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Prosopagnosia
A sly and playful novel about the many faces we all have.
Fifteen-year-old Berta says that beautiful things aren’t made for her, or that she isn’t destined to have them, or that the only things she deserves are ugly. It’s why her main activity, when she’s not at school, is playing the ‘prosopagnosia game’ — standing in front of the mirror and holding her breath until she can no longer recognise her own face. An ibis is the only animal she wants for a pet.
Berta’s mother is in her forties. By her own estimation, she is at least twenty kilos overweight, and her husband has just left her. Her whole life, she has felt a keen sense of being very near to the end of things. She used to be a cultural critic for a regional newspaper. Now she feels it is her responsibility to make her and her daughter’s lives as happy as possible.
A man who claims to be the famous Mexican artist Vicente Rojo becomes entangled in their lives when he sees Berta faint at school and offers her the gift of a painting. This sets in motion an uncanny game of assumed and ignored identities, where the limits of what one wants and what one can achieve become blurred. Art, culture, motherhood, and the search for meaning all have a part to play in whether Sònia Hernàndez’ characters recognise what they see within.
Fifteen-year-old Berta says that beautiful things aren’t made for her, or that she isn’t destined to have them, or that the only things she deserves are ugly. It’s why her main activity, when she’s not at school, is playing the ‘prosopagnosia game’ — standing in front of the mirror and holding her breath until she can no longer recognise her own face. An ibis is the only animal she wants for a pet.
Berta’s mother is in her forties. By her own estimation, she is at least twenty kilos overweight, and her husband has just left her. Her whole life, she has felt a keen sense of being very near to the end of things. She used to be a cultural critic for a regional newspaper. Now she feels it is her responsibility to make her and her daughter’s lives as happy as possible.
A man who claims to be the famous Mexican artist Vicente Rojo becomes entangled in their lives when he sees Berta faint at school and offers her the gift of a painting. This sets in motion an uncanny game of assumed and ignored identities, where the limits of what one wants and what one can achieve become blurred. Art, culture, motherhood, and the search for meaning all have a part to play in whether Sònia Hernàndez’ characters recognise what they see within.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 5, 2021
3 people are currently reading
571 people want to read
About the author
Sònia Hernández
37 books3 followersSònia Hernández (Terrassa, 1976) Se dedica al periodismo y la crítica literaria. Ha escrito para revistas literarias españolas como Quimera, Revista de Libros o Qué leer, y para la mexicana Crítica. Es colaboradora del suplemento Cultura/s de La Vanguardia, además de autora del poemario La casa del mar (Emboscall, 2006), co-autora del libro Dies llegits, alrededor de la figura del humanista Juan Ramón Masoliver y coordinadora de la revista de investigación literaria Quaderns de Vallençana, de la Fundación Juan Ramón Masoliver. También ha trabajado en el ámbito de la comunicación institucional para diferentes organismos públicos.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
January 29, 2022
Extraordinary book, extraordinarily translated
January 12, 2022
In 2010 Granta included Sònia Hernández on their list of the best, young Spanish novelists but this is the first novel available in English – although at 85 pages it’s really a novella. This is one of those rare occasions where I ended up really liking a book despite actively disliking a lot of its features. Not only that, I quickly realised I’d approached this with a completely false set of expectations. I think part of that stemmed from the English-language title, lifted from the first of two sections. The Spanish title’s from part two and, I think, sets up an entirely different relationship between story and reader, adding a much-needed, element of dramatic irony, a level of suspense and scepticism that alters how the first half works. Prosopagnosia’s discussed but more as metaphor, tied to wider themes around perception/self-perception.
There are three main characters, a mother, daughter Berta and an older man Vicente Roja. Neither Berta or her mother are at ease with themselves or their surroundings, unmoored after the sudden departure of Pablo, Berta’s father. When a psychology class introduces the notion that reality’s shaped by learnt responses ordering how and what we see, Berta and her friends are so fascinated they invent the prosopagnosia game, desperate to see themselves in some radically different form. The mother becomes equally fascinated by meeting Vicente Roja, who seems to her a sage-like, “moral beacon,” holding the key to the truths she’s seeking. Initially I found the slightly stereotypical nature of Hernández’s characters frustrating, too literal, lacking nuance, but then I realised this piece only gestures towards psychological realism. It’s essentially a novel of ideas, in which the mannered prose, thinly-sketched characters and slender plot, are vehicles for Hernández’s exploration of the role of art and the artist, authenticity, identity, and the performance of the self.
It’s a highly referential piece, drawing on Hernández’s background as an art and literary critic and her interests in writers like Max Aub and Fernando Pessoa, as well as artists and critics, like Juan Garcia Ponce, and notably, Mexican artist Vicente Roja. Hernández ventures into debates that may be familiar from ongoing discussions surrounding literary and artistic hoaxes - which feature heavily here, from Poe to Pessoa. She’s interested in questions around authority, authorship, and identity, whether who speaks is more, or less, significant than what’s spoken; and the persona we may or may not adopt to negotiate the world. She teases out issues around fabrication as a creative act, rather than a negative - not so much about lying as a process of construction. She poses a series of complex, tantalising questions, although they’re also controversial ones in the light of recent anxieties around the Internet and fake news. It’s an uneven book, with some awkward, clumsy aspects but I frequently found it stimulating, thoughtful, and, above all, I liked its ambition. Translated here by Samuel Rutter.
