Never Did the Fire

by Diamela Eltit, Daniel Hahn (Translator)

A literary icon in Chile and a major figure in the anti-Pinochet resistance, Diamela Eltit gets renewed attention in the English language in a novel of breakdowns. Holed up together, old, ill, and untethered from the revolutionary action that defined them, a couple's bonds dissolve in their loss of a child and their loss of belief in an idea. What is there left to have faith in when the structures we built, and the ones we succumbed to, no longer offer us any comfort or prospect of salvation?

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature, Latin American, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novels

156 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Diamela Eltit (born 1947, Santiago de Chile) is a well known Chilean writer and university professor. Between 1966 and 1976 she graduated in Spanish studies at the Universidad Católica de Chile and followed graduate studies in Literature at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. In 1977 she began a career as Spanish and literature teacher at high school level in several public schools in Santiago, such as the Instituto Nacional and the Liceo Carmela Carvajal. In 1984 she started teaching at universities in Chile, where she is currently professor at the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana and abroad. During the last thirty years Eltit has lectured and participated in conferences, seminars and literature events throughout the world, in Europe, Africa, North and Latin America. She has been several times visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and also at Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Washington University at Saint Louis, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia and, since 2007, New York University, where she holds a teaching appointment as Distinguished Global Visiting Professor and teaches at the Creative Writing Program in Spanish. In the academic year 2014-2015 Eltit was invited by Cambridge University, U.K., to the Simon Bolivar Chair at the Center of Latin American Studies. Since 2014 Diamela Eltit´s personal and literary archives are deposited at the University of Princeton. Through her career several hundreds of Latin American young writers have participated as students at her highly appreciated literature workshops.

Reviews

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never Did the Fire was the 2nd book I've read from my 2022 subscription to Charco Press. Unfortunately, the 1st one was a fail too. Both were well written but not for me.

I read this book both in Spanish and English and from I could see, the translation was spot on. I am actually looking forward to reading Daniel Hahn's journal about his translation process. I also received it as part of my subscription.

Back to the novel. Why it did not work for m? I guess the main reason was the claustrophobia it gave me. Most of the plot is set in a room where the two elder characters are mostly confined to bed, reminiscing about their revolutionary past and the death of their son. They both have unresolved frustrations, guilt and anger which makes them uneasy companion for each other. The only gulp of fresh air came when the woman left the house to wash an incapacitated person. You can imagine what is the atmosphere, if that felt like a welcome change. Maybe it was the wrong time to read this, close to the holidays.

[Guille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Descubrí a la escritora chilena en una de esas listas de las mejores novelas de los últimos años. Hasta tres de sus obras figuraban en aquella lista de 100 (Los vigilantes, Lumpericas y El cuarto mundo). No hace mucho, leí una crítica a la segunda de sus novelas publicadas en España en la que Ernesto Ayala escribía “Fuerzas especiales es una de las mejores novelas escritas en castellano que he leído en los últimos tiempos. Lo es por su excelencia narrativa y por la perspectiva desde la que está narrada”. Por último, este libro que ahora comento figura en el puesto número 22 de la lista de los mejores libros en español de los últimos 25 años que publicó Babelia por su 25 aniversario.

Pues bien, las grandes expectativas que todo ello me generó no ha sido obstáculo alguno para que considere que “Jamás el fuego nunca” es una muy buena novela.

La obra es el monólogo de una mujer derrotada y fracasada en su compromiso político (con la dictadura de Pinochet como trasfondo) y despojada y acabada en lo personal (tremenda la historia del hijo). Su voz es la novela, su forma descarnada, fría, seca, de describir el día a día con su cuerpo, con el cuerpo de las personas a las que cuida en su trabajo, con el cuerpo del hombre con el que convive, más por compromiso político, por lealtad a un tiempo pasado, que por amor o cariño. Y en esa descripción del día a día se van enredando los recuerdos de aquella vida de militancia, de luchas fratricidas, de clandestinidad, de cárcel, de represión, que como si de una confesión se tratara se dirige a sí misma y a su pareja, líder de la célula política a la que ambos pertenecieron, enfrentándose y enfrentándole a él a todo lo que por ella tuvieron que sacrificar.

