tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58787598334714480782024-03-14T19:54:29.118+10:00Félix Calvino's FictionFélix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-77301103318739060212023-01-11T13:52:00.000+10:002023-01-11T13:52:13.867+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Cass Moriarty @cassmoriartyauthor <p> January 11, 2023</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwkklkT676M-8gTLE63B7N9rTeL8ou49rRK8o3bK0YOikSYzzSnXqmof6YAgTD2mTJEFrrn5qajRblhZ-p30WIooWwQOoWW3X7-sCAn2HKcVG0Xg1FfVINCX5t8cD5_ub9ZrW3fjIJtF3vC-bFDRg39Jr3f0HM2dx8iiwNIlPNwzXFwzr6tpNAowlJ/s900/Young%20Love%20%20best%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="556" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwkklkT676M-8gTLE63B7N9rTeL8ou49rRK8o3bK0YOikSYzzSnXqmof6YAgTD2mTJEFrrn5qajRblhZ-p30WIooWwQOoWW3X7-sCAn2HKcVG0Xg1FfVINCX5t8cD5_ub9ZrW3fjIJtF3vC-bFDRg39Jr3f0HM2dx8iiwNIlPNwzXFwzr6tpNAowlJ/s320/Young%20Love%20%20best%20cover.jpg" width="198" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xdj266r x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Young Love & Other Stories</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Reviewed</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">by Cass Moriarty</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">@cassmoriartyauthor </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">________________</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>Felix Calvino must surely be one of the most underrated short story writers in this country. Young Love and Other Stories (Arcadia 2021) is his fourth collection, and my favourite so far. Calvino was born in Galicia in Spain and his stories always feature a mix of contemporary or historical settings in Spain, or else are often about the migrant experience to Australia. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Young Love is a series of six interconnected stories where the protagonist of one becomes peripheral in another story, and a minor character barely mentioned in one story becomes the focus of another. In this collection, all of the stories are set in a remote village in the northwest coast of Spain and traverse several decades of individuals and families. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">My favourite story is the first – Sunday Lunch – which is set in later years when the village has gradually become depleted of its occupants; the old dying and the young leaving town for better opportunities. There are only three people left, all elderly, all old friends who have lived in the village their whole lives. They live with the ghosts of people past, those who have died, those who have sought new adventures or work, those who have married into another family in another village. The three characters and their lives are closely observed and beautifully described. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The second and subsequent stories move us back to a time when the village was thriving, populated by farmers and traders and shopkeepers, vibrant with families, alive with weekend dances for the young people and the endless potential for possibility. The stark difference between this time and this life and the endpoint that we (as readers) know must come (from the first story) is incredibly moving, tender and poignant. Everything is transient. Whole villages disappear. But nobody knows that at the time they are thriving. Nobody can predict the future. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Each story accesses a different space, a memory of the life and activity of that particular generation of villagers, with references to other characters who may be younger or older, depending on when that story is set. The result is a kaleidoscope of the microcosm of life interwoven. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The final story takes us back to the end, but with a surprising and hopeful twist that reminds us of the continual optimism of life, and the warmth and empathy of the human heart. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Calvino’s writing is spare and simple, with gratifying but not overdone description, and authentic dialogue. His writing takes you directly to the Spain of his youth and depicts scenes as if you are watching a movie. His characters often share the interiority of their thoughts but are never over-explained. There is always a mystery shadowing them, as if part of the tale has been held back. They share concerns, dreams, anxieties, ambitions, regrets and yearnings that will resonate with all readers.</div></div><p><br /></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-61624236506734435032023-01-11T09:31:00.001+10:002023-01-11T09:33:23.391+10:00Happy New Year 2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFuFrxOiXcX_JJSWy899z3DfCSuSabuODZ6aQBLWSlOvN91oqVYCThP-EZkk7mAYa_aROePs5Dyy55ALnAfqe4CobtBRJo8aqOB_ifCRD9xqQdra9NNtWObcbZw2i6x7uSmLnglIyd5Fyz6nvU8Vz322De5f5tKKr4lMJyaTDPhzQWqISowqQPPg0/s523/360_F_532400719_GG7YOrHwxxqI9XlU8dFgBtkts0JzEiAF.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="523" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFuFrxOiXcX_JJSWy899z3DfCSuSabuODZ6aQBLWSlOvN91oqVYCThP-EZkk7mAYa_aROePs5Dyy55ALnAfqe4CobtBRJo8aqOB_ifCRD9xqQdra9NNtWObcbZw2i6x7uSmLnglIyd5Fyz6nvU8Vz322De5f5tKKr4lMJyaTDPhzQWqISowqQPPg0/w320-h220/360_F_532400719_GG7YOrHwxxqI9XlU8dFgBtkts0JzEiAF.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-37062743191706101582022-12-03T11:19:00.005+10:002023-09-20T17:33:19.460+10:00So Much Smoke I Short Film I Elli Iliades<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">December 3, 2022</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdSHrynN7gQq0rK04IK3Mkw0-DD9Z8Fu5j-QMWgZtLkF_AXGfk5Eo3snlBI1XQckknaFFNQp7RF0ELzZnfMGejIfLyrghvv0MbZnYajQZ0yyb7UGhI7aC539KNxiDys2Cjhg7eoSoK0xOvq4L8B1N9Fi1PyGF1AdyCJDZt2w_WtZIqryrogZd5xOW/s2048/so%20much%20smoke%20-%20poster.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdSHrynN7gQq0rK04IK3Mkw0-DD9Z8Fu5j-QMWgZtLkF_AXGfk5Eo3snlBI1XQckknaFFNQp7RF0ELzZnfMGejIfLyrghvv0MbZnYajQZ0yyb7UGhI7aC539KNxiDys2Cjhg7eoSoK0xOvq4L8B1N9Fi1PyGF1AdyCJDZt2w_WtZIqryrogZd5xOW/s320/so%20much%20smoke%20-%20poster.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br /></div> <p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Coming in 2023</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">My story So Much Smoke has been adapted to a film written and directed by Elli Iliades.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-58961303603555954012022-09-02T14:10:00.002+10:002022-09-02T15:05:43.518+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I StylusLit I Alison Clifton<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">September 1, 2022</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUigc8Wfjus9a4kd6A5FkGoQ3avklf16wceVIvGiLYdTAsVukw9DQJbEY2-1DgcGKSw8VNEHmaghrQ1Tv5JCl7LZ-MRJmYcnPwu5OrgfJRrrAdSFowQayl3M6UN03-oi83D8SViAooUlF22TmGrvL1b0a1cDDGbj2EzFItUFBcWNwCuhe3u_VppCg/s500/StylustLit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="500" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUigc8Wfjus9a4kd6A5FkGoQ3avklf16wceVIvGiLYdTAsVukw9DQJbEY2-1DgcGKSw8VNEHmaghrQ1Tv5JCl7LZ-MRJmYcnPwu5OrgfJRrrAdSFowQayl3M6UN03-oi83D8SViAooUlF22TmGrvL1b0a1cDDGbj2EzFItUFBcWNwCuhe3u_VppCg/s320/StylustLit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Young Love and Other Stories<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; padding: 0cm;">By
Félix Calvino</span></i><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Arcadia,
2021 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Reviewed
by Alison Clifton, <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">StylusLit</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">
<hr align="center" size="1" width="100%" />
</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">In his
masterful new short fiction collection, <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Young Love and Other Stories</span></i>,
Félix Calvino explores the shadows, shades, and occasionally shady dealings of
the people who inhabit a village in the Carballo area of Galicia, Spain. The
interplay between light and shade, silhouettes, shadows, and mirrors, is
central to this collection. These stories of village life are set in a liminal
time: post-war but pre-electricity. At the one-room school, the lone teacher
makes annual promises that the shrinking village will be connected to the grid
the following year, while a dwindling group of ageing men gather after the
winter rains each spring to fix the unsealed roads.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">This may
seem like a simple existence. Yet the lives of shepherds, trout fishers,
cowherds, basket-weavers, carpenters, healers, and publicans are complex and
multifaceted. Though a character may glimpse the bucolic idyll, threats of
starvation, social exclusion, and damnation loom over the landscape, casting
shadows of potential ruin. To live in a village is to know everyone and be
known by everyone. To have one more cow than a neighbour is to rank above them
in the social order, but also to teeter precariously close to peril. Fields can
flood, livestock can sicken and die, crops can be ravaged by drought. To be
different is to be a pariah, suspect, scapegoat. Yet all is not as stifling as
it may seem. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Calvino
enters into a dialogue with the giants of European art – visual, sculptural,
poetic, prose, and dramatic – who juxtapose light and dark in an eternal,
futile battle. In the Christian universe, the Devil must remain subordinate to
the omnipotent God who created him. Good must ultimately triumph. Yet, this
dichotomy provides the tension in so much of European art and literature.
Italian artists like Caravaggio used <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">tenebrismo </span></i>in
their paintings. A harsh, dramatic light isolated and accentuated heroic
figures, throwing the spotlight on the struggle between good and evil, Heaven
and Hell, God and Satan. Calvino witnesses the implications and repercussions
of this simplified, fabricated cosmos of <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">chiaroscuro. </span></i>Yes,
God is Light, but so too was Lucifer the Angel of Light before his fall.
Calvino recognises this kinship and rejects reductive binary oppositions.
