Milena Busquets

I was curious about This Too Shall pass (by Milena Busquets) because of the subject matter: A woman (Blanca) is dealing with the death of her mother. It’s many years since my mother died but I still deal with it, I still grieve her loss. I miss the things I never shared with her: my children, my career, my maturing. I miss her perspective on her life. But most of all, I feel with Bianca, “My place in the world was in your gaze,” and I have spent my life, in part, looking to replace show more that gaze, even if it is my own.

Then, too, one of my mother’s favorite sayings was “This too shall pass,” although I never believed it, especially as a child and teen. Everything seems forever at that age. And although the acute grief has passed there is an on-going ache and feeling of emptiness around the space that was my mother and my relationship with her.

On the other hand, the subject also seemed trivial to me. Why care about the grief of a 40-year-old woman about her mother? Isn’t the loss of a parent natural? And I would have been grateful to have had my mother that long. But reading the book, I realized that 40 is not that old (so much younger than I am now). And I should have remembered that the death of my father, when I was in my 30s was a great loss.

So much for my relationship with the subject matter. Blanca is, as a character, about as different from me as a person could be. She lives for love. She has two children she adores but her life seems to be about clothes and lovers. She is wealthy. After the funeral, she leaves Barcelona and goes to Cadaques, a beautiful seaside location. She takes her friends and her ex-husbands. (Blanca feels lonely in respect to her mother, but is rich in beloved companions).

I ended up loving this book. Blanca’s passion for life, even in the midst of her grief, lights up these pages. Beautiful descriptions of place, intense connections with her surroundings, her friends, her lovers (even her ex-lovers), her examination of the mother-daughter relationship, her search for who she is now that she is not her mother’s daughter were all exciting and invigorating. And watching Blanca begin the transformation from mother’s child to woman was touching. (“Until you became ill and died, it had never occurred to me to sit down on a bench in the street….but now I enjoy this stillness in the midst of people, these small rafts of public safety.) Blanca is depressed in the wake of her lost (although what a vibrant depression!) but she is also discovering who she is outside her mother’s gaze. And that growth, while painful, is also an important part of life, of who and what we are.

Just reading this book made me feel more alive and awake to the world. Blanca’s intense connection to, well, everything stirred me, made me more alert and aware of my own life, my own world, the people around me.

And the writing! I underlined practically every other sentence. Even in translation, beauty and power shine and almost shimmer in the light of Milana Busquets’ gaze. The relationships Blanca has with the people, even the acquaintances, even the dogs. around her hold the interest because of the Busquets’ powerful prose. Otherwise, I think I would have found Blanca’s general self-indulgence and narcissism annoying; she is overly fascinating to herself. But she is also fascinating to the reader in her passion and intense experiencing of life.
I can understand why this book is an international bestseller. It is a short book and a quick read, partly, for me, because I couldn’t put it down. I am grateful to LibraryThing for giving me this book, in exchange for an honest review, and hope to read more by this author. I may even reread this book, just to experience again not only to be a part of her search for a meaningful life in the face of great loss, but to be inspired again by her intense interaction with and appreciation of, the world. show less

Blancas Mutter ist verstorben, die wohl der wichtigste Mensch in ihrem Leben war und Blanca zu dem Menschen 'machte', der sie heute ist. Nicht immer entwickeln sich aus solchen Erkenntnissen positive Gefühle, doch in diesem Fall entstand eine große Liebe. Blanca liebt ihre Mutter über alles und in den Tagen nach deren Tod ist sie ihr fast immer gegenwärtig, bei den unterschiedlichsten Gelegenheiten. Die Ich-Erzählung aus Blancas Perspektive habe ich wie einen Brief an die Mutter show more empfunden: Sie erzählt ihr von den Tagen nach der Beerdigung, wie sie sich versucht abzulenken und dennoch stets auf's Neue ihre Mutter in den Vordergrund rückt. Menschen, Orte, Gesten, Gefühle - immer wieder werden dadurch Erinnerungen hervorgerufen, denen Blanca sich hingibt. Voller Wehmut und Schmerz, aber auch mit Zärtlichkeit, Freude und voller Liebe. Dies mag nun Manchen allzu sehr nach Rosarot klingen, doch es gibt auch Rückblicke, die deutlich machen, dass die Mutter-Tochter-Beziehung nicht nur harmonisch war. Doch die Liebe überwiegt...
In diesem Buch gibt es so viele wunderbare und schöne Sätze, dass ich vermutlich ganze Wände damit tapezieren könnte ;-) Beispiele gefällig? Also: "Du hast mich so rigoros und nachhaltig gegen jede nicht spielerische Form von Unterwerfung erzogen, dass ich noch nicht einmal Feministin werden musste." oder "In deinen Augen rechtfertigte die Liebe eigentümliche Verhaltensweisen, die du unter allen anderen Umständen verurteilt hättest. Wenn ein Kellner ... dir die Suppe über's Kleid schüttete und du, eben dabei, dich zu beschweren, vom Maître erfuhrst, er sei verliebt ..., sahst du ihn wohlwollend an und sagtest: "Ach so, na dann..." Und aßest seelenruhig weiter in deinem suppendurchtränkten Rock." oder ""Leichtigkeit ist eine Form von Eleganz", sage ich, "leicht und fröhlich zu leben ist sauschwer." "Du verwechselst Leichtigkeit mit Schlendrian, Blanquita."" Vielleicht ist es das, was das Leben von Blanca und ihrer Familie ausmacht: Die Leichtigkeit und die Liebe, was sich auch in den noch immer sehr guten Beziehungen zu ihren Ex-Ehemännern zeigt, den Vätern ihrer beiden Söhne.
Doch es ist nicht nur die Liebe zum andern Geschlecht, sondern ganz allgemein die Liebe zum Leben, die Liebe an sich. Deutlich wird das besonders auf den letzten Seiten, wo Blanca ihrer Mutter eine wundervolle Dankesrede und Liebeserklärung schreibt, die alleine schon das ganze Buch lohnt. "Von dir habe ich die Liebe auf den ersten Blick als einzig mögliche Form, sich zu verlieben (du hattest recht), die Liebe zur Kunst, zu den Büchern, den Museen, zum Ballett, die Freigiebigkeit in Gelddingen, die großen Gesten in den passenden Momenten, die Rigorosität im Handeln und im Reden. Das völlige Fehlen von Schuldgefühlen und die Freiheit und die Verantwortlichkeit, die damit verbunden sind.... Du hast mir auch das irre Lachen geschenkt, die Freude am Leben, die völlige Hingabe, den Spaß an jedem Spiel, die Abneigung gegen alles, was in deinen Augen das Leben kleiner machte und einem die Luft nahm: Knauserigkeit, Mangel an Loyalität, Neid, Angst, Dummheit und Grausamkeit. Und den Sinn für Gerechtigkeit. Die Aufsässigkeit. Das überwältigende Erkennen von Glück in den Momenten, wenn man es in Händen hält und ehe es wieder davon fliegt.... Und die Grandezza, eine Fähigkeit, die Dinge zu benennen, sie zu sehen, eine aufrichtige Toleranz den Schwächen und Unzulänglichkeiten anderer Menschen gegenüber...".
Auch wenn das Hauptthema dieses Buches der Tod eines Menschen sein mag, ist es für mich viel mehr eine Hommage an das Leben und die Liebe. show less

