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Trilogía de la pasión #2
La débil mental
Siguiendo con la tradición de Matate, amor (Dharma Books, 2019) en La débil mental se tensan al límite los vínculos afectivos y familiares entre una madre y su joven hija, quienes viven casi a escondidas del mundo, entre el abandono del bosque. Ariana Harwicz consigue dilucidar un retrato bucólico pintado con colores agresivos que incomodan al espectador y al mismo tiempo lo capturan hasta la imposibilidad de dejar de observar. La débil mental es una especie de manual que introduce al lector en el sentimiento del duelo anticipado, aquel que llega antes de perder a un ser amado y que es acompañado por el consuelo que brinda llorar el dolor en el regazo de una madre.
96 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
75 people are currently reading
2989 people want to read
About the author
Ariana Harwicz
22 books530 followersEspañol/English
~~~
Ariana Harwicz nació en Buenos Aires en 1977. Estudió guión cinematográfico en el ENERC (Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica), dramaturgia en el EAD (Escuela de Arte Dramático) y completó sus estudios con una licenciatura en Artes del espectáculo en la Universidad Paris VIII y un máster en Literatura comparada en La Sorbona. Matate, amor, es su primera novela.
~~~
Compared to Nathalie Sarraute, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, Ariana Harwicz is one of the most radical figures in contemporary Argentinian literature. Her prose is characterized by its violence, eroticism, irony and direct criticism to the clichés surrounding the notions of the family and conventional relationships. Born in Buenos Aires in 1977, Harwicz studied screenwriting and drama in Argentina, and earned a first degree in Performing Arts from the University of Paris VII as well as a Master’s degree in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She has taught screenwriting and written two plays, which have been staged in Buenos Aires. She directed the documentary El día del Ceviche (Ceviche’s Day), which has been shown at festivals in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela. Her first novel, Die, My Love received rave reviews and was named best novel of 2012 by the Argentinian daily La Nación. It is currently being adapted for theatre in Buenos Aires and in Israel. She is considered to be at the forefront of the so-called new Argentinian fiction, together with other female writers such as Selva Almada, Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enríquez and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara.
~~~
Ariana Harwicz nació en Buenos Aires en 1977. Estudió guión cinematográfico en el ENERC (Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica), dramaturgia en el EAD (Escuela de Arte Dramático) y completó sus estudios con una licenciatura en Artes del espectáculo en la Universidad Paris VIII y un máster en Literatura comparada en La Sorbona. Matate, amor, es su primera novela.
~~~
Compared to Nathalie Sarraute, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, Ariana Harwicz is one of the most radical figures in contemporary Argentinian literature. Her prose is characterized by its violence, eroticism, irony and direct criticism to the clichés surrounding the notions of the family and conventional relationships. Born in Buenos Aires in 1977, Harwicz studied screenwriting and drama in Argentina, and earned a first degree in Performing Arts from the University of Paris VII as well as a Master’s degree in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She has taught screenwriting and written two plays, which have been staged in Buenos Aires. She directed the documentary El día del Ceviche (Ceviche’s Day), which has been shown at festivals in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela. Her first novel, Die, My Love received rave reviews and was named best novel of 2012 by the Argentinian daily La Nación. It is currently being adapted for theatre in Buenos Aires and in Israel. She is considered to be at the forefront of the so-called new Argentinian fiction, together with other female writers such as Selva Almada, Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enríquez and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 284 reviews
May 23, 2019
Nearly every sentence in this novel offers up an image that was either grotesque, or alarming, or disturbingly violent. I haven't been so repulsed by a story since reading Kathy Acker. And that's the point. This novel brilliantly accomplishes what it sets out to do. And the translation I can only call masterful, because the precise words and phrases chosen here for the English transformation of the original Spanish consistently surprised and disgusted me, which is the aim of this work. Can words on a page be so disruptively disturbing? Yes, they can be. Even now that I've read the novel I can open to any page and some sentence will brim over with a brilliantly grotesque nugget of turdish perfection.
I'm mulling over why this novel is so much more disturbing and frankly more nauseating to me than the author's previous novel, Die, My Love, when these two novels reach for the same territory of alienation and female fury. All I know is I felt soaring release when I read Die My Love; I identified with the postpartum alienation of its protagonist and rejoiced at her rage. Whereas with Feebleminded I felt like the author was holding my head under and I was drowning in a fetid pool of nihilistic and unhinged madness.
That said, you should read it.
I'm mulling over why this novel is so much more disturbing and frankly more nauseating to me than the author's previous novel, Die, My Love, when these two novels reach for the same territory of alienation and female fury. All I know is I felt soaring release when I read Die My Love; I identified with the postpartum alienation of its protagonist and rejoiced at her rage. Whereas with Feebleminded I felt like the author was holding my head under and I was drowning in a fetid pool of nihilistic and unhinged madness.
That said, you should read it.
February 5, 2022
I listen with the reverential astonishment of a feebleminded woman getting things muddled, lost in the countless details that engulf her, a plague of microbes on the esplanade. I mistake the swishing of animals for the plants, sunburnt lizards scuttling into the drainpipes. By the end everything was vague, inexact, blurred.
Die, My Love, co-translated by Carolina Orloff and Sarah Moses and edited by Annie McDermott from Ariana Harwicz's Matate, amor was one of my highlights of 2017-8: I was proud to be part of the Republic of Consciousness Prize jury that shortlisted it and delighted to see it appear on the Man Booker International longlist - my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Orloff is also co-founded of the wonderful Charco Press:
La débil mental was Ariana Harwicz's 2nd novel and formed the the second instalment of what the author has referred to as 'an involuntary trilogy' with the first, Mátate, amor (2012) [Die My Love, 2017] and third Precoz (2015) [literally Precious, as yet untranslated].
An 'involuntary trilogy' as Harwicz did not conceive of the novels as related, and there is no continuity or overlap between them in terms of plot or characters, but the author felt herself repeatedly drawn back, as did one of her key influences Ágota Kristóf, to the same themes and setting. Each of the three novels is set in a darkly-drawn and suffocating French countryside, each revolves around a mother - a mother with a new born baby in Die My Love, a mother and her now adult daughter in Feebleminded, and a mother and son, turning into an adult, in Precoz - but in each case experiencing what Harwicz has called an 'asphyxiated motherhood.' And each concerns an obsession, and a self-destructive journey towards that obsession. As the narrator asks herself here:
Could a person want something so badly they destroy it?
I have this obsession with asking questions when I already know the answer.
(author comments from appearance at Shakespeare And Company February 2019 https://soundcloud.com/shakespeareand...)
This is a disturbing mother-daughter relationship, a story of desire and dependency, that unfolds in 117 intense and visceral pages: the two women share an obsessive desire for whisky, sex and self-destructive relationships with men:
Whisky with mother as the electric blue fades into the small hours and now, a long way from home, my hands are covered in excrement. I didn’t know my own smell, the layer of smell that forms on the body as the hours without water go by. My tongue gets distracted by eating grass. Sucking on an animal’s hard udders, sucking on the fur, the teeth all dolled up, or imagining the death of your parents. It’s all the same. From the moment he entered my head, this saltwater hell. Zealous hammering on my veins. The trouble with my brain is I can’t hold it back, it rolls on and on through the spiky undergrowth like a bulldozer. Where am I. I don’t recognise these big houses. I’ve never rounded this bend in the road. Degenerate desire. Damaging desire. Demented desire. I don’t know how to get back. My mother will be blind drunk, sprawled on the sloping grass, her feet carved up by the blades. The clouds are tree trunks at this time of night. My hangover’s fierce and I collapse any old how to masturbate, my hair electrified, my skin hot, my eyelids stiff. My hand works away then falls still as an insect, so that nothing is enough. Me and him in a convertible. Me and him on a muddy road.
