Genre Fiction
![Brenda Lozano - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00IQIPOKE.jpg)
Loop
Winner PEN Translates Award (UK)
Recovering from an unspecified accident, the narrator of Loop finds herself in waiting rooms of different kinds: airport departure lounges, doctors' surgeries, and above all at home, awaiting the return of her boyfriend, who has travelled to Spain following the death of his mother. Loop is a love story told from the perspective of a contemporary Penelope who, instead of weaving and unravelling her shroud, writes and erases her thoughts in her ‘ideal' notebook. At once, funny and thought-provoking, her thoughts range from her stationery preferences to the different scales on which life is lived, while a cast of unlikely characters cross the page, from Proust to a mysterious dwarf, from a dreamy cat to David Bowie singing ‘Wild is the Wind'. Written in an assured, irreverent style, Loop is the journal of an absence, one in which the most minute or whimsical observations open up universes. Combining aphoristic fragments with introspective narrative, and evoking Italo Calvino and Fernando Pessoa in its playfulness and wry humour, this original reflection on relationships, solitude and the purpose of writing offers a glimpse of contemporary life in Mexico City, while asking what it really means to find our place in the world.
Recovering from an unspecified accident, the narrator of Loop finds herself in waiting rooms of different kinds: airport departure lounges, doctors' surgeries, and above all at home, awaiting the return of her boyfriend, who has travelled to Spain following the death of his mother. Loop is a love story told from the perspective of a contemporary Penelope who, instead of weaving and unravelling her shroud, writes and erases her thoughts in her ‘ideal' notebook. At once, funny and thought-provoking, her thoughts range from her stationery preferences to the different scales on which life is lived, while a cast of unlikely characters cross the page, from Proust to a mysterious dwarf, from a dreamy cat to David Bowie singing ‘Wild is the Wind'. Written in an assured, irreverent style, Loop is the journal of an absence, one in which the most minute or whimsical observations open up universes. Combining aphoristic fragments with introspective narrative, and evoking Italo Calvino and Fernando Pessoa in its playfulness and wry humour, this original reflection on relationships, solitude and the purpose of writing offers a glimpse of contemporary life in Mexico City, while asking what it really means to find our place in the world.
Editorial Reviews
Today a dwarf smiled at me.As a girl I thought the electric pencil sharpener was what separated me from adult life. Between the blue plastic pencil sharpener and the electric pencil sharpener – in my father's office or on the teacher's desk – stretched the distance between childhood and adult life.At a dinner party when he was twenty-one, Proust was asked some questions. Among them, what his favourite bird was. The swallow, he replied. Proust didn't invent the questions known as the ‘Proust questionnaire', but his answers were so good they made the questionnaire famous. Proust responded to the questionnaire on two separate occasions. He was fifteen when he was asked his favourite colour.‘The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony,' he said.At fifteen I still thought the electric pencil sharpener separated me from adult life. If I'd been asked my favourite colour I would have said the colour of my blue pencil sharpener, but Proust's favourite bird is also my favourite bird.If I could turn into any bird, I'd choose a swallow.Change. Unlearning yourself is more important than knowing yourself.Jonás and I did a crossword together this evening. We made a good team. It was a kind of crossword with lots of blank numbered squares.You had to work out which letter of the alphabet corresponded to each number, and then work out the title, the author and the text underneath. He outlined the three-letter words in red, and I outlined the four-letter words in blue. It was a passage from First Love, about the love between the character's parents. It took the two of us more than an hour to solve it. Crosswords are a good demonstration of how we function as a couple, in this apartment. A model, on a dwarf scale. His maths PhD came in useful for solving the puzzle. My degree in communication helped me remember the author's surname. From the surname, we were able to work out the rest of the text thanks to Jonás' usual methodical approach to things. Significant that the word ‘mother' appeared so many times. Jonás' mother died a week before we met and this very day, Sunday, would have been her birthday. Every time Jonás read the word ‘mother' out loud I felt a pang.Today I saw the dwarf again, the same one who smiled at me in the street a few days ago.This time he was sitting with his back to me, in a little diner. He was checking something on his phone; I think he was reading the news. His feet, the soles of his shoes, weren't touching the floor, and his knees weren't bent. Straight, the legs of the dwarf sitting on the plastic chair.Tonight we listened to different versions of ‘Wild is the Wind' as we lay in bed. Out of David Bowie and Nina Simone, I'd go for Bowie and Jonás would go for Nina Simone.I've found my combination: a Scribe notebook for a diary and an Ideal notebook for fiction. Thi...
