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chillcox15's review against another edition
4.0
Jorge Comensal's The Mutations starts out incredibly promising, crafting a comedic cancer narrative that doesn't short-change the emotional stakes of having cancer, while still letting us into a slightly off-kilter, oddball world. It peters out a bit at the end, but it deserves a lot of credit for avoiding cliche and digging into an emotional palette that I've never really seen before.
pearloz's review against another edition
4.0
A very good book about a man, an attorney who finds out he has a very aggressive form of cancer of the tongue, and has to have his tongue removed. It's a pretty straightforward narrative/plot and follows three main characters--our main character, Ramon, with the tongue cancer; a psychologist who specializes in clients with cancer, and who eventually becomes Ramon's psychologist (though barely: her chapters are mostly about a particularly germaphobic client of hers), and who grows her own pot to take and dispense to her patients via cookies (an expected mix-up occurs late in the book with Ramon's daughter); and a classical music-obsessed oncologist who sees potential in Ramon's cancer cells. The novel weaves between the characters pretty seamlessly while keeping Ramon as the novel's focus. Ramon, who makes his living talking, explaining, convincing, has to learn to live life silently. The timeline is pretty straightforward, from normal life to diagnosis to living with the disease to dying from the disease. The parrot on the cover shows up about halfway into the book, post tongue-removal, and becomes a sort of vessel into which Ramon (silently) confesses his fears and dreams. Overall, pretty straightforward plot, solid, economic, no-nonsense writing; this book was a welcome distraction for a couple of days.
wildgurl's review against another edition
2.0
The Mutations:A Novel
by Jorge Comensal
Translated from Spanish: Charlotte Whittle
2019
Farrar Straus &Giroux
2.8 / 5.0
A lawyer in Mexico City is diagnosed with an aggressive form of tongue cancer. A man that made his legacy by speaking, the diagnosis was a complete change for him. It is satirical and comedic, a good look at how cancer affects the family, medical professionals, co-workers and is somewhat provoking as well as thought-provoking.
The "faggot" references and "faggot with AIDS" I hope were made to metaphorically, (a man no longer able to swing his bigotry).
If not for the confusing, and really unnecessary gay slurs, I have given this 4 stars.
by Jorge Comensal
Translated from Spanish: Charlotte Whittle
2019
Farrar Straus &Giroux
2.8 / 5.0
A lawyer in Mexico City is diagnosed with an aggressive form of tongue cancer. A man that made his legacy by speaking, the diagnosis was a complete change for him. It is satirical and comedic, a good look at how cancer affects the family, medical professionals, co-workers and is somewhat provoking as well as thought-provoking.
The "faggot" references and "faggot with AIDS" I hope were made to metaphorically, (a man no longer able to swing his bigotry).
If not for the confusing, and really unnecessary gay slurs, I have given this 4 stars.
charburlingame's review against another edition
3.0
I think this short novel would’ve worked better as a short story with more deliberate prose or a longer novel with more room to flesh out the characters. I liked the themes of ego and language that the book touched, but thought that - like the characters - they were underdeveloped and could’ve been explored further.
emsemsems's review against another edition
5.0
'Because Emilia chewed the cap of her pen. That innocent oral fixation was a deal-breaker for Eduardo. How many bacteria must there have been on that chunk of plastic that Emilia removed with her hands from her pencil case, placed on the desk, then raised to her mouth? He hadn’t spoken to her since.'
One of the books that I remember reading and loving enough during when I was not 'active' on GR (which triggers my OCD with every 'belated review' because I just can't place my thoughts as accurately as I would have liked them to be?). While I can't at the moment remember which were the exact parts of the book that made the most significant impression and incited strong enough excitement in me, I can see in my copy that I have at hand now a much too generous sum of strangely and overly 'excited' notes in almost every chapter which should count for something (in terms of rating it highly).
'I’ll tell him, Juan, this sarcoma we have here’s a tough motherfucker. We’ve got to cultivate this thing and study the shit out of it. It’s going to have a fuckload of abnormal oncogenes. We could be looking at a cover story in Cancer, my friend...They divide like crazy, but they’re disciplined little fuckers—they adapt and stimulate blood vessels without asphyxiating or blocking each other. It’s like a stampede.'
