TWO SHERPAS

At its very core, the book dwells on the personalities of the two Sherpas. The young Sherpa is tormented by academic uncertainty, first contemplating a career in naval engineering, maybe even law only to subsequently veer towards thoughts of a diplomatic career. He is hesitant about discussing these options with the old Sherpa fearing the latter’s likely cynicism or even patronizing advice.  The other thought that occupies the young Sherpa’s mind is his impending role as Flavius in the Shakespearean play Julius Caesar to be dramatized by his school. His role is not necessarily significant but his lines open the play, a fact that petrifies him.

Memorising the lines of two or even three different characters is no small feat for a teenager with rudimentary training in acting. But the young Sherpa has been shown some mercy here. Being the newest student in the workshop and the only one who has to face making his stage debut, he has had the good fortune to land a very simple role: Flavius, a less-than-supporting character who appears in just one scene. There is, however, a catch. That exclusive intervention occurs at the opening of the first scene of the first act. The moment the curtain is drawn and, in the dark, the audience falls into the most ominous of silences.

This role of Flavius forms a pretext that allows the novel to devote a few chapters to ancient Rome and the dialogues between Flavius and the common people; the former criticizing the latter for celebrating Julius Caesar’s victory following Pompey’s defeat (“Home, you idle creatures, get you home!”); a section that is probably a reflection on the theme of empire and servitude and also mirrors some of the feelings of the Sherpas themselves towards their unfortunate client and foreigners in general.

“And so we have an outline of our Flavius already: elitist, demanding, authoritarian. Why? Where did he get such a feeling of impunity? Who does he think he is to talk to the plebeians that way? How dare he expel these citizens from the very streets of Rome?”

Meanwhile, the old Sherpa has his baggage to deal with. While the young Sherpa is a symbol of youth, optimism and aspiration, his older compatriot is world-weary, cynical and maybe even a tad defeated. While his younger peer has scaled the summit twice, the old Sherpa has yet to achieve that feat even once. That his latest expedition has also come to naught only fuels his contempt for the fallen Englishman. What’s more, the old Sherpa wasn’t born a Sherpa; he elects to be one much later. And that thought keeps nagging him. Why did he choose the mountains? Why not the prairies, the tropics, or even the sea? It seems that subconsciously his heightened desire to get away from the sea has formed the basis for the path he has chosen. This is explored through his strange experience as a youth on a beach resort on an unnamed island; he encounters a young woman called Rabbit, a cashier at the resort’s supermarket, whose persistent crying buries deep into his brain, its sound and his inability to help keep tormenting him through his nights.

THEMES AND IDEAS – SCALING NEW HEIGHTS

In its many asides and excursions, the novel first explores the mystique of Mount Everest. The allure of its conquest reigns supreme till the time it is first scaled by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, only to see that aura gradually fade when a slew of climbers subsequently go on to scale its summit.

The themes of colonialism and empire make their way to the mountains too. Snippets of history give a flavour of Britain’s persistence in turning Mount Everest into a symbol of its superiority and its imperialist leanings. Two Sherpas also touches upon the themes of servitude and exploitation, particularly in the doleful manner the Sherpa community is treated. The old Sherpa gives us a first taste of this when he laments at how the Sherpas are labeled porters rather than equals on foreign shores. There’s also a sense of the Sherpa community being taken for granted by climbers, explorers and their governments. Non-Sherpas ascending the summits are feted for their achievements and heavily lauded, but the Sherpas go unnoticed on the fallacy that since mountaineering is ingrained in their psyche, scaling the summits is a matter of course for them and not a feat.

On the one hand, a reproduction of Turner, the Tibetan songs, the polished parquet of a spacious apartment in Amsterdam, or Zurich. Almost all of what’s wrong with this world. ‘Porters’, they call us when they’re there, these people. What people? These people: the people who visit the mountain. These people: self-indulgent visitors, thinks the old Sherpa. Those who see themselves as ‘mountaineers’, or ‘climbers’. A few, aware of their limitations, add a direct modifier, something adjectival, that limits their scope: ‘amateur mountaineer’, for example. Or ‘fledgling mountaineer’. But for the Sherpas, anyone who comes to the mountain with the intention of ascending is a visitor, plain and simple, an undesirable. A tourist. That much can be taken for granted. We are Sherpas; they are tourists.