The narrator, the daughter, has a relationship with a married man, but the pivotal moment comes when he tells her is wife is in the later stages of pregnancy. The narrator fantasises that perhaps his wife will abort, or miscarry, or even:
it’s born a healthy baby, the scream marking the animal act and then he’s latched on to her tits covered in shit, the three of them back in their home sweet home with the sterilised hospital bag, combs for delicate skin, the postnatal belt, the nasal aspirator, the whole useless arsenal and a bottle of Calpol. But one night when they’re all fast asleep, she squashes him to death.
But when it becomes clear that the pregnancy will proceed and he will finish the relationship, her mother encourages her to take revenge. In a neat echo of the refrain that gave Die, My Love its title, she tells her lover/victim:
May you rest in peace in your grave, my love.
And the novel climaxes (a very appropriate term) in what can only be described, as the book's blurb does, as a Thelma & Louise style ending.
Not comfortable reading but highly recommended and I look forward to Precoz.
Die, My Love, co-translated by Carolina Orloff and Sarah Moses and edited by Annie McDermott from Ariana Harwicz's Matate, amor was one of my highlights of 2017-8: I was proud to be part of the Republic of Consciousness Prize jury that shortlisted it and delighted to see it appear on the Man Booker International longlist - my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Orloff is also co-founded of the wonderful Charco Press:
Charco Press focuses on finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world. We aim to act as a cultural and linguistic bridge for you to be able to access a brand new world of fiction that has, until now, been missing from your reading list.The same author/translator/publisher team (but with McDermott now as co-translator rather than Moses) have now published Feebleminded from the Spanish original La débil mental (2014) - Charco's 12th book, all of which I have read. (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...)
La débil mental was Ariana Harwicz's 2nd novel and formed the the second instalment of what the author has referred to as 'an involuntary trilogy' with the first, Mátate, amor (2012) [Die My Love, 2017] and third Precoz (2015) [literally Precious, as yet untranslated].
An 'involuntary trilogy' as Harwicz did not conceive of the novels as related, and there is no continuity or overlap between them in terms of plot or characters, but the author felt herself repeatedly drawn back, as did one of her key influences Ágota Kristóf, to the same themes and setting. Each of the three novels is set in a darkly-drawn and suffocating French countryside, each revolves around a mother - a mother with a new born baby in Die My Love, a mother and her now adult daughter in Feebleminded, and a mother and son, turning into an adult, in Precoz - but in each case experiencing what Harwicz has called an 'asphyxiated motherhood.' And each concerns an obsession, and a self-destructive journey towards that obsession. As the narrator asks herself here:
Could a person want something so badly they destroy it?
I have this obsession with asking questions when I already know the answer.
(author comments from appearance at Shakespeare And Company February 2019 https://soundcloud.com/shakespeareand...)
This is a disturbing mother-daughter relationship, a story of desire and dependency, that unfolds in 117 intense and visceral pages: the two women share an obsessive desire for whisky, sex and self-destructive relationships with men:
Whisky with mother as the electric blue fades into the small hours and now, a long way from home, my hands are covered in excrement. I didn’t know my own smell, the layer of smell that forms on the body as the hours without water go by. My tongue gets distracted by eating grass. Sucking on an animal’s hard udders, sucking on the fur, the teeth all dolled up, or imagining the death of your parents. It’s all the same. From the moment he entered my head, this saltwater hell. Zealous hammering on my veins. The trouble with my brain is I can’t hold it back, it rolls on and on through the spiky undergrowth like a bulldozer. Where am I. I don’t recognise these big houses. I’ve never rounded this bend in the road. Degenerate desire. Damaging desire. Demented desire. I don’t know how to get back. My mother will be blind drunk, sprawled on the sloping grass, her feet carved up by the blades. The clouds are tree trunks at this time of night. My hangover’s fierce and I collapse any old how to masturbate, my hair electrified, my skin hot, my eyelids stiff. My hand works away then falls still as an insect, so that nothing is enough. Me and him in a convertible. Me and him on a muddy road.
The narrator, the daughter, has a relationship with a married man, but the pivotal moment comes when he tells her is wife is in the later stages of pregnancy. The narrator fantasises that perhaps his wife will abort, or miscarry, or even:
it’s born a healthy baby, the scream marking the animal act and then he’s latched on to her tits covered in shit, the three of them back in their home sweet home with the sterilised hospital bag, combs for delicate skin, the postnatal belt, the nasal aspirator, the whole useless arsenal and a bottle of Calpol. But one night when they’re all fast asleep, she squashes him to death.
But when it becomes clear that the pregnancy will proceed and he will finish the relationship, her mother encourages her to take revenge. In a neat echo of the refrain that gave Die, My Love its title, she tells her lover/victim:
May you rest in peace in your grave, my love.
And the novel climaxes (a very appropriate term) in what can only be described, as the book's blurb does, as a Thelma & Louise style ending.
Not comfortable reading but highly recommended and I look forward to Precoz.
April 25, 2019
Update: I was privileged to attend a reading and discussion with the author and her publisher/translator in London which has given me additional insight which I have attempted to reflect in my review (although I would strongly recommend taking any opportunity to hear from them direct).
Charco Press is perhaps my favourite small UK press – they focus on “finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world”. I have read all 12 of their previous novels.
Their 2017/early 2018 set of 5 novels were all by Argentinian authors – but diverse both in authorship, style and form: a deliberate decision by Charco who wanted to counteract any pigeon-holing of books from one country as being of a certain type.
Their 2018 set by contrast featured authors from five different countries (Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and Brazil) – the last three auto-fictional in nature.
2019 brings adds two new countries to the list – Mexico and Guatemala, however this book is a return to their Argentinian roots and further than that, their first repeat author.
In 2017/18 I was a judge for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small presses and was delighted when we shortlisted Ariana Harwicz’s “Die My Love”, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff (the co-founder of Charco).
The book went on to be longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. On the MBI website (https://themanbookerprize.com/news/di...) both translators made reference to the crucial role played by copyeditor Annie McDermott.
That book (originally published as “Mátate, amor”) was the first of what the author has described as an “involuntary trilogy” or “false trilogy” – because the books are not linked by plot (something in which anyway the author does not believe) but instead by style and by content.
This is the second of that trilogy – originally published as “La débil mental”. It is translated by Carolina Orloff and Annie McDermott.
The third book “Precoz” is due to be published in translation by Charco in 2021.
There are a lot of similarities between the first two novels – both set in the (French) countryside, both feature fierce, often sexually explicit stream-of-consciousness style invective, written in short sections and narrated by an unnamed female (or females) who obsessively refuse to conform to conventional standards of behaviour or to perform within the externally-imposed parameters of family roles – and are prepared to destroy their own life and/or the lives of others to maintain that freedom from societal coercion.
