Take a photo of a barcode or cover
abbie_ 's review for:
Ramifications
by Daniel Saldaña París
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Free review copy received from the publisher.
Another stunning little gem of a novel from Charco Press, who are publishing some astonishing works from contemporary Latin American authors. Ramifications is a thoughtful and moving musing on memory, the relationships between parent and child, specifically mother and son, and coming of age amid personal and political upheaval.
.
The narrator of Ramifications is unable to get out of bed or leave his apartment. All he can do is rehash the events of his childhood, writing and rewriting crucial episodes that have shaped his life. These mostly revolve around his mother's abrupt departure when he was 10, leaving her family to join the Zapatista uprising which was gripping the country at the time. The narrator, adrift in his new family circumstances, becomes absorbed completely in his hobby for origami (for which he does not show much skill despite his enthusiasm) and his imagination to try and instil some order in his life. 23 years later, he's trying to make sense of it all by writing a memoir, armed with new information about his mother's fate.
.
I love these kinds of slice-of-life reads. and this one has a brilliant intensity which makes it difficult to put down, despite not having much of a plot driving it forward. I was captivated by the narrator's attempts to see the past clearly, the way he returned to certain memories. He recalls a fact he learned from a magazine, how our most frequent memories are the most inaccurate. Apparently, each time we recall a certain memory, we're actually recalling the last time we remembered the event, not the event itself. Each time, new layers are added, details you might have altered in remembering now form the makeup of the memory itself. An accurate memory is one that resurfaces out of nowhere. Anything else has at least been partially fabricated by your own mind. I have no idea whether it's true or there's a bit of artistic license used, but I find it fascinating!
.
Definitely give this one a go if you're interested in memory, family and coming-of-age stories with a heavily introspective leaning!
Another stunning little gem of a novel from Charco Press, who are publishing some astonishing works from contemporary Latin American authors. Ramifications is a thoughtful and moving musing on memory, the relationships between parent and child, specifically mother and son, and coming of age amid personal and political upheaval.
.
The narrator of Ramifications is unable to get out of bed or leave his apartment. All he can do is rehash the events of his childhood, writing and rewriting crucial episodes that have shaped his life. These mostly revolve around his mother's abrupt departure when he was 10, leaving her family to join the Zapatista uprising which was gripping the country at the time. The narrator, adrift in his new family circumstances, becomes absorbed completely in his hobby for origami (for which he does not show much skill despite his enthusiasm) and his imagination to try and instil some order in his life. 23 years later, he's trying to make sense of it all by writing a memoir, armed with new information about his mother's fate.
.
I love these kinds of slice-of-life reads. and this one has a brilliant intensity which makes it difficult to put down, despite not having much of a plot driving it forward. I was captivated by the narrator's attempts to see the past clearly, the way he returned to certain memories. He recalls a fact he learned from a magazine, how our most frequent memories are the most inaccurate. Apparently, each time we recall a certain memory, we're actually recalling the last time we remembered the event, not the event itself. Each time, new layers are added, details you might have altered in remembering now form the makeup of the memory itself. An accurate memory is one that resurfaces out of nowhere. Anything else has at least been partially fabricated by your own mind. I have no idea whether it's true or there's a bit of artistic license used, but I find it fascinating!
.
Definitely give this one a go if you're interested in memory, family and coming-of-age stories with a heavily introspective leaning!