Fracture | Andrés Neuman #InTranslation

What a wonderful reading experience!

From the beautifully designed hardcover dust jacket (the gold seams actually sparkle in real life), to the impressive translation that seems to have captured the beauty and thoughtfulness of Neuman's original story, Fracture is a journey to savour.

I knew I was in for a treat from the very first sentence, “The afternoon appears calm, and yet time is waiting to pounce.” This leads us into the startling realisation that we are about to feel the tremors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Tokyo, along with our protagonist, Yoshi Watanabe.

The fear and shock of the magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by the images of the horrifying tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, take Yoshie back in time.

Time and it's passing, memory and what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget become the central themes in Neuman's story about Yoshie, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by default. Yoshie is a hibakusha, a person affected by exposure to an atomic bomb, in a country unable to talk about it. His life is fractured, broken. He spends the rest of his life trying to piece it back together.

Neuman is a writer not afraid to take a risk with his writing. 

He's an Argentinian man writing about a much older Japanese man, from the perspective of numerous women living all around the world (Paris, New York, Argentina, Madrid). We have Yoshie's narration about life in Tokyo now and his remembrances of the war, and we have these women reflecting on their time with Yoshie. What he was like at that period of his life, their views on how the war affected him and why their relationships with him ultimately failed.

Writing and reading is all about the journey into someone else's world. The oft quoted Atticus Finch saying about 'you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it' is very true about Yoshie's story. Neuman gives us multiple ways to climb into Yoshie's skin, because if he had left it entirely to the very reserved Yoshie, our insights would be greatly diminished. 

For some unknown reason, I've found it very difficult to adequately document my journey with this book. This response has taken weeks to complete.

Fracture was a slow, considered read. Thoughtful and thought-provoking. It delved into many of my favourite themes. From very early on, I considered this book 'a keeper', deserving of a reread and a much coveted position on my groaning bookshelf. I savoured every minute, every word, but I simply don't feel like gushing or raving or shouting about it from the roof tops. It's not that kind of book, I guess. It's contemplative and quietly spoken, much like Yoshie himself.

Sometimes, some books, just need to be sat with quietly.

The Guardian | Lucy Popescu | 9 June 2020

A prolific writer, Neuman – born in Argentina, now based in Granada – delights in language and linguistic ambiguity. In Fracture, he explores the fragmented nature of memory, emotional scars, a city’s wounds after a disaster and the cracks in a relationship caused by cultural difference. He draws profound parallels between collective traumas – Japan’s bombing, Vietnam in 1968, Argentina’s “disappeared”, Chernobyl and the 2004 Madrid train attacks. Recalling Japan’s enforced silence in the war’s aftermath, Yoshie’s Argentinian girlfriend, Mariela, ponders: “Maybe the most brutal thing is not that you were bombed. Most brutal of all is that they don’t even allow you to tell people that you’ve been bombed. During the dictatorship here they would kill one of your children and you couldn’t tell anyone.” 

Facts:

• Originally published in 2018
• Translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia in 2020
• Neuman is a poet, short story writer and columnist. 
• The late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, said of him “The literature of the 21st century will belong to Neuman.” 

Epigraphs:

• If something exists somewhere, it will exist everywhere | Czeslaw Milosz (Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1980).
• Love came...after the kill | Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974 a US confessional poet & Pulitzer prize winner for Poetry 1967).
• I wonder if there is/any operation/that removes memories | Shinoe Shōda (born in Hiroshima 1910, she was a hibakusha. She died of breast cancer 1965. Tanka (II) finishes with Where is a cure/for my pain-filled heart?)
• ...and if my body is still the soft part of the mountain/I'll know/I am not yet the mountain | José Watanabe (1946 - 2007 a Peruvian poet with a Japanese father).

