Istros Books, November 2015.
Four Stars
Burkino Faso is an unusual setting for a writer from
Central Europe, but the unexpectedness adds another layer to the story. Ana, a
Slovenian woman in her 60s, travels to the small African nation and begins an
affair with 27-year-old Ismael. They are united by loneliness and tragic pasts,
filled with both emotional and physical abuse. Ana’s world is in the west, yet
she has essentially rejected it – she prefers to embrace Ismael’s African
culture.
At first it seems like colonial appropriation, but as
Ana’s story unfolds, it reads more like a twist on intersectional feminism: Ana
as a repressed woman forming a bond with another “other.” Her thoughts only begin
to veer into racism as she idealizes the “innocence” of the African people and
views Ismael as a naïve young boy – in fact, he has experienced much more in
his short life than she has in her sixty-two years. She acts as though his
innocence will rub off on her, and make her whole again after the losses she
has suffered back in Europe.
The novel is written in alternating POVs, which made
it hard to get into because it wasn’t always clear who was narrating. The voice
switches with no headings – I’m not sure if that was a problem with the ARC, or
whether it was meant to be disconcerting, adding unexpected confusion. On top
of that, Ana is an unreliable narrator, and even she seems to be unclear about
which events are real: “But that had been a happy time, so happy that,
especially when I look back on it, maybe it never happened.” (Loc. 397)
Ana was adopted, and she is not at all grateful to
her adoptive parents. She has no respect for them, and says it would have made
no difference if they had left her on the orphanage floor. Ismael is an
outsider too, and he can relate to the difficulties of family life. Ana leaves
Slovenia because of issues with her adult son, then takes a lover that is
younger than he is. Upon seeing Ismael naked, she is reminded of her son. Likewise,
Ismael dreams frequently of his mother during his relationship with Ana – it is
all very Freudian.
The method of storytelling is often postmodern, with
hints of magic realism (and even a nod to One
Hundred Years of Solitude when Ana refers to “Remedios the Beauty”), but it
is old-fashioned at times too. It reads like a chronological memoir, but the
narrators also speak directly to the reader. Eventually, Ana begins to mix up
past and present, with memory overlapping reality. There are many metafictional
references to writing and novels, and it becomes hard to tell whether either
character is real or just a figment of the other’s imagination – are they each
a creation of the others’ deepest hopes and fears?
The setting was filled with great details, and I wanted
to hear much more about it. The plot was subtle and nostalgic, drifting through
dreams and memory. Ana and Ismael, real or imagined, come together because they
are lonely – but neither one can complete the other because they are not whole
themselves. Dreamlike and often magical, this was a beautiful story about
sadness and loss between two very different cultures.
I received this novel from Istros Books and NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.
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