Instead, his characters inhabit a world of subtle shades and hues: the greys
brighten to white as often as they darken to black.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Calvino’s
collection opens with “Sunday Lunch” (1-27): a meditative tale of loss and
death that introduces two protagonists who re-emerge in later stories the way
shoots sprout from the soil in spring. When the last female inhabitant of the
village, Avelina, dies, Amadeo and Manuel, the two surviving men, must bury her
in the proper manner. Things do not go as planned. The pair must make do and
mend as they have all their lives. Because it would take four men to shoulder a
casket, Amadeo and Manuel improvise. Thus, “the spectral silence of the
village” is disrupted by “the screeching of the rusty old wheelbarrow” that
will cart the body of their friend to her grave (25).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Meanwhile,
Mateo the dog watches on, a constant companion whose loyalty, dogged persistence,
and bathetic banality mirror the life of his owner, Manuel. Walking alone
through the ghost village at dusk, Manuel lowers his eyes, and the reader is
granted a glimpse into his thoughts: “This was the hour of neither day nor
night, when shadows, malformed, real, or imagined, appeared from nowhere,
silently. Shadows and ghosts were like twin brothers, he thought” (5). Manuel’s
matter-of-fact musings are presented without pomp or flourish. In this twilight
realm, almost anything is possible, and almost everything thought relegated to
the past is capable of re-emergence, regeneration, regrowth, reappearance…
perhaps even resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Calvino’s
deft touch with free indirect discourse is further evident in the delightful
“Young Love” (28-71). This story alternates between two focalisers – a youthful
Manuel and the love of his life, Amelia, who is lost to him under tragic
circumstances. The word “Carballo” not only refers to the region where the
village is located, but also the oak in the Galician language. Fittingly, one
of Manuel’s “favourite pastimes” is to lie on his back “under the enormous oak
trees” where he dreams of describing to his beloved Amelia the numinous
luminosity of “the sun’s rays filtered through the green leaves” (38). In such
moments, the young man, both tortured and thrilled by his nascent feelings for
his paramour, is dappled with light and shade under the protective, penumbral
oak tree. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Calvino’s
stories are punctuated with such quietly clever moments. His prose is as
unassuming and unhurried as the characters he depicts, yet also as deep,
generous, and abundant as the rivers and streams that flow through this rural
region of Spain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Again, at
key moments in this story, Calvino focuses his lens on a character’s thoughts
to evocative effect. Manuel heads to a workshop where the young men and boys
gather to discuss the ever-mysterious matters of the flesh, the heart, and the
opposite sex. As he walks, he observes the time of day told through the waning
sunlight: “The afternoon shadows were lengthening, he noted. Shadows had always
intrigued him. They were part of his first recollections” (49). Light and
shadow are mutually dependent Calvino seems to suggest. We need both. We cannot
have one without the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Thus, in
“Abel’s Journey” (79-133), the reader learns that the protagonist is rapidly
going blind, his vision obscured by shadows. Abel keeps a gallery of mental
images to retain memories of places lost in the shadows of time. An orphan
passed from house to house, often treated less as servant than slave, Abel is a
figure of the shadows. The children at one house – no different in age to him
but accorded the status of family members rather than an inconvenient mouth to
feed – torment him before a flickering fire. They fill his shoes with “glowing
embers and ash” (85). Fire should provide light and warmth and the means to
cook nourishing food, but it is used to belittle the servant boy and destroy
his meagre possessions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">By
contrast, shadows provide comfort. There, Abel can rest in anonymity and be
certain of the passage of time: “he could always tell the hour by the shadows
shortening in the morning and lengthening in the afternoon on familiar trees or
a wall” (95). However, as Abel is uprooted so often, he is constantly displaced,
rendering everything unfamiliar once more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Finally,
Abel settles into a family that cares for him and treats him like a son. He has
found a potential wife, Pilar, whose father is dead and whose mother’s health
is failing, meaning that she offers a modest house and land for them to fix and
farm together. However, just as his future appears bright, Abel faces losing
his sight entirely. The doctor despairs. Christina, Abel’s fearful protector
and the matriarch of the household he serves, turns her gaze inwards. She is
torn between risking the wrath of God by taking her ward to a healer in a
nearby village – a woman denounced as Satanic by the Church – and the prospect
of having to support a blind man for the rest of his life. Her husband’s land
can barely sustain their family. She prays. She rues her misfortune. She
considers accepting her fate as ordained by God. Yet, a faint hope glimmers. It
is offered by the healer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">There are
signs that all will be well. The village of Pereiras, where the healer lives,
nestles between hillsides dotted with “ancient oak trees” (126). Again, the
oak, the mightiest of trees according to the medieval Christian concept of the
Great Chain of Being, towers over the protagonists of these pages. The oak was
here long before the roots of Christianity took hold, and a magical, mystical,
pagan presence haunts this region. A spirit of the land predates Christianity,
and Abel is attuned to it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">This
communion is conveyed through the revelation that Pilar loves the “quiet
stability” that Abel brings to her life and his suggestions for “the planting
of trees” on her family’s property (109). In this way, Abel is allied with the
strong, silent oaks that cast their shade over the village, hills, and
waterways of Carballo. He is also a man of the shadows, not bothered by the
villagers’ superstition that they are “the hiding place of ghosts” (132).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Here is
subtle complexity. While Abel finds it strange that “some people were afraid of
shadows,” he also recognises that “shadows had been a source of hope as well as
frustration” for him (132). Shadows are “handy to measure the height of the
church’s bell tower, or a tree,” and they were “inexplicable companions in his
childhood” (132): friendly, if unfathomable. However, Abel also realises of the
shadows that “for many years, he had believed they were hiding the face of his
mother” (132). Orphaned, abandoned, unclaimed by his unknown father and
unwanted by his unwed mother, Abel is a product of shady circumstances. So,
too, is Marcia: the healer who protects his remaining vision. She lives in the
shadows of oppression and persecution. It is unsurprising, then, that her face
becomes obscured by time once Abel’s future is secured: “All his efforts to
install Marcia’s image in his scene gallery had failed” (133).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">By contrast, Calvino’s collection is
a triumph. While Calvino eschews binary oppositions and superlatives in his
writing, his readers may find themselves resorting to almost hyperbolic
descriptions of his work. Calvino delivers a superb collection of fiction that
builds upon his earlier work even as it digs deeper into the past and roams
further from his adopted country of Australia. At once profound, comic, and
tragic, <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Young Love and Other Stories</span></i> is a
stunningly-rendered kaleidoscope of rare beauty. Not all is monochrome. Warm
and radiant with light. Dark as though diving deep into the hearts and minds of
the people of Carballo. Calvino’s work relies on contrast and contradiction.
That is its power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-91230565863626417292022-07-24T16:09:00.001+10:002022-07-24T16:17:31.232+10:00 Félix Calvino’s Fiction I Luke Stegemann @lukestegemann <p> <span style="font-family: georgia;">May 27, 2022</span><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-1dbjc4n r-1loqt21 r-1ny4l3l" href="https://twitter.com/lukestegemann" role="link" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; z-index: 0;"></a></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">These are a delight - four slim
volumes of gentle and austere fictions from Galician-Australian author Félix
Calvino. Wonderful evocations of post-war rural Galicia, and the difficult,
often strange, often comic migrant experience in Australia.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-PSwLd-nIFqGptBfq7q6xmHmLAwH3-zJpqToXYHvG50X4oHMNpFnF0USAxrviJYgDOv6HhlobuRc9K5CjL8n5lsEZHd0tpSxvmzCiMG_YI0UftA7Ge1o7lacwJZ7Omc7UqusfRBbRmrV_bgEnuGKT2gr8xMhVZ-8Du78bb4f3sOaufFu1-bHHLBfB" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-PSwLd-nIFqGptBfq7q6xmHmLAwH3-zJpqToXYHvG50X4oHMNpFnF0USAxrviJYgDOv6HhlobuRc9K5CjL8n5lsEZHd0tpSxvmzCiMG_YI0UftA7Ge1o7lacwJZ7Omc7UqusfRBbRmrV_bgEnuGKT2gr8xMhVZ-8Du78bb4f3sOaufFu1-bHHLBfB" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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padding: 0px; white-space: inherit;">Luke Stegemann</span></span></div></div></a></div><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 1; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-1dbjc4n r-1loqt21 r-1ny4l3l" href="https://twitter.com/lukestegemann" role="link" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; 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-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 1; font: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="-1"><div class="css-1dbjc4n" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="css-901oao css-bfa6kz r-14j79pv r-18u37iz r-37j5jr r-a023e6 r-16dba41 r-rjixqe r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #536471; display: inline; flex-direction: row; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" color="inherit" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: inherit;">@lukestegemann</span></div></div></a></div></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-87467022907827958332022-07-24T16:05:00.001+10:002022-07-24T16:07:09.886+10:00Benengeli 2022 I I Instituto Cervantes Sydney<p> </p><p>June 6, 2022</p><p><span face="Roboto, sans-serif" style="font-size: 21px;">Benengeli in the 5 continents. Realism: Javier Moreno, Andrew Pippos and Felix Calvino</span></p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img alt="Benengeli in the 5 continents. Realism: Javier Moreno, Andrew Pippos and Felix Calvino" height="114" id="ctrlFichaWebActividad_imgPortada" src="https://cultura.cervantes.es/SSAA/ImgSharepoint.ashx?UniqueId=f645c8f0-b6d1-4ede-858f-9e48c265cc94" style="border: 0px; height: 284.453px; margin: 0px; max-width: 500px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 500px;" width="200" /></span> <div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #232323; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></cite></div><div><div style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The gradual return to the face-to-face activity is one of the great news of this year 2022. In five of the Instituto Cervantes centers around the world, the reflections of Spanish-language authors will be heard and they will dialogue with writers from Australia, India, France , Senegal and the United States, about the main elements of fiction in the whole world. </div><div style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div><div style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thus, the authors <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Javier Moreno</b>, <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Andrew Pippos</b> and<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Félix Calviño </b>will be talking about Realism with the Hispanist <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Luke Stegemann</b>. </div><div style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "Open Sans", serif;" /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #202124;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://cultura.cervantes.es/sidney/en/benengeli-in-the-5-continents.-realism%3A-javier-moreno/152441</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #202124;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><u><br /></u></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br /></p></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-28998452027575702222022-06-06T13:33:00.008+10:002022-06-06T15:10:20.825+10:00Instituto Cervantes I Benengeli 2022 <p> May 25, 2022</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7w4Z5jusrnMwYGrvHjYbr6CmKoVlAZrFmMe4S3KOegOy4jjlhzzmvjZ94wmRdbWpKk3zBsLJz2uDe0YAxb5hNBELmJpj947MDewnbOoJFryq_YY_9tLLzyZ3cMrV5vbWkVU1vxW1AHC14BGXTRWK329r8Xk2u2a_tZbCA4128LQTcgOAPEqIGF_n/s400/Benengeli%202022.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7w4Z5jusrnMwYGrvHjYbr6CmKoVlAZrFmMe4S3KOegOy4jjlhzzmvjZ94wmRdbWpKk3zBsLJz2uDe0YAxb5hNBELmJpj947MDewnbOoJFryq_YY_9tLLzyZ3cMrV5vbWkVU1vxW1AHC14BGXTRWK329r8Xk2u2a_tZbCA4128LQTcgOAPEqIGF_n/s320/Benengeli%202022.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; letter-spacing: 0.06em;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">BENENGELI 2022 THE LARGEST
SPANISH-LANGUAGE LITERATURE FEST IN THE WORLD</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Fri Jun 10 2022 at 06:00
pm Instituto Cervantes, 31 W Ohio St, Chicago, IL 60654, EE. UU., Chicago,
United States<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">I<b>NSTITUTO CERVANTES CHICAGO
PRESENTS THE CLOSING ROUND TABLE OF THIS WORLDWIDE EVENT. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN
THE WRITERS MIGUEL GOMES AND FREDERICK DE ARMAS MODERATED BY ROCÍO FERREIRA</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Instituto Cervantes in Chicago
is proud to announce that it will be part of the worldwide literary festival
Benengeli 2022 which will take place from 6th to the 10th of June in the five
continents with more than 40 Spanish English and French writers offering their
reflections on the theme of realism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Instituto Cervantes in Spain
as part of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working on a worldwide
literary festival that promotes Spanish literature Benengeli 2022 the
International Week of Spanish Literature. Benengeli 2022 will be jointly hosted
at the centres of Instituto Cervantes in Chicago (North America) Toulouse
(Europe) Casablanca (Africa) New Delhi (Asia) and Sydney (Australia). The
central theme of Benengeli 2022 is realism.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Benengeli 2022 closing event
at the Instituto Cervantes in Chicago on June 10th at 6 pm with the Miguel
Gomes conversing with Frederick de Armas about narrative fictions in the 21st
century and the weight that realistic aesthetics. Rocío Ferreira will act as
moderator of this remarkable event.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Miguel Gomes is a storyteller
born in Caracas in 1964. He studied at the University of Coimbra in Portugal
and at the Central University of Venezuela. He later obtained a doctorate at
Stony Brook University in New York. Since 1989 he has lived in the United
States where he works as a graduate professor at the University of Connecticut.
