Ways of Going Home in Around the World in 80 Books

May 30, 2016 Katie rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-author, translated, ___latin-america, _chile

Ways of Going Home is told from the point of view of a Chilean novelist who grew up during Pinochet's dictatorship. It alternates between excerpts from his novel and what is happening in his real life. The novel within the novel is fairly autobiographical, and by using this structure, Zambra illustrates how using writing can help someone process their past and their present.

I liked that the book wasn't overtly political. The book isn't exactly about Pinochet's dictatorship, but rather about wha ...more

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Feb 13, 2020 Lisa of Hopewell rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-books

My Interest

Completing my “journey” of reading a book set in each of the 50 States has led me to make another foray into Reading the World [aka Reading the Globe]. South America is the continent about which I know the least, so when researching books for an upcoming reading challenge I noticed one author identified as Chilean, I requested whatever my regional library owned of his work.

The Story

“That I prefer writing to having written. I’d rather stay there, inhabit the time of the book, cohabit w My Interest

Completing my “journey” of reading a book set in each of the 50 States has led me to make another foray into Reading the World [aka Reading the Globe]. South America is the continent about which I know the least, so when researching books for an upcoming reading challenge I noticed one author identified as Chilean, I requested whatever my regional library owned of his work.

The Story

“That I prefer writing to having written. I’d rather stay there, inhabit the time of the book, cohabit with those years….” (p, 39)

This novella is done a bit differently though all of it relates to the idea of coming home. It begins with the story of a young boy and his inner world. After an earthquake he begins to explore his world, agreeing to “spy” on a neighbor for an older friend. He is bright–he reads Madame Bovary in French at 11 or so years old.

“We are united by a desire to regain the scenes of secondary characters. Unnecessary scenes that were reasonably discarded, and which nonetheless we collect obsessively.” (p. 99)

As the story progresses, the boy emerges as the author of the story. The “older girl” he knew as a boy is now more of a contemporary. She has come home for her father’s funeral. She struggles with coming home. She struggles with the idea of names.

My Thoughts

This is a very short book, only 139 pages of the actual story, but it took me a while to dig into it. I expected to read it in an evening, but I found I had to stop and process what I’d read. Was the text as deceptively simple as it seemed? Like with some Japanese novels, I felt I was too stupid to understand all that was supposedly contained in the story both on and between the lines. The brief issue of names did interest me, but that issue neither toyed with long enough nor satisfactorily enough to give me any sense of resolution. I found this to be the longest short book I’ve read in years and one that ultimately left me with a “meh?” or unsatisfied feeling.

My Verdict
3 Stars ...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Annie rated it really liked it

Shelves: world-in-80-books-2013

For my Around the World challenge (Chile).

A promising little metafictional novel about the legacy of Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. The novel switches between a child's story of the mysterious behavior of his neighbors, the now grown-up protagonist and his discovery of what really took place during these events and what role his parents had, and a metafictional frame narrative, in which another narrator, the "author," struggles with the writing of this story, his own failing marriage and his ...more

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Jun 20, 2015 Alyson Zikmund rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed reading this book and am eager to read more by the author. It's a quiet book, which is a style I quite like, and something about the way the protagonist thought resonated with me. ...more

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