Title: Lost Luggage
Author: Jordi Punti
Review:
This is like reading 4 different authors in the same book. Each narrative is different and unique to the
character the chapter/ifomation is about, but they also narrate against and with each other at times...strange. How can
one man cause so many issues and problems?
Well having many children with many different women is a good start. 4 brothers that are not aware of each other,
each the same father and name but different mothers.
Lots going on in this book, lots of people and lives affected by this
one man, fathers are important even if they are not involved. Everyone has one and everyone needs one that
is more than a name or signature on a check.
I think that this book
will make you think and ponder your life and your relationships with your loves
ones and especially your parents. This
book doesn’t move fast like I would have likes, lots of repeating of things and
many, many memories that are important, yet slow down the progress for the
reader. Also this is a translated book
and so the pacing and word choices are not what you might expect and that will
slow you down as a reader also. Watch
out for the British language that many Americans are not familiar with, it may
be English, but it is not American English.
This book is
interesting and I think many readers would enjoy it. Some of it does come off a bit fairy tale
like, but that is life for some of us.
Publisher: Expected publication: October 15th 2013
by Simon & Schuster Canada (first published 2010)
ISBN: 9781476730318
Copyright: 2010
Pages: 448
Quick Review: 4
stars out of 5
Where did I get the book:
Sent by the publisher for an honest review.
Synopsis: Christof, Christophe, Christopher, and
Cristòfol are four brothers—sons of the same father and four very different
mothers—yet none of them knows of the others’ existence. They live in four
different cities: Frankfurt, Paris, London, and Barcelona. Unbeknownst to them,
they have one thing in common: Gabriel Delacruz—a truck driver—abandoned them
when they were little and they never heard from him again.
Then one day,
Cristòfol is contacted by the police: his father is officially a missing
person. This fact leads him to discover that he has three half-brothers, and
the four young men come together for the first time. Two decades have passed
since their father last saw any of them. They barely remember what he was like,
but they decide to look for him to resolve their doubts. Why did he abandon
them? Why do all four have the same name? Did he intend for them to meet?
Divided by geography
yet united by blood, the “Christophers” set out on a quest that is at once
painful, hilarious, and extraordinary. They discover a man who during thirty
years of driving was able to escape the darkness of Franco’s Spain and to
explore a luminous Europe, a journey that, with the birth of his sons, both
opened and broke his heart.
Author Biography: Jordi
Puntí is a writer, translator (Paul Auster, Amélie Nothomb and Daniel Pennac,
among others), and a regular contributor to the Spanish and Catalan press. He
is currently the editor of the literary supplement, Quadern, published by the
newspaper El País.
Puntí is considered
one of the most promising new voices of contemporary Catalan literature. In
1998 he published his first book of short stories, Pell d’armadillo (Proa,
1998) that won the Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize.
Lost Luggage is his
first novel.
Other Reviews:
The Literatuer "The cardinal points represented by the four ‘Christophers’ operate as a compass, directing us through a maze of adventures that Gabriel shares with his travel mates Petroli and Bundó. Gabriel is the central character of a story narrated by the ‘Christophers’ at the different stages of their encounters, organised to investigate their father’s life. Gabriel possesses the gift of chance, but we soon discover how the constraints of his upbringing weigh him down and, when his nomadic life no longer makes sense to him, he plays with the idea of suicide, plans to jump off the statue of another Christopher – Christopher Columbus - to put an end to it all. But once again he is saved by the persistence of chance. Gabriel (like the author) is a keen card player; eventually the full house of Lost Luggage’s design is revealed, but not without risks and tricks."
Express.UK "In the Christophers' search for Gabriel the reader finds a funny, moving and poignant exploration of identity, home, family and freedom."
No comments:
Post a Comment