Ariana Harwicz’s style is, as she describes it, very much about transgression – about breaking conventions and boundaries.
She starts with language – Spanish (like French) is a partly regulated language with an externally imposed “correct” way to write it; and Harwicz deliberately sets out to write incorrect Spanish – something which she says leads to regular battles with her editors. She also sets out to capture a musical rhythm in her writing – so that the placement of commas is crucial (another source of tension with copy-editors).
As an aside - both of these factors of course make translation a detailed negotiation between her and her co-translators and she has described it as a “miracle” that the two books in English has captured the same musicality as the Spanish original.
This corruption of language then contaminates in turn her characters – who are equally transgressive and, as I commented above, striving to break through externally imposed boundaries and conventions.
Harwicz describes the length of the chapters as being inversely related to the intensity of the writing – which involves an emotional investment for both writer and reader which cannot be sustained for longer periods.
Motherhood is key to both novels.
Whereas Die, My Love, and its depiction of a new mother (which had autobiographical roots); the depiction here is of an adult mother/daughter relationship (a relationship which we see also was likely played out identically across the previous generation – i.e. the mother/grandmother).
The daughter is having an intense affair with both alcohol and with a married man, a relationship which spirals downwards into the book’s conclusion (another echo of Die, My Love).
This relationship is one in which the mother participates: initially vicariously (and we realise that the mother herself took a keen interest in her daughter’s burgeoning sexuality as a teenager, as well as being very sexually active herself – while at the same time regretting not protecting her daughter from falling for a man); but then, in the second part of the book, more directly (as the daughter loses her job over her obsession); finally the third part of the book, far more dramatically (when the man breaks off the affair due to his wife being pregnant – and the fierce relationship between the woman and daughter is turned outwards as together they plan their revenge).
Overall I found this a raw, searing, disturbing and unsettling read – one that was perhaps every more so than Die, My Love.
Charco Press is perhaps my favourite small UK press – they focus on “finding outstanding contemporary Latin American literature and bringing it to new readers in the English-speaking world”. I have read all 12 of their previous novels.
Their 2017/early 2018 set of 5 novels were all by Argentinian authors – but diverse both in authorship, style and form: a deliberate decision by Charco who wanted to counteract any pigeon-holing of books from one country as being of a certain type.
Their 2018 set by contrast featured authors from five different countries (Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and Brazil) – the last three auto-fictional in nature.
2019 brings adds two new countries to the list – Mexico and Guatemala, however this book is a return to their Argentinian roots and further than that, their first repeat author.
In 2017/18 I was a judge for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small presses and was delighted when we shortlisted Ariana Harwicz’s “Die My Love”, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff (the co-founder of Charco).
The book went on to be longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. On the MBI website (https://themanbookerprize.com/news/di...) both translators made reference to the crucial role played by copyeditor Annie McDermott.
That book (originally published as “Mátate, amor”) was the first of what the author has described as an “involuntary trilogy” or “false trilogy” – because the books are not linked by plot (something in which anyway the author does not believe) but instead by style and by content.
This is the second of that trilogy – originally published as “La débil mental”. It is translated by Carolina Orloff and Annie McDermott.
The third book “Precoz” is due to be published in translation by Charco in 2021.
There are a lot of similarities between the first two novels – both set in the (French) countryside, both feature fierce, often sexually explicit stream-of-consciousness style invective, written in short sections and narrated by an unnamed female (or females) who obsessively refuse to conform to conventional standards of behaviour or to perform within the externally-imposed parameters of family roles – and are prepared to destroy their own life and/or the lives of others to maintain that freedom from societal coercion.
Ariana Harwicz’s style is, as she describes it, very much about transgression – about breaking conventions and boundaries.
She starts with language – Spanish (like French) is a partly regulated language with an externally imposed “correct” way to write it; and Harwicz deliberately sets out to write incorrect Spanish – something which she says leads to regular battles with her editors. She also sets out to capture a musical rhythm in her writing – so that the placement of commas is crucial (another source of tension with copy-editors).
As an aside - both of these factors of course make translation a detailed negotiation between her and her co-translators and she has described it as a “miracle” that the two books in English has captured the same musicality as the Spanish original.
This corruption of language then contaminates in turn her characters – who are equally transgressive and, as I commented above, striving to break through externally imposed boundaries and conventions.
Harwicz describes the length of the chapters as being inversely related to the intensity of the writing – which involves an emotional investment for both writer and reader which cannot be sustained for longer periods.
Motherhood is key to both novels.
Whereas Die, My Love, and its depiction of a new mother (which had autobiographical roots); the depiction here is of an adult mother/daughter relationship (a relationship which we see also was likely played out identically across the previous generation – i.e. the mother/grandmother).
The daughter is having an intense affair with both alcohol and with a married man, a relationship which spirals downwards into the book’s conclusion (another echo of Die, My Love).
This relationship is one in which the mother participates: initially vicariously (and we realise that the mother herself took a keen interest in her daughter’s burgeoning sexuality as a teenager, as well as being very sexually active herself – while at the same time regretting not protecting her daughter from falling for a man); but then, in the second part of the book, more directly (as the daughter loses her job over her obsession); finally the third part of the book, far more dramatically (when the man breaks off the affair due to his wife being pregnant – and the fierce relationship between the woman and daughter is turned outwards as together they plan their revenge).
Overall I found this a raw, searing, disturbing and unsettling read – one that was perhaps every more so than Die, My Love.
December 30, 2021
3.5
La mujer tiene una relación enfermiza con la madre, de absoluta dependencia, pero hubo una niñez de abandono y desidia.
Madre e hija comparten alcohol, salidas, se cuentan experiencias sexuales, se dan consejos. La hija está enamorada de un hombre casado, la indiferencia de él la debilita.
En un flujo de conciencia de lo más afilado se mezclan la infancia, el presente, el amante. La mente no le da tregua.
¿Qué hacer con esta madre? ¿Qué hacer con el amante?
La prosa es de lo más punzante, deslumbra por momentos. La historia es dura, repulsiva. El libro es muy bueno aunque no me gustó tanto como Matate, amor. Junto con este y Precoz forman una trilogía.
Para quien ya leyó a la autora y sabe con qué va encontrarse puede ser una lectura interesante. Para el que no la leyó nunca no creo este sea el libro indicado para acercarse, en ese caso recomiendo Matate, amor.
La mujer tiene una relación enfermiza con la madre, de absoluta dependencia, pero hubo una niñez de abandono y desidia.
Quiero arrojar mi infancia como esas pelotas que escupen las lechuzas con restos de dientes y de los cerebros, que no pudieron deglutir.
Madre e hija comparten alcohol, salidas, se cuentan experiencias sexuales, se dan consejos. La hija está enamorada de un hombre casado, la indiferencia de él la debilita.
Lo escuché con la reverencia y el sobrecogimiento de una débil mental que se nubla y se pierde en mil detalles a su alrededor, una plaga de microbios sobre la explanada.
En un flujo de conciencia de lo más afilado se mezclan la infancia, el presente, el amante. La mente no le da tregua.
