Saturday, February 24, 2018

Reading Journal


By Claudia Pineiro, translated by Miranda France
Bitter Lemon press, London, 2013
218 pgs

There is a new section in the NY Times book review where people write in to get book suggestions.  It’s called Match Book- like Match.com, it pairs people up with books.  Cleaver isn’t it?

On January 16th, a woman wanted to read books from around the world, not white people traveling in exotic places type travel books, but plots taking place in other countries written by the native author.  I keep hearing my mother in law, Harriet Spiller’s voice saying “get with the natives!” as I perused the list of books.

A Crack in the Wall is one of the mysteries that was suggested in the book review.  The story takes place in Argentina, and follows the interior monologue of an architect who has a secret.  There’s a dead body, a sexy coworker, young ingĂ©nue and the film noir layout was suspenseful enough for me to read quickly.  I have never been to Argentina, and the translation made it feel not too foreign, similar issues of real estate infighting, gentrification and greed were parallel to our own environment.  The only thing that felt “foreign” were in the translation, such as a university was called the faculty; as in “a fellow student at the faculty”.   And I felt as though I were sight seeing on the streets of Buenos Aires, as the protagonist Pablo Simo takes us to the streets with his young photographer love interest.

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