Reviews

Los sueños, memorias y percepciones de como las infancias chilenas durante la dictadura se vieron afectadas por la violencia y el miedo instaurados en el día a día. Toda una generación marcada por la represión de la época, que no distinguía en daño ni siquiera por edad. Una lectura super recomendable, es super interesante repensar eventos desde la perspectiva de la inocencia de la infancia y las juventudes.

chriscrane87's review

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reflective

4.0

sharkybookshelf's review against another edition

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4.0

A group of friends look back uneasily on their childhood, still haunted by the sudden disappearance of their classmate Estrella, whose father turned out to be a high-ranking official in the Pinochet regime.

This tiny book might only be 80 pages long, but there is an impressive amount to unpack in it around memory, collective memory under the Pinochet regime and what it is to be a child who senses the dangerous tensions around them without yet understanding it. It does help to have some background on the Pinochet regime.

The story is adroitly told through snapshots of thoughts, dreams and childhood memories, and reading it felt rather like a fever dream (in a good way). Fernández perfectly captured the oddly specific details that children remember and the way that children observe (or hear) weird things and accept them as normal, often only realising and understanding the implications of what they saw many years later. That said, it might only ring true if you’ve experienced that yourself (not necessarily in a dictatorship context) - otherwise, it might seem utterly absurd.

A compact, cleverly fractionated story of uneasy childhood memories and Chile’s collective memory of the Pinochet regime.

thebobsphere's review against another edition

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This week I read three books in which time as a liner concept has been rejected. The first was Memorial, 29 June, the second is this one and the third will be revealed the next day.

The book focuses on a group of students meeting up and talking about their classmate Estrella, who had disappeared in the 80’s under The Pinochet rule. The book then jumps in time and the group try their best to recollect the events. At the same time the narrative voice shifts just a fluidly as time does in this novella.

Although I am a fan of big fat novels, I think there is an art to writing a heavy, complex political novella which is about the unreliability of memory and Nona Fernández has done this perfectly.

booksletusescape's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

lauralhart's review

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4.0

“Time isn't straightforward, it mixes everything up, shuffles the dead, merges them, separates them out again, advances backward, retreats in reverse, spins like a merry-go-round, like a tiny wheel in a laboratory cage, and traps us in funerals and marches and detentions, leaving us with no assurance of continuity or escape. Whether we were there or not is no longer clear. Whether we took part in it all or not isn't either. But we're left with traces of the dream, like the vestiges of a doomed naval battle.”

Interesting structure, beautiful writing/translation, and perfect length.

gaelledc's review

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emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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