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natahoochie's review against another edition
4.0
Utterly haunting and deeply confusing. This novel exists only in gray and I'm fascinated by it.
pineconek's review against another edition
3.0
I both really enjoyed this and didn't quite get it.
This is a fever dream of a novella. Unreliable narrators, only occasionally named characters, secret languages, bodies taken apart or incapacitated (but as abstraction - no gore)... and gorgeous writing.
I wish I had come to this novel with the appropriate background knowledge. This novella is in conversation with the works of Amparo Davila, an author I am entirely unfamiliar with. Amparo Davila is the major named character (sometimes characters, plural) in this book and so many references went over my head. While the work can stand alone, don't make my mistake and miss out on the richness of references to mexican literature.
Stylistically, the writing reminded me a lot of Anais Nin, Milan Kundera, and even the tone of the Blind Owl. If this tone of "things are largely happening inside the character's heads but also people are having weird romantic relationships where something seems a little off" is up your alley, you'll enjoy this as well.
I feel like my first reading didn't do this justice - I'll likely want to revisit this in a few years. Settling for a harsh 3.5 stars rounded down for now.
Recommended if you like philosophical fiction where nothing happens, have a knowledge of mexican literature / the works of Amparo Davila, and are interested in the deconstruction of bodies.
This is a fever dream of a novella. Unreliable narrators, only occasionally named characters, secret languages, bodies taken apart or incapacitated (but as abstraction - no gore)... and gorgeous writing.
I wish I had come to this novel with the appropriate background knowledge. This novella is in conversation with the works of Amparo Davila, an author I am entirely unfamiliar with. Amparo Davila is the major named character (sometimes characters, plural) in this book and so many references went over my head. While the work can stand alone, don't make my mistake and miss out on the richness of references to mexican literature.
Stylistically, the writing reminded me a lot of Anais Nin, Milan Kundera, and even the tone of the Blind Owl. If this tone of "things are largely happening inside the character's heads but also people are having weird romantic relationships where something seems a little off" is up your alley, you'll enjoy this as well.
I feel like my first reading didn't do this justice - I'll likely want to revisit this in a few years. Settling for a harsh 3.5 stars rounded down for now.
Recommended if you like philosophical fiction where nothing happens, have a knowledge of mexican literature / the works of Amparo Davila, and are interested in the deconstruction of bodies.
percystjoan's review against another edition
5.0
okay, how do i even start describing this book? the [a:Yuri Herrera|1822424|Yuri Herrera|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1354560366p2/1822424.jpg] blurb on the front tackles the task by describing it as "an intelligent, beautiful story about bodies, disguised as a story about language, disguised as a story about night terrors," which I think does an excellent job cutting to the meat of it - although as you read it becomes increasingly difficult to tell which part of the story is the disguise. at its heart, the iliac crest seems to me to be a story about classification, power, and borders: between countries, between cities, between language and gender. the iliac crest lives in the liminal space atop and between these borders, and it invites us into that space so we can think about time, sex, language, sanity, bodies, violence, all in a way that embraces the inherent confusion and discomfort of these topics rather than shying away from it.
the real power of this novel lies in its ability to really get you to think. by using language in a way that is so different from how we usually experience it, the author deconstructs the world around us and puts us into a completely new experience. this is not unlike the situation the narrator finds himself in when his ex-girlfriend, the Betrayed, and the Disappeared Amparo Dávila come to live in his home and build a budding relationship. they share a private language he is not privy to, and he finds himself consumed with confusion and resentment over being excluded from their communications. as we read, we too are given "two options: keep fighting or accept defeat, settle into its arms, even enjoy it, if necessary."
reading this became a welcome opportunity for me to surrender to the the in-between - there's nothing easy about this book, but it certainly makes you appreciate the struggle. the language here is obviously so beautifully constructed and nuanced beyond even the ways that I comprehend it to be.
