AUTHOR: Vicente Luis Mora
PUBLISHER: Galaxia Gutenberg
GENRE: Historical Fiction
READER’S NAME: Kathleen Monaghan
DATE: June 1, 2021
The first-person narrator, Redo, wrote Centroeuropa as a memoir about a past now quite distant from her present, writing at her desk with newly-acquired skills. She tells a series of stories about events in her past. She does not recount the events in chronological order, and the timeline jumps around from the past, to farther in the past, to present, to past. It’s up to the reader to determine where we are in the narrator's timeline of remembering. The backwards and forwards, choppy, unpredictable order of the narrator’s memories adds to the sense of mystery and suspense in the story. She adds additional details at later points in the narration that make it possible to return to earlier points and piece together more of the story.
The overall idea of this novel is different and unusual. Set in Prussia just after the Napoleonic Wars, it is a work of historical fiction. Mora uses magical realism, and an unchronological storyline to surprise the reader and keep her attention. The narrator is a mysterious person of uncertain origin and gender who goes by the pseudonym Redo. Slowly and subtly, the narrator gives hints and clues, until nearly at the end of the novel, one discovers that Redo is a woman disguised as a man, who married another woman under the assumed name and guise of a man. The novelist uses these attention-getting elements to express a crisp message: one day you’ll be as dead as the frozen soldiers. Don’t resign yourself to a life that is less than what you wish and dream for.
The real action of the novel begins when an all-too-concrete symbol of Europe’s violent, warring past appears in Redo’s life. She finds, buried on her newly acquired parcel of farmland bordering the Oder River in Prussia, right after the Napoleonic Wars, more than 30 frozen, dead soldiers, wearing armor dating from Roman times but including uniforms from the most recent wars, the Napoleonic Wars. The soldiers appear incorruptible, as they maintain their frozen state despite being exhumed, thrown into a river, and finally stood on foot and kept in the narrator’s farmyard behind a walled enclosure, attracting curious visitors from near and far for years. Prior to their exhumation by Redo, only the village witch, an albino woman who keeps a gigantic pet wolf, was aware of their existence. The other element of magical realism in the story is the giant, Udo, who wanders the riverbank and, they say, has never used money.
The plotlines of this novel are surprising and suspenseful. The switching from past to present and telling of the story from present to past keeps one guessing and turning pages as fast as possible. Mercifully for the reader, all the many threads do blend in the end. The narrator, Redo, explains almost all the minor mysteries more or less satisfactorily.
The dialogue of the work is fairly plausible. The characters have modern sensibilities for a novel set in the early 1800s, but it is plausible enough and, in this way, not unlike other highly successful works of historical fiction.
Vicente Luis Mora is a Spanish writer, poet, essayist, and literary critic. He has written six books of poetry, five novels besides Centroeuropa.[1] Centroeuropa won the 2019 Malaga Prize.[2]
This novel, although shorter and less intricate, bears similarities to The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. The Miniaturist is another novel set in the past whose characters harbor desires and interests that they are forced to disguise lest they suffer opprobrium in the strict society they live in. It also resembles the historical fiction of Sarah Dunant. Like her novels, Mora’s combines an interesting portrait of a particular historical moment with the story of a sympathetic character with sensibilities very relatable to our modern frames of reference.
The intriguing historical setting, unexpected plot twists, magical realism, and modern sensibilities make Centroeuropa an accessible novel. Someone could easily translate
Centroeuropa into English. The subjects of the novel, European history, personal identity, and personal fulfilment, would travel well in the United States.
[1] Wikimedia Foundation. (2020, October 31). Vicente Luis Mora. Wikipedia. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Luis_Mora.
[2] Roman, M. (2019, December 16). Vicente Luis Mora, ganador del Premio Málaga de Novela. La Opinión de Málaga. https://www.laopiniondemalaga.es/cultura-espectaculos/2019/12/16/vicente-luis-mora-ganador-premio-27672015.html.
