Monday, January 29, 2018

El buscador de Guacas (Luisa Gonzalez)

El buscador de Guacas

Luisa Gonzalez

Aurelio Del Peral trabaja el esparto durante toda su vida, convirtiéndose en su propio jefe en su exitoso negocio, y su esposa Narcisa Pozueta contaba el dinero que Aurelio conseguía. Sin embargo, con la llegada del ferrocarril a El Salado, se vió obligado a vender su negocio y convertirse en un jubilado más.

La pareja contaba con tres hijas: Plácida, y las dos pequeñas Segunda y Humbelina, quién nació con una discapacidad motriz.

Ama, de Amadora, es la empleada de la familia y quién lleva adelante la casa al igual que la crianza de las niñas. Con el paso del tiempo se ha convertido en la amante de Aurelio, a quién ama dulcemente. Es él quién por primera vez escribe su nombre en la tierra cuando ella se lo pide.

Sin embargo, cuando Aurelio y Narcisa fallecen en una epidemia de la fiebre tifoidea, todo el dinero que habían ahorrado permanece oculto en algún lugar de la casa. Plácida revuelve toda la casa buscándolo con la ayuda de Ama. Sin el mismo, no tendrán manera de sobrevivir.

En el pueblo aparece Leonel Pereira. Él se denomina a si mismo como "buscador de guacas", de tesoros escondidos, y se instala en el antiguo depósito del negocio de Aurelio.  Pronto, Plácida lo contactará.

Una novela llena de poesía y aventura, los eventos se encuentran envueltos en la magia del ambiente, llevando al lector a adentrarse en el pueblo de El Salado. 

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Sunday, January 28, 2018

Tulip Fever (Deborah Moggach)


Tulip Fever

Deborah Moggach

The story is set in The Netherlands during the time of the tulip fever the title makes reference to. It narrates the story of Sophia, the young wife of Cornelis an ageing merchant, and her passionate affair with the painter Jan Van Loos.

At the beggining of the novel, Sophia and Cornelis are having lunch when Cornelis proposes her to have a painting done to outlive their own mortal lives. The painter arrives some days later and since they set eyes on each other, Sophia and Jan become in love.

A subplot is the story of Maria, Sophia's servant, and Willem, the fishseller. She is a simple girl from the countryside who, despite being uneducated, has some practical sense that make her more capable of dealing with every day problems than Sophia is.

Sophia and the painter starts meeting in his studio and she feels the thrills of having to run through the streets of Amsterdam  trying not to be found. 

I didn't fall. I flew! I have been given the airy immunity of an angel.

Soon they are planning how to get together for ever. However, Cornelis is a powerful man and they know that he can find them wherever they go.

When Maria gets pregnant and Willem disappears, Sophia feels she has the opportunity to escape the prison her life with Cornelis has become. 

With a narration full of references to the beautiful paintings of that time, the book discusses the immortality of art and how it simply represents what the painter sees of the world, not the truth itself.


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Monday, January 22, 2018

La posada de las Almas (Luisa Gonzalez)


La Posada de las Almas

Luisa Gonzalez

La posada de las almas es el cementerio del pueblo de Campos. El protagonista, Eliseo Soler, visita la tumba de su esposa Cruz todos los días para leerle un poema de amor que él escribió. También, su rutina lo lleva al bar La Gloria dónde se encuentra con su mejor amigo Telesforo a comer almendras garrapiñadas y tomar una copita. Su casa la maneja María y en Capellán, una ciudad cercana, vive su hija Luz y su nieta Cruz. 

Cuando empieza la historia, Eliseo se encuentra preocupado por una noticia que le hizo llegar Jacinto, el hombre que tomó su lugar en su antiguo trabajo. Nos enteramos que el gobierno quiere construir una represa donde se encuentra el pueblo. Esta noticia llevará a sus pobladores a preguntarse a si mismos que quieren de su futuro, contándonos su pasado y presente, los cuales hacen a la narración rica en descripciones.

El lenguaje que usa la autora es poesía pura, leyéndose frases como:

El piar de los pájaros en las copas de los pinos impedía el silencio o formada parte de él.
Memoria y nombre es lo único que queda de los muertos.
Por eso cuando Eliseo Soler se desanudó de su apretón, se sintió como aventado por las astas de un molino.

Basada en un hecho real en España durante la época del franquismo, la novel relata la batalla entre unos pequeños David y un gigantesco Goliath.  Quién gane es solo cuestión de tiempo, pero las que siempre ganan son las palabras.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

The Power (Naomi Alderman)


The Power

Naomi Alderman

This story is a speculative fiction as it is set in a near future and the events are likely to happen, taking into account our current worldwide situation.

Suddenly women have the power to electrocute by touch. This new evolutionary situation brings a lot of changes in the relations between men and women. This power is developed by teenagers around 15 years old and these girls can pass this ability to grown up women.

The narration is told in four big areas, telling how these events change the lives of four people.