Among his titles are the novels Llévame esta noche Retrato de un caballero and
Ante el jurado; books of short stories La cueva de Altamira Un fantasma
portugués and Julieta en su castillo; and volumes of criticism and essays El
pozo de las palabras Los géneros literarios en Hispanoamérica and La realidad y
el valor estético: configuraciones del poder en el ensayo hispanoamericano.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><a href="https://languages.uconn.edu/person/miguel-gomes" target="_blank">https://languages.uconn.edu/person/miguel-gomes</a>/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Frederick de Armas received
his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina. He has
published novels El abra de Yamurí and Sinfonía Salvaje as well as several
critical essays including “El retorno de Astrea: Astrología mito e imperio en
Calderón” “La astrología en el teatro clásico europeo” and “Cervantes'
Architectures: The Danger Outside.” He has served as president of the Cervantes
Society of America and the International Association Siglo de Oro (AISO). He
currently holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair at the University of Chicago.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><a href="https://rll.uchicago.edu/frederick-de-armas" target="_blank">https://rll.uchicago.edu/frederick-de-armas</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Rocío Ferreira<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><a href="https://las.depaul.edu/academics/modern-languages/faculty/spanish/Pages/rocio-ferreira.aspx" target="_blank">https://las.depaul.edu/academics/modern-languages/faculty/spanish/Pages/rocio-ferreira.aspx</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Rocío Ferreira is Associate
Professor of Latin American literature culture and cinema and Chair of the
Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She
earned a doctorate in Latin American literature and in Women’s Gender and
Sexualities Studies from the University of California Berkeley. She specializes
in nineteenth-century and contemporary literary and visual culture written by
women. Her areas of research are foundational narratives and journalism of the
19th century war literature (XIX-XXI) and contemporary issues related to the
configurations of memory in literature culture and cinema. She has participated
in numerous international congresses has published critical articles in
specialized books and scholarly journals and critical editions in addition to
her monograph De las Veladas literarias a la Cocina ecléctica: mujeres cultura
y nación en el Perú decimonónico. She is currently writing a new book on women
writing on the Peruvian internal armed conflict entitled Las mujeres disparan:
Imágenes y poéticas de la violencia política (1980-2000) en la cultura
literaria y visual peruana contemporánea.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Voices of great aesthetic
power such as those of Piedad Bonnet (Colombia) Katya Adaui (Peru) Magela
Baudoin (Bolivia) Carlos Cortés Zúñiga (Costa Rica); Selva Almada (Argentina)
Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (Venezuela) Evelio Rosero (Colombia) Fernanda Trías
(Uruguay) Vicente Luis Mora (Spain) Mayra Santos Febres (Puerto Rico) Carlos
Franz (Chile) Ronaldo Menéndez (Cuba) Pedro Crenes (Panama) Antonio José Ponte
(Cuba) Santiago Gil (Spain) and Jacinta Escudos (El Salvador) will present the
elements that constitute the axis of their work and the relationship of love
distance or rejection that each one of them experiences in front of the
realistic discourse that seems to define a good part of the universal narrative
of this moment of the 21st century.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Outstanding narrators such as
Valeria Correa Fiz (Argentina) David Toscana (Mexico) and Spaniards Juana
Salabert Daniel Gascón Bárbara Mingo Costales and José Ovejero will talk about
their most recent books; titles that constitute a living landscape on the
fictional recreation that marks current times.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Impossible to forget the
presence of the Lima writer Fernando Iwasaki who will offer small spoken
portraits on the play with reality that authors belonging to various traditions
and territories and who have adopted or maintained Spanish as their artistic
language make. We will thus get to know the work of Siu Kam Wen Fabio Morabito
Ioana Gruia Kalman Barsy and Mónika Zgustova.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">As the dialogue between diverse literary
traditions is one of the main attempts of Benengeli 2022 the activities will
also include the presence of writers such as Lydie Salvayre (France); Ken Bugul
(Senegal) Andrew Pippos (Australia) Félix Calviño (Spain/Australia) and Geetanjali
Shree (India).<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Benengeli 2022 an initiative
of the Cervantes Institute whose curator is writer Nicolas Melini has the
support of institutions and cultural entities from Buenos Aires Lima La Paz
Bogota Caracas San Jose de Costa Rica San Juan de Puerto Rico Panama City Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria Santa Cruz de La Palma Seville and Madrid.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">Between June 6 and 10 in
addition to the on-site activities in each of the five cities of Benengeli 2022
the virtual programming of this festival will be available through the
Instituto Cervantes in in Sydney New Delhi Toulouse Dakar and Chicago You Tube
channels the Podcast channel of the Cervantes Institute and through the
following link: <a href="https://cvc.cervantes.es/benengeli22" target="_blank">https://cvc.cervantes.es/benengeli22</a>/. As mentioned at the
beginning of this information the content will be available not only in Spanish
but also in dubbed or subtitled versions in English. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">https://www.eventbrite.com/e/benengeli-2022-the-largest-spanish-language-literature-fest-in-the-world-tickets-348204558207?aff=ebdssbdestsearch</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; letter-spacing: 0.06em;"> </span></p><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h1 class="px3 mb1 h3 mt3" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.06em; line-height: 2rem; margin: 1.5rem 0px 0.5rem; padding: 0px 1.5rem;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></p><br /></h1></header>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-74019365094915715002022-05-31T10:35:00.000+10:002022-05-31T10:35:18.209+10:00Instituto Cervantes I Benengeli 2022 I elDiario.es/<p> <span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">May 25, 2022</span></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEpqeIMY9lciiMWQi-CcQOTj3wkr8LJgNWLAG5nqyGuB9UzFMvRVp7naa1rn0hMvvSb4pUa4087c5yVO84Lug9JnIt2o4Sq_EzBq9HgAxkqtVKZqzyInbWpvde_i0fTShQ4roQlzDqnnXSZ_UXf8Ax3OH_d1Ruu-6oV9iretsrMcQpJN4F8vc2GHgL/s2000/Benengeli%202022%20-%20elDiario.es.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1492" data-original-width="2000" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEpqeIMY9lciiMWQi-CcQOTj3wkr8LJgNWLAG5nqyGuB9UzFMvRVp7naa1rn0hMvvSb4pUa4087c5yVO84Lug9JnIt2o4Sq_EzBq9HgAxkqtVKZqzyInbWpvde_i0fTShQ4roQlzDqnnXSZ_UXf8Ax3OH_d1Ruu-6oV9iretsrMcQpJN4F8vc2GHgL/s320/Benengeli%202022%20-%20elDiario.es.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><b>Benengeli 2022, la Semana
Internacional de la Literatura en Español del Instituto Cervantes, recorrerá
este año todo el planeta y tendrá lugar en las sedes del Instituto Cervantes en
Sídney, Nueva Delhi, Toulouse, Dakar y Chicago.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Con el «realismo» como tema básico,
el nicaragüense Sergio Ramírez, el peruano<b> </b>Alfredo Bryce Echenique,
Eduardo Halfon de Guatemala, Luisa Valenzuela de Argentina<b>, </b>el
venezolano<b> </b>miguel gomes<b> </b>y los españoles Rosa Montero,
Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Soledad Puértolas, José Manuel Fajardo, Marta Barrio
y Javier Moreno intervendrán en los distintos apartados de esta semana, que
también incluye encuentros con narradores de Australia, India, Francia, Senegal
y EE.UU. Estados Unidos<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Mesas redondas presenciales,
entrevistas, micropresentaciones en video, diálogos radiales son los formatos
que componen este evento, que traerá al mundo una destacada y variada selección
de la mejor literatura en nuestro idioma.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Voces de gran poder estético como
las de Piedad Bonnet (Colombia), Katya Adaui (Perú), Magela Baudoin (Bolivia),
Carlos Cortés Zúñiga<b> </b>(Costa Rica); Selva Almada (Argentina),
Rodrigo Blanco Calderón<b> </b>(Venezuela), Evelio Rosero (Colombia),
Fernanda Trias<b> </b>(Uruguay), Vicente Luis Mora (España), Mayra Santos
Febres (Puerto Rico), Carlos Franz<b> </b>(Chile), Ronaldo Menéndez<b> </b>(Cuba),
Pedro Crenes (Panamá),<b> </b>Antonio José Ponte (Cuba), Santiago Gil
(España) y Jacinta Escudos (El Salvador) expondrán los elementos que forman el
eje de su obra y la relación de amor, distancia o rechazo que cada uno de ellos
crea frente a los más discurso realista, que parece definir gran parte de la
narrativa universal de este momento del siglo XXI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">También disertantes destacados
como Valeria Correa Fiz (Argentina), David Toscana (México) y los españoles
Juana Salabert, Daniel Gascón, Bárbara Mingo Costales y José Ovejero hablarán
sobre sus últimos libros; Títulos que acaban de aparecer en las librerías en
nuestro idioma<b>, </b>y que configuran un paisaje vivo sobre la
recreación ficcional que marca el tiempo actual.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Inolvidable es la presencia del
escritor limeño Fernando Iwasaki, quien ofrecerá pequeños retratos hablados
sobre el juego con la realidad, realizados por autores pertenecientes a
diferentes tradiciones y territorios, que han adoptado o mantenido el español
como lenguaje artístico. Así conocemos las obras de Siu Kam Wen, Fabio
Morabito, Ioana Gruia, Kalman Barsy y Mónika Zgustova.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><b><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Como el diálogo entre diferentes tradiciones literarias es uno de los
principales intentos de Benengeli 2022, las actividades también serán
impulsadas por escritores como Lydie Salvayre (Francia); Geetanjali Shree
(India); Ken Bugul (Senegal), Frederick de Armas (Estados Unidos), Andrew Pippos (Australia) y Félix Calviño
(España/Australia).<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Benengeli 2022, una iniciativa del
Instituto Cervantes, cuyo curador es el escritor palmesano Nicolás Melini,
cuenta en esta ocasión con el apoyo de instituciones y organismos culturales de
Buenos Aires, Lima, La Paz, Bogotá, Caracas, San José de Costa Rica , San Juan
Puerto Rico, Ciudad de Panamá, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria, Sevilla y Madrid.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Entre ellos podemos señalar a la
Universidad de Loyola; la Real Academia de la Lengua; Asale (España); el
Instituto Caro y Cuervo (Colombia); Radio Deseo (Bolivia), Radio Universidad
(Costa Rica), Unión Radio (Venezuela), Radio Universidad (Puerto Rico), KW
Continente (Panamá), Revista Libros y Letras (Colombia); RNE en Madrid y
Canarias (España) y Cadena Ser en Canarias (España).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Entre el 6 y el 10 de junio se
podrá acceder a la programación virtual de Benengeli 2022 a través de los
canales de YouTube del Cervantes de Sydney, Nueva Delhi, Toulouse, Dakar y
Chicago y el canal de podcast del Instituto Cervantes; Contenido que se puede
disfrutar no solo en español sino también en versiones dobladas o subtituladas
en inglés y francés.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES-TRAD"> </span>https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/lapalmaahora/cultura/nicolas-melini-comisario-benengeli-2022-encuentro-internacional-letras-espanol-instituto-cervantes_1_9024741.html</p></div></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-80358662952429697142022-05-27T08:41:00.001+10:002022-05-27T09:08:31.459+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Anne Di Lauro<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p> <b>May 27, 2022</b></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">In Félix Calvino’s Young
Love we meet Manuel as an old man, and then have the pleasure of recognising
him again in the story that follows, as a boy in love. In other stories we meet
other young people, each with their poignant love story to tell. We are
transported to another time and place, to a Galician village, perhaps about 50
years ago. We accompany the characters in their daily tasks and routines and
dance with them at weddings and festivals. The sense of place is vividly
conveyed. We are there in the school room, in the family kitchen, at gatherings
where the young learn about life and love from village hearsay, while trying to
understand their dawning feelings of love. The stories are wrapped in a
poignant sense of potential tragedy that is never spelled out: an atmosphere
that is a hallmark of all of Félix Calvino’s stories. This, as well as the
simplicity and quiet wit with which the stories are told, makes his writing
stand out as unusual and refreshing.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Anne Di Lauro</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-20730442313466432472022-05-21T08:13:00.002+10:002022-05-21T08:21:51.005+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Janice Jones<p> May 21, 2022</p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: middle;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/janice.jones.733450?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDo0ODg2MTc0MTE0ODQyNzQ0XzM3NjI1NjYzNDQ2Mjg5Nw%3D%3D&__cft__%5b0%5d=AZXrN2r7GgTUxZGny4K04Y1hxz04Cv3EOer2sXENRik4tN5OL97ZRDPlr8M-IkN9TF4bzZ9zqCLxLWY1s1FWI-kbrzTXkgVXjaqzMqyNAZrHUdbsatkGtPKeP5twKCul9WY&__tn__=R%5d-R"><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; padding: 0cm; text-decoration-line: none;">Janice Jones</span></b></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: middle;"><span color="windowtext" lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Felix’s writing is dreamy, sensuous and evocative
of love on an intimate scale, and slower time. I have loved reading A Hatful of
Cherries, and Young Love…both tender and evocative collections of human stories
