| Title | : | Ways of Going Home |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0374286647 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780374286644 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 160 |
| Publication | : | First published April 8, 2011 |
| Awards | : | Premio Altazor Narrativa (2012) |
In the second section, the protagonist is the writer of the novel begun in the first section. His father is a man of few words who claims to be apolitical but who quietly sympathized—to what degree, the author isn’t sure—with the Pinochet regime. His reflections on the progress of the novel and on his own life—which is strikingly similar to the life of his novel’s protagonist—expose the raw suture of fiction and reality.
Ways of Going Home Reviews
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“… aunque queramos contar historias ajenas terminamos siempre contando la historia propia.”
Autor y narrador y protagonista, diario y novela, la construcción del relato, su imbricación con la vida del autor, recuerdos de la niñez y la vida adulta, las culpas propias y ajenas, todo se mezcla en esta breve e intensa novela llena de huecos que el lector debe ocupar para terminar de construir este artefacto triste y melancólico que es “Formas de volver a casa”.“Lo que pasa… es que espero una voz. Una voz que no es la mía. Una voz antigua, novelesca, firme. O es que me gusta estar en el libro. Es que prefiero escribir a haber escrito. Prefiero permanecer, habitar ese tiempo, convivir con esos años, perseguir largamente imágenes esquivas y repasarlas con cuidado. Verlas mal, pero verlas. Quedarme ahí, mirando.”
Cuánta razón tiene Zambra cuando dice aquello de que “es bueno perder la confianza en el suelo, que es necesario saber que de un momento a otro todo puede venirse abajo”, algo que empezamos a saber desde el mismo instante, que nunca es un instante, en el que descubrimos que los padres no son los dioses omnipotentes y omniscientes que creíamos ni es absoluta su protección, que nosotros no somos tan importantes, que ellos tienen una vida más allá de nosotros, una vida que incluso puede avergonzarnos, una vida que transcurre paralela a la nuestra y en la que, en el caso del protagonista, mientras ellos…“… mataban o eran muertos, nosotros hacíamos dibujos en un rincón. Mientras el país se caía a pedazos nosotros aprendíamos a hablar, a caminar, a doblar las servilletas en forma de barcos, de aviones. Mientras la novela sucedía, nosotros jugábamos a escondernos, a desaparecer.”
Nada es fijo e inamovible, la vida es frágil, la democracia es frágil, la gente olvida rápidamente lo que fueron en otras épocas esos movimientos que tanta fuerza están tomando en los últimos tiempos y que utilizan la democracia, siempre tambaleante, justamente para destruirla, no solo con el apoyo de los adeptos, ciegos o no, sino de todos aquellos que miran para otro lado, que dicen no estar a favor pero que tampoco se deciden a posicionarse en contra, que no se dan cuenta de que realmente hay buenos y malos.“Recuerdo haber pensado, sin orgullo y sin autocompasión, que yo no era ni rico ni pobre, que no era bueno ni malo. Pero era difícil ser eso: ni bueno ni malo. Me parecía que eso era en el fondo, ser malo.”
Esa novela, que transcurre durante la dictadura de Pinochet, la de los padres del protagonista, es en la que se sumerge el narrador recuperando la mirada de aquel niño que odiaba a Pinochet porque interrumpía los programas de la tele, sintiéndose ahora culpable por la posición que ellos decidieron tomar, tan distinta a las de otras familias (un poco ese famoso síndrome del superviviente), poniéndose su ropa para mirarse largamente en el espejo, aunque, ya se sabe, a los padres “Nunca aprendemos a mirarlos bien”.“…Es como si hubiéramos presenciado un crimen. No lo cometimos, solamente pasábamos por el lugar, pero arrancamos porque sabemos que si nos encontraran nos culparían. Nos creemos inocentes, nos creemos culpables: no lo sabemos.”
Y desde esa novela escribe también la propia, lamentando no estar más en contra de la nostalgia desde la que escribe una y otra, siendo en todo momento consciente de lo incompleta o torcida que es siempre la novela que acaba saliendo.“…un libro es siempre el reverso de otro libro inmenso y raro. Un libro ilegible y genuino que traducimos, que traicionamos por el hábito de una prosa pasable.”
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Formas de Volver a Casa = Ways of Going Home, Alejandro Zambra
A young boy plays hide and seek in the suburbs of Santiago, unaware that his neighbors are becoming entangled in the brutality of Pinochet's regime. Then one night a mysterious girl appears in his neighborhood and makes a life-changing request.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و سوم ماه آوریل سال2016میلادی
عنوان: راه های برگشتن به خانه؛ نویسنده: آلخاندرو (آله خاندرو) سامبرا؛ مترجم ونداد جلیلی؛ تهران، نشر چشمه، سال1394، در145 ص؛ شابک9786002293749؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان اسپانیا - سده21م
کتاب «راه های برگشتن به خانه» را «ونداد خلیلی» از نسخه ی برگردان انگلیسی با عنوان بالا، به فارسی برگردانده اند؛ «راه‌های برگشتن به خانه» به مسئاله ی نسل جوان «شیلی» امروزین، و مشکلات اقلیت‌هایی می‌پردازد، که همگی خواسته هاشان را، حل شده نمی‌دانند، و هنوز هم زندگی دشواری دارند، آنها نمی‌گذارند دیگران بجای آنها بیندیشند، هنوز از موهبت دردناک استفاده ی خواسته و ناخواسته، از ابزار «تردید» در تفکر، برخوردار هستند، و بین دو جبهه ی «این‌طرفی»، و «آن‌طرفی» گرفتار مانده اند، داستان اما، داستانی عاشقانه است
نقل نمونه متن: (یک روز عصر تصمیم گرفتم زنگ خانه را بزنم؛ وقتی دیدم همان زن می‌آید، که در را باز کند، گرخیدم؛ چون تازه متوجه شدم، هیچ برنامه ای ندارم، و اصلاً نمی‌دانم خودم را معرفی بکنم یا نکنم؛ به لکنت گفتم: گربه ام را گم کرده ام؛ اسم گربه را از من پرسید، و جوابی نداشتم؛ پرسید: گربه چه شکلی است؛ گفتم گربه نر است، سیاه، سفید و قهوه ای است؛ زن گفت: «پس نر نیس، ماده اس.»؛ گفتم: «نره.»؛ گفت: «اگه سه رنگه نر نیس؛ گربه ی سه رنگ ماده اس.»؛ و بعد گفت نر یا ماده، این روزها در محله، گربه ی بی‌صاحب ندیده است؛ رفت تو و آمد در را ببندد، که تقریباً فریادزنان گفتم: «کلائودیا!»؛
پرسید: «شما؟»؛ خودم را معرفی کردم؛ گفتم در مایپو هم‌دیگر را می‌شناختیم؛ گفتم با هم دوست بودیم؛ مدت زیادی به من نگاه کرد؛ هیچ نگفتم و نجنبیدم که خوب نگاه کند؛ منتظر ماندن برای شناخته شدن، حس غریبی است، عاقبت گفت: «می‌دونم کی هستی؛ من کلائودیا نیستم؛ «خیمه نا» هستم، خواهر کلائودیا؛ شما هم همون پسری هستی، که اون‌شب دمبالم کرده بود؛ شما علاءالدین هستی؛ کلائودیا این اسمو روت گذاشته بود؛ هروقت یادت می‌افتادیم، خنده مون می‌گرفت، علاءالدین.»؛ نمی‌دانستم چه بگویم؛ به تلخی فهمیدم درست است، «خیمه نا» همان زنی است که سال‌ها پیش تعقیبش کردم: معشوقه ی فرضی رائول؛ البته کلائودیا هیچ‌وقت به من نگفت خواهرش است؛ وزنی بر شانه ام سنگینی می‌کرد، دنبال جمله ای درخور بودم؛ به صدایی ضعیف گفتم: «می‌خوام کلائودیا رو ببینم.»؛ «من فک کردم شما دمبال گربه می‌گردی، اونم گربه ی ماده.»؛ گفتم: «اون که آره؛ اما تو این سالا خیلی به اون دوره تو مایپو فکر کرده‌م؛ می‌خوام کلائودیا رو دوباره ببینم.»؛ نگاه خیره ی «خیمه‌نا» باری از معاندت داشت؛ هیچ نمی‌گفت؛ من حرف می‌زدم، عصبی درباره ی گذشته و میل به اعاده ی گذشته جمله می‌بافتم
خیمه نا گفت: «نمی‌دونم چرا می‌خوای کلائودیا رو ببینی؛ بعید می‌دونم هیچ وقت بتونی زندگی ما رو درک کنی؛ اون وقتا مردم دمبال گم‌شده هاشون بودن، دمبال جسد آدمایی بودن که مفقود شده بودن؛ شک ندارم تو اون روزا هم مثل حالا دمبال بچه گربه و توله سگ بودی.»؛ نمی‌فهمیدم چرا این‌طور پرخاش می‌کند، به نظرم رفتارش بی‌دلیل و پراغراق بود؛ با این همه خیمه‌نا شماره ی تلفه‌فون‌ام را یادداشت کرد، و گفت: «وقتی اومد به اش می‌دم.»؛ «فک می‌کنین کی بیاد؟»؛ گفت: «هر لحظه ممکنه بیاد؛ بابام داره می‌میره؛ وفتی بمیره خواهرجون از یانکی آباد می‌آد که بالای سر مرده اش گریه کنه، و سهم اشو از ارث بگیره.» به نظرم ایالات متحده‌ی آمریکا را «یانکی آباد» نامیدن مضحک و خام آمد، و ضمناً بی‌درنگ یاد گفت‌وگو با کلائودیا درباره ی پرچم‌ها در معبد مایپو افتادم؛ به خودم گفتم دست سرنوشت سرانجام او را به کشوری برده است که در کودکی آن را خوار و پست می‌شمرد؛ به خودم گفتم دیگر باید بروم اما نمی‌توانستم سئوآل آخری را که در ذهن داشتم و سئوآلی مودبانه بود، نپرسم: «دون رائول حال‌شون چه طوره؟»؛ «من نمی‌دونم دون رائول حال‌شون چه طوره؛ اما بابام داره می‌میره؛ دیگه خدافظ علاءالدین؛ تو نمی‌فهمی، هیچ‌وقت هیچ‌چی نمی‌فهمی، پررو!»)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 17/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 31/02/1401هجری خوشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی -
Zambra does a masterful job in this novel giving voice of the experiences of a silent group in Chile -- the generation that grew up under Pinochet's rule, living their childhoods in the shadow of a brutal dictatorship. Zambra reveals the uneasy balance between children's worlds of games and school and friends and parental rules, on the one hand, and those moments when the adult reality of politics and fear and frustration and loss came in through the cracks. Adding a new twist, Zambra focuses particular attention on the experiences of children whose parents were supporters of Pinochet, even simply from their armchairs.
