The heliotrope wall and other stories

Most of the stories in this collection examine the treacherous waters of adolescence, an uncertain place filled with violence. Matute writes in an elliptical style and often has narrators who don’t understand the full picture. Her sometimes vicious endings are like a good kick in the stomach. Occasionally, Matute’s pared-down prose can become too thin and sometimes the deliberately oblique narrative leaves the reader a bit confused. However, the best stories show that Matute is an artful writer of short works as well longer ones – I loved her novel School of the Sun (Primera Memoria).

The title story shifts perspectives between three boys whose friendship has an underlying tension of class differences. There’s a nice atmosphere show more of menace and Matute’s narrative switching emphasizes the similarity between the boys but this one is too oblique to match the impact of some of the others. “Very Happy” tells the story of a man who seems to have escaped the traps of adolescence and has a stable family, fiancée and career ahead of him. However, cracks soon appear in his story. “Math Notebook” excellently displays Matute’s technique; her narrator has recently come to live with her mother but is confused about the family situation. Gradually, both her past and the tangled relations in her new life are revealed. In the slightly creepy “Do Not Touch”, the main character, Claudia, is only seen at a distance – she’s cold, destructive, insatiable and inscrutable. Her story has a bit of a surreal ending. “The King of the Zennos” is also surreal or fantastic – it left me a bit mystified. “News of Young K.” takes Matute’s abbreviated style too far – it’s too short and choppy to have an impact though the story – a delinquent teenager who commits a violent act – is similar to others. “A Star on the Skin” nicely builds up the narrator’s messy, poor but happy childhood with her scattered parents before the real world intrudes violently.

Matute’s writing has a timeless quality since it is focused on the shifting emotions and interpersonal relationships of her young narrators. She deliberately cultivates this feeling by leaving locations and events hazy, even though one could speculate that some references are to the Spanish Civil War. Matute recreates the confusing period of adolescence by exploiting the tension between known and unknown, innocence and experience. However, experience, in her stories, is brutal and innocence is more like uncertainty or stupidity. Occasionally some of the stories go too far in using Matute’s favored techniques but the best stories were like the atmospheric, powerful School of the Sun and I will be reading more by Matute. show less

Inquietants

Biblioteca básica Salvat