In the immediate present, the attitude of the two Sherpas towards the fallen Englishman gives an inkling of their views. The young Sherpa is largely indifferent to the plight of his client, who is probably dead. Maybe so many climbers had perished earlier on the mountains that this Englishman is also now relegated to the ignominy of another statistic. And yet, a part of him feels that maybe his response is not correct, some empathy is required although it does not come easy. The old Sherpa seems contemptuous of the Englishman’s sorry fate, even derisive, inwardly commenting on the absurdity of flitting expressions on his client’s face in those split seconds before his fall.

But foreigners are not the only ones to treat the Sherpas unfairly; they are also prey to the Nepalese government which is lured by the money to be made from commercial tourism. A deadly avalanche in the mountains that kills sixteen Sherpas hardly elicits much empathy or thoughtful response from the cultural ministry.

The quest to reach the top of Mount Everest is also a meditation on ambition and exploration.  What is it about the Himalayas that draws so many aspiring climbers and mountaineers? Why does the need to reach the summit run so deep? What drives people to achieve this feat despite the dangers involved? Is it a personal milestone or a yearning for wider fame and acclaim?

LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION – A DUAL FEAT OF IMAGINATION

What’s remarkable about Two Sherpas is the language and Daniell’s descriptive powers; a linguistic feat that fuels an explosion of vocabulary that can sometimes confound but is mostly dazzling. The prose is detailed and carefully articulated in the way each idea, theme, or thought is presented; often giving the impression of looking through a magnifying glass to gaze at every facet of the story and the interiority of its characters. While Daniell’s writing is truly unique and original, credit must also go to Jennifer Croft’s brilliant translation of a prose style that is sumptuous and intricate but must have been a challenge to translate.

In a nutshell, Two Sherpas is a brilliant, vividly imagined, richly layered novel that gives the reader much to ponder and think about. Highly recommended!

The Twilight Zone – Nona Fernández (tr. Natasha Wimmer)

I thoroughly enjoyed Nona Fernández’ Space Invaders, a book I read last year, but to me, The Twilight Zone, published by Daunt Books, is even better. This review is my contribution to February’s #ReadIndies hosted by Karen and Lizzy.

One of the striking aspects of Nona Fernández’s novels is how pop cultural references (video games and TV shows) form a unique kernel from which springs tales of the horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship; haunting narratives of the mundane uncomfortably coexisting with pure evil. We saw this in her novella Space Invaders with a similar motif employed in The Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone takes its name from the popular TV show of the same name – an American anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling which ran from the late 1950s to the early 1960s and began with the following words…

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.”

Each episode focused on characters grappling with disturbing or unusual events; the show was a blend of science-fiction, fantasy and horror where the phrase “twilight zone” became a metaphor for strange and surreal experiences.

Using this motif and exploring “this dimension beyond that which is known to man”, Fernández delves into these unimaginable spaces of horror, violence and murkiness of the cruel Pinochet regime where beatings, torture and unexplained disappearances disturbingly became a part of the fabric of everyday life.

In March 1984, Andres Morales, a government security services agent, labeled by our narrator as “the man who tortured people” walks into the offices of the “Cauce” magazine and offers his testimony in exchange for safe passage outside the country. After years of imposing torture tactics on Pinochet’s detractors – members of the Communist party, resistance movements, and left-leaning individuals -something inside Morales snaps (“That night I started to dream of rats. Of dark rooms and rats”). Possibly aghast at the monstrosity of the crimes committed, Morales wishes to confess and in the process hopes to be absolved of those horrific acts.

When he first appears on the cover of the “Cauce” magazine, our narrator recalls being in her early teens with no knowledge whatsoever of the people captured and tortured, but the face of Morales stays impinged on her mind.

He didn’t seem like a monster or an evil giant, or some psychopath you had to run away from. He didn’t even look like the national police in boots, helmet, and shield who charged at us with batons during street protests. The man who tortured people could have been anybody. Even our teacher.

Years later, our narrator is working on the script of a documentary for her friends. This documentary is about the Vicariate of Solidarity, an agency of the Catholic Church “created in the midst of the dictatorship to assist victims.”

The film was a record of counter-intelligence work, carried out mostly by the agency’s lawyers and social workers. From testimonies and material collected for each case of forcible disappearance, detention, abduction, torture, and any other abuses they handled, they were able to put together a kind of panorama of repression. By obsessively studying this landscape, the Vicariate team tried to expose the sinister logic at work in the hope of getting a step ahead of the agents and saving lives.

As she sifts through interviews, recordings and other material to draft a coherent script, she once again comes face to face with the man who tortured people, this time on a videotape. As Morales begins to dole out specific information about the people who mysteriously disappeared, a grim landscape of torture and death emerges where the essential details of capture and torture remain the same, but the potency of fear and suspense evoked by these narratives never diminishes.

