Elemental, querida Lisa (Vicente Garcia Oliva)
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:00 pm
Elemental, querida Lisa
Vicente Garcia Oliva
2007 Trabe
pp 166
I just finished this quick novel today by Vicente Garcia Oliva. It’s in Asturian and tells the life of a 16-year-old girl from Xixon (Lisa) who is involved in a car crash with her parents in 1974.
With her father in an intensive care unit, she is sent off to Carbayin, somewhere in the mining districts of central Asturias, where her grandmother Puri lives. There, she reconnects with childhood friends and discovers the secret about her grandfather, who fought against Franco troops in the frontlines of El Mazucu, near Llanes, in the fall of 1937 [Btw, if anyone has info about El Mazucu, I’d appreciate it].
I read this in one sitting, on a sick day off in Paris, so it’s not dense, but more of an initiation story directed at younger readers. But precisely because it’s lightweight it has a nice flow and, at moments, it can be touching. I remember my grandmother giving me ‘Asina somos nos’, also by Garcia Oliva, when I was in school. So when I heard he had another novel out, I bought it.
Here’s the back cover blurb, in Asturian:
“Nun ye facil tener 16 anos na Espana de 1974, menos tovia si la vida da guelpes que too lo tracamundien. Cola Revolucion de los Claveles de musica de fondu y la Guerra Civil Espanola enta ocupando grandes espacios de la vida cotidiana d’entos, Lisa entama un viaxe iniciaticu que termina nuna revolucion personal y familiar.
Esplendida novela de Vicente Garcia Oliva (Xixon, 1945), padre de lliteratura xuvenil asturiana, que, de xuru, va prestar abondo a la moceda, ya que, penriba diferencies xeneracionales, el viaxe que nos lleva de la nenez a la vida adulta ye bien igual en tolos tiempos y en toles cultures.”
Vicente Garcia Oliva
2007 Trabe
pp 166
I just finished this quick novel today by Vicente Garcia Oliva. It’s in Asturian and tells the life of a 16-year-old girl from Xixon (Lisa) who is involved in a car crash with her parents in 1974.
With her father in an intensive care unit, she is sent off to Carbayin, somewhere in the mining districts of central Asturias, where her grandmother Puri lives. There, she reconnects with childhood friends and discovers the secret about her grandfather, who fought against Franco troops in the frontlines of El Mazucu, near Llanes, in the fall of 1937 [Btw, if anyone has info about El Mazucu, I’d appreciate it].
I read this in one sitting, on a sick day off in Paris, so it’s not dense, but more of an initiation story directed at younger readers. But precisely because it’s lightweight it has a nice flow and, at moments, it can be touching. I remember my grandmother giving me ‘Asina somos nos’, also by Garcia Oliva, when I was in school. So when I heard he had another novel out, I bought it.
Here’s the back cover blurb, in Asturian:
“Nun ye facil tener 16 anos na Espana de 1974, menos tovia si la vida da guelpes que too lo tracamundien. Cola Revolucion de los Claveles de musica de fondu y la Guerra Civil Espanola enta ocupando grandes espacios de la vida cotidiana d’entos, Lisa entama un viaxe iniciaticu que termina nuna revolucion personal y familiar.
Esplendida novela de Vicente Garcia Oliva (Xixon, 1945), padre de lliteratura xuvenil asturiana, que, de xuru, va prestar abondo a la moceda, ya que, penriba diferencies xeneracionales, el viaxe que nos lleva de la nenez a la vida adulta ye bien igual en tolos tiempos y en toles cultures.”
