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A review by jasonfurman
The Island of Last Truth by Flavia Company
5.0
I picked up this novella almost at random in a bookstore, never having heard the title or the author, and liked the first page enough to buy it and start reading it on the spot. It was a quick read, a nautical tale in the tradition of Defoe and Conrad by an Argentine woman who moved to Barcelona and wrote it in Catalan. And it was excellent.
It begins with a mysterious doctor at a New York party who was rumored to be shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years. The bulk of the story is told by him through the woman he falls in love with and lives with for seven years. The epilogue following his death is by the woman, and puts a fascinating twist on everything that came before it.
The bulk of the novel is a castaway story as the man is trapped on a small deserted island with a pirate he thought he had killed. In almost the opposite of the civilization depicted in Robinson Crusoe, in this novella they divide up the island, each have territories the other is not allowed in, and rarely cooperate or trade. The tension mounts as he doctor becomes increasingly impatient to find out what is going on in the territory of the pirate.
Ultimately, it is not clear whether it should be read as a realistic story or as an allegory of two sides of a man struggling with himself. But it reads well either way.
It begins with a mysterious doctor at a New York party who was rumored to be shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years. The bulk of the story is told by him through the woman he falls in love with and lives with for seven years. The epilogue following his death is by the woman, and puts a fascinating twist on everything that came before it.
The bulk of the novel is a castaway story as the man is trapped on a small deserted island with a pirate he thought he had killed. In almost the opposite of the civilization depicted in Robinson Crusoe, in this novella they divide up the island, each have territories the other is not allowed in, and rarely cooperate or trade. The tension mounts as he doctor becomes increasingly impatient to find out what is going on in the territory of the pirate.
Ultimately, it is not clear whether it should be read as a realistic story or as an allegory of two sides of a man struggling with himself. But it reads well either way.