Las islas nuevas

by María Luisa Bombal

"It is with particular interest... that we greet the publication of New Islands, a slim book of evocative, haunting stories by Maria Luisa Bombal, a Chilean writer whose creative period was basically confined to the 1930's and 40's and whose work, although small in volume, was rich in its effects, anticipating the magic realism found in so much of today's Latin American fiction." - The New York Times

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Magical Realism, Latin American, 20th Century, Classics, Latin American Literature

23 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Maria Luisa Bombal was one of the first Spanish American novelists to break away from the realist tradition in fiction and to write in a highly individual and personal style, stressing irrational and subconscious themes. During the 1930s when most of her fellow writers were turning out works emphasizing social conflict, Bombal turned inwardly for her inspiration and produced several works of remarkable artistic quality. She incorporated the secret inner world of her women protagonists into the mainstream of her novels. In this respect she may be regarded as a precursor of the later Boom writers of the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America. And she accomplished this in a prose charged with poetic vibration, filled with a sense of imminent tragedy, a melancholy atmosphere in which the factors of time and death play sombre roles.

In both her novels the reader sees almost everything through the eyes or sensations of the protagonist, who feels things deeply. The story line is relegated to a lesser role, particularly in The House of Mist. Poetry seems to flow from this crystaline prose, and Bombal uses repeated symbolic images (such as mist, rain, and wind) with good effect and in an elegant simple style. The heroine of The House of Mist lives most of the time in a dream world of her own fashioning, far from the reality of her unhappy marriage. In The Shrouded Woman the protagonist lies dead in her coffin, viewing the chief mourners who come by to see her one by one, reliving her love affairs and family relationships with a final clarity and futile wisdom. In "The Tree," her most famous story, the reader encounters not only a deep psychological analysis of a woman, but also an impressive technique of point counterpoint. While Brígida listens to a concert, her life and its tragedy unfold, evoked by the power of music.

During most of her life Bombal did not achieve the fame she deserved, although in her last years the Chilean government granted her a stipend. With the keen interest in the feminist movement in later years, her works were read and commented on more widely.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

María Luisa Bombal was one of the forerunners of all those great innovations brought into literature from South America in the last century.
The Final Mist wraps the world… Everything happens in the atmosphere of enigma and uncertainty… A woman lost in the night… Everything is dreamlike…

Transformed into vapor by the fog, the white light of a street lamp bathes my hands in its pale beam, turning them ashen, spreading my vague silhouette on the grass. And it is then, suddenly, that I see a shadow next to mine.
A man, a young man, stands in front of me. He has light-colored eyes set in a dark face, and one of his eyebrows is slightly arched, giving to his countenance an almost supernatural aspect. From him, like an odor, comes an animal heat.

The Tree… The destiny of a silly girl… The indifference of the surrounding world… And the rubber tree outside her window was her only confidant…

Her eighteen years: her chestnut braids that, unbound, cascaded to her waist: her golden complexion: her dark eyes so wide and questioning. A small mouth with full lips; a sweet smile; and the lightest, most gracious body in the world. Of what was she thinking, seated by the fountain’s edge? Of nothing. “She is as silly as she is pretty,” they used to say. But she did not mind being silly, nor acting the dunce at parties.

Braids is about the beauty of long female hair… And a praise for braids…
The Unknown is a fairy tale of the sunken pirate ship…
New Islands Islands and people… Isolation and grief… Sad memories… Reality and dreams…

“Oh, it was awful!” she explains. “I was in a horrible place. In a park I often visit in my sleep. A park. Giant plants. Ferns tall as trees. And silence… I don’t know how to describe it… Silence as green as chloroform… and suddenly, beneath the silence, a low buzzing sound, growing louder, coming nearer… Death, it is death. And then I tried to escape, to wake up. Because if I did not wake up, if death ever found me in that park, I would be doomed to stay forever, don’t you think?”

Passions – apparent and secret – reign over the entire mankind.

[Guille · Rating 3 out of 5]

A las narraciones de María Luisa Bombal las envuelve una atmósfera onírica, una neblina de insinuaciones, ambigüedades y desencuentros entre hombres y mujeres, estas siempre desgraciadas, de muertes acaecidas o deseadas... “lo primordial de la vida es la muerte” llegó a decir la autora.

En “Las islas nuevas” se encuentran todos esos elementos y además una naturaleza misteriosa, primigenia, amenazadora, que la autora asemeja a la mujer protagonista (y en general identifica con su arquetipo de mujer, mientras el hombre es el racionalizador de esa naturaleza y, por tanto, su adulterador) que, a pesar de todas las advertencias, siempre se recuesta sobre el lado del corazón, el izquierdo, que la lleva hacia lugares de pesadilla en sus sueños, y se siente en posesión de propiedades no aceptadas por los otros y, por tanto, sola e incapaz de entregarse al hombre, al que necesita a pesar de todo, mientras este precisa huir de ambas —naturaleza y mujer— inútil para comprender correctamente ni a una ni a otra.

