Sea Monsters

by Chloe Aridjis

Pulsing to the soundtrack of Joy Division, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sea Monsters offers an intoxicating portrait of Mexico in the late 1980s.

One autumn afternoon in Mexico City, seventeen-year-old Luisa does not return home from school. Instead, she boards a bus to the Pacific coast with Tomás, a boy she barely knows. He seems to represent everything her life is lacking—recklessness, impulse, independence.

Tomás may also help Luisa fulfill an unusual obsession: she wants to track down a traveling troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs. According to newspaper reports, the dwarfs recently escaped a Soviet circus touring Mexico. The imagined fates of these performers fill Luisa’s surreal dreams as she settles in a beach community in Oaxaca. Surrounded by hippies, nudists, beachcombers, and eccentric storytellers, Luisa searches for someone, anyone, who will “promise, no matter what, to remain a mystery.” It is a quest more easily envisioned than accomplished. As she wanders the shoreline and visits the local bar, Luisa begins to disappear dangerously into the lives of strangers on Zipolite, the “Beach of the Dead.”

Meanwhile, her father has set out to find his missing daughter. A mesmeric portrait of transgression and disenchantment unfolds. Sea Monsters is a brilliantly playful and supple novel about the moments and mysteries that shape us.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Historical, Audiobook

205 pages, Hardcover

First published February 5, 2019

About the author

Chloe Aridjis was born in New York and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico City. After receiving a BA from Harvard, she went on to receive a PhD from Oxford University. A collection of essays on Magic and Poetry in Nineteenth-century France was released in 2005. Her first novel, Book of Clouds, followed in 2009, winning the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger in France.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

All thoughts on this need to be prefaced with the understanding that I have a very high tolerance for plotlessness in novel. Sea Monsters is exactly that, essentially plotless. A teenage girl decides to run away to the coast in Mexico, with a boy she barely knows. What happens to her there, or what doesn’t really happen, is not the point. Aridjis is a deeply poetic writer. This is a novel full of beautiful description, and astute observation of both people and the natural world. Although many of the things observed or analysed turn out to be nothing, this is the beauty of this novel. It is about the pursuit of magic in this world, and just as the illusion of one trick dissolves, another appears before us. In the end, if we find the magic in the moments we live, it doesn’t matter how much of it is real or not. I was entranced.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although readable, and easily knocked out in a day, this just left me feeling kind of 'meh'. The story just ambles along and I'm not quite sure what it was trying to say - or even if there WAS any point. And although some of Aridjis' prose was quite lovely, at almost no point was I convinced it was from the mind of a seventeen year old runaway.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chloe Aridjis' powerful evocation of Mexico is the real star of this mesmerizing novel: 17-year-old Luisa falls in love with the enigmatic 19-year-old Tomás, and together, they run away from Mexico City to the beach community of Zipolite on the southern coast of Oaxaca. Aridjis herself grew up in Mexico City, and the text reflects her intimate knowledge of the culture and the scenery. What sets her story apart from typical travel- and coming-of-age tales is that she dares to venture into mythology and even employs Baudelaire and Burroughs to strenghten the text's hallucinatory quality.

Luisa is of course trying to find herself through travel, but she knows about the dangers of the sea: For school, she has been analyzing Charles Baudelaire's poem "Un Voyage à Cythère" from Les Fleurs du Mal which deals with the shattered dreams of a poet ("Quelle est cette île triste et noire? - C'est Cythère, / Nous dit-on, un pays fameux dans les chansons, / Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons./ Regardez, après tout, c'est une pauvre terre"). On her journey, Luisa will also learn about the gap between expectation and reality, both regarding Tomás and a mysterious merman she encounters (beware, he's not the kind of merman you meet in The Pisces!).

In Greek mythology, Kythera is considered the island of Aphrodite, but the Kythera Strait was also one of the greatest navigational hazards of the Meditarreanean. Luisa knows about the famous shipwrecks found off the shore of the island of the godess of love and its counterpart, the island of Antikythera - there's some great symbolism in Aridjis writing, and the way she connects the dots is very smart, but also rather demanding for the reader, as she includes quite some detail. Yet another layer is added when Luisa and Tomás visit the house where poet William S. Burroughs accidentally shot his wife Joan Vollmer.