This is a short, languid novel of the narrator's sadness and ennui in a seaside town in summer where she grew up. After her mother's death, she is stunned by grief using drugs, sex and alcohol to cope as she looks back at memories of her mother, her boyfriends, her two ex-husbands, while contemplating mortality. The author offers some lovely passages: "Nacho belongs to the summer just like the boating trips do, or the naps in the hammock, or the freshly baked bread we buy straight from the show more oven on our way home after being out all night, kneaded by the arms of drowsy men who watch us devour it with sad eyes." Or "I could describe each and every corner of my mother's house. I know and remember the changing colors of the mahogany shelves where she kept her books, from mahogany to garnet and finally black according to the time of day and when dusk fell. I know the exact temperature of my father's hands, like bread fresh out of the oven, and in a snap I could draw you the half-empty glass of red wine he always kept in the kitchen."

I could smell the Med at Cadaques and the fresh bread. Not much happens, little plot, but moments and musings, yet I wanted to pick the book up every evening and be back in Spain. Maybe it has a Catalonian sensibility, the painful loss she feels, the distanced lovers, her two young sons, close friendships with women, the warmth of the sun, the sleeplessness. Who is the narrator once she is no longer a daughter? "I will never be seen through your eyes again," she says in the imaginary conversation with her belated mother which threads through the book.

"A seductive voice" says the back of the book, a "summery, sexy , cool," "one of the most elegant books you'll read" declares the French paper. So the seductive elegance enticed me enough to finish the book in a day or two. show less

This novella is as a letter written from a grieving daughter to her recently deceased mother. Its flow is a stream of consciousness as the daughter struggles with a myriad of emotions experienced through grief. Their relationship was a complex one and daughter Blanca struggles with this raw grief in some ways that appear healthy and in some unhealthy ones much of the time - doing whatever it takes to cope. She surrounds herself with those whom she loves, her children, ex-husbands, a married show more lover, and friends in an effort to ease through the grief. There's even the thought of a possible new lover to distract her from her frayed emotions.

Although well written, at times the book's language and some of the characters' behavior is a bit coarse and may be offensive to some readers.

I am grateful to publisher Penguin Random House and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for having provided a free copy of this book. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

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Personal thoughts...
Struggling with my own emotions regarding a parent in failing health, I found a kindred voice through the exquisite prose:
"When I get home I'm going to burn every last stitch of clothing I have on today - they're all drenched in exhaustion and sadness, there's nothing worth saving."
"I will never be seen through your eyes again....My place in this world was through your gaze..."
"I don't like being an orphan; I'm not made for this depth of sadness. Or maybe I am, maybe it's the precise size of pain, maybe it's the only dress left that can fit me."
"Little by little, unawares, the weight of your dwindling happiness found its place on my shoulders."
"I separated myself from you for a while, because I realized that if I didn't you wouldn't be the only casualty left in the wreckage."
"Occasionally, I'd answer thinking, today she's calling just to tell me she loves me and she's sorry for having abandoned me, and you'd called to talk about money and to reproach me because I was the one who had abandoned you."
"Illness evicted her from her throne so cruelly in the end,..."
"I guess all funerals I attend from now on will be yours."
"We had discussed death so many times, but we never thought the bitch would take your head before taking the rest, that she would leave you with a few little crumbs of intermittent lucidity, just enough to make you suffer a little bit more."
" Hope is the hardest facial expression to fake, and the ability to express it diminishes with every broken dream;..."
"Nobody warns you that you have to become your mother when she's dying."
"And so my my head once again succumbs to my body, and your death recedes a few more steps into the distance and as if by magic, my frozen blood begins to flow again." show less