We first learn about José Weibel and the chain of events on the day he is mercilessly abducted by the man who tortured people. It’s an ordinary day like any other, a busy morning of routine that involves breakfast, getting the kids ready for school and stepping out for work. As the family travels on the bus that will take them to their respective destinations, suddenly and without warning this scene of routine and domestic idyll is transformed into a frightening spectacle of chaos and dread as Weibel is forcibly spirited away.

I wonder whether José took a mental snapshot of his family in that instant. I wonder whether he managed to catch a last glimpse of his wife and children from the car, freezing the protective image. My runaway sentimental imagination wants to believe that he did, and that the image helped him keep terror at bay in the grey realm where he was condemned to spend the last days of his life.

Weibel is not the only victim of this gruesome government machinery. There’s Contreras Maluje who throws himself under a bus because to him death is preferable to torture. He fails though and meets the same horrific fate as Weibel. We read about the Flores brothers – Boris, Lincoyán and Carol – a heartbreaking case where in exchange for the freedom of his brothers, Carol is forced to make a pact with the devil, he has now become a collaborator with the very set of people who were torturing him.

Over the course of the novel, as a series of names along with their stories are revealed, these narratives accumulate to give a wider framework of the atrocities of the regime and the all-pervading sense of distress and extreme anxiety that ordinary people had to grapple with in their daily lives (“Hearing the occasional gunshot wasn’t strange anymore, it was part of the new sounds, the new habits, part of the daily routine that established itself emphatically with no one daring to protest”); where frequent parallels are made between the secret workings of Pinochet’s regime and The Twilight Zone – that dark, murky, nebulous other world of horror and terror that is beyond the imagination of the ordinary man.

Enmeshed in these accounts and retellings, is the narrator’s personal storyline as she dwells on events across a time span that encompasses more than two decades, from her childhood years to her life now with her teenage son, her work, and the people in her orbit. When she goes back to the days of her youth, we are given a snapshot of Estrella Gonzalez, that mysterious girl, who formed such a haunting presence in Space Invaders. We once again hear about her letters with Maldonado, her Uncle Claudio and the red Chevy he drove, Estrella’s father who wore prosthetic hands after losing his hands in an accident, and Estrella’s sudden disappearance from school. We also learn that this particular aspect of our narrator’s history is just another jigsaw piece that when assembled with the other pieces offers a broader picture of the country’s shadowy past.

Providing a window to a particularly dark period in Chilean history, the core themes that reverberate throughout The Twilight Zone are – the legacy of violence, unspeakable crimes, torture and brutal repression. It’s an indictment of the distortion of reality and manufacture of lies, it’s about the quest to uncover the truth, to document history and prevent its erasure so that it serves as a reminder of a nation’s grim past as well as a warning of the dangers of regressing. But it is also among other things, a book about resistance and rebellion against a dictatorship that denies citizens their rights. It examines the complexity of human nature driven to extremes – the hunger to survive, the desire to rebel, and the need to absolve oneself of guilt. We see a couple of role reversals – the oppressed becoming the oppressor and vice versa (Carol Flores under extreme pressure is compelled to move to the darker side; Morales, unable to withstand the heavy burden of his acts and desperate for some modicum of salvation, is driven to turn against the enemy). The Twilight Zone is also about loss and the difficulty in coming to terms with it – the threat of losing your loved ones always a hair’s breadth away, the pursuit of answers as intense as the need to find closure.

Much of the book highlights crucial moral questions at play, and the fate of the man who tortured people is central to it – Should he be absolved of his crimes because he had a change of heart and now wants to do right? Could he have chosen not to be an agent of the government? Is an admission of guilt enough to compensate for countless lives lost? Perhaps the central question that the book addresses is this – Can you resist an oppressive regime?  And what are the consequences if you go down that path?

In terms of structure, The Twilight Zone is a brilliant, riveting assortment of various facets and vantage points – the testimony of the man who tortured people, accounts of those who interviewed him and charted his escape from Chile, a reflection on the country’s bloodied history often intertwined with cultural references of the time (space invaders, Billy Joel, Yuri Gagarin, etc) and the narrator’s imagination which forms a bulk of the narrative. The writing style has a reportage feel to it, but what elevates the book to the next level is the narrator’s vivid feats of imagination and her empathy as she tries to ascribe a human touch to these incidents which in their sameness are in the danger of being obliterated from memory.