Todo es analizado en un monólogo planteado en términos políticos, con un lenguaje muy pegado a una lucha que fracasó y por la que muchos, ella y él entre ellos, tuvieron que pagar un precio inconmensurable e inútil. Una voz que resuena en una pequeña habitación repleta de fantasmas del pasado y separada de un mundo presente que ya no es el de ellos, una voz proveniente de la pérdida, dominada por el dolor, capaz de detenerse durante varias páginas en la descripción del aseo de un cuerpo decrépito, maloliente, moribundo, metáfora de otros cuerpos que también viven en la derrota, en un sistema alienante y destructor. Una voz que mantiene durante toda la novela un discurso salido de las entrañas, de un cuerpo que solo espera su final, del odio, del rencor, de la desesperanza, del autodesprecio, pero que se estructura desde la razón, desde el análisis, con términos estrictos, certeros y que sin embargo, o a lo mejor por eso, conmueve.

El título está tomado de un poema de César Vallejo, "Los nueve monstruos", en el que se dice: "Jamás, hombres humanos/hubo tanto dolor en el pecho, en la solapa, en la cartera,/en el vaso, en la carnicería, en la aritmética!/Jamás tanto cariño doloroso,/jamás tan cerca arremetió lo lejos,/jamás el fuego nunca/jugó mejor su rol de frío muerto!/Jamás, señor ministro de salud, fue la salud/más mortal”. El poema termina con un “¡Ah! desgraciadamente, hombres humanos/hay, hermanos, muchísimo que hacer”.

La novela de Eltit no es tan optimista.

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

Charco Press is an Edinburgh-based small UK press – they focus on “finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world”.

This is the second book of their sixth year of publication.

One of Charco’s distinguishing characteristics is the prominence they give to translation – translators are listed on the covers and given equal billing on their website to the original authors, and further a number of their books feature a short translator’s afterword, something I think adds a lot to a literary fiction translation.

Here Charco have gone a little better than that and published an entire 200 page book on the translation process – Daniel Hahn’s “Catching Fire – A Translation Diary”.

I have seen some debate about which order to read the two books in. I think optimal is probably to skim read the novel to get a feel for it, then read the translation diary and then read the novel properly (this matches in some ways Hahn’s own translation technique). Second best is perhaps more like my approach – read the first 50 or so pages of the novel until the prose becomes too dense/tortuous to be enjoyable, then skip to the diary for light relief and then return to the novel at intervals.

The basic set up of the book is of an ageing woman living in a small bedsit with a man, both decades previously leading members in a revolutionary leftist organisation. The prose is both intense and circular in a way which matches the claustrophobic confinement of their current lives, and the repetition of their daily routines.

The woman (who is the narrator) looks back on their past lives, particularly various incidents which occurred in the movement and especially what seems to have been the death of their 2 year old son from respiratory problems (with the two reluctant to take him to hospital due to their fugitive status). The past is often a third character in the novel – with various past revolutionary colleagues effectively living in the room in ghost form.

The weakest part of the novel for me was that large parts of the narrators thoughts on the past are bound up in the tortuous language, procedural posturing of the left-wing revolutionary organisation in a way which to me only really worked if viewed as a satire on over-earnest student radicals claiming to represent a working class that has no interest in their revolution, but which I think here is actually serious (and in fact deadly serious given the history of suppression of the left wing in Chile).

And while I liked the way that the concept of cells is used to link the development and decay of the revolutionary movement to that of the man and woman’s bodies – I did think this link was more than a little over laboured.

And the only breaks from this dense plot were unfortunately not that welcome – a rather scatalogical description of the woman’s duties as some form of home help; a fairly gruesome account of a traffic accident and equally gruesome one of a violent bank robbery.