El problema del cerebro es que no consigo retenerlo, siempre avanzando entre asperezas, siempre adelante como topadora.
¿Qué hacer con esta madre? ¿Qué hacer con el amante?
La prosa es de lo más punzante, deslumbra por momentos. La historia es dura, repulsiva. El libro es muy bueno aunque no me gustó tanto como Matate, amor. Junto con este y Precoz forman una trilogía.
Para quien ya leyó a la autora y sabe con qué va encontrarse puede ser una lectura interesante. Para el que no la leyó nunca no creo este sea el libro indicado para acercarse, en ese caso recomiendo Matate, amor.
January 27, 2020
This is not a book I feel well qualified to comment on, as it is deeply personal, but very alien to my personal experience, and also full of graphic imagery. I found her earlier Charco novel Die, My Love, which is also a very intense personal story told in very short chapters, much more moving and impressive, perhaps because it was easier to feel sympathy for its narrator.
So not a book I could love, but one I want to be too negative about.
So not a book I could love, but one I want to be too negative about.
April 21, 2022
Pocas veces me pasa que un libro me recuerda a algo en este caso la escritura de Ariana es como ver una película de Lars Von Trier. Ariana es de las escritoras que se sale del montón, su prosa poética que a veces confunde al lector entre tantas figuras literarias que usa es una marca registrada, así escribe, y es entendible que no sea un libro para todes.
Las historias de ariana siempre son crudas, violentas, perturbadoras y morbosas. Hoy las protagonistas son una mamá y una hija con una relación extraña donde comparten su sexualidad, su miedo y su abandono. Parece que todo el libro las narradoras hablan con ellas mismas, es por es que la línea de diálogos puede llegar a ser confusa porque da la idea de que hablan con ellas mismas,
Ariana parte de personajes que ya están en medio de una locura, de un episodio, de una pesadilla, de una situación de peligro, es por eso que a veces cuesta adentrarnos porque no entendemos el contexto por el cuál llegaron a ese lugar, pero, una vez que entendemos que vamos a encontrar de entrada, personajes desequilibrado emocional y mentalmente, que están atravesando un periodo de depresión. que están con un pie en el desbordamiento es cuando ella hace magia con la escritura.
Ariana tiene la habilidad de componer una novela, no de escribirla.
Las historias de ariana siempre son crudas, violentas, perturbadoras y morbosas. Hoy las protagonistas son una mamá y una hija con una relación extraña donde comparten su sexualidad, su miedo y su abandono. Parece que todo el libro las narradoras hablan con ellas mismas, es por es que la línea de diálogos puede llegar a ser confusa porque da la idea de que hablan con ellas mismas,
Ariana parte de personajes que ya están en medio de una locura, de un episodio, de una pesadilla, de una situación de peligro, es por eso que a veces cuesta adentrarnos porque no entendemos el contexto por el cuál llegaron a ese lugar, pero, una vez que entendemos que vamos a encontrar de entrada, personajes desequilibrado emocional y mentalmente, que están atravesando un periodo de depresión. que están con un pie en el desbordamiento es cuando ella hace magia con la escritura.
Ariana tiene la habilidad de componer una novela, no de escribirla.
November 4, 2016
El lenguaje es súper preciso y claro, sabe muy bien a dónde va, pero es todo muy oscuro, demasiado, me sentí agredida, como que la cosa va por lo suyo, por un lado es su valor, por otro no supe muy bien por donde entrarle.
Igual y porque se trata de una mamá y una hija, pero una relación imaginada de la peor manera posible, en negativo, lo opuesto a el amor, lo opuesto a lo que quisiera ver o sentir, es una locura todo y el final tremendo, casi como una pesadilla. Tiene una crudeza amarga, una crueldad que a momentos sentí gratuita.
"Busco una palabra que reemplace la palabra. Busco una palabra que indique mi devoción. Esa palabra que sea el punto, la distancia, el centro exacto de mi delirio."
Eso! Un muy bien contando delirio.
July 8, 2019
In her follow-up to Die, My Love, Ariana Harwicz is just as brutal and intense as before. Co-translated by Annie McDermott and Carolina Orloff (who is also the wonderful director and editor of Charco Press), Feebleminded is a visceral account of a mother-daughter relationship in an unspecified village, and it follows the daughter’s complicated affair with a married man. It is a story full of sex and violence, saturated with alcohol, and written in nebulous but often poetic and associative language, as the very first lines of the novel reveal:
I come from nowhere. The world is a cave, a stone heart crushing you, a horizontal vertigo. The world is a moon slashed by black whips, by arrows and gunfire. How far must I dig before striking disdain, before my days burn. I could have been born with white eyes like the forest of stark pines, and yet I’m woken by volcanic ash on the garden clover. And yet my mother’s pulling out clumps of hair and throwing them on the fire.
It has been a peculiar couple of weeks in my reading life. I’ve been drawn toward some rather belligerent and grotesque reads – and reviewing them very favorably. Just recently, the Danish author Bjørn Rasmussen impressed me with The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body, and I’m currently under the spell of David Keenan’s raucous For The Good Times, set amidst the unbearably violent conditions during the Troubles. But it’s not the violence itself that does it; there’s nothing fun in that. (I’m very much a pacifist who said no to compulsory military service.) It’s the ability of the author to evoke something more against the backdrop of utterly vain human tendencies to harm each other, and I think there’s a place in literature for examinations of such conditions. There’s violence everywhere around us in real life, anyway. Putting it into words may help to untie a knot or two, be it on a personal or social level.
I’m happy that Feebleminded didn’t let me down, because I couldn’t properly connect with Die, My Love. Although pleased for its Man Booker International nomination in 2017, which it surely deserved, I remember having the feeling that the author was pouring more and more disturbing scenarios on top of the reader as the novel progressed in a deliberate attempt to shock. Moreover, I might have been reading too many narratives of unredeemable, evil men, so that the book was simply too much at the time. However, with Feebleminded, I don’t get the feeling that Harwicz is doing this for mere shocks or creating cardboard men for the reader to despise. This feels full-fledged and balanced – if balanced is a word you can use to describe a story so dizzying and twisted.
One of the absolute strengths of the novel (as was of its precursor) is the format the story is presented in. It’s a joy for someone like me who’s always interested in the different ways that form can serve substance, and Harwicz’s style of writing in short chapters without any paragraph breaks or inverted commas that would indicate dialogue – ultimately resulting in a vertiginous feeling when you’re not sure anymore which character is talking – fits and intensifies the story just the right way. Each short chapter is a long cacophonous scream, maintaining its power due to its brevity. One could argue that the fervor is also the novel’s weakness, and I’m not even sure I will remember the plot for very long. But whether it matters that you remember the plot of a book or don’t is a question for another day. I’m fine with the feeling, the images, and the emotions this short little novel evoked in me.
I come from nowhere. The world is a cave, a stone heart crushing you, a horizontal vertigo. The world is a moon slashed by black whips, by arrows and gunfire. How far must I dig before striking disdain, before my days burn. I could have been born with white eyes like the forest of stark pines, and yet I’m woken by volcanic ash on the garden clover. And yet my mother’s pulling out clumps of hair and throwing them on the fire.