of course this is heightened by the fact that it is a translation, although the author addresses this in an interview where she talks about her decision not to translate her own work: "i usually translate works written by others, especially when i am convinced that a translation may take a conversation throughout borders and expand it into new realms. would you believe me that i find the idea of translating myself redundant? perhaps a bit dangerous." this isn't just a story in translation - the translation heightens and enriches the story, giving it entirely new dimensions.
reading the iliac crest then becomes an exciting, collaborative experience where you work with the author and translator to interpret the story, rather than a removed, singular plot. if, as rivera garza says, "writing—true writing—is always written first in translation," than perhaps true reading requires a bit of translation work on our end as well. the task is easier in a story that is constructed more out of archetypes than actual plot and characters: the story here resides almost entirely in the realm of the psychological. it uses settings like the dystopian city, the endless ocean, the lonely sanatarium at the edge of the sea and characters like the proud, logical narrator, the jilted ex-lover, the seductive and helpless young woman - and twists and morphs these archetypes in new and inventive ways. one of my favorite aspects of the story was how the characters are hardly ever referred to by name (except, of course, the central amparo dávila), instead called names like the Betrayed, the Betrayer, the Little One, the Seducer, etc. the same character can change names throughout the story as the narrator's understanding of the situation changes, making everything feel slippery and uncertain, even identity.
is this story set in the future? the past? is the narrator a man, or a woman, or inhuman altogether? who is the true amparo dávila, or does she even exist? is the narrator - a doctor by profession - a figurehead of sanity, set apart from the patients he treats at the sanitarium, or is he too insane, deserving of a bed among them? it's almost impossible to tell, especially given his self-professed confession near the beginning of the book: "i am a man who is frequently misunderstood. i suppose this could be attributed to my verbal disorder: the almost pathological way i forget to mention something essential at the beginning of my stories." talk about a new level of unreliable narrator: one where the narrator himself admits to you that his storytelling can't be trusted (or is that just another pretense? who can say....)
a fun bit of linguistic play here arises with the word "patients", which the book itself addresses: "we all knew they were not. we were all aware that no one left this place alive....we were not doctors, but more or less efficient guardians of death." the word "patients" is used as an intermediary word, not quite accurate, to describe the terminally ill and insane people living in the sanitarium with no hope of recovery or release to a normal life - but what is a normal life, living in a city enclosed with harsh borders, with body parts washing up on the shore of the ocean? thus the word takes on another meaning, "patience", as these people are forced into a state of eternal waiting.
juan escutia appears as an important figure in the book, as well as being pulled from real life history - he was one of mexico's boy heroes who died in the battle at chapultepec castle in 1847, who chose to wrap himself in the mexican flag and jump to his death rather than let the flag fall into enemy hands. here he appears as a past resident at the sanatarium, the only one who steps out of that archetype of patient. unlike the other terminally ill patients, he has been consigned to the sanitarium as a political prisoner, in hopes that its remote location will serve to erase his memory from the general population (because here, the real end is not death but Disappearance, which can happen regardless of whether death occurs). like his real-life namesake, he chooses to jump out of the window and dies a slow death on the rocks below, an almost martyr's death that cements his position as "the modern prometheus. the new prometheus." this act of defiance torments the narrator: "[was escutia] the only one who still fought to live? and, if this were true....was his death a way of affirming his alliance with life? and, if this were also true, and considering that such an alliance led him directly to his own demise, could there then be, at least, two deaths or, in any case, more than one?"
this kind of rumination does the narrator no favors in a world governed by strict rules: to step out of line means risking punishment. as the harshly defined borders of his life begin to break down, the narrator moves from the role of doctor to patient and back again, a shifting of identity in tandem with the question of gender that haunts him throughout the story (although it's worth noting that the goodreads description of this book is definitely flawed - while the destabilization of gender and identity play an important role in its exploration of borders and categories, it's not the main focus). this breakdown starts with the false amparo dávila's assertion that she knows his secret: "i know you are a woman." this inspires a kind of spiraling terror in the narrator, rooted in a sense of instability of identity as well as instability in body. "...my appearance was entirely intangible. i had to move several times and see my reflection move in unison to convince myself it was really me." at multiple times we see the narrator hiding to touch his body and genitals to convince himself that he is, in fact, a man - "i spied on myself at every turn. touching myself became one more way of seeing myself in the world."
