A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Reading The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra Against Vonnegut’s Bluebeard

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I want to write about this gorgeous little book I read and how it made me ponder questions like ,”What if your entire life could be gathered into one work of art?” I want to consider how memoirists rarely stop at one book, poets and fiction writers scatter bits of themselves throughout their entire oeuvre, and visual artists capture one image or scene at a time. I want to think about how literary critics and art historians piece the clues together, but the story of an artist’s life is rarely whole. But as I was reading In The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by , all I could think about was Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut.

Two very different books that both revolve around a single painting. In The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra, that painting is a four-kilometer artwork painted over the course of Salvatierra’s lifetime which has been kept in a shed. In Bluebeard, that painting is a secret work that is kept hidden in a barn until the very end. Both painters, Juan Salvatierra and Rabo Karabekian, are outsider artists (although Karabekian is a museum guard and is in constant contact with the New York art scene). And while Salvatierra has casually tried to exhibit his work, Karabekian keeps his completely secret.

The Legacy of Bluebeard

So what was it that made these two books meld in my mind? For one, Bluebeard is one of those books that has stuck with me strongly in the decade since I read it. Not all parts of the book, in fact I’m sure to get a fact or two about the book wrong here, but the reveal of the painting. I think because I read the book when I was realizing that visual art was never going to be my forte and I was rediscovering how much I love writing. And then there’s the strength of the reveal. If you haven’t read the book yet, stop reading here and skip ahead to the next section.

Karabekian’s barn contains a large scale canvas that portrays what he saw on the day that World War II ended. The way Vonnegut unfurls that information, the perfect mix of visual information and letting my imagination fill it in. For years after I read the book, I’d scan gallery exhibits and find paintings that I thought were like Karabekian’s work. I was obsessed. Eventually I relegated the book to the annals of my brain, but something about the opening page of The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra where Salvatierra’s son, Miguel, is sitting in an exhibit in Europe watching a replica of his father’s painting slowly pass by brought the memories back.

The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra

None of that is to say that this book cannot stand on its own. If I had never read Bluebeard, I would have loved the opening of this book. I would have loved the spacious way that Mairal allows the reader to transition from chapter to chapter. Each chapter is so short and yet so complete as you follow the story of Miguel’s search for the one missing canvas that represents one year in his father’s life.

Mairal beautifully balances exposition about Juan Salvatierra’s life (he became mute as a child and this painting became one of the primary ways he expressed himself), the visual details of the painting, and Miguel’s search. Although I was relatively certain from the beginning that all the rolls of canvas would eventually be reunited, and I was not surprised at why that canvas had gone missing, I was so immersed in the family’s story that I couldn’t put the book down.

Some novellas achieve that perfect amount of engagement and openness that allow them to feel bigger and more complete than the longest saga. The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra is one of those novellas. It is the story of the search for the one roll of canvas that’s missing after Salvatierra’s death. It’s the story of two sons unfurling and understanding their father’s life and lifework. And it’s the story of how everything we do in our lives really does add up to one whole. I hope you’ll love it as much as I did.

I have no way of knowing if Mairal ever read Bluebeard and it’s possible that the connection exists only in my mind, but when I say that The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra brought me back in mind to Bluebeard time and time again, I mean it as the highest compliment.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Lost in The End of the Story by Liliana Heker

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the end of the story - liliana hekerSome books are so important that if you care at all about understanding the history of a place, you have to read them. The End of the Story by Liliana Heker is one of those books. And although the book is gorgeously written, it is not an easy read. If you’re interested in Latin America or stories of how people rise up against tyranny, read it anyway–it’s worth it.

Revealing History

I asked for a review copy of this book because it’s about a time in Argentinian history that I desperately want to know more about–the Dirty War. When I visited the country in the mid 1980’s, their political turmoil had settled down compared to Chile’s. But I’ve always felt that by understanding what happened in Argentina, I would understand more of what was happening in Chile while I was there and who I was because of it. Still, my investigations have been limited to watching movies like La Historia Oficial which is about a woman who starts to wonder what really happened to the parents of her adoptive daughter.

