3,5


Nunca nos hemos preguntado si lo poético podría estar incluido en lo tétrico y si ambos podrían formar un universo del que un crimen ambientado en la pura belleza femenina nos desvelaría en forma de seis partes contadas por cada uno de sus protagonistas, un homicidio que implica que donde muere la vida a veces nace la naturaleza y viceversa.

Los alcatraces es la primera novela que leo de esta autora que desde luego tiene una base lírica increíble donde nos traslada a un 1936 en una pequeña comunidad de Canadá y nos presenta a Olivia y Nora Atkins, dos desaparecidas que conducirán a una investigación a través de la mente de los personajes por saber lo que finalmente ocurre. No sé si habéis visto la película de Animales nocturnos, que para nada es comparable la historia, pero sí la estética de que lo bello a veces muere entre las manos más perversas.

Un libro que nos da a conocer a un recién llegado desde el inicio, Stevens Brown, una persona que resulta sospechos y cuyos actos y reflexiones dejan ver principios acusatorios. Desde ese momento la familia y allegados de las Atkins quedan al descubierto al ir tejiendo la historia en forma de pequeños relatos en primera persona y algunos escritos en cartas que nos van desvelando lo ocurrido. Lo increíble no es que la autora sepa urdir ese entramado de testimonios para dar la voz verídica de lo ocurrido, es su capacidad para sacar de un asesinato una capacidad lírica como si estuviésemos viviendo en un poema de desafortunados acontecimientos. Las metáforas y la prosa que llenan la historia relacionando la vida humana con la naturaleza son verdaderamente sublimes, y esa capacidad de extraer de la mente humana confesiones involuntarias a través de monólogos filosóficos también.

Sin duda es un buen libro para conocer a la autora y querer seguir sumergiéndose en su literatura.

En un mundo donde el terror ahuyenta, Los Alcatraces consigue conectar con el lirismo de lo cruel para conseguir extender el debate de la vida y la muerte.

Me llamó mucho la atención esta novela desde que la descubrí, y tenía ganas de sumergirme en esas descripciones que alababan las críticas que leí por aquí.
Ha sido un chasco. Lo intenté hasta el final, dispuesta a que me envolviera, y solo en el último capítulo lo encontré un poco de gusto, por el desenlace que tiene.
Me gusta el detalle que usa la autora cuando aborda los paisajes, el contexto, los personajes... pero si me detallas todo el contexto, ¿cómo luego la historia se diluye en "echar un vistazo" y no profundizar? Decepciona bastante.

La sensación ha sido de qué bien y etéreas quedan esas descripciones bucólicas que dan un poco yuyu, pero de contenido hay poco. Y si hay forma exquisita, pero el contenido flaquea, ¿eso no es vender humo?

Hello, I think I might have to reread this one again after reading a few academic articles on this book and even on this reread, there's so many things that have just flown over my head, most notably, this being a complete conglomerate of stories full of references and reappropriation of narrative structures. I marvel at how intricately this book written and am again thoroughly impressed by the massively succesful undertaking of this book's scope, how much time and love and passion must've been put to this book to write such an intentional but seemingly simple story? In the future, I would like to be able to write but, beside such monoliths, I wonder if what I have to say, and how I will say it, will mean anything.

Anyhow, enough GLAZING over generally and actually get into specifics on why I love this book.

Les fous de Bassan too me was initially simply a dark book. The plot is quite simple to be honest and is told in reverse, where we start off in the future and go backwards in time, learning first of some vague tragic event that happened to these two girls until discovering the grisly nature of the crimes and who has committed them. It's no murder mystery with theatrics and drama and plot twists but more a story of the unveiling of the impact of the deaths of these two girls on the whole town. Upon rereading this for the second time now, I feel like I'm noticing the truer nature of this book's essence, it isn't just a simple one off murder by this psycho, but I'll describe it more like the slow unveiling of a machine whose gears have been turning for centuries. In that way, Les fous de bassan feels much like a greek tragedy, but this time without the prophecy like with Oedipe, which wasn't written to us but inscribed in long-running historical social traditions within the town.

Everything in this book seems pure on the surface but it's clear that there's something wrong here : this idea of impurity is strewn throughout the whole story all and contributes to this uneasy tension of something being not quite right. The name of the town "Griffin Creek", referring to an impure beast, the tainted religious quotes reappropriated for this town, the sinning pastor, something is not quite right here. We come to learn that underneath the surface of this peaceful town lies generations of perpetuated violence between men and women.

