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By the time Rafael is born, the family farm has already gone to hell. Rafael's father has abandoned them. His older brothers, the twins Mauro and Joaquin, blame Rafael for their father's departure and exact revenge on their baby brother. Steban, his other sibling, is a simpleton whose affections and allegiances change with the shifting winds. Ruling over this dysfunctional roost is a tyrannical and avaricious mother. On the lonely Patagonian steppe, life is lived to the rhythms of the family farm.But there is nothing bucolic about the existence described in these pages:it is ruthless, unforgiving, and bloody. As the family tensions mount, daily lifedegenerates into open warfare. Reminiscent of Coetzee'sDisgrace, Chatwin'sIn Patagonia, the Dust Bowl novels of Steinbeck, the writing of Cormac McCarthy, and the southern gothic of William Faulkner,Nothing But Dust is a gripping, unsentimental, ultimately majestic story about life in one the most inhospitable places on Earth.… (més)
"A combination of a South American Western and a noir, Nothing But Dust has airs of Faulknerian tragedy in full Argentinian heat. A vicious circle of cruelty and redemption, written with complete austerity."
I haven't read any Faulkner but I have read Marguerite Duras and this book is the crushing and brutal tone of the family in [The Lover], but instead of Indochina we are on the Patagonian plains in Argentina. Rafael is the youngest of four sons, born right after the disapperance of the father, and is thus subsequently terrorized by the oldest twin brothers as if he were at fault. He finds no safety in the skirts of the mother as she is even more cruel, reigning over her family as harsh as the Patagonia environment reigns over her ranch. The beauty of the book comes from the beauty of the landscapes and the movement of the horses over it as they herd in the sheep for shearing. The rest is terrorizing, cold, cruel, and brutal, and even as Rafael tries to bring home hope, it leads to a brutal climax as we are reminded that in Patagonia our time here is temporary and once we leave there will be nothing but dust.
A stunning little gem translated from the original French. And the translation is fantastic. Much recommended.
Interestingly enough this book was winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction but I'm not understanding why it won under this category. Either the crime fiction genre has changed dramatically but I felt this is really just a very dark, noir, literary Western. ( )
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
To Jean-Michel,
joyful poet of the bikkie, of little roses and the whisk broom, tireless surveyor of the winding trails in the Morvan, of Schopenhauer, and above all, maker of blue sky.
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Because he was the youngest, his brothers had gotten into the habit of chasing him around the house on horseback when their mother wasn't watching.
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Nota de desambiguació
Editor de l'editorial
Creadors de notes promocionals a la coberta
Llengua original
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
By the time Rafael is born, the family farm has already gone to hell. Rafael's father has abandoned them. His older brothers, the twins Mauro and Joaquin, blame Rafael for their father's departure and exact revenge on their baby brother. Steban, his other sibling, is a simpleton whose affections and allegiances change with the shifting winds. Ruling over this dysfunctional roost is a tyrannical and avaricious mother. On the lonely Patagonian steppe, life is lived to the rhythms of the family farm.But there is nothing bucolic about the existence described in these pages:it is ruthless, unforgiving, and bloody. As the family tensions mount, daily lifedegenerates into open warfare. Reminiscent of Coetzee'sDisgrace, Chatwin'sIn Patagonia, the Dust Bowl novels of Steinbeck, the writing of Cormac McCarthy, and the southern gothic of William Faulkner,Nothing But Dust is a gripping, unsentimental, ultimately majestic story about life in one the most inhospitable places on Earth.
Google Books — S'està carregant…
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"A combination of a South American Western and a noir, Nothing But Dust has airs of Faulknerian tragedy in full Argentinian heat. A vicious circle of cruelty and redemption, written with complete austerity."
I haven't read any Faulkner but I have read Marguerite Duras and this book is the crushing and brutal tone of the family in [The Lover], but instead of Indochina we are on the Patagonian plains in Argentina. Rafael is the youngest of four sons, born right after the disapperance of the father, and is thus subsequently terrorized by the oldest twin brothers as if he were at fault. He finds no safety in the skirts of the mother as she is even more cruel, reigning over her family as harsh as the Patagonia environment reigns over her ranch. The beauty of the book comes from the beauty of the landscapes and the movement of the horses over it as they herd in the sheep for shearing. The rest is terrorizing, cold, cruel, and brutal, and even as Rafael tries to bring home hope, it leads to a brutal climax as we are reminded that in Patagonia our time here is temporary and once we leave there will be nothing but dust.
A stunning little gem translated from the original French. And the translation is fantastic. Much recommended.
Interestingly enough this book was winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction but I'm not understanding why it won under this category. Either the crime fiction genre has changed dramatically but I felt this is really just a very dark, noir, literary Western. (