the assertion that he is really a woman almost forcibly pushes the narrator out of his body, into a kind of "watcher" state where he is viewing his body and mannerisms through an outsider's lens, trying to understand how anyone could believe he is a woman. there's some fascinating ideas on gender and identity here and how they work in tandem with the concept of bodies, power structures, and violence. gender is linked with body is linked with self - disruption of the internal notion of gender becomes a disruption in feeling connected to your body or self at all. how does the changing of one's gender change one's self? (the narrator comes to the conclusion that "nothing would change. there was no reason for me to become sweeter or crueler....not any more serene or any more intimate. not any more maternal or any more authoritarian. nothing. everything could continue to be the same. everything was a rough mirror of the Self.")
gender is linked with power structures are linked with authority and violence, which are intrinsically connected to borders. those who control the borders have the authority, those who have the authority enforce it with violence, creating a hierarchical power structure where the power is vested almost solely in men. men control both the borders and the narrative of history (a poignant commentary on both the lack of recognition of mexican woman authors - hence why amparo dávila plays such a central role - as well as the thousands of femicides that have occurred along the us-mexico border).
when the narrator's sense of gender is disrupted, he is forcibly shifted downwards in the hierarchy, especially as his coworkers view him no longer as "sane" but "insane." this forces us to consider what constitutes "sanity": 1. who society classifies as "terminally ill" ("the incurables, the migrants, the dregs....[in] a strange sort of limbo where those with fatal wounds arrived and, nevertheless, could not die.") and 2. how they are treated once they are seen as insane, especially in a facility at the edge of the sea with no oversight. this paints a brutal and all-too-true picture of a world where gender and sanity and personhood are all intrinsically linked, where personhood disappears when someone steps out of the rigid classification of what is acceptable by societal standards. when personhood is gone, any treatment is acceptable. when personhood is gone, a person has Disappeared, and thus loses all support because "disappearance is contagious. everyone knows this." to associate with a Disappeared person is the most dangerous thing you can do.
while i hesitate to draw any comparisons here, especially with white european male authors, i will say that the narrator himself and the story structure of the book reminded me somewhat of [b:The Trial|17690|The Trial|Franz Kafka|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399438l/17690._SY75_.jpg|2965832], with both books addressing identity/sanity/societal structure in a surreal, sort of plotless way. so if you read the trial and enjoyed it, i would definitely recommend checking this one out as you may enjoy it even more - and if you haven't but are just looking for a book to get you out of your comfort zone (especially if you're interested in queer theory!), this is the one for you. this review ended up being VERY long and i still feel like i barely scratched the surface of how much nuance this story has. it's so beautifully written, so smart, and will have you thinking about it for WEEKS. it's definitely one you have to grapple with - i'm a fast reader and it still took me weeks to get through the 130ish pages, but it was more than worth taking the time to work through slowly. cristina rivera garza is an utterly phenomenal author and i am so glad that i came across her work.
the real power of this novel lies in its ability to really get you to think. by using language in a way that is so different from how we usually experience it, the author deconstructs the world around us and puts us into a completely new experience. this is not unlike the situation the narrator finds himself in when his ex-girlfriend, the Betrayed, and the Disappeared Amparo Dávila come to live in his home and build a budding relationship. they share a private language he is not privy to, and he finds himself consumed with confusion and resentment over being excluded from their communications. as we read, we too are given "two options: keep fighting or accept defeat, settle into its arms, even enjoy it, if necessary."
