Nocilla Dream

Proyecto Nocilla #1

by Agustín Fernández Mallo, Djordje Zarkovic (Translator)

Ett träd i Nevada-öknen fullt med skor, en grupp kvinnliga surfare som åkt vilse i södra Spaniens ödemark, en hemlös man i Gucci-skor som bor på en flygplats. Nocilla dream vrider sig fram genom uppbrutna och oavslutade historier som på märkliga sätt länkas samman vid gränsen mellan verklighet och delirium, interfolierade med reflektioner och citat från naturvetenskap, journalistik och populärkultur. Om tiden traditionellt har varit den ordnande principen i romankonsten väljer Agustín Fernández Mallo hellre rummet, den tömda, skingrade eller belamrade platsen, som bakgrund och förutsättning för den mänskliga erfarenheten.

Nocilla är en spansk variant av Nutella.

Agustín Fernández Mallo, född 1967, är fysiker och författare. Nocilla dream är första delen i en trilogi som haft avgörande inflytande på spansk samtidslitteratur och gett namn åt en hel författargeneration. Den andra delen, Nocilla experience, utkommer sommaren 2020, och den avslutande, Nocilla lab, våren 2021. Romanerna gavs ut i Spanien mellan 2006 och 2009.

Översättning av Djordje Zarkovic

Genres: Fiction, Spain, Spanish Literature, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, Short Stories

229 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Agustín Fernández Mallo (A Coruña, 1967) es un físico y escritor español afincado en Palma de Mallorca. Es uno de los miembros más destacados de la llamada Generación Nocilla, Generación Mutante o Afterpop, cuya denominación más popular procede del título de una serie de sus novelas.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trash, pollution, kitsch and marginal existence are byproducts of our civilization… Nocilla Dream is a mosaic of all those byproducts…

One minute till we’re on air! A Nevada TV news show is doing a special program on freeway prostitution. Into the microphone they ask: What are you proudest of, Sherry? Love is a hard job, she says, loving is the hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life.

In the middle of the Nevada desert stands a solitary cottonwood tree, covered in hundreds of pairs of shoes… And all those who pass it by consider it to be their duty to add some more… So they think they are the sculptors of this world… And in a way they are…
The novel is written in Jorge Luis Borges’ somewhat renovated style and it is laden with all sorts of intellectual deviations and digressions.

There is a universal Principle of Reversibility which dictates that anything we cannot see or detect via one of our senses, by the same token cannot see or detect us. Thus microbes, thus the future, thus stars situated beyond our event horizon, thus the interior of any person who comes by and greets us, thus dead people, all of them, 100 percent of them.

Globetrotting from place to place, from city to city, from country to country, from continent to continent Agustín Fernández Mallo creates a panoramic mural of the modern life a great part of which is rubbish…

He removed a book from the backpack, The Incredible History of Christopher Columbus: For Children, which he had taken out of the library at the Apple Fork barracks. In it he read that you don’t need to circumnavigate the earth to find out that it is round, just pick a spot and stay there and you’ll see how it’s the others that do the circumnavigating.

No need to stay put… Just open a book.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Take something I enjoy

Chocolate (science/cryptography)

But a slightly basic form of it

Cocoa powder (popular science articles)

Mix with something I know should be good for me and which I should enjoy more than I do

Hazelnuts (post modern poetry)

Add some junk which is definitely not wholesome

Palm oil and sugar (various pop culture references)

Mix up into a

Paste (fragmentary novella)

Add some Southern European influence

Spain (Italy)

And you get something where I can see why others might enjoy it but it’s all too messy and unrefined for my taste

Nutella (Nocilla)

(NB – Nocilla is a Spanish version of Nutella)

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

First there’s this:



You can find this tree in the middle of the Nevada desert as you drive along Route 50 between Ely and Carson City. It is a central motif in Nocilla Dream as different narrative strands circle around it and return to it again and again. In case it is not clear from the picture, those are shoes hanging from the trees. It is, I believe, almost the only tree along the 300+ mile route and people travel out specifically to see it or to add a new pair of shoes to it.

This is a book that will appeal to those (like me) who enjoy non-linear, multi-person narratives in their books. It has 113 short chapters (the shortest is 2 lines long) and they jump around between narratives giving us snapshots and hints of connections. Gradually, as you read, the dots begin to connect and something bigger than the book begins to emerge. That said, putting into words what it is that begins to emerge is not easy!

The narrative also includes several passages (more than 20 of the 113 chapters) lifted out of other books or news/magazine articles. For example, the opening chapter is a quote from B. Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot’s article in Scientific American (you can read the whole article here: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Al...). This opening chapter discusses how the human brain can do things that are difficult for computers (e.g. recognise faces, read handwriting) says that maybe this is because of the network of neurons that make up the brain and that computers lack. This sets the scene for the book which essentially jumps around between narratives, firing neurons as it goes, with each of those firings creating a spark that connects with others.

