War, Not Much War.
The War in this book is there, but it doesn't take center stage. Instead, it provides a backdrop and an excuse for commentary and tension. While I found the scenarios making up the wild and inventive vignettes of this novel intriguing and beautifully composed, they were so disconnected and random at times, that my interest wavered. It was only possible to get a sense of place and time when the protagonist was not in the midst of surreal cruelty and all-too-human suffering. Indifference, pathos, wandering, those seemed to be the prevailing moods.

It is certainly important and riveting in sections, but I wonder if the author's other works might follow more memorable modes of storytelling. Perhaps after multiple readings this book would sink in more, but I have to dig around to grasp at any of the disparate images left in my mind after reading it. For instance, when the protagonist explains the significance of their own shadow, blows it out of proportion, acquires a phobia of it, and then retreats back into self-contemplation, I am not sure I understand the significance of the interlude. There are many such unique musings to be found among the playful tricks of children and the unexplainable weirdness to be found here, all of which contains traces of Marquez, Kafka, and Kobo Abe. We are players in a game, the rules of which we do not fully understand, Rodoreda seems to say.

This is certainly a colorful and somber novel, quick to finish but not easy to encapsulate or explain. I am left with mixed impressions, and a desire to check out her other works. ( )

Some nice writing, but it is one of those books which stumbles from one encounter to another, without them hanging together. This Alice in Wonderlnd style is not to my taste, I never really connected with the characters at all. Judging by other reviews, perhaps not the best introduction to Mercè Rodoreda's work, and perhaps it makes more sense in the context of having read her other work? ( )

H1.32.3