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the complete review - fiction

In the Beginning
was the Sea

by
Tomás González

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : sharp, effective study of doomed lives and choices

See our review for fuller assessment.

  Review Consensus:

  Impressed -- and wonder what took so long for it to be translated

  From the Reviews:

• "A laconic American style has edged into his story (.....) For all its exoticism, a novel that probes how hippydom is often built on the labours of the poor may well cause its new European readers more than a few twinges of conscience." - Julius Purcell, Financial Times
  
  
• "Unter Verzicht auf kulinarische Sinnlichkeit schildert er Kolumbien als unbekannten Kontinent, den seine eigenen Bewohner nicht verstehen. (...) Der Doppel- und Hintersinn des Romans wird hier sichtbar, ebenso wie seine philosophische Botschaft: Albert Camus läßt grüßen -- nur mit dem Unterschied, daß man sich Sisyphus in der Karibik nicht als glücklichen Menschen vorzustellen hat." - Hans Christoph Buch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  
  
• "We realise then that many hints of the outcome have been dropped from the very first pages of the novel; we realise, too, that González cares little for suspense: he wants us to read with the outcome in mind, so that we can pay attention to the process of decomposition, to the minute choices the characters make. All of which, in light of what will eventually happen, takes on a new significance. (...) Translator Frank Wynne (...) is responsible for yet another flawless job: his ear is well attuned to the idiosyncrasies of González's dialogue, and the novel's shy poetry loses nothing in his version." - Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Guardian
  
  
• "The narrative shape is that of a paradise quickly gained and easily lost. J and Elena's innocence is captured in the title which is itself drawn from Kogi cosmology. This lyrical but vague philosophy is present in a story that is heavy on fate and light on context for J and Elena's escapism. The resulting mood is hallucinatory. Events wriggle and slip from J's booze-weakened grasp almost without his agency. (...) This may well be a bold critique of their microcosmic act of colonisation, their disregard for people, lives and ideas bigger than themselves, but it does make you tire of their moodiness, discourtesy and ineffectiveness." - James Kidd, The Independent
  
  
• "The opening pages of this odd and smoothly intriguing narrative, with its touches of sinister, Patricia Highsmith-like menace, read as if written for the screen. (...) (A) brilliantly laconic, sophisticated translation by Sligo-born, London-based Frank Wynne who, ever alert to every surreal nuance, conveys the disturbing humour with the panache of a master. (...) It is sharp and assured. That the central characters are unredeemable is irrelevant, particularly as they are countered by a cast of superb minor players. González’s amoral cautionary tale is based on real events. The story is shocking but the genius lies in the telling and there is no denying that the art has been well served by Wynne’s astute, pitch-perfect translation." - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
  
  
• "Le tour de force de la narration, cependant, est d' inscrire chaque moment de sa tragédie dans une clarté inquiétante, chaque mot invitant à un vertige de significations. (...) Un livre d'une rare puissance." - Nils C. Ahl, Le Monde
  
  
• "Darin liegt die Kunst des Tomás González, den Einzelnen so ernst zu nehmen, dass er ihm in seinem Scheitern Würde, in seinem Selbstbetrug Grösse gibt und sogar in seinem Sterben auf wundersame Weise so etwas wie Lebenskraft zu entdecken vermag. Tröstlich ist das nicht, wohl aber ergreifend." - Karl-Markus Gauss, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
  
  
• "As a memorial, it’s strikingly unsentimental, with little by way of lament. (...) (T)his is a sad story, well told, and it reads smoothly in Frank Wynne’s lively translation. Not exactly a novel to enjoy, but it is certainly one that lingers" - Anthony Cummins, The Telegraph
  
  
• "(T)he novel remains extremely potent: sly, voyeuristic, ominously poetic (...) Out of synch with the rhythms of nature and alienated from the community, the pair become tragicomic figures, as ridiculous as they are vulnerable. In this, In the Beginning was the Sea is a clever riff on the Rousseaus (both Henri and Jean-Jacques), a cautionary tale about choosing to defy the laws of nature and man, and ultimately discovering that idealism can’t replace them." - Jessica Loudis, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       In the Beginning was the Sea begins with the couple J. and Elena abandoning hometown Medellín in the mid-1970s for a new life seaside, on an expansive finca -- an estate with lots of land, some cows and crops and lumber. They seem to have had enough of the pretensions of city life -- at one point it's explained J. came here: "in order to escape a demeaning form of rationality that was as sterile as crude oil, as social climbing as bitumen" --, something building up in J. for a while now, apparently:

Two years earlier, during a drunken binge, J. had burnt his reproductions of Modigliani, Picasso and Klee and since then had rejected the notion of "good taste", and gradually transformed his apartment in Envigado into a gallery of bad art, crude daubs, depicting everyday life.

- M.A.Orthofer, 3 October 2014

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Links:

• Pushkin Press publicity page
• La otra orilla publicity page
• Punto de lectura publicity page
• Carnets Nord publicity page
• edition 8 publicity page
• S.Fischer publicity page

• The Bookbag
• Clase Lecto-Escritura (Spanish)
• El cuaderno de Samuel (Spanish)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• The Guardian
• Una hoguera para que arda Goya (Spanish)
• The Independent
• Irish Times
• The Literateur
• Litro
• Le Monde (French)
• Quadrapheme

• See Index of Latin and South American literature
• Other books from Pushkin Press under review

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About the Author:

       Colombian author Tomás González was born in 1950.

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© 2014-2021 the complete review

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