A man sets out to walk along Route 50 and talks to a prostitute as he leaves. A boy sees a brown shoe in the middle of Route 50. A man collects found photographs. A few chapters later, a woman and a man are in a car on Route 50 and she lies back putting a foot out of a window leading to her brown shoe falling off and lying there…

I have to say that reading this book on the Kindle is a great help. I lost count of the number of times I used the simple trick of highlighting a person’s name and then searching so that I could check when (or if) we last heard about that person. If you are not reading on a Kindle (or similar), taking notes might be advisable. In a review in The Independent, Andrew Gallix says:

Linear narrative is ill-equipped to respond to globalisation, hence Mallo’s picaresque twist on the road trip trope. Objects and characters migrate from one chapter to another, prompting the reader to constantly flick backwards to check if the biscuit tin produced in a Danish factory had already appeared in a supermarket in Carson City.

Which leads to the question as to what the book is actually about. The fractured narrative works to create something larger than the sum of its parts. It hinges on an idea that all things are connected (I imagine Richard Powers or Tom McCarthy would like this book as that is what they often, if more conventionally, write about). Or, as the book puts it at one point:

…how the network of the biosphere, the network of the Internet and the neuronal network each possess the same topology, and can therefore, in certain situations, be considered isomorphs.

Or, more bluntly

But this thing about connecting cities and places, it’s fundamental,…

To quote German Sierra in Asymptote Journal

Nocilla Dream is a collection of 113 short texts that has been described as a long series of prose poems, a literary road movie, or a mosaic composed of many fragments that build up a coherent, contemporary narrative image. Diverse stories—a remake of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, a dead man found in a truck from Mexico, a community of retired executives in China, the fictional history of micronations, Feynman in Los Alamos—and a varied assortment of characters—ex-boxers, Polish musicians, teenagers, Argentinian readers of Borges, Danish ‘internet-users,’ Las Vegas prostitutes, American surrealist painters in Madrid—appear intermingled in a web of evanescent virtual relations converging on U.S. Route 50 and a ‘tree of shoes’ in the Nevada desert.

In fact, Sierra’s whole article is well worth reading: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/crit...

My internet search history after reading this today must look spectacular!

I realise that this style of book is not to everyone’s taste. But if, like me, you love a fragmented narrative that works by creating atmosphere rather than telling a story (I might have mentioned this before), then this is one to lose yourself in for an afternoon.

[Murat Dural · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kolay bir kitap değil ama es geçilecek bir kitap da değil. Parça parça ve sıraları farklı anlatıların dili bence çok iyi. Buradaki "Bence," kısmı önemli. US50 Otoyolu var, böyle bir ağaç var ve tüm bunlardan dolayı anlatılan rüyaları da gerçek saymak, kurgunun nerede başlayıp bittiğine şüpheyle yaklaşmak gayet mümkün. Üç yıldıza aldanmayın, eğer okuru zorlayan anlatıları seviyorsanız üç buçuktan dört yıldız diyebilirsiniz.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It isn’t that he’s been struck by a fatal disease.., nor has he been fired from his job as empties collector, nor has a letter come announcing the imminent death of his mother in Buenos Aires, no, something far worse: he’s lost faith in Jorge Luis Borges.

Nocilla Dream is the first in Agustín Fernández Mallo's Nocilla Trilogy, all translated by Thomas Bunstead.  Bunstead's own take on the trilogy is highly worthwhile and can be found here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...

I read the last book - Nocilla Lab - first, so many of my comments from my review of that apply here, albeit Lab is rather different in style from both Dream, and the second novel Experience.  

The inspiration for the trilogy, and for Nocilla Dream in particular, came from three sources:

1. A 2004 NY Times article about a odd tree on a lonely US highway: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/us...

As the 2nd chapter of the novel - the 1st is essentially an epigraph - explains:

Technically its name is U.S. Route 50. It’s in Nevada, and it’s the loneliest highway in North America. Passing through semi-mountainous desert, it links Carson City and the town of Ely. A highway in which, it ought to be stressed, there is precisely nothing. Nothing. A 260-mile stretch with a brothel at either end. In conceptual terms, only one thing on the entire route vaguely calls to mind the existence of humanity: hundreds of pairs of shoes have been hung from the only poplar that grows there, the only one that found water.

2. The song “Nocilla, ¡Qué merendilla!” by Spanish post-punk bad Siniestro Total:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDq6q...

3. Some lines from Yeats's poem Easter 1916, the author came across on a sugar sachet in a Chinese restaurant:

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Stylistically, the Nocilla trilogy represents Fernández Mallo's preferred aesthetic - one set out in his own 2009 essay Postpoesía, and which in Nocilla Experience he attributes to a fictitious Spanish author:

Josecho was a fervent practitioner of an aesthetic tendency he himself had termed ‘transpoetic fiction’, which consisted of creating hybrid artefacts somewhere between science and what is traditionally known as ‘literature’.