Zambra uses a metafictional frame to explore these experiences and genrational tensions, as he develops a story within a story: one narrator is telling his experiences writing a novel with narrator who, like him, grew up under Pinochet and now is trying to untangle the generational tensions and confusions that complicate his relationship with his parents. Zambra develops this structure masterfully, and in the process provides his readers with important questions about the value and impact of storytelling, the attempts of a generation to grow into adulthood, and the complications surrounding their attempt to find their way home as children and as adults.
Below is my longer review for this book, which was posted at the California Literary Review:
http://calitreview.com/34671
In spite of being described by some critics as “the next Roberto Bolaño” Alejandro Zambra makes his own mark in his third novel, Ways of Going Home. Like Bolaño, Zambra was born in Santiago, Chile. However, he was born later, in 1975, part of a generation that spent its childhood under Pinochet’s rule. In Ways of Going Home, Zambra depicts childhood experiences of trying to understand the cryptic comments and peculiar actions of adults, in an atmosphere where children’s simple pleasures – such as going to watch a soccer match at a municipal stadium — bring back memories of terror, incarcerations, and disappeared loved ones for their parents and neighbors. Perhaps more chillingly, Zambra also explores the other side of the Chilean experience of Pinochet’s rule – what happens when your parents sided for Pinochet, if not actively, passively, while watching TV and living their lives behind closed doors in Chilean suburbs? Is it possible to tell your story, your parents’ story, in an effort to understand, to meet them on equal footing? Zambra’s fictional narrator writes, “I thought about my mother, my father. I thought: What kinds of faces do my parents have? But our parents never really have faces. We never learn to truly look at them.” Ways of Going Home is a mirror Zambra holds up to his generation’s parents, in an effort to see them clearly, to make sense of a past that is not clearly shown in documentaries and books about Chile, and in so doing to navigate his way forward as an adult.
The novel’s title is apt. Zambra skillfully weaves many ways of coming home, all of them entangled in the misunderstandings, connections, and tensions between generations. In the novel’s opening lines, Zambra describes one such event in the life of the fictional narrator:
Once, I got lost. I was six or seven. I got distracted, and all of a sudden I couldn’t see my parents anymore. I was scared, but I immediately found the way home and got there before they did. They kept looking for me, desperate, but I thought that they were lost. That I knew how to get home and they didn’t.
“You went a different way,” my mother said later, angry, her eyes still swollen.
You were the ones who went a different way, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
Zambra provides many different examples of coming home: as a lost child, as an adult visiting his parents, as an adult mourning her parents, as an act of memory, as a step towards understanding, as a confrontation, as an act of love. He threads these homecomings throughout the novel, through past and present, fiction and memory. And throughout, he questions parents’ ability to know the way forward. They are not omniscient, and neither are their children. Zambra eloquently represents a very human fumbling to understand the past and the present, to determine the correct path to follow into the future.
Ways of Going Home is above all a novel about stories and the power of telling those stories as a means of understanding, of navigating memories and relationships and coming through the process with some sense of direction for the future. Zambra develops a metafictional structure for the novel, as he moves between telling the fictionalized story of our narrator, and framing it with the story of the author of that story. This author in turn sifts through memories and former relationships in an attempt to come to terms with the past – his past, his parents’ past, and their place in Chile’s past.
Throughout the novel, the author and the narrator both describe their childhood place as secondary characters, living in the shadows of adults’ decisions and conflicts. The author first introduces secondary characters as the focus of his studies in literature classes as a child. As described by the author,
Every test had a section of character identification, which included only secondary characters: the less relevant the characters, the more likely we would be asked about them, so we memorized names resignedly, though with the pleasure of guaranteed points… There was a certain beauty in the act, because back then we were exactly that: secondary characters, hundreds of children who crisscrossed the city lugging denim backpacks. The neighbors would test the weight and always make the same joke: “What are you carrying in there, rocks?” Downtown Santiago welcomed us with tear gas bombs, but we weren’t carrying rocks, we were carrying bricks by Baldor or Villee or Flaubert.
As the narrator and the author look back on their childhood experiences as adults, they question how they can emerge from this role of being secondary characters. How can they take a place in the world in which they are responsible and central, as opposed to being irrelevant and marginal?
Zambra’s exploration of the power of stories resonates with other manifestations of the centrality of stories in Chile, particularly the witness paid by friends and relatives to the torture, kidnapping, and murder of their friends and relatives by Pinochet’s regime. In his case, though, the witness he bears is to a parallel existence experienced by some children during the regime, as seen in these passages from the perspective of the narrator,
Back then I was, as I always have been, and I always will be, for Colo-Colo. As for Pinochet, to me he was a television personality who hosted a show with no fixed schedule, and I hated him for that, for the stuffy national channels that interrupted their programming during the best parts. Later I hated him for being a son of a bitch, for being a murderer, but back then I hated him only for those inconvenient shows that Dad watched without saying a word, without acceding any movement other than a more forceful drag on the cigarette he always had glued to his lips.
Now I don’t understand that freedom we enjoyed. We lived under a dictatorship; people talked about crimes and attacks, martial law and curfew, but even so, nothing kept me from spending all day wandering far from home. Weren’t the streets of Maipú dangerous then? At night they were, and during the day as well, but the adults played, arrogantly or innocently—or with a mixture of arrogance and innocence—at ignoring the danger. They played at thinking that discontent was a thing of the poor and power the domain of the rich, and in those streets no one was poor or rich, at least not yet.
Even for children whose parents suffered the loss of loved ones under Pinochet, their childhood was marked by a strong sense of invisibility, of being secondary, even trivial. The author’s estranged wife Eme describes one such scene:
She was seven or eight years old, in the yard with other little girls, playing hide-and-seek. It was getting late, time to go inside; the adults were calling and the girls answered that they were coming. The push and pull went on, the calls were more and more urgent, but the girls laughed and kept playing.
Suddenly they realized the adults had stopped calling them a while ago and night had already fallen. They thought the adults must be watching them, trying to teach them a lesson, and that now the grown-ups were the ones playing hide-and-seek. But no. When she went inside, Eme saw that her father’s friends were crying and that her mother, rooted to her seat, was staring off into space. They were listening to the news on the radio. A voice was talking about a raid. It talked about the dead, about more dead.
“That happened so many times,” Eme said that day, five years ago. “We kids understood, all of a sudden, that we weren’t so important. That there were unfathomable and serious things that we couldn’t know or understand.”
The author continues this section with a passage that exemplifies the conflicts he and his peers faced in childhood, “The novel belongs to our parents, I thought then, I think now. That’s what we grew up believing, that the novel belonged to our parents. We cursed them, and also took refuge in their shadows, relieved. While the adults killed or were killed, we drew pictures in a corner. While the country was falling to pieces, we were learning to talk, to walk, to fold napkins in the shape of boats, of airplanes. While the novel was happening, we played hide-and-seek, we played at disappearing.”
