I talk about women without counting myself among them. I'm not a woman. I am the cook on an old merchant ship, sharpening knives one edge at a time.

This was powerful. A very interesting portrait of a relationship changed by motherhood from the "other mother" perspective. I didn't necessarily like the protagonist, but it didn't make me enjoy this less. Great style, very sharp prose (and translation). ( )

Another ok if underwhelming for me International Booker shortlister, we have here a novella that supports the old truth of “don’t agree to have a child just to save a relationship.” Samsa from Iceland feels a strong desire to have a child. Her long term partner, a Chilean woman she nicknames Boulder for her solidity in standing apart, feels a strong desire not to. Samsa, as a well-read person can foresee, changes greatly after the baby enters the scene, at least from Boulder’s point of view, and the relationship ends.

I don’t see how a reader could feel anything much about the troubles in and finally the ending of this relationship, as Baltasar puts scant effort into bringing it to life despite putting us there from its beginning. With little apparent in common, all that seems to hold them together on these pages is lust, which I wouldn’t think is often sufficient glue for a decade long relationship in which one partner leaves their home continent and reluctantly agrees to have a child together.

It’s not really about the relationship, then, it’s about the effect of motherhood on women. And it’s not the same for everyone, naturally. Boulder, who guards her personal freedom fiercely, often losing jobs for not working well with others, sees it very negatively:

The moment she was inseminated, Samsa changed. The feeling I had was one of unfamiliarity - an anxious, nomadic unfamiliarity that came from Samsa. It took over her while at the same time soaking through her and turning her radioactive… motherhood is the tattoo that defines you, brands life on your arm, the mark that impedes freedom.

You know what they say… when you’re associating pregnancy with being turned into a cockroach, you aren’t a fan. And of Samsa’s motherly love for the child, rather than being something positive, to Boulder “it’s more like a parasite that has usurped her and now rides her in victory.” Boulder sees Samsa’s personal freedom as something being taken away by this love and connection.

Samsa on the other hand seems to be pretty happy with motherhood. She enjoys being a mother, breastfeeding, going to infant swim classes, meeting up with other new mothers, co-sleeping with the baby, spending her days with her. Her career meanwhile seems to have lost its appeal, as has having sex with Boulder.

This all leads Boulder at the novel’s end to think in regards to Samsa that “I look at her and see a woman who has sacrificed her own self-worth for the well-being of a child”. Which seems entirely unkind and wrong to me: Samsa seems rather to have increased her sense of self-worth, as she’s found more personal meaning in raising a child than in a career or the freedom of being child-free. Boulder is unable to comprehend such a choice improving one’s sense of self-worth; she completely fails to understand Samsa.

In contrast to Samsa’s happiness, Boulder informs us that “I don’t believe in this island and I don’t believe in happiness, or in relationships, or in children, or in God.” I can believe that her character has that dispiriting outlook; I have a harder time believing these two characters stayed together for so many years to get to the events of this story! ( )

Boulder by the Catalan writer Eva Baltasar is exciting prose. It is written for this time. Within just over 100 pages there are so many changes of scene, different countries, different environments, but love transcends, against the odds one might say. The book seems to tell us that no matter where, no matter how, love and motherhood are driving, elemental forces of nature. ( )

4.5⭐️

*Shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2023*

“Life develops without overwhelming me, it squeezes into every minute, it implodes; I hold it in my hands. I can give anything up, because nothing is essential when you refuse to imprison life in a narrative.”

We meet our unnamed protagonist, loner content with moving from job to job, while she waits for a merchant freighter on the Chilean coast where she takes up the job as a cook, perfectly happy with the monotonous, predictable routine while traversing the South American coast. When she meets Samsa, a Scandinavian geologist, she trades in her itinerant lifestyle for a relatively more domestic arrangement in Reykjavik where Samsa gets a job.

“She doesn’t like my name, and gives me a new one. She says I’m like those large, solitary rocks in southern Patagonia, pieces of world left over after creation, isolated and exposed to every element. No one knows where they came from. Not even they understand how they’re still standing and why they never break down.”

As the years progress, “Boulder” as Samsa calls her sees herself making compromises, adjusting to life as a couple, some aspects of it more challenging than others- but prioritizing her relationship with Samsa over all she misses from her solitary life. However, the dynamic in their relationship begins to shift when Samsa expresses her desire to have a child, to have a family – a desire that Boulder does not share and a journey that Boulder is more than reluctant to embark upon. With the birth of their child, the gap between them – both in terms of physical intimacy and emotional connection - begins to broaden. Samsa’s devotion to their daughter Tinna leaves our narrator feeling lost, lonely and “in exile”. We follow Boulder as she deals with conflicting feelings of emptiness, her desire for physical connection, moments of fondness for their daughter and her need for the solitary life she has left behind.

“No emotion is more indulgent than feeling that you are intensely human. Though it can also be the most tyrannical. You are responsible for every word, and no statement is innocent.”

Boulder by Eva Baltasar (translated by Julia Sanches) is a brutally honest, unflinching yet insightful novella that takes us deep into not only the complexities of relationships – the changing dynamics, the power play- but also how we evolve as individuals in the course of the same. Narrated in the first person, and at barely one hundred pages, this is a heavy read one that will raise some important questions on how we perceive relationships, motherhood and commitment and the lengths we go to preserve those relationships we hold dear and the extent to which we are willing to lose ourselves in the interest of the same. I could not put this down. Boulder is passionate, intense and real, too real at times. You can feel the pressure building from the very first page. The author’s writing is powerful and able to convey our narrator’s suffocation and claustrophobia with skill and much emotional depth. Even though it might be difficult to sympathize with our protagonist all the while, the author allows us to understand her. It is commendable that not only does the author not resort to stereotypes but, in fact, shatters quite a few!

“Time doesn’t live outside us; it comes into being as we do. To be able to hold time in our hands— now that’s a human mission.”

I’m eager to read the remaining books in the author’s triptych. This is the second book, but all of them can be read as standalone. ( )

Ens explica la història de sentiments entre dues dones i com evoluciona en el moment en què un d'elles vol tenir un fill ( )