Many thanks to Netgalley and publisher Scribe Publications for an arc
Rating: 3.5
There are three main characters, a mother, daughter Berta and an older man Vicente Roja. Neither Berta or her mother are at ease with themselves or their surroundings, unmoored after the sudden departure of Pablo, Berta’s father. When a psychology class introduces the notion that reality’s shaped by learnt responses ordering how and what we see, Berta and her friends are so fascinated they invent the prosopagnosia game, desperate to see themselves in some radically different form. The mother becomes equally fascinated by meeting Vicente Roja, who seems to her a sage-like, “moral beacon,” holding the key to the truths she’s seeking. Initially I found the slightly stereotypical nature of Hernández’s characters frustrating, too literal, lacking nuance, but then I realised this piece only gestures towards psychological realism. It’s essentially a novel of ideas, in which the mannered prose, thinly-sketched characters and slender plot, are vehicles for Hernández’s exploration of the role of art and the artist, authenticity, identity, and the performance of the self.
It’s a highly referential piece, drawing on Hernández’s background as an art and literary critic and her interests in writers like Max Aub and Fernando Pessoa, as well as artists and critics, like Juan Garcia Ponce, and notably, Mexican artist Vicente Roja. Hernández ventures into debates that may be familiar from ongoing discussions surrounding literary and artistic hoaxes - which feature heavily here, from Poe to Pessoa. She’s interested in questions around authority, authorship, and identity, whether who speaks is more, or less, significant than what’s spoken; and the persona we may or may not adopt to negotiate the world. She teases out issues around fabrication as a creative act, rather than a negative - not so much about lying as a process of construction. She poses a series of complex, tantalising questions, although they’re also controversial ones in the light of recent anxieties around the Internet and fake news. It’s an uneven book, with some awkward, clumsy aspects but I frequently found it stimulating, thoughtful, and, above all, I liked its ambition. Translated here by Samuel Rutter.
Many thanks to Netgalley and publisher Scribe Publications for an arc
Rating: 3.5
December 15, 2021
What we perceive through our senses is not enough; truth is forged in our minds, through intelligence, knowledge, and imagination: so goes the thinking of Vicente Rojo and Max Aub. It's the same thing as when Fernando Pessoa said he had no need to leave his squalid bedroom to travel the world.
This is a tantalising book that shape-shifts playfully as it seems to start off as one type of story before metamorphosing into something unexpected and different. In fluent and accessible prose (ably translated by Samuel Rutter), Hernández deals with big abstract, philosophical topics - the difference between truth and reality, authenticity in art and authority, subjectivity versus a 'reality' which is communally constructed and socially authorised, female self-abnegation versus empowerment - wrapped up in a story that, at first, seems to follow an art/fraud narrative before swerving into something far more challenging and unexpected. Along the way it isn't afraid to blend humour with more sombre elements so that the smart sharpness and intellectual debate co-exists with a droll wittiness that won me over. Definitely a writer to watch.
Many thanks to Scribe UK for an ARC via NetGalley
May 11, 2022
Sonia Hernandez was born in 1976 in Terrassa (Barcelona, Spain). Granta named her one of the ‘Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists in 2010.
Samuel Rutter is a writer and translator from Melbourne.
As with another thin-trim book, I read recently, by Aysegul Savus, “White on White”….(both very different stories)…..but both are literary-reflective-intriguing-as-hell-engrossing-memorable books…..
I like these short powerful thought-provoking types.
I’m not afraid of an 800+ book….
“Pillars of the Earth”, by Ken Follett, ….
Night Sleep Death The Stars”, ….by Joyce Carol Oates, novels by Paul Auster, Hanya Yanagihara, and Stephen King are a few authors and their books that come to mind — where I have completely lost myself into the world they painted….
but there is something special, powerful, and penetrating about the ‘pack-a-punch’ well-written ‘slim-jim!
How in the world to describe this little brilliant experience??
Well….
…it can be interpreted a little different from each point of view-examined from
one or three characters:
…Mom,
…Daughter
or
…The Man
…Berta is fifteen years old.
…Mom is in her forties.
…Vicente Rojo is a painter- a Mexican artist. (famous or a fraud)
The story begins with Berta.
She says:
“Beautiful things aren’t made for her, or that she isn’t destined to have them, or that the only things she deserves are ugly”.
One of Berta’s teachers explained in class, an illness called prosopagnosia > an inability to recognize faces.
Berta feels a sense of satisfaction when she looks at herself in the mirror and no longer recognizes her own reflection.
Then one day at school she was on the cusp of passing out in the bathroom while she stared at herself in the mirror.
She would have hit her head hard against the floor if it hadn’t been for a stranger who happen to be standing nearby at the time she passed out.
And this was our first introduction to ‘the stranger’ Vincent Rojo.
He made her feel protected and ashamed in equal measures…
“perhaps because it had already been made clear to her that she ought to be grateful to him”.
What Berta said next didn’t ring of anything important to me until later in the book:
“The man gave off a metallic smell”.
Berta started to feel uncomfortable and she regretted not having teachers call her mother.
“Awkward things always happened to her”.
The entire story feels a little awkward—(curious-fascination), what’s real? who’s real? who or what to believe?
For Berta too many things had happened to her in such a short period of time. Two months ago her father left home.
Later, she learns that her father‘s new girlfriend had a deformed arm ending in a stump.
The stump was a reminder to Berta that she wasn’t destined for beautiful things.
We learn a little bit more about Berta’s past. A kindergarten teacher and the kindergarten teachers daughter who Berta hated.