reading this became a welcome opportunity for me to surrender to the the in-between - there's nothing easy about this book, but it certainly makes you appreciate the struggle. the language here is obviously so beautifully constructed and nuanced beyond even the ways that I comprehend it to be.
of course this is heightened by the fact that it is a translation, although the author addresses this in an interview where she talks about her decision not to translate her own work: "i usually translate works written by others, especially when i am convinced that a translation may take a conversation throughout borders and expand it into new realms. would you believe me that i find the idea of translating myself redundant? perhaps a bit dangerous." this isn't just a story in translation - the translation heightens and enriches the story, giving it entirely new dimensions.
reading the iliac crest then becomes an exciting, collaborative experience where you work with the author and translator to interpret the story, rather than a removed, singular plot. if, as rivera garza says, "writing—true writing—is always written first in translation," than perhaps true reading requires a bit of translation work on our end as well. the task is easier in a story that is constructed more out of archetypes than actual plot and characters: the story here resides almost entirely in the realm of the psychological. it uses settings like the dystopian city, the endless ocean, the lonely sanatarium at the edge of the sea and characters like the proud, logical narrator, the jilted ex-lover, the seductive and helpless young woman - and twists and morphs these archetypes in new and inventive ways. one of my favorite aspects of the story was how the characters are hardly ever referred to by name (except, of course, the central amparo dávila), instead called names like the Betrayed, the Betrayer, the Little One, the Seducer, etc. the same character can change names throughout the story as the narrator's understanding of the situation changes, making everything feel slippery and uncertain, even identity.
is this story set in the future? the past? is the narrator a man, or a woman, or inhuman altogether? who is the true amparo dávila, or does she even exist? is the narrator - a doctor by profession - a figurehead of sanity, set apart from the patients he treats at the sanitarium, or is he too insane, deserving of a bed among them? it's almost impossible to tell, especially given his self-professed confession near the beginning of the book: "i am a man who is frequently misunderstood. i suppose this could be attributed to my verbal disorder: the almost pathological way i forget to mention something essential at the beginning of my stories." talk about a new level of unreliable narrator: one where the narrator himself admits to you that his storytelling can't be trusted (or is that just another pretense? who can say....)
a fun bit of linguistic play here arises with the word "patients", which the book itself addresses: "we all knew they were not. we were all aware that no one left this place alive....we were not doctors, but more or less efficient guardians of death." the word "patients" is used as an intermediary word, not quite accurate, to describe the terminally ill and insane people living in the sanitarium with no hope of recovery or release to a normal life - but what is a normal life, living in a city enclosed with harsh borders, with body parts washing up on the shore of the ocean? thus the word takes on another meaning, "patience", as these people are forced into a state of eternal waiting.
juan escutia appears as an important figure in the book, as well as being pulled from real life history - he was one of mexico's boy heroes who died in the battle at chapultepec castle in 1847, who chose to wrap himself in the mexican flag and jump to his death rather than let the flag fall into enemy hands. here he appears as a past resident at the sanatarium, the only one who steps out of that archetype of patient. unlike the other terminally ill patients, he has been consigned to the sanitarium as a political prisoner, in hopes that its remote location will serve to erase his memory from the general population (because here, the real end is not death but Disappearance, which can happen regardless of whether death occurs). like his real-life namesake, he chooses to jump out of the window and dies a slow death on the rocks below, an almost martyr's death that cements his position as "the modern prometheus. the new prometheus." this act of defiance torments the narrator: "[was escutia] the only one who still fought to live? and, if this were true....was his death a way of affirming his alliance with life? and, if this were also true, and considering that such an alliance led him directly to his own demise, could there then be, at least, two deaths or, in any case, more than one?"
