Penguin Press, January 26, 2016.
Four Stars
Betancourt is a Columbian politician and activist,
abducted and held hostage by the guerilla organization FARC during her campaign
for president in Columbia’s 2002 election. She uses her experiences as a
captive in the jungles of Columbia in this novel, an exploration of Argentina’s
Dirty War. The setting moves from late-1970s South America to early-2000s United
States, as main character Julia reflects back on her time in Buenos Aires during
the war, while trying to manage her present domestic problems in the U.S.
The synopsis of the novel claims to include Magic Realism,
which seems to have become a catchall phrase for anything remotely unusual that
happens in South American literature. I don’t feel that The Blue Line can really be classified as Magic Realism in the vein
of Allende or Garcia Marquez, but there is a supernatural element at play –
Julia is a “seer”. She has inherited the gift from her grandmother, and the
women experience visions of the future from an unknown perspective – it is
Julia’s job to figure out whose vision she is experiencing, and she is often
forced to intervene in order to prevent horrific events from taking place.
These visions are used to create suspense throughout the novel, providing
foreshadowing for a final climactic event that will take place before the novel
ends.
In the alternating chapters that occur in the 1970s,
Julia is a young woman who has fallen in love with the revolutionary Theo. He
is involved with the infamous Montoneros rebels, and his sympathizing with the
group makes a target of both Julia and himself. As the rebels are being rounded
up by the corrupt government forces, Theo and Julia are separated. Julia spends
many years in her search for Theo, and in the present day she is forced into the
realization that love can’t always conquer all.
The lack of a happy ending (which we find out about
almost right away, although the actual ending is still a surprise) makes the
story so much more realistic, especially after the characters’ horrific
experiences of war. The characters are strong individuals, especially Julia,
who is a survivor in spite of everything. My only problem with the writing was
that it was a bit jumpy and sometimes hard to follow – but it also added to the
surreal feeling of the story. There were also some seemingly random plot lines,
but it mostly came together in the end. The subject of war and its effects on
civilians is very interesting and topical, and for the most part it felt
authentic. The Blue Line is most
definitely fiction with a political agenda, and although it does stand on its
own, I sometimes felt that the story was being forced unnaturally to fit its
agenda.
I received this novel from Penguin Press and Netgalley
in exchange for an honest review.
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