Berta became obsessed watching how her own face broke down in the mirror’s reflection —until it became something she no longer recognized… just like how her life had broken down in such a brief period of time….
The distorted reflection theme is subtly felt throughout the book with each character.
A conflict showed up right away.
Vincent offered to give Berta one of his paintings. Her teacher encouraged it… And her mother encouraged it.
I assume other readers would be scratching their head in the same way I was.
Berta thought the painting was ugly…but that was beside the point on many levels.
We then begin to dive deeply into getting to hear what Mom has to say. She met Pablo, her husband, (who left her on her birthday two years ago), when she was eighteen years old.
Mom is now forty-three.
Mom says:
“we had been living in a continuous ending, as if our relationship had never even had a beginning”.
Now that the husband was gone, Mom was picking up clues from Berta telling her to pay more attention to truly important things. She should focus on her career, which she no longer cared for.
Things became entangled and unsettling once Mom met Vincent.
But what I found so interesting about the writing is it continued to not go in the direction I assumed it would.
The next ninety percent of this story takes us on a speculatively tantalizing - unputdownable chaotic circuit workout ….
I thought this book was fascinating….honeyed in identity, motherhood, art, culture, truth, trauma, beauty….
in the context of deception and reality.
I look forward to reading more of Sonia Hermandez’s books
Samuel Rutter is a writer and translator from Melbourne.
As with another thin-trim book, I read recently, by Aysegul Savus, “White on White”….(both very different stories)…..but both are literary-reflective-intriguing-as-hell-engrossing-memorable books…..
I like these short powerful thought-provoking types.
I’m not afraid of an 800+ book….
“Pillars of the Earth”, by Ken Follett, ….
Night Sleep Death The Stars”, ….by Joyce Carol Oates, novels by Paul Auster, Hanya Yanagihara, and Stephen King are a few authors and their books that come to mind — where I have completely lost myself into the world they painted….
but there is something special, powerful, and penetrating about the ‘pack-a-punch’ well-written ‘slim-jim!
How in the world to describe this little brilliant experience??
Well….
…it can be interpreted a little different from each point of view-examined from
one or three characters:
…Mom,
…Daughter
or
…The Man
…Berta is fifteen years old.
…Mom is in her forties.
…Vicente Rojo is a painter- a Mexican artist. (famous or a fraud)
The story begins with Berta.
She says:
“Beautiful things aren’t made for her, or that she isn’t destined to have them, or that the only things she deserves are ugly”.
One of Berta’s teachers explained in class, an illness called prosopagnosia > an inability to recognize faces.
Berta feels a sense of satisfaction when she looks at herself in the mirror and no longer recognizes her own reflection.
Then one day at school she was on the cusp of passing out in the bathroom while she stared at herself in the mirror.
She would have hit her head hard against the floor if it hadn’t been for a stranger who happen to be standing nearby at the time she passed out.
And this was our first introduction to ‘the stranger’ Vincent Rojo.
He made her feel protected and ashamed in equal measures…
“perhaps because it had already been made clear to her that she ought to be grateful to him”.
What Berta said next didn’t ring of anything important to me until later in the book:
“The man gave off a metallic smell”.
Berta started to feel uncomfortable and she regretted not having teachers call her mother.
“Awkward things always happened to her”.
The entire story feels a little awkward—(curious-fascination), what’s real? who’s real? who or what to believe?
For Berta too many things had happened to her in such a short period of time. Two months ago her father left home.
Later, she learns that her father‘s new girlfriend had a deformed arm ending in a stump.
The stump was a reminder to Berta that she wasn’t destined for beautiful things.
We learn a little bit more about Berta’s past. A kindergarten teacher and the kindergarten teachers daughter who Berta hated.
Berta became obsessed watching how her own face broke down in the mirror’s reflection —until it became something she no longer recognized… just like how her life had broken down in such a brief period of time….
The distorted reflection theme is subtly felt throughout the book with each character.
A conflict showed up right away.
Vincent offered to give Berta one of his paintings. Her teacher encouraged it… And her mother encouraged it.
I assume other readers would be scratching their head in the same way I was.
Berta thought the painting was ugly…but that was beside the point on many levels.
We then begin to dive deeply into getting to hear what Mom has to say. She met Pablo, her husband, (who left her on her birthday two years ago), when she was eighteen years old.
Mom is now forty-three.
Mom says:
“we had been living in a continuous ending, as if our relationship had never even had a beginning”.
Now that the husband was gone, Mom was picking up clues from Berta telling her to pay more attention to truly important things. She should focus on her career, which she no longer cared for.
Things became entangled and unsettling once Mom met Vincent.
But what I found so interesting about the writing is it continued to not go in the direction I assumed it would.
The next ninety percent of this story takes us on a speculatively tantalizing - unputdownable chaotic circuit workout ….
I thought this book was fascinating….honeyed in identity, motherhood, art, culture, truth, trauma, beauty….
in the context of deception and reality.
I look forward to reading more of Sonia Hermandez’s books
November 30, 2020
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑺𝒐, 𝑽𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒋𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒋𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉.
Prosopagnosia is defined as a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people. In this strange story prosopagnosia pulls a man who claims he is the famous Mexican artist, Vicente Rojo, into the orbit of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, Berta and her mother. It all begins with a game, one that helps Berta reject whatever it is that reality is trying to communicate to her. Berta feels ‘obliged to live alongside the ugliest things in the world’, believing that one can construct reality, with memories as stories. Communication between she and her mother is filled with static, so how can her mother improve upon their fractured family, make a happy life after her husband abandoned her if she can’t decipher Berta’s troubling behavior? If she expected to have ‘arrived’ somewhere with meaning herself by the age of 43 and instead is living a life in ruins?
