Nocilla Dream

This is the first book of a trilogy, and the second book, Nocilla Experience. will be published in English next month. Despite my disappointment with some aspects of Nocilla Dream, it’s on my wish list. But Nocilla Dream… The book is structured as 113 sections, which vary in length from several lines to several pages. There also excerpts from other books and scholarly articles, on a wide range of subjects. There is no plot per se. Repeated mention is made of a tree on the desert road between Carson City and Ely, Nevada, over whose branches people have thrown pairs of shoes. Some of the stories involve people who have provided at least one pair of those shoes; some of the others involve people who have interacted with those people. show more The stories take place all over the world – which results in one of my gripes: a couple of sections are set in Denmark and it’s a very unconvincing depiction of the country. Another gripe is more the publisher’s fault, as on page 87, the section is headed “Relevant physical constants”, and the exponential figures haven’t been printed with the powers as superscript – so you get, for example, “Speed of Light, c = 3.00 x 108 m/s” when it should be 3.00 x 108 m/s. Despite these, Nocilla Dream is fascinating, does some very interesting things with narrative structure, and I’m looking forward to reading the remaining two books in the trilogy. I will admit to some disappointment, however, when I discovered that Nocilla is a brand-name of a Nutella-like spread in Spain… show less

Post-modern, yet fun and readable :) Told in 100+ short fragments incorporating the lives of the characters as well as real or adapted passages of non-fiction. This could be a recipe for chaos and the kind of self-indulgent book I dislike, but instead the passages are individually well constructed (almost prose poems) and gently link into a greater whole. Explores all sorts of things, but to me it is the significance of liminal spaces which stand out (near-empty desert, micronations, boundaries) which is kind of reflected in the way the book is written, almost constructed of overlooked leftovers which turn out to be gold dust forming a nugget of art.

Apparently a seminal book in Spanish literature, it has taken 10 years to make it to show more English translation -- thanks Thomas Bunstead and Fitzcarraldo Editions! The best thing is, it is the first of a series of 3 "Nocilla" books and English editions are coming soon. I can't wait! show less

(This is a stub.)

There are things happening here that you need to see.

If you’ve ever tried to tell a story by reblogging posts on tumblr, selectively, with meaning and symbols and interstital commentary, then this is kind of like that.

El chico que escribe la trilogía Nocilla es físico, trabaja como radiofísico y hace ya unos años fundó el movimiento postpoético. Su meta es una literatura que recoja entre sus elementos los contenidos de la ciencia. Yo he disfrutado mucho de la novela, que se va construyendo poco a poco entre horizontes de la América profunda, lugares comunes de la generación de la plastilina (o de la Nocilla) y la visión científica-poética del mundo, todo bien junto, como debe ser.