unwinding in slow time. Gorgeous. Just what I needed to remind me of real love.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: middle;"><span color="windowtext" lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">https://www.facebook.com/felix.calvino.1/</span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES-TRAD"> </span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES-TRAD"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="bvz0fpym c1et5uql q9uorilb sf5mxxl7" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; max-width: calc(100% - 26px); overflow-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="k4urcfbm sf5mxxl7 l9j0dhe7 pq6dq46d" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 404.028px;"><div class="k4urcfbm hpfvmrgz g5gj957u buofh1pr mg4g778l" style="flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: inherit; min-width: 0px; width: 404.028px;"><div class="b3i9ofy5 e72ty7fz qlfml3jp inkptoze qmr60zad rq0escxv oo9gr5id q9uorilb kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x d2edcug0 jm1wdb64 l9j0dhe7 l3itjdph qv66sw1b" style="border-radius: 18px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--primary-text); display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; overflow-wrap: break-word; position: relative; word-break: break-word;"><div class="tw6a2znq sj5x9vvc d1544ag0 cxgpxx05" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 8px 12px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-12543177572234421112022-05-03T19:59:00.001+10:002022-05-03T20:03:50.369+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I goodreadingmagazine.com.au I Jill Lindquist<p> May 3, 2022</p><div class="separator" dir="rtl" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxV0cb6H5DjTvVWszeawgrBo5fCmhsyNdt5XzLy1AOm0aOIyizn4FJiNvPkmg4WdEWtG-54GKjV0K3BwKOgK3TT8WWrx7jJQvnKLFomeC_cEbAkuzxKr0j-6pp6Ox9imNLvMIrXXL6rmTD3cA-iTX_YWS1mlUJEi19B5Q0ecCWCEmNMgCGilE2WU9/s3904/Goodreading%20Review%20-%20Y%20L%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2872" data-original-width="3904" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxV0cb6H5DjTvVWszeawgrBo5fCmhsyNdt5XzLy1AOm0aOIyizn4FJiNvPkmg4WdEWtG-54GKjV0K3BwKOgK3TT8WWrx7jJQvnKLFomeC_cEbAkuzxKr0j-6pp6Ox9imNLvMIrXXL6rmTD3cA-iTX_YWS1mlUJEi19B5Q0ecCWCEmNMgCGilE2WU9/s320/Goodreading%20Review%20-%20Y%20L%20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-29228025924064111162022-04-18T11:48:00.008+10:002022-04-18T18:51:32.947+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I The Fountain<p> <span style="font-family: georgia;">April 18, 2022</span></p><p><b style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Review of Young Love, Felix Calvino's new offering.</span></b></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Open any volume of Tang dynasty poets and you will often find their inner spirits and those of mountains and rivers illumining one another. Li Bai, for instance, lived for a while as a hermit lost among craggy peaks. Across hollow gorges, tones from his flute echoed. Deer flocked to him, licking pine nuts from the palms of his hands and rubbing their necks against the trunks of fragrant pines. The intimate relationship between the landscape and Bai's creativity is captured in his life’s most enduring image: of himself, one evening, attempting to embrace the full moon’s reflection in a lake.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even in lonely rooms, lost within the din of busy cities, William Wordsworth would reminisce on the beauteous forms of the English countryside, of the whispers of springs flowing among steep and lofty cliffs, of orchards of pastoral farms green to their very doors. These images opened a door within the poet wherein, with his blood and very breath stilled, he became a living soul. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For Bi and Wordsworth, the inner luminosity of the landscape provides a spiritual commons, a source of creativity any artist can reflect to nurture inspiration. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For the past several thousand years, vast swaths of the Iberian Peninsula have served as commons. </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Within</span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> the forested folds of a Galician village, some of the characters in Felix Calvino's latest volume, Young Love, often alone, and often at night, discover within the hinterlands of their hearts, a secret, living fountain of creativity. The only authority needed to put this bounty to use is to do so. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As usual, Felix does so masterfully.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="a-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: normal; width: 1120px;"><a class="a-link-normal" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IQA2EWCQRL08/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; text-decoration-line: none;" title="5.0 out of 5 stars"><i class="a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating" data-hook="review-star-rating" style="background-image: url("https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/sash/3-fm1Jbg4IHlyhq.png"); background-position: -166px -36px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 512px 256px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 18px; position: relative; vertical-align: text-top; width: 80px;"><span class="a-icon-alt" style="box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: circle(0px at 50% 50%); display: block; font-size: inherit; height: 18px; left: auto; line-height: normal; opacity: 0; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: auto; width: 80px;">5.0 out of 5 stars</span></i></a><span class="a-letter-space" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; width: 0.385em;"></span><a class="a-size-base a-link-normal review-title a-color-base review-title-content a-text-bold" data-hook="review-title" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IQA2EWCQRL08/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-weight: 700; line-height: 20px; text-decoration-line: none;"> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Fountain</span></a></div><span class="a-size-base a-color-secondary review-date" color="rgb(86, 89, 89) !important" data-hook="review-date" face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; white-space: normal;">Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2022</span></span></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-52705557189543077882022-03-26T14:33:00.064+10:002022-04-11T15:34:50.939+10:00So Much Smoke I Short Film I Elli Iliades<p><span style="font-size: medium;">March 26, 2022</span></p><p><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI Historic";"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI Historic";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Day 1 of filming So Much Smoke.</span></span></b></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI Historic";">This film wouldn’t be
possible without the beautiful short story by Felix Calvino</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI Historic";"> and our incredible cast and crew.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: blue;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/elli.iliades/posts/10158732940351220">Day 1 of filming 'So Much Smoke'</a></span></span></p><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-4700548116246235522022-02-28T15:17:00.004+10:002022-02-28T16:20:35.536+10:00Goodreads Giveaway I Young Love & Other Stories<p>January 31, 2022</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #555555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px !important; padding: 0px !important; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_new">Goodreads</a> Book Giveaway</h2></div></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #555555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><div style="float: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59855935?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="color: #00635d; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="Young Love & Other Stories by Felix Calvino" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639970072l/59855935._SY475_.jpg" style="border: 0px;" title="Young Love & Other Stories by Felix Calvino" width="100" /></a></div></h2><h3 style="color: #382110; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59855935?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="color: #00635d; text-decoration-line: none;">Young Love & Other Stories</a></h3><h4 style="color: #382110; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1242207.Felix_Calvino?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="color: #00635d; text-decoration-line: none;">Felix Calvino</a></h4><h2 style="color: #555555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><div style="font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 110px !important; padding: 0px !important;"><div class="giveaway_details"><div class="giveaway-release">Being released December 02 2022</div><div class="giveaway-ended">This giveaway is already over.<p style="font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em !important; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/338857?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="color: #00635d; text-decoration-line: none;">giveaway details »</a></p></div></div></div><div style="clear: both; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;"></div><a class="goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink" href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/338857?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #f6f6ee; border-radius: 3px; border: 1px solid rgb(157, 138, 120); color: #181818; display: inline-block; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; outline: none; padding: 8px 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"></a></h2></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #555555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><a class="goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink" href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/338857?utm_medium=api&utm_source=giveaway_widget" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #f6f6ee; border-radius: 3px; border: 1px solid rgb(157, 138, 120); color: #181818; display: inline-block; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; outline: none; padding: 8px 12px; text-decoration-line: none;">Enter Giveaway</a></h2></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"></blockquote>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-67223132255765737922022-01-27T14:12:00.004+10:002022-02-19T16:55:23.461+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Amazon I Noh<p> January 27, 2022</p><p></p><div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" data-hook="genome-widget" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 680px;"><div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" data-hook="genome-widget" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 680px;"><p class="MsoNormal"><a class="a-size-base a-link-normal review-title a-color-base review-title-content a-text-bold" data-hook="review-title" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IQA2EWCQRL08/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-weight: 700; line-height: 20px; text-decoration-line: none;">An Offering</a></p></div><div class="a-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 680px;">Like a bird's nest holding six subtly hued bird's eggs, Galician Felix Calvino offers up yet </div><div class="a-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 680px;">another gathering of tales from his homeland, stories as haunting as they are enchanting.</div><div class="a-row a-spacing-small review-data" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 8px; width: 680px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHJ3BN6QZEPLHOVE2A7SJPQZMYIA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8"><span style="color: #007185; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></a></span></p>
<div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" data-hook="genome-widget" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 680px;"><a class="a-profile" data-a-size="small" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHJ3BN6QZEPLHOVE2A7SJPQZMYIA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; display: table; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><div aria-hidden="true" class="a-profile-avatar-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; padding-right: 9px; width: 43px;"><a class="a-profile" data-a-size="small" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHJ3BN6QZEPLHOVE2A7SJPQZMYIA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; display: table; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><div class="a-profile-avatar" style="box-sizing: border-box; height: 34px; position: relative; width: 34px;"><a class="a-profile" data-a-size="small" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHJ3BN6QZEPLHOVE2A7SJPQZMYIA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; display: table; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" data-hook="genome-widget" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 680px;"><a class="a-profile" data-a-size="small" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHJ3BN6QZEPLHOVE2A7SJPQZMYIA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; display: table; text-decoration-line: none;"><div aria-hidden="true" class="a-profile-avatar-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; padding-right: 9px; width: 43px;"><div class="a-profile-avatar" style="box-sizing: border-box; height: 34px; position: relative; width: 34px;"><img data-src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/f2faaddd-fcbc-42d4-8d12-c26538239ccd._CR57,0,285,285_SX48_.jpg" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/f2faaddd-fcbc-42d4-8d12-c26538239ccd._CR57,0,285,285_SX48_.jpg" style="border-radius: 34px; border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: top; width: 34px;" /></div></div><div class="a-profile-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; min-height: 34px; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="a-profile-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; position: relative; unicode-bidi: isolate;">noh</span></div></a></div><div class="a-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 680px;"><a class="a-link-normal" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IQA2EWCQRL08/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007185; text-decoration-line: none;" title="5.0 out of 5 stars"><i class="a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating" data-hook="review-star-rating" style="background-image: url("https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/sash/3-fm1Jbg4IHlyhq.png"); background-position: -166px -36px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 512px 256px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 18px; position: relative; vertical-align: text-top; width: 80px;"><span class="a-icon-alt" style="box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: circle(0px at 50% 50%); display: block; font-size: inherit; height: 18px; left: auto; line-height: normal; opacity: 0; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: auto; width: 80px;">5.0 out of 5 stars</span></i></a><span class="a-letter-space" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; width: 0.385em;"></span><a class="a-size-base a-link-normal review-title a-color-base review-title-content a-text-bold" data-hook="review-title" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IQA2EWCQRL08/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-weight: 700; line-height: 20px; text-decoration-line: none;"> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">An Offering</span></a></div></div></div><div class="a-profile-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; min-height: 34px; vertical-align: middle;"></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p></div></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-88455299579540529972022-01-26T08:39:00.015+10:002022-02-01T14:28:00.640+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Amazon I Grady Harp<p> </p><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%;">January
26, 2022</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Grady Harp</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">'Gossipers need to feed their addictions'</span></b><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Félix Calvino deserves a much wider audience here
in the United States. His novel ALFONSO proved his mettle for extending a
thought into a full-length novel. Yet his first collection of short stories,
gathered under the title A HATFUL OF CHERRIES, were piquant brief morsels that
ranged from a few pages to extended stories and every story managed to paint
imagery and place and character so clearly with the most economical style that
each appears like a flashback of thought in every reader's memory bank.
Furthering his appreciation for the art of short stories, he has published SO
MUCH SMOKE, and now YOUNG LOVE & OTHER STORIES, proving he is a master
craftsman!</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Calvino was born in Galicia and spent his childhood
on a farm not unlike those scenes he so frequently recalls in these stories.
