Reviews

Not a River by Selva Almada

sportula's review against another edition

emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

encyclopediabritanika's review

I 100% read this because the performance by David Jonsson for the Booker Prizes. The way he read the excerpt was absolutely captivating and I watched it so many times that I could hear his voice as I read this book. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone’s voice in my head to also explain the point of what I was reading. It flowed as a river - no chapters, following people through their time on an island - but I don’t think I was smart enough to get it. 

radu_slach's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

issieread's review

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

theghostofkewgardens's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

jrl6809's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

In Not A River, Selva Almada uses the shooting and displaying of a stingray as the catalyst to show us generations of the interrelationships between men and women in rural Argentina. This is a book about masculinity and patriarchal society with the primary focus being the male characters. I appreciated the starkness of the themes here-the brutality is told in an even tone giving a sense of "this is just the way it is". There's also an excellently subtle sense of dread and unease underlying the book, augmented by the somewhat choppy and jarring dialogue, the superstions and possible ghosts (?) and the blending, murky timelines in addition to the dark content itself. I think there's a lot going on under the surface here and probably more to discover upon a re-read. 

dreesreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

minarima's review

dark reflective medium-paced

3.5

grj619's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

In Not a River, Selma Almada takes your mind into rural Argentina with her simple but effective descriptions. The use of certain words, animals, plants will send you straight to google. 

The story follows three men who return to their favourite fishing location - but it’s also the same location where a tragic event has happened in their lives previously. 

Almada uses this story to explore toxic masculinity and the idea of people invading a space which is not theirs. 

Through the book, Almada jumps back and forth in time to recount their current trip, the tragedy, and also the lives of the people they meet on this island. 

The timeline method used in this book did leave me a little confused at times. I wasn’t sure whether what I was reading was currently happening or had already happened. 

This was a source of frustration but it wasn’t until I finished the book that I grew an appreciation for it.

maketeaa's review

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

4.75

not a river feels like the literary equivalent of a painting in a gallery - the vivid descriptions, the thematic sequences: in less than a hundred pages she knits the reader into her text, like by reading we, too, have become part of the tiny island the book takes place in, that we are another character in the close cobweb of interactions that define this tiny surface area of a town. above all, this is an exploration of masculinity -- the book opens on a fishing trip with three men, and their very typically masculine hunting of a stingray. it follows with their encounter with two young girls, an invitation to a dance, and the revenge that is seeked on them for having thrown the sting ray back into the river. but what struck me the most was the magnifying glass that almada held up to the relationships in the book, so we could see the very fibres of the bonds between the men, could look at the crass jokes, the insistence of bonds like 'cobwebs', the other things we may view as 'traditionally masculine' through a new lens. because zoomed in, what is clear is the tenderness all the men feel for each other, the bond between them to maintain the routine of going fishing together in the still and quiet river. the final scene demonstrates this especially well, with the older men's immediate concern over tilo ("where's the kid?!") and the note of care that their last scene finishes on. the events occuring on their small island, where all the characters seemed linked to each other in one way or another, makes it feel as though the entire region can be summed up by the relationships we see between the cast, that the complicated feelings of home but not home, of wanting to stay but not to stay, of accepting loss but not quite understanding it, is the entire defining factor of this small area of argentina.