Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Permafrost by Eva Baltasar

2 reviews

james1star's review

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challenging emotional funny reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

Despite finishing this book a couple hours ago I’m still finding it quite difficult to summarise my thoughts. I definitely took a lot from it, underlining plenty lines and quotes and did overall enjoy it… I think. It’s hard to summarise the ‘plot’ as it’s rather disjointed with some linearity but there are fluctuations too. In permafrost we follow the first person POV from an unnamed protagonist who I believe is around her 30s (might and probably am wrong), she’s a ‘no bullshit lesbian’ (taken from the blurb) who sprawls her razor-sharp thoughts on modern life. She speaks of travels across Europe, short lived love affairs with many women, her family and the controlling nature of her mother in particular, childhood and growing up knowing she’s gay with thoughts that make her feel happy but there’s still this part in the back of her mind that she’ll grow into liking boys, not girls - I sort of went off here and it’s very in keeping with the book with many tangents that are fun to explore and really ground the reader in our narrator’s life -, living as a person I guess with the multitudes of familial and societal expectations, and more. A major topic is her thoughts of suicide, battles with mental illness and suicide attempts which are insightful, making you think but personally there was an unnerving feeling too where humour at such a tragic moment may seem a little crass… but then again, it is something people in such situations take too somethings so I can see her reasonings. In Julia Sanches’s translator’s afterword she perfectly sums up a though I had: “Eva Baltasar takes up issues that are often treated with kid gloves - a child's understanding of sex, death by suicide, illness - and addresses them with the same transparency due to anything else.” And I do think it’s this I liked the most. Sentences vary in length and there is no real convoluted prose but it is still lyrical and poetic at times, Baltasar being a poet certainly being the cause. The prose is very witty and crisp too which I feels breaks down the barrier for the reader to understanding our narrator and some of the other characters too - it reads a little memoir-esque. I am intrigued to read more by the author as have her second novel Boulder already and would like to complete the triptych this is part of. It’s not a new favourite but was enjoyable in the sense I understood and got a lot from it, maybe with another read I might increase my rating.
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firstiteration's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

 Permafrost reads like poetry. The shapes of the protagonist’s relationships and life reveal themselves slowly, and reading is like watching a watercolour painting as it is gradually created. This really is the kind of book where details and images eventually come together to form a whole, especially since the ending was not what I expected when I began my read, but it felt right.

I know not a word of Catalan, so I’m grateful to Julia Sanches for translating this book. I can’t speak to the quality of translation itself, but the translator’s note makes it clear that Sanches worked with a great deal of care and attention to detail. In English, Permafrost is an excellent read.

As a lesbian, Permafrost is one of those books that feels real. I think many of us lesbians feel tense when lesbian sexuality is depicted in fiction because for so long, we’ve been portrayed by non-lesbians in a variety of ways that are exploitative or insulting, especially when it comes to sex. The sexuality in Permafrost is raw and honest. I think that’s incredibly valuable, both because as a lesbian I really enjoy reading it and because it’s good that this kind of portrayal of lesbian sexuality by a lesbian exists. It's not the only one, I know, but it's still rare enough that it's notable to me.

But it goes beyond the sex part of being a lesbian. The protagonist’s feeling of being mismatched with the life that is expected of her and especially the lives of her family members is explored well throughout the book. I really enjoy how Eva Baltasar portrays life, and next I’m going to see if any of her poems have been translated to English.

If you liked Permafrost, I suggest Qiu Miaojin’s Last Words from Montmartre or Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich. 
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