It has been a peculiar couple of weeks in my reading life. I’ve been drawn toward some rather belligerent and grotesque reads – and reviewing them very favorably. Just recently, the Danish author Bjørn Rasmussen impressed me with The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body, and I’m currently under the spell of David Keenan’s raucous For The Good Times, set amidst the unbearably violent conditions during the Troubles. But it’s not the violence itself that does it; there’s nothing fun in that. (I’m very much a pacifist who said no to compulsory military service.) It’s the ability of the author to evoke something more against the backdrop of utterly vain human tendencies to harm each other, and I think there’s a place in literature for examinations of such conditions. There’s violence everywhere around us in real life, anyway. Putting it into words may help to untie a knot or two, be it on a personal or social level.
I’m happy that Feebleminded didn’t let me down, because I couldn’t properly connect with Die, My Love. Although pleased for its Man Booker International nomination in 2017, which it surely deserved, I remember having the feeling that the author was pouring more and more disturbing scenarios on top of the reader as the novel progressed in a deliberate attempt to shock. Moreover, I might have been reading too many narratives of unredeemable, evil men, so that the book was simply too much at the time. However, with Feebleminded, I don’t get the feeling that Harwicz is doing this for mere shocks or creating cardboard men for the reader to despise. This feels full-fledged and balanced – if balanced is a word you can use to describe a story so dizzying and twisted.
One of the absolute strengths of the novel (as was of its precursor) is the format the story is presented in. It’s a joy for someone like me who’s always interested in the different ways that form can serve substance, and Harwicz’s style of writing in short chapters without any paragraph breaks or inverted commas that would indicate dialogue – ultimately resulting in a vertiginous feeling when you’re not sure anymore which character is talking – fits and intensifies the story just the right way. Each short chapter is a long cacophonous scream, maintaining its power due to its brevity. One could argue that the fervor is also the novel’s weakness, and I’m not even sure I will remember the plot for very long. But whether it matters that you remember the plot of a book or don’t is a question for another day. I’m fine with the feeling, the images, and the emotions this short little novel evoked in me.
December 14, 2021
I didn’t go back to verify this, but I’m sure this is the most disturbing book I’ve read this year (okay, maybe Tender Is the Flesh takes that prize). I was warned, but I shrugged it off.
Well…this book is a short one, but it took me 29 pages before I could get my bearings (in reality, I’m not sure I ever did). Harwicz throws you into this wildly disconcerting mother/daughter story without a life preserver and just stands there watching you flailing in the treacherous tide, probably with a smirk on her face and a cappuccino in her hand. That’s a metaphor to say that Harwicz’s writing style isn’t interested in spoon feeding you, fend for yourself, reader!! This book is begging to be reread because a) I’m not sure I know what the hell I read b) there’s sure to be fascinating stuff and foreshadowing to pick up on with a second look and c) I gotta chase the experience once again. This is a tale of obsession and perhaps insanity. There are moments where you’re uncertain if what you’re reading about is reality or in the main character’s head.
The ending is bonkers, adrenaline-inducing and such an in-your-face rush.
Well…this book is a short one, but it took me 29 pages before I could get my bearings (in reality, I’m not sure I ever did). Harwicz throws you into this wildly disconcerting mother/daughter story without a life preserver and just stands there watching you flailing in the treacherous tide, probably with a smirk on her face and a cappuccino in her hand. That’s a metaphor to say that Harwicz’s writing style isn’t interested in spoon feeding you, fend for yourself, reader!! This book is begging to be reread because a) I’m not sure I know what the hell I read b) there’s sure to be fascinating stuff and foreshadowing to pick up on with a second look and c) I gotta chase the experience once again. This is a tale of obsession and perhaps insanity. There are moments where you’re uncertain if what you’re reading about is reality or in the main character’s head.
The ending is bonkers, adrenaline-inducing and such an in-your-face rush.
September 24, 2022
⇝ 4.5 stars
May 8, 2022
Que curiosos son estos libros.
La Debil Mental nos cuenta la historia de una mujer y su madre, que tienen una relación, por describirla de alguna forma, un tanto enfermiza. Extremadamente dependiente la una de la otra y este libro explora las situaciones de... ¿moral cuestionable? que realizan ambas.
Gracias a Dios había leído el otro libro de la autora antes porque la narrativa y el estilo de escritura sigue siendo algo sumamente pesado de digerir en un inicio. No tiene lógica y, a mi parecer, una estructura muy establecida. Es algo dificl de agarrarle el hilo, y si soy honesto sigo sin saber si me gusta del todo, pero una vez adentrado a la historia las imágenes que te empieza a pintar la autora son oscuras, pero bellas.
Este, a diferencia de Mátate, Amor no me atrapó tanto. No se s debe a que, a mi parecer, este cayó víctima de su corta extensión o simplemente no me sentí tan atraído hacia los personajes. En el otro libro había una protagonista enigmante, compleja y aterradora. En este se sintió un poco más plano.
Ariana Harwicz es una voz única en la literatura. Los dos libros que he leído de ella son un testamento de las cosas maravillosas lo que puede lograr con las palabras. Son historias cortas pero impactantes. Me quedo mil veces con Mátate, Amor, pero La Debil Mental fue una lectura que disfruté.
La Debil Mental nos cuenta la historia de una mujer y su madre, que tienen una relación, por describirla de alguna forma, un tanto enfermiza. Extremadamente dependiente la una de la otra y este libro explora las situaciones de... ¿moral cuestionable? que realizan ambas.
Gracias a Dios había leído el otro libro de la autora antes porque la narrativa y el estilo de escritura sigue siendo algo sumamente pesado de digerir en un inicio. No tiene lógica y, a mi parecer, una estructura muy establecida. Es algo dificl de agarrarle el hilo, y si soy honesto sigo sin saber si me gusta del todo, pero una vez adentrado a la historia las imágenes que te empieza a pintar la autora son oscuras, pero bellas.
Este, a diferencia de Mátate, Amor no me atrapó tanto. No se s debe a que, a mi parecer, este cayó víctima de su corta extensión o simplemente no me sentí tan atraído hacia los personajes. En el otro libro había una protagonista enigmante, compleja y aterradora. En este se sintió un poco más plano.
Ariana Harwicz es una voz única en la literatura. Los dos libros que he leído de ella son un testamento de las cosas maravillosas lo que puede lograr con las palabras. Son historias cortas pero impactantes. Me quedo mil veces con Mátate, Amor, pero La Debil Mental fue una lectura que disfruté.
April 12, 2019
By the end everything was vague, inexact, blurred.
That might sound like a negative start to a review, but you have to understand my preference for books with atmosphere rather than plot, books which work by impression rather than by detail. I’m a photographer and some people reading this will have seen some of my recent photographs and will understand: I am working hard to remove detail and create photographs that work by impression where everything is vague, inexact, blurred. I do like a book that takes the same approach.
There is enough detail in Feebleminded to ensure that the reader can follow the basic plot. We read about a mother/daughter relationship (both adults) where the daughter is involved in an affair with a married man. There is a lot of alcohol involved and things gradually deteriorate as the daughter loses first her job and then the man. Then the book builds to a dramatic conclusion.
