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A review by chaoticbibliophile
Austral by Carlos Fonseca
Did not finish book. Stopped at 73%.
This has to be, hands down, my biggest disappointment of the year. It is by no means the worst book I've attempted–indeed, it is kind of alright... but that's the problem. I've decided I no longer have time for "alright" books. I want mind-blowing. I want exciting. I want profound. I want stunning. I want propulsive. If not all at once, at least one (dare I demand, two!) of these.
Austral seemed to have all the ingredients to make my top list of the year: a book about memory, writing, nostalgia, language, literature, loss of language, connection through archives, travel, intertextuality... These are literally auto-buy words for me. I've been looking forward to getting a copy in Spanish since I first came across the English language translation, and when I finally got my hands on it, I proceeded to devour it... until I could no longer keep reading, even knowing I had less than 100 pages to go. I just didn't care.
The premise of an aphasic famous writer struggling to finish her last novel before passing away is GOLD. And then Fonseca throws it away by centring a random (quite boring) dude (Julio) from the writer's (Aliza) past. Even then, it could've been interesting: there're multiple points in Julio's journey to the artist colony where Aliza spent her last days that are moving and well constructed, but these scenes fail to amount to anything because: a) we are told Aliza was a super cool exciting woman artist, but we never really experience that (partly because it's all in the past and she's dead now, although of course this could've still worked in a different novel) b) her "writing" (there's bits of her manuscript interspersed with the main narrative) is very boring and plain, even if the story she's telling is interesting and c) Julio's character is typical dull book dude, without any particularly strong writing to back him up. This was apparent from the beginning; it suffers from several of what I call Latam-literary-fiction clichés and turns of phrase (not quite the same as MFA writing, but you get the idea), but I was willing to give it a pass on the basis of its strong premise.
Alas, I should've just given up. What could've been a fascinating reflection on people's relationship with language and literature through time, on modernity and lineage and colonialism, dissolves into a situation that had some degree of narrative pull but ultimately had me going "okay but why do I care? (About any of this!)" What is the point of citing such heavyweights as Saussure, Wittgenstein, Bernhard, Auden, and SO MANY MORE, if the engagement is going to be minimal? There is some thematic relevance, but that is as much as I will grant it.
I am a sucker for engaging with other texts (indeed, I bagged a proof copy of Mary Costello's upcoming short story collection just because one of the stories seems to dissect Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello) and have the highest of tolerances for such pretentiousness in fiction... but IT NEEDS TO SERVE A PURPOSE.
And on the topic of purpose... what is the point of the pictures? They are very pretty, and once again, I appreciate that they highlight the themes of memory and archiving and the material versus the abstract, the relationship between signifier and signified, etc., but what did they add to the narrative?
It certainly did not get me to want to keep reading.
This is the longest Storygraph review I've ever done, but I've immersed myself in this novel for two days and I grew from elated to skeptical to bored to impatient to frustrated to embittered with disappointment. If you're curious, check it out; but there're so many versions of this that are so much fresher and better.
Austral seemed to have all the ingredients to make my top list of the year: a book about memory, writing, nostalgia, language, literature, loss of language, connection through archives, travel, intertextuality... These are literally auto-buy words for me. I've been looking forward to getting a copy in Spanish since I first came across the English language translation, and when I finally got my hands on it, I proceeded to devour it... until I could no longer keep reading, even knowing I had less than 100 pages to go. I just didn't care.
The premise of an aphasic famous writer struggling to finish her last novel before passing away is GOLD. And then Fonseca throws it away by centring a random (quite boring) dude (Julio) from the writer's (Aliza) past. Even then, it could've been interesting: there're multiple points in Julio's journey to the artist colony where Aliza spent her last days that are moving and well constructed, but these scenes fail to amount to anything because: a) we are told Aliza was a super cool exciting woman artist, but we never really experience that (partly because it's all in the past and she's dead now, although of course this could've still worked in a different novel) b) her "writing" (there's bits of her manuscript interspersed with the main narrative) is very boring and plain, even if the story she's telling is interesting and c) Julio's character is typical dull book dude, without any particularly strong writing to back him up. This was apparent from the beginning; it suffers from several of what I call Latam-literary-fiction clichés and turns of phrase (not quite the same as MFA writing, but you get the idea), but I was willing to give it a pass on the basis of its strong premise.
Alas, I should've just given up. What could've been a fascinating reflection on people's relationship with language and literature through time, on modernity and lineage and colonialism, dissolves into a situation that had some degree of narrative pull but ultimately had me going "okay but why do I care? (About any of this!)" What is the point of citing such heavyweights as Saussure, Wittgenstein, Bernhard, Auden, and SO MANY MORE, if the engagement is going to be minimal? There is some thematic relevance, but that is as much as I will grant it.
I am a sucker for engaging with other texts (indeed, I bagged a proof copy of Mary Costello's upcoming short story collection just because one of the stories seems to dissect Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello) and have the highest of tolerances for such pretentiousness in fiction... but IT NEEDS TO SERVE A PURPOSE.
And on the topic of purpose... what is the point of the pictures? They are very pretty, and once again, I appreciate that they highlight the themes of memory and archiving and the material versus the abstract, the relationship between signifier and signified, etc., but what did they add to the narrative?
It certainly did not get me to want to keep reading.
This is the longest Storygraph review I've ever done, but I've immersed myself in this novel for two days and I grew from elated to skeptical to bored to impatient to frustrated to embittered with disappointment. If you're curious, check it out; but there're so many versions of this that are so much fresher and better.