I am so excited to be participating in Spanish Lit Month again this year hosted by Stu at Winston’s Dad and Richard at Caravana de Recuerdos. My first contribution this year is a fantastic read from And Other Stories.
My Review:
This book is set in an apartment building in Mexico City in which a group of elderly retirees live. The residents of the building engage in various activities together in order to fend off boredom, including the most popular activity which is the daily gathering and discussion at the literary salon. Francesca, the building president and leader, is also the head of this salon. As each new member moves into the building, he or she is given a warm welcome and an invitation to the salon. The only person who has ever dared to turn down an invitation to the salon is our witty, clever and crabby narrator, a man who goes by the name of Teo.
When Teo moves into the building hilarity ensues because he is not quite so willing to conform to all of the rules set forth by Francesca and her fellow tenants. Teo also drinks too much and has some interesting visitors over to his apartment, including a Mormon missionary who is constantly trying to preach the Word of the Lord to Teo. Teo’s days also include frequent visits to the local pub for several beers and visits to the greengrocer where he discusses life and politics over more beers with Juliet the proprietor. He also spends quite a bit of time recording his thoughts in a notebook and because of this the salon thinks that he is writing a novel. They seem to know everything that he writes in his journal and he can’t figure out how they are reading his personal thoughts.
The story also flashes back to Teo’s earlier days and we get some background on this roguish, alcoholic, funny old man. Teo mostly grew up with his mother and his sister and lived with them until he was in his fifties. Important events in his younger years were oftentimes brought about by the dog his mother happened to dragged home at the time. The original family dog caused the unraveling of his parents’ marriage and his father moving out. Like his father before him, Teo fancied himself an artist and when he was younger he attended art school for a year to try and cultivate his talents. But this all came to an end when the family dog was diagnosed with marijuana poisoning which resulted in his mother finding out what he was really doing with his fellow students.
After his mother forces him to give up attending art school, Teo gets a job with his uncle at his local taco stand which is a very lucrative business. It is also due to dogs that Teo becomes a local legend with his “Gringo Tacos.” I did find the story lines with the family dogs rather funny but those who are sensitive might need a warning that the fate of dogs in this book is never good. All sorts of local politicians and arts patronize his taco stand and have intriguing discussions about art with this astute taco seller. Teo’s favorite book is Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory and later in the retirement home he uses his cherished copy of this book to fend off the cockroaches.
The fight between Teo and the members of the literary salon reach a fever pitch when they get their hands on and hide his cherished copy of Aesthetic Theory and he, in turn, steals their copies of In Search of Lost Time. This is no small feat for Teo because Proust’s masterpiece weighs a ton. In the end Francesca has to blackmail Teo into returning the salon’s books and the scandalous information that she has on him involves, of course, a dog.
This is one of the funniest books I have read so far this year. It is cleverly written and has characters that manage to be silly but endearing at the same time. I look forward to reading more of Villalobos’ books. What is everyone else reading for Spanish Lit Month?
About the Author:
Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. His first novel, Down the Rabbit Hole, was the first translation to be shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award (in 2011). He writes regularly for publications including Granta and translated Rodrigo de Souza Leão’s novel All Dogs are Blue (also published by And Other Stories) into Spanish. His work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Barcelona and has two children.
Max Costa is a scoundrel and a thief but you wouldn’t know it from his refined manner and elegant clothes. We first meet him in 1928 on board the Cap Polonio, a transatlantic luxury liner bound for Buenos Aires. Max is a professional ballroom dancer on the ship and he entertains the unaccompanied young women with his tangos and fox trots. But his work as a ballroom dancer is just a cover for his real profession which his stealing from his rich dance partners. The narrative takes place between 1928 and 1966 and alternates between three distinct periods of time during which Max meets a woman whom he cannot forget.
Harry Kvist is an former boxer who lives in the decrepit, dirty and seedy city of Stockholm in the 1930’s. The city is full of tramps, prostitutes, and bootleggers as well as poor and destitute citizens who have been affected by the economic collapse of this decade. Kvist himself leads a hard life by serving as a collector of debts to those who have defaulted on payments. His specialty is repossessing bicycles which is easy money for him. When the novel begins Kvist is collecting on a debt from a man named Zetterberg who owes a few thousand kronor. Kvist scares Zetterberg by giving him a good beating that is not enough to kill him, but enough to leave him with a few scars as a “reminder” to pay the money he owes. When Zetterberg is found dead the next day, Kvist is the prime suspect and he is immediately picked up by the police.
Martin Holmén is a Swedish writer based in Stockholm. He was orn in 1974. He teaches History, Swedish and History of Culture and Ideas at an upper secondary school in Stockholm two days a week. He is the author of the Harry Kvist trilogy.
The Grand Hotel is the place to stay for anyone who wishes to be surrounded by luxury and high society in 1920’s Berlin. The guests that have all checked into the hotel in March of 1929 are an interesting mix of misfits whose stories all collide in a cleverly intertwined plot.
The blurb that describes this book on sites like Goodreads and Amazon really sells the book short. One gets the impression that this is a light, summer beach read, a book categorized as “chick-lit.” This particular classification of genre, “chick-lit” has always made me uncomfortable. It seems to imply, at least in my mind, that females read these lighter, less serious books, ones meant for the beach or for times when ones attention is not fully given because the children are running around. This genre also seems to imply a certain amount of gratuitous sex. But Blanca’s story about the death of her mother and her very complicated love life are much more complex than to be classified as “chick-lit.”
The Book Binder's Daughter 