The game entails standing in front of a mirror without blinking nor breathing, then staring at the reflection of your face but seeing with your brain and not with your eyes. Berta stares fixedly until the point of disassociation, when the face is no longer a face, until it is a mass ‘without meaning or purpose’. Fainting in the process is an after effect and when Berta stares into a painting someone has left against the wall at the school entrance and passes out, she comes to surrounded by teachers, staff and the very man who caught her. The old man intends to see her home safe, the artist of the very painting that has left her in shame after fainting. Strange things happen to her as do unpleasant situations, like her father walking out on them. Her mother understands nothing, especially her request to have a pet Ibis. Nor does she understand Berta’s rejection of said artist and her desire to decline his gracious gift, a painting. Worse, her mother wants to seek out Vicente! Both mother and daughter are caught in a stubborn dance, unable to see anything clearly. One is trying to lose meaning and the other find it.
Berta’s mother is struggling with her age, the end of her marriage, her weight gain, a career she doesn’t care for and the distance between she and her child. Reality, she tells us, is calling out to her in the form of her very troubled daughter. The calls from school are disheartening, she wants things to be happier but in many ways prefers to keep her eyes shut tight, even thinking of the game Berta and her best friend play as creative, harmless. For as much as Berta rejects Vicente, her mother is drawn to the gifted artist and his rich life, who is suddenly giving her own life meaning, by extension. She is in awe, dazzled by their meeting. The very pleasure of their communion washes over her sealing a plan in her mind, she will write an interview for the newspaper she works for to publish. Soon, they are all running circles around each other, misinterpreting reality. Berta’s mother is absorbing only what suits her truth, while Berta herself constructs her own. What happens when we decide what is real based on deception? What if we are the ones deceiving ourselves?
It is a leap into the unknown, our own minds. I felt the story is more about the mother, not Berta. It begins with her ruminating about her own failures, especially her need to wake up to the situation with Berta. Where she is numb and asleep at the wheel, Berta wishes to disassociate from world that is becoming too much, with the pain of her friend’s illness and her father exiting stage left… Vicente is painting his own colorful existence too but how will it effect Berta and her mother’s strained relationship?
I focused on the trials of motherhood, the balm of art and beauty and the painful confusion of youth when reading but it did drag at times. I think it is also about invention of the self versus the trajectory the rest of society forces us to accept. We tell ourselves and each other stories, if a, b and c happen d always follows. It’s hard to abandon preconceived notions of how life is supposed to be. What matters is what we decide can happen. This book may not be every reader’s cup of tea but it had it’s moments for me.
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
Scribe
𝑺𝒐, 𝑽𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒋𝒐 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒋𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉.
Prosopagnosia is defined as a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people. In this strange story prosopagnosia pulls a man who claims he is the famous Mexican artist, Vicente Rojo, into the orbit of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, Berta and her mother. It all begins with a game, one that helps Berta reject whatever it is that reality is trying to communicate to her. Berta feels ‘obliged to live alongside the ugliest things in the world’, believing that one can construct reality, with memories as stories. Communication between she and her mother is filled with static, so how can her mother improve upon their fractured family, make a happy life after her husband abandoned her if she can’t decipher Berta’s troubling behavior? If she expected to have ‘arrived’ somewhere with meaning herself by the age of 43 and instead is living a life in ruins?
The game entails standing in front of a mirror without blinking nor breathing, then staring at the reflection of your face but seeing with your brain and not with your eyes. Berta stares fixedly until the point of disassociation, when the face is no longer a face, until it is a mass ‘without meaning or purpose’. Fainting in the process is an after effect and when Berta stares into a painting someone has left against the wall at the school entrance and passes out, she comes to surrounded by teachers, staff and the very man who caught her. The old man intends to see her home safe, the artist of the very painting that has left her in shame after fainting. Strange things happen to her as do unpleasant situations, like her father walking out on them. Her mother understands nothing, especially her request to have a pet Ibis. Nor does she understand Berta’s rejection of said artist and her desire to decline his gracious gift, a painting. Worse, her mother wants to seek out Vicente! Both mother and daughter are caught in a stubborn dance, unable to see anything clearly. One is trying to lose meaning and the other find it.
Berta’s mother is struggling with her age, the end of her marriage, her weight gain, a career she doesn’t care for and the distance between she and her child. Reality, she tells us, is calling out to her in the form of her very troubled daughter. The calls from school are disheartening, she wants things to be happier but in many ways prefers to keep her eyes shut tight, even thinking of the game Berta and her best friend play as creative, harmless. For as much as Berta rejects Vicente, her mother is drawn to the gifted artist and his rich life, who is suddenly giving her own life meaning, by extension. She is in awe, dazzled by their meeting. The very pleasure of their communion washes over her sealing a plan in her mind, she will write an interview for the newspaper she works for to publish. Soon, they are all running circles around each other, misinterpreting reality. Berta’s mother is absorbing only what suits her truth, while Berta herself constructs her own. What happens when we decide what is real based on deception? What if we are the ones deceiving ourselves?
It is a leap into the unknown, our own minds. I felt the story is more about the mother, not Berta. It begins with her ruminating about her own failures, especially her need to wake up to the situation with Berta. Where she is numb and asleep at the wheel, Berta wishes to disassociate from world that is becoming too much, with the pain of her friend’s illness and her father exiting stage left… Vicente is painting his own colorful existence too but how will it effect Berta and her mother’s strained relationship?
