Natural History

May 1, 2020
An odd assemblage of characters moves across time and space in Costa Rican novelist Fonseca's latest intellectual puzzler. As in Colonel L�grimas (2016), Fonseca populates his latest novel with smart people who don't always behave as intelligently as they might. The narrator is a museum curator (whence the title) obsessed with the five-pointed shape called the quincunx, which figures in the wing patterns of certain tropical butterflies. An article he has written for a British natural history journal catches the attention of a beguiling, beautiful fashion designer who works against type: If some think fashion is meant to call attention to oneself, she is a believer in "the art of anonymity in the jungle." In various aspects of her orbit stands an odd constellation of characters: a woman who seeds the press with learned, utterly false stories that, to her delight, cause people to freak out and markets to plunge; an Israeli traveler who shelters a secret; a photographer who is drawn into the darkest recesses of the Earth to find his subjects. Throughout, as with that earlier novel, Fonseca takes the occasion to venture odd connections and prolegomena for future projects; one of his characters, for instance, insists that the novel has been stagnant since the time of Cervantes and needs to be reimagined so that it becomes geological, "novels of multiple layers, novels that could be read the way you read the passage of time on the surface of rocks." Everything is contingent in Fonseca's story, and nothing is quite to be trusted; as it draws to a close, Fonseca begins to play with stories within the story, marvelous concoctions of, for instance, "an odyssey that gradually stretches out, from motel to motel, train station to train station, that grows in leaps and bounds, like the man's conviction." The novel is an elegant meditation on art, inconstancy, and hiding, with a deftly woven subtext of camouflage that emerges as the narrative progresses. A treat for fans of Cort�zar, Bola�o, and other adepts of the literary enigma.

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Starred review from May 11, 2020
Fonseca’s inventive, complex tale (after Colonel Lágrimas) reads like a literary onion, constantly revealing new narratives and layers of meaning. Fonseca follows a curator at a New Jersey museum of natural history who receives a phone call from fashion designer Giovanna Luxembourg. They share an interest in the quincunx, an elemental pattern where “nature and culture came together in the repetition of a five-pointed shape,” and Giovanna proposes a collaboration. They have many conversations while working together, but their joint exhibition remains incomplete. After Giovanna dies seven years later, the curator receives a bundle of envelopes with notes from their unfinished project. The curator starts reading them during a night of insomnia, and gradually learns about the history of Giovanna’s family. Fonseca then interjects the story of Israeli photographer Yoav Toledano, who travels to South America in the 1950s, lured by “the poetic resonance” and solitude of Tierra del Fuego, while delving into religion, philosophy, and theories about photography and archives (the text contains a series of interstitial photos and is designed to mimic file folders). The various characters’ perspectives blur the line between memory and fantasy, and their charm will keep readers along for the very intricate ride. Fonseca’s innovative puzzle box of a novel packs a powerful punch.

June 1, 2020
Tragedy or farce? This question dogs the protagonist, a curator at a natural-history museum, throughout rising star Fonseca's (Colonel L�grimas, 2016) new novel, a literary tour de force impressively translated by McDowell. Fonseca's nameless narrator becomes obsessed and entangled with a curious family of artists: the daughter, Giovanna, a fashion designer; photographer father Yoav; and mother Virginia McAllister, aka Viviann, a model and performance artist. The curator's fascination leads him into an atavistic exploration of the confluence between art, politics, and life. Fonseca reaches back to bohemian 1970s New York, and lands in far-flung, desolate, and bizarre places. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, he finds a community of urban squatters in a partially constructed skyscraper; in a Central American jungle, a group of end-times fanatics following a child prophet. He also visits an abandoned, still-smoldering mining town, and a courtroom where art is put on trial. Ultimately, Fonseca's challenging and transcendent novel offers a prescient message about media fabrications and the unreliability of history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)