Nocilla Dream consists of 113 short chapters - typically 1-2 pages. These consists of direct excerpts from a number of other texts, often scientific but also fictional, as well as a number of parallel story fragments involving different characters, mostly centered around Route 50 and the 'shoe tree', and which occasionally intercept. Most of the characters do reappear at some stage in later chapters, notably around the 75% mark in the novel, but there are almost as many characters as chapters, and part of the novel's reading experience is remembering whether someone has appeared before and spotting the connections to other stories. Further the stories themselves are a mixture of the fictional and non-fictional - some of the stories are lifted almost verbatim from the NY Times.

Compared to Nocilla Lab, the theoretical physics here - the author is a physicist as well as an author - seemed better integrated with the text.

The heavy use of other sources is an interesting decision - it makes for an interesting collage but not one that always works, as sometimes the original parts of the novel suffer by comparison.

The 2 page excerpt from Thomas Bernhard's Correction, in Sophie Wilkins' translation, rather puts the rest of the writing to shame, even though a brief excerpt can't do justice to the effect Bernhard makes of repetition.

And the borrowing from Borges - for example his story On Exactitude in Science* - at times makes one yearn for the power and brevity of the original source, rather than Fernández Mallo's relayed versions and variations. In Wikipedia's translation the entire Borges story reads:

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

(as an aside neither Borges nor Fernández Mallo mention the Brouwer Fixed Point theorem which implies that a map of a country, if laid out in that country, will contain at least one point where the map is directly above the corresponding real-world place)

For example, the temple created by one character to restore his faith in Borges rather pales versus the Master's own fictional constructions, and even the extensive references to the Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgalan...), a micronational that claims dominion over liminal spaces, and itself a conceptual art project created by other artists rather than Fernández Mallo, feel sub-Borgesian.

Although part of the author's intent - and indeed a strong theme in the novel - appears to be the power of found art, and how reassembling objects can produce a different artistic creation.

Overall, imperfect but worthwhile. 3.5 stars - although I prefer the last in the trilogy, and in a way I didn't fail one gained by reading all 3.

PostscriptI have since discovered that Fernandez Mallo's next book El hacedor (de Borges). Remake, a rewrite of Borges' El hacedor using the same chapter titles and headings but different words, was actually blocked from publication by the Borges estate, who took legal action. Somewhat ironical in that Borges himself borrowed from many sources, both real and imaginary (the story mentioned above is, Borges claimed, actually from the [ficticious] "Suárez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658") and his own story Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote explores the ultimate act of literary recreation.

Other very useful takes on the novel:

By physicist Germán Sierra:
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/crit...

By my GR friend Neil:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[María José · Rating 1 out of 5]

Leí este libro porque me entusiasmaba la idea de una nueva corriente literaria rompedora y verdaderamente postmoderna en la literatura española. Además, el eclecticismo intelectual del autor (es escritor de prosa y poesía, pero también físico, como yo) me hizo pensar que su obra sería muy interesante y tendría chicha.

No sé cómo será la tal "Generación Nocilla" de escritores, pero desgraciadamente, en mi opinión, el libro que les dio nombre no es más que un experimento literario fallido. Su recurso estilístico principal es el "zapping literario", es decir, la narración va saltando en el espacio y el tiempo, tratando cada vez de situaciones diferentes en las que se ven involucrados distintos personajes. A veces las historias de estos personajes están relacionadas, sin que ellos lo sepan, por casualidades o detalles. También hay capítulos que consisten en citas de otros libros y artículos, o diatribas científico-filosóficas, como entradas de un blog dispersas entre la narración.

Al leer se reconocen varios temas y técnicas típicos de la literatura postmoderna: la elevación del sujeto anodino a sujeto de una novela, el metacomentario, la intertextualidad, las referencias a la cultura popular y tecnológica, la apertura del relato, la yuxtaposición irónica, etc. Sin embargo, no resulta en nada que se pueda decir que valga la pena leer, porque los recursos estilísticos y los temas no van a la par: ni los unos refuerzan a los otros, ni los otros dirigen a los unos. La novela es como un museo de artefactos distribuidos en varias estancias sin ton ni son. Además, los personajes del libro tienen personalidades tan planas que terminan por no diferenciarse mucho, y eso que varias veces el autor utiliza una voz narrativa omnisciente muy cercana a la narración en primera persona. Para el autor, una prostituta americana del desierto de Nevada tiene el mismo monólogo interior que un violador alemán que vive en China.