I focused on the trials of motherhood, the balm of art and beauty and the painful confusion of youth when reading but it did drag at times. I think it is also about invention of the self versus the trajectory the rest of society forces us to accept. We tell ourselves and each other stories, if a, b and c happen d always follows. It’s hard to abandon preconceived notions of how life is supposed to be. What matters is what we decide can happen. This book may not be every reader’s cup of tea but it had it’s moments for me.
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
Scribe
June 14, 2022
As someone here on Goodreads made me realize, this author's style very much reminded me of Rachel Cusk's style. This book was not written in English (the fact that the author is Catalan was an incentive for me to pick it up) and it was translated really well, so well, it almost seemed as if it was originally written in English.
The novel makes some very good points and definitely makes one ponder on existential matters. I could not give it a 5* rating however as I felt the characters were aloof somehow and I could not connect to it 100%, but I'll be sure to check what this author comes up with next.
The novel makes some very good points and definitely makes one ponder on existential matters. I could not give it a 5* rating however as I felt the characters were aloof somehow and I could not connect to it 100%, but I'll be sure to check what this author comes up with next.
January 1, 2022
It is hard to define ‘postmodernism’, but if someone would ask me what it means I would give them this novella. It deals with questions like: what is truth? Can we observe objectively? Can art help us see a different reality? Can texts convey reality or is it by definition subjective as well?
The plot of Prosopagnosia is not very relevant, but it is an effective device to reflect on the questions above and why they are actually relevant questions.
In short: it is about a mother and a daughter trying to find their way after the father has left them. The daughter is convinced she is destined to be surrounded by ugliness. The mother is in desperate search of guiding principles and life lessons, as she comes to realise that she has always done what was expected from her without pausing to ponder what she truly believes and wants. Their paths cross with a famous artist who has just returned to Spain from exile in Mexico. The mother, who is a journalist, hopes that an interview with the artist will teach her important life lessons. The daughter is intrigued by one of his paintings but then no longer wants to have anything to do with the artist. Good part of the book consists of the mother’s metafictional musings about how to write the interview and how to capture the artist’s ideas.
Of course, not everyone enjoys this type of literature. Personally, I have to be in the mood for it and I seldom am. Large part of the narrative is metafictional and there are lots of ideas. All the same, it is very readable and not uninteresting.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC.
The plot of Prosopagnosia is not very relevant, but it is an effective device to reflect on the questions above and why they are actually relevant questions.
In short: it is about a mother and a daughter trying to find their way after the father has left them. The daughter is convinced she is destined to be surrounded by ugliness. The mother is in desperate search of guiding principles and life lessons, as she comes to realise that she has always done what was expected from her without pausing to ponder what she truly believes and wants. Their paths cross with a famous artist who has just returned to Spain from exile in Mexico. The mother, who is a journalist, hopes that an interview with the artist will teach her important life lessons. The daughter is intrigued by one of his paintings but then no longer wants to have anything to do with the artist. Good part of the book consists of the mother’s metafictional musings about how to write the interview and how to capture the artist’s ideas.
Of course, not everyone enjoys this type of literature. Personally, I have to be in the mood for it and I seldom am. Large part of the narrative is metafictional and there are lots of ideas. All the same, it is very readable and not uninteresting.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC.
November 20, 2021
" I confused who I wanted to be with who I actually was: a girl who had just received an official piece of paper saying she had been awarded her degree, but who actually thought the paper said that the moment had arrived where everyone would recognise her value, because she had always been such a clever girl"
Special mention to the book cover! This book is a work of art - that which the author is struggling to get out of her system. As a reader, you can appreciate the effort and make some "Ahas" but more or less this exploration of identity (right up Milan Kundera's alley) is a steep affair.
First, I understood the term Prosopagnosia is a condition where one can't recognise faces. That theme is taken for a complete spin with 3 characters - a 15 year old girl who firmly believes beautiful things are not for her, her mother who is a journalist suffering anxiety and an artist who wants to help the girl to see beauty in things. There is also a game where the child and her friend try to change the perspective to see things for real (which I felt was left underexplored).
The book is mostly meditative on the different themes of self and beauty, truth and lies. The mother's low confidence and the artists arguably deep answers and the daughter's demand for a pet are recurring to a point of being repetitive. This is a bit of an irony in a book on changing perspectives. Some of the deep passages went over my head and yet, I did not feel like I missed anything.
I am a fan of abstract writing and hence I was able to appreciate the attempts to make sense of "I". But in this case the dots were maybe too close to spin a yarn around. A great attempt nonetheless.
Note: Thank you Scribe UK and Netgalley for the ARC copy of the book!
Special mention to the book cover! This book is a work of art - that which the author is struggling to get out of her system. As a reader, you can appreciate the effort and make some "Ahas" but more or less this exploration of identity (right up Milan Kundera's alley) is a steep affair.
First, I understood the term Prosopagnosia is a condition where one can't recognise faces. That theme is taken for a complete spin with 3 characters - a 15 year old girl who firmly believes beautiful things are not for her, her mother who is a journalist suffering anxiety and an artist who wants to help the girl to see beauty in things. There is also a game where the child and her friend try to change the perspective to see things for real (which I felt was left underexplored).
The book is mostly meditative on the different themes of self and beauty, truth and lies. The mother's low confidence and the artists arguably deep answers and the daughter's demand for a pet are recurring to a point of being repetitive. This is a bit of an irony in a book on changing perspectives. Some of the deep passages went over my head and yet, I did not feel like I missed anything.