Heker doesn’t flinch as she tells the story of Leonora’s abduction in Buenos Aires and what it was like for Leonora as one of the desaparecidos–locked in a dungeon and tortured. What makes the book even more interesting is the narration of Diana Glass, a writer and friend of Leonora’s who clearly idolizes her.

Telling it Slant

“Diana feels she has reached something, the end of the beginning, she thinks, a moment of supreme hope or supreme beauty from which all paths radiate to change the world.” – Liliana Heker

But Leonora is a human, not necessarily a heroine. I’m going to reveal a few spoilers here, so skip to the next section if you don’t want to know. I loved how Heker took all of Leonora’s ideals and intellectual curiosity and used them to turn her character 180 degrees from where we expect her to be.

Although there are plenty of clues that she will become the lover of one of her torturers, it still hits you in the gut. But it also seems natural. Some have written that she does so to save her daughter, but I think that’s a cop out. I strongly believe that Leonora used her grand IQ to find empathy for the enemy. And as the book unfolded, I couldn’t blame her for it. As much as I disliked her decision, the writing is good enough to make the decision seem weighty and wrought as opposed to flighty and self-serving.

That said, many could blame her for it and there was apparently much discussion when this book came out in Argentina because people felt it betrayed the revolutionary spirit. Read an essay by the translator, Andrea G. Labinger, for more insight on that. As much as I loved Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows, Leonora is no Irene Beltrán and I liked The End of the Story better for her complexity.

Framing a Story

“‘The story I wanted to tell ends, it always ended, in that first chapter. Because the awaited woman will never fight, never wanted to fight, the same revolution as the one who awaited her hoped for.'” – Liliana Heker

Heker accomplishes a stunning feat of framing this story as though it begins and ends in the same place. She plays with Diana’s nearsightedness in a way that could be a cloying metaphor and yet isn’t. The writing is beautiful and subtle. There is a depth in the way the stories of Diana and Leonora converge that I haven’t quite processed yet, but it did make me turn from the last page back to the first and start reading again.

Lost in Time

“The late October afternoon when Diana ran into Professor Ordaz, the word disappeared had not just become limited in scope.” – Liliana Heker

But I didn’t start reading over again just because I loved the book. I also started reading the book over again because I’d spent a majority of the book trying to parse out where exactly I was in time. As Heker’s scenes drifted between 1971 and 1976, I kept wishing I knew more details of the history because I was honestly lost. I tried writing the year in the margins but kept finding myself lost. There were some markers–like budding trees–that should have made finding my place in time easier, but because the seasons in South America are reversed from those in North America, I only found myself more confused by the mention of October.

When I eventually gave up trying to understand when what was happening, I liked the book better for it. Because the ethical and moral complexities are rich enough on their own. I didn’t need things that felt like “facts” because they were only a distraction from the deep exploration of human behavior under stress. And really, in the best of ways, there is nothing simple about this book.

If you can surrender to being lost in time (or if you’re a more meticulous reader than I), you must read this book. It will challenge what you think you know about yourself and your politics and you will be richer for it. I know I am.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The End of the Story from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Uprooted by Mauricio Segura’s Eucalyptus

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Imagine a woman, born in the US but who lived for a formative year in Pinochet’s Chile, reading a book by an author born in Chile and living in Canada. The book, originally written in French, is about a Chilean-Canadian man who has returned to his native country to bury his father. Perhaps this international hopscotch begins to describe the magic I felt when opening Eucalyptus by . I’m so far inside it, I can’t even tell. Let me share with you what I loved about this beautiful book.

Literary Language

Segura captured me with the first sentence of the first paragraph: “On the horizon, pools of water vaporized as he advanced.” Writers and writing teachers make a lot of (deserved) fuss about first sentences–so much so that it can be paralyzing for a writer to try and come up with something original but not forced, interesting but not obscure. With this sentence I had no idea what country the characters were in, who they were, or what they were doing except advancing. And I was happy to advance with them. It quickly becomes obvious that Alberto is driving and he’s doing so very determinedly.

