I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness

 

I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Solà trans. Mara Faye Lethem, 176 pages.

In a small farmhouse deep in the Guilleries mountains, an impossibly old woman is about to die. Long ago, longer than should be possible, her great grandmother made a deal with the devil, a whole man for a husband in exchange for her soul. A trick leaves Joana with her soul, but the generations who will live and die in the house are not unaffected, as everyone born in the house is born lacking something essential, and even now their spirits prepare a feast to welcome Bernadeta to their number. 

 

I picked up this strange book in Barcelona knowing very little about it, and while I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, I'm definitely glad I did. The author started as a poet, and you can definitely tell from how visceral the prose is. The book often transfers seamlessly from the past to the present, and it is often hard to tell if the character we are following is alive or dead. This makes for a slightly confusing reading experience, but definitely an interesting one. This reminded me quite a bit of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, with the strange insular family and the magical realism. This book is undeniably weird, but it packs a real punch for such a little novella, and I think it's definitely worth reading.