Estoy segura de que más de un inteletual pohmoenno me podrá demostrar que una novela no tiene por qué decir algo para que tenga valor (y luego podrá ponerse a declamar que de todas maneras por qué el arte tiene que tener valor, y quién lo decide, y por qué mis ideas son tan burguesas), pero el hecho es que yo de este libro arrancaría las páginas que llevan escritas en ellas los cortos y fulgurantes (por comparación) capítulos filosófico-científico-técnicos, y el resto lo echaría al reciclaje. Y eso sí que es apertura del relato.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

2. okumam. İlki 3 sene önceydi ve hiç sevmemiştim, çok yanılmışım.
Nocilla Rüyası bir anlam peşinde koşmaktan çok bir duygu yaratan, bunu da birbirine ekli görünmez bağlarla yapan son derece ilginç, deneysel bir roman. Bazen sadece birkaç satır süren bölümler, birbirinden kopuk gibi duran karakterler (bilim insanları, Çinli futbolcu, düşkün sanatçılar, otostopçular vs.), alıntılar, o ayakkabılarla dolu ağaç... Hepsi bir yerde bir araya geliyor ama bu birleşme öyle düz çizgisel değil daha çok zihinsel, sezgisel şekilde oluyor. Sanki çağdaş dünyanın dağınıklığına, sürekli akan ve bağ kurmakta zorlanan bilincimize yazılmış, 21. yüzyıl romanı nasıl olmalı sorusuna verilen provokatif bir yanıt gibi. Okuru alışıldık anlatı yapılarından koparıp ekran kültürünün, bilgi bombardımanının, sonsuz geçişlerin içine bırakıyor. Yer yer kafamın karışmasına hatta kopmama rağmen bitirdikten sonra farkına vardığım o bütünlük duygusu hoşuma gitti. Yani evet, her şeyi anlamadım ama o anlamadıklarımla da birlikte kabul ettim metni. Kolay sevilecek bir kitap değil ama farklı bir şeyler arayanlar için ideal. Üçlemeyi peş peşe okuyarak bitireceğim.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mallo's trilogy has been on my list for a while, and lucky Fitzcarraldo has now published all three novels together as one. The trilogy singlehandely paved the way for a new generation of writers called the 'Nocilla Generation'. In the year 2000, Mallo coined the term 'post-poetry' and this trilogy is his attempt at theory. It is, simply, the marrying of poetry and science (Mallo is a qualified physicist).

So this is book one. Postmodern, mostly plotless. The book is comprised of numbered chapters, many of which barely make it to a page in length. As the trilogy's blurb says, 'Full of references to indie cinema, theoretical physics, conceptual art, practical architecture, the history of computers and the decadence of the novel', it is quite the array of ideas. There are several recurring 'characters', but nothing much is learnt about them. The novel is quite clearly a vehicle for Mallo's theory, post-poetry, and not much else. I enjoyed some chapters, others baffled me. The end result is difficult to grasp. The blurb also calls it 'One of the most daring literary experiments of the twenty-first century [...] takes the form of literary channel surfing'. That's the best way to describe it. It's like flicking through TV channels, catching a glimpse of some scene, some idea, and then moving onto the next. Does it work? I'm not sure, but the rest of the trilogy now waits, so on we go.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what to think of this as a novel; Nocilla Dream is a numbered collection of scenes and quotations. The scenes are often connected, but are jumbled in sequence and often offer a different perspective. Everything stems from a lone tree adorned with shoes out in the desert. Just as remarkable is that upon finishing the work I went into our kitchen where my wife was cooking green curry and she had dropped a can of coconut milk on the floor and it made this amazing design. My wife asked, what the hell are you doing? I wasn’t able to answer. That’s the vibe this novel offers. There is a number of explorations onto the formation of deserts and the history of micro-states.

[küb · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ertesi gün Peter çağdaş sanat kitaplarını ateşe attı ve bir sonraki gün de orayı terk etti.”

Agustín Fernández Mallo’nun Nocilla Rüyası tam anlamıyla yazma denemelerinin tanımı gibi.

Bu ay başından beri okumalarım çok aksadı derken uzun süredir bu bir üçleme ben hepsini peş peşe okumayı severim diye beklettiğim kitabı bir anda okumaya başladım. 113 bölümden oluşan bu kitap boyunca çeşitli konular, farklı karakterler yanıp sönerken bir yerde yeniden ortaya çıkıp ana hatları ortaya koyuyorlar.
Kurgu ve kurgu dışının harmanı bir kitap. Yazarlar, filmler, şehirler bir anda sanal gerçeklik, görsel ve işitsel hafıza ile birleşiyor. Yazarımızın fizikçi ve sanatçı olmasının sonucunda kesinlikle devamı kitaplara ilgiyi canlı tutacak başlangıç kitabı olduğunu düşünüyorum.


“Göremediğimiz ya da herhangi bir duyumuzla ne olduğunu çıkarmadığımız her şeyin aynı şekilde bizi göremediği veya ne olduğumuzu çıkaramadığını belirten evrensel bir tersine çevrilebilirlik prensibi vardır. Tıpkı mikroplar, tıpkı gelecek, tıpkı olay ufkunun ötesindeki yıldızlar, tıpkı durup bize selam veren birinin içi ya da ölen tüm insanlar gibi. Bir filmi izlediğimizde aslında onu izlemeyiz çünkü içinde yer alan karakterler bizi göremez. Fakat bunu anlayabilmek için, kabul gören normun çocukların anne babalarına fiziksel olarak benzememeleri olduğunu hayal edin, bu şekilde onlara baktıklarında kendilerinden bir şey görmeyeceklerdir. Bu hiç kolay değil ama yine de bunu anlamak lazım.”

