I AM VENUS by Bárbara Mujica

In a “perfect” novel, you wouldn’t notice narration. The perspective provided by the text would be so clear, so seamless, that the reader would have complete comprehension of the characters and plot. Of course, there is no “perfect” novel. Authors are constrained by language and struggle with the perspective of the narrator in their storytelling. In I Am Venus, Bárbara Mujica attempts to break free of those narrative constraints. I cannot say that I thought the experiment was totally successful, but I do appreciate the desire for enhanced perspective without multiple narrators that the author was striving to achieve.

The story starts with a prologue, in which the mysterious model for Diego Velásquez’s “The Toilette of Venus” describes the secret conditions that accompanied creation of the painting. Now in Britain’s National Gallery, “Venus” is the painter’s only extant nude, because the strict conservatism of the Catholic Church in Spain forbade painters from depicting illicit scenes. It caused a sensation when it was eventually found in the collection of a Spanish noble, but Velásquez managed to avoid prosecution because of the mythological subject matter: by adding Cupid holding a mirror, the painter went from pornographer to classicist under the Inquisitorial logic of the time.

The story focuses more on the life of Velásquez and his family than on the painting of Venus, however. This was where the peculiarities of the narration became apparent – and frankly distracting. The narration changed from first person to third person when the narrator was describing things about which she had no direct knowledge. However, it became clear that the first person narrator was also describing herself in the third person, as though she is looking on at her own life in an objective way – subjecting herself to the artist’s gaze, in a way. The choice is interesting, of course, because Velásquez famously used mirrors in both “The Toilette of Venus” and “Las Meninas” to work beyond the limiting borders of a flat canvas, giving it a 3-dimensional quality. And in “Las Meninas,” the artist boldly inserted himself into a portrait of the royal family, turning the painter himself into a subject. Perhaps that's what Mujica was trying to recreate with her fictitious author.

I liked the subject matter of this book very much. I knew next to nothing about Velásquez and the court of Felipe IV before I read it, so I really enjoyed learning about the history of post-Armada Spain. I was especially curious about the life of the painter after having the chance to see his Baroque masterpiece, “Las Meninas,” in the Prado a few years ago. I’d seen a hundred depictions of it, but seeing it in person was absolutely inspiring – it’s both beautiful and playful at the same time. So I was grateful for Mujica’s ability to bring the great master to life.

I was less satisfied by the character development in the book, however. I never got to love any of the main characters. This is especially odd considering who the mysterious model turns out to be in the end, but I don’t want to go into details. Suffice it to say that when I got to the end I felt like the narration choice made even less sense in retrospect. But maybe that’s just me. I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, so you can read other opinions of the book by following the links here. I received a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion. Thanks, as always, to Lisa for including me on the tour.

Tuesday Intro: Carlos Ruiz Zafón's THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

Here is the opening paragraph from Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven,the third of his Cemetery of Forgotten Books novels. The first two, The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game, were worldwide bestsellers, and have been translated from the original Spanish into at least eight languages. The series is fascinating in that it is not meant to be experienced chronologically – you can read the books in any order.

I love Ruiz Zafón’s atmospheric writing, and the way he makes Barcelona, a city I love, a character in his novels. I will be coming back to this one for a complete review in a few weeks, but I can already tell you it is one of my favorite books of 2012!

Barcelona, December 1957

That year at Christmas time, every morning dawned laced with frost under leaden skies. A bluish hue tinged the city and people walked by, wrapped up to their ears and drawing lines of vapour with their breath in the cold air. Very few stopped to gaze at the shop window of Sempere & Sons; fewer still ventured inside to ask for that lost book that had been waiting for them all their lives and whose sale, poetic fantasies aside, would have contributed to shoring up the bookshop’s ailing finances.

What do you think? Would you jump into the series here?

And if you’re looking for inspiration, why not head over to Bibliophile by the Sea and check out other First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intro ideas! Thanks, Diane, for hosting!

I am reading this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. You can check out other opinions here.

Driving Over Lemons, and making lemonade

There’s something intriguing about the guy who might have been the drummer for Genesis shearing sheep and running a farm in Andalucía. Of course if he had stuck with the original job, and not vacated his seat for a guy named Phil Collins, who knows if Genesis would have become Genesis? But I’d think that it would make a person wonder what might have been every once in a while.

Well, not Chris Stewart. Years after leaving the band, Stewart went to Spain, fell in love with the rugged mountains of the Sierra Nevada, and suddenly bought a farm without running water or electricity. And it appears he never looked back.

Driving over Lemons recounts Stewart's early years of raising sheep and oranges at El Valero, a decaying farm on the “wrong” side of a river that separates the farm from civilization at some times during the year. There are the funny bits and quirky characters readers have come to expect from these kinds of cross-cultural memoirs. But like any book with a “different” culture at its heart, this book is ultimately about the author’s own culture, examining which parts of it the author can shed, which parts of it he or she can adapt, and which parts of it are so close to the author’s soul that they can never be left behind. In the case of Chris Stewart that would be: tea.

Seriously, the one thing that this book lacks, compared with the others in its genre, is a coming to grips with the inner turmoil of living outside your culture. For most people it is confusing at first, and sometimes even threatening. But Stewart’s view is decidedly rosy. The author describes himself as an “optimist,” and I definitely would not describe myself as one, so maybe I just don’t understand his perspective. But the book seemed a bit “light” to me, as though Stewart didn’t want to offend anyone. The way he was pushed around by El Valero’s former owner almost made me put the book down – maybe he’s optimistic, maybe he’s just naïve, or maybe he’s naively optimistic. In the end I couldn’t decide.

Having spent some time in Spain, I did appreciate Stewart’s descriptions of the countryside, and his collection of the common wisdom of the local farmers has some funny moments. This is not the kind of book that made me laugh out loud, but it did give me some insight into the joys of veering out of life’s fast lane. I just never identified with Stewart enough to really share in his ups, because I didn’t see any of the downs. Still, the book is highly recommended for someone planning a trip – or a life – in Andalucía, and anyone who loves travel-based memoirs.