A review by maketeaa
Not a River by Selva Almada

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

not a river feels like the literary equivalent of a painting in a gallery - the vivid descriptions, the thematic sequences: in less than a hundred pages she knits the reader into her text, like by reading we, too, have become part of the tiny island the book takes place in, that we are another character in the close cobweb of interactions that define this tiny surface area of a town. above all, this is an exploration of masculinity -- the book opens on a fishing trip with three men, and their very typically masculine hunting of a stingray. it follows with their encounter with two young girls, an invitation to a dance, and the revenge that is seeked on them for having thrown the sting ray back into the river. but what struck me the most was the magnifying glass that almada held up to the relationships in the book, so we could see the very fibres of the bonds between the men, could look at the crass jokes, the insistence of bonds like 'cobwebs', the other things we may view as 'traditionally masculine' through a new lens. because zoomed in, what is clear is the tenderness all the men feel for each other, the bond between them to maintain the routine of going fishing together in the still and quiet river. the final scene demonstrates this especially well, with the older men's immediate concern over tilo ("where's the kid?!") and the note of care that their last scene finishes on. the events occuring on their small island, where all the characters seemed linked to each other in one way or another, makes it feel as though the entire region can be summed up by the relationships we see between the cast, that the complicated feelings of home but not home, of wanting to stay but not to stay, of accepting loss but not quite understanding it, is the entire defining factor of this small area of argentina.