Ordesa

September 7, 2020
Ordesa, a park deep in the Pyrenees, looms over the psyche of Spanish writer Vilas’s unnamed narrator in this vibrant English-language debut. The site of the narrator’s childhood vacations, Ordesa is also home to Monte Perdido—“the lost mountain”—a symbol for the loss of his larger-than-life father, who died 10 years earlier, when the narrator was 43. Now living alone in Barcelona, the narrator, whose mother died a year before, is divorced from his wife and estranged from his children, and clings to what he can: an unremarkable career as a writer, tenuous sobriety after years of heavy drinking, and vivid memories of his parents. Though crackling with life, his thoughts are morbid and dominated by a pervasive sense of loss, as he reflects on the erosion of bodies and familial bonds, the material and spiritual decline of the Spanish middle class, and even the loss of memory itself: “My memory constructs a catastrophic vision of the world,” he narrates midway through the novel. Despite lacking a central arc, the novel hums with magnetic and lively scenes. This is an indelible portrait of a man facing the costs of a life dedicated to remembrance.

November 1, 2020
A middle-aged man dwells on his losses, frailties, and family in this unusual fiction. Vilas is a Spanish poet, novelist, and essayist born in 1962 who has enjoyed critical and commercial success in his homeland with this book. Its narrator is a writer who's the same age as Vilas and from the same area of Spain, so it's possible there's autofiction afoot. The year is 2015, and the narrator says he's writing this book to address a malaise he links to "a blurry memory" of a flat tire on the way to a vacation in the mountain valley of Ordesa when he was a child. His mind journeys back to scenes of his own life, of his parents young and as they age, their deaths, two episodes when he was sexually abused, his heavy drinking. The self-described "chaotic narrator" shifts frequently between past and present and among details (including several photos) that range from the banal to the colorful and occasionally the weird. The tone is serious to the point of gloomy, and it may be a reader's yearning for humor that makes some of the stranger pronouncements and revelations read as tongue-in-cheek, like: "Until their eighteenth birthdays, children are blue." Or: "I don't iron underwear because nobody sees it." (And one sentence later: "I don't iron my briefs"; repetitiousness is a problem throughout.) At such times the writing recalls but doesn't match the faux intellectual fun of Thomas Clerc's Interior. This novel's popularity in Spain could stem from its bitter comments on the country's troubled history and economy, remarks that may not resonate with many American readers. But Vilas also conveys--and Rosenberg smoothly translates--many moments of pain and happiness any reader might recognize as the narrator plunges into the maelstrom of closely examined memory. A dark and challenging but emotionally rich work.

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Starred review from August 1, 2020

A divorced, retired middle-school teacher and reformed alcoholic travels to Ordesa, the small town in northern Spain where he was born, to inventory his life's losses: his poor traveling salesman father, his mentally unstable mother, his ex-wife (about whom we learn nothing), his distanced children, objects, love. His identity lies buried in the cemetery of his memory, which seems to be fading, too. Striving to adapt to a solitary life after deaths and divorce, he presents the poignant and sensitive portrait of a wounded man who nevertheless admits he avoided his responsibilities, failed his family, and always took the blame. Through the 157 short chapters (unfortunately, the author opted not to include the epilog of 11 poems found in the Spanish original), the narrator takes readers on a journey both nostalgic and melancholic, moving from his ancestors to the present as he alternates between events and introspective musings. His obsessive but unreliable attempts to recall dates contrast sharply with the immutability of the mountainous region of his birth. VERDICT This stunning work of autobiographical fiction will appeal more to mature readers, who will appreciate its autumnal tone and the catharsis of a man seeking to extract meaning from his past, uncertain whether he has found it or even if he can. [See Prepub Alert, 6/3/20.]--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

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