“¡Qué absurdos, los hombres! Siempre en movimiento, siempre dispuestos a interesarse por todo… listos para huir siempre hacia cosas fútiles. Y tosen, fuman, hablan fuerte, temerosos del silencio como de un enemigo que al menor descuido pudiera echarse sobre ellos, adherirse a ellos e invadirlos sin remedio.”

Sin ser de los relatos que más me han gustado de la autora, la belleza de su prosa sigue brillando en cada página.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Madre mía que maravilla! No será el mejor cuento o el que mejores críticas tiene, o el mas renombrado...me da igual, a mi es el cuento que más me ha gustado, el que más me ha llegado.

No le sobra ni falta nada, ni las definiciones gramaticales del hijo del protagonista sobran, todo ocupa su lugar, y como por arte de magia a medida que avanza la narración logras hacer tuya una historia que parece la más realista de la edición de cuentos que he leído... y que de buenas a primeras va mutando hasta convertirse en la más fantástica y alucinante; algo así como la transformación de Gregor Samsa, o situaciones tan raras o inverosímiles como esa en que el lector asimila con total naturalidad esos fenómenos, claro siempre que el escritor tiene un talento de esos niveles, Kafka o M.L. Bombal.

[kaelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange and haunting tales. But ill-served, I suspect, by the present translation. Indeed, as another of Bombal's translators has claimed,

[t]he Guerra-Cunningham translation tends toward paraphrase, frequently omits images, glosses over intentionally repeated language, explicates what is left ambiguous in the original, and interpolates countless similes of the translators' invention. Reading the Guerra-Cunningham translation, one would be hard pressed to recognize Bombal as a precursor to magical realism, a fact so evident in the Spanish that Carlos Fuentes said, "María Luisa Bombal is the mother of us all."

Still, some brilliance shines through regardless.

[Sara Jesus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um conto curto que faz-nos reflectir sobre os sonhos, a morte e a nossa existência. Com uma linguagem poética mas uma narrativa estranha. Yolanda parece uma espécie de feiticeira, lança a semente da paixão e depois desaparece.

" Dicen que durante el sueno volvemos a los sitios donde hemos vivido antes de la existencia que estamos vivendo ahora"

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Islands collects five short stories by Chilean writer Bombal, ranging from a few pages ("The Unknown") to novellas ("The Final Mist"). Primarily written in the 1930s, there is a distinct gothic mood to the stories: large empty estates, wandering at night, melodramatic courtship and love. Natural imagery is also a part in each story, encourtering mists/fogs, images of the sea and sea life, trees, and the darkness of night. This imagery often takes on a mystical quality, symbolic to the emotions of the characters, their grief, longing, or confusion.

The stories themselves are whispers, very little is permanent of confirmed to be "real". Dreams and visions blur into every day events. Did this happen? That isn't the point. However, it is an interesting note that this translation - by Lucia Guerra Cunningham and Richard Cunningham - has been criticized for "paraphrasing" and not capturing the spirit of the original.

Was something lost in translation? Perhaps. Still, there is definitely that spark that kept me reading, and curious for more.

[Rhe-Anne Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

read on recommendation of a chilean friend — beautiful, haunting images, but was definitely left wondering by some of the translation choices

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever! Her writing is rich with imagery and emotion. I was swept away. How do I know? I only have to look in the margins at all my exclamations and notes!

[Laika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up before I'd been told that the English translation was known to be bad.

Much of it felt like it would be good in theory but the language kept getting in the way. It felt like watching a movie through a fogged up window.

[Leanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories in this collection are from 1934-1940. Bombal was Chilean. According to the translator of the collection, she's the most important Latin American female novelist of the 20th century.

I liked this collection alright. Rather moody and illogical stories; night, dreams, and obsessions are mainstays.

The first story, "The Final Mist," is more of a novella. A pair of cousins have married, very soon after the first wife of the male cousin, Daniel, has died. Daniel and the narrator don't seem particularly in love. One night, the narrator wanders outside of the house they are visiting in the city. She finds a stranger; they make love; it is the most memorable night of her life. Everything after, for the narrator, is remembering this moment, and yearning for this mystery man. Years pass. The narrator has a possible sighting of her man while bathing in a pond. The one other witness to this sighting soon dies. She admits her betrayal to Daniel, who remembers that night. He says that the two of them got drunk; she never went anywhere, that night. Was the mystery man just a dream? Unclear. Meanwhile, a friend of the family shoots herself; she has been in a love triangle with her husband and her boyfriend. Daniel saves the narrator from a half-hearted suicide attempt and she imagines the rest of her life, with him, correct and mediocre.