As Luisa explains, people maintain that Zipolite means "Beach of the Dead", and that's not the only connection to Under the Volcano (which takes place on the Day of the Dead): The earthquake of 1985 led to collapsed buildings and ruins, there is abandonment and disconnect abound, and the volcanoes themselves feature as well. Luisa is less interested in fire though, her element is water, the sea, the freedom it brings, but also the danger and the decay: Her sea monsters are tiny creatures who slowly eat their way through the material the ships are made of. She is fascinated by a bunch of dwarfs who, as the newspaper reports, ran away from a circus, and in a way, she also seems to feel like a small performer forced to play her role in a circus-like production, and tries to escape.

All in all, the book is a little diparate as the connection between the numerous narrative ideas is sometimes quite rocky and Aridjis' tendency to elaborate tends to negatively affect the pacing, but still, this is a very worthwhile read for everyone who loves atmospheric and puzzling reads. On top of that, Aridjis channels the look and attitude of 80's Mexican hipsters, and presents us their soundtrack, which you can also listen to on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6lC...

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 2 out of 5]

/ / / Read more reviews on my blog / / /

In spite of its lively premise and its lovely cover art Sea Monsters is one of the most lacklustre books I've read this year. Thankfully, Sea Monsters is a slight novel, just around 200 pages. Then again, those 200 pages are a drag.

The summary for this novel is somewhat misleading as it promises the kind of surreal story that one could expect from authors such as Kevin Wilson or Samanta Schweblin. Sadly, Chloe Aridjis novel is far from being an inventive or subversive coming-of-age tale of a runaway girl. This work is tedious, uninspired...it lacks a spark. The traveling troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs mentioned in its summary are a mere red herring. They capture the readers' attention but it turns out that their presence in the story is just a gimmick. Our narrator decides to run away with a tall lanky dark-haired boy who isn't like other boys. She says she wants to find this troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who seem to have 'escaped' from the circus they were employed by. The narrative consists in our protagonist having not so deep thoughts about life. Her tiresome and affected navel-gazing dominates her narrative. She relates her experiences or the conversations she with others in a way that adds little to no immediacy to her story (because of this the book earns the criticism of 'too much telling, not enough showing'). Our main character mopes about nothing in particular. She seems vaguely intrigued by a guy she nicknames 'the merman' but this storyline lacks the zing of Schweblin's 'The Merman' short story (here the guy is not an actual mermaid).
The 1980s setting seems to take precedence over character or story developed. While I appreciate the references to the genres, bands, and artists of the time (I mean, even Klaus Nomi gets a mention) they did not make up for the novel's many shortcomings.

This book is just 'meh', lukewarm. I didn't hate it, I didn't like it, it didn't really inspire any strong feelings in me. It was occasionally mildly frustrating but other than that...I just did not care for it.
Nevertheless, as with any of my less-than-enthusiastic reviews, I encourage you check out some of the more positive reviews.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know nothing about this author, but saw some buzz about the book, and am remarkably impressed with the author's incredibly deft way with prose. Over and over, I marked passages to be repeated, but there are too many. Aridjis is a poet at heart, and a highly intelligent one, at that. I LOVED her way with words and her quick sketches (the book is really a group of tiny sketches strung together) on history, shipwrecks, sea forms that interrupt the flow of the plot. This is a very brief, contemporary Odyssey (set in 1990s Mexico), and the young female narrator comes to learn that imagining travel is "probably better than actually traveling since no journey can ever satisfy human desire."

So, indeed, the reader is left as unsatisfied as the narrator at the end of the book. Luisa never finds the Ukrainian dwarfs she is in search of (and why I picked up the book), and we never learn why they are so important to her. Still, it's an extremely deft coming-of-age story and Aridjis is a brilliant writer. 5 stars for her prose.

[Mevsim Yenice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harika bir okumaydı. Çok kişiye ulaşmasını dilerim.

[merixien · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5


Meksika'da yaşayan 17 yaşındaki Luisa'nın, doğru düzgün tanımadığı Tomas ile Pasifik sahiline kaçışıyla başlıyor kitap. Yalnız bu sıradan bir aileden özgürlüğe kaçış hikayesi değil. Sorunsuz hatta tam tersi oldukça iyi geçindiği bir aileden ve sorunsuz bir hayattan beklenmeyen bir kaçışın hikayesi. Güzel fon müzikleri eşliğinde, ergenliğin getirdiği öz yıkım ve yeniden bir kimlik oluşturma arzusuyla; kafileden kaçan Ukraynalı cücelerin, hippilerin peşinde 1080'lerin sonunda Meksika'ya ve varoluş sancılarının en ilkel haline dönüyorsunuz. Gerçeklik ile fantezi arasında gezinen, metaforlarıyla yormayan, keyifli bir okumaydı.