In essence, Ways of Going Home is Zambra’s attempt to put his generation at the center of the novel he is writing. The novel’s metafictional structure provides Zambra with a platform to explore the process of writing his way to understanding his past, while also conveying the many challenges posed by this effort. In addition to trying to see his parents clearly, the author also is trying to understand his own efforts clearly, as seen in a passage late in the novel,
Today my friend Pablo called me so he could read me this phrase he found in a book by Tim O’Brien: “What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end.” I kept thinking about that and stayed awake all night. It’s true. We remember the sounds of the images. And sometimes, when we write, we wash everything clean, as if by doing so we could advance toward something. We ought to simply describe those sounds, those stains on memory. That arbitrary selection, nothing more. That’s why we lie so much, in the end. That’s why a book is always the opposite of another immense and strange book. An illegible and genuine book that we translate treacherously, that we betray with our habit of passable prose.
In Ways of Going Home, Zambra is stepping out from the shadows of his childhood. He writes eloquently, intertwining memories, reflections, acts, and consequences of these acts for his characters. The structure of the novel is complex, and requires careful reading to trace the interconnections of the storylines and themes. It is also engaging, particularly in Zambra’s refusal to accept simple answers to understand the past or how to engage with the past in the present. If he is critical of adults’ decisions in the past, he is also critical of his generation. This novel provides valuable insight into the experiences of a generation of Chileans. However, its relevance is not confined to understanding Chile. In his exploration of generational conflict and connection, Zambra provides his readers with a touchstone to their own struggles coming home to their parents in a way that is honest and human. -
"Eve nasıl dönülür"ün cevabını birkaç farklı yolla veriyor Zambra. Ve bu yolların hepsi de hem kaybolmak kadar basit hem de evin yolunu bilen birinin kaybolması kadar ironik.
Şili depremiyle bizi yıllar önceye götürmüşken, birden kitabın yazılma serüvenini anlatmaya başlıyor, sürpriz içinde sürpriz yapıyor. Çok büyük travmaları izah etmeyi, tertemiz bir dille, betimlemeye baş vurmadan, kaybolmak kadar kolay beceriyor Zambra. Okurken, bize de bir kere kaybolduysak eve son kez nasıl geri döneceğimizi sorgulatıyor. Bana sorarsanız Zambra da kaybolmuş ve bu kitabı yazmak da eve dönmenin yolunu bulabilmesi icin oynadığı son koz. Bana yolumu şaşırtıp şaşırtıp buldurdu Eve Dönmenin Yolları'nı okurken. Hele ablasına yazdığı, kitapta neden olmadığını anlatırkenki bölüm muazzamdı. Artık olmayan ve anılarıyla birlikte yıkılmış koca bir evin düğümünü yutkunmaya çalışarak okudum.
Okuyun, tereddütsüz tavsiye ederim. -
"Dün gece saatlerce yürüdüm. Yeni bir sokakta kaybolmak istiyor gibiydim. Mutluluk içinde tamamen kaybolmak. Ama kaybolamadığımız, kaybolmayı beceremediğimiz anlar vardır. Her ne kadar sürekli yanlış yönlere sapsak da. Bütün kerterizleri kaybetsek de. Geç olsa da ve yola devam ederken söken şafağın ağırlığını hissetsek de. Ne kadar uğraşsak da kaybolmayı beceremediğimiz, kaybolamadığımız anlar vardır. Ve belki de kaybolabildiğimiz zamana özlem duyarız. Bütün sokakların yeni olduğu zamana."
İlk iki Zambra romanından biraz daha farklı bir kitap Eve Dönmenin Yolları. Alıştığımız sakin, sade anlatımı yine devam ediyor. Süslü cümlelere, uzun betimlemelere ihtiyaç duymadan başkarakterin aklından geçenleri, duygularını sanki kafasının içindeymişiz gibi aktarıyor bize. Ama bu sefer konu sadece ilişkiler değil. Anlatıcının çocukluğunda gerçekleşen bir depremle başlayan roman bize Şili'de Pinochet diktatörlüğünün yaşattıklarını, o dönem çocuk olmanın ne demek olduğunu gösteriyor önce. Sonra hikaye ilerliyor, anlatıcıyla beraber biz de bazı şeylerin farkına varıyoruz. Anne babalarımızın romanlarında yan karakterleriz diyor Zambra, ama bu onlarla yüzleşmeyeceğimiz anlamına gelmiyor tabi.
Anlatıcı okuduğu kitaplardan, izlediği filmlerden ve belki de en önemlisi kendi hikayesinin yan karakterlerinden bahsediyor bol bol. Eve Dönmenin Yolları anlatıcı kadar bu yan karakterlerin -Claudia'nın, Eme'nin- de hikayesi. Okuruyla konuşan bir günlük havası roman boyunca devam ediyor. Ve farklı yollarla da olsa sürekli eve dönüyoruz; anne babamızı terk etsek de, onlar bizi terk etse de aksi mümkün değil galiba.
Zambra okumayı çok seviyorum. -
Our story starts with two neighborhood kids in Chile during the time of the Pinochet military dictatorship (1973-1990). They live in a middle-class development in a suburb of Santiago. They are living in tents on community ground for a few days after an earthquake. There was little damage in their area but they don’t want to risk being in their apartments during the aftershocks. It turns into an almost festive event with neighbors drinking wine and getting to meet each other while the kids gather around a bonfire.
Initially our main characters are a 12-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy who hardly knew each other before the quake. There's a lot of ‘spying’ going on. The boy feels the girl is spying on him, and later, he enthusiastically accepts her charge to spy on another neighbor - a single man who lives next door to the girl. He follows the man around and reports back to the girl, even following male and female visitors to the strange man’s house. So we have a mystery about what is her interest in spying on this neighbor.
The boy hears snippets of political conversation among adults. He’s uncertain about his father’s political leanings. It turns out this story is a type of Latin American ‘political terror’ story like others I have read. They have the theme of the impact of political violence on the youngest generation at that time period - kids who grew up with strange things going on and not understanding them at the time, only realizing what was going on years later. (Examples of other novels where the focus is on the impact of Latin American political violence on youth growing up at the time include Space Invaders by Nona Fernandez set in Chile and The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, set in Colombia.)
It's a fictional meta-novel, or perhaps it can be called meta-writing. We hear from the fictitious author on occasion, things like “I like that my characters don't have last names. It's a relief.” It’s also like a meta-novel in that the author tells us about his feelings and his problems with writing the story that we read about at the beginning of the book. (And perhaps at times we don’t know if it’s Zambra the author speaking or the fictional author.)
Later the fictitious writer is considering getting back with his ex-wife. They meet frequently and go to his apartment but don’t yet live together again. He talks with his ex- about this story and gives her drafts. He seems almost obsessed with her opinion of it.
We follow the two kids until he is 13 and she is 16. Pinochet is gone and the boy learns what all the spying was about. Much later in life the boy and girl, now young adults, meet again. Claudia is single, living in the US, and comes back to Chile for an extended visit. Will the main character finally develop a romance with this childhood friend he had a crush on as a kid?
Here are a couple of examples of Zambra’s good writing:
A friend from childhood visits the main character. “I like that he gives advice. Now that I think about it, there was a time when everyone gave advice. When life consisted of giving and receiving advice. But then all of a sudden, no one wanted any more advice.”
Claudia is talking about how when she left Chile to go to the US, she left her older sister alone to take care of their ailing father. The main character asks her if she feels guilty. “I don’t feel guilty,’ she answers. “But I feel that lack of guilt as if it were guilt.”
A good story and good writing; good but not great. Still I intend to read more by this Chilean author. Zambra (b. 1975) has written five novels, all available in English translation. His best-known work is Bonsai. He gained notice first from his short stories published in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper’s. The Paris Review and Granta.
Photo of the author from lithub.com -
"Instead of screaming, I write books" R. Gary
This is a redemptive tribute to those who went missing during the Pinochet regime. To all those unknown names whose blood still runs through the veins of the silenced generation which was growing up during this elusive period in Chile.
Zambra’s unpretentious voice gets irretrievably tangled with the one narrating the story, a nameless writer, who simultaneously mirrors his life through his characters, creating a perfecty circled metanarration, overflowing with complex yet sophisticated symbolism.
"The novel belongs to our parents," the narrator says, understanding that his childhood experience of censorship and brutality was indirect, diluted by his infancy. Zambra plays a magic trick in creating an evocative past even in such a distressing time, where children played to be either war correspondents or secret spy agents or, if you prefer, secondary characters, as the metafiction kicks in with force.
The passage of time gives perspective to the ones now remembering. Zambra and his narrator dare to speak in an attempt to relieve the painful hungover which comes from a violent past and the arduous task of coming to terms with a disorienting history.
The once oblivious child has no choice but to carry the heavy burden of guilt on behalf of his parents, who were passive supporters of Pinochet, and learn to live with the increasing tension and estrangement towards them. I felt disturbed with recognition about the way Zambra faced his conflicting emotions when evoking his parental figures. The abstract need, the unquestionable respect for his parents in his youthful days as opposed to the embarrassment and disapproval he feels for them in the present. It rings a bell.
