bbboeken's review against another edition
4.0
****1/2
Het is onmogelijk om geen parallellen te trekken tussen The Private Lives of Trees (TPLoT) en Bonsai; het laatstgenoemde boekje wordt bijna expliciet vermeld in deze novelle, waarin overigens ook een bonsai fungeert. TPLoT gaat echter nog een stapje verder in het experiment dan Bonsai: de grens tussen verhaal en realiteit vervaagt helemaal als het hoofdpersonage op zoek gaat naar de verhalen van zijn eigen verleden en de toekomst van zijn stiefdochtertje terwijl hij angstvallig wacht op de thuiskomst van zijn vrouw.
Veel meer hoeft over dit zeer leesbare boekje niet vrijgegeven worden, maar weet dat het hart van de lezer net zo hard zal breken als bij Bonsai.
Het is onmogelijk om geen parallellen te trekken tussen The Private Lives of Trees (TPLoT) en Bonsai; het laatstgenoemde boekje wordt bijna expliciet vermeld in deze novelle, waarin overigens ook een bonsai fungeert. TPLoT gaat echter nog een stapje verder in het experiment dan Bonsai: de grens tussen verhaal en realiteit vervaagt helemaal als het hoofdpersonage op zoek gaat naar de verhalen van zijn eigen verleden en de toekomst van zijn stiefdochtertje terwijl hij angstvallig wacht op de thuiskomst van zijn vrouw.
Veel meer hoeft over dit zeer leesbare boekje niet vrijgegeven worden, maar weet dat het hart van de lezer net zo hard zal breken als bij Bonsai.
nickel_is_neat's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
bookishnorth's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
imanqblake's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I appreciate the descriptions put in this book, and it was a nice short little book to get through. I liked the atmosphere it builds, and it's very easy to get immersed in his inner thoughts. But at the same time, I was left feeling a bit underwhelmed by the overall book.
francisco909's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
shanviolinlove's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This is my third time reading Zambra's fiction, and in all three works I've read(My Documents, Chilean Poet, and now The Private Lives of Trees) I've noted that Zambra implements the same mood and, for the two novels, a similar (if not the same) protagonist: an unqualified professor/aspiring writer who falls for a mother and thus becomes a stepdad. Unlike Chilean Poet, which heavily celebrated sex and sexuality, this book is more interested in the workings of a timeline via the failings of relationships (sex is just a side detail). The lifespan of the plot itself is less than twenty-four hours: Part 1, a night in which a man waits with his stepdaughter for his wife, who never comes home; and Part 2, the following morning that ensues. Yet, Zambra experiments with the present tense, bringing forth the past: Julian's ex-lover and how that ultimately led him to Veronica (his wife), Veronica's ex-husband and their failed marriage; as well as the imagined trajectory of the stepdaughter's future, told so tangibly it's easy to forget it's all one character's conjecture.
I'm usually wary of writers writing about writing. Indeed, the attention spent to the trappings of a tortured writer who is also--another heavily used cliche--a college lit professor initially felt off-putting, and had the novel been any longer than its 96 pages, I might have ditched it altogether with the reasoning that I've read stories like this too many times already. However, the brevity of Zambra's story works in its favor: again, he's not developing much plot, and, to be honest, he's not developing much with his characters. They don't grow, they don't evolve--in fact, the story largely operates between two stock characters, Julian (if I'm being cruelly honest, is rendered two-dimensional for most of it) and his stepdaughter, Daniela (who comes across more dynamic and presents interesting thoughts, but of course, those are mainly derived from Julian's imagination of future Daniela, not Daniela herself). Thus, the length works as it's ultimately a book about questions, asking the reader to consider how past and future work conjunctively.
This is also a sad book. In one dismissively rendered thought comes the hidden heartbreak of a generation. Julian is building a relationship with his stepdaughter, whose own father is not a reliable presence in her life; yet, Julian can also imagine a future ditching her, a future spent with other women and children. "People didn't usually ask [Daniela] about her stepfather's job, even though almost all the kids in her generation had stepfathers or stepmothers. Though they didn't call them by those derogatory names, perhaps because over the years they accumulated several stepfathers and stepmothers--a long string of people whom they began to love but very quickly forgot, since they often disappeared, never to be seen again, or else they reappeared years later, by chance, in line at the grocery store." Bam.
This book also asks one to consider self-satisfaction, as again, no character seems to have attained it or are even interested in pursuing it. "Well, we always want to be something else, Daniela, he answers--he was going to say Danielita or Dani, but instead he said Daniela. You're never happy with what you are. It would be strange to be completely satisfied." And later, the character expresses a want: "He wanted--wants--to be a writer, but being a writer is not exactly being someone."