Nevertheless this was a memorable read.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the middle of an argument that seemed ridiculous, when everything had already become muddled, you had shown up just to listen ambiguously, marking your distance and your irony and I couldn't, I wasn't able to keep silent, I couldn't manage it

Never Did The Fire is Daniel Hahn's translation of Chilean novelist Diamela Eltit's Jamás el fuego nunca, published by Charco Press. The dense, claustrophobic and ambiguous prose would have posed many translation difficulties, and wonderfully Hahn explained, based on contemporaneous diary entries, how he approached the task in Catching Fire: A Translation Diary, published alongside the novel.

For the Spanish-language original, in 2019 a poll of critics in El Pais ranked this in the top 100 best books of the 21st century to date (in any language), and a 2016 list in the same publication focused on Spanish-language literature in the previous 25 years had this ranked 22nd (in a very strong list, having read 11 of the top 16).

The novel is narrated by a woman, spending much of her time in the bedroom she shares with a man, both now ageing, but in their youth, members of a revolutionary cell. How long ago this was is rather blurred in the text with reference to fifty, more than a hundred, even a thousand years (the latter in part I think being a literal reference to this being in the last century and indeed millennium if one assumes the present-day action is in the 2000s and the group were active in the 1970s):

It was more than a hundred years ago that Franco died. The tyrant. Profoundly historical, Franco plundered, occupied, controlled. He was, of course, consistent with the part he had to play. One of the best actors for considering his period. An old man. A soldier. Decorated by the institutions. Not brilliant, no, never that, but effective, stubborn, neutral. Foolish, you say, he was foolish. A whole century's gone by now No, no, you tell me, not a century, it's more than that, much more. Yes, I answer you, everything moves in a certain way, imprecise, never literal, not ever. We are talking a century later — more than a century — we are calmly exchanging words that are friendly and compassionate. We need to guard against the scream that we never allow ourselves, not ever, because we might injure ourselves and break. You don't shout at me and nor do you assume overly disdainful expressions, you skip them and just let them circulate inside your head. My own determination is focused on controlling any glimmer of bitterness in order to be a part of this peace we have granted ourselves. We are in a state of peace that is something close to harmony, you curled up into a ball in the bed, covered by the blanket, your eyes closed or half-open, me on the chair, parsimoniously and lucidly ordering the numbers that sustain us. A column of numbers that accounts for the strict diet to which we are subjected, a routine and efficient nutrition that goes directly to meeting the demands of each of the organs that govern us.

As she spends much of her time watching him sleep, making him tea and feeding him bread, and curling up on the bed with him, she has time to ponder on their revolutionary history, and the eventual disintegration of their cell (the novel plays on the dual concepts of the cell in their radical movement, and the deterioration of the cells in their physical bodies). Her narration of their story, and her physical confinement to the room, is periodically broken by what seems to be her job, as a home-carer for elderly incontinent patients, her visits narrated in scatological details.

And while the picture of her and her partner's relationship and time in the militant movement is fragmentary, one theme that emerges is the death of their 2 year-old son from a respiratory condition, with their clandestine identity preventing them being able to take him to a hospital or even properly burying him.

We are, so we agreed, a cell.

We did it after the death had to be consummated don't move, not your head let alone your arms, not now because it was a death that was up to us and that tore us apart. We didn't take him to the hospital, it didn't seem like a possibility. My entreaties, I know, were nothing but rhetoric, a kind of excuse or evasion. We could not go with his body so diminished and dying, panting and dying, gaunt and dying, beloved and dying, to the hospital, because if we did, if we transported his dying agony there, if we moved it from the bed, we would put the entirety of the cells at risk because our own cell would fall and its destructive wake would start exterminating the whole threatened, diminished militant field. Although we had our instructions, we didn't know what to do with his death, where we would take his death, how we would legalise it, nor did we know how to come out of civil non-existence to enter with his body into a grave in a funeral procession that might give us away.

In what is a relatively circular novel, in the closing chapters the story branches off in two further directions. Firstly some incidents in the locale (an armed robbery ending in bloodshed, a fatal car accident) described in gory detail, and then a final chapter that causes us to question what we have been told before about their son, and indeed who exactly is narrating this tale.

