AUTHOR: Marta Carnicero Hernanz
PUBLISHER: Editorial Acantilado
GENRE: Fiction
READER’S NAME: Annette Bridges
DATE: June 5, 2021

Memory and forgetting, shifting epistemological standpoints, the instability of the self, and the interface between humans and technology are among Marta Carnicero Hernanz’ concerns in Coníferas. The characters are few; the plot involves the shifting dynamic between the two protagonists, a couple named Joel and Alina. The third primary character, an adolescent girl named Emma who is Joel’s neighbor and who throughout the book exercises her powers of observation as she prepares to become a writer, adds a great deal of specificity and complexity to the narrative. Emma’s actions, whether being in possession of a contraband cell phone or borrowing Joel’s orange bicycle, help ground this complicated psychological excavation of Joel’s and Alina’s “selves.”

Coníferas is divided into many short sections and alternates between first and third person narrative, with a harmonious balance between dialogue and exposition. The language is simple and direct, the dialogue is convincingly natural, and there are no colloquialisms or other linguistic factors that would present particular difficulty for a translator.

The setting of the novel is a small intentional community called “Las Walden” that is inhabited by people who have rejected smartphones and other accoutrements of modern technology; the reference is to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond. The setting, however, serves primarily as a foil for the complicated set of technological interventions that the author has imagined for her characters: a chip implanted under the skin to store and/or back up human memory, the possibility of accessing the chip with a password in order to block or unblock particular memories, a memory-creation simulator into which an individual can be placed.

Marta Carnicero Hernanz’ treatment of her characters’ psychological and emotional states and experiences (desperation, vengefulness, dementia, desire, anxiety) is compelling, bleak and frightening. Joel becomes increasingly harsh and suspicious with Alina, thereby shaping the novel’s ultimate trajectory. Joel observes his own cruelty, acknowledging that “when you accuse someone who hasn’t done anything against you, who never would do that, you can make them go crazy.” Alina, for her part, is “learning not to cry.” The sections of dialogue that describe these processes are short and simple but devastating, masterfully laying bare the coldness, antagonism and disappointment that can infiltrate a relationship.

Marta Carnicero Hernanz, who is also the author of a previous novel, El cielo según Google, is an industrial engineer by profession. Her writing is clearly informed by her understanding of the possibilities and dangers of computer technologies; with Coníferas, she gives us a study of the human brain that could be shelved with other futuristic explorations of how we use and are affected by modern technology.

Because this novel uses Walden as a setting and trope, translating it for U.S. readers might involve a certain loss of exotic sparkle. However, the writing (unlike the plot!) is quite straightforward and would lend itself well to translation into English. It is important to note that I read this novel in Spanish, meaning that all of my observations about Coníferas are equally comments on Pablo Martín Sánchez’ excellent Spanish-language translation. Potential English-language translators should, of course, bear in mind that Coníferas was originally written in Catalan.