Favourite Quote:

...the ancient art of kintsugi. When a piece of pottery breaks, the kintsugi craftspeople place powdered gold into each crack to emphasise the spot where the break occurred. Exposed rather than concealed, these fractures and their repair occupy a central place in the history of the object. By accentuating this memory, it is ennobled. Something that has survived damage can be considered more valuable, more beautiful. (my highlights)

All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls

All Fall Down is a heart-breakingly sad story, beautifully written and crafted.

It tells the story of a small village in the north of England in the 1300's through 14 year old Isabel's eyes.

The Black Death is coming closer and closer to their little village.

Rumours are spreading like wildfire. Anxiety and tension increase as people become suspicious of strangers.

And slowly, inevitably, people begin to sicken and die.

The second half of the story lacked some of the tension of the first half (or perhaps I was just starting to feel numb, like Isabel, from all the death and sadness).

The plot device used to get to the chldren to York also felt rather flimsy.

The story is full of historical facts about medieval life, superstitions and beliefs, woven in seamlessly so that you don't even realise that you're getting a history lesson!
 
Nicholls avoids using the medieval dialogue of the time but talks about the different accents of her characters and uses many words common to that period.

All Fall Down is a strong story for teen readers who are tired of vampires and other paranormal beings!

The Black Death is the original apocalyptic story. Half of Europe dead within a short period of time. Who will survive and how will they survive this disaster?

Book Beginnings on Fridays and the Friday 56

Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays every week for those of us too tired by Friday night to write a lengthy review!

Simply share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.


Freda's Voice hosts The Friday 56 meme.

Friday 56 goes with Book Beginnings like cheese and crackers, ice-cream and milo or tequila and lime!

Simply go to page 56 of the book you are reading and give us a taster.

This week's book is designed to tick many of my boxes. Historical fiction (tick), strong female protagonist (tick), disaster (tick), family drama (tick).

Fingers crossed xxxxxxxxxxx

All Fall down by Sally Nicholls

The beginning:

'I buried with my own hands five of my children in a single grave...No bells. No tears. This is the end of the world. Angola di Turu 1348.'

The year I turned thirteen, it rained every day from Midsummer to Christmastide.

Page 56:

"I don't know how I'd live!" says Robin. "Maybe I wouldn't. But it would be better than staying here, wouldn't it?"
I'm silent. Alice wanted to leave, I know. But every part of me screams that if we leave our land, if we leave our fields, it wouldn't matter if we survived the pestilence. We'd have stopped being ourselves already.

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Ninth Ward was published two years ago, but has just been released in Australia.

Jewell Parker Rhodes has written a number of adult novels, but this is her first foray into junior fiction. She has picked a doozy of a topic - Hurricane Katrina.

Lanesha is a twelve year old girl living with her Mama Ya-Ya in New Orleans. Rhodes captures the time and place beautifully, weaving a story of magical realism and survival even as Katrina does her worst.

The images from the aftermath of Katrina were horrific and Rhodes has done a superb job to get inside those images and make them accessible for young readers. She describes the horror and fear, but also the hope, determination and will to survive that inspire us all.





I couldn't put this book down. I devoured it in one sitting. It's not often that a book so obviously trying to do something worthy is also so readable.

I admit that the cover is not very inviting and I wish they had gone with the cover on the right that I found on google, but the slightly dowdy cover hides a wonderfully rich story that I recommend for mature 10+ readers.

Red by Libby Gleeson

Cyclone wipes out the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Hundreds dead; even more missing and injured!

This is the horrific news headline that would best describe Libby Gleeson's latest novel for young teens.

After an unprecedented natural disaster 'Red' wakes up covered in mud and scratches unable to remember who she is and what happened. She is unearthed by Peri who calls her 'Red' because of the colour of her shirt. The first words out of her mouth are, "jaymartinjaymartinjaymartin".

What follows is a suspenseful adventure (which occasionally teeters on the edges of believablility) through the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne as Red tries to regain her memory and find her father.

I had issues with plausibility throughout the story, but it was fast-paced and snappy enough to give me little time to ponder these flaws too closely.

Recommended for 11+ readers