To conclude this in the briefest way I can, this is a book that explores the most mundane, most 'human' matters — a whole range of existential anxieties when our physical self, mortality is directly threatened; it explores all the ways one goes about tackling these issues. 'Issues' may not be the accurate term to describe it because calling a 'headache' (massive, massive understatement; a terrible example here, but please allow it, as I'm slowly recalibrating, trying to get back in the flow of processing my thoughts on books) an issue does not sound quite apt. All is quite bizarrely portrayed but underneath it all it's a human cry for survival; and even though not always 'sanely' or directly express, a love and/or lust for life. The author uses the word 'fuck' a lot in his writing, but always with the most glorious effect. It was a joy to read this despite the depressing plot lines.
'According to the fucking law, assisting a suicide is punishable by two to five years of jail time. And that’s just if it’s indirect. If there’s willful cooperation, if someone injects you with something or gives you the bullet, the sentence is harsher. But why the fuck should the state care, if you give your consent in writing for someone to help you?'
'Aldama read the offensive reply from the director of the UNAM Biomedical Research Institute several times. It began with an unforgivably careless mistake, addressing him as “Dear Doctor Madame.” The implied emasculation might have enraged an insecure man, but Aldama was annoyed that his correspondent hadn’t bothered to proofread his message before sending it, and correct the mindlessly cyber-generated autocorrect. The famous geneticist went on to excuse his delayed response with a joke about his work on tissue regeneration: “My apologies for not writing sooner, but sometimes we have to choose between opening axolotls and emails.” Aldama might have taken delight in this witticism, but under the circumstances he saw it as shameless proof of just how insignificant his interlocutor thought him.'
And I just have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the tone (specifically), and style of writing. The characterisation, especially in terms of the narrative work is absolutely brilliant. Might have to read this again in Spanish (as it was originally written) as a linguistic (and/but also masochistic) challenge. Needless to say, it will be a challenge because to assume that my Spanish is 'good enough' to understand a beautifully complicated novel like this is nothing but truly an act of audacity! Having said that though, I thought the translation work was spectacular. Sure, I've not compared it to the original text, but the translation was so brilliant that I it made me forget that it is a work of translation? Not implying that that is what one should look for when trying to verify the tremendous, brilliant qualities of a work of literary translation, but this was just such a lovely, lovely read (especially if you like books of the darkly humorous sorts).
'Aren’t you embarrassed, Ramón asked Benito, to know you don’t live like President Juárez anymore, but like fucking Maximilian? Oh yeah, he was a great humanist and all that crap. Why did he go around being so meddlesome? The word “meddlesome” was one of a number of linguistic relics making their way into Ramón’s mute soliloquies. These archaisms that came from his mother’s vocabulary had never featured in Ramón’s speech before, but the thick current of his silence had stirred the bed of his memory, dredging up old-fashioned words like “bungling,” “trinkets,” “baubles,” “harlot,” “victuals,” and “valise.” According to Teresa, these terms’ resurgence was a sign that his mind had undertaken a review of his past, in search of records that might account for the present. Our strongest desire in life, his therapist had said, is to understand why.'
Even as I'm copying these quotes from my copy of the book, I am tempted to read the entire book once more (with more appreciation for the text, and updated feelings). Will have to save the sesh for another day though.
'What the fuck’s up with that? Tere told me she gets her marijuana for free, someone gives it to her for helping out. But who? What for? There’s something sketchy about it. Remember this: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.'
mschlat's review against another edition
3.0
A short first novel about society and cancer in Mexico City. Comensal's story primarily follows Ramón, a wealthy lawyer who develops a very aggressive and rare cancer, and Teresa, a cancer survivor and therapist who works with the psychological well-being of cancer patients. But there are a host of other characters as well, and Comensal makes the most of funny and sadly ironic circumstances in their lives. Near the end, there's a good dollop of Lacanian psychoanalysis, which I was unfortunately unfamiliar with (leading to a lost feeling as I read).
An interesting read with colorful prose, and I would gladly read another work from Comensal.
An interesting read with colorful prose, and I would gladly read another work from Comensal.
ytmsoba's review against another edition
emotional
informative
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I know it was necessary to the story but the stuff about weed and the germophobe guy was kind of annoying