How else could things have happened? With a clear ongoing, "war" which seems to be the most apt word to describe this phenomenon, that goes on between the two sexes. There's this icky and thick tension between man and women stemming largely from the patriarchal social hierarchy in the town : the men control the women and objectify them in various ways. This is most evident obviously with Nick Jones who clearly has pedophilic thoughts towards Nora and harasses them as witnessed by other characters and as well as his treatment of the twins, referring to them several times as minions and slaves around the house. Most most evidently is Stevens who viciously ends up killing Nora and Olivia for his pleasure but it's just as well seen in so many other instances throughout the story : reveling in how he and ol Mic would go around verbally assaulting women in Florida, purposefuly playing with Nora's feelings for him in order to draw out her frustration for no reason than to see her mad, and insulting Maureen on his departure by attacking her insecurity of her age while pitting her against her Olivia and Nora.

While nothing can be accused, and Hébert makes sure of that, not holding back on any description of anything, she makes sure that we all are witness as well of both character's pasts. Both the pastor and Stevens go through heavy trauma through their childhoods from their mother's : the pastor evidently having a distant cold mom who neglects him : "C'est pas le lait tout cru qu'elle m'a donné, c'est la faim et la soif" and Stevens mother who encouraged his father's beatings, almost left his siblings in the woods to die there among his other weird family members. The question comes to mind, of why they were such a way to them but it's apparent that they equally went through their own traumas that lead to their hate of men which would lead to Steven's and Jone's hatred for women and so on and so forth.

A great example of this is Felicity, the grandma who smothers Steven on one hand with affection as she feels genuine love for her grandson but is equally influenced very fairly by her traumas : "L'excitation de ma grand-mère tombe ... ayant épuisé sa force et son élan. ... elle affirme que je ne suis pas plus fiable que mon grand-père et que tous les hommes sont des cochons". Characters are pulled in two directions by their own personal feelings but also the collective ... trauma? That get's passed down through wisdom from mother to daughter and father to son. An example of this is through Olivia who describes her feelings of attraction to Steven's but her equal share of terror of him as she knows to be terrified of the men around her as she describes her desire to uplift everyone out of this town to a women's paradise.

In the end, nor men nor women benefit from this perpetuated violence, not even Steven's who seems to have gotten away with everything by being acquitted. Steven's, being violently beat by his own father growing up and emotionally neglected by his own mother, expresses upon his return to the village 5 years in the states, that things are different now. He has his new pair of boots, looks different and much time has passed. But he's evidently nervous seen by his desire to control everything : he uses his boots to cover the town from his view and lifts it to look at it with ease to convince himself that this is just a little trip for him "je pose mon pied sur le village que je fais disparaître, puis je le découvre à nouveau, ..., je joue à posséder le village et à le perdre à volonté". He fantasizes about controlling Olivia in her house "J'imagine la vie d'Olivia là-dedans, je luis fais monter et descendre l'escalier à volonté". And in the end, just as his father and mother was violent towards him, he was unable to control himself and murders the two girls. No matter how much time has passed, he perpetuates this violence.

I love the way the cyclicity is represented in small ways and how the characters are unable to escape their past, so much so that it overwhelms them and takes them over and find themselves the same as the people that created them. The little details that Hébert adds such as the first introduction of Nicolas Jones the Pastor, who introduces himself as "Nicolas Jones, fils de Peter Jones et de Felicity Brown", his own introduction, so intertwined with his parents treatment of him that he feels the need to include them in his introduction.

The dual perspective that we get to witness as characters continue to misinterpret each other is so heartwrenching as well. While Stevens manipulates the two girls with his surface level charm in order to satisfy his desire for revenge against women, the two fall in love with him hoping that he's different from the other men that lust after them. Characters never understand each other's misery well as we get to understand each character frighteningly well as we get SIX different perspectives of the same incident written in SIX different writing styles to represent each character properly. It's unbelievable the creativity put into this book. How the characters express themselves is so indicative of their circumstances : Jones referring to himself in third person as he distances himself from his perversion to avoid his guilt, Perceval's short sentences depicting his mental deficiency, Olivia's lofty ideals as she speaks often with fantasy to express her desires etc.

My favourite foreshadowing of perspectives of Jones watching Steven's approach the village : "Son regard perçant scrute la mer et le rivage comme l'oeil noir du fou de Bassan, braqué sur la surface de l'eau et dans l'épaisseur de l'eau, épiant à travers les vagues tout frémissement de vie, toute promesse de festin". Which in the end we get to hear from Steven's himself : "la bulle fragile dans laquelle nous étions encore à l'abri crève soudain et nous voilà précipités, tous les trois, dans la fureur du monde." This allusion of him being both the snake that invades this psuedo Garden of Eden, bursting it open and as well a bird of prey iso so chilling.