[Guillermo Jiménez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mi calificación poco o nada tiene que ver con lo que opine sobre el libro.

En algún momento alguien me abrió los ojos y me hizo entender que "todo es cuestión de gusto". Obvio ella no estudió Física Cuántica, mucho menos Medicina o cualquier "ciencia dura".

Y es que bien mirado: todo se reduce a eso: me gustó, no me gustó. Me dijo algo o no. ME llevó a cuestionarme o no, etcétera.

No. No me gustó en absoluto este libro. ¿Me dijo algo? Bastante. Puedo compartir con la propuesta ¿literaria? del autor, pero, no en su ejecución. No en su resultado.

Estoy de acuerdo y encuentro grandes aciertos en la reseña que hace mi idolatrada Núria: «El mayor acierto de la obra es la manera en que se interconectan las diferentes historias y los diferentes personajes, principalmente a través de lugares y objetos recurrentes. Pero aún así la mayoría de personajes viven solos y aislados.»

Me gusta la postura del autor de anteponerse a la "novela total". A la escritura como la invención de la realidad. El fragmento, la fracción del momento, el parpadeo: ¡a huevo pendejos! No, no podemos abarcarlo todo. Aún subsisten los historiadores traumados y anquilosados en la concepción de la historia como algo asible, ¿en serio?

Lo que el ojo humano logra ver es mínimo, lo que logramos entender con nuestras limitadísimas mentes es una broma.

Fernández Mallo, independientemente de sus opiniones, de lo que él diga, entrega un texto que nada tiene que ver con la literatura como la conocemos, salvo que él dice que es una novela y entonces, debemos intentar leerla como tal. ¿Y vamos a revisar que carajos es la "novela"? Pues obviamente no.

"Nocilla Dream" parece escrita por un amateur de la literatura. El lenguaje que emplea es muy cuidado, muy bien escogido, el autor es poeta, pero también es licenciado en Física, y parece que escoge con sumo cuidado el lenguaje con el que escribe, es consciente de que el lector no quiere perder su tiempo. Nos da referentes pop, letras de canciones, programas televisivos, films, y también referentes científicos, nos da muchas tablas a las que asirnos para no hundirnos en su lectura que puede ser tan fría como... ¿en serio creían que haría una metáfora? Claro que no. Es fría y punto.

He leído que más de uno aventó el libro antes del final, bueno, no se preocupen, este tipo de artefactos no tienen final. Se anuncia que sólo son tres, que es un proyecto (ya comencé el segundo y no se ve que vaya a variar gran cosa) y no sé qué más. Pero bien el autor puede sacar la precuela y luego algún director advenedizo puede querer filmarla (si alguien produjo el bodrio de Iñárritu y Arriaga de Babel, de seguro se moría de ganas de algo similar) y entonces le agregaran capítulos o le restarán, a lo que voy con toda esta perorata es que "Nocilla Dream" puede no parar, porque parece que no termina por comenzar.

[Núria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confieso que esto de 'Nocilla Dream' no ha resultado un bluff tan espectacular como yo ya me temía. No está mal. De hecho, tiene hallazgos originales y propuestas interesantes. Pero ¿esto del 'Proyecto Nocilla' (sic) mencionado en los Créditos (sic) es en serio? ¿De verdad que necesitamos dos libros más como éste? No sé, yo creo que pasaré. La novela más que de cualquier otra cosa va de "reinventar la novela". Y bueno, no está mal. Esto ya lo he dicho. Así que sigamos. El procedimiento básicamente consiste en describir brevísimamente escenas pequeñitas, algunas de las cuales incluyen la reinvención de la vida de personas conocidas del mundo real, que en un principio parece que son totalmente inconexas y aleatorias, pero poco a poco se va descubriendo que en realidad están interconectadas. Y en medio de todo esto también se incluyen textos especializados, básicamente científicos, con los que pasa lo mismo de antes: parece que están escogidos al azar pero en realidad tienen su razón de ser. Se compara este procedimiento con hacer zapping y la comparación es realmente acertada: vas viendo trozitos de historias pero tan brevemente que sólo te sirve para tener una idea de qué van sin llegar nunca a profundizar para saber realmente de qué van; sólo sirve para darte una idea general de cuál es el tipo de programación que están dando por la tele.