I am a fan of abstract writing and hence I was able to appreciate the attempts to make sense of "I". But in this case the dots were maybe too close to spin a yarn around. A great attempt nonetheless.
Note: Thank you Scribe UK and Netgalley for the ARC copy of the book!
January 7, 2021
This book was boring and pointless. Also I don't think the author knows what prosopagnosia is. The narrative makes it sound like an illness that can be easily caught, and that people can just "get" it. I think the story was about the ways we perceive people, and how we can see something in shadow as easily as we can see something in light, but to be honest, the only thing I took away from the book is that Berta only gets ugly things, and that Berta's mother is fat. At least it's short.
This is why I don't read books in translation.
This is why I don't read books in translation.
May 3, 2021
I was drawn into this contemplative novella. I especially related to the mother character (I honestly can't recall if her name was ever stated?). A former journalist who's settled into an unfulfilling marketing/PR job, she still longs for the days of reporting, even though it was a nerve-wracking experience every single time she turned in a story.
Exploring themes of identity, art, creativity, truth, self-confidence, etc., this slim volume packs a lot! There are no easy answers, no tidy tie-up at the end. I'll be thinking about this one a while.
Exploring themes of identity, art, creativity, truth, self-confidence, etc., this slim volume packs a lot! There are no easy answers, no tidy tie-up at the end. I'll be thinking about this one a while.
February 10, 2022
Felt kinda like Ali Smith meets Rachel Cusk, not in a bad way.
Read
January 1, 2025I possess, for whatever reason, an advance copy; I hope significant changes were made in the interim
Read
March 2, 2021With [Prosopagnosia], Sònia Hernández cements her place as one of the most individual voices of her generation.
La Vanguardia
In this warm, lively, and intellectual novel, Hernández’s greatest achievement is allowing the protagonist to release her trauma in a way that is both simple and true.
Santos Sanz Villaneuva, El Cultural
One of the best writers of her generation.
Inés Martín, ABC
A novel of our times that explores the difficulty of constructing oneself as a person and the chaos of how things seem to happen to us.
Lluís Satorras, Babelia
A tale of the conflict between reality and deception, and how the many forms of exile and solitude come together. A beautiful, enigmatic novel.
Enrique Vila-Matas, El País
A reflection on false appearances, assumed identities, the need to invent other lives for ourselves, and the need for art itself.
Ángel Ortín Pascual, Heraldo de Aragón
As structured and well-articulated as the paintings that inspired it.
Isabel Gómez Melenchón, La Vanguardia
[D]elivers a serious reflection on the purpose and meaning of literary fiction.
Domingo Ródenas, El Periódico
For Hernández, plot is just an excuse to articulate her own original ideas about beauty, identity, and exile, and this makes each of her books a declaration of ethical and aesthetic principles. This novel is not a means but an end in itself: the materialisation of her most important themes from life and literature.
Liliana Muñoz, Criticismo
Sònia Hernández’ writing is unsettling and unconventional, marked by a complete independence from the dominant trends of contemporary novels in Spanish.
Santos Sanz Villaneuza, El Mundo
Hernández offers many insights into the value of experience, of travel as personal discovery, and the difficulty of explaining ourselves in our own words. A novel of reflection.
Suárez Lafuent, La Nueva España
A narratively ambitious reflection on art, beauty, motherhood, and identity … A conceptually fascinating book.
Kirkus Reviews
Bewitching and intelligent.
Happy Magazine
This quirky coming-of-age novel by a celebrated young Spanish writer centres on a tender mother-daughter relationship.
New York Times ‘New & Noteworthy’
[B]eguiling … the various characters’ deceptions are unveiled skillfully by Hernández as she distorts the reader’s sense of reality. This novel is more than it seems.
Publishers Weekly
Hernández leads us on a reflection about truth and reality, about perception and beauty. The book is best read slowly, with time to absorb and contemplate our own reality and how we might be deceiving ourselves.
Asymptote ‘New in Translation’
[A]n intellectual and unflinching novel that is not afraid to ask the big questions. What is art? What is beauty? What is truth? Does any of it matter? … Hernández’s economy of language is masterful as she delves into questions that define a culture. Prosopagnosia is an uncanny portrait of what it means to be a human in the world today grappling with beauty, and confronting the way the internet has changed our relationship to art.
Write or Die Tribe
La Vanguardia
In this warm, lively, and intellectual novel, Hernández’s greatest achievement is allowing the protagonist to release her trauma in a way that is both simple and true.
Santos Sanz Villaneuva, El Cultural
One of the best writers of her generation.
Inés Martín, ABC
A novel of our times that explores the difficulty of constructing oneself as a person and the chaos of how things seem to happen to us.
Lluís Satorras, Babelia
A tale of the conflict between reality and deception, and how the many forms of exile and solitude come together. A beautiful, enigmatic novel.
Enrique Vila-Matas, El País
A reflection on false appearances, assumed identities, the need to invent other lives for ourselves, and the need for art itself.
Ángel Ortín Pascual, Heraldo de Aragón
As structured and well-articulated as the paintings that inspired it.
Isabel Gómez Melenchón, La Vanguardia
[D]elivers a serious reflection on the purpose and meaning of literary fiction.
Domingo Ródenas, El Periódico
For Hernández, plot is just an excuse to articulate her own original ideas about beauty, identity, and exile, and this makes each of her books a declaration of ethical and aesthetic principles. This novel is not a means but an end in itself: the materialisation of her most important themes from life and literature.
