Guadalupe Nettel

Two young women, Laura and Alina, know for a fact they don't want children. So Laura, the narrator, has her tubes tied. While Alina enters a relationship, and changes her mind, even to the extent of having fertility treatment when pregnancy just doesn't happen. Life gets in the way. Alina becomes pregnant but before the birth, is given the awful information that her grossly disabled daughter will not live. Laura finds herself becoming involved in the life of the small boy next door, who's angry and neglected: and in the saga of the pigeons who have made a nest and laid eggs in her outdoor space.

This book is one which looks a the wider definition of parenthood, through the omniscient eye of Laura, who seems to know every intimate detail of Alina's life with her partner Aurelio and daughter Inés, as well as of their childminder who's unable to have children of her own, and of Alina, of her own mother, and her neighbour Doris and son. It examines the emotional conflicts and burdens of motherhood: their overwhelming presence in each woman's life. A startling and forceful story.… (mais)

Sulla carta una raccolta di racconti che faceva un parallelo tra i comportamenti degli animali e gli esseri umani che vivono con loro mi sembrava assai promettente. Nei fatti, però, la realtà si è rivelata abbastanza deludente.

Bestiario sentimentale non è un brutto libro, ma non aggiunge niente rispetto a ciò che sappiamo già su cosa può accadere in certi momenti importanti nella vita. Nessuno di questi cinque racconti offre un punto di vista nuovo e nemmeno il confronto con il regno animale è in grado di arricchire granché quest’esperienza di lettura.

Anzi, già leggere la panoramica che la casa editrice fa nel libro vi dà un’idea abbastanza chiara del contenuto dei racconti: non c’è davvero niente che sia riuscito a sorprendermi.… (mais)

Two friends vow to never have children. Laura has surgery to guarantee it. Alina waffles, and some years later is married and wants to. Fertility issues, and then a bad diagnosis. Nettel does a great job of writing the incredibly intense emotions that come with being a parent--the highs everyone hopes for, the lows everyone hopes to avoid. Meanwhile, Laura has been helping her depressed neighbor with her son, and she is shocked at how much she cares for him and likes him.

This is a book I would have been unable to read 20 years ago. It is hard and addresses things no mother really want to think about--until they are forced to.

This is also a fantastically translated title. The original is completely different, but is Spanish word play, with two meanings. Harvey managed to find an equally relevant title that is also wordplay with two meanings.… (mais)

An absorbing and thought-provoking novel that skillfully addresses motherhood, the modern nuclear family, and Buddhist concepts such as transience and impermanence. In clear, uncluttered prose, it reads almost like a memoir. Narrated in the first person by Laura, a PhD student in her 30s who is completing her thesis, much of the novel concerns Laura’s friend Alina, who has, much to Laura’s distress, decided to become a mother. However, Inés, the child that comes to Alina and her husband is not the one they’d planned for. Due to a genetic defect, her brain is small and the cortex has not formed normally; she is severely disabled. The reader learns how the couple cope and how Laura, who has taken medical measures to ensure she never becomes pregnant, forms a bond with a traumatized woman and her young son, neighbours in her apartment building. Laura also develops a surprising attachment to a pair of pigeons who care for an egg which is not their own (and the hatchling that emerges).

A rich, interesting, and rewarding read. Recommended.… (mais)