A review by lazygal
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
4.0
This loosely-related collection of short stories is definitely worth reading. I must admit that there wasn't much in them that said "Basque literature" in such a way as to separate them from other short stories, and after a while I gave up looking.
Set in either Obaba (a village in the Basque region of Spain) or Hamburg, these stories are relatively quiet and, I thought, have some thread of dream/magical realism running through them. Often the characters are loners with somewhat rich interior lives (although those "riches" could also be taken to be simply "over-active"). There's also a tinge of tragedy in each, a little sad twist at the end.
The last half of the book is ostensibly a journey by a man and his friend to a weekend of storytelling in Obaba, hosted by his uncle. Interspersed with the tale of the journey are the stories each will tell and a few that they pick up along the way. One "story" I particularly liked was "How to Plagiarize" - the rules certainly make sense (and metafiction? brilliant!) and it should be required reading for any aspiring author; the follow-up, "The Crevasse" has me wracking my brain trying to place it.
As I said, there's nothing here that struck me as being particularly Basque about the stories, but perhaps that's not the point. Of course, I don't know a lot about Basque literature to start with so...
Copy provided by publisher.
Set in either Obaba (a village in the Basque region of Spain) or Hamburg, these stories are relatively quiet and, I thought, have some thread of dream/magical realism running through them. Often the characters are loners with somewhat rich interior lives (although those "riches" could also be taken to be simply "over-active"). There's also a tinge of tragedy in each, a little sad twist at the end.
The last half of the book is ostensibly a journey by a man and his friend to a weekend of storytelling in Obaba, hosted by his uncle. Interspersed with the tale of the journey are the stories each will tell and a few that they pick up along the way. One "story" I particularly liked was "How to Plagiarize" - the rules certainly make sense (and metafiction? brilliant!) and it should be required reading for any aspiring author; the follow-up, "The Crevasse" has me wracking my brain trying to place it.
As I said, there's nothing here that struck me as being particularly Basque about the stories, but perhaps that's not the point. Of course, I don't know a lot about Basque literature to start with so...
Copy provided by publisher.