Liliana Muñoz, Criticismo
Sònia Hernández’ writing is unsettling and unconventional, marked by a complete independence from the dominant trends of contemporary novels in Spanish.
Santos Sanz Villaneuza, El Mundo
Hernández offers many insights into the value of experience, of travel as personal discovery, and the difficulty of explaining ourselves in our own words. A novel of reflection.
Suárez Lafuent, La Nueva España
A narratively ambitious reflection on art, beauty, motherhood, and identity … A conceptually fascinating book.
Kirkus Reviews
Bewitching and intelligent.
Happy Magazine
This quirky coming-of-age novel by a celebrated young Spanish writer centres on a tender mother-daughter relationship.
New York Times ‘New & Noteworthy’
[B]eguiling … the various characters’ deceptions are unveiled skillfully by Hernández as she distorts the reader’s sense of reality. This novel is more than it seems.
Publishers Weekly
Hernández leads us on a reflection about truth and reality, about perception and beauty. The book is best read slowly, with time to absorb and contemplate our own reality and how we might be deceiving ourselves.
Asymptote ‘New in Translation’
[A]n intellectual and unflinching novel that is not afraid to ask the big questions. What is art? What is beauty? What is truth? Does any of it matter? … Hernández’s economy of language is masterful as she delves into questions that define a culture. Prosopagnosia is an uncanny portrait of what it means to be a human in the world today grappling with beauty, and confronting the way the internet has changed our relationship to art.
Write or Die Tribe
October 15, 2021
Here's a book for Milan Kundera tragics, to be sure. Prosopagnosia is a condition also known as 'face blindness', so a person with prosopagnosia won't recognise their own partner walking down the street if they accidentally meet. In this book, the protagonist's daughter plays a game in which she stares at herself in the mirror so long and so intensely that she fails to recognise herself. She wants to view herself from a new perspective. She wants to view everything from a new perspective because she's unhappy with the norm and with others' expectations. Meanwhile, her mother is at a crossroads in her life - husband left, gained too many kilos - and needs some new perspective, too. Enter Vicente Rojo, who claims to be a famous Mexican artist yet his studio is clean and bare, naked of art or art-making tools. Is he even an artist? Does it even matter? For what is art to the viewer but what the viewer wishes to perceive? Sonia Hernandez has written a slim book packed with serious existential questions about art and beauty and truth and lies. It's clever and tricky and, in that Kundera way, balances the heavy content with a playful touch. I read it in July, then picked it up in September and read it again.
April 1, 2021
There are three stories in this novella, and though they are interlinked I found it all a bit awkward. There is no conclusion.
Berta is 15 and constantly at odds with her mother. Her mother is 40-something, divorced, and frustrated with her daughter, her divorce, her weight, and he job. A man who claims to be the Mexican artist Vicente Rojas has offered to teach a class at Berta's school. Berta's mother pitches an article about the artist to her former boss for the regional newspaper. Then she struggles to write it. Berta thinks she will only ever have ugly things, her mother thinks herself a failure. Hmmm could these two things be connected? This is not discussed.
I found the writing here hard to read. I have no idea if that is how it is meant to be, or if it comes from the translation. The mother is narrating in the first person, and no one talks/thinks in such an awkward way.
There are mentions of many artists/authors in here. I don't know how many are real people--but Max Aub definitely is. However, only two of his works are available in English. I can't help but wonder if knowing something about his work would help with understanding the point/meaning of this book.
Berta is 15 and constantly at odds with her mother. Her mother is 40-something, divorced, and frustrated with her daughter, her divorce, her weight, and he job. A man who claims to be the Mexican artist Vicente Rojas has offered to teach a class at Berta's school. Berta's mother pitches an article about the artist to her former boss for the regional newspaper. Then she struggles to write it. Berta thinks she will only ever have ugly things, her mother thinks herself a failure. Hmmm could these two things be connected? This is not discussed.
I found the writing here hard to read. I have no idea if that is how it is meant to be, or if it comes from the translation. The mother is narrating in the first person, and no one talks/thinks in such an awkward way.
There are mentions of many artists/authors in here. I don't know how many are real people--but Max Aub definitely is. However, only two of his works are available in English. I can't help but wonder if knowing something about his work would help with understanding the point/meaning of this book.
December 20, 2021
It can feel quite hard to pin down this novella- as it flits between a mother and her daughter, our grip on reality blurs just as much as it does for the characters themselves. Characters appear and are not who they say they are, but just like the title (the inability to recognise faces, even familiar ones) the book shifts constantly and keeps you at an arm's length.
Whereas I can see how for many people that can be alienating and unenjoyable, I think it lent a kind of disquieting power to the book. It almost does not matter who is who and what is happening- the book instead feels like a surreal short film.
And just like many books from the brilliant publisher Scribe, this book is a shapeshifter that is not ever just one thing.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribe in exchange for an honest review.
Whereas I can see how for many people that can be alienating and unenjoyable, I think it lent a kind of disquieting power to the book. It almost does not matter who is who and what is happening- the book instead feels like a surreal short film.
And just like many books from the brilliant publisher Scribe, this book is a shapeshifter that is not ever just one thing.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribe in exchange for an honest review.
March 14, 2025
i thought i knew what type of story i was getting into, i didn’t, which made it better. it drags a bit in the referential parts and i wish we got more of the daughter’s perspective so i can’t rate it any higher, but i really enjoyed this story and what i took from it
May 22, 2024
2 stars
im so confused. what the actual hell did i just read. no seriously i didnt comprehend any of it.
im so confused. what the actual hell did i just read. no seriously i didnt comprehend any of it.
