Author: Tomás González
- Fiction
- Alfaguara
- ISBN: 9786071119797
- Release Date: 10-25-2012
-Reviewed by: Félix Lizárraga
The narrator and protagonist in La luz difícil (The Difficult Light) is David, a Colombian artist who in his old age is losing his eyesight and, unable to paint anymore, is reduced to writing with the help of a magnifying glass. The novel alternates between two main settings: his present everyday life in a peaceful Colombian town, attended by a family of farmers, and a particular day in New York, 18 years in the past, a day when the whole family waited in agony while Jacobo, his elder son, crippled in an accident, sought release in euthanasia from a life fraught with unbearable pain.
Personally, I found the way the narrative jumps from one time to another a little chaotically done –there is little fluidity to the jumps, which take place without rhyme or reason, and, to make matters more disconcerting, they are intercut with other episodes from past and present. One may argue that the human mind is not exactly linear, that memory works by association, and I think that is perhaps what the author is trying to capture. In all, it was a little distracting, and even though I grew used to it after the first few chapters, it never stopped being somewhat off-putting.
That said, I soon found myself caring about the characters, and González’s observations of life in the United States, and particularly in New York –La luz difícil has been called by Colombian critics González’s “New York novel.” The characters are well drawn and pop out of the page: his wife Sarah, his sons and their girlfriends, and (being New York City) picturesque street characters like a Russian vinyl disc seller and an unforgettable Sikh cab driver.
The novel is about life and death, and despite all the tragedy it is full of humor and ends on a beautifully life-affirming, uplifting note, without any corniness or simplistic optimistic.
Tomás González (Medellín, 1950) is a poet and novelist that is well-known and appreciated in his native Colombia and is starting to receive more international attention. This book would be a great way to introduce American readers to his work.
