A review by graceiredale
Resistance by Julián Fuks
5.0
A very moving and visceral dive into how memory can be unreliable, told in glimpses of a life tainted by it's historical trauma. It talks about adoption, our relationships with our parents, how our parents had lives before us and continue to be their own people despite our existence.
Sometimes the narrator questions whether he should be writing this book at all. He is trying to understand his adopted brother and working out the ways he wants to put his memories into words. He knows he cannot tell his brother's story for him and is conflicted in how he wants to portray him.
It feels like a internal wrestle over how the much truth can be changed depending on who's lens we are looking through. Are his memories his own or memories of what he's been told?
There are themes of trauma, both war torn and generational. Depression and the misunderstandings between families when one their own is struggling with life. How we try to understand but can only come at it from our own individual experience and can never truly understand.
No matter what our parents do, no matter how much they try to shield us. Everyone always ends up with their own cross to bear and their own individual self that cannot be ever fully expressed to someone else no matter how hard they try to understand and be understood.
The bubbling emotions that finally pour out in a euphoric blurry mass. An explosion that makes total sense to you but comes out of the blue and is a shock to others. The urgent need to be understood. To feel validated. But being afraid and bitter too.
The ending is interesting. The entire book is analysing itself.
It was very eloquently written with so much care and thought. I enjoyed it. It made me think a lot about my own memories and family situations.
Sometimes the narrator questions whether he should be writing this book at all. He is trying to understand his adopted brother and working out the ways he wants to put his memories into words. He knows he cannot tell his brother's story for him and is conflicted in how he wants to portray him.
It feels like a internal wrestle over how the much truth can be changed depending on who's lens we are looking through. Are his memories his own or memories of what he's been told?
There are themes of trauma, both war torn and generational. Depression and the misunderstandings between families when one their own is struggling with life. How we try to understand but can only come at it from our own individual experience and can never truly understand.
No matter what our parents do, no matter how much they try to shield us. Everyone always ends up with their own cross to bear and their own individual self that cannot be ever fully expressed to someone else no matter how hard they try to understand and be understood.
The bubbling emotions that finally pour out in a euphoric blurry mass. An explosion that makes total sense to you but comes out of the blue and is a shock to others. The urgent need to be understood. To feel validated. But being afraid and bitter too.
The ending is interesting. The entire book is analysing itself.
It was very eloquently written with so much care and thought. I enjoyed it. It made me think a lot about my own memories and family situations.