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Recipient of the 2005 Premio Internacional de Novela del Diario La Nación-Sudamericana, The Absent Sea is the English-language debut of an important Chilean novelist, and a work that hovers between real history and timeless mythology. Just before the coup d¿etat that overturned Chile¿s govenrment under Allende, a young, idealistic judge named Laura is posted to a provincial center in the vast northern desert. After the coup, the town is occupied by the military, which establishes a concentration camp for dissidents. Immediately, the conflict between the judge and the commandant, Major Cáceres, results in her lengthy exile to Germany. Twenty years later, she returns to Chile to confront the enormity of her past actions, as well as to answer the scathing question flung at her by her daughter: "Where were you, Mamá, when all those horrible things were happening in your city?" Laura¿s reply to her daughter takes the form of a long, dramatic letter about the dramatic events of twenty years before. In alternating chapters, meanwhile, Laura¿s return coincides with an indigenous religious festival. At the end of three days, the Chilean city and all its inhabitants will be forever changed. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)863.7Literature Spanish and Portuguese Spanish fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Laura Larco was the youngest judge in Chile before the 1973 coup de etat. When the military took over she fled the country. 20 years later her daughter challenges her to return, almost tauntingly. Asking where she was when all these horrible things happened. The military tribunals, the killing of political prisoners and so much worse. The horrors revealed in this book highlight both the cruelty of those with power as well as those to afraid to speak against them. That fear and the guilt thereafter drive the story both past and present as Laura attempts to answer her daughters accusation.
Laura attempts to answer her daughter in a letter. The story alternates between what happened then and Laura's return during the Diablo festival. In those three days not only is Laura's story revealed, but all of Chile's.
Although the author tends to use overly flowery language (or it could be the translation), I loved the imagery, symbolism, and the use of guilt. It reminded me of books that use the German Guilt as in Bernard Schlink's The Reader. The next generation judging what happened before. Although in this case, it is those who stood by, who endured that is called into question. In Claudia's question is a question of the people of Chile, how could you let this happen? Laura's answer reveals so much more in the book's shocking conclusion.
Favorite Lines:
" That could be one paradoxical virtue of old age, I suppose: the memories which used to frighten us, sadden us, gradually lose their power to be so devastating." p. 59
"He lacked the ability to burn all those stories and begin others from scratch, starting from zero until coming up with a fair copy at last. He lacked what it took to die at least once, which is what every writer needs before setting himself to write..." p. 29
"He still hand't had time enough to learn that you can't save the truly innocent ones. Laura imagined the years of his career ahead of him, the assignments, the promotions, the demotions into the abyss of bureaucracy that would become more and more tedious, while for him the dead child would still be drowning in his impossible dream..." p. 287
"And at the same moment, I realized that my attempted resignation was the last arrogant gesture of an insolent youth when I had believed myself capable of serving justice. My ridiculous project of resigning "publically" was completely out of place, since one does not renounce innocence; you lose it, that's all." p. 324
"...just as in the huge stadiums, people needed to hear the description of what lay before their eyes in order t comprehend its meaning, in order to see themselves in their collective dimensions. She thought: the people, the nation, the church are always the "others", the story that makes the "other" out of us; but in truth we are isolated individuals, all alone, incapable of narrating us to ourselves, barely touched by the voice calling out to us in the desert." p. 328 ( )