I believe that evil is directly proportional to idiocy. I believe that the territory you roamed in anguish before you disappeared is ruled by idiots. It isn’t true that criminals are masterminds. It takes a vast amount of stupidity to assemble the parts of such grotesque, absurd, and cruel machinery. Pure brutality disguised as a master plan. Small people, with small minds, who don’t understand the abyss of the other. They lack the language or tools for it. Empathy and compassion require a clear mind. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, changing your skin, adopting a new face: these are all acts of genuine intelligence.

She attempts to understand what went on in the minds of these people in the moments before their capture, how they were violently pulled away from the comfort zone of routine and family life into an unthinkable dark void (“that ultimate portal of evil and stupidity”) in the split of a second. Because of this unique approach, these individuals and their stories come alive on the pages, they feel real rather than just another set of statistical casualties buried and forgotten.

Fernández’s incantatory, hypnotic writing style is a prominent feature in both Space Invaders and The Twilight Zone but takes on different avatars in each.  In Space Invaders, the hallucinatory prose is driven by a fragmentary montage of dreams, visions and memories. The prose in The Twilight Zone, in contrast, feels more like a documentary but it derives its power from increased emphasis and deliberate repetition. As our narrator focuses on recounting the stories of many of the victims, the reader is struck by how despite the sameness of the brutality involved (violent capture, torture and murder), the panic, tension and anxiety remain fresh and palpable each time.

In a nutshell, The Twilight Zone is a powerful, unforgettable book about loss, repression and rebellion where the premise of the TV show is used to brilliant effect – an exploration of that dark dimension where strangeness and terror rule the roost, and is often unfathomable.

This door we unlock with the key of the imagination. Behind it we find another dimension. Ladies and gentlemen, you’re about to enter a secret world of dreams and ideas. You’re about to enter the twilight zone.

Highly recommended!

A Month of Reading – January 2023

Well, 2023 has begun on a fabulous note, I read some stellar books this month; a mix of translated lit (from Iceland, Japan & Mexico), a collection of short stories, a contemporary novella, and a surreal feminist tale. I also enjoyed contributing to various reading challenges and readalongs, notably #NYRBWomen23, #JanuaryInJapan & #Japaneselitchallenge16, #NordicFINDS23 and A Year With William Trevor.

So, without further ado, here’s a brief look at the six books…You can read the detailed reviews on each one by clicking on the title links.

THE ENGLISH UNDERSTAND WOOL by Helen DeWitt

In The English Understand Wool, our protagonist is Marguerite; a 17-year old young woman raised in Marrakech, her mother (Maman) has French roots, while the father is English. The phrase “mauvais ton” (loosely translated as ‘bad taste’) features regularly in Maman’s parlance who has strong opinions on the subject. Maman comes across as a conceited woman with superior standards, and she leaves no stone unturned in ensuring that the daughter becomes a connoisseur herself; a way of fine living that Marguerite perfects to the tee because she has known no other. And then quite out of the blue, a crucial piece of information is revealed carrying massive weight that throws a different light on Marguerite’s current circumstances. 

The English Understand Wool, then, is a wonderfully rendered tale brimming with all the hallmarks of DeWitt’s acerbic, deadpan prose. Right from the very beginning, her sardonic wit is on display whether she is commenting on the ludicrousness of Maman’s exacting ideals or poking fun at the way the publishing industry operates. It’s a very cleverly told tale of dubious morals where appearances can be deceptive; a highly original story that has only fuelled my appetite for more of Helen DeWitt’s work.

THE HEARING TRUMPET by Leonora Carrington

If you thought a story centred on a 92-year old protagonist was bound to be dull and depressing, think again. Leonora’s Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet is a delicious romp, a stunning feat of the imagination and an iconoclastic book if you will that refuses to be pigeonholed into convenient definitions and genres; and in Marian Leatherby, the nonagenarian in this superbly off-kilter tale, Carrington has created an unconventional heroine who is charming, feisty and memorable.

The book begins in a quiet, residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of an unnamed Mexican city where Marian Leatherby, our narrator, resides with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel and their 25-year old unmarried son Robert. Marian is not welcome in the house and with the aid of a hearing trumpet gifted to her by her charming loquacious friend Carmella, Marian’s learns of her family’s plot to park her in an old age home.

The old-age home is unlike anything she had imagined, and Marian soon begins to settle in, gets introduced to her fellow residents, finds herself entangled in various adventures and is caught up in the fascinating life of an abbess. The Hearing Trumpet could be considered an extension of Carrington’s identity as Surrealist artist; the novel is a unique montage of styles and genres that resist the laws of conventional narration to brilliant effect. Just superb!