“You went a different way,” my mother said later, angry, her eyes still swollen. You were the ones who went a different way, I thought, but I didn’t say it.”
The different ways of remembering which try to ease the anguish of knowing that you have become an orphan when you decided to start writing.
“I thought about my mother, my father. I thought: What kinds of faces do my parents have? But our parents never really have faces. We never learn to truly look at them.”
This novel is also a hymn to the vocation of writing, and it’s precisely this calling which urges the narrator to write down the slippery scenes of a long gone past to give first names to these secondary characters, to explain, in the end, his own story.
"Although we might want to tell other people's stories we always end up telling our own."
The courageous catharsis of giving up the fictional framing to write about oneself, to finally speak out loud. That is what pierced right through me. To see these survivors of a lost world dealing with their present the best they can. Some stay, some fly away.And the shock which comes with the understanding that it’s just because you want them to stay that you have to let them go. And that it really doesn’t matter. Either staying or going, each one has to find its own way of going back home. -
Μπορεί όλα να πηγαίνουν κατά διαόλου, αλλά τουλάχιστον διαβάζω ωραία βιβλία 💛
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Leer, subrayar, re-leer, no olvidar.
Han pasado un par de horas desde que terminé esta novela y aún veo algunas escenas flotando, en la retina, como imágenes en cámara lenta que se rehúsan a abandonarme. Pienso en los papás del narrador, en sus viajes en micro, en su reencuentro con una amiga de infancia, en las conversaciones de sobremesa. En fin, son imágenes sencillas, que bien podrían lucir actuales, pero que, en su momento, me transportaron al Chile de los años 80, el Chile post-terremoto del '85 que no conocí, pero que, tras leer, siento haber visitado. Es ese Chile que todavía tendría que resistir unos cuántos años la dictadura.
Hay algo en la escritura de Zambra que, por un lado, nos impulsa a seguir y seguir leyendo y, por otro, nos retiene en algunas frases, que debemos repasar sí o sí y que leemos como caminando por vidrios rotos, con mucho cuidado. Es una escritura muy sencilla con atisbos de poesía y de una belleza singular que poco se ve en otros narradores.
Por momentos, la novela se desarma, de manera rizomática, de tal manera que la experiencia de lectura se transforma en un ir y venir de recuerdos de infancia, interpolados por el presente del narrador (¿o es más bien el presente interpolado por la infancia?). Poco a poco la historia va juntando sus piezas en un relato más homogéneo, que pertenece a esa generación de adultos que, durante la infancia, entendía solo a medias lo que pasaba.
Lo que más me gusta de la narración es cómo se traza la ciudad, el Santiago más bien periférico, de barrios humildes, el de las casitas pareadas. Hay un interés por recordar con afecto -pero conciencia- esos espacios, las personas que vivían allí y el miedo que algunos vecinos sentían ante la persecución. El narrador está, de cierta manera, en un espacio privilegiado, aunque insiste en escribir para no olvidar lo que pasó. Su escritura es una manera de re-entender el pasado desde lo político.
Cuando sea el próximo terremoto, espero que el relato de la dictadura siga presente, incluso en la retina de las generaciones venideras, las de la posmemoria. Hay muchas citas que subrayé, pero me quedo con esta, que es la más bonita:
"Es tarde. Escribo. La ciudad convalece pero retoma de a poco el movimiento de una noche cualquiera al final del verano. Pienso ingenuamente, intensamente en el dolor. En la gente que murió hoy, en el sur. En los muertos de ayer, de mañana. Y en este oficio extraño, humilde y altivo, necesario e insuficiente: pasarse la vida mirando, escribiendo". -
به خودم گفتم دو سال است تنها زندگی می کنم و همسایه ام نمی داند. به خودم گفتم حالا من همسایه مجردم، حالا من رائولم، من روبرتو ام. بعد یاد رمان افتادم. تشویشی گریبان گیرم شد و بر آن شدم داستان این گونه تمام خواهد شد: خانه مایپو، خانه دوران کودکی ام ویران خواهد شد. چه باعث شد درباره زلزله آن سال ها بنوسیم؟ نمی دانم اما می دانم که فکر مرگ اولین بار در آن شب دور به سراغم آمد. آن روزها مرگ برای کودکانی مثل من نامریی بود. کودکانی که از خانه بیرون می رفتند و بی باکانه در آن خیابان های خیالی می دویدند، از تاریخ در امان بودند. اولین بار شب زلزله متوجه شدم همه چیز به خاک خواهد پیوست. حالا فکر می کنم دانستن این موضوع خوب است. لازم است هر لحظه این موضوع را به خود خاطرنشان کنم.
کتاب راه های برگشتن به خانه در دسته رمان و ادبیات داستانی قرار دارد،اما می توان آن را یک اتوبیوگرافی و یا حتی یک دفتر خاطرات به حساب آورد، با نوشته هایی پاره پاره، غریب، بدون چهارچوب و بی آغاز و پایان مشخص. زیرا در بسیاری از قسمت های کتاب نمی توان میان نویسنده و راوی، داستان و خاطرات، گذشته و حال تفکیکی قائل شد. کتاب روایت گر بحران نسل دوم دیکتاتوری پینوشه ست، نسلی بحران زده که هیچ دستاویزی جز خاطرات محو گذشته ندارد و قادر نیست میان درون خویش و محیط بیرون تعادل و تعامل برقرار سازد.
به جز گره گشایی ماجرای رائول و کلائودیا، داستان شامل هیچ واقعه خاص دیگری نمی شود و باقی کتاب شامل اتفاقات روزمره و عادی ای است که به خودی خود هیچ جذابیتی ندارد، اما نویسنده این خاطرات پراکنده را با ایجاد کشمکش های درونی و بیرونی برای شخصیت اصلی و مقابل داستان (راوی و کلائودیا و ئه مه) خواندنی و گیرا ساخته است.
در داستان اشاراتی وجود داشت که برای من جالب بود. یکی نام بردن از فیلم اوهایو - صبح بخیر - یاسوجیرو ازو و دیگری خاطره ای که راوی در آن به ورزشگاه ملی شیلی اشاره می کند. آنجا که از خنده ی عامه ی مردم حین نمایش در استادیوم سخن می گوید. استادیومی که چند سال پیش تر بزرگترین بازداشتگاه زندانیان سیاسی محسوب می شد و ویکتور خارا -ترانه سرای معروف و محبوب انقلابی - یکی از زندانیان آنجا بود که در همان حوالی هم به قتل رسید.
در ارتباط با ترجمه: ترجمه کتاب نسبتا روان بود اما کتاب سرشار از اشکالات نگارشی و یکی دو مورد اشکال دستوری بود.استفاده مترجم از واژه "گرخیدن" در کتاب نیز بسیار عجیب به نظر می رسد -
Savage Garden'in Truly Madly Deeply şarkısını ilk kez dinlediğimde o şarkıyı ben bestelemiş olmayı dilerdim diye düşünmüştüm. Bu kitap bittiğinde ise benzer bir şekilde bu kitabı keşke ben yazmış olsaydım diye düşündüm.
Kitabı okumayanlar için kısmı bilgiler içerebilir. Kitabı tanıtıcı bilgi içerebilir de içermeyebilir de bir garantisi yok, baştan uyarayım dedim :)
Bir kere ismi çok güzel! Eve Dönmenin Yolları, aslında bir çocuğun kaybolması ile başlasa da ileride de zaman zaman geçmişini kurcalayan bir adamın dilinden muhtelif şekillerde eve dönmenin yolları anlatılıyor.
Minimalist hastası birisi olarak Zambra'nın üslubunu ve anlatımını inanılmaz sevdim. Kitapta bazen küçücük detaylar gizli ve belki o detaylardan bir kitap daha çıkabilir. Belki yazar 19. yüzyılda yazsa bu romanı en az 1000 sayfa olurdu ama o kadar günümüzden ve o kadar kendimizden bir kitap ki bu kısacık ve tadında olmuş. Bazıları şu an eski kitapların belki gereksiz uzun olduğunu tartışıyor olabilir (Savaş ve Barış ile ilgili öyle bir tartışma okumuştum), belki de ileride 100-150 yıl sonra bu kitap neden bu kadar kısa diye yakınacaklar kim bilir...
Birçok açıdan çok güzel ve ilginç bir kitap. Herkes beğenmeyebilir bu kitabı ama bence kesinlikle herkes tarafından ilginç bulunacak bir kitap. Kurgu içinde kurgu ve post modern öykü hatta bir novella örneğini çok güzel yansıtmış bir kitap.
Kitap depremle başlayıp depremle bitiyor. Tıpkı hayat gibi... Herkesin hayatı sancıyla başlayıp, ölümle bitiyor. -
"Birinin yalnız yaşamasını anlamakta güçlük çekiyordum. Bana kalırsa yalnız yaşamak bir tür ceza olabilirdi ya da bir hastalık."