By no means an easy read (both a hard story to completely understand, and at times disturbing) but a powerful one.

4 stars (3.5++)

As a footnote, this was my favourite novel in the line, as it describes me to a 'tea' (pun intended):

I think about the tea and about your premature attachment to that liquid. It was a custom you had, a curious detail, an anecdote that characterised you. Yes. Alongside your name there arose as if in a small caption your fondness for tea.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now re-read after reading Daniel Hahn' s excellent book, Catching Fire: A Translation Diary which documents his work to produce the English version of this novel. Hahn refers to this novel as "brilliant, ambiguous complexity" which I think goes someway to explaining why even after reading it twice I am not quite sure how it all fits together. Suffice to say that it definitely bears reading twice and I never felt I was wasting valuable reading time by going through this again. Hahn's diary also picked up on cells/bodies comment I made in my initial review and that seems to be a key idea here.

---------------------

I received this book as part of my Charco subscription. When it arrived, there were two books in the package and the second (“Catching Fire”) is Daniel Hahn’s translation diary documenting his work producing this English version of “Jamás el fuego nunca”. If I am honest, I think I might need to read this diary before I can get my thoughts in order about the novel. And I probably need to re-read the novel after reading the diary. (This loop could continue for quite some time!).

Diamela Eltit is not an author I have come across before. The book’s cover explains that she is …one of Latin America’s best known and most daring writers, highly regarded for her avant-garde use of language. Her published writings began during the years of the Pinochet dictatorship when she was part of the collective CADA, staging art actions against the dictatorship (see webpage of the NYU where she is “Distinguished Global Professor of Creative Writing in Spanish”).

This is a political book. It is told from the perspective of a woman who is living in a room with a man. A large part of the novel takes place in this room with a focus on the bed where the man lies largely incapacitated. We have to decide for ourselves how much of his lethargy is caused by physical issues (he is now an old man) and how much by the events of his life. When we leave the room, it is normally to accompany our narrator on a visit to one or other elderly and incapacitated person who she cleans and helps care for. This set up gives the novel a very claustrophobic feel and the unusual prose style adds to that. Kudos to Daniel Hahn for his translation work because this cannot have been an easy book to translate. It took me several pages at the start of the book to adjust to the writing style, although I cannot think of a way to describe that style. Maybe a sample from near the start of the book is appropriate:

No, I can't sleep and in between the minutes, through the seconds that I cannot quantify, a worry inserts itself that is absurd but which declares itself decisive, the death, yes, the death of Franco. I can't remember when it was that Franco died. When it was, what year, what month, in what circumstances, you told me: Franco's died, he’s finally died lying there like a dog, But you were smoking and so was I at the time. You were smoking as you talked about the death and I was smoking and while all my attention was on your teenage face, openly resentful and lucid and also dazzling in its way, I stubbed out my cigarette knowing it was the last, that I wouldn't smoke ever again, that I'd never really liked inhaling that smoke, and swallowing the burning of the paper. I feel your elbow resting against my rib, I think about how I still have my rib and I accept, yes, I surrender to your elbow and I resign myself to my rib.

And so we listen to our narrator as she discusses her current situation, as she remembers the time she and her partner spent as part of a politically active cell, as she remembers the time she had a child. Time is mixed up, memories are mixed up. We end the book unsure as to what has actually happened, who has died. Bodies and cells start to transform in their meaning and we (well, I) realise we need to read this book again at some point if we are going to make proper sense of it. Actually, I am not 100% sure that “proper sense” is the right phrase to use because I think it is supposed to be confusing. But I do think some of the themes might become clearer on a second reading.

With that in mind, I will probably re-visit this review after I have had chance to gather my thoughts. I am also conscious that this is the first English language review of the book on Goodreads. And whilst I have run some of the existing reviews through Google translate, I still don’t feel that I have a handle on the book: it needs some more work on my part.