Readers Top Reviews
Ian J Sit
Fascinating in its construction and emotionally resonant. Universal in that personal way. Delightful and entertaining yet sophisticated and insightful. You know? All that good stuff.
Aysu
Arrived in good condition. I liked the style of the author.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Today a dwarf smiled at me.As a girl I thought the electric pencil sharpener was what separated me from adult life. Between the blue plastic pencil sharpener and the electric pencil sharpener – in my father's office or on the teacher's desk – stretched the distance between childhood and adult life.At a dinner party when he was twenty-one, Proust was asked some questions. Among them, what his favourite bird was. The swallow, he replied. Proust didn't invent the questions known as the ‘Proust questionnaire', but his answers were so good they made the questionnaire famous. Proust responded to the questionnaire on two separate occasions. He was fifteen when he was asked his favourite colour.‘The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony,' he said.At fifteen I still thought the electric pencil sharpener separated me from adult life. If I'd been asked my favourite colour I would have said the colour of my blue pencil sharpener, but Proust's favourite bird is also my favourite bird.If I could turn into any bird, I'd choose a swallow.Change. Unlearning yourself is more important than knowing yourself.Jonás and I did a crossword together this evening. We made a good team. It was a kind of crossword with lots of blank numbered squares.You had to work out which letter of the alphabet corresponded to each number, and then work out the title, the author and the text underneath. He outlined the three-letter words in red, and I outlined the four-letter words in blue. It was a passage from First Love, about the love between the character's parents. It took the two of us more than an hour to solve it. Crosswords are a good demonstration of how we function as a couple, in this apartment. A model, on a dwarf scale. His maths PhD came in useful for solving the puzzle. My degree in communication helped me remember the author's surname. From the surname, we were able to work out the rest of the text thanks to Jonás' usual methodical approach to things. Significant that the word ‘mother' appeared so many times. Jonás' mother died a week before we met and this very day, Sunday, would have been her birthday. Every time Jonás read the word ‘mother' out loud I felt a pang.Today I saw the dwarf again, the same one who smiled at me in the street a few days ago.This time he was sitting with his back to me, in a little diner. He was checking something on his phone; I think he was reading the news. His feet, the soles of his shoes, weren't touching the floor, and his knees weren't bent. Straight, the legs of the dwarf sitting on the plastic chair.Tonight we listened to different versions of ‘Wild is the Wind' as we lay in bed. Out of David Bowie and Nina Simone, I'd go for Bowie and Jonás would go for Nina Simone.I've found my combination: a Scribe notebook for a diary and an Ideal notebook for fiction. This is my married couple. Gemini at last become one. Today is a happy day, a day when I came across some dusty, forgotten Scribe and Ideal notebooks in a stationer's on Calle Alfonso Reyes.They were the last ones. Scribe and Ideal notebooks are very difficult to find, but Alfonso Reyes' passion for fictions is reflected in his street. I feel like Alfonso Reyes should intersect with Borges. The two writers would spend the whole time joking around between their streets, but what paranormal phenomena would take place in the stationer's then?‘The Song of the Notebook'.That's the title of the poem AlexanderVvedensky wrote in a notebook with a grey cover between 1932 and 1933.The collection of poems is called The Grey Notebook, simply because of the colour of the cover.A concert of trees and bushes.The wind in the branches: the song of the notebook in its original version. Silence. Listen to that song.If Jonás turned into a bird I could ask him to let me fly by his side, like in ‘Wild is the Wind'.I'd like to have dinner with Jonás, but today he won't be home.‘I'm having dinner with my dad,' the message says. I called him.We argued on the phone about something stupid. He's going to spend the night there. I wish I'd never said anything.The dwarf on the block.Today he was wearing a three- piece suit and carrying a tiny cane. In the evening we exchanged glances. I felt a lot like the dwarf, on another scale of life and needing to lean on a tiny cane.