"Şimdi son yıllarda yaptığım en iyi şeyin sürüsüne bereket bira içmek ve bazı kitapları kendimi adayarak, tuhaf bir sadakatle, sanki içlerinde bana ait bir can, kadere dair bir iz varmışcasına yeniden okumak olduğunu düşünüyorum."
İlk Zambra okumamdı ve bu gece diğer kitaplarının hepsini okumamak için kendimi zor tutuyorum. 😍
⭐ -
"...και μόλο που θέλουμε ν' αφηγούμαστε ιστορίες άλλων, πάντα καταλήγουμε ν' αφηγούμαστε τη δική μας"
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Ποσο με διχασε αυτο το βιβλιο... το τελειωσα μην ξεροντας αν μ αρεσε ή οχι. Κι αν ναι, ποσο μου αρεσε.
Αυτο το βιβλιο μ' αρεσε και δε μ' αρεσε ταυτοχρονα. Αλλα σίγουρα δεν υπηρξε αδιάφορο.
Ξεκινησε παρα πολυ ωραια, μια σημαντική ιστορία απο την Ιστορια (ο μεγάλος σεισμος του 1985 στη Χιλη, η δικτατορία τουυ Πινοσετ) ιδωμένη απ την τρυφερή ματιά ενος μικρού παιδιού. Μετα καπου μπλεχτηκα, εχασα το ρυθμό, και σ αυτο βασικά κατηγορώ τον συγγραφέα.
Νομιζω αυτο ηταν που δε μ΄αρεσε, ή, αυτό που μ' ενόχλησε στο βιβλίο. Που, ενω ειχε μια τοσο ωραια ιστορια να πει, μια τοσο ομορφη ιδεα με τοσο ομορφες λεξεις και σκεψεις, αυτη δε βρηκε την ολοκληρωσή της, δεν πραγματοποιηθηκε ποτε να γινει ενα ωραιο βιβλιο. Ηταν σα να ειπε ενα ωραιο τραγουδι με μια ξεκουρδιστη κιθαρα. Ενα ξεχαρβαλωμενο πιάνο.
Ειχε τεχνικά λαθη, δηλαδη.
Και, ισως κι εγω να εχω θεσει υψηλα τον πηχυ στους λατινοαμερικανους συγγραφεις και να περιμενω περισσοτερα απο την νεα γενια των συνεχιστων τους.
Εχω διαβασει και την Ιδιωτική ζωη των δεντρων του ιδίου, και παλι δε μ αρεσε πολύ, για διαφορετικό λογο. Ειχε ξανα αυτο το ονειρικό, μια νωχελική αφήγηση, καπως μαστουρωμένη θα τολμουσα να πω, αλλα εκεινο με αφησε αδιάφορη. Ήταν μια αδιαφορη, προσωπική ιστοριούλα.
Εδω εχει ενα πολυ καλο υλικο, υπ��ρ��χες σκέψεις, και δεν τα καταφερε στο πλέξιμο. Δεν ενωθηκαν εντεχνως οι πλοκές.
Ετσι ενιωσα, δυστυχως, γιατι ηθελα πολυ να μου αρεσει.
Γιατι σε στιγμες συγκινηθηκα και σε στιγμες ενιωσα, αλλα μετα με πεταγε παλι εξω, σαν παλια μπακατελα πισι.
και λιγο θυμωσα κιολας γι αυτο, δεν ξερω γιαττ, ισως γιατι ηθελα να μ αρεσει, ειχε ολα τα φοντα, γαμωτο.
Δεν μπορω να βρω αλλες μεταφορες για να το περιγραψω.
Ωστοσο, αν και η κριτική μου συνεβη με το φτυαρι του νεκροθάφτη, θα κρατησω τα -αντιφατικά- 4 αστερια στο rating σκοπιμα, γιατι ειχε παρα πολυ ωραιες προτασεις, παρα πολυ ωραιες σκέψεις και ηθελα να του βαλω κατι παραπανω απο 3 γι αυτο. Αρχικα, να φανταστεις, που το ξεκινησα, ημουν σιγουρη για τα 5 αστερια.
Αχ ρε Ζαμπρα, ποσο δυσκολο ειναι να εισαι απόγονος λατινοαμερικανικης κουλτουρας, τι βαρια κληρονομιά..
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"Διάβασμα ειναι να καλύπτεις το προσωπό σου. Και γράψιμο να το αποκαλύπτεις" -
Formas de contar una historia
Este año para mí es el del descubrimiento de Alejandro Zambra. Primeo leí "Facsímil" y me fascinó. Después le autorregalé a miqueridaesposa esta novela que se supone es su obra cumbre.
Ella la leyó primero y al terminarla me dijo que no le había gustado tanto, que era "más estilo que contenido". Bueno, no coincidimos en absoluto. Por empezar el arte es el reino de la forma sobre el contenido. El cómo sobre el qué. Para el qué están los fallos judiciales y los papers científicos. En la forma de contar se juega la literatura (y en parte esa máquina de recortar la realidad a la que llamamos "periodismo").
"Formas de volver a casa" tiene varios planos y una frontera porosa entre eso que llamamos ficción y realidad. La trama se va urdiendo sin perderse nunca. Los tópicos son similares a los de "Facsímil" - la relación padres-hijo y el fracaso matrimonial.
En el medio, un ajuste de cuentas con el pasado de su familia y la historia de Chile marcada por la dictadura de Pinochet - tan parecida y tan diferente a la que vivimos los argentinos.
Ahora quiero leerme todo Zambra. No será complicado, entre otras virtudes, su literatura tiene la de la brevedad.
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Gracias, te espero
Sant -
‘Okumak yüzünü kapamaktır diye düşündüm.
Okumak yüzünü kapamaktır. Yazmaksa yüzünü göstermek.’
Okur olarak zor bir dönemden geçiyorum, elime aldığım kitapları, okumaya başladığım cümleleri bitiremiyorum. İki gün önce nispeten kısa olduğu için başladığım Eve Dönmenin Yolları’nı bir oturuşta yarıladım ve bu sabah da bitirdim. Uzun zamandır bu kadar naif bir roman okumamıştım. Çeviriyi de çok başarılı buldum.
Tam da ihtiyacım olan açık ve kısa bir anlatım ile yazılmış roman Zambra ile tanışmama ve Şili edebiyatını ne kadar sevdiğimi hatırlamama yardımcı oldu. Yazarların romanlarının hayatlarından nasıl izler taşıdığını da.
‘Dün gece saatlerce yürüdüm. Yeni bir sokakta kaybolmak istiyor gibiydim. Mutluluk içinde tamamen kaybolmak. Ama kaybolamadığımız, kaybolmayı beceremediğimiz anlar vardır. Her ne kadar sürekli yanlış yönlere sapsak da. Bütün kerterizleri kaybetsek de. Geç olsa da ve yola devam ederken söken şafağın ağırlığını hissetsek de. Ne kadar uğraşsak da kaybolmayı beceremediğimiz, kaybolamadığımız anlar vardır. Ve belki de kaybolabildiğimiz zamana özlem duyarız. Bütün sokakların yeni olduğu zamana.’ -
Oldukça sade ve yalın bir kitap ama anlatması zor. Bununla birlikte okuması çok zevkli.
Eve dönmek her zaman güzeldir tabii dönecek bir ev varsa ve dönmenin yollarını da biliyorsanız.
Okurken keşke bizim ülkemizde de bu kadar sade bir şekilde yaşadığımız ve yaşamakta olduğumuz sosyo-siyasal çalkantılar konu alınsa demeden edemedim.
Çok sevdim, çok okunası !
Keyifli okumalar ! -
Zambra’nın okuduğum ilk kitabı bu. Dilini çok sevdim, zengin ama sade, abartısız ama coşkulu cümleleri çok hoş. Nasıl böyle zıt nitelikler bir arada olabiliyor derseniz kitabı okumanızı öneririm. Zaten kitap boşluklarını da sayarsanız 100 sayfalık bir kitap. Daha önce okuduğum Şili’deki 1973 faşist darbesiyle ile ilgili kitapların aksine yazar Pinochet yanlısı olmasa bile apolitik tavırlarıyla Pinochet sempatizanı olan anne ve babasını hiç gocunmadan anlatıyor. Bir roman yazarken roman içinde nasıl kaybolduğunu ve nasıl yolunu bulduğunu öyle güzel anlatıyor ki, şu ara bir şekilde hayatın içinde yolunu kaybeden varsa geri dönmenin yollarını bu kitapta bulabilirler.
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Biçim ve içeriğin örtüşmesi konusunda da gayet başarılı bir kitap. Kitap yazma çabası içerisinde kitabın sonuna doğru birlikte olduğu Eme nin kitabı nasıl bulduğunu merak etmesi , Eme'nin bu soruya pek ilgi göstermemesi, kitabın başladığı gibi bitmesi (bir depremle) döngüsü bence kitapta anlatılmak istenen duyguyu çok da iyi veriyor.