AFTER RAIN by William Trevor

Tender and exquisite, After Rain is a finely chiseled collection of twelve stories that is truly a joy to savour.  The first, ‘The Piano Tuner’s Wives’, is an achingly poignant, richly layered and sensitively written story about the passage of time on two marriages – two women married to the same man at different points in his life and the bitterness that engulfs the second wife who is unable to emerge from the shadow of the first; while ‘A Friendship’ is a fine, beautifully rendered tale of female friendship, marriage and an extra marital affair that threatens to ruin both. ‘Child’s Play’ is a subtle story of the breakdown of a marriage and its repercussions seen through the eyes of the children involved; the titular story ‘After Rain’ is a beautiful, melancholic tale of lost love and finding the strength to heal and carry on. 

Trevor focuses his unflinching lens on parents and children, friends and lovers, widows, husbands and wives as much as he does on petty thieves and confidence tricksters capturing their innermost turmoil beautifully.

SALKA VALKA by Haldór Laxness (tr. from Icelandic by Philip Roughton)

Salka Valka is a wondrous, 552-paged, ambitious novel; an immersive, brilliant, often harrowing tale of a beleaguered fishing community and the indomitable spirit of a woman who prides on her independence and strives to improve their lot.

In the opening pages of Salka Valka, a coastal steamer stops at the port of a small, remote fishing village called Oseyri. Nobody can envisage a life here, but on that cold, bleak winter’s night two figures emerge from the steamer – a woman called Sigurlina and her 11-year old daughter Salvor (Salka Valka). Sigurlina and Salka Valka have made this journey from the North, certain circumstances having driven them away, and while Reykjavik seems to be their final destination, Sigurlina, reduced to a state of penury, cannot afford the cost of the trip further. Oseyri, then, becomes her destination for the time being, she hopes to find a job that will help her make enough money to embark on the journey south. However, fate as we shall see has other plans…

Salka Valka is divided into four sections, each section comprising two parts – the first section focuses on Salka’s time in Oseyri as a teenager, and the second section fast forwards to several years when she is a young woman, independent with her own house and a share in a fishing boat. One of the core themes that the novel addresses is the ugly side of abject poverty and the struggles of the working class, and the second half particularly becomes more political as the debate between capitalism and Bolshevism reaches fever pitch. Epic in scope and ahead of its times, Salka Valka, then, is a simmering cauldron of various delectable ingredients – a coming-of-age tale, a statement on world politics, a strange beguiling love story, and an unforgettable female lead.

THE WAITING YEARS by Fumiko Enchi (tr. from Japanese by John Bester)

Set at the beginning of the Meiji era, The Waiting Years is a beautifully written, poignant tale of womanhood and forced subservience; a nuanced portrayal of a dysfunctional family dictated by the whims of a wayward man.

Tomo, our protagonist, is married to Yukitomo Shirakawa, a publicly respected man holding a position very high up in the government ranks. In the very first chapter, she is sent to Tokyo to find a respectable young girl who will become her husband’s mistress, a terrible and heartbreaking task she is compelled to carry out. As far as themes go, The Waiting Years, then, is an acutely observed portrait of a marriage and a dysfunctional family, the heartrending sense of entrapment felt by its women who don’t have much agency, which is probably representative of Japanese society at that time. Enchi beautifully captures the internal turmoil that rages not just within Tomo but also within Suga, Yukitomo’s mistress. The subject matter might be bleak, but it’s a powerful book with unforgettable characters whose fates will forever be impinged on my mind. 

PEDRO PÁRAMO by Juan Rulfo (tr. from Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden)

Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo is a hypnotic, fever dream of a novel of death, ghosts, visions, violence, and vengeance. In the opening pages, Juan Preciado makes a promise to his dying mother that he will make the journey to Comala to visit his father, Pedro Páramo, a man he has never met before. Complying with her dying wish (“Make him pay, Son, for all those years he put us out of his mind”), Preciado sets off for Comala (“you can see Comala, turning the earth white, and lighting it at night”); a town that both he and the reader soon realise is haunted by the dead.

Pedro Páramo is a novella about dashed hopes, twisted love and boundless tragedy, the fates of its characters inextricably linked to the senseless actions of a mercurial, brutal man. There’s a trancelike, hallucinatory quality to the storytelling that flits between past and present; it’s a book suffused with rich imagery that lends it much power.

That’s it for January. I have begun my February reading with Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel for #NYRBWomen23 as well as Nona Fernández’s The Twilight Zone for #ReadIndies and they have been terrific so far.