[Gianni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un uomo e una donna, due ex militanti rivoluzionari, probabilmente non più giovani condividono una camera, una condizione claustrofobica e soprattutto un letto, trasformato in un luogo della memoria, che lui non abbandona praticamente mai, ”Siamo una cellula, un’unica cellula clandestina segregata nella stanza, con un’uscita controllata e circospetta per la cucina o il bagno”. Mentre lui vuole dimenticare, lei, che è anche la narratrice, ricorda: una vita fatta di organizzazione politica, di analisi, ma anche di carcere e tortura, una vita in cui è prevalso il pubblico fino alla morte del figlio che ha decretato l’irruzione del privato e la fine della militanza.
La segregazione nella camera, come forma di isolamento, è un po’ un’uscita dalla Storia; da un lato, dimenticare è cedere al “Patto dell’oblio” che ha accompagnato la transizione dalla dittatura alla democrazia, ”Non puoi dormire, dici, ma non fai altro che dormire come se il mondo fosse già finito e non avessi nessun obbligo eni suoi confronti”, dall’altro, ricordare è anche fare i conti con i fantasmi del passato: gli errori, gli scomparsi e i morti senza nome. Fantasmi che provano a condividere lo stesso letto dei ricordi, ”Sono qui, quasi stremati sul pavimento e nonostante il loro stato catastrofico tentano di infilarsi nel letto con me, la terza cellula non mi ha ancora perdonato.”
E i fantasmi, come i ricordi, appartengono a un tempo dilatato, indefinito, crudele nel mostrare illusioni e fallimenti, ”Ormai sono trascorsi, in qualche modo cinque decenni (no, no, no, mille anni), Cinque decenni che si sono trascinati senza offrire altro che un calcolo assolutamente precario del tempo, del mio, del nostro tempo. Intrappolati negli ultimi cinque decenni che hanno dovuto contenerci. […] Così è, dato che dentro, nella miseria di ciascun decennio o nei loro effimeri fati e persino nelle loro aree più amorfe, ci siamo radicati in modo così scarso, ma così scarso, da risultare indecifrabili. A dire il vero abbiamo schivato la realtà di ciascun decennio, abbiamo potuto soltanto far parte del suo perimetro come infimi roditori perennemente in fuga.”
E chissà che non siano anche lei e lui delle presenze fantasmatiche, lei che non riesce a capire se il piede o la gamba siano suoi o appartengano a lui, quasi come ossa senza nomi degli scomparsi, ”Mia, ti dico, la gamba è mia, il ginocchio il suo osso e la caviglia che termina dove inizia il piede, la sensazione di avere una gamba ogni volta che si verifica un movimento, la certezza di giacere con la gamba nel letto. No, mi dici, è la mia e lo fai con un tono che sfiora la supplica, lascia tranquillo il mio corpo, sono così stanco, lasciami in pace, lasciami perlomeno questa gamba che ancora mi appartiene”, lei che forse è morta di parto, ”Morimmo durante un parto atroce. Non riuscii a dare alla luce il secolo che arrivava. Il bambino, il mio, nacque morto dopo la mia morte. Un parto sterile” o forse morta per mano di lui, ”ti ha ucciso con una tremenda bastonata sulla testa che ti ha spaccato il cranio, poi ti ha spezzato le mani.”

[Paula Vergara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es el primer libro que leo de esta escritora y solo puedo decir que me impactó. No es una lectura fácil porque no es un relato convencional, pero es magistral cómo nos va develando la historia de esta pareja o célula. Va a estar entre los mejores libros de este año. Muy recomendable y buscando nuevos libros de esta escritora.

[Guillermo · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Jamás el fuego nunca
jugó mejor su rol de frio muerto».

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Eloísa Nieto · Rating 5 out of 5]

imperativo leerlo en voz alta

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 2 out of 5]

"We are lying in the bed, surrendered to the legitimacy of a rest we deserve. We are, yes, lying in the night, sharing. I feel your body folded against my folded back. Perfect together. The curve is the shape that holds us best because we can harmonise and dissolve our differences. My stature and yours, the weight, the arrangement of bones, of mouths."