“He only came to himself when the pickup crossed the old metal bridge over the Bío Bío, where there was a gaggle of children giddy with laughter bobbing along in the river’s treacherous current.” – Mauricio Segura

This is the first mention of geography and it felled me and grounded me. I remembered driving with my own family across that same river one night to see Halley’s Comet. I remembered the children playing in the river. But even if I didn’t have those memories, this simple sentence begins to open for the reader the world that Alberto is re-entering. The children are gleeful despite the danger. Reading further the parents are watching but not very closely. This is not a world where children live on leashes and Alberto will learn some lessons along the way.

My brother, one of the most faithful readers of this blog, will be interested to know that the story takes place in Temuco. It is on the sidewalks of that town that I remember him earning the nickname “Terremoto” which means earthquake. I’ll spare his dignity a little and not commit to the Internet the other story about him in Temuco. Just know, Tosh, that I haven’t forgotten and I’m using my rights as an older sister to tease you about it for life.

“Yes, it is now that the family is breaking up, decomposing like molecules being brought to the boil, and we are scattering to the four corners of the American continent.” – Mauricio Segura

And then there are the images. This is a simple one–much of the language in this book is simple–but it’s deceptive in its plainness. In one sentence we have a family that is rotting, separating, heating up, and dispersing. In a book of only 150 pages, each word has a lot of work to do and Segura (along with translator Donald Winkler) is doing it well.

Parallels

This is a book to read closely. The story of Alberto returning from Canada for his father’s funeral is closely woven into the story of Roberto (Alberto’s father) returning from Canada for his father’s funeral. You read that right. I wondered if Alberto’s son, Marco, would someday also return…

“‘A few weeks later,’ Carmen said, ‘a policeman came to the farm.’

Opening the door, Roberto saw a youth dressed in a khaki shirt and brown pants.” – Mauricio Segura

What’s especially interesting about this relationship between parallel time periods is that there are often no transitions between them. Carmen is telling the story to Alberto after the death of Roberto but the paragraphs of time just slip into each other. It makes the book a little difficult to follow at times but it also causes this gorgeous overlap where all events feel as though they are occurring in the present. It’s a difficult effect (between that and the bouncing bus, I did a fair amount of re-reading) and not one I’d use lightly but Segura pulls it off.

Foreign Roots

I was attracted to this book first because of the title. The smell of eucalyptus trees can still take me back to long walks up Caracol Hill where I picnicked with my family beneath those fragrant trees. That scent is such a strong part of my memory that when visiting San Francisco I make a beeline for Lafayette Park to be surrounded by it.

What surprised me about this book was finding out that eucalyptus trees are indigenous to Australia, not Chile, and were as much imports to that land as I was. I liked thinking about all the degrees of native heritage that the characters enjoyed from the very native Mapuche people to Marco, a child whose father and grandfather had both bounced back and forth across the continent.

Speaking of the continent, did you catch that moment in the second pull quote on this page where Segura wrote of the “American continent”? When I first learned about the continents as a student in Chile, I memorized the names of all six of them. Imagine my surprise and confusion when I came home to the US where I was then taught that there are seven continents. Amazing how a simple denotation on a map can change your worldview.

Rich Storylines

I’ve already discussed parts of Alberto and Roberto’s stories, but there is a lot more background packed into this book including allusions to the troubled political history of Chile, evolving relationships with indigenous peoples, and a volcano. On top of that are some deeply complicated family and neighborhood relationships. But somehow the book is not at all crowded. In fact, at times there was so much going on at an almost subliminal level that Segura left me questioning whether I had any talent as a writer at all because he was weaving those storytelling threads so well. The best books leave us something to aspire to.

If you want to explore a little piece of Chile, pick up a copy of Eucalyptus from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

On Writing and Loneliness with Clarice Lispector

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Clarice Lispector The Hour of the StarI’ve been fussy lately. Nothing I’ve read since Antunes has really pleased me. I spent most of the long weekend making must-do lists and then wandering from room to room to avoid them. I haven’t been out, but I haven’t rested either. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

Then last night I started writing a letter to a beloved friend and writer – someone with whom I am honest about my process – more honest than I am with myself – and who is also constantly seeking her center. And I realized how much I have let the outside world get in the way of my writing. So today I’m going back to the basics and re-reading Clarice Lispector, a writer to whom I can return again and again and always find something new and who also reminds me of how I fell in love with her the first time. In the process, I learned something about the balance of living outside and inside myself.

