A book a day: Clara Obligado: The other lives

Language: español

Year of publication: 2007

Valuation: Alright

I decided to read a book by the Spanish-Argentine Clara Obligado (or Argentine resident in Spain, to be more exact) driven by the admiration that a certain person professes for her. booktuber which I, for my part, usually trust. Let’s face it, I think I was wrong with the book chosen to start with this writer, a rather thin collection of stories and which, therefore, seemed ideal for this purpose. I won’t say that the book was too long for me, because materially it is impossible, nor that they are poorly written – on the contrary – or are difficult to read, but, to tell the truth, they seemed to me like neither chicha nor limoná: in general, They haven’t left much of an impression on me, and even if it weren’t for the fact that I have been taking notes on them as I read them, I would have a hard time remembering anything from any of the stories, even right after having read them.

We can distinguish two types of stories in this compilation: on the one hand, the longest ones – not very long either – and with a much more “serious” tone, sometimes melancholic and even tragic, touching on themes such as exile, memory and death. On the other hand, short stories, just a page or two, more fun and with an erotic undertone; of these, in my opinion, stand out The mermaidin which a fishmonger sells a mermaid in his establishment, living languagesabout the differences between the Spanish of Argentina and that of Spain -especially regarding the issue that you can already imagine-, sins of the flesherotic delirium of a lady waiting in line at a delicatessen, among so many sausages, sausages and other sausages and the story that opens the volume, In another life I was an ostrichwhich is…exactly about that.

As for longer stories, it is evident that they have greater narrative development, more characters, the protagonists cover a broader arc, etc. But this greater complexity does not always work in favor of a more satisfactory result; An example of this would be the stories most worked on in the narrative aspect: The envoyabout the friendship between a boy from a “well-off family” from Madrid and the son of the estate’s concierge, who disappeared enigmatically, and Paternity, about the midlife crisis of a college professor who has just become a father for the first time. They are stories that, despite their ambition and formal correctness – because it must be noted that Obligado’s prose is always excellent – do not arouse the reader’s interest. Or this reader, at least. Something else happens with the two long stories that I liked the most: Exilevariations on the possible (or real) lives of a political exile(s) and With women you never know (Tribute to Raymond Carver), in which two inseparable friends from childhood and youth meet again after years when one of them’s husband dies and the other, a successful fashion designer, returns to the town in the interior of Argentina where she grew up. A story in which the author manages to find the exact tone of cold familiarity, without ruling out her surprise.

In short, a collection of stories, I won’t say disappointing, but they don’t inspire enthusiasm either. I will repeat with this writer, without a doubt, but in a while and perhaps with a novel whose reviews are unanimously positive, so as not to get my fingers caught. Until then, bye, Mrs. Clara