Reviews
Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story 2 by Adrienne Brodeur, Samantha Schnee, Rodrigo Hasbún
taitmckenzie's review
4.0
I haven't read any of the other issues of Zoetrope to compare this one to, but if the magazine is an indication of the kind of writing coming out of contemporary Latin American countries than I am highly excited, and look forward to some of these authors eventually putting out books. While a few times the writing fell into that meta-abstracted Borges-influenced style, these stories show a sense of reality and language that relies more on writers like Bolano or some of Cortazar's more literal writings, though I'm sure the authors here have a much broader range of local inspirations that I as a North American have been able to be exposed to.
Of particular note was the last story in the collection, "Tuesday Meetings" by Slavko Zupcic from Venezuela; about the meetings of a psych ward, told from the point of view of a schizophrenic recording the meetings and his intimate thoughts as a newspaper for the rest of the ward to read, all building up a visit from the Pope, a story that works, despite the challenges of writing insane narrators.
All the stories in this collection are in translation, but the original Spanish editions are included in the back. The issue also contains illustrations from famed director Guillermo del Toro, which sounds exciting, except that the drawings are all grotesque juvenilia that he admits in the introduction are toss-offs, and I felt had no relation to the content or tone of the stories (hence the four stars).
Of particular note was the last story in the collection, "Tuesday Meetings" by Slavko Zupcic from Venezuela; about the meetings of a psych ward, told from the point of view of a schizophrenic recording the meetings and his intimate thoughts as a newspaper for the rest of the ward to read, all building up a visit from the Pope, a story that works, despite the challenges of writing insane narrators.
All the stories in this collection are in translation, but the original Spanish editions are included in the back. The issue also contains illustrations from famed director Guillermo del Toro, which sounds exciting, except that the drawings are all grotesque juvenilia that he admits in the introduction are toss-offs, and I felt had no relation to the content or tone of the stories (hence the four stars).
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