"In the end she dies and he is alone, although really he had been alone for some years before her death, before Emilia's death."
Julio and Emilia are students of literature, so references abound, especially Proust, but also Mishima, Perec, Carver. The novel is short, but every sentence is a little gem of economic writing: precise, surprising, evocative.
"One fine or perhaps very bad day, chance led them to the pages of The Book of Fantasy edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo. After envisioning crypts and doorless houses, after taking inYentory of the traits of unnameable ghosts, they landed on 'Tantalia', a short story by Macedonio Fernandez that affected them deeply.
'Tantalia' is the tale of a couple who decide to buy a little plant to keep as a symbol of the love that binds them. Too late, they realize that if the plant dies, the love that binds them will die too. And since the love that binds them is immense and they aren't willing to sacrifice it for anything, they decide to lose the plant amid a crowd of identical plants. Then comes the desolation, the tragedy of knowing that now they can never find it again. "
It's a story of vulnerability, nostalgia and loss. It is less about love or sentimentality. It's also a story about creating and shaping. Julio wants to write a novel, but ends up by writing a fake translation of a novel by someone else, and their relationship is being shaped like a little bonsai, it is not the real thing - love - but its minor format, easier to deal with, easier to shape.
"The end of this story should give us hope, but it does not."
The story is precious, like language and words are precious. Zambra demonstrates again that 'less is more'.
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