El ruido de las cosas al caer (The sound of things falling) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, perhaps even depends on it.

First impressions

I've been trying to read all of the Alfaguara winners, just as a personal project. I wanted to read this one in particular, since it is a Colombian author. However I was afraid it was another book that is appraised just because it talks openly about drug lords an drug issues in Colombia, but I was wrong/

Final thoughts

People from Bogota had grown accustomed to it [violence]

While the book takes places during a very hard time, late 90s when drug -cartel related-violence was on a peak the story told is not only about it. It is actually the story of people that end up touched by these situations almost as collateral damage. The main character, Antonio, takes us in a journey, his at first and his friend's Ricardo's later.

From the beginning I felt engaged by the voice of Antonio and how he saw his (my) city. While at the time the story is taking place, I was only 9/10 years old, I do remember the fear that was almost palpable in the air. I've heard those conversations between my relatives: where were you when this bomb exploded? What were you doing when X was killed? I am grateful I cannot add many anecdotes to these conversations, but I know it was a very sad reality to live through. However, what made this story different is that after being attacked, Antonio gets intrigued by the story behind Ricardo, by his humanity and not by his crimes only.

(...) Maybe because present doesn't really exist; everything is a memory, this sentence that I just wrote is already a memory, is a memory this word that you, reader, just read.

The descriptions of the city, of the tiny towns, of travelling through our roads, all hit the memories I have as a child. The ways the city and life were seen by Elaine Fritts reminded me of the conversations I had with my now fiancé about my country and how different the same situation would look to each of us.

In Colombia people always managed to be unpredictable

I quite enjoyed the writing and the pacing the author has. I don't know if this is particular to this book, since I haven't read anything else by him, but the tone and rhythm both carry the story nicely. 

El Turno del Escriba by Graciela Montes

Why I read this book

I am on a quest to try and read all the winners of the Alfaguara book award :) It's part of my plan to increase the amount of books I read in Spanish that were also originally written in Spanish.

What the book is about

Is 1298, Rustichello de Pisa has been a prisoner in Genoa for a long time. Now he has encountered a fellow prisoner that turns out to be Marco Polo. His travelling stories are full of adventure and foreign charm that de Pisa would love to transcribe and share with the world

First impressions

The book starts a bit slow, introducing the main character, the city of Genoa...the problem is that is continues to be slow...and, for me at least, it ends up slow.

Final thoughts

I don't have a general problem with slow books when there is something else carrying the story, case in point, The Goldfinch. It is a fairly slow paced book, but it doesn't feel that way, because the descriptions are so beautiful that for me it carried the story. This was sadly not the case for this book.

While I was not expecting a retale of Marco Polo's Livre des merveilles du monde I was hoping for bits of it, the excitement, and the description. But no..There are practically no dialogues with Marco Polo; there is only the description of Rustichello saying how last night Polo said something, but even then it is very vague.

The think that made me give a 3 to this book, even though I wasn't enjoying it that much, was seeing an scribe turn into a full writer, feeling the voids in the story, creating and not just transcribing. I believe is this, paired with the historical part that felt well researched, that made the book won the award that year.

I honestly wouldn't know to whom I would recommend this book if I was to do so. Hence me giving it a 3...more like a 2.5, but I gave the extra .5 because of the researched that was obviously behind the book.