Book Review: “Aphasia” by Mauro Javier Cárdenas

Aphasia by Mauro Javier Cárdenas

The title of this novel is slightly ironic, as ‘aphasia’ can mean a person cannot speak.  This is not Cárdenas’ problem!  Boy can he speak!  His aphasia might, in part, indicate his and our inability to understand speech—the text is certainly challenging to decipher.

However, the story is perfectly understandable, if not linear or conventionally expressed.  So, I’m not detecting any deficit in language.

The story itself is a somewhat tragic family story, extending some four generations.  There seems to be abuse in the past, madness in the present, and not a little love throughout.

The style is more remarkable that the plot, and makes it difficult to be entirely certain about past, present, or future.

Cárdenas writes long sentences.  Long, long sentences.  Pages long.  Some chapters are a single sentence.  The whole novel is probably 150 sentences or less.

Within these serpentine monsters, he manages to describe dialogs, and the author writing about dialogs, flashbacks, and other complicated expressions.  It’s incredibly intricate, and demanding on the reader.

Phew!  If I missed something, or misunderstood something, I think I can be excused.

I guess it’s kind of fun to decode some of this stuff, at least for a while.

But I haven’t a clue why he writes in this style.  Is this supposed to represent the cognitive experience of the protagonist?   Or something general about life and time?  Or is this just showing off?

I dunno.

---

1. Mauro Javier Cárdenas, Aphasia, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

 

Sunday Book Reviews