January 13, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribe for this copy of Prosopagnosia by Sónia Hernández.
Prosopagnosia tells the story of a woman, her daughter and a famous Mexican painter that they meet. It's difficult to describe the plot of this book. Basically, a woman and her daughter are struggling to get along. In turn they meet a famous Mexican painter, who effects their lives in different ways. There isn't much more to the plot but there is more to say about Prosopagnosia.
It's possible that something of the rhythm of the story was lost in the translation of Prosopagnosia. It felt like a book that was trying to make big statements about life that were just not possible to grasp in this translation. It was an okay read but I found myself drifting away and thinking about other things while reading, not the greatest endorsement I know. It is a short read so if you're looking for something you can read in a couple of days, this would probably work for you.
Prosopagnosia tells the story of a woman, her daughter and a famous Mexican painter that they meet. It's difficult to describe the plot of this book. Basically, a woman and her daughter are struggling to get along. In turn they meet a famous Mexican painter, who effects their lives in different ways. There isn't much more to the plot but there is more to say about Prosopagnosia.
It's possible that something of the rhythm of the story was lost in the translation of Prosopagnosia. It felt like a book that was trying to make big statements about life that were just not possible to grasp in this translation. It was an okay read but I found myself drifting away and thinking about other things while reading, not the greatest endorsement I know. It is a short read so if you're looking for something you can read in a couple of days, this would probably work for you.
November 17, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribe UK for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
First of all the cover of this book is absolutely beautiful.
Prosopagnosia is a book following three persons: 15-year-old Berta, who is struggling in life and school; her journalist mother who is trying to find inspiration and guidance that she cant give herself and the artist they both find their lives entwined with (for better or for worst).
I had a whole long review that I somehow lost but basically, this book is about perspective, misunderstanding and overcoming grief.
Perhaps I didn't quite understand what this book was trying to convey, or maybe something fundamental to the understanding of this book was lost in translation. But what I can say is that for a relatively short book, I had a tough time getting myself to finish it.
First of all the cover of this book is absolutely beautiful.
Prosopagnosia is a book following three persons: 15-year-old Berta, who is struggling in life and school; her journalist mother who is trying to find inspiration and guidance that she cant give herself and the artist they both find their lives entwined with (for better or for worst).
I had a whole long review that I somehow lost but basically, this book is about perspective, misunderstanding and overcoming grief.
Perhaps I didn't quite understand what this book was trying to convey, or maybe something fundamental to the understanding of this book was lost in translation. But what I can say is that for a relatively short book, I had a tough time getting myself to finish it.
May 30, 2021
As someone the same age as both the author and the narrator, I appreciate Hernández's reflections on parenthood and midlife. I like the exploration of reality and how our context shapes our perspective of the world and ourselves, how we choose to believe things that conform to our perception of the world. There also seems to be commentary on how Spain has reinvented itself post-Franco, how instead of integrating a difficult past, it's just sort of declared itself reborn as a post-fascist democracy, although I don't think I catch all of those nuances.
I received this ARC through LibraryThing Early Reviewers (although I'm kind of slow, so "early" is relative).
I received this ARC through LibraryThing Early Reviewers (although I'm kind of slow, so "early" is relative).
May 7, 2023
I loved this little book.
It touches on the complexities of a mother trying to understand her teenage daughter. It’s about how as humans we often fail to understand eachother despite our similarities.
I enjoyed the character of the artist and the bizarre choices he had made in life. It forces you to reflect on your own life and question whether the decisions he made were really all that bizarre.
It touches on the complexities of a mother trying to understand her teenage daughter. It’s about how as humans we often fail to understand eachother despite our similarities.
I enjoyed the character of the artist and the bizarre choices he had made in life. It forces you to reflect on your own life and question whether the decisions he made were really all that bizarre.
June 3, 2024
La premisa suena prometedora pero se pierde, el libro trata superficialmente sobre que significaría para una persona sufrir prosopognosia, deja completamente de lado a Berta y se embarca en un monólogo interminable sobre la obra y significado de Vicente Rojo. Se vuelve tedioso rápidamente. Me habría gustado se centrara más en la relación de Berta y su madre y lo que la enfermedad trastocaba en sus vidas.
September 8, 2022
such a fucking good book, dwelving into issues of identity, what is the truth, what do we look for in reality? all these points are things i’ve battled with myself and to have it all in one beautifully written book was quite exceptional. thank you.
October 16, 2023
It seems Hernandez knew the fate of the translation of her work when she wrote that ‘as readers, Anglo-Saxons aren’t at all prepared for literature that is abstract or intellectual.’ I don’t know if this can be considered an insult, but it frequently seems that on this website at least it’s a fact
August 8, 2025
a very idea driven, abstract and intellectual book where it’s clear the author had a lot to say philosophically speaking (on identity, truth, & reality). Sadly, I didn’t find any of their thoughts interesting, inspiring, or original. Plot concept pretty good though. Sort of a Cusk-ian writing vibe
November 23, 2020
what a load of wank.
January 29, 2021
Had a chance to read this Arc a month ago and it’s officially been released. It was kind of a slow burn for me, but I do think the author has potential to be better. The story was interesting, nonetheless.
April 9, 2022
Bouts of piquing concept and motif awash posit that becomes tedium . Something could be done with its bare bones
August 5, 2022
the writing is really good but didn't have fun reading it
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