This is my second translation by Daniel Hahn. I have read Paulo Scott's Phenotypes preciously. That was from the Portuguese; this is from the Spanish. I will be honest, I didn't much care for the actual novel. It is quite short but very dense where every word feels irreplaceable and there is no sprawl. (Clearly, Hahn has done a brilliant job of emulating the original). As a result, it can be maddeningly torturous to read and I did not derive any concrete enjoyment from it. I should say that I did appreciate, from a distance, all of its linguistic quirks and singularities, its way of structuring the narrative, and the general feel of claustrophobia that's evoked in multiple forms.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[yagho szulik · Rating 5 out of 5]

visceral, gráfico, mas muito, muito sensível. todos os personagens, sem nenhuma exceção, se encontram em um beco sem saída, estão entre a cruz e a espada, vivendo uma monotonia sem uma utopia que os norteie. é américa latina, porra.

[Tiago Germano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roteiro para um baile macabro

Há, por trás das ações dos personagens nucleares deste livro, uma partitura corporal que Diamela Eltit preenche com uma poesia que só será alcançada em sua plenitude ao final do romance. São dois corpos enlanguescidos, estirados na mesma cama de um quarto, dedicados a um pas de deux vertiginoso, que a autora rege com descrições bastante atentas à anatomia dos membros se entrelaçando, debatendo a morte do ditador espanhol Francisco Franco (1892-1975).

Muito aos poucos, compreendemos que estamos diante de dois militantes de esquerda, integrantes da célula de um movimento de guerrilha, confrontando-se com o passado a partir das lembranças de uma personagem anônima, que reclama a provável morte de um menino que ainda não sabemos se é o seu filho ou se a vítima de um sequestro orquestrado pela célula.

(Célula: eis uma palavra-chave que, como tantas outras ao longo do texto, se ressignificará ao final - e é bastante recomendável, se após a primeira leitura você não entender a grande metáfora que Eltit estava urdindo, por trás do estranhamento provocado pela sua linguagem e pela incompletude dos fatos narrados, que você siga a velha recomendação de Faulkner àqueles que alegavam não entender os seus romances: leia duas vezes.)

A clara dependência desse sentido que vai se construindo aos poucos, e que só nos permite um alívio nem por isso menos perturbador quando somos apresentados à profissão da personagem - que ganha a vida como cuidadora de idosos, lidando com a precariedade de corpos não menos miseráveis que o seu -, enfraquece uma narrativa que só ganha vulto exatamente nas páginas finais, onde um dos assaltos a banco executados pela célula é contado com essa mesma virtuosidade anatômica da autora, esse olho que disseca os corpos e sua fragilidade quebradiça.

Num aparte extra-literário, é difícil não se sentir um tanto desconfortável com o prefácio (mais ainda quando este é equivocadamente chamado de "prólogo", como que incorporado ao discurso diegético) do tradutor Julián Fuks. "Pode o subjugado falar? Pode o oprimido falar? Pode o desiludido falar? Pode o derrotado falar?", ele se questiona - uma questão central na narrativa contemporânea, estabelecida justamente pela literatura testemunhal que emergiu com a derrocada de ditaduras como as da hispano-américa. O questionamento é pertinente, e a tentativa de iluminá-lo com algumas considerações é legítima, mas esbarra justamente numa interrupção incômoda da fala do subjugado, do oprimido e do desiludido em questão (e note-se, aqui, um equívoco por cima do equívoco: estamos falando de uma autora e de uma personagem femininas sem que o gênero masculino lhe dê conta). Sendo o "prólogo" um posfácio, faria mais jus à bela edição da editora Relicário.