As we read, there are repeated hints of mental problems of some kind for the daughter:
I’ve never - I realise as I read the sign - never been to this city or any other, except for visits to the doctor, consultations, electroshocks.
And repeated hints of how the mother’s involvement in her daughter’s life has not always (if ever?) been a positive thing:
I raised you so badly. I lowered you, more like.
The stream-of-consciousness narrative takes us inside the mind of the daughter. Conversations are reported as single paragraphs with no indication when one person stops speaking and another starts. Startling images appear in the text, sometimes seeming like non-sequiturs but always adding to the atmosphere and overall impression created by the book.
And I think that is what makes this book work. Don’t read it looking for details and logic. Read it as a whole and let the images, the ideas, the emotions wash over you until you get to the end and can sit back and reflect.
I have read Die, My Love by the same author (as both Paul and Gumble’s Yard here have pointed out, we were all part of the Republic of Consciousness judging panel that shortlisted that book last year) and I know that Harwicz has referred to that and this as the first two parts of an “involuntary trilogy” (the third part has not yet been translated into English, but I hope to read it as soon as it is). Both books have a similar approach, although this one felt to me like it takes it to a different level. This will not be to everyone’s taste, I’m sure, but it was to mine. It’s uncomfortable to read at times with the sexual references and the self-destructive tendencies of both mother and daughter, but I found it powerful and engaging.
Finally, because I know you are desperate to see one, here is an example of my photography:
That might sound like a negative start to a review, but you have to understand my preference for books with atmosphere rather than plot, books which work by impression rather than by detail. I’m a photographer and some people reading this will have seen some of my recent photographs and will understand: I am working hard to remove detail and create photographs that work by impression where everything is vague, inexact, blurred. I do like a book that takes the same approach.
There is enough detail in Feebleminded to ensure that the reader can follow the basic plot. We read about a mother/daughter relationship (both adults) where the daughter is involved in an affair with a married man. There is a lot of alcohol involved and things gradually deteriorate as the daughter loses first her job and then the man. Then the book builds to a dramatic conclusion.
As we read, there are repeated hints of mental problems of some kind for the daughter:
I’ve never - I realise as I read the sign - never been to this city or any other, except for visits to the doctor, consultations, electroshocks.
And repeated hints of how the mother’s involvement in her daughter’s life has not always (if ever?) been a positive thing:
I raised you so badly. I lowered you, more like.
The stream-of-consciousness narrative takes us inside the mind of the daughter. Conversations are reported as single paragraphs with no indication when one person stops speaking and another starts. Startling images appear in the text, sometimes seeming like non-sequiturs but always adding to the atmosphere and overall impression created by the book.
And I think that is what makes this book work. Don’t read it looking for details and logic. Read it as a whole and let the images, the ideas, the emotions wash over you until you get to the end and can sit back and reflect.
I have read Die, My Love by the same author (as both Paul and Gumble’s Yard here have pointed out, we were all part of the Republic of Consciousness judging panel that shortlisted that book last year) and I know that Harwicz has referred to that and this as the first two parts of an “involuntary trilogy” (the third part has not yet been translated into English, but I hope to read it as soon as it is). Both books have a similar approach, although this one felt to me like it takes it to a different level. This will not be to everyone’s taste, I’m sure, but it was to mine. It’s uncomfortable to read at times with the sexual references and the self-destructive tendencies of both mother and daughter, but I found it powerful and engaging.
Finally, because I know you are desperate to see one, here is an example of my photography:
September 22, 2017
Me parece que es una historia dividida en dos partes: empieza de una manera muy desagradable y oscura para luego mejorar ligeramente, aunque sin llegar a nada concreto. El estilo narrativo de Harwicz se me ha hecho algo dificultoso de leer al principio, más tarde te acostumbras a ese enjambre de oraciones casi líricas sin conexión aparente y llegas a dilucidar las imágenes el fondo, los personajes y la trama. Sin embargo, mi sensación final no es buena. Justo cuando la historia se vuelve más clara e interesante finaliza de golpe.
April 27, 2020
What a wild, wonderful ride!
While I enjoyed Harwicz' earlier novel, Die, My Love, this seems to me a full step above. Pacing, language, imagery, ferocity, sheer brutal brilliance-this book eclipses the previous one. It is stunning and probably the best book I've read so far this year.
While I enjoyed Harwicz' earlier novel, Die, My Love, this seems to me a full step above. Pacing, language, imagery, ferocity, sheer brutal brilliance-this book eclipses the previous one. It is stunning and probably the best book I've read so far this year.
August 10, 2019
Well, this was possibly the most disturbing depiction of a mother-daughter relationship I have ever come across! The writing is feverish and disorientating with an undercurrent of violence, but also poetic and rhythmic. Not for the fainthearted but a very compulsive read nevertheless.
June 26, 2020
No puedo con la prosa de Ariana Harwicz de lo increíble que es. Es una capa absoluta para construir imágenes a través del lenguaje. Le pongo 4 estrellas porque al final decayó un poco, pero en general me gustó un montón el libro.
December 26, 2025
El deseo es una tradición y la enajenación una herencia.
O dicho de otra forma: cómo me gustan las novelas sobre loquitas.
O dicho de otra forma: cómo me gustan las novelas sobre loquitas.
March 9, 2025
This is the second novel in what the author calls an "involuntary" trilogy. It's the story of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.
Mum delighted when my back's finally strapped by my very first bra and already I'm talking dirty. Mum beaming the day a man followed me through the woods saying, don't be afraid. The day a man followed me up the spiral staircase promising a photo of her as a baby. Mum gloating when I started drawing erect penises on the desks at school.
Not quite Joy Williams, but you get the idea.
Mum and daughter got it honestly, as is said:
You think she's one of those lesbians, asked grandma with downturned mouth when at fifteen there still wasn't a boyfriend or a suitor in sight. And mum shot me a look that said you'd better fucking not be.
The narrating daughter does find a boyfriend, but he is predictably married, with predictable challenges.
It's a very quick read.
Mum delighted when my back's finally strapped by my very first bra and already I'm talking dirty. Mum beaming the day a man followed me through the woods saying, don't be afraid. The day a man followed me up the spiral staircase promising a photo of her as a baby. Mum gloating when I started drawing erect penises on the desks at school.
Not quite Joy Williams, but you get the idea.
Mum and daughter got it honestly, as is said:
You think she's one of those lesbians, asked grandma with downturned mouth when at fifteen there still wasn't a boyfriend or a suitor in sight. And mum shot me a look that said you'd better fucking not be.
The narrating daughter does find a boyfriend, but he is predictably married, with predictable challenges.
It's a very quick read.
December 27, 2020
I experienced a similar response to this as I did to Harwicz's first novel Die, My Love. I loved a lot of the language, but my interest in the story kind of ebbed and flowed. Though the style is similar to that earlier book, the pacing here felt more even, and there is more of an obvious narrative arc, with a clear denouement. Not that those qualities are ever necessary to my reading enjoyment; just noting the technical elements I felt set apart the two books. And actually they didn't have much of an effect on my feelings toward the book. To be clear, as well, despite these differences this book is still nearly as disorienting at times as the other one—there is plenty of mud between the planks of the story. At a basic level I guess I just didn't find enough to hold onto here, which is to say that my reasons for only 'just liking' the book are entirely subjective and personal. Setting those reasons aside, I find Harwicz's approach to writing fiction to be thought-provoking and her use of language (through the lens of translation, at least) to be invigorating. It's pretty likely that I'll read the final work of the 'involuntary trilogy' when it is inevitably published in English translation. (Interesting that Harwicz is also a screenwriter and that Die, My Love is being adapted for the theatre—I can imagine enjoying both of these even more as either films or plays.)
