Biogenesis
2016; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 90; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2016.0265
ISSN1945-8134
Autores Tópico(s)Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations
Resumo“Elephants were hairier than she’d thought. Black, straight bristles, thick as needles, sprung here and there from the leathery skin.” Never mind that elephants don’t crash through apartments on the fifteenth floor of urban buildings. We believe in the elephant in part because of the believable mess the elephant leaves behind in the woman’s home: “the scattered textbooks for the course she was glumly, doggedly failing; the crushed vase in a colour she’d never liked, a grudging gift from an aunt who’d never liked her; the destroyed television with its thousand channels of candied nothing.” Enriched by such finely chosen details, this brief, beautiful story becomes a wistful exercise in compassionate longing, as the woman stocks up on containers of lotion that she hopes to apply to the beast’s dry skin should it reappear. Hopkinson at times deploys captivatingly jarring juxtapositions that produce an edgy, vertiginous atmosphere. “Churchy had told them [that] that penguin was from a movie called Madagascar. She’d been old enough to remember old-time stuff like that. It was soon after that that they’d had to kill her.” At other times she anchors elements of fantasy in uncomfortably sensuous experiences. “It’s 3:05 a.m. I should have known better than to have that fifth whiskey at the opening. My mouth feels and tastes like the plains of the Serengeti , complete with lion spoor.” At the heart of Hopkinson’s stories is empathy. In a note to one story, the Jamaican-born Hopkinson writes, “I most certainly felt for Caliban, relegated to the very bottom of the barrel, oppressed by the oppressed in an inescapable chain of contempt. I am similarly a child of historically exploited islands. I know what that shit smells like.” Hopkinson turns her awareness of oppression into sometimes funny and often unsettling stories. In “The Easthound,” children are afraid to reach maturation because as adults they will turn into large, houndlike forms that prey on children. “Message in a Bottle” is a brilliantly eerie story about a visitor from the future trapped in a child’s body who tries unsuccessfully to explain to the narrator just how different human understanding of the world will become. And in “The Smile on the Face,” Gilla, an unpopular “thick girl,” discovers her true power as an ancient tree-residing witch. Magical and believable, Hopkinson’s stories show us much about inner and outer transformations. Jim Hannan Le Moyne College Tatsuaki Ishiguro. Biogenesis. Brian Watson & James Balzer, tr. New York. Vertical. 2015. 240 pages. This first English translation of Tatsuaki Ishiguro’s metafictions comprises four stories about the last specimens of exceedingly rare, geographically isolated species facing extinction: tiny winged mice that glow and shed tears; a white-haired, amnesiac young woman, her body temperature far below the human norm; a lovely, white, transparent weed, its glow radioactive; a tasty sea squirt, its ugly cancerous tumors both Musharraf Ali Farooqi Between Clay and Dust Restless Books In the newly developed Pakistan of 1947, a wrestler and a courtesan— remnants of two different traditions in a world of changing values, borders, and perspectives—must try to find their places. Faith, desire, loss, and a deep connection to culture engender the power of this understated narrative. Viola Di Grado Hollow Heart Antony Shugaar, tr. Europa Editions The dead Dorotea Giglio serves as the narrator of this surprising and beautiful novel after she slashes her wrists in a bathtub in the very first paragraph of the book. What follows next is a troubling, darkly funny, and creative examination of life and life after death. From the beginning, the reader knows that the author is not afraid to shock and approach the somber, grim topics we often avoid. Nota Bene WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 59 symbiotic and healing. Like the best speculative fiction, this volume stirs thoughts of man, nature, and life itself as it links procreation , evolution, and the life cycle. The three strongest stories simulate scientific articles, apparently plotless, their language austere. The first, longest, and most powerful, “It Is with the Deepest Sincerity That I Offer Prayers . . . ,” appears in type font like a draft, contains charts and photographs, and cites logs...
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