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Şimdiye kadar ertelediğime çok pişman oldum. Düşünceler kadar yalın dili, asla karton gibi olmayan gerçek karakterleri ile kültürün içinden çıkmamış olunmasına rağmen çok tanıdık gelen anlar, diyaloglar ile eve dönmenin yolları… Kitabın adı daha da derinleşiyor okuyunca
Çok sevdim.
“Büyükler öldürürken ya da ölürken biz köşede resim yapıyorduk. Ülke paramparça olurken biz konuşmayı, yürümeyi, peçeteleri katlayarak kayık ve uçak yapmayı öğreniyorduk. Roman örülürken biz yok olmak için saklambaç oynuyorduk.” -
Ο Zambra μαζί με τον Andres Neuman είναι δύο απ΄τις πιο ενδιαφέρουσες νέες φωνές που έχουν μεταφραστεί στην Ελλάδα τα τελευταία χρόνια. Σχεδόν συνομίληκοί -μoυ- με λατινοαμερικάνικες ρίζες κ μια φρέσκια γραφή (ειδικά ο Zambra), έχουν ήδη κάνει τα πρώτα βήματα καταξίωσης (μεταφρασμένοι στα αγγλικά αμφότεροι) με την προσεγμένη μέχρι στιγμής παραγωγή τους.
Τον Χιλιανό τον γνώρισα τυχαία πέρσι, αγνοώντας ότι ο Πατάκης είχε ήδη κυκλοφορήσει το ντεμπούτο του, Μπονσάι, κ διάβασα την αγγλική μετάφραση πριν δω κ την ταινία. Έχει μια φαινομενικά απλή γραφή, είναι μινιμαλιστής αλλά πίσω απ'τις λέξεις του ο Zambra κρύβει αριστοτεχνικά τις σκέψεις του, όπως κάνει στο Τρόποι να γυρίζεις σπίτι, που είναι σαφώς ανώτερο του Μπονσάι, παρόλο που κι αυτό μου άρεσε πολύ. Χρησιμοποιώντας το σύστημα "βιβλίο μέσα στο βιβλίο", ο συγγραφέας γυρίζει πίσω στις μέρες του εγκληματία-δικτάτορα Πινοσέτ, όταν ο ήρωας του ήταν ακόμα μικρό παιδί κ ήταν αδύνατο να νιώσει τη φρίκη της κατάστασης. Μιλώντας για ένα παιδικό έρωτα, ο Zambra θέτει ερωτήματα για την παιδική ηλικία, για τις αναμνήσεις τις οποίες συλλέγει με μανία για να χρησιμοποιήσει στο βιβλίο που γράφει αλλά κ για να εξηγήσει τη ζωή του. Τι θέση είχαν οι γονείς του απέναντι στο καθεστώς; Πως είναι δυνατόν ο ίδιος να συνεχίζει να ζει γνωρίζοντας ότι ήταν ένας, αναγκαστικά λόγω ηλικίας, δευτερεύων χαρακτήρας στην ίδια του τη βιογραφία;
"Το μυθιστόρημα είναι το μυθιστόρημα των γονέων, σκέφτηκα τότε, σκέφτομαι κ τώρα. Μεγαλώσαμε, αυτό πιστεύοντας: ότι το μυθιστόρημα είναι των γονέων. Τους κακολογούσαμε αλλά στη σκιά τους βρίσκαμε ανακούφιση κ καταφύγιο. Ενόσω οι μεγάλοι σκότωναν ή σκοτώνονταν, εμείς ζωγραφίζαμε σε μια γωνιά. Ενόσω η χώρα διαλυόταν, εμείς μαθαίναμε να μιλάμε, να περπατάμε, να κάνουμε με τις χαρτοπετσέτες βαρκούλες κι αεροπλανάκια. Ενόσω το μυθιστόρημα συνέβαινε, εμείς παίζαμε κρυφτό, παίζαμε εξαφάνιση".
Αυτο που βρίσκω μαγικό στο Zambra είναι ο τρόπος. Πώς με μια άκρως μινιμαλιστική τεχνοτροπία θέτει την προβληματική του βιβλίου του χωρίς να εκβιάζει τίποτα και πάνω απ'όλα χωρίς να γίνεται διδακτικός (παγίδα στην οποία πέφτει με το κεφάλι ο Vasquez που ανήκει στην ίδια κατηγορία συγγραφέων, ακόμα κι αν χρησιμοποιεί άλλα μέσα κ αν υποστηρίζει διαφορετικά πράγματα. Αναμφίβολα κι οι δύο ψάχνουν τρόπους να συμφιλιώσουν το παρόν με το παρελθόν του τόπου τους, τρόπους να γυρίσουν σπίτι. Οι διαδρομές είναι αισθητά διαφορετικές). Ταυτόχρονα μιλάει για τον ίδιο, για την λογοτεχνία, για τη συγγραφή κ για την μεγάλη γοητεία που ασκούν σε δημιουργούς κ αναγνώστες.
Σε γενικές γραμμές βρίσκω συναρπαστικό το πώς μιλάει ο Zambra κ αυτό σχεδόν με εκπλήσσει μιας κ λείπουν χαρακτηριστικά που με γοητεύουν στα περισσότερα βιβλία που αγαπώ. Έχει μια φοβερή αυτοπεποίθηση για την ηλικία του, γεγονός που εξηγεί τον παιχνιδιάρικο τρόπο που γράφει χωρίς να παραμένει πιστός στη φόρμα που υπηρετεί. Επίσης σε προσωπικό επίπεδο, είναι ανακουφιστικό να διαπιστώνω ότι μπορώ ακόμα να μη ξέρω τι θέλω ακριβώς, ακόμα κ σε απλά χόμπι όπως είναι η ανάγνωση. Περιμένω σχεδόν με αγωνία να μεταφραστεί κ η υπόλοιπη βιβλιογραφία του κ δεν θα διαβάσω τις αγγλικές μεταφράσεις, αν κ δεν κρατιέμαι, μιας κ ο Κυριακίδης έχει κεντήσει κ πάλι. Ο Ικαρος έχει ήδη ανακοινώσει την κυκλοφορία του έργου που προηγήθηκε των Τρόπων, Η Ιδιωτική Ζωή των Δέντρων (εχει βγάλει κ μια συλλογή διηγημάτων κ το πειραματικό Multiple Choice που κυκλοφόρησε φέτος).
Υ.Γ. Μην ψάχνετε κοινά με τον Μπολάνιο, πέρα από άλλου επιπέδου συγγραφέας ο Μπολάνιο είχε άλλες προτεραιότητες, o Zambra προσπαθεί να γράψει το μυθιστόρημα της ε��όμενης γενιάς, ο Μπολάνιο καθόρισε την προηγούμενη. Γι'αυτές τις χαζές συγκρίσεις δεν φταίνε οι συγγραφείς άλλωστε. Ο Julian Barnes κ το Ενα Καποιο Τελος είναι πολύ πιο κοντα στον εδώ κ τώρα Zambra. -
The narrator struggles to speak truthfully about things that are too terrible, or too hidden, to be written about truthfully. This novel succeeds magnificently in turning that contradiction into art. The novel is from the point of view of a novelist trying to make sense of his childhood during the Pinochet years, and to come to terms with the choices that his parents and the other adults in his life made to survive those years.
An excerpt:
I'd spent the afternoon with a group of classmates, and we were exchanging family stories in which death appeared with urgent insistence. Of all those present I was the only one who came from a family with no dead, and that realization filled me with a strange bitterness: my friends had grown up reading the books that their dead parents or siblings left behind in the house. But in my family there were no dead and there were no books.
I come from a family with no dead. -
Πρώτο βιβλίο για το 2021 και η χρονιά μου ξεκίνησε πολύ όμορφα αναγνωστικά! Ένα βιβλίο με οικείο ύφος που με έβαλε στη θέση του ήρωα πολλές φορές. Υπήρξαν περιπτώσεις που σκεφτόμουν πως δεν μπορεί ,εμένα περιγράφει! Ο Alejandro Zambra ,χωρίς πολλά "στολίδια" αλλα με τρόπο απλό λιτό κι απέριττο σε κάνει να θες να γυρίσεις σπίτι με έναν ή και περισσότερους τρόπους.
"Αντί να ουρλιάζω γράφω βιβλία"
Καθόλη τη διάρκεια της ανάγνωσης ένιωθα πως μιλούσα στο τηλέφωνο με έναν φίλο και ήθελα να του φωνάξω " πόσο σε καταλαβαίνω" !
"...και μόλο που θέλουμε να αφηγούμαστε ιστορίες άλλων, πάντα καταλήγουμε να αφηγούμαστε τη δική μας". -
Biraz önce şiir yazmayı denedim, ancak șu birkaç dize çıktı:
Ben büyüyünce bir anı olacaktım
Ama artık yoruldum durmaksızın
Güzelliği aramaktan ve ayıklamaktan
Rüzgardan kırılmış bir ağaçtaki
Sadece ilk dize hoşuma gitti:
Ben büyüyünce bir anı olacaktım.
