Reviews and Comments

Finished the book two days ago. Some things kept me thinking:
-Kipple: JR Isidore is described as not a smart man, but he understands that concept of entropy. He fights with it. He deals with it as he can. In the book you can see how everyone on earth has to live in the remains of the war, but is this man who tries to understand kipple, and is the one person who doesn't complain, but tries to explain it. Human nature, in the least intelligent being in the novel. Represented by this concept, and the thing with the spider.

-Animals(empathy): how sad it could be when you need to have a device to tune your feelings. To share feelings with other people.

This novel made me sad. Not because the story. The situations. The need for artificial things in order to feel. To find an excuse to keep doing what you have to do. "You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. "

Maybe it is because I feel in the same way. The need to find an excuse to keep doing the chores I have to do. To seek in things, in presents, in turning money (and looking for profitable tasks in order to have money to) into things that could soothe our minds, because there is a great great pressure in ourselves not as people but as tools who need to do certain tasks because it is what others expect from us.

What an empty life. What a great book.

Hay otra reseña aquí en goodreads que es bastante dura con el libro. Y estoy de acuerdo. El personaje principal no tiene un cambio importante en su personalidad, por ahí sube de peso, y lo más que puede o pretende mostrar es esa desubicación general de la vida: no saber qué se va a hacer, a quién va a querer. Lo que cuenta mucho de quién es: una niña mimada que, al viajar, se cree con mayor autoridad para exigir cosas. Los personajes, salvo Dante, son casi todos iguales.

Lo otro que no entiendo es cómo toda la novela gira en torno a una colombiana inocente de 20 años, una niña que, de verdad, no tiene ninguna otra gracia. Gente de mayor edad le celebra cosas, suena más a un sueño febril a una realidad, o no se ve tan posible con lo que cuenta.

Uno lee el libro muy rápido. No sé si es bueno o malo. No sé si eso quiere decir que es sencilla y fuerte, o si es como la comida rápida que uno consume y digiere fácilmente.

This is how you know a book or a work of literature is powerful:

- Pick a book about a man who is diagnosed with cancer, a book that, you know, is by an author who dies.
- Read the book only to become attached to the writer. Not only because he tells things, but the way he does tell them. Because he ponders about his work, about life and death, things that, maybe, you gave some thought before, or because the things he says are, well, fair. The fairness in the way a med doctor works, the kind of life they live; the kind of things they are responsible for: their patients, their wellness and the heavy burden of not affecting the lives of those around them.
- Reach the last page and take a big breath. Consider the title of the book. Think about it.
- Go to the epilogue. Feel the profound sadness of a person who is dying (who knows is gonna die, who you know has died), the recount of his last few days.
- Cry, maybe. It is optional.

It is a powerful essay about who we are, and why we do things. About our plans, our capabilities. About the lack of touch of those who get used to the dying, to the sick. And the thing that makes us strive for: it is, also, about love. Not romantic love, but the links between people.

It is short. You should read it anyway.