El mayor acierto de la obra es la manera en que se interconectan las diferentes historias y los diferentes personajes, principalmente a través de lugares y objetos recurrentes. Pero aún así la mayoría de personajes viven solos y aislados. En el fondo yo creo que habla de como a pesar de relacionarnos seguimos estando solos o de como a pesar de estar aislados podemos relacionarnos. Que no es lo mismo, pero es lo mismo. Creo que en último término todo esto contribuye a transmitir una sensación agridulce de estar solo pese a estar rodeado de gente, pero a la vez de no estar solo a pesar de no tener nadie a tu lado. Así que se salva porque no es sólo una novela formal sino que, además de ser muy vanguardista y muy cool, también intenta transmitir una sensación. El problema es que yo leo por los personajes, para identificarme con ellos, para sentir con ellos, para vivir con ellos. Y en un tipo de novela así es imposible que ocurra esto, porque los personajes son una colección de anécdotas. Y las anécdotas, por más divertidas que sean, para mí siempre son solo anécdotas. Así que la sensación que me queda después de todo esto es que me han contado un buen chiste: es original e ingenioso y me he reído, pero, como me pasa siempre con los chistes, dentro de dos días ya me he olvidado completamente.

[Alex O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Mallo. I will read everything he has written. I love the way the books are laid out, the prose, the essay style, his vast array of interests. Like he is writing specifically for me.

[Nacho · Rating 1 out of 5]

En mi opinión, una modernez tonta y un galimatías de cuidado. La cosa se pone cuesta arriba desde la solapa. En ella se advierte a quien quiera enterarse de que Fernández Mallo se inventó en 2000 la poesía postpoética. Así que uno ya se empieza a barruntar a qué se expone. ¿Experimentos? A cada página. ¿Vanguardia? Desde la pretensión estructural de que la novela sea un zápping que abarca postulados científicos, citas literarias y retazos de historias, hasta en la manera de contar, con brochazos que desvelan partes de un todo pero que no permiten mirarlo con perspectiva. Todo ello está escrito con un estilo repleto de tecnicismos impertinentes, gerundios evitables y voces extranjeras innecesarias... ¿Méritos literarios? Tal vez. ¿Hallazgos? Alguno que otro. ¿Y pretenciosidad? Ya lo creo: por arrobas. Del aburrimiento, ni hablo.

Estuve muy cerca de abandonar la lectura a falta de diez páginas para el final, pero me pudo un impulso y lo terminé. Una vez llegado a ese punto, no habría sido muy racional tirar la toalla. De todos modos, me habría encantado ceder a ese arrebato, me hubiera dejado más satisfecho conmigo mismo de lo que lo estoy con el libro.

Enlazo una reseña de otra usuaria que es crítica, pero seguramente más imparcial que yo.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

un rollo, pretencioso, copia desde Borges hasta Coupland...prescindible

[Prince Mendax · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5! o-e-t-r-o-e-l-i-g bok!

[Online Stig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ja!

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the last day, this book has gone from a 'just ok' standing to something that I have not stopped thinking about. So I'm rewriting my review.

Its the most perfect book about the internet without actually mentioning the internet. Books dealing with the internet usually fall into the purposefully absurd (I'm looking at you Bleeding Edge) or full of outdated information. There are no obsolete-by-the-time-its-published stuff here. Instead, it focuses on the idea of falling down an information rabbit hole. There's 113 chapters of deceptive, coincidental, and meaningful connections all at the same time that there are pieces that stand alone. I found myself going back in the book to see if people and things had been previously mentioned. The type of thing that you notice the further you go into sites like Wikipedia. There's a real sense of isolation and loneliness while at the same time being connected to other people and ideas.

I stumbled upon this book a little over a year ago on the 'booktuber' Orpheus' channel. Id recommend both.

[Sümeyye Yıldız]

Ne olduğunu anlayamıyorum. Koca bir çağdaş sanat galerisinde geziyorum ve bazen anlama kavuşacak birşeylere denk geldiğimi düşünürken, kesintiler,bağlamsız ve kopuk anlatılar pow. Rüya ve şiir arasındayız. Bazı bölümlerini yunan ezgileriyle dinledim. Bazı başlıkları arkadaşlarıma adadım. Eğer benden 1 ile 113 arasında bir sayı istediğimi duymadıysanız yakınlığımızı gözden geçirmeliyiz.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book in the Nocilla Trilogy, Nocilla Dream is one of those books that get described as a collage, a mosaic, a tapestry--a bunch of individual things conjoined to create a larger whole. There good are tricky, because they can be too disparate, to the point where any sense of cohesion is totally gone. Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño felt that way to me (though it's been years since I read it and I may feel differently now). Lucky, Nocilla Dream pulls off the mosaic novel effectively.

There is a loose through line in some the vignettes and snapshots that are shared. Although they are brief, Mallo follows up on some characters throughout and expands their ambiguous stories. I'm not sure if I'm understanding right, but it seems like Mallo pulled from a bunch of news articles and fictionalized them--or not in some cases. It's an interesting technique, and the combination of all the various stories combines to explore connection and disconnection throughout the modern world, both on a personal and global level. Sometimes the vignettes are just interesting, like, did you know that extreme ironing is a sport? Neither did I! I assumed Mallo had to be making it up, but lo and behold it's true. Lots of the vignettes were like that where I just thought, huh, I never knew that. I'm not sure how this book will fit in with the overall trilogy, but sad a standalone it was an entertaining, mysterious read.

