A short (170 pages) but eventually difficult book for me. Saer, whom I have not read before, uses the frame of an old man writing his memoirs to tell the story of a 16th-century cabin boy captured by natives in the New World. The natives, whose customs include cannibalism, enable Saer to spend virtually the entire book philosophizing about the meaning of cultural identity, foreignness, and belonging. At times a little too heavy for the framework, it is nevertheless a fascinating book and I think I need to read more of Saer. ( )

16th century: the narrator, now an old man, tells his life-story: orphaned early in his life he joins a ship sailing to the newly discovered Americas as a cabin boy; the only survivor of a landing party he is taken prisoner living with the tribe for ten years eventually returning to Spain. It is a fable of a tribe trapped in an overwhelming existential unreality. But are they the only one being trapped with little choice? And who are the ones that are being aware of their fate? A metaphysical tale. Two quotations:
„Every life is a well of loneliness that only grows deeper with the passing years.“ (34)
„In this respect death and memory are identical: they are unique … (157 bottom)
(IX-18) ( )

A fascinating, beautifully written story of one young man's formative experience as an unwilling guest of a foreign, unknowable indigenous tribe. Told from the perspective of an old man assimilating and reminiscing about his decade-long life in another world, the story intersperses remembered events with ruminations on the nature of memory and the fabric of experienced reality as well as the attempt to faithfully commemorate the worldview of the indigenous tribe. ( )

It was OK; not sure why the thing got so many rave reviews. ( )

A strange and deceptively quiet novel, at times reminiscent of Conrad and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's longer works, this is a wonder through one man's somewhat detached psychology. The explorations here move from being journalistic to philosophical, and readers who reach the end of the book will find that they've come to the end of a novel very different from what they first saw themselves entering. ( )