I never imagined all the references to Chile in 'The History of Love': small publishing houses in Santiago, Nicanor Parra, Valparaíso...
I like the fantasy that surrounds books, their destinies, movements, elusiveness. Here, a quote I think pretty much summarizes the idea of this novel:
"Of the two thousand original copies printed of 'The History of Love', some were bought and read, many were bought and not read, some were given as gifts, some sat fading in bookstore windows serving as landing docks for flies, some were marked up with pencil, and a good many were sent to paper compactor, where they were shredded to a pulp along with other unread or unwanted books, their sentences parsed and minced in the machine's spinning blades. Staring out the window, Litvinoff imagined the two thousand copies of 'The History of Love' as a flock of two thousand homing pigeons that could flap their wings and return to him to report on how many cruel closings of the cover after reading barely a page, how many never opened at all".
3 comments:
I am somehow naturally suspicious against such books, but maybe you helped me to get rid of my prejudices. Looks like a good book to read at the beach.
Antonia, I agree. Actually I posponed this book for a while, for the same reasons, but a couple of friends pressed me to finally read it, and yes, most of the reading was done at the beach! (Winter beach though!). Sometimes you get the feeling some books are pre-made. This one is not complex at all and has interesting things, but I still think one has to read in all genres. Cheers!
i agree, nico, one should read all sorts of stuff. Better for the mind.
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