Under the reign of General Franco, Calvino fled to England to study and work
and eventually migrated to Australia where he currently lives and writes his magical
prose. From these various regions Calvino gathers the fodder for his tales -
stories that take place in Spain and in Australia with settings that range from
dealing with the earth as a child to discovering love as a youth to
encountering the realities of small community prejudices to simply celebrating
the aspects of the very young to the very aged characters he describes so well.<br />
<br />
The stories in this collection are Sunday Lunch, Young Love, Knick-knacks,
Abel’s Journey, The Beehives, and Shopping Trip. Calvino's writing style is the
opposite of florid. With a few brief sentences on a few pages he is able to
bring the reader into the focal point of his stories that usually take a quiet
twist at the end, a technique that makes reading a collection of short stories
more like reading a full length novel, so engrossed is the reader in his
ability to capture attention and imagination. Example, in the story ‘Sunday
Lunch’ he writes ‘Manuel stood in the doorway of the kitchen and asked, “what
are you cooking that smells so good?” “Stewed partridge with herbs and new
potatoes.” Amadeo answered, without looking up from the kitchen bench where he
was chopping parsley with a large knife. “Have you seen Avelina?” “I saw her a
few days ago. She said she was making a cake to mark the occasion” “What
occasion?” ‘She didn’t say.” Manual, Amadeo and Avelina were the three
remaining inhabitants of the remote village of Carballo. The men were both
seventy-seven, fragile, lean, and of average height…Avelina was seven years younger,
short and slim…Their relationship, although they had lived and shared in all
aspects of the village public life, had never been a close one.’ – We then
discover the destiny of this tale as the core of ‘interconnected stories that
call up the ghosts of the past half-century for the three survivors of a
lively, colourful world that had no notion of how soon it was to disappear.’<br />
<br />
Some astute publisher should capture the talents of this Spanish Australian
writer. He deserves center stage in the arena of authors who have mastered the
art of writing short stories. Very highly recommended. </span><span>Grady Harp, January 22</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">h</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">ttps://www.amazon.com/Young-Other-Stories-F%C3%A9lix-Calvino/dp/192266927X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34MCHF8NJAK2J&keywords=young+love+%26+other+stories+by+felix+calvino&qid=1643236872&sprefix=young+love+%26+o</span></b></span></p>
<div class="genome-widget-row" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; display: table; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="profile-widget-with-avatar" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell;"><div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" data-hook="genome-widget" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 300.266px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AGZV527R2U6APJG2FF4DP3AB5KBA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_gw_tr?ie=UTF8" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-decoration-line: none;"><br />Grady Harp</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_cr_dp_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#tr" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-decoration-line: none;">HALL OF FAME</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_cr_dp_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#tr" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">TOP 100 REVIEWER</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R13FV1OCIIUZCU/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="5.0 out of 5 stars"> <i>5.0 out of 5 stars</i> </a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R13FV1OCIIUZCU/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=192266927X" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #00635d; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-decoration-line: none;"> ‘Gossipmongers need to feed their addictions’</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="badges-genome-widget" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="a-row a-spacing-mini" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 4px; width: 226.562px;"></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-78325619931982107912022-01-13T14:51:00.001+10:002022-01-13T14:52:55.210+10:00The Library Thing I Tim Bazzett<p> <span style="font-size: medium;">January 13, 2022</span></p><p><b>Young Love & Other Stories</b></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><b>Tim Bazzett</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span face=""Verdana",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #111111; line-height: 150%;">It’s probably been a few years since I’ve read
any Hemingway, but every time I read something by Felix Calvino, I think of old’
Ernie. Because his influence is so strong it shows through in Calvino’s
stories. From the first pages of YOUNG LOVE & OTHER STORIES, in “Sunday
Lunch,” for example, with its “cooking that smells so good … Stewed partridge
with herbs and new potatoes … [and] chopping parsley with a large knife,” I was
taken back to the Nick Adams stories in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and Nick
pitching his camp near a trout stream and preparing an onion sandwich with
thick slices of bread. Granted, the Galician village in the northwest corner of
Spain is a long way from upper Michigan, but the ‘flavor’ and the plain, spare
language are very similar.</span><span face=""Verdana",sans-serif" style="color: #111111; line-height: 150%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Felix Calvino is an Australian, but he emigrated
there from Galicia via England more than fifty years ago, and it always amazes
me that his prose, so starkly honed to perfection, is written in what is his
third language, because Galician dialect is more like Portuguese than Spanish
(his second language, learned in school), and then to master English in this
way, as an adult, well, it simply boggles my mind. Think Nabokov, maybe, who
learned to write in English, after he was already an accomplished writer in his
native Russian. Or the Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, who recently began
writing in Italian simply because she fell in love with the language.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">YOUNG LOVE & OTHER STORIES is Calvino’s fourth
book, following two other story collections, A HATFUL OF CHERRIES and SO MUCH
SMOKE, and a novella, ALFONSO. I’ve read them all and they are, quite simply,
the finest examples of pure storytelling one might ever encounter. In this
newest collection, Calvino has chosen to focus on a few of the denizens of one
tiny Galician village in the era of Franco. The first story, “Sunday Lunch,”
sets the scene in the final years of the village, when there are only three
people left, all septuagenarians, survivors who have become casual friends,
meeting weekly –</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“It had started with coffee, bread and cheese
following the burial of Generosa several years earlier, the last village woman
but for Avelina. They had taken turns doing the cooking until Amadeo said that
cooking relaxed him. Manuel contributed fresh bread and game, and Avelina
brought homemade biscuits, trout and eel when in season.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">And then, suddenly, there were only the two men,
coping calmly and sadly with the task of burying Avelina, and worrying about
the propriety of how to wash and prepare her body, something that had always
been a task for the women. As they go about wrapping the corpse, digging the
grave and building a coffin, both Manuel and Amadeo are lost in their own
thoughts, remembering past wakes and the unusual history of Avelina, who had
endured a forced marriage and a long widowhood, managing quite well on her own.
They use a wheelbarrow to transport the body to the cemetery at the other end
of town, and build the coffin at graveside of scrap lumber. They remember to
bring ropes to lower the box into the grave, but forget to bring more nails for
securing the lid. But they agree it is a “barbaric” custom, so they covered the
unsecured lid with only partially filled shovels, “deposited with extreme care,
as if not to awaken Avelina.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">In the title story, “Young Love,” we are taken
back to Manuel’s boyhood, his friendship with Carlos, and his long, nearly mute
courting of Amelia (who likes him because of his quietness), first in the
schoolroom and then after they have left school. This is indeed a story of
“young love,” in the sweetness and innocence of the couple, filled with those
inner insecure feelings of “does he/she really love me?” as well as all the
inner turmoil of sexual awakening. And in a long sequence about a wedding
attended in a nearby village, we learn that the young men are leaving the
region because there are “no women of marriageable age” and fewer babies being
born each year, which perhaps explains Manuel’s nearly deserted village of
sixty years later.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“Abel’s Journey” is perhaps the most absorbing of
the six connected stories here, and the longest, at more than fifty pages. Abel
is an orphan, passed from family to family for the first twelve years of his
life, used mostly as a farmhand and cowherd, until he comes to the home of
Antonio and Cristina and their two children, where he is finally well-treated
and accepted as “part of the family.” But he continues to wonder about his own
unknown mother. He falls in love with Rosalia who emigrates to Australia, then
with Pilar, and then he is off to the Army for his national service, traveling
across Spain to a training camp near Zargoza. There he makes a good friend in
Jose, who helps him to learn who his mother was and what happened to her. But
then, upon his return home to Antonio and Cristina’s farm, preparing to marry
Pilar, he learns he is losing his sight.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Throughout Abel’s story he continuously falls back
on a gallery of scenes from his life, mental pictures and images he can call up
at will. I could relate easily to this, as I too have a “scene gallery” from
the various stages of my life, images that never fade. These images become more
important as we age and physical strength and abilities begin to fade. Calvino
and I are the same age. Judging from the stories here, we both understand well
the changes that age can bring – friends die, priorities change, and memories
become so important. I was pleased to note that there was a dog in many of
these stories. Manuel has had several dogs in his lifetime, all named Mateo,
after one of the Apostles. There is a Mateo in the first story here, and
another Mateo in the last, a puppy. Dogs and old men. I get it, Felix. I love
my dogs too. And I loved the stories here. I wish I were a little better at
explaining why they move me so, but, well, they just do. The language here is
so exact, so spare, so beautiful. The characters are so real, so perfectly
realized, so very human. My very highest recommendation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVE</span></span><span face=""Arial Unicode MS",sans-serif" style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br /></p><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-20674637899797497502022-01-10T13:54:00.000+10:002022-01-10T13:54:42.717+10:00Young Love & Other Stories I Jill Lindquist I ABC Book Club <p> January 10, 2022</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span color="windowtext">Young Love &and Other Stories</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span color="windowtext" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Jill Lindquist<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">One of my favourite Australian writers, Félix Calvino, has
produced another stunning collection of stories, Young Love & other
Stories (Arcadia) which takes the reader into the heart of his homeland in
Galicia, Spain, revealing the essence of his rural upbringing and sharing
stories of life and love in all its various forms. As in Calvino’s other
collections, the stories are atmospheric and deceptively
simple. I’ll provide my impressions of just two:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first story ‘Sunday Lunch’ describes a barren, remote
Galician village, once a bustling community but now silent and decaying and
with only two men and a woman the surviving residents. The three
elderly friends meet for lunch each Sunday. It is their way of checking in on
each other and a time to share stories of the past. When they find the woman,
Avelina, dead, the two men must deal with the process of giving her a
respectful send off. They are in shock and ill-prepared. Their heartbreak,
difficulty and frustration at dealing with the body of their friend is
palpable. There is also the unspoken question that with only the two
of them remaining, which would die first and leave the other alone to face the
impossible burden of doing all that the two together could barely manage for
Avelina?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The title story ‘Young Love’ is a sensitive
portrayal of a boy, Manuel, transitioning with all the painful shyness,
confusion and insecurity that comes with crossing the great divide from boy to
man. Manuel’s stumbling attempts to negotiate the minefield of
misunderstandings in the world of courtship are told against the backdrop of
the changing seasons, work in the fields, the bonds of male friendship and
social opportunities to observe and engage with the ever-mysterious
female. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Calvino’s writing is so very evocative; his voice authentic.
There is a humanity and sweetness to the stories that avoids sentimentality. He
stretches out a hand and takes his reader into a very different world but one
which explores universal themes. <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-66214208526859688142022-01-05T15:27:00.005+10:002022-01-06T09:00:47.108+10:00Book Launch I Melissa Ashley<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0rQM1adUOpdmlGpjuWGQIr-HXftfPa_e3D0323d3RxaeQiMei9OX-64n06VST89qgRdMaii9C3_B6MpTeITSMwTe_03eMPIBcXIGg12oyn1zXV41yXWAEXDjpHMBk3tv5WjbXWAScLvJls076tQHmYk6HQrZgO4PpS9LbJHqqjVaPlK4nbClmw5O1=s1089" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1089" data-original-width="677" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0rQM1adUOpdmlGpjuWGQIr-HXftfPa_e3D0323d3RxaeQiMei9OX-64n06VST89qgRdMaii9C3_B6MpTeITSMwTe_03eMPIBcXIGg12oyn1zXV41yXWAEXDjpHMBk3tv5WjbXWAScLvJls076tQHmYk6HQrZgO4PpS9LbJHqqjVaPlK4nbClmw5O1=w199-h320" width="199" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 331.5pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 331.5pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 331.5pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Avid Reader</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 331.5pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">December 16,
2021<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><b>Melissa Ashley Book Launch speech</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Good
evening, and welcome. It is my absolute honour and delight to speak a few words
about Félix Calvino, author of the brilliant new collection of short stories, <i>Young
Love</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I
first met Félix Calvino when we were postgraduates at the University of
Queensland. According to Félix, one day I came out of my supervisor’s room
after a meeting sobbing (I don’t actually remember this part). But I do
remember that I was struggling and Félix told me to come with him, we would go
for a walk. We bought coffee and drank in the fresh air and bright sun and this
became our daily habit. Both Félix the man and Félix the author are excellent
guides in finding practices – daily observances – that break down periods of being
stale, tired, stuck. And both Félix’s need connection and friendship. Ritual
and fraternity are central themes in Calvino’s stories and as proof, I have a
lovely quote. He puts it far more eloquently than me. He is a poet, really.