//
Nasıl güzel. -
Zambra'ya sarıldım, romana bayıldım!
Bende Roberto Bolano saplantısı başladığından beri, Latin Amerika tarihine ama özellikle Şili'nin geçmişine, kültürüne özel bir ilgi duydum. Bolano romanlarını okurken bir yandan da kendimi bu alanda tarihi bilgi açısından donattım. Zira içinden geçtiği gerçeklikle sıkı sıkıya örtülü Şili Edebiyatı, savruk, eksik bir okuma yapmaya pek müsait değil. Yazarlar ve karakterleri ile tam bir bütünleşme sağlanabilmesi, acılarına ortak olunabilmesi için, duygudaşlık kurabilecek kadar yaşadıklarını bilmek gerekiyor. Bunun da etkisiyle zaten diğer kitaplarından pek keyif aldığım Zambra'nın 'Eve Dönmenin Yolları' romanından muazzam derecede keyif aldım. Elimden bırakamadım, uykusuzluk ve yorgunluğuma rağmen; aheste aheste okuyup sonunu getirdim. Bonsai ve Ağaçların Özel Yaşantısı'nı da okumuş biri olarak yazarın en iyi romanının bu olduğunu söylemek isterim.
Uzun uzadıya anlatıldığında bile pek kavranmayan, travmatik ve hassas duyguları o kadar güzel aktarmış ki Zambra ancak bir ustalık sonucu olabilir bu. Topraklarının geleneği haline gelmiş, 'büyülü gerçekçilik' sularına hiç girmeden, salt gerçeklikle bir şeyler inşa etmiş. Gerçeklik derken tam anlamıyla olduğunu söylemek isterim. Karakterleri ve olayları karşılıkları olan şeylerden almasının yanında, bir noktada romana yazar Zambra olarak da dahil olup, kitabı yazma serüvenini de anlatarak işi bir adım ileriye götürüyor. Bu süreci romanın bir parçası haline getirirken deneysel bir metin gibi de tınlamıyor. Kırılgan ve kopuk hisleri, abartmadan, ağdalamadan hem kendinden hemde karakterlerinden donelerle, betimlemelerde boğulmadan, ruhsal tasvirlere girmeden aktarıyor.
Pinochet Darbesi etkisi altında çok roman yazılmış bulunmakta. Malum en büyük zararlardan birini de o dönem sanatçı/aydın grup almıştı. Özellikle yazarlar ve şairler. Hepsinde o kadar saf ve güçlü bir öfke, acı, matem var ki samimiyetinden bir an dahi şüphe etmiyorsunuz. Bu anlamda Bolano, çok katmanlı ve üzerinde düşünüldükçe rengi ortaya çıkan eserler yazarken, Zambra herkesin okurken aynı kolaylıkla kavrayabileceği bir eser yazmış.
Kitaptaki karakterler kusursuz, muhteşem, benzersiz değiller. İşin en güzel taraflarından biri de bu. Tanışıkmış gibi gelen karakterler hepsi. Sanki arkadaşlarınız, yanınızda oturuyorlar, geçmiş akıllarına dadandığında uzaklara bakıyorlar, asla geçmeyecek zihinsel yorgunlukları ile geçmişlerinin korkunç anılarını taşımaya zorlanıyorlar ama yüzünüze döndüklerinde gülümseyip, kimseyi ürkütmeyen kısık bir sesle muhabbete kaldıkları yerden devam ediyorlar.
Ben çok beğendim, herkese tavsiye ederim.
9/10 -
Escolhido como o livro do Chile no Bookster pelo mundo, “Formas de voltar para casa” é um livro de reconstrução da memória, tendo como pano de fundo o governo de Pinochet, no final do século XX. Desde sua infância até os dias atuais, o personagem vai descrevendo passagens de sua vida e da história do Chile com base no que viu e no que lhe contaram.
É um olhar sensível e poético sobre uma geração que teve que crescer embaixo da sombra de uma ditadura. A forma como a criança vai aos poucos compreendendo a realidade ao seu redor e perdendo a idealização que faz de seus pais e avós é muito real e tocante. Mas não espere um livro apenas sobre a ditadura, é mais que isso: é uma obra sobre vidas, cotidianos e pessoas que não podiam deixar de seguir enquanto a ditadura acontecia.
Para construir esse romance, o autor se utiliza muito da metalinguagem, já que o personagem principal revive suas memórias enquanto escreve seu próprio livro. Também não posso deixar de dizer que estou cada vez estou mais fascinado pela literatura latino-americana. Apesar das diferenças culturais e da História de cada país, é impossível não perceber a existência de laços que nos unem e que fazem de nossas histórias uma narrativa semelhante.
“Sabia pouco, mas pelo menos sabia isto: que ninguém fala pelos outros. Que, mesmo que queiramos contar histórias alheias, terminamos sempre contando nossa própria história.”
Nota 8,5/10
Leia mais resenhas em
https://instagram.com/book.ster -
“Non domandiamo per sapere (…) domandiamo per riempire un vuoto “
Quante sono le strade che possono ricondurre al passato?
Quanto si può affondare nei ricordi senza rimanerne sopraffatti?
Cile.
Ci sono due terremoti che fanno da cornice a questo romanzo come a ricordare che tutto da un momento all’altro può crollare; la precarietà è in agguato...
E’ con il sisma del 1985 che si apre il romanzo.
La terra si muove in una nazione che è già confusa da scosse di altro genere:
è la dittatura di Pinochet.
La storia si muove su due registri: da una parte l'amicizia tra un ingenuo bambino e una ragazzina; dall’altra lo scrittore che rielabora la sua storia personale usando la sua unica arma a disposizione, ossia, le parole.
Sono state scritte tante storie su quegli anni di torture fisiche e mentali ma Zambra prende una strada diversa e si chiede:
Cosa ha significato essere figli del silenzio quando imperversava l’orrore?
Quali conseguenze personali può avere avuto il ricordo di un’infanzia in cui l’eco di ciò che succedeva era una sfumatura che nessuno ti faceva notare?
E’ giusto provare vergogna per una famiglia che in quegli anni non faceva altro che abbassare la testa?
” È a questo che servono gli album, penso: a farci credere che da bambini siamo stati felici. A dimostrarci che non vogliamo accettare quanto siamo stati felici” -
اول بگم که من از این نویسنده جیزی نخونده بودم و تا اونجا که یادمه خیلی از ادبیات امریکای جنوبی دل خوشی نداشتم، ولی این نویسنده شیلیایی خیلی خوب نوشته و ترجمه روان هم به فهم بیشتر این اثر خیلی کمک کرد.
پیش بردن خط داستانی تو این کتاب متفاوت از تجربیات من بود ولی انقدر خوب کار شده بود که اصلا احساس گم مردن خط داستان نداد به من.
نمی دونم بقیه کتاب های این نویسنده ترجمه شدن یا نه، ولی بنظر من این کتاب ارزش خوندن رو داره. خوشم اومد از تم کتاب. -
"Ways of Going Home," Alejandro Zambra's third book to be published in English (and second translated by Megan McDowell), packs a lot of themes--historical memory, difficulties of love, honesty in art--into a brief 139 page novel taking place in the time between the two great Chilean earthquakes in 1985 and 2010. It's an ambitious project from one of Granta's "Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists," and one that is a bit of a mess.
Before getting into the reasons why I think this book doesn't work, here's a brief synopsis of the two storylines in this book: In the "novel" storyline, the narrator is growing up in Chile in the mid-1980s, at the time when Pinochet was finally forced out. On the night of the 1985 earthquake, he meets Claudia, a pretty, slightly older girl who is somehow connected to the boy's neighbor, Raul, the only single man in the neighborhood. Two years after the earthquake, he sees Claudia again, and she asks him to spy on Raul. That's part one. Part two--of this narrative--takes place twenty years later, with the narrator decides to try and find out what's going on with Claudia. Oh so coincidentally, she's returning home to deal with her father's death, during which time, she hooks up with the narrator, explains her life story (bit more on that later), and then breaks things off with the narrator.
Interspersed between these two sections are two sections written by the "author" about his Claudia novel. The author and his wife have separated, he's a bit lonely and nostalgic, and having a really hard time writing this novel. He wants Eme--his estranged wife--to read it and approve of it, and he surrounds the explication of this basic desire with a ton of quasi-intellectual observations about life and forgetting, parents and love, and everything else. Eme and he reunite briefly, but that doesn't really work out. Then the 2010 earthquake takes place.
Two earthquakes, two failed love stories, two tellings of the same story involving his mother, Eme claiming Claudia's story is just a retelling of hers, the end of Pinochet's realm kicks off the book and Sebastian Pinera's election ends it--there's a lot of doubling in this book. Also the two narrators--one pretty obviously the novelized reflection of the other.