How I Came to Lispector

“I am forced to seek a truth that transcends me.” – Clarice Lispector

My advisor, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, first introduced me to Lispector. We read snippets of her breathtaking short fictions in class. I remember feeling deliciously lost in those stories that were not what I expected stories to be – in a writer who was at once writing a narrative about a character and writing about writing. She was breaking all the rules and yet here she was introduced to me as a model. Micheline freed me with that recommendation (and so many others, she also introduced me to Antunes).

So although I was surprised this morning to find a recording of Micheline reading Lispector aloud, I wasn’t surprised that it would be an echo of Micheline that would gently lead me back to where I needed to be.

The Hour of the Star

I wasn’t at all particular which book by Lispector I would choose for my hermitage this morning, so it’s interesting that my hand settled on The Hour of the Star, a novella, rather than one of the stories that Micheline read from. I was surprised when I opened the book that I hadn’t marked it up at all the first time I read it. Normally my books are wildly annotated with different colors of ink and my own system of symbols. I think I didn’t appreciate this book the first time I read it.

How could I have missed the allegory of artist and muse? Much of the first part of the book is taken up with the narrator trying to tell us about this innocent creature (Macabea) who has imprisoned his thoughts. The juxtaposition between his overly self-aware state and her blissful ignorance is instructive and compelling. The writing has so much in common with Fernando Pessoa’s insightful fragments that I began to wonder why the Portuguese are calling to me right now in their language that is at once familiar and foreign.

“The question ‘Who am I?’ creates a need. And how does one satisfy that need? To probe oneself is to recognize that one is incomplete.” – Clarice Lispector

The Hour of the Star is a story of beginning to want and how desires make us human. I could identify Macabea’s first forays into wanting something for herself – they were akin to how I felt when I first saw words that described my inner being on the page. And like Macabea, I was willing to identify myself in those others for awhile. The trouble and the wonder began when I started to realize that I could create those words for myself – when the world opened up to me and I had to start making my own choices.

It’s a tiny and yet wild little book. There is none of the restraint I love so much in writers like Ishiguro. But I love this book for its chaos. And it’s as much about letting go of our characters as it is about embracing ourselves. Watching the lonely artist narrator live through solitary Macabea as she grew into a creature with wants and needs, I saw some of my own trials and faults as a writer and a person.

On Loneliness and Writing

“I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work. And then I’m happy.” – Orhan Pamuk

I try not to think about loneliness too much in my daily life. Instead I fill my days with anything that could possibly keep it at bay. But I read Stephen Fry’s essay on loneliness recently and I saw in his restlessness my own. Growing up I learned that if I felt lonely, I was failing to appreciate the wealth of people around me. But I think it’s really the opposite. When I am most lonely is when I am failing to appreciate the wealth inside of me. And the more alone I feel, the more I reach outside of myself hoping that my beloved friends can console me – when really only I can console myself. Like Pamuk, the loneliness actually feeds me as a writer. But only when I let it.

“My strength undoubtedly resides in solitude. I am not afraid of tempestuous storms or violent gales for I am also the night’s darkness.” – Clarice Lispector

So I am learning from Pamuk, Lispector, and Fry to embrace the solitude and to cherish the people who respect it. When I do emerge from my office and my fog, I’m a far more interesting and kind person. After taking that time to invest in myself I have more to offer as an artist and a friend.

The Life of a Working Writer

“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.” – Clarice Lispector

I can’t devote all my time to reading and to writing, I have to work and this, like so many, is a big week. In some ways I resent the time spent away from my passions, but I also know that the framework of constraints (combined with a reliable income) are things that can fuel my work, when I let them. So in a way I feel like I wasted these four days, but I also feel like by allowing myself the space to do nothing I managed to clean my office and my mind and get myself back on the track of writing.