Lastly, this book searches for inherent meaning. As mentioned above, validation in a career seems futile. There are references to an inflation of psychologists, who turn to pop psychology; Daniela accepting mediocrity in a country where, Zambra tongue-in-cheek notes, many unqualified people hold careers. The protagonist is an author who writes about trees, but as boring a concept as this seems, it is a precious bond he is building with a child. "Julian would have liked her to remember the stories about trees, or the torturous hours they spent memorizing multiplication tables, that sententious, pedagogical tone he sometimes used. Julian would have liked for Daniela to remember him after reading his book. But no. Memory is no refuge. There remains only an inconsistent babble of the names of streets that no longer exist."
Many sentences like this that utterly destroyed me, but ultimately were the reasons that won me over. Despite the fact that it uses a tropic character--academic/aspiring writer writing about writing--whom Zambra has also borrowed in other works of his, and despite the very unrealistic response that the main character has to the current crisis of his missing wife (no call to the police? no nothing??), I was drawn to the innovative working of structure and story arc, a la Cortazar, in showing me something new, and in articulating it in a memorable way. It's enough to keep me curious to read Zambra's future work.
I'm usually wary of writers writing about writing. Indeed, the attention spent to the trappings of a tortured writer who is also--another heavily used cliche--a college lit professor initially felt off-putting, and had the novel been any longer than its 96 pages, I might have ditched it altogether with the reasoning that I've read stories like this too many times already. However, the brevity of Zambra's story works in its favor: again, he's not developing much plot, and, to be honest, he's not developing much with his characters. They don't grow, they don't evolve--in fact, the story largely operates between two stock characters, Julian (if I'm being cruelly honest, is rendered two-dimensional for most of it) and his stepdaughter, Daniela (who comes across more dynamic and presents interesting thoughts, but of course, those are mainly derived from Julian's imagination of future Daniela, not Daniela herself). Thus, the length works as it's ultimately a book about questions, asking the reader to consider how past and future work conjunctively.
This is also a sad book. In one dismissively rendered thought comes the hidden heartbreak of a generation. Julian is building a relationship with his stepdaughter, whose own father is not a reliable presence in her life; yet, Julian can also imagine a future ditching her, a future spent with other women and children. "People didn't usually ask [Daniela] about her stepfather's job, even though almost all the kids in her generation had stepfathers or stepmothers. Though they didn't call them by those derogatory names, perhaps because over the years they accumulated several stepfathers and stepmothers--a long string of people whom they began to love but very quickly forgot, since they often disappeared, never to be seen again, or else they reappeared years later, by chance, in line at the grocery store." Bam.
This book also asks one to consider self-satisfaction, as again, no character seems to have attained it or are even interested in pursuing it. "Well, we always want to be something else, Daniela, he answers--he was going to say Danielita or Dani, but instead he said Daniela. You're never happy with what you are. It would be strange to be completely satisfied." And later, the character expresses a want: "He wanted--wants--to be a writer, but being a writer is not exactly being someone."
Lastly, this book searches for inherent meaning. As mentioned above, validation in a career seems futile. There are references to an inflation of psychologists, who turn to pop psychology; Daniela accepting mediocrity in a country where, Zambra tongue-in-cheek notes, many unqualified people hold careers. The protagonist is an author who writes about trees, but as boring a concept as this seems, it is a precious bond he is building with a child. "Julian would have liked her to remember the stories about trees, or the torturous hours they spent memorizing multiplication tables, that sententious, pedagogical tone he sometimes used. Julian would have liked for Daniela to remember him after reading his book. But no. Memory is no refuge. There remains only an inconsistent babble of the names of streets that no longer exist."
Many sentences like this that utterly destroyed me, but ultimately were the reasons that won me over. Despite the fact that it uses a tropic character--academic/aspiring writer writing about writing--whom Zambra has also borrowed in other works of his, and despite the very unrealistic response that the main character has to the current crisis of his missing wife (no call to the police? no nothing??), I was drawn to the innovative working of structure and story arc, a la Cortazar, in showing me something new, and in articulating it in a memorable way. It's enough to keep me curious to read Zambra's future work.
sagavasuki's review against another edition
2.0
Overrated. Ayrıca "Eve Dönmenin Yolları" ile neredeyse aynı. Birini okumanız yeterli neredeyse.
P.S.: Bana kalırsa birini bile okumaya gerek yok.
P.S.: Bana kalırsa birini bile okumaya gerek yok.
sunnys_library's review against another edition
3.0
Este libro tiene una prosa hermosa. No es una historia llena de accion pero explora muchos temas interesantes, como la familia, el amor, el miedo de la perdida de un ser querido, y mas. Me gusto bastante la manera en la que el autor usa a sus personajes para explorar estos temas. Tiene muchas imagenes hermosas y es una lectura bastante rapida.