[Tommi · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5] Don’t expect a magical tale involving sea monsters per se. This is an enigmatic, hazy, suggestive novel, perhaps a bit like Hot Milk by Deborah Levy. It’s poetic in the sense that Aridjis is in no hurry whatsoever in terms of plot but rather focuses on describing seemingly inconsequential things that the narrator perceives in specific places in 1980s Mexico, creating a very strong sense of place thanks to her sublime language. Some of the perceived haziness may be due to the fact that I read 70% of the novel during a flight, but it seems that many reviewers agree on the general sense of not-knowing. Go in for the atmosphere and the language, otherwise you might be disappointed. I truly enjoyed immersing myself in this storyworld, but I would have appreciated a little more dynamics. I’m still not sure what the novel is about, which I find, in this case, to be one of its merits.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chloe has written a novel that is quiet, charming, and familiar. Because it described itself as "pulsing to the soundtrack of Joy Division, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie and the Banshees", I was expecting more of a classic 80's vibe than it gave off. I mean, hell, Luisa is name dropping all of the music that accompanied me throughout most of my teenage years - The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode! Nonetheless, it managed to unearth some long forgotten memories, running around with boys I knew my parents wouldn't approve of, doing things I knew the police wouldn't approve of, and yet still struggling with that feeling of being just this side of bored with it all. Of long road trips with limited funds, of spending evenings on the beach listening to the waves crashing in, and of falling in love with every cute boy, or good looking guy, that crossed my path and made eye contact with me. For a book that moves as slowly as this one, Sea Monsters is a suprisingly quick read.

(one of my Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2019: https://bit.ly/2SHKV5L)

[Leslie Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seventeen year old Luisa trades her safe middle-class life for a quest to find a group of Ukranian Dwarfs who have escaped a Russian circus. This is a journey that she feels will give her meaning and she persuades a boy, Tomas, to accompany her to the coast of Mexico on this adventure.
This is set in the 80's in Mexico and the music Luisa listens to provides the rounding out of her character.
This is a mesmerizing and beautifully written novel. It is hard to just sum up in a paragraph or two the vividness and profound prose in this book. I cannot wait for more by this author.

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this novel twice. That is unusual for me. If I decide to put a novel down I typically never go back to it. With this novel, though, I just could not get into it initially, but it felt more like a timing issue than a long-term reaction. When I picked it up the second time I still struggled at the beginning, but eventually the story of Luisa, the only significant character of note in the novel, began to take hold of me.

The character of Luisa, an intelligent 17 year-old teenage girl growing up in Mexico City, felt very honest and real to me. I appreciated how she respected and loved for her parents while also strongly desiring independence, adventure and unpredictability. Instead, she has what we think every teenager might want as proxies: trust, safety and enough freedom to explore life. But for Luisa those substitutes are not enough. I could also relate to how Luisa became enamored with a traveling troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs, just as many teenagers develop passions that are later in life difficult to understand or explain.

While not having much plot and having only one character with any dimension, I found myself thoroughly enjoying this novel by its end and sad to have to put it down.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhere between 2.5 and three stars.

There's some lovely writing here and very occasionally a striking image but most of this narrative is a rather tired, trite, saggy Bildungsroman dressed up with hip, now somewhat retro, musical references and pallidly evoked Mexican locales. If I'm going to read about Mexican teens, I'd much rather spend my time with Guadalupe Nettel or Carmen Boullosa. I get the feeling Aridjis is going for something deep here, something mythically resonant (all the Kythera/Anti-Kythera stuff, the Baudelaire, the father who's a classics professor), but hell if I know what it is; it certainly never surfaces in this meandering, excessively loose narrative.

A distinct disappointment after all the hype.

[A. Raca · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bir öğün yemeğin, yenisi önünüze gelir gelmez unutulan bir tabaj yemeğin geçici hazzı için söndürülen bir hayatı haklı çıkarmak mümkün müydü?"

Çok çok güzel bir metin. Zaten Joy Division, The Cure, Depeche Mode dedikçe beni benden aldı. Yazarın müziği bu kadar içine alması, karanlık atmosferi, 80'ler Meksika'sı okumak çok keyifli.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seventeen year-old Luisa, coming of age in Mexico City in 1988, runs away to the beach on a whim with an older boy she has a crush on (on the premise of looking for some missing Ukrainian dwarfs she read about in the newspaper), in this dreamy, intellectual short novel. Luisa’s imagination is readily captured by others and by her surroundings, but when reality intrudes on her projections, it inevitably disappoints.

I enjoyed Aridjis’ writing very much once I got into the swing of things. Her descriptions of Mexico City, especially Roma, in the 80s were lovely, and she captured self-centred, imaginative female adolescence well. Warning: not for you if you want much to happen though! It’s not that kind of book.