It’s from the first story in <i>Young Love</i>: ‘Sunday Lunch.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘I said that what was good for him was
good for me. We walked on under a low, bright moon. We took the long way
around, avoiding the village, to reach the Hernandez watermill at the foot of
the hills where the river is born.’ (18)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I
had read <i>A Hatful of Cherries</i> (2007) before I met Félix and was much in
awe of his talents and thrilled when he befriended me. Félix is one of the most
generous people I know and has taught me much about writing and about life. Be
kind to oneself, practice, persevere. Have faith. A change of scenery when
bogged. I observed it all while I was at university with Félix in his lived
example. He toiled over the collection he wrote for his degree, <i>So Much
Smoke</i>, not unlike the rye-threshing and wheat-grinding manual labourers he
was writing about. I would always ask about how his book was coming along. He usually
dramatically shook his head. His answers had a similar theme: <i>I am writing
it again. I am having a tough day. It is progressing very slowly</i>. I love Félix’s
Philip Roth / James Joyce perfectionism, but it is all a humble front –
genuinely so, of course. Félix has a work-ethic of stone. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Along
with <i>A Hatful of Cherries</i> and <i>So Much Smoke</i>, Félix has also
published a novel, <i>Alfonso</i>. We are here tonight to celebrate the release
of his fourth book, the short story collection, <i>Young Love</i>. The six short
stories contained in <i>Young Love</i> explore the demise of the – never named
– Galician village that Félix grew up in. If you have read Félix, you will know
that this is a literary place he returns to over and over in his stories. In <i>Young
Love</i>, which Félix tells me has been the most difficult of his books to
write, a eulogy is created for the village and its former inhabitants, its
centuries of tradition, the failure of its outmoded agriculture and ensuing
poverty, the migrations of its youth and families. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘There is nothing left,’ Félix says to
me, with a wistful shrug and glance of the eye that conveys so much more than a
long and wordy explanation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Galicia
is a coastal region in the northwest of Spain – it has its own language – which
for centuries was one of the poorest parts of the country. Waves of migration
pepper its history, beginning in the nineteenth century, and continuing into
the mid-twentieth century and beyond. Félix himself left Galicia in 1964 at twenty
years of age, to escape military service. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Calvino
uses the character Manuel, who features in five of the stories in the
collection, as a metaphor for the demise of the village. We first meet him in
his seventies, in ‘Sunday Lunch’. The youngest we are introduced to him is at
age fourteen in 1939, after the end of the Spanish Civil War. It is the period
of Franco’s authoritarian rule, which will last until the mid-1970s during
which time many Spanish fled the country. When we leave Manuel, his literally
the last man standing in the nameless village – despite a limp – along with his
new puppy, Mateo. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">The
short story genre is one of pressure, economy, strong themes and repercussions.
It is a completely different beast to the novel, which relies upon the coherence
of plot to bring all the ribbons of narrative into a tight package. In the
short stories, the actions, thoughts and experiences of a character can be
singularly explored and examined, the consequences of a choice or event stripped
down to the barest of essentials. The narrative arrangement of <i>Young Love</i>
is particularly compelling, in that all of the stories speak to one another,
and in this vein, it recalls writers like Alice Munroe and Elizabeth Strout,
who have written collections that span the lives of a specific character, not
as a galloping plot, but a series of discrete images, memories, events, in
short stories. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I
must make a little aside here and advise you to read Félix’s collection from
front to the back. It is not chronologically arranged, but like Adele’s last
album – she had Spotify turn off a function that let listeners hear the tracks
in random order – Félix has chosen the order of each story carefully and for
precise reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">The
first story in <i>Young Love</i>, called ‘Sunday Lunch’, begins on the day of
the weekly meal shared by characters Amadeo, Avelina and Manuel. Loosely
friendly and in their seventies, the trio are the last three inhabitants of the
village. However, plans for Sunday lunch are abandoned when Manuel and Amadeo
discover that Avelina has died. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘Sunday
Lunch’ unfolds as an allegory, a metaphor for Félix’s theme of the death of the
village, the character Manuel personifying, embodying, the complex reasons for
its end. We discover that Avelina, Manuel and Amadeo have carried on the
tradition of preparing the dead for burial, and with Avelina dead, the rituals
cannot be properly observed. Félix concretises the absoluteness of the
abandonment of the village by its former inhabitants by closely describing the labour
required to bring the body to the cemetery. The coffin cannot be carried in one
piece by the men, and they must nail it together at the gravesite.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Félix
uses powerful imagery to convey one of the major reasons for the village’s
demise, which is poverty brought about by the failure to modernise its
agricultural economy: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘One of my vivid memories of her is the
growing consternation on her face when adding a piece of salted pork from the
pig killed at Christmas to the vegetable soup, and how the piece got smaller
and smaller from month to month. That was only one of the things that measured
the nightmare of poverty she had to contend with every day of her life.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">As
with Félix’s prior work, he is a master of a compressed metaphor, combining a
striking visual image with an arresting subtext or inference. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Here
is another example, from ‘Sunday Lunch’: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘Do you ever smoke / no / but you know
how smokers roll their cigarettes / I do / Manuel proceeded to wrap her light
and small body with great care. Both the sheet and the blanket were
sufficiently wide to wrap her twice and long enough to tuck in her head and
feet’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Félix’s
narrators are at heart solitary, kind, stoic and fatalistic. Both Manuel and
Abel – a young orphan who is treated poorly, moving from home to home – internalise
their suffering, ruminating and meditating upon yearning to meet a woman, a
desire for connection. A major theme in Félix’s works is a self-imposed
solitude, the dignity in this, its deep and private longing. The narrator in
Sunday Lunch provides a clue that perhaps the inner life is the more authentic,
that we cannot judge from the self we present to others:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘He then remembered the educated saying
that in every man and woman was an internal and external individual. The
external one was just appearance, while the inner was reality.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Talk
is cheap for Félix’s characters, and readers are taken on a journey into their
inside lives, their confusion, desires, their suffering and the transcendence
and joy they experience, when perhaps a moment exposes a coherent thread
connecting all. In ‘Sunday Lunch’: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘Once or twice, the men looked at one
another and returned to the food. The tasks ahead, although in their minds,
were not mentioned.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">The
young Abel, in the short story Abel’s Journey is Félix’s most abject, discarded
character. As a child, he is abandoned and motherless, shuffled from home to
home. Later in life, when he has overcome many obstacles, he develops an eye
disease that will send him blind:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘In this carnival of frustrations, Abel
retreated into himself, into protective silence. He became sparse with his
words and rarely expressed his opinion. In any case, decisions had always been
made for him, and arguing with the decisions had been counterproductive. He
felt no animosity towards anyone; it was simply the way things were, and he
could only get used to it.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">In
the story ‘Young Love’, fourteen-year-old Manuel lives off the glances he
shares with a girl in his class, Amelia, an experience we can all remember, an
intense crush that is made of projection and innocence. It is tender, fragile
and perhaps, as in a story like ‘Cat People’, delusional. However, this is
where Félix is elusive, uncanny, a little psychic even. For in ‘Young Love’, the
beloved Amelia experiences the same feelings as Manuel:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘But in her actions, there was a higher
purpose than just giving a compliment. He had stirred feelings in her, well
before her friends of the same age had begun to take an interest in boys.
Initially, it was curiosity, as it seemed to her he avoided being noticed. Then,
she liked the way he walked, his pleasant face, the soothing tone of his voice.
He would not be much taller than her, which was fine. And he was given to speak
when it mattered, unlike most other boys who talked all the time and said
nothing.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Through
Manuel, the reader tenderly rediscovers these emotions, distilled by Félix into
the speech of the heart and the speech of the body. The language is crisp,
perhaps a nod to Hemmingway or Beckett, a modernist minimalism, clearly but
gently delivering its knowledge of nostalgia and youth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Another
theme Félix explores is the village’s conservative, traditional beliefs. As in
previous writing, he circles back around Catholic customs, sifting through that
which is useful and discarding practices which bring added suffering. Many of Félix’s
characters are children and adolescents who are still discovering their
identities, questioning received practices and sloughing off or undermining
customs and attitudes they have little evidence are true or good. When the judgement
of the community is harsh, cruel, scapegoating or vilifying, Félix addresses
these injustices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">This
is Amelia, from ‘Young Love’, thinking to herself about not conforming to the
society’s expectations:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘She had her aunt to thank for it.
‘Desires, setbacks, confusion are part of life, and you must have a place to
escape to in rough times,’ she had said to her once. She liked her aunt very
much<i>. A failed nun, a failed lover, now back home to stay</i> was the
adults’ description that Amelia was not supposed to hear.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Félix
subverts village prejudices with a clever, gentle humour, favouring the
outsider, and turning them around, so a different aspect of their humanity is
revealed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his characters never
completely turn their backs upon what is known and supposedly fixed. Rather,
they consider and question if a practice is useful, and try to discover why it
is this way. If it is helpful, practical, and not harmful, his characters
maintain the status quo. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Says Amadeo in ‘Sunday
Lunch’: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘I have no interest in the ideology of
it. It is tradition that I respect.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Félix’s
characters all have a little of the Buddha in them. Or perhaps a Greek stoic. They
accept suffering as a given, they quietly carry it with them, but they do not,
I think add to it with guilt, hatred, cruelty, making their burdens heavier and
more unpleasant. There is something deeply affirming about this. Félix takes
pains to show his characters’ quiet desperation, made bearable by routine and
ritual, acts of grace and kindness, and conviviality, the pleasures of sharing
a meal: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">On the grinding stone, covered with a
tablecloth, there was a wicker basket containing wine, cheese, bread, salami,
tins of this and that. In one corner, there was a bed of hay and blankets, and
in the other, there was wood ready for a small fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Félix
is also very funny. In a sly and clever way, with various layers. This image
here is typical of him, from the short story ‘Abel’s Journey’:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">They were in bed, lying on their backs
in matching white-and-blue-striped flannel pyjamas. Cristina had made them in
the pattern of prison uniforms from a roll of cloth they had bought at a
closing-down sale some years back. Half of the cloth was still on the roll,
standing behind the door in her sewing room. Occasionally, it reminded them of
ill-fated inmates serving long sentences.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">And
another one, from the story ‘The Beehives’:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">‘The queen bee had his respect – a life
of responsibility and progeny. The humble worker bee has his affection – a
brief life of relentless toil, beginning with cleaning out the cell where each
is born. As for the drones, who only have to mate but otherwise never do a
day’s work, he does not care for them.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I
sometimes think Félix the author is a philosopher, a psychologist even. He
practises, in all of his characters, an unconditional love, an unconditional
positive regard, and it is freeing, an opening up, rather than a shutting down,
so his readers and characters can deeply explore that which most perturbs,
confuses and draws them in. His narrators are humble and self-effacing, but his
prose succeeds at the promise of the best literature: it shows us who we are,
it underscores our common humanity, it is respectful, and perhaps, most of all
– maybe this is just me, I am not sure – it brings incredible comfort and affirmation.