November 23, 2025
"We cook pasta with walnut oil and eat dinner covered in mosquito repellent. Mum smokes as she digests the spaghetti, holding an uneaten piece of bread in her hand the way old people do. We’re born to chew on resentment, at times like this I want to see the world end, she sighs, and maybe that’s the key, let the world end and everything will begin again. And why would everything begin again? And why not? No, the question is why would it. The question is why the fuck would everything begin again?"
---
"Falling in love is confronting the six-foot cobra. I couldn’t teach you in time. I’m so sorry. You did teach me, mum. I failed at everything, I started your childhood back to front. I should have given you a proper education, stopped you from sticking your fingers into your shell and pulling out the slug. No, mum, you’re wrong, seeing you was enough. I hear her voice as I lie on the moss, a thin green layer covering me like fine sand. I’m lying down like a mammal, woolly ears over my eyes. I’m upholstered, lined, and between my mother and me runs a cliff edge, the water rising and rising."
---
"Falling in love is confronting the six-foot cobra. I couldn’t teach you in time. I’m so sorry. You did teach me, mum. I failed at everything, I started your childhood back to front. I should have given you a proper education, stopped you from sticking your fingers into your shell and pulling out the slug. No, mum, you’re wrong, seeing you was enough. I hear her voice as I lie on the moss, a thin green layer covering me like fine sand. I’m lying down like a mammal, woolly ears over my eyes. I’m upholstered, lined, and between my mother and me runs a cliff edge, the water rising and rising."
June 16, 2019
Yes, she takes the reader into the darkest recesses of the imagination, confronts taboos around female desire, filial loyalty, a lack of maternal instinct, but I struggle to appreciate whatever it is that this descent laid out so viscerally is trying to achieve.
It's a stream of conscious narrative, full of disturbing images, supposed to confront the cliché of conventional family life, which I read as part of the year of reading Latin American contemporary fiction, but this was just too far out of the comfort zone for this reader.
Should come with a warning.
It's a stream of conscious narrative, full of disturbing images, supposed to confront the cliché of conventional family life, which I read as part of the year of reading Latin American contemporary fiction, but this was just too far out of the comfort zone for this reader.
Should come with a warning.
June 7, 2024
Espeluznante novela con la ambigüedad tal del adjetivo, por un lado lo bien escrita que está y por otro los momentos realmente incómodos, donde el desafío por momentos deja de ser la comprensión del texto para ubicarse en cada voz narradora, para avanzar con dificultad los hechos narrados, que son bastante fuertes.
May 22, 2019
This is a searing portrait of a young woman's obsessive love affair with a married man and intense relationship with her mother. There are unannounced shifts in time and sometimes narrator that keep the reader on their toes, and theses shifts add to the off-kilter feeling of the text. The translation is a wonder.
June 15, 2025
It took me a while to get use to the stream of consciousness style in most fiction and it's no different here in Feebleminded, but once I did, it was one of the most enthralling read I had. It's a raw, unflinching and terrifying piece of transgressive fiction that is less about a linear plot and more about a deeply unsettling exploration of consciousness, desire, and the dysfunctional ties that bind a mother and daughter.
The central story of the novel revolved around a pair of an unnamed mother and her daughter and their lives within the chaotic, rural Argentinian household, the men that appeared throughout and the violence that proceeds. The story is told from the first person stream of consciousness style and it jumps around a lot but the relationship is the beating heart of the novel. While there's a loose progression of events, the narrative is not driven by a strong plot in the traditional sense.
Some writers wants to take a scalpel to their character's consciousness and just cut as deep as they can and lay all it out for a reader to see but Ariana Harwicz and co-translators, Carolina Orloff and Annie McDermott does not perform such surgery with a scalpel. Instead Harwicz used a blunt object to bust open and spilled the deep psyche of the daughter. The words rushed out, and so too were the imagery and emotions of the characters. The novel is saturated with raw, uninhibited desire and graphic depictions of sexuality. Masturbation is a prominent motif, described as a "totalitarian" act driven by "frenzy, boredom, and confinement." Harwicz explores desire in its most animalistic and unvarnished forms, pushing beyond conventional notions of "good taste" and exploring the "dark desires that drive her writing." The focus is on the psychological unraveling and the exploration of their desires and dependencies.
Once I got the hang out the stream of consciousness style, I find that the prose, short and jumbled thoughts elevated the daughter's mental instability. The sentences are often short, sharp, and declarative, creating this sense of boxing match to its rhythm that mimics the characters' agitated thoughts and actions. Punctuation is used to create tension and accelerate the pace, sometimes leading to run-on sentences that mimic a thought spiraling out of control.
I loved it and read it in only two sittings. Even in between my reads of this and even after finishing it, I kept think of this novel. It's one that provided a visceral experience and raw psychological bent over traditional narrative conventions.
The central story of the novel revolved around a pair of an unnamed mother and her daughter and their lives within the chaotic, rural Argentinian household, the men that appeared throughout and the violence that proceeds. The story is told from the first person stream of consciousness style and it jumps around a lot but the relationship is the beating heart of the novel. While there's a loose progression of events, the narrative is not driven by a strong plot in the traditional sense.
Some writers wants to take a scalpel to their character's consciousness and just cut as deep as they can and lay all it out for a reader to see but Ariana Harwicz and co-translators, Carolina Orloff and Annie McDermott does not perform such surgery with a scalpel. Instead Harwicz used a blunt object to bust open and spilled the deep psyche of the daughter. The words rushed out, and so too were the imagery and emotions of the characters. The novel is saturated with raw, uninhibited desire and graphic depictions of sexuality. Masturbation is a prominent motif, described as a "totalitarian" act driven by "frenzy, boredom, and confinement." Harwicz explores desire in its most animalistic and unvarnished forms, pushing beyond conventional notions of "good taste" and exploring the "dark desires that drive her writing." The focus is on the psychological unraveling and the exploration of their desires and dependencies.
Once I got the hang out the stream of consciousness style, I find that the prose, short and jumbled thoughts elevated the daughter's mental instability. The sentences are often short, sharp, and declarative, creating this sense of boxing match to its rhythm that mimics the characters' agitated thoughts and actions. Punctuation is used to create tension and accelerate the pace, sometimes leading to run-on sentences that mimic a thought spiraling out of control.
I loved it and read it in only two sittings. Even in between my reads of this and even after finishing it, I kept think of this novel. It's one that provided a visceral experience and raw psychological bent over traditional narrative conventions.
May 20, 2019
A wacky novella to immerse yourself in about a bat-shit crazy mother/daughter relationship. 125 pages that are easily read in one sitting.