this kind of rumination does the narrator no favors in a world governed by strict rules: to step out of line means risking punishment. as the harshly defined borders of his life begin to break down, the narrator moves from the role of doctor to patient and back again, a shifting of identity in tandem with the question of gender that haunts him throughout the story (although it's worth noting that the goodreads description of this book is definitely flawed - while the destabilization of gender and identity play an important role in its exploration of borders and categories, it's not the main focus). this breakdown starts with the false amparo dávila's assertion that she knows his secret: "i know you are a woman." this inspires a kind of spiraling terror in the narrator, rooted in a sense of instability of identity as well as instability in body. "...my appearance was entirely intangible. i had to move several times and see my reflection move in unison to convince myself it was really me." at multiple times we see the narrator hiding to touch his body and genitals to convince himself that he is, in fact, a man - "i spied on myself at every turn. touching myself became one more way of seeing myself in the world."
the assertion that he is really a woman almost forcibly pushes the narrator out of his body, into a kind of "watcher" state where he is viewing his body and mannerisms through an outsider's lens, trying to understand how anyone could believe he is a woman. there's some fascinating ideas on gender and identity here and how they work in tandem with the concept of bodies, power structures, and violence. gender is linked with body is linked with self - disruption of the internal notion of gender becomes a disruption in feeling connected to your body or self at all. how does the changing of one's gender change one's self? (the narrator comes to the conclusion that "nothing would change. there was no reason for me to become sweeter or crueler....not any more serene or any more intimate. not any more maternal or any more authoritarian. nothing. everything could continue to be the same. everything was a rough mirror of the Self.")
gender is linked with power structures are linked with authority and violence, which are intrinsically connected to borders. those who control the borders have the authority, those who have the authority enforce it with violence, creating a hierarchical power structure where the power is vested almost solely in men. men control both the borders and the narrative of history (a poignant commentary on both the lack of recognition of mexican woman authors - hence why amparo dávila plays such a central role - as well as the thousands of femicides that have occurred along the us-mexico border).
when the narrator's sense of gender is disrupted, he is forcibly shifted downwards in the hierarchy, especially as his coworkers view him no longer as "sane" but "insane." this forces us to consider what constitutes "sanity": 1. who society classifies as "terminally ill" ("the incurables, the migrants, the dregs....[in] a strange sort of limbo where those with fatal wounds arrived and, nevertheless, could not die.") and 2. how they are treated once they are seen as insane, especially in a facility at the edge of the sea with no oversight. this paints a brutal and all-too-true picture of a world where gender and sanity and personhood are all intrinsically linked, where personhood disappears when someone steps out of the rigid classification of what is acceptable by societal standards. when personhood is gone, any treatment is acceptable. when personhood is gone, a person has Disappeared, and thus loses all support because "disappearance is contagious. everyone knows this." to associate with a Disappeared person is the most dangerous thing you can do.
while i hesitate to draw any comparisons here, especially with white european male authors, i will say that the narrator himself and the story structure of the book reminded me somewhat of [b:The Trial|17690|The Trial|Franz Kafka|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320399438l/17690._SY75_.jpg|2965832], with both books addressing identity/sanity/societal structure in a surreal, sort of plotless way. so if you read the trial and enjoyed it, i would definitely recommend checking this one out as you may enjoy it even more - and if you haven't but are just looking for a book to get you out of your comfort zone (especially if you're interested in queer theory!), this is the one for you. this review ended up being VERY long and i still feel like i barely scratched the surface of how much nuance this story has. it's so beautifully written, so smart, and will have you thinking about it for WEEKS. it's definitely one you have to grapple with - i'm a fast reader and it still took me weeks to get through the 130ish pages, but it was more than worth taking the time to work through slowly. cristina rivera garza is an utterly phenomenal author and i am so glad that i came across her work.
salemreadsbooks's review
Based on my reading of the translator’s note, I think a lot of this book was unfortunately lost in translation. This is a story in which prose and language really matter. I think I would appreciate it more in its native tongue. However, the elements I was able to grasp through the language barrier were compelling. I’m also interested in reading Amparo Dávila’s work, and I’m glad this book could introduce me to it.