A General Theory of OblivionJosé Eduardo Agualusa
Translated by Danny Hahn (Portuguese)
Originally 2012, I read 2015 Harvill Secker hardback
243 pages, literary fiction
Many thanks to Archipelago Books, who found a review copy that could be sent to India! Archipelago’s edition was released in December 2015.
Ludovica, or Ludo, is a solitary person who does not like to go outside the house. When her sister marries an Angolan man, Ludo moves with them to the new country (they are originally from Portugal). But then her sister and brother-in-law go missing as Angolan independence draws near and the terrified Ludo protects herself by bricking herself into her apartment. She stays there for almost 30 years, but surprisingly her actions within her small sanctuary have wide-reaching consequences.
Apparently based on a true story, this novel started as a script for a movie that unfortunately was never made. The novel is a wonderful piece of fiction, tightly controlled and cinematic.
Silences and Omissions
The beginning part of the book, when Ludo is bricked into the apartment, is full of breaks and silences. We don’t really know much about what she did by herself for so many years. She wrote poetry on the walls. She figured out how to catch pigeons using shiny diamonds (a fortune that her brother-in-law had hidden in the house). But a majority of her activities are missing. Absent. Perhaps this is most appropriate for a novel about someone who has essentially chosen not to exist.
I’m not sure that Ludo is actually the main character of this novel. It seems that the main character is, perhaps, the absence of one.