And next weekend, if I have the energy, I will seek out the place where I began as a human and as a writer. I’ll go back to Port Townsend where I was conceived and visit Goddard, the school where I started to accept myself as an artist. I might pop into some student readings, but I know the space where I existed was as much a time and a confluence of people as it was a place. Still, that peninsula holds magic for me. And I might seek out Micheline or I might simply enjoy escaping to the hill and immersing myself in her newest book. I might run into friends new and old, but for the first time I won’t be planning around them.

I am learning to look inside myself for the things I have asked for from others. I still cherish my friends and need their companionship and gentle reminders when I’m off track. I watch them and learn from them as I think they do me, but I am learning to sustain myself as an artist and as a person.

I don’t know what the balance is between immersion and letting go, between me and you, but I am learning. Better yet, I am writing.

If this review made you want to read Lispector, pick up a copy of The Hour of the Star from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission. Consider also picking up a copy of Micheline’s latest book A Brief History of Yes. My copy arrives on Wednesday and I can’t wait to discuss it with you.

Gabriela and the Widow: Jack Remick Teaches Writing through Writing

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The old adage, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” does not at all apply to Jack Remick. Before I read Gabriela and the Widow, Jack taught me about writing with the insightful questions he’d ask after we read our work aloud during the long-standing writing group at Louisa’s Café in Seattle. Reading Gabriela was even more of an education in the subtleties of craft.

Significant Detail

Driven from her village in Mexico by a civil war that kills her family, young Gabriela faces many hardships. Remick uses details like a “cotton blouse embroidered by hand in the faint light of the evening fire” to convey tender allusions to what Gabriela’s life must have been like before the war. When La Patrona, a woman who has “rescued” Gabriela, then takes this blouse and says she will burn it, the reader has a deeper understanding of how fully the woman is stripping away the essence of Gabriela.

When Gabriela craves a pair of white Nikes, it is easy to see that what she is really craving is a life like the Norteñas who wear these shoes. Later, Gabriela will be coaxed into other shoes, but even then the Nikes serve as a grounding point to indicate how much Gabriela is changing.

Objective Correlative

Terrible things happened to Gabriela when the war came to her village. Remick could have detailed them and we’d be struck by the horror without ever really getting inside Gabriela’s experience. Instead, Remick creates a correlation in Gabriela’s mind between toads and the horrible events—events that she refuses to quite remember. The reader sees her visceral reaction over and over anytime toads cross her path and in this way learns to empathize with her.

Remick builds on Gabriela’s reaction to toads throughout the story. What makes this relationship for me is when Gabriela begins remembering times of innocence that involved toads as well. The glimpse at what life was like before is heartbreaking and the tension between the dark and light memories makes both exponentially more touching.

Myths Retold

Gabriela finds safety in the North where she takes care of an ailing widow whose memory is failing. Gabriela helps her work on a list of objects and photographs and what they meant in the woman’s life. In return, La Viuda teaches Gabriela about what it means to be a woman. Though La Viuda has a somewhat colored view of the experience of womanhood, she doesn’t let her life turn her into a Miss Havisham. Instead, La Viuda intersperses myths and stories of great women with her own stories. Through tales about everyone from Helen of Troy to Xipe Totec, she helps Gabriela create an identity based on strength and womanhood as she transfers her life force to the young girl.

There are hundreds of things I could say about the reasons I loved this book—like the way Gabriela and La Viuda seamlessly slip from English to Spanish and back in their conversations, the magical realism (especially in relation to mirrors), or how in answer to La Viuda’s aging forgetfulness, Remick creates a shifting repetition that grounds the reader and also builds the narrative. What you need to know is the elegant craft reveals just the right amount of information to engage you, the reader, in telling the story.

Jack Remick can teach and he can sure as hell write. Read Gabriela and the Widow and find the things that speak to your writing. You’ll fall in love with the story and you’ll be a better writer for it. Although my work schedule doesn’t allow for weekday afternoons at Louisa’s anymore, I am grateful I can pick up Gabriela and learn from her and from Jack any old time.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Gabriela and the Widow from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.