This is what we do, this is who we are. This is. He does all the work for us,
his wisdom presented like a lunch shared with friends, the wine cellared, the
cheese matured, the bread leavened, the salami perfectly smoked. It awaits our
enjoyment with a friend, cooked, prepared, served. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I
cannot recommend more highly Félix’s beautiful collection of short stories, <i>Young
Love</i>. Buy it, read it, tell your friends about it, introduce it to your
reading groups, gift it for Christmas. You will be the better for it, I
guarantee. In strange times, Félix’s prose comforts us, reminds us of our
shared humanity, gives us permission to be what we are, flawed and human. And
hope, in the texture, beauty, light, habits and connections of our day-to-day
existence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">For
all this, I must add that there is something of an enigma, a central mystery at
the heart of all of Félix’s works, and of Félix too. He shows us that while we
are knowable in many ways, there are also parts of us all that are not, and that
this is just the way it is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Congratulations,
Félix!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">___</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: blue;"> </span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #222222;"></span><o:p>Melissa Ashley is the author of historical fiction <b><i>The Bee and the Orange Tree</i> and <i>The Birdman’s Wife</i>, </b>which won the <b><i>Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award</i></b> and the <b><i>ABA Nielsen Booksellers Choice Award</i>.</b> She is passionate about uncovering stories of women in the arts and
sciences whose lives and achievements have been forgotten. Melissa lives in
Brisbane with her partner, the poet Brett Dionysius, and their two
teenagers. </o:p><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-21600026213386969112022-01-02T08:45:00.010+10:002022-01-10T13:13:13.009+10:00Bestselling Books I Avid Reader<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">January 2, 2022</span></span></h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="display: inline; padding: 1em 0px;"><li style="display: inline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvtJUV2824Bvb0-fKpUZy335TkjuhISHQLAIYol7KNRRTnVdWhB60NGgMi5yTMbXxHlwTenVk0BpMFrP7acVvCgbWOlx3nQEhZ7EdOmzWbT6lP0cOFOHVb7jV0Q7-IKjEBoIalJyVc3BT6d70CT_PL7VE3MYBrR2zb3SAihK7LpLvolG3S2KJT2oMK=s2340" style="display: inline; padding: 1em 0px;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="2340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvtJUV2824Bvb0-fKpUZy335TkjuhISHQLAIYol7KNRRTnVdWhB60NGgMi5yTMbXxHlwTenVk0BpMFrP7acVvCgbWOlx3nQEhZ7EdOmzWbT6lP0cOFOHVb7jV0Q7-IKjEBoIalJyVc3BT6d70CT_PL7VE3MYBrR2zb3SAihK7LpLvolG3S2KJT2oMK=s400" width="400" /></a></li><li style="display: inline; font-weight: bold;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></li><li style="display: inline;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span><a href="https://avidreader.com.au/events/felix-calvino-young-love"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://avidreader.com.au/events/felix-calvino-young-love</span></a></span></div></li></ul></div>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-26927380895339807782021-03-17T06:43:00.048+10:002021-07-03T14:18:12.035+10:00Gutter 23 I Knick-Knacks<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">March 16, 2021</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #5dc2c0; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjsP2sUv3Bv4qnhGAJNJr0p3H2HgHBOkdYncuFP4NV_2HqCEbaS1Rt8Vac7Rejpij8kPAG36-e7LLA1tAUO2y3uYr5hIcg0Zea02A2XRrcjJFFGoTz-f2WsAE7F568NwZhwscuUy2gow/s2048/Front+Cover+Gutter.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjsP2sUv3Bv4qnhGAJNJr0p3H2HgHBOkdYncuFP4NV_2HqCEbaS1Rt8Vac7Rejpij8kPAG36-e7LLA1tAUO2y3uYr5hIcg0Zea02A2XRrcjJFFGoTz-f2WsAE7F568NwZhwscuUy2gow/s320/Front+Cover+Gutter.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: small; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: small; text-indent: 14.2pt;">Gutter 23, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 21-25,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="https://www.guttermag.co.uk/" style="color: #249fa3; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.guttermag.co.uk/</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Félix Calvino</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;">Knick-Knacks </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">A few days after
Carlo’s birthday a knick-knacks vendor arrives in the village. His kind, along
with tinkers, are regular visitors during the spring and summer months. They
supply practical items, and fantasy ones such as figurines of </span><i style="font-size: 10.5pt;">meigas</i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">. They
break the village tedium: children drop their games and are the first to gather
around the visitor. Girls and young women pause in their chores, consult the
mirror, and after a few strokes of the comb, they too are on their way.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">The collective reaction
is no different this time, but the knick-knacks vendor is: he gives sweets to
the first children he meets on his arrival and promises them more after they
spread the news of the great bargains on offer. He wears a pale green corduroy
suit, and a General Franco moustache. He exudes trust and rectitude as opposed
to the charlatans the villagers are used too. Even his mule has a shiny coat
and its apparel is of quality leather.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">He settles in the
village square. On a low trestle, covered with dark green velvet cloth, the
display of rings, bracelets, sunglasses, gold and silver chains, glitter in the
afternoon sun and stir the fantasies of young and the old alike. In the
religious section, a painted sign affirms the crucifix and rosaries as made of
timber from the Holy Land and blessed by the Holy Father in Rome. On display is
also black silk fabric to make women’s scarves, a wide range of sewing thread
in various colours and thickness, lace edging, needles and thimbles, together
with a roll of light blue cloth for men’s suits. ‘Cashmere of the highest
quality’ reads the sign, in italic letters.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos gazes over the
merchandise. The roll of blue cloth catches his attention. In it he sees the
opportunity for his most wanted first long, going-out trousers and he hurries
back home.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">His mother who is in
the kitchen about to make cottage cheese listens to him, then says,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘There is nothing to be
gained in dealing with knick-knacks vendors.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘You promised I would
have it for my 15th birthday.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘And you will. I never
break a promise. I wish you did the same.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘You could at least
have a look at it.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">She gazes at him for a long moment, shakes her head, and
takes off her ash coloured apron.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 5pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">At the square she
touches and feels the cloth between her thumb and index twice, and a third
time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘And the price?’ she
asks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Two thousand pesetas,’
the vendor replies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">She smiles and starts
for home. Carlos follows her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Mum I like it,’ he
implores.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘The man will not leave
for a while, please calm down,’ she says.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Back at the house she
searches for her husband, finds him in the barn and speaks to him close and
quietly. Carlos waits outside the barn door. When he hears his father say ‘the
best price you can,’ he hurries to the square just in case the knick-knacks
vendor decides to leave or someone else buys the material. Although the chances
of this happening are remote, there is nowhere else he wishes to be.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">She takes her time.
Carlos begins to doubt that he heard his father’s consent back in the barn. On
her return she buys some coloured threads and safety pins, and then she joins
some neighbours a short distance away talking about lettuce seeding and the
right moon cycles for planting turnips. From her market days in town, Carlos is
familiar with her buying and selling techniques in which time and indifference
play a part, and he knows he has just to wait.</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 5pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘About the cloth,’ she
says to the knick-knacks vendor a short time later. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Cashmere of the
highest quality, Señora.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">They haggle. They come
to an impasse. She extracts a Pope’s blessed crucifix and the deal is
completed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">The following day,
Vidal, the village tailor, takes Carlos’ measurements. A week passes before the
first fitting. The second fitting takes place almost overnight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 5pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">One Sunday afternoon in
early May, Carlos sets out with five other single neighbours for an evening
dance at a village about two hours’ walking distance from theirs. He wears the
new suit. Shirt, socks, shoes, tie and belt are also new. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">It is a perfect late
spring with clear blue sky, but for a mountain of dark and motionless clouds in
the far west. There is birdsong in the trees and excitement in the men’s hearts.
This fiesta is a popular one and women are plentiful, according to the older
man in the group. But they are astute, cunning, hard-headed ones, he reminds
them. Carlos’ heart throbs with excitement. Or maybe it is anxiety.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">By the time they arrive
at the large meadow where the dance is to be held the sun is fast retreating
behind the Faro Mountain. They head for one of the tent bars
surrounding the field. The sacristan’s son orders beer for everyone. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Carlos must pay for
the first round,’ says Ovidio, the apprentice shoemaker.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos is happy to do
so. A small price to pay to join the adults’ world, he thinks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Someone buys another
round. The muffled compressor has started and the electric lights, timid at
first, come into full life. In the middle of the field, on the stage erected
for the occasion, the 7-piece orchestra begins to tune-up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Time for action,’ says
one of the men as he finishes his drink. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘I agree,’ says
another, rubbing his hands. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">A third discreetly
pulls up his trousers, tightens his belt. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Alfredo, Carlos’ mentor
in the way of women, gestures to him to stay and orders two cognacs. ‘Beer
makes you pee, cognac sharpens both courage and intellect when needed,’ he says
to Carlos after the waiter places two glasses of Fundador on the counter mats
advertising Estrella de Galicia beer. ‘Besides, there is plenty of time.
Sensible women will not settle for the first monkey that comes around waving
his tale.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos is caught
between his heart’s wishes and the clarity of Alfredo’s logic. He nods. After a
while they leave the tent bar. It is then, walking along the promenade area
surrounding the dancers that Alfredo mentions a long-time friend of his who is
now coming towards them. Her name is Laura. Her companion is called Antonia,
she is twenty-one and wearing a green and white summer dress.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos instantly likes
Antonia’s slender neck and large grey eyes. The introductions over, Laura says
she feels like dancing, takes Alfredo by the arm and they join the dozens of
couples on the dancing area. Carlos and Antonia follow.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos has always
suspected that adult dancing will be different from the dancing in short pants
with his cousins and their friends, as they learned the steps to match the
tunes. But he never anticipated the pleasure and the illusion of heat stealing
through his arms and legs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Minutes seem to be
passing. Or perhaps it is hours. Yet their conversation has gone not much
further than revealing the names of the villages they come from or commenting
on the large number of people that turned up for the night dance. When their
eyes meet, Antonia smiles or looks at him intently, both clearly an invitation
to talk. But in his flurry of erotic embarrassment his mentor’s lines to assist
in the early courting stages have slipped from his memory and he just smiles
back.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">During the fireworks
display at midnight they meet with Alfredo and Laura in one of the tents for a
glass of wine, cheese, bread and olives. Laura and Alfredo have been longer at
the bars than at the dancing and talk and laugh a lot. They are both
thirty—four. She tells Carlos that Alfredo is a good man but romantically
unreliable. ‘Please don’t let him influence you,’ she says to Carlos, and
places her hand on his.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">A new orchestra is on
the stage when they return. It plays mostly slow dance tunes. Antonia fits
perfectly in Carlos’ arms and he in hers. At two o’clock the orchestra leader
wishes everyone good night before playing one last tune. Carlos and Antonia
walk to the village square where her friends are gathering for their walk home.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Will I see you again?’
Carlos manages to ask.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">‘Perhaps,’ she replies.
She then encloses his face in her hands and kisses him on the lips.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 5pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos joins his
neighbours at the local tavern and after one last drink they head for home.
They talk of this and that: of the musicians, the two guardia civiles and their
good-looking horses, of the fireworks. It seems they talk of nothing until the
sacristan’s son announces he has got a date for the forthcoming dance at the
village of Santa Fe. Another man curses his luck. A third feels cheated because
his dance partner of the early evening decided to go back to her boyfriend.
