Not Only Fire

by Benjamín Prado

On a stormy night, Ruth waits to tell her husband Samuel that she is leaving him, as he's no longer the radical she once loved. Meanwhile their son Maceo listens to his grandfather's stories of the Civil War, and their daughter Marta is on the phone, suffering from unrequited love. But when Maceo is then struck by lightning, the peculiar relationships within this secretive and frustrated family are suddenly illuminated. Benjamin Prado's great achievement is to imbue his narrative with an epic dimension, the family's interrelations mirroring the upheavals of 20th-century Spain.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Ashish Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Seen from outside, for example from the window of the building opposite, Samuel and Ruth must have seemed indistinct and rigid, perhaps a little ungainly, like toy soldiers moved by the hands of a child. Such a distance- those twenty-five or thirty meters that the rain and the daylight’s underwater gloom had transformed into an unreal, almost opaque space- made it impossible to sense the similarities between their marriage and the storm, or to note the evident signs of the collapse, mud, ashes and ruins to come.”

I am the forth person to review this book on Goodreads and that in itself is a surprise. I mean it isn’t a new release. It has been out in this world for almost eighteen years, then how come no one stumbled across this book other than those three souls. Anyway, I am hoping that I will do the good job of promoting this so that others can find and relish this marvellous piece of Spanish literature.

Not Only Fire tells the story of a family falling apart- marriage embittered by disappointment, a small boy struck by lightning and a young woman running headlong into a personal hell, all mixed together with cinematic writing and surprisingly dark revelations.

Sam Richard has done an amazing job translating this book into English. It’s so beautifully written and with astounding imagery and use of metaphors. Every page is littered with lines that could belong in a poem, lines like “he was not dead, but that was the image of him that remained, for fear has it own, often illogical rules: inside the man dreaming of a leopard, roams a leopard; in every dark empty cellar lurks an assassin”. chef kisses to every book that has lines like these. The story is dramatic but like a french movie, slow and burning. Nothing much happens, yet the way it is told ie in a non-liner way, imparts this impression of an approaching disaster. It’s eerie and retrospective. A very strong candidate of this year’s best book.

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sparked by a curious incident of a boy being hit by lightning, the poignant stories of three generations unfold in rich detail in this enchanting tale by Benjamin Prado. The beauty in Not Only Fire does not lie on preposterous absurdities or mind-bending plot lines, but on its interestingly reflective and psychological incision of its characters.
There is Truman, the ‘old man’ of the house, recalling his turbulent youth in Spain and Central America during Franco’s fascist regime. There is Samuel and Ruth, two former star lovers who fell into the humdrum dregs of a long marriage, trying to make sense of the hostility between them. There is Marta, the couple’s daughter, who lies on the precarious edge of youth but too confused and hesitant to jump into love and adulthood. A seeming cycle, a complete intimation of life at its every stage, Not Only Fire provides a commentary on the nuances of living, from love, death, society, friendship, confusion, and so on.
I found it quite peculiar that Prado doesn’t even have an English Wikipedia entry. This book displays wit and wisdom that definitely surpassed my expectations for it (I bought it in a second-hand bookshop, and I only bought it because it looks great). Prado’s confused narratology and cynically reflective digressions made the reading experience a very depressing read; the depression it gave, however, is an illuminating one, the one a person gets after a blind man cry. I have to admit, it was a very bothersome, if not painful tale that every minute of reading it is like penitence. Above all, nonetheless, I would say I am thoroughly impressed by this work.

[Paul Bottrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting in that ,although I was not inspired by it, I really wanted to finish the book to find out how each of the characters' stories evolved. A sad portrait of a family for the most part. No one really ended up happy or finding what they hoped for/dreamed of. Sad but enjoyable.

[La Lectora · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me ha gustado, está bien muy escrito con un lenguaje muy cuidado y muchas metáforas que llaman la atención pero la narración no me lograba interesar y me resultaba liosa…Le dejé!