[Tommi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nocilla means Nutella, to begin with.*

This is a very difficult novel, or “docu-fiction” as the author phrases it, where fragments of non-fiction and fiction alternate in 113 chapters that, at shortest, consist of one sentence. (The whole of chapter 72 goes: “The following day, Peter threw his art books in the fire, and the day after that, he left.”). At times it’s pretentious, at times clever and enlightening. I like the fact that Mallo is a real-life physicist and thereby brings something fresh to fiction, although some of the scientific chapters simply went over my head, and connecting them to the fiction bits wasn’t always evident at first sight and I didn’t bother to make the connections every time. It’s an interesting novel that left me a little cold, so I’m looking forward to reading Nocilla Experience, the next in the trilogy, soon in order to understand his technique better.

* It’s obviously more complicated than that, and there’s some fantastic in-depth criticism of this online, such as in Asymptote: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/crit...

[Sarah Markensten · Rating 4 out of 5]

När man läser känns det som när man blir översköljd av nyheter, men istället för att allt det värsta och mest förödande lyfts fram i osammanhängande sammanhängande fragment så är det små vardagliga mysterier som visar det märkvärdiga, fascinerade och konstnärliga med mänskligt liv. Ett träd med skor hängande från grenarna. En koffert fylld med porträttfoton mitt på gatan. Mikronationer. Är det sant att det finns så få som designar brunnslock att de är som en enda stor familj? Citat som ger upphov till annan konst. Känns bra att bli överöst med alla dessa fragment.

[Tobias Eriksson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sommarens bästa!

[Aslı Can]

''İspanyol dilinde yazılmış son on yılın dördüncü en önemli romanı''
olarak adlandırılan Nocilla Rüyası'nı nasıl yazdığını şöyle düğümlüyor Mallo:,

Her ne kadar her şeyin kurgu olduğunu bilsek de bazı hikayeler ve kişiler doğrudan, genellikle ''gerçeklik'' dediğimiz ''kolektif kurgu''dan, geri kalanı da ''hayal gücü olarak'' adlandırageldiğimiz ''kişisel kurgu''dan alınmıştır. Böylelikle okuyucu orijinaliden sapan gerçek ve genel biyografiler ile diğer gerçek biyografilerle yolları kesişen kurgu biyografilerle karşılaşacaktır, bu da bir belgesel-kurgu olan Nocilla Rüyası''nı oluşturacaktır.''

Hayal ve gerçek arasındaki sınır, tıpkı Mallo gibi benim de hep beynimi gıdıklayan bir soru olmuştur.

''kim duruyor hayalle gerçek arasındaki sınırda?'' diye sormuştum bir kere bir şiirimde,
o zamanlar Nocilla Rüyası'nı okumamıştım tabii ki, şimdi cevabı gayet net bildiğimi düşünüyorum.

Hayalle gerçek arasındaki sınır, aslında alışıldık anlamda bir sınır değil, bir ağaçtır. Bu ağaç, kendini Nevada Çölü'nde gösterir ve bu senaryoda üzerinde asılı kalmış yüzlerce ayakkabı vardır. Gözlerinizi yeterince kısarsanız bu ayakkabıların sayısı gittikçe düşecektir. Daha da kısar ve hatta cüret edip gözlerinizi kaparsanız, ağaçta hiçbir ayakkabı olmadığını keşfetmekte gecikmezsiniz. Bu şakacı ağaç kendini sadece Nevada Çölü'nde göstermez üstelik; ve şakaları bunlarla sınırlı değildir. Tarihte örneklerinden birisi 2666 isimli, yazarı anonim bir romanda karşımıza çıkar. Bu kez dallarından uzuuuunca bir iple bir geometri kitabı sallandırılmıştır. Gözlerinizi yeterince kısarsanız ne olacağını söylemek, edebiyatın ve kelimelerin gücünün ötesinin dışındadır.

Şaka bir yana 'en önemli dördüncü roman' gibi birçok isim ve sıfatın bir araya gelerek kurulduğu cümleler, biraz ciddi biraz da komiktir. Ciddi oldukları kadar komiktirler, evet. Suratınızda bir gülümseme uyandırırlar. Ardından içinizden bu komikliği ve boşluk anını dengelenmek için sayı saymak gelir. 1-2-3-4! diye saymaya başlarsınız, demek ki dünyanın birinci ikinci ve üçüncü en önemli ispanyol dilince yazılmış romanları da olmalı diye düşünürsünüz ve böylece tekrar sizi sağduyuya davet edilmiş buluruz. Google'a girip ''ispanyolca yazılmış son on yılın birinci en önemli romanı'' yazrsınız, o kitabı bulmak için elinizden geleni yaparsınız, çevirisi yoksa bir çevirmen bulmalı ya da derhal ispanyolca öğrenmelisinizdir. Acaba beş altı ve yedisi var mıdır ve bu önem sırası kaça kadar uzanmaktadır? Peki ya ingilizce, portekizce, arapça veya farsça yazılmış en önemli romanlar ?? Ve son on yılın değil, son 20 yılın, son elli yılın, son yüz yılın , TARİHİN en önemli romanları! Birleşin!