October 7, 2020
Una novela distinta, con un lenguaje exquisito pero diferente. Una novela que no pasa desapercibida y traspasa nuestras mentes. No es de ágil lectura. Necesaria leerla.
February 4, 2020
"Tarde para haber vivido, temprano para eliminarse."
"Soy la idea de un amor de un hombre que vive con otra, que ama a otra, a cientos de kilómetros."
"Soy la idea de un amor de un hombre que vive con otra, que ama a otra, a cientos de kilómetros."
April 17, 2020
3.5 stars - review to come!
December 12, 2025
Die, My Love aka La Debil Mental by Ariana Harwicz – at least I think La Debil Mental is the original name of this book, adapted for the big screen - it is about the film version that I may have a few words to say, although what usually happens is I fix the target, but then go off into the woods, in some ways, just like the leader pf the (former) free world, the orange mobster who calls his ranting the weave – ergo, you could leave the page, before I invite you to visit my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... where you find more than six thousand notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists, plus reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other web pages – maybe you even have something to say
8 out of 10
Jennifer Lawrence https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is one of my favorite thespians, she already has already been nominated for four Oscar (and so many other trophies), and she has won the Academy Award, the first born in the 90s to win this, she may be the Meryl Streep of the future
On the other hand, I am reading Seinfeld, well, it is an audiobook and Jerry Seinfeld is ‘reading’ it, there are some passages from his life, and then a lot of the material we know from the admired comedy series, one of the passages refers to awards, which are given to actors, who have nothing in their heads, or words to that effect
‘they are told now say what we have told you, and that is it, then they dress, behave as if they are so important, and they get these prizes’, evidently, you have to read or listen to the book, because he is hilarious, and I did not render that here, he also has a point here, and in other places, marriages, relationships
The most popular course at Harvard is (or was) Positive Psychology, and professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... has included in his lectures fragments from the comedy series Seinfeld, and also bits from other shows, films, such as Pay It Forward
Now back to Die, My Love, the fragments I have seen on the screen, not the book – hence this is the second spoiler alert here, as if anybody takes the trouble to stay around…mind you, they should not, there are chefs d’oeuvre waiting to be read, so why waste time on this page – are not shattering, exhilarating
Jennifer Lawrence is resplendent – that may be part of the problem for this cinephile, there are sex scenes, the beautiful actress is naked, and I am afraid she is so alluring - well, I was going to put some more here, but it may be too much – that I could not follow the plot, seduced, hypnotized by her glorious appearance
Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... wrote ‘one of the troubles with Lolita is that, so far from being too pornographic, it is not pornographic enough’, here I could not say that we have the opposite issue, not by a long shot, but it troubled me
Speaking of which, Grace aka Jennifer Lawrence is ‘battling her demons’, early on, we have this scene that was funny and depressing: Grace has her baby with her in this shop, where a young assistant is talking to her, asking how old is the infant, then going ‘let me guess’, and addressing the child, being friendly
Except that for this customer, this is not acceptable: ‘why are you talking?’ she is asking the shop assistant, and the whole of her attitude is one of hostility, explained by her condition- my daughter, Hannah, had a friend – in fact, I think they still are- at the Lycée Francais, and I used to talk to the father, Eugen
He was -maybe still is – a nice man, when he took his medicine for schizophrenia, when he stopped, it all went off the tracks, he told me ‘Parking is always on the left in Germany’, then went on to say such scary things, I got worried, even went with his wife to some outfit, to try and help solve this situation, which could get dramatic
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
8 out of 10
Jennifer Lawrence https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is one of my favorite thespians, she already has already been nominated for four Oscar (and so many other trophies), and she has won the Academy Award, the first born in the 90s to win this, she may be the Meryl Streep of the future
On the other hand, I am reading Seinfeld, well, it is an audiobook and Jerry Seinfeld is ‘reading’ it, there are some passages from his life, and then a lot of the material we know from the admired comedy series, one of the passages refers to awards, which are given to actors, who have nothing in their heads, or words to that effect
‘they are told now say what we have told you, and that is it, then they dress, behave as if they are so important, and they get these prizes’, evidently, you have to read or listen to the book, because he is hilarious, and I did not render that here, he also has a point here, and in other places, marriages, relationships
The most popular course at Harvard is (or was) Positive Psychology, and professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... has included in his lectures fragments from the comedy series Seinfeld, and also bits from other shows, films, such as Pay It Forward
Now back to Die, My Love, the fragments I have seen on the screen, not the book – hence this is the second spoiler alert here, as if anybody takes the trouble to stay around…mind you, they should not, there are chefs d’oeuvre waiting to be read, so why waste time on this page – are not shattering, exhilarating
Jennifer Lawrence is resplendent – that may be part of the problem for this cinephile, there are sex scenes, the beautiful actress is naked, and I am afraid she is so alluring - well, I was going to put some more here, but it may be too much – that I could not follow the plot, seduced, hypnotized by her glorious appearance
Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... wrote ‘one of the troubles with Lolita is that, so far from being too pornographic, it is not pornographic enough’, here I could not say that we have the opposite issue, not by a long shot, but it troubled me
Speaking of which, Grace aka Jennifer Lawrence is ‘battling her demons’, early on, we have this scene that was funny and depressing: Grace has her baby with her in this shop, where a young assistant is talking to her, asking how old is the infant, then going ‘let me guess’, and addressing the child, being friendly
Except that for this customer, this is not acceptable: ‘why are you talking?’ she is asking the shop assistant, and the whole of her attitude is one of hostility, explained by her condition- my daughter, Hannah, had a friend – in fact, I think they still are- at the Lycée Francais, and I used to talk to the father, Eugen
He was -maybe still is – a nice man, when he took his medicine for schizophrenia, when he stopped, it all went off the tracks, he told me ‘Parking is always on the left in Germany’, then went on to say such scary things, I got worried, even went with his wife to some outfit, to try and help solve this situation, which could get dramatic
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
September 13, 2020
"Quiero arrojar mi infancia como esas pelotas que escupen las lechuzas con restos de dientes y de los cerebros que no pudieron deglutir."
"¿Te estás burlando? ¿Y qué quería ese hombre antiestético? Matarme, pero qué va a querer, ¿sos boluda? Pero por qué. Y qué importa por qué, matarme y punto o tiene que haber un porqué. O hay un porqué para violar en cuatro sobre una tabla, descuartizar, meter a la víctima en una bolsa de consorcio y tirarla a la vera del camino hasta que pase el camión de residuos, realmente te juro que no te entiendo, te crié muy ingenua yo. Te malcrié. Te anticrié."
De esas novelas que te dejan sin oxígeno, que no te sueltan hasta el final. Poética y violenta
"¿Te estás burlando? ¿Y qué quería ese hombre antiestético? Matarme, pero qué va a querer, ¿sos boluda? Pero por qué. Y qué importa por qué, matarme y punto o tiene que haber un porqué. O hay un porqué para violar en cuatro sobre una tabla, descuartizar, meter a la víctima en una bolsa de consorcio y tirarla a la vera del camino hasta que pase el camión de residuos, realmente te juro que no te entiendo, te crié muy ingenua yo. Te malcrié. Te anticrié."
De esas novelas que te dejan sin oxígeno, que no te sueltan hasta el final. Poética y violenta
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