Alfredo tells him that, ‘When the cravings of the body and of the heart come
together there is nothing you can do.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Carlos does not take
part in the group’s deliberations. Slowly he is going through the night’s
emotions from the moment he saw Antonia’s large grey eyes and hears her soft
voice, the warmth of her hand in his as they dance, her scent, her nearness,
and he hasn’t got a thought for anything else.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In their various states
of emotional and physical tiredness, they are not conscious of the stillness in
the air until the pale light of the moon is hidden by dark clouds rapidly
advancing upon them. Sparse and thick drops of rain begin to fall as they enter
the path running through the village cornfields. For a moment they consider
retreating and sheltering in a water mill nearby. They decide to hurry ahead.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">The downpour catches
them halfway through the corn fields. Soon the soft earth under their feet
turns to mud. They trudge ahead in silence and near darkness. In the bluish
flashes of lightning someone points out their resemblance to the scarecrows
protecting the corn from birds and they all laugh. When they get to the
village, the rain has stopped.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Dripping water on the
flagstones of the kitchen, Carlos removes his mud-clogged shoes and soaked
clothes. After fetching a towel and pyjamas from his bedroom, he hangs his new
suit from the hooks in a ceiling beam used for hanging the hams to dry after
two weeks immersed in salt. On the elevated hearth he stirs the
embers to life although the kitchen is still warm from his father’s regular
Sunday cards game with neighbours. In a saucepan near the fire, his mother has
left beef stew from the Sunday dinner as she said she would. He eats some of it
and goes to bed. For a long while he lies staring at the darkness, thinking of
Antonia and their physical intimacies just hours before. He feels the taste of
her lips on his is ebbing. Other emotions are bubbling in his mind that, apart
from sex, he doesn’t recognise.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Some hours later, the
cashmere of highest quality suit will be dry but unrecognisable: patches of
grey, green and yellow have replaced the original blue. Arms and legs have
shrunk unevenly. One of the coat’s lapels has all but disappeared.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In the morning, when
Carlos comes down for breakfast, the crippled garments have been removed. His
mother is putting away the dishes from the night before. Her face is sombre.
Every now and then she sighs so loudly that Marisa the cat, in the wicker
basket, stops grooming her kittens. But he feels just fine. For now anyway.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span><b>Issue 23, Issue
1, March 2021, Pages 21-25,</b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="https://www.guttermag.co.uk/">https://www.guttermag.co.uk/</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p></p>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-5054451975646908362020-07-18T09:37:00.005+10:002020-08-03T08:18:21.541+10:00ResearchGate I So Much Smoke<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">April 20, 2020</span><br />
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<b><span lang="" style="color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">J. Miguel
Alonso-Giráldez</span></b><span style="color: #4d5156; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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experiencia migratoria de Félix Calvino a través de la nostalgia autobiográfica
y la elaboración literaria de la vida cotidiana.</span></span></h1>
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<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340515075_" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340515075</a></h1>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-45349858548042243102020-01-01T14:15:00.000+10:002020-01-01T14:15:26.412+10:00Goodbye 2019<br />
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">December
31, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Dear Friends,<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">It’s time to
say, “Goodbye, 2019!”<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">It was a good
year for reading, rereading mostly, and I would like to share with you some
lines that remain clear in my head:<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">“Yes,
that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all
so casual, all so haphazard . . . .<br />
—Virginia Woof, The Mark on the Wall<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">"Narrative
is another way of making a moment indelible, for stories, when heard, stop the
unilinear flow of time."<br />
—John Berger, What Time Is It?<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Best
wishes for 2020</span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-68673920534211331152019-02-24T09:27:00.000+10:002019-02-24T09:27:05.605+10:00So Much Smoke I Magdalena Ball I Compulsive Reader<br />
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<b><span style="color: #555555; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">So Much Smoke<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: #555555; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Reviewed by Magdalena Ball</span></strong><b><span style="color: #555555; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span><br /><div style="margin: 0cm;">
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The short stories that make up Felix Calvino’s book <em style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So Much Smoke</em> are oddly familiar. Perhaps there is something universal in the migrant experience that is transmitted through his delicate prose. Perhaps it’s because of the distinctive coupling of nostalgia and immediacy that make up these dreamlike stories. The settings are charged with tenderness and a sense of loss, even when action is present tense.</div>
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The stories are mostly very short, with the exception of “The Smile”, which is almost a novella in length. In nearly all of these stories, the conflict occurs in the spaces between action – in dreams, in prophesy, in a growing self-awareness, and in memory. In the first story, a young girl’s dreams are prophetic. Her mother worries she will be called names at school. Though the story has a hint of a dark edge to it, it pivots on moments of tenderness that seem to exist in an alternate space. In another story, a boy, the narrator, agrees to kill a hen for his mother, but the job is harder than it looks. When the boy uses a shotgun rather than a knife to do the dirty work, his maturity is called into question. In “What Do You Know About Your Friends”, the family home is left to two brothers after a father dies intestate. This is one of many stories about death and inheritance. The brothers have different ideas about how to manage the home and one is left struggling to manage his place on his own. In the title piece, a forty-year old man inherits the family home on his mother’s death, but as the will states that he must take the house unencumbered he has to pay bills he can’t afford. In each of these stories, there is a strong visual impressions—almost like a painting—that create the tension. The activity almost feels beside the point against these visuals. Each scene is set up in careful detail like a tableau:</div>
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The early morning autumn sky was grey as he stood and listened to the silence. At the far end of the yard, under the mango tree, the neighbour’s black and white cat watched intently for birds. (“The Smile”)</div>
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The feeling created is one of heaviness: an inertia that the characters have to struggle against. There is politics, but it is subtle. We know that Franco’s Spain is both home in the Ithaca sense – beautiful in memory, but also the place that must be escaped. Poverty, unemployment, and fear provide the backdrop. It has already been left. Sydney too, the destination, becomes defamiliarised. The protagonists are always struggling with identity; always outsiders marked by mannerism, clothing, accent. These characters tend to be caught – the role of migrant becoming a permanent state of being rather than a transitory one. It’s an uncomfortable space, where the conflict is not caused by action but by a struggle for meaning – a coming into being that never quite actualises. The plight of the migrant is a recurrent theme in all of these stories, and the ‘migratory’ process is not always a motion from place to place but also occurs through time and memory and through linguistic process, language becoming a metaphor for the self. In “The Dream Girl”, Gabriel works hard to read and write in his native Galician, discovering the work of Rosalía de Castro, a Galician author, and finds some meaning in the discovery of his transition:</div>
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Adjustment is a complex subject. Many of them [Galician migrants] have managed a measure of success, but the other life, the one up to the point of departure, is always etched in their memories. No matter how well integrated they are in the adoped society, each of them has his or her concealed hinterland. (121).</div>
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Though the stories are very much in the literary realist tradition – much of the plots centre around everyday activities, depicted without overt artifice, there is an air of magic that pervades the work. Calvino handles it very subtly, rooting the magic in natural occurrences like sleepwalking, superstition, fever, premonitions, and grief. Always there’s a sense that the world is not quite fixed and that what we’re experiencing is illusory (so much smoke), and charged by scars, memories, hunger, and all that we’ve lost. The stories that make up <em style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So Much Smoke </em>are powerful, not so much because of what happens, but because of the way they hint at how much lurks below the surface. Though the work is rooted in the settings that Calvino creates so well, there is always a self-referential modernism that keeps pushing against a linguistic otherness: the unsettling nature of language and the shock of transition. <em style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So Much Smoke</em> is a nuanced collection, full of place, space, and subtle epiphany.<br /><br /><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878759833471448078.post-10055990879132318332019-01-11T13:55:00.000+10:002019-01-15T13:52:21.316+10:00So Much Smoke I Elle Fournier I Antipodes<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">January 11, 2019</span><br />
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<a href="https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/antipodes/about.html"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/antipodes/about.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">FICTION
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A feast in the details<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Felix
Calvino. So Much Smoke. Arcadia: Victoria, 2016. 143 pp. A$29.95. ISBN:978-
1-925333-99-2 <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Elle
Fournier <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Washington
State University <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Cigarettes,
cremation, and home cooking aptly engulf Felix Calvino’s short story collection
So Much Smoke. The result is a swirl of elements, of fire, of sea, of chicken
and onions, that gives the collection strength in feel despite its lack in
form. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Spanish-born author, now living in
Australia, stays close to home with this collection, either revisiting
small-town Spanish life or examining the lives of Spanish immigrants in
Australia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like history, food also connects this
family of stories. For readers with epicurean interests of their own, the
detail that Calvino puts into relating food preparation is a delight, as in
“The Road”: “There was hare stew for Sunday dinner. It was a heavy and long
hare with thick gold and white fur. José had trapped it two days before and had
marinated it with two bay leaves and the last of his garlic stock” (19).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Beyond the pleasure in the gastronomic
details, food in this collection does a lot of heavy lifting, signaling home
and connection. At moments of emotional intensity, characters head to the
kitchen, making coffee, pulling beers out of the refrigerator, grilling steaks.
A connection to Spain and its land is also played out through food, as
characters pull ingredients from just outside their homes and consume such regional
fare as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">jamón serrano</i> (8) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aguardiente </i>(9), each representing one
of the few instances of Spanish language in the text. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Calvino also uses food as an
opportunity to examine death and death’s role in life. In “The Hen,” the young
protagonist reckons with the task of slaughtering a chicken for a family meal.
This task comes at a time in which the eleven-year-old boy is “desperate to get
out of short pants” (4). Like food, the theme of transition present in “The
Hen” works its way through the entire collection; Calvino investigates the
migration between childhood and adulthood, life and death, Spain and Australia.
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The collection’s most memorable story,
“The Smile,” is also the longest and follows the Spanish immigrant Jose after
the loss of his wife, Consuela. Though told with sparse detail and a restrained
plot—the act of refinishing a table carries the story through a great deal of
the action—Jose’s quiet grief is haunting. The story builds slowly; however, it
succeeds because the longer page count allows the reader to get acquainted with
Calvino’s characters—on the whole, a reticent bunch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Calvino’s collection works best when
focusing on the sensory, when he builds a palpable ambiance. For example, a
particularly short snapshot near the end of the collection, “Kneading the
Dough,” stands out. Like “The Hen,” this story focuses on the relationship
between a tween boy and his mother. “Kneading the Dough” adeptly uses
microdetail and repetition to reflect the sense of stasis enveloping the time
just before adulthood: “In the confined space of the stove oven, the fire, slow
at first, is now a furious dance. The red and yellow tongues turn on
themselves, embrace each other. He adds another bundle of dry hardwood and pine
branches, then another, and another” (132).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The strength of this two-page story is
that Calvino carves a path between adolescent angst and the process of
preparing bread but does not insist on dragging the reader down that path with
him. Too often writers underestimate the satisfaction for readers of sussing
out these connections for themselves. Here Calvino leaves enough hints that
readers are not floundering for an interpretation but also practices enough
restraint so that they can feel clever for drawing a conclusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On the flip side, issues in this
collection generally arise when Calvino slows down the narrative for the sake
of explanation. In the age of Google, there is little need for explanatory
footnotes, especially when presented in the dry, dictionary-esque fashion that
Calvino does in this book. As a reader, when I am asked to arrest the narrative
to glance toward the bottom of the page, I hope for a stylistic treat in
return. Calvino does not deliver. However, the real problem is that for most
readers, even those unfamiliar with Franco-era Spanish history, the explanation
is unnecessary to understand the unfolding plot and character arcs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a similar vein, “The Dream Girl” is
the least engrossing story in the collection because it is distractingly meta,
with the protagonist’s interests and backgrounds all but cross-referencing the
author’s bio page. “The Dream Girl” focuses a great deal on the protagonist’s
growing love of reading and his writing aspirations. While relating this,
Calvino does little to shake up the conventional artist’s journey narrative. If
he moved away from this story of a shy, precocious child finding freedom
through literature, Calvino’s use of biography would read as far less trite.
However, “The Dream Girl” has the opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to
the artist’s narrative with its focus on language; the Galician-speaking
protagonist is forced to negotiate Spain’s desire to homogenize the country’s
language. Unfortunately, the handling of the Galician language facet of the
story is far too direct, contributing more to authorial intrusion than to a
thought-provoking thread in the narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In So Much Smoke, Calvino proves that
he is capable of leaving room for reader interpretation. It is unfortunate that
he gives in to the impulse to overexplain at the moments he does. With more
restraint, stories of oppressive language policies and echoes of tyrannical
regimes would be compelling and relevant. Instead, the departures from
narrative mostly serve to distract from the more entertaining and engaging moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.13110/antipodes.31.2.0447JOURNAL
ARTICLE<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Félix Calvinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12974902929456557474noreply@blogger.com0