[Şafak Akyazıcı · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
İlk ayakkabıyı o kavak ağacına kim attı? Kimse bilmiyor ama sonrasında her gören bir ayakkabı fırlattı Nevada’da bulunan US50 otoyolundaki o kavak ağacına. Zaten hikaye böyle doğmuş, tıpkı o ayakkabı bağcıkları, kavak ağacının kökleri gibi bağlanmış birbirine. Agustin Fernandez Mallo böyle söylüyor, Yasemim Çongar’la söyleşisinde.

***
Şair bir fizikçi edebiyat yaptığında ortaya çıkan deneysel çalışmaya Nocilla Rüyası denir. Net! En son ne zaman bu denli özgün bir metni tecrübe ettiğimi hatırlamıyorum. Böylesini belki de hiç.
Parçalar halinde hikayelerden oluşuyor kitap. Mallo’nun ufak tefek kalem oynatmasıyla bu küçük hikayeler çok sağlam olmasa da birbiriyle ağ kurmuş oluyor; otoyol üzerinde birbirine rastlayan karakterler ya da birinin bıraktığı eşyayı diğerinin bulması gibi. Bana göre hikayeden tamamen bağımsız bölümler de yer alıyor kitapta ya da ben bir şeyler kaçırdım ve o bölümleri bir noktaya vardıramadım. Bu kitapta bir şeyleri kaçırma ihtimaliniz yüksek. Yani metinde bir bütünlük yok, bu yönüyle ve absürt hikayeleriyle mantığı da zorluyor. Peki, tüm okuduklarımı anlamsız buldum mu? Hayır! Uçuk bir hikayeye ve de daha uçuk bir anlatıma sahip bu kitaba, tuhaf bir sempati bile hissettim diyebilirim. Özellikle bazı karakterleri çok sevdim, resimleri hiç ilgi görmeyen Margaret’i, Borges’e hayran Rodolfo’yu, çalıştığı dükkanı koli bandıyla saran Humberto’yu, aşkı arayan fahişe Samantha’yı, biriktirdiği bir bavul fotoğrafla seyahat eden Pat’i ve tabii ki Linda-John’u... Yine bana göre, Nocilla Rüyası okuyanın nasıl isterse öyle anlamlandıracağı, belki de anlam çeşitliğinin ve anlamsızlığının da okur sayısınca değişkenlik göstereceği ender kitaplardan biri.
Yol hikayelerini seven herkes,  hatta uçuk kaçık yol hikayelerini seven herkes Mallo’nun Nocilla Rüyası’nı da sevecektir. Sonrasında kitapta da adı geçen  Wilm Wenders’in Paris,Texas filmini izlemenizi öneririm. Travis gibi bir karakteri herkesin tanıması şart!
***
İlk ayakkabıyı çöldeki o kavak ağacına kimin attığını da kitabın sonunda öğreniyoruz. Kitap bir sona bağlanmıyor çünkü bu bir serinin ilk kitabı. Diğer ciltleri henüz hazırlık aşamasındaymış. Galiba ben bu deneyin bir parçası olup seriye devam eden okur tarafında olacağım.

[Merve]

Kitap hakkında nasıl bir yorumda bulunabileceğimi bilmiyorum. Yer yer çok sıkıldım, kayboldum koptum metinden. Araya zaman ve başka işler girince tekrar dönüp odaklanmak da çok zor oldu. Anlatı tarzı çok yaratıcı aslında. Bazı kısımlar, sözünü ettiği parçalar çok sıktı bazen de çok keyif aldım. Emilie Pine'nin Kendime Notlar ve Annie Ernaux'un Seneler'i geldi sık sık aklıma. Onların da parçalı,fragman anlatıları vardı. Şahane kitaplardı.
Deneysel bir çalışma. Oldukça ilginç aslında..Gelgit yaşatıyor insana.İçine girmesi de içinden çıkması da zor bir eser.

[Vanni Santoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meno bello della "Nocilla Experience" (ma anche la traduzione non è il massimo qua); tuttavia AFM resta uno dei pochi fa cose nuove in modo nuovo, oggi.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If there isn't any space, there isn't any light. The world is unthinkable without light [Heraclitus said it, Einstein said it, the A-Team in Episode 237 said it, and many others besides]. And yet, inside everyone's bodies all is darkness, zones in the Universe never touched by light--or, if touched by light, only because of illness or decomposition. It's unsettling to think you exist because this death exists inside you, this zone of endless night. It's unsettling to consider that the inside of a PC is more alive than you are, the in there everything's completely lit up."

[Bob Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

I’m a bit upset with myself I didn’t bring parts two and three with me me on this trip.

[Zoe Hannay · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. i like a fragmentary structure but felt too frequently insulted by the author's heavy-handedness in attempting to connect the stories together..... trust your reader, man ! still gonna read the sequel watch this space