Overall, this set-up--which calls to mind tons of so-called metafictional works, such as "Lost in the Funhouse" and the vastly superior "Mulligan Stew"--is Zambra's attempt to break out of the writing style that defined his first two novels. This is a very difficult situation for a young author. Those two books have a very specific style, one that's emotionally affective, incredibly compelling to read, and instantly recognizable. The writing in those novels is very precise, almost poetic, and the stories are related from a restricted third-person point of view, allowing for certain "cheesy" moments to play more seriously than they might in a first-person voice.
Anyway. "Ways of Going Home" feels like a novelist trying to change his aesthetic, maturing from something simple and direct into something more complex and respectably "Literary." Reading the representation of the author in this novel as Zambra himself, and the author's relationship to the novel about Claudia that he's writing as Zambra's relationship to this book, it's clear that there's a lot of anxiety, an awareness that this book might not live up to heightened expectations. And one of the best tricks for evading that is to foreground it (it's a book about an author who can't write his next novel!) and then bury it in a false postmodern trick (the novel isn't just a novel, but a novel about the difficulty of writing novels!). Everything about this rings false, and makes me feel sympathetic for Zambra--he doesn't have to hide his talents. But then again, I have no idea what it's like trying to create art after being anointed by just about everyone important in the world of letters.
Put in that context--striving to evolve as a writer in a situation in which everyone expects huge things from you--makes the bad writing in this book nearly forgivable. But only nearly.
"Claudia's first memory of the stadium is also happy. In 1977 it was announced that Chespirito, the Mexican comedian, would bring the entire cast of his show to perform at the National Stadium. Claudia was four years old then; she watched Chespirito's show and she liked it a lot.
"Her parents refused to take her at first, but finally they gave in. The four of them went, and Claudia and Ximena had a great time. Many years later Claudia found out that for her parents that day had been torture. They had spent every moment thinking how absurd it was to see the stadium filled with laughing people. Throughout the entire show they had thought only, obsessively, about the dead."
This is a pretty trite set-piece, and one that comes off as uber-manipulative and totally unbelievable. (I distrust all writing that hinges on memories of a child, since most of these memories are way more specific than any person would actually have.) It's the sort of manipulative sequence you'd find in story from a mediocre creative writer.
But it gets worse:
"I'll always remember the pain, one night, years ago: in the middle of an argument we started caressing each other and she got on top of me, but in the middle of penetration she couldn't control her rage and she shut her vagina completely."
SHUT IT! SHUT THAT VAGINA!
"A few days ago Eme left a box for me with the neighbors. Only today did I dare open it. There were two shirts, a scarf, my Kaurismaki and Wes Anderson movies, my Tom Waits and Wu-Tang Clan CDs, as well as some book I lent her these past months."
God, that is SO PRECIOUS. At this point in time, can you really do something like this in an unironic fashion? Your Wes Anderson movie? Oh, you, Mr. Narrator, are SO SMART AND SENSITIVE. (And have very questionable taste in directors.)
This isn't the Zambra book I wanted to read. In part because one of the challenges Zambra's trying to face--how to write about Pinochet and the violent history of Chile when that wasn't something you experienced first hand--could result in an absolutely fascinating book.
In the Claudia section of "Ways of Going Home," the one that opens in 1985, just a few years before Pinochet is deposed, the narrator is 9 years old, fairly confused about the politics of the country, in part because his parents have remained on the sidelines during the Allende-Pinochet periods. He is a character forcibly disconnected from the past, living in a sort of constructed world:
"We arrived, finally, at a neighborhood with only two streets: Neftali Reyes Basoalto and Lucila Godoy Alcayaga. It sounds like a joke, but it's true. A lot of the streets in Maipu had, and still have, those absurd names: my cousins, for example, lived on First Symphony Way, near Second and Third Symphony, perpendicular to Concert Street, and close to the passages Opus One, Opus Two, Opus Three, et cetera. Or the very street where I lived, Aladdin, between Odin and Ramayana and parallel to Lemuria; obviously, toward the end of the seventies some people had a lot of fun choosing names for the streets where the new families would later live--the families without history, who were willing or perhaps resigned to live in that fantasy world.
"'I live in the neighborhood of real names,' said Claudia on the afternoon of our reencounter, looking seriously into my eyes."
In case you don't catch the subtext--and this sort of obvious beat-it-over-your-head allusions and metaphors is another flaw in this book--Claudia's family is political, was part of Allende's government, is reactionary.
"I vote with a sense of sorrow, with very little faith. I know that Sebastian Pinera will win the first round I'm sure he will also win the second. It seems horrible. It's obvious we've lost our memories. We will calmly, candidly, hand the country over to Pinera and to Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ."
It's an interesting artistic conundrum: How to write about a childhood taking place during a very important time in history, but one that you, and a lot of your characters, weren't directly impacted by. Tricky.
Which brings me to David Shields. If you read enough David Shields, your relationship to literature is irrevocably altered. The part of Shields that always sticks with me is the idea that the best works of art are those in which the creator's consciousness as he/she creates is revealed in the course of the work of art. Frequently, these are hybrid works that aren't exactly autobiographical or fictional--what Shields refers to as "lyric essays."
There are hints in "Ways of Going Home" that this sort of "coming clean" is something that Zambra was aiming for:
"It's strange, it's silly to attempt a genuine story about something, about someone, about anyone, about oneself. But it's necessary as well."
Or, more explicitly (if there's one thing this book is, it's explicit in explaining its aims):
"Today my friend Pablo called me so he could read me this phrase he found in a book by Tim O'Brien: 'What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end." I kept thinking about that and stayed awake all night. It's true. We remember the sounds of the images. And sometimes, when we write, we wash everything clean, as if by doing so we could advance towards something. We ought to simply describe those sounds, those stains on memory. That arbitrary selection, nothing more. That's why we lie so much, in the end. That's why a book is always the opposite of another immense and strange book. An illegible and genuine book that we translate treacherously, that we betray with our habit of passable prose.
"I think about the beautiful beginning of 'Family Sayings,' Natalia Ginzburg's novel: 'The places, events, and people in this book are all real. I have invented nothing. Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy everything thus invented.'"
The sort of honesty and directness that Zambra is talking about and aiming for is much more evident in his earlier works. See the opening of "Bonsai":
"In the end she dies and he remains alone, although in truth he was along some years before her death, Emilia’s death. Let’s say that she is called or was called Emilia and that he is called, was called, and continues to be called Julio. Julio and Emilia. In the end Emilia dies and Julio does not die. The rest is literature:"
The unveiling of the creative process in "Ways of Going Home" is way more dishonest. Instead of seeing the real Zambra struggle with the above themes and his attempt to create a more "mature" style, we get two manipulative narrators, each as "novelistic" as the other. Going back to the doubling mentioned way back in the beginning of this review, instead of having two narratives--one fictional, one an autobiographical reflection on that--we get two fictional bits, which play off each other in a way that, unfortunately, isn't very satisfying.
All that said, I eagerly await Zambra's next book. He is one of the best young Latin American writers, and even this book, as disappointing as it might be to me, is better than a lot of books that will come out this year. He is still an author to watch. -
parklarda, bahçelerde ve balkonlarda, yeniden okudum. iki-üç yılda bir yeniden okumayı umuyorum, bir şeyleri tazelemek, hatırlamak adına.
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Στην ανεξάντλητη πηγή εκπλήξεων που είναι (τουλάχιστον για μένα) η σειρά της ξένης λογοτεχνίας του Ίκαρου, τελευταία προσθήκη είναι ο Χιλιανός Alejandro Zambra, ο οποίος μέσα σε λιγότερες από 200 σελίδες εξετάζει με αντιστρόφως ανάλογη του όγκου του βιβλίου εμβρίθεια τις πληγές που άφησε η δικατορία σε μια ολόκληρη γενιά παιδιών που κλήθηκε να κουβαλήσει εν αγνοία της (;) τη συλλογική ενοχή για το έγκλημα μέσα στο οποίο μεγάλωσε. "Διάβασμα είναι να καλύπτεις το πρόσωπό σου. Και γράψιμο είναι να το αποκαλύπτεις" λέει σε κάποιο σημείο ο κεντρικός ήρωας-αφηγητής-συγγραφέας, ο οποίος είναι προφανώς ο ίδιος ο Zambra κι ο οποίος θα διαπιστώσει στην πορεία του γραψίματος της δικής του ιστορίας κι αυτού του αυτοβιογραφικού μετα-αφηγηματικού αναστοχασμού ότι η "ταπεινή κι αλαζονική, αναγκαία κι ανεπαρκής τέχνη να περνάς τη ζωή σου γράφοντας" είναι για κάποιους ο μόνος τρόπος να γυρίζεις σπίτι.
Υ.Γ Ένα (αναμενόμενο) μπράβο στον μεταφραστή Αχιλλέα Κυριακίδη, έλεγα να αφήσω το δεύτερο βιβλίο του Zambra από τον Ίκαρο για την επόμενη χρονιά, αλλά μάλλον θα ακολουθήσει σύντομα.
