Flavia Company

El desmoronamiento progresivo de la relación entre dos mujeres es el eje central de esta última novela de Flavia Company. Desde la profunda crisis personal que el impacto del abandono desata en una de ellas, y que la lleva a los límites de la autodestrucción, Dame placer es una cruda indagación de una de las protagonistas en las claves que condicionan su vida y, a modo de confesión, un repaso de los móviles que la llevaron a esta situación extrema. El origen de la atracción que show more siente hacia su pareja, la autenticidad de sus sentimientos, las verdaderas causas de la ruptura; poco a poco, lo que parecía un desengaño amoroso se transforma en una crisis existencial y las preguntas que se plantea calan en lo más profundo de su persona. show less

I picked up this novella almost at random in a bookstore, never having heard the title or the author, and liked the first page enough to buy it and start reading it on the spot. It was a quick read, a nautical tale in the tradition of Defoe and Conrad by an Argentine woman who moved to Barcelona and wrote it in Catalan. And it was excellent.

It begins with a mysterious doctor at a New York party who was rumored to be shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years. The bulk of the story is show more told by him through the woman he falls in love with and lives with for seven years. The epilogue following his death is by the woman, and puts a fascinating twist on everything that came before it.

The bulk of the novel is a castaway story as the man is trapped on a small deserted island with a pirate he thought he had killed. In almost the opposite of the civilization depicted in Robinson Crusoe, in this novella they divide up the island, each have territories the other is not allowed in, and rarely cooperate or trade. The tension mounts as he doctor becomes increasingly impatient to find out what is going on in the territory of the pirate.

Ultimately, it is not clear whether it should be read as a realistic story or as an allegory of two sides of a man struggling with himself. But it reads well either way. show less

I picked up this novella almost at random in a bookstore, never having heard the title or the author, and liked the first page enough to buy it and start reading it on the spot. It was a quick read, a nautical tale in the tradition of Defoe and Conrad by an Argentine woman who moved to Barcelona and wrote it in Catalan. And it was excellent.

It begins with a mysterious doctor at a New York party who was rumored to be shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years. The bulk of the story is show more told by him through the woman he falls in love with and lives with for seven years. The epilogue following his death is by the woman, and puts a fascinating twist on everything that came before it.

The bulk of the novel is a castaway story as the man is trapped on a small deserted island with a pirate he thought he had killed. In almost the opposite of the civilization depicted in Robinson Crusoe, in this novella they divide up the island, each have territories the other is not allowed in, and rarely cooperate or trade. The tension mounts as he doctor becomes increasingly impatient to find out what is going on in the territory of the pirate.

Ultimately, it is not clear whether it should be read as a realistic story or as an allegory of two sides of a man struggling with himself. But it reads well either way. show less

The tenses in the narration change, but throughout the writing is crisp and precise. A disappearance of five years, a reappearance and a story, pirates, stranded on a deserted island and a mystery. How did he survive? How did he escape? A taut psychological thriller, a secret and questions of morality that are all explored in this rather small but extremely interesting novel.