Griffin Creek is ill, chronically so, and it's made none the more clearer in the stories resolution : justice is never brought to Steven's for his actions and from some trick of fate, he is acquitted for his crimes. The characters die after more violence is committed and us readers are hardly soothed for a better future for the town. We're given the impression that none seem to be able to escape this repressive social machine that lives on throughout the generations.

There's so many more things that I love about this book, the writing is just a pleasure to read and the descriptions so delicious, I loved this book so much! I did buy two copies of it LMFAO. I'm glad that in rereading it, I can actually justify my old 5 stars!

P.s : Sorry to anyone that can't understand the french quotes, translating them just felt silly

el 3 agosto 1936 desaparecen dos jóvenes de un pequeño pueblo costero de Canadá. La historia es contada desde el punto de vista de varios de los protagonistas. Lenguaje muy lírico, aunque mantiene bien la atención

Complex writing, dark themes, an understanding and representation of the mother figure in a religious Quebec, nothing to say about the themes.
I appreciate the points of view evoked, and trash.
The condemnable facts must be evoked in the hard way.
Path of a feminist revolt for sure.
The novel sometimes takes a certain length, but nothing makes the reading less interesting.

Me ha gustado mucho, no tenía ni una sola referencia de la autora, la historia de grupo de personas todas viviendo en un lugar alejado de cualquier civilización, todos son familia, hermanos, primos, sobrinos, una endogamia en toda regla y una vida que se limita al paso del tiempo, a los problemas internos de cada familia y a relacionarse entre sí.
Tiene un punto turbio en las relaciones familiares, a veces ese punto produce rechazo, otras se ven como algo natural en una comunidad tan pequeña que los roles están muy definidos, viven de acuerdo con las estaciones, la novela se desarrolla en una pequeña zona del Golfo de San Lorenzo, un corto verano que se aprovecha para plantar lo necesario para subsistir durante el resto del año.
El regreso de uno de los habitantes que huye de una situación que resulta insostenible, hará que esa, en apariencia unida comunidad, salte por los aires.
Me ha gustado mucho las descripciones de la naturaleza, los paseos por el bosque, los baños en el cercano mar durante el verano, las tremendas tormentas que asolan esa zona y están plasmadas con tanto realismo que se vive el miedo a ser arrastrado, el agua cala hasta el último rincón de cualquiera que en ese momento esté a la intemperie.
La narración está estructurada de diversas forma, lineales unas, epistolares, pensamientos de otros y así va avanzando la historia hasta que al final se descubre quien es el responsable de la desaparición de las primas.

Sigo digeriendo todo...

Inégal, mais dans l'ensemble très bien écrit, la poésie côtoyant l'horreur.

Si tortueux, si malaisant, une existence familiale renfermée dans un village où l’ambiance est
parfaitement retranscrite à travers les mots. Les descriptions des paysages, des sentiments
qui s’emmêlent sont parfaitement réalisés. La forme peut être acclamée, le fond de l’histoire,
Je n’aimerai pas m’y plonger à nouveau.

Disturbing, somewhat Gothic tale set in Quebec along the St. Lawrence River in 1936 (with one retrospective missive dated 1982). The writing is exquisite, and while the pacing is somewhat slow in a couple of places, the fact that it is a very short novel redeems that somewhat. The use of multiple narrators, including one very reminiscent of Benjy in The Sound and the Fury, is well done, though not quite at the level of artistry to be found in the best of Faulkner (but how many novels are?). The mood of the story and the imagery it evokes reminded me more than anything of the films of Ingmar Bergman--grim but fascinating. It is hard to discuss this novel without running afoul of spoilers, so suffice it to say that a horrible crime is at the heart of this story, but the mysteries introduced throughout the book are all resolved in the end--in the case of one of the central mysteries, at the very end, as in the last sentence, so read to the end if you read it at all, and I recommend you do.

J’ai dû en effet arrêter de lire ce roman parce que j’arrive maintenant à comprendre qui est le meurtrier mais je ne vois pas pourquoi continuer de lire les 47 pages restantes.

Je reviendrais à ce livre mais les multiples narrateurs l'ont rendu très compliquée - je n’avais aucune idée de ce qui se passait vraiment donc ça m’a fait peu de plaisir. Je ne connaissais jamais exactement l’identité du narrateur (ou bien de la narratrice?). Ça c’était mon problème principal.

Intrigante libro muy alejado de los estereotipos del género, que narra la desaparición de dos chicas en un pueblo canadiense, en 1936. Su lenguaje, extremadamente poético, hace que cueste un poco entrar en él, pero luego se disfruta mucho y se lee con ganas.