[Miriam Kumaradoss-Hohauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

In all honesty, I can't give Sea Monsters an unbiased review: it contains nearly every device and element that I'm obsessed with, from the sea to dogs to post-punk to runaways and dreamlike landscapes. It's like Bruno Schulz if he smoked a lot of weed and listened to a lot of early Nick Cave and Bauhaus. Which is to say that it's not necessarily the most plot-driven of books, but goddamn if the language isn't so immersive and vivid that I didn't care very much about the lack of "action." It does contain one use of the t-word, which felt superfluous and unnecessary, but aside from that and a few tiny things, I'm so so so down with this.

[Rebecca]

I read the first 30 pages and I have no idea what’s happening (apart from nothing much), except that a 17-year-old girl is exploring derelict mansions in a Mexican town with one guy or another. The atmosphere is well done, but there’s no way the nonexistent plot can keep me reading for another 145 pages. Shame I never even got to those Ukrainian dwarves.

[Joe M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dreamy, spellbinding novel that blends tropical escapism, 80's new wave, and magic realism from urban Mexico City to the exotic resort beaches of Oaxaca. Like a sugary, umbrella-laden cocktail, one could argue that Sea Monsters has an abundance of style and quirk over substance, but for myself, it was just fun to go adrift with teen-runaway Luisa on this strange adventure, and take in the remarkable mood and atmosphere that Aridjis created. Think of this as a thinking person's beach book and you'll be sure to enjoy the ride, even if the destination is a little foggy.

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75*
I enjoyed the way the writer told us this story. It was very mature and informative. I thought this was due to the situations described and the examples used. Examples of what goes on in the world and what the main character faces was told in a very in-depth questioning way. It all seemed random but it made sense. It wasn't a wow type book but it was definitely a worthy read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is filled with wonder and surprise. Gorgeous passages evoke a sense of wanderlust, of comfortable dislocation and a sort of longed for isolation. It’s rare to find a novel that marries the post punk, gothic influences of my youth to the sun drenched, Oaxacan daydream of my current existence. Chloe Aridjis, someone skilled in the painterly art of wordscapes and with such an internationally replete experience, deftly explores this odd combination.

[Logann · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much potential, so scattered and poorly executed.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is akin to a roadtrip adventure story meets a coming of age story. But not exactly that.

There was magic in this novel. It was very grounded but also ran alongside the other world that is always running alongside us. It dipped its toes in each. Sometimes, bathed.

The story felt genuine, nothing ever felt forced. There were great turns of phrases yet nothing ever felt like the author was showing off her linguistic ability (though they are many).

I was hypnotized through much of it. It’s as if I met the author at the airport and boarded a small engine plane and lifted off into a magical haze and then was dropped back off at the same airport, yet all appeared different than when I left. Okay. Maybe I mean a space ship.

The narrative was enchanting even though it was much about being disenchanted. A lot of loose ends abound yet in the end they all seem to tie themselves together but not in an expected pattern. By ending it in the real world, it seems the author has taken an unexpected turn. She could have ended it more magically such as that movie where the alien sea creature ends up with the human, but she didn’t go there, yet it has the same ethereal quality nonetheless.

The author uses lots of references for well read readers but never sacrifices the ethereal quality of the novel by showing off.

Worth your time.

[سپید · Rating 4 out of 5]

همیشه زوج‌های ماجراجو را دوست داشته‌ام، ژول و ژیم، ماریان و فردیناند، کیت و هالی و… زوج ماجراجوی این کتاب اما دو نوجوان‌اند در دههٔ ۸۰ میلادی در مکزیک با تمام ویژیگی‌های دنیای نوجوانان. لوئیزا در روزنامه مطلبی می‌خواند دربارهٔ کوتوله‌های اوکراینی که از سیرک شوروی به یکی از سواحل دور افتادهٔ مکزیک فرار کرده‌اند، او و دوست‌پسرش توماس تصمیم می‌گیرند همه‌ چیز را رها کنند و به دنبال آن کوتوله‌ها در آن ساحل گرم و مرطوب بگردند که آدم‌ها مثل خرچنگ‌ در شن‌هایش تلوتلو می‌خورند. اما سفر آنها همان رویای پرآب‌وتاب نوجوانی‌ست، دنیایی که آنقدر با تخیل پر می‌شود که یک روز ناگهان می‌ترکد. دنیایی که واقعیت در آن کمرنگ است و برای همین سریع فرو می‌ریزد.

