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A review by leerazer
Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis
4.0
Essentially a brooding, atmospheric illumination of the city of Berlin. The city is certainly the co-main character of the novel, at least, and it feels here like a dark, dense stain sinking into the fabric of the universe. It is the shadowed spot left on the wall of the empty apartment above the protagonist that is not covered up even when a new tenant arrives to rehabilitate the space. It is the secret underground bowling alley of the Nazis, or the Stasi, it makes little difference which, where the ghosts impatiently wait to reclaim the place.
The tone is brilliantly set from the opening paragraph: "It was an evening when the moral remains of the city bobbed up to the surface and floated like driftwood before sinking back down to the seabed to further splinter and rot." Now there's a sentence to make any city's Chamber of Commerce fall to its knees in pain.
The narrative vehicle for this contemporary analysis of Berlin is the story of Tatiana, a young woman from a Mexican Jewish family, who has lived in Berlin for several years. She muddles along in the post-German reunification haze, working part-time for a historian, transcribing his spoken notes. She has difficulty making any real connection with people or work and bounces along on each path, unable to settle anywhere for long. Berlin's past seems to colonize her imagination, leaving her unbalanced in the present. Ultimately an act of violence (with a resolution from the school of urban magical realism) prompts her to sever ties with the city and return to her family in Mexico.
All in all, a well-written debut novel to be read for its take on the interplay of past and present.
The tone is brilliantly set from the opening paragraph: "It was an evening when the moral remains of the city bobbed up to the surface and floated like driftwood before sinking back down to the seabed to further splinter and rot." Now there's a sentence to make any city's Chamber of Commerce fall to its knees in pain.
The narrative vehicle for this contemporary analysis of Berlin is the story of Tatiana, a young woman from a Mexican Jewish family, who has lived in Berlin for several years. She muddles along in the post-German reunification haze, working part-time for a historian, transcribing his spoken notes. She has difficulty making any real connection with people or work and bounces along on each path, unable to settle anywhere for long. Berlin's past seems to colonize her imagination, leaving her unbalanced in the present. Ultimately an act of violence (with a resolution from the school of urban magical realism) prompts her to sever ties with the city and return to her family in Mexico.
All in all, a well-written debut novel to be read for its take on the interplay of past and present.