Author: Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Translator: Daniel Hahn
Publisher: Archipelago books
Blurb: On the eve of Angolan independence an agoraphobic woman named Ludo bricks herself into her apartment for 30 years, living off vegetables and the pigeons she lures in with diamonds, burning her furniture and books to stay alive and writing her story on the apartment’s walls.
Almost as if we’re eavesdropping, the history of Angola unfolds through the stories of those she sees from her window. As the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of someone peeing on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers.
Me: Before anything else, hi! So sorry about the sudden disappearance - the last few months have been a time of a lot of change and just growth for me, and I've also been doing quite a bit of reading. I'm glad to be back!
I was completely blown away by this book. It's been a while since I've discovered such a gorgeous, thoughtful piece that also reads so easily.
The Ups: The book is written in short snippets of chapters. In the acknowledgements, the author mentions how the story had started out as a screenplay, and that cinematic scene-to-scene sense is evoked so well. Each little piece is a beautifully written look into a few characters' lives, mainly focusing on Ludo, a fascinating character who has locked herself in for decades. This makes the book read almost like prose poetry - it is so easy to fall into.
Not only is the writing gorgeous, but it pays homage to both Portuguese and African traditions. The whole novel is so good at illuminating the history of Angola that I definitely was entirely unfamiliar with - even now, I think I'll have to reread it after learning more about Angola. There is a continuously building unspoken parallel throughout the novel between Angola and Ludo, between their different ways of forgetting.
There is the inevitable forgetting that happens as time passes, but there is also a deliberate sort of forgetting, a wish to escape the traumas of the past. But the latter only acts to paralyze those who try to escape what happened - one must learn to remember to understand, to move forward.
That seems to be the main theme running through the tragic history of Angola as it struggles with independence after colonialism, as well as the people this affects. It's such a powerful idea, but even better when conveyed in the subtleties of Agualusa's language.
The style of writing occasionally changes - from wall diary entries to poems, and I loved each one. The book felt like a beautiful continuous collection rather than a novel, per se.
The Downs: I think the greatest difficulty I had with this book was my fault: I didn't have a general sense of Angola's history and didn't do my research until way later in the novel. I hope to revisit it with more context on which side each character stands on and how the country changed after independence and then during the civil war. I would recommend doing some basic research before!
Overall: A stunning, simple gem that I'm sure I'll be returning to, hopefully with more knowledge about the country.
“If I still had the space, charcoal, and available walls,
I could compose a great work about forgetting:
a general theory of oblivion."
I could compose a great work about forgetting:
a general theory of oblivion."
“She couldn’t stand the picture at first. She saw in it a distillation of everything she hated about Angola: savages celebrating something – some cause of joy, some glad omen – that was quite alien to her. Then, bit by bit, over the long months of silence and solitude, she began to feel some affection towards those figures that moved, circling around a fire, as though life really deserved such elegance."
Rating: 5 kisses!
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