کتاب را با ترجمهٔ حمید نوریان خواندم، از انتشارات بان.

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Aridjis's liminal, luminous prose.

[Francisco M. Juárez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Qué complicado hablar de esta novela... :D

Si la hubiera leído hace 20 años me habría parecido un sinsentido.

Si la hubiera leído en la prepa la hubiera aborrecido... :D

Ahora puedo ver que tiene mucha belleza en su lenguaje y en las escenas e imágenes que genera. Las digresiones filosófico-históricas-artísticas muy interesantes, pero como leí en una reseña aquí en GoodReads, demasiado artificiosa para creer que es la voz de una chica de 17 años, en especial de esta chica, Luisa.

Aún con todo es una bella lectura (Quizá muchas cosas se me escapen).

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lyrical prose of Aridjis brings this coming of age story to life. Set in the backdrop Mexico, we follow Luisa as she runs away from home in search of Ukrainian dwarfs. Of course, what she is really searching for is something far more magical. Through lovely prose, we come to know Luisa as an imaginative seeker who comes to realize the reality is far less appealing than the fantasy.
There is also a beautifully laid out parallel to Greek mythology in this novel that I found captivating!

[Leili V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the writing style, but it felt like the author was trying to convey a point that I couldn’t really see. It was also pretty short.

[Castor Akers · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 !

This was fine, but I feel like it was a whole lot of nothing. I don't really understand if this book was trying to really talk about anything and if it was it went over my head. Chloe's writing is very beautiful and I was very entranced by it from the first words on the pages, but it was just not enough for me. I do usually like books that are not plot heavy, but this was literally like dragging me through this story. A lot of it was very hazy and I do think that was the point because of what was going on in the story, it just didn't fully convince me. If anyone else has read this and had different thoughts about what the book was about and so on, please talk to me about it!

[Sof · Rating 4 out of 5]

stunning prose & such a beautiful strange depiction of being young and full of longing allll the time…i love novels that don’t care much about “plot” and this is one of those & it’s glorious

[Varsha Ravi]

3.5/5

Imprisoned on this island, I would say, Imprisoned on this island. And yet I was no prisoner and this was no island.

And so begins this book that read like the waking hour from a lucid dream. A story tinged on the outer fringes with little oddities, and absurdities, but never quite straying into the realm of magical realism. Set in the blinding sunlit dusty streets of Mexico, Sea Monsters is a contemporary, off-beat story of a 17-year-old teenager, Luisa, who one day, decides to run away from home with a boy she only barely knows but is deeply infatuated with. No, it's not a love story. Far from it.

Sea Monsters isn't really about the plot or the characters. Rather it paints an intoxicating portrait of Mexican youth culture in the late 1990's, a slice of life story following two adolescents in the cusp of feigned maturity. It's narrated in the first person from Luisa's perspective but surprisingly you don't quite uncover her character all that well. There's a careless spontaneity to the narrative voice that feels both intimate and yet distanced.

It's stunningly written. Moments of utterly, breathtaking prose. The premise had immense potential, but somehow it never completely came to fruition. It felt lacking in depth in some respect. The motives of the different characters, the reasons behind their decisions never quite evident, so the story seemed to float on the surface, with the faintest logical thread holding it together. And that is the only complaint of significance that I have against this book. Towards the end there's this one line of self-introspection, that really is the same question that I, as the reader was asking as well.

Why Luisa? A question, an event, compressed into a fist, like a sentence compressed into an apostrophe that when released springs back to its original form.

Despite my criticism, I still really liked it and would recommend it. The atmosphere, the heat and relentless rains of Mexico, the ocean and all its vastness and the monsters that lurk deep beneath the waters, Zipolite, the beach of the dead, all come rivetingly alive on the page. The writing keeps you dumbfounded and guessing to an end that is maybe a little too neatly tied.

[Kace · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 : absolutely and atrociously boring--not at all like it is described on the back cover. The attempts at being poetic and having poetic language fall flat as they are so stacked on top of each other they stop having meaning or beauty at all. There is no plot (dont let the description fool you) or really any sense of purpose, and the last 20 pages where the father tells his own version of the story are the only good ones in the whole book

A description of beachcombers for reference to the over-wrought language: "sometimes still, sometimes in motion, sometimes vertical, sometimes bent over at forty-five degrees, sometimes one wore a hat, sometimes one used a cane." Lolol count me as "sometimes reading" and "sometimes wishing I hadn't bought this book." Oh and "sometimes wearing a hat."

Surprised I finished it, to be honest, but I paid full price for it and couldn't put it down out of pride