Como los pájaros aman el aire

Abstract

The diversity of the stories’ socioeconomic settings reflects the city’s, and the interactions between Dhaka residents from differing social classes make for particularly entertaining stories. This is on display in Shaheen Akhtar’s “Home,” translated by Arifa Ghani Rahman, in which protagonist Bindubula is beckoned by demanding wealthy clients to provide her services as a traditional masseuse. She traverses Dhaka by three-wheeled van and rickshaw, rubbing mashed lentils and other traditional beauty cocktails into backs and necks to make a meager living. The story ends with a revelation steeped in twentieth-century Bangladeshi history, which permeates many of the ten stories in the book. Wasi Ahmed’s “The Widening Gyre,” translated by Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman, depicts the city’s politically charged atmosphere, as three men march through the streets with a banner held high and very little fanfare, demanding justice for a murdered friend. With little popular support, their planned rally ends poorly, to say the least. Many of The Book of Dhaka’s stories contain references to traditional Bangladeshi customs, from the food described in several stories to the songs excerpted in Bipradash Barua’s “The Princess and the Father,” translated by poet Mohammad Shafiqul Islam. Rather than attempt to translate the untranslatable , the editors chose to present endnotes after each story, which offer both cultural and historical explanations when needed. The quality of the translations and their editing is a testament to the quality of output from the workshops held at the Dhaka Translation Center, which noted Bangladeshi poet Kaiser Haq describes in the foreword: these stories are as alive as the city they celebrate and describe. The Book of Dhaka is an exciting omen for the future of Bangla-language literature translated into English. David Shook Los Angeles, California Claire-Louise Bennett. Pond. New York. Riverhead Books. 2016. 195 pages. Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut novel, Pond, follows an unnamed young woman who takes up residence in a village on Ireland’s west coast. Initially relishing the anonymity, the protagonist befriends her landlady and takes on lovers, yet her experiences with a lush backyard garden and her own imagination offer her much more satisfaction than most human interaction. A beauty of Pond is that it resists definition , reading as a novel, a novel-in-stories, or a story collection, and therein also lies some of its power and a key theme of the novel: the need to welcome experience on its own terms, without the constraints of human language. In “The Big Day,” the protagonist is bothered by a sign her landlady has staked next to the garden pond: “I wouldn’t put a sign next to a pond saying Pond.” Later, in preparation for a celebration , her landlady rents a portable toilet for the property with “a sign stuck upon it saying Toilet.” This humorous turn leads the protagonist to conclude that her first language is not English at all but one “simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs.” One of Bennett’s many gifts as a writer lies in highlighting the totemic power of everyday things. The main character finds joy in the science of properly placing fruit in bowls on her windowsill. Ink pens have a hierarchy and are used for different moods and occasions. Bennett’s prose is always lyrical, precise, and observant, reviving the world as readers might know it. In one particularly moving section, “Control Knobs,” the protagonist frets that only one control knob remains for her kitchen cooker, which she transfers from one prong to another after the two others deteriorate and split, rendering them useless. In the pages that follow, her unsuccessful search for replacements becomes a resonant meditation on time passing and mortality. In the end, Pond is a luminous book that illuminates the rich interior life of its central character completely. Patient readers will be well rewarded. Michael Hyde Fashion Institute of Technology Martín Casariego. Como los pájaros aman el aire. Madrid. Siruela. 2016. 182 pages. Rosa Montero says in La loca de la casa that novelists can be classified into two types: the hedgehogs (erizos), the ones who always come back almost compulsively to the same subjects, and the foxes who...