[infernario · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro cuenta con una interesante ambigüedad en donde las palabras con el pensamiento se entrecruzan en una hipérbole de emotividad, entregando una postura sensible, pero angustiosa de la realidad.
La protagonista juega con sus pensares, pero bloquea sus actitudes solo por complacer a un alguien que no se compromete en ningún nivel con su pareja, es más, la ignora, le es invisible, a pesar de su compañía sumisa. Un curioso trabajo de demostrar una realidad que, en la teoría, se muestra tergiversada: la actitud del hombre de izquierda en el control de sus pares.
Eltit demuestra cómo el patriarcado y el machismo es transversal al pensamiento político, insinuando, directamente, que la lucha de clases ignora a las mujeres.
Una historia fascinante, con reveses desconcertantes y llenas de dolor. Una ilustración de la realidad de la mujer mayor, dispuesta solo para el trabajo doméstico y de cuidados: una configuración del cuerpo femenino ligada a lo maternal y la entrega de afecto de manera desinteresada y espontánea.

[Anwen Hayward · Rating 3 out of 5]

GOD, this was a slog. It's under 200 pages and it felt like 2,000. Most of the time, I think that was deliberate. The narrative moves at a treacle slow pace, reflecting the drudgery of the protagonists' life after their revolutionary cell implodes. Everything is in decay, and all the narrator can do is observe the minutiae of the tiny world around her as it falls apart.

As a literary device, it worked perfectly to illustrate the monotony and tedium and exhaustion she felt having to live with the knowledge that everything was coming to an end, that everything had already ended and she was existing in the wake of a life that was long over. The problem is that monotony and tedium and exhaustion, when perfectly realised, are not particularly pleasant or easy to experience. For a short story, I think this would have been brilliantly effective. For a novel, it felt repetitive and confusing, and just knowing what it was trying to do wasn't quite enough to make it feel worthwhile.

[Schwarzer_Elch · Rating 5 out of 5]

En su habitación, una mujer discute con su marido enfermo. La discusión es sobre el pasado de ambos: un pasado que, según la protagonista, está a “mil años” de distancia, un pasado en el que ambos fueron revolucionarios, estuvieron presos, vivieron clandestinamente y perdieron a un hijo al que no pudieron salvar para no poner en peligro a su organización.

Y mientras discuten, la muerte los acecha. Se siente en cada página. Y la autora utiliza la decadencia del cuerpo humano como símbolo de la decadencia social. Para lograrlo, Eltit recurre a muchos conceptos con doble significado, siendo, quizás, el más importante “célula”, una palabra con significado político y físico / corporal.

[isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profoundly sad, yet one of the most rich and complex novels I’ve ever read. The themes are varied and deep, revolutionary, irreducible to aesthetics or myth-making. The writing itself, the technique, is frankly beautiful. Narration jumps tenses and topics without bucking the reader, a convincing rendering of one thinking and feeling on the page.

I would recommend this to anyone, but especially those looking for genuinely proletarian literature that features political content without limiting the characters by it.

[Paulo Fehlauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Texto que carrega na forma a vertigem política de uma época de utopias reprimidas com crueldade pelo Estado. Situados em um plano etéreo (um quarto, uma cama beckettiana), como que semivivos, os integrantes de uma célula militante (ou os seus fantasmas) emergem da voz da narradora, que os faz ressuscitar pela memória, incompletos, inconsistentes, mas ainda assim sanguíneos, pulsantes, "esperando a chegada inescapável da história."

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro desgarrador sobre ilusiones perdidas. Una escritura bellísima y que ofrece resistencia haciendo que la lectura se balancee entre placer y rechazo. Lo corporal es central en la novela y quizás eso también contribuya a que la narración de la protagonista se te meta en el cuerpo.
(No se recomienda para quienes quieran una novela niño bueno que se deje leer tranquilamente.)

[Luisfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Habrá alguna lectora que, justamente, considerará a la narradora cansina; algún lector subrayará ese estilo desquiciante, salpicado de haikus; pero una y otro coincidirán con otra en que estamos ante las grandes Majezas de todos los tiempos. Venga, a leer lo que Ruuuuu nos ha descubierto. La larga marcha con un océano atravesado

[Nicté Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toda esta historia transcurre en una cama, es una pareja de militantes de izquierda con sus sus pasados, sus monotonías y sus escozores. Se entrevé una análogía entre la relación de la pareja y la militancia política. Como si ambas situaciones tuvieran en común una pasión o un fervor inicial que se extingue dejando atrás solo cadáveres. La atmósfera es desgradable, te saca, te vomita, pero hay algo... una prosa con ritmo de poesía que te mantiene irremediablemente ahí... anclad@ a esa cama, igual que a los protagonistas de la historia.

[Elkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jamás el fuego nunca(Daniela Eltit, 2007) novela de la escritora chilena quien hace parte del grupo de escritores que vivieron el in-xilio sufriendo la censura y presión por parte de la dictadura de Pinochet. La autora a partir del autoanálisis que hace la protagonista nos adentra en profundas reflexiones alrededor de la muerte, el fracaso del proyecto de la izquierda en su país, el poder destructor del neoliberalismo, de las disparidades de género, de la maternidad interrumpida. Un libro complejo, de lectura lenta y sesuda pero no menos maravilloso. Alegría!!!

[Chio Ojeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siento que no tengo las credenciales suficientes para opinar de este libro. Un monólogo profundo, profundísimo, de dolores en la memoria y en el cuerpo, que se entremezclan con relatos de la precariedad, la clandestinidad, la tortura, la muerte de un hijo y por sobre todo, la agónica rutina. Me recordó las mismas ganas de leerlo en voz alta que tuve con “Patas de perro” de Droguett. No le pongo cinco estrellas solo porque a mi me costó concentrarme. Quizás no era el momento de leerlo, pero sí o sí revisitaré a Diamela Eltit.

[Oscar Benavides · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta novela es el retrato de una mujer que vive la degradación de su cuerpo, junto con los cuerpos que la rodean. Trata de la muerte del cuerpo social. Se mueren las células del cuerpo junto a las células políticas perseguidas en dictadura. Casi todo el libro ocurre en una habitación donde ella ni los demás pueden salir. Es la primera vez que leo un espacio hecho palabras. La habitación pequeña se llena de palabras apretujadas, que se codean unas con otras, llenan el vacío que hay en ella.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think this novel needed to be this obtuse. It’s quite meta, about aging revolutionaries who lost their movement, became disillusioned by radicalism, and became controlling dictators. The metaphors of cells and cramped quarters were repeated too frequently. I’m sure I missed a lot but I don’t care. This wasn’t a pleasant reading experience.

[Julia Stallone · Rating 3 out of 5]

desafiador, poético, turvo, íntimo, não linear, cru
3.5

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is probably a really impressive writing feat but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it at all and it certainly wasn’t the best choice for the week before Christmas. Much of the story (not that there is a story) takes place with the narrator lying on a bed next to her partner who, it seems, is dying or at last very sick. She is looking back over their lives together, or rather particularly the time when they were revolutionaries together and there is some clever juxtaposition of the decay of the body’s cells and the extreme lengths the younger protagonists would have made to protect the disintegration of their revolutionary cell. However the narration is rather nebulous - we know that they had had disagreements personally within their revolutionary cell and that their young son died for example, but just what and how and why is left rather vague. The most lucid accounts are from when the main protagonist leaves the house to tend to the person that she is paid to care for once a week. The account of her caregiving is pretty stark and deeply unpleasant (even though it’s probably something we should be more prepared to acknowledge) as are the descriptions of other things that take place in the background including a car accident and a bank robbery. In the end my main problem was that it was all too flat with absolutely no light relief. Undoubtedly this is what the author intended but in the end it felt way too claustrophobic and oppressive for me. It probably needs to be read when you are in a particularly robust frame of mind, but, despite genuinely believing that this is an admirable piece of literature I really can’t see me wanting to put myself through it again in the future. Onwards to something lighter - I hope.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled. It’s not a long book but it is incredibly dense and the subject matter is difficult. It also jumps around between past and present so that sometimes it is hard to follow what is happening.

[Emer F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impactante, suave, poético.

[Sophia]

Beautifully written and moving, but made my brain feel crunchy. On purpose, but still crunchy.