Elena sabe (novel) (7/10)
Book summary
An old woman with Parkinson’s braves the streets of Buenos Aires to prove that her daughter did not commit suicide, but rather was murdered. Her daughter couldn’t have committed suicide because it was raining, and her daughter was afraid to go to church on days where it rained, for fear that a bolt of lightning would strike the steeple and kill everyone inside.
The book is very physical, with each scene playing out aroud Elena’s health—she can only move during a few key windows of time during the day, when her medication takes effect. The book begins with several pages worth of effort on Elena’s part to standup from the chair she’s sitting in, and continues in similar fashion.
The book is heartbreaking and terrible but also wonderful.
Do I recommend it for learners?
No.
The prose is unique and very stream-of-conscious: there are no quotation marks, very few dialogue tags, only occasional notes that the speaker has changed, and virtually ever sentence is a run-on. This creates a cool disorienting affect that I felt benefitted the book, but at several points I was confused because I had no idea who was saying a particular line.
I enjoyed it from an artistic perspective, and I thought the plot played out quite nicely, but I think the unconventionalness of the prose makes it not super suitable for learners.
