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A review by missbear
The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
This one disappointed me — I thought the premise sounded very intriguing and I was really interested in the themes that it seemed would be at play. Even now when I read about this book, I desperately want to be able to access the version of it that other people seem to be reading, instead of the version I read.
In many ways, this seems to be a technical problem, which is that I really suspect that this novel loses something in translation. It is so focused on gender and specifically gendered language, and Spanish and English are so different in their treatment of gender. I understand how if you were reading this book in Spanish, the women's "misgendering" of the protagonist would be very explicit, but in English, it's just not, it didn't stand out to me as the main thing they were doing. It could also be a personal problem — I read this novel having no familiarity with Amparo Davila's work or life and I think that I would have greatly benefited from more knowledge. I also just might not really jive with this level of surrealism and experimentalism — while I like to think of myself as someone who enjoys that kind of thing, there are several books I read recently that I just found a little too abstract and disjointed to fully enjoy (The Hearing Trumpet, The Archive of Alternate Endings, The Master and Margarita).
So there were aspects that I liked — the blurriness, the ocean, the hospice setting (I was coincidentally reading this at the same time as I read The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which had included a bit of a history of hospice care, which I found very interesting), the writing itself. But the overall experience was hazy and slow and just not enjoyable enough.
In many ways, this seems to be a technical problem, which is that I really suspect that this novel loses something in translation. It is so focused on gender and specifically gendered language, and Spanish and English are so different in their treatment of gender. I understand how if you were reading this book in Spanish, the women's "misgendering" of the protagonist would be very explicit, but in English, it's just not, it didn't stand out to me as the main thing they were doing. It could also be a personal problem — I read this novel having no familiarity with Amparo Davila's work or life and I think that I would have greatly benefited from more knowledge. I also just might not really jive with this level of surrealism and experimentalism — while I like to think of myself as someone who enjoys that kind of thing, there are several books I read recently that I just found a little too abstract and disjointed to fully enjoy (The Hearing Trumpet, The Archive of Alternate Endings, The Master and Margarita).
So there were aspects that I liked — the blurriness, the ocean, the hospice setting (I was coincidentally reading this at the same time as I read The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which had included a bit of a history of hospice care, which I found very interesting), the writing itself. But the overall experience was hazy and slow and just not enjoyable enough.