Themes of adultery and dreams in this first story. Reminded me of the dreamy female centers to Breton's "Nadja" and Barnes "Nightwood." But this is a more traditional narrative, and the characterization is also a bit more traditional. A wispy and ephemeral story, but not unenjoyable.

"The Tree" is a story about a woman named Brigida who, through the trope of listening to various strains of music, reflects on her marriage, and her abandonment of that marriage. The cutting down of a tree outside her window coincides with her decision to leave the marriage. Nothing very out of the ordinary here.

"Braids" is an odd riff about the importance of braids to femininity. Because hair comes from the ground (?), cutting it off equals a sort of murder of vitality. Bombal uses mostly scattered examples (i.e., she claims that the girl in Bluebeard survives because Bluebeard, while trying to decapitate her, gets entangled in her hair), but spends a longer time telling the story of two sisters, one of whom looks after a hacienda, the other whom slowly dies in the city one night. Apparently this sister cannot die until the forest has fully burned, because they have the same roots (forest roots & hair...). This story seemed to be stretching things.

"The Unknown" is about a ship that has sunk, and the sailors don't realize that they are in the depths of the sea. Eh.

"New Islands" kept my attention more. It reminded me of "Final Mists" in that there is a love obsession that takes place mostly in a hacienda, in which other characters flit in and out. Essentially, one character, Juan Miguel, lusts after another, Yolanda, for unexplained reasons. Another member of the hunting party, Sylvester, was apparently engaged to Yolanda thirty years ago, and she broke up with him, for unexplained reasons. Juan Miguel stumbles about pining, at one point forcing her into a kiss, but then backing off. Dreamy and emotional and, to me, like a pretty rainbow that I'm already forgetting.

This class that I am reading all of these dream-narratives for is teaching me something--I like psychological and realistic fiction, goshdarnit. I want these stories to present to me a relatable human psychology and experience, rather than all this moony drifting. Well, this class is helping me develop and articulate my taste in fiction, at least!

[ester · Rating 5 out of 5]

te amo bombal

[Car · Rating 4 out of 5]

No defrauda, la quiero tanto.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that the book came highly recommended from a trusted friend and never met my expectations. I’ll have to come back to this book years from now when I’ve forgotten it entirely. Until then, it remains disappointing and, to be honest, rather bland when put in the context of other great Latin American literature.

[Stelios Lekakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Βombal writes like someone dreaming between worlds — her stories shimmer with memory, desire, and the quiet world of women trapped between their own reflections and the patriarchal desire. In New Islands, the landscape resumes the role of a mirror of inner life: fog, trees, water all pulse with emotion and desire — intimate, surreal, and deeply human. An overlooked modernist who writes the unconscious as landscape.

[Marcy Rae Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gosh, I really wanted to like this collection. I really did. I got it for free, but I wish I would have read it in Spanish instead of English.
It would be a good book to practice speed reading. A couple of good lines here and there. But even though it's cold and rainy, I still couldn't get into these earthy stories, even the one about lost love.

[Daniela González · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bonita historia, me costó entender al comienzo por su manera de escribir de qué trataba el cuento, pero a medida que iba leyendo, fui construyendo cada personaje y terminé tan adentrada que, así como la historia juega con la imaginación y la realidad, yo me quedé en el plano de la imaginación, envuelta en sus palabras.

[أروى · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't understand the first few stories!
I don't get the author's train of thoughts. She suddenly jumps to a different thing, very confusing.
I didn't enjoy it, it is disappointing. I only pick it up because I saw a preface by Borges.
It was only one dollar but I didn't buy it!!! Boring

[jbabi]

loved 3 of the 5 stories, overall great. the last story, new islands, was really nice. also i love those words; just saying "new islands" is such a pleasure

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Y tosen, fuma, hablan fuerte, temerosos del silencio como de un enemigo que al menor descuido pudiera echarse sobre ellos, adherirse a ellos e invadirlos sin remedio".

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the rubber tree is cut down at the conclusion of "The Tree," light pours into the room and releases Brigida to seek life and love; it seems that the tree may symbolize her illusions and stagnation. However, Bombal's loving, sensuous descriptions of the tree's life through four seasons suggest a more convincing, compelling romance that links Brigida and nature:
"All night long she could hear the rain thrashing, splashing through the leaves of the rubber tree like a thousand tiny rivers sliding down imaginary canals. All night long she heard the ancient trunk creak and moan."
"New Islands" is full of mysterious deeps. Yolanda dreams memories of a primeval world were "mammoth ferns swayed like trees in the humid air."

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love, love, love the short story "New Islands." Maria Luisa Bombal is a female Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Her stories are full of the magical, the fantastical and they're written beautifully.

[M Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly like the stories New Islands and The Unknown.