One of them is Roxy, the daughter of a criminal who looks for revenge for the death of her mother. The second one  is Tunde, a young man who becomes a journalist uploading videos in Youtube showing the new phenomenon around the world. The third story narrates the story of Margot, a politician decided to pull up her career with the women's powerful circumstances. The last one is Allie, an adopted teenager that escapes her abusive father and becomes a religious icon.

An exploration of power, identity and the unpedictability of the future, this novel leads the reader to a new world. However,women may not be better rulers than men.

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Friday, January 12, 2018

Witchlight/Corrag (Susan Fletcher)

Witchlight/Corrag

Susan Fletcher

This novel is just poetry. The beautiful language in which the life of Corrag is narrated and her connection with nature display the author's love for this character. 

At the biginning of the story, Corrag is imprisoned as she is considered a witch that has helped some of the MacDonald clan to survive a massacre perpetuated by English Soldiers. She narrates her life to Mr. Leslie, an Irishman that is trying to discover King William's implication in the massacre. Being a Jacobite, his cause is to re-establish King James to the throne.

The narration is full of paragraphs that emphasise Corrag's intimate connection with nature:
Things come to us like gifts. They do. Gifts come, and we must take them - for they are the world saying here- this way.

Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living is not the true you.

Her wisdom populated the pages of the book. Her herbs heal bodies and souls. Her knowled
ge comes from her love to all natural elements that surround her, learning with every step she takes in her life.

- that there will always be the signs that a life was lived. Children, tales, words they said. Places thay named. Marks they left in dust, or on a bark. People they love, and told so.

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Sunday, January 7, 2018

Eleanor Oliphant esta perfectamente (Gail Hoenyman)

Eleanor Oliphant esta perfectamente
Gil Honeyman

Eleanor es la protagonista de esta novela que relata su vida. Ella trabaja de oficinista de 9 a 5, conversa con su madre todos los miércoles y se sumerge los fines de semana en botellas de vodka para que el tiempo pase. Así ha vivido muchos años.
Eleanor no tiene amigos y no se lleva con sus compañeros de oficina. Sin embargo, pronto conoce a Raymond, el encargado de informática, quien de a poco introducirá cambios en su vida.

El evento que comienza a unirlos como amigos es cuando un abuelo se desmaya en la calle y ambos lo asisten. Mas tarde, lo visitaran  en el hospital y de allí, siguen reuniones familiares, cumpleaños e incluso un funeral.

También sucede que Eleanor va a un concierto y queda "enamorada" del cantante. Con la idea que el destino los unirá, comenzará a cambiar su imagen exterior con el fin de atraerlo.

Con cada situación, el lector verá como Eleanor comienza a interactuar con otras personas lo que la llevará a cambiar su actitud hacia los demás y sus ideas con respecto a su trágico pasado y a su futuro.

Eleanor es un personaje que se hace querer y a quien se le desea un final feliz, aunque le lleve desenterrar horrores de su pasado que lleva marcadas en su rostro.

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Friday, January 5, 2018

The birth fo Venus (Sarah Dunant)


The birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant

Alessandra Cecchi is the protagonist of this historical fiction set in Florence in the 1400s. She belongs to an aristocratic family connected to the Medici in power.

She loves painting and knows how to read and write in Greek and Latin. She would love to dedicate her life to the Arts but at that time of History that was forbidden to women. When her father hired a painter to illustrate the roof of the family chapel, she soon feels attracted to him. She tries to get his help and to improve her skills towards painting.

However, the bachelor Cristoforo Langella seems to be interested in Alessandra and later she gets married being only 16 years old. Innocent and gullible, she makes a deal with him that soon she is goint to regret as her husband becomes a complete stranger.

Besides the twists of the plot, the reader enjoys the description of the sculptures, paintings and even the faccades of the buidings in Florence at that time. The Renassaince is its plenitude.

The political upheaval at the time is also something realistically portrayed by the author, with the powerful influence of the Catholic church in the city.

A powerful narration of a part of an important classical period  portrayed in the life of a girl who will have to fight for her rights in a time that only seems to imprison her.

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Tuesday, January 2, 2018

The Secret Scripture (Sebastian Barry)


The Secret Scripture

Sebastian Barry

This novel narrates the story of Rosennae, a hundred-year-old lady who has been imprisoned in an asylum for most of her life. Alongside her narration, we find the story of Dr. Greene, the psychiatrist that is trying to unearth the reasons why Roseanne has been sent to the hospital.

As this is portrayed in the way of both characters's personal diaries, we soon learn Roseanne loves for her father and the distressful situation of her mother. However, Roseanne is not a reliable narrator, and many of the critical events of her life are contrasted with the findings of Dr. Green through the documents written by Fr Gaunt, a priest who had a lot of power in Roseanne's little town.

Roseanne's marriage with Thomas Mcnulty seems to be her way out of loniless. However, it soon become her dismay.

Dr. Greene fights with his marriage, being separated from his wife but living in the same house. Soon tragic engulfs him.

This book travels through the themes of humans's questions about life and the essence of gief and memory. A real page-turner, the end is going to find you totally unprepared, leaving you with the feeling that love  always wins.

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