Review by Booklist Review
A man walks city streets, surrounding himself with the noisy detritus of late capitalism while communing with literary-minded walkers from years past. At first, he aspires to openness. "I am a tape recorder," he promises, "I read every word that meets my eyes." But the walker is soon overwhelmed by information. Horrific headlines, overheard innuendo, apocalyptic portents, and relentless advertising copy pile up like mountains of nonbiodegradable plastic. Despite glimpses of Madrid and Paris, it's New York City, propelled by "the seismic and volcanic force of money" and littered with capitalism's casualties, where the narrator's existential angst coalesces most oppressively. It's only by recalling the urban walks of Poe, Baudelaire, Melville, and De Quincey, among others, that our narrator achieves a degree of stability, if not quite purpose, in his wanderings. The resulting swirl of impressions and lamentations is both bewildering and poetic. Originally written in the author's native Spanish, the French translation of this work won Muñoz Molina (Like a Fading Shadow, 2017) the Prix Médicis Étranger for "an author whose talent exceeds his fame."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Spanish writer Muñoz Molina, whose Like a Fading Shadow was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, returns with an ambitious story of a writer-flaneur. An unnamed narrator enumerates his perceptions while walking in various cities: "I listen with my ears and with my eyes," he notes in the opening, set in Madrid. In New York City, he travels from the southern tip of Manhattan to the Bronx, to visit Edgar Allan Poe's former cottage. Interspersed are wistful descriptions of his aging wife ("She is enriched by the treasure of time") and gauzy meetings in a Madrid café with a mysterious man whose "physical features were forgotten as soon as he was gone." The narrator also ruminates extensively on such writers as Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Thomas De Quincy, Herman Melville, and Walter Benjamin, noting how they fell in social status while practicing "a useless trade pursued by people of no practical sense." Most of the narrative is in short prose fragments, often headed by phrases that mimic ad copy ("Go Wherever You Choose"). Occasionally the narrator breaks out into verse, cataloging terrorist attacks and deadly accidents. Some sections burst with political barbs ("Donald Trump with his gold Lex Luthor hairpiece, misgoverning"). In the end, the solitary writer's journeys and observations culminate in his discovery of solace in loving his wife, and his passion makes the narrative deeply rewarding. The result is a treasure trove. Agent: Jeffrey Posternak, the Wylie Agency. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The premise is deceptively simple: A walker armed with pencil and pad jots down what he overhears or glimpses in ads, billboards, and newspaper headlines. The first part of the book combines itineraries in Madrid, Paris, and London, whereas the much shorter second part details his stroll up Manhattan from the Bowery to Edgar Allan Poe's home in the Bronx, ending with a flight back to Spain. This combination memoir, essay, travelogue, and work of fiction results in a collage of ideas and digressive ramblings spun around the theme of perambulation, especially that of five fellow urban wanderers: Poe, Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire, Herman Melville, and Thomas De Quincey. Every paragraph is headed by an all-caps boldtype slogan culled from the media, such that the content appears assembled from scraps. For the reader accompanying this walker, each new section reveals something unexpectedly different, akin to what one might find after crossing the street to the next block. VERDICT Those familiar with Muñoz Molina's more traditional works (In the Night of Time; Like a Fading Shadow) will be surprised, though not necessarily dissatisfied, with his latest offering. Relative newcomer Bleichmar's excellent translation adds to the prize, despite the absence of the illustrations from the original.--Lawrence Olszewski, formerly with OCLC
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Muñoz Molina walks through the cacophony of 21st-century life with the ghosts of Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas De Quincey, and other famous men. In this book, the winner of France's 2020 Medici Prize for Foreign Novel, Muñoz Molina writes with a poet's sensibility as he collages subway advertisements, commercials, overheard conversations, and news headlines with writing that feels like it's part fiction, part memoir. The narrator, "a spy on a secret mission to record and collect it all," wanders New York and Madrid recording the noise of city life. Muñoz Molina writes, "I switch on the voice recorder to repeat something I've read. I press stop but a moment later I have to switch it on again. Give blood. We buy gold. The signs along the sidewalk gradually fall into a cadence. We buy silver and gold. Give life." Reading paragraphs composed almost entirely of these recorded words across this 400-plus-page book becomes suffocating, though the paragraphs made from news headlines replicate the 24-hour news cycle's deluge with stunning accuracy. Relief arrives when the collage becomes an epiphany about life, capitalism, wandering, or the self; or when Muñoz Molina indulges in fascinating stories about the lives of Baudelaire, Poe, De Quincey, and more. The second section, "Mr. Nobody," tells the story of a man wandering New York City who "has no name, at present, no face, and no biography" and feels as though "he is one more among the city's invisible denizens." "Mr. Nobody" is interwoven with stories about the same famous men but feels less claustrophobic because here Muñoz Molina focuses more on describing the city and its people, which enriches the experience of wandering. While this book is a flâneur's catalog of walking among the noise of the modern world, it often feels like a marathon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
