#724 The Snake From Beijing- Guadalupe Nettel

#724 The Snake From Beijing- Guadalupe Nettel

“Movements in the lives of human beings...begin below the surface, and therefore their origins are difficult to place in time.”

Michael’s family has a very interesting lineage. His father is a Chinese man raised by French parents and his mother is Dutch—they live in Paris. Until recently, his father was never in touch with his Chinese past. However, after a long trip, he returned a changed man. He is reserved and cold, and removes himself from his family life. He spans his time in a makeshift pagoda and bought Chinese texts and a poisonous snake.

The snake represents Michael's father, and he later finds out exactly why and how much. This story is more about infidelity than about culture, but the two are interwoven very well. This is the last of Nettel’s collection, Natural Histories. I look forward to reading more of her fiction.

Rating: 7-7-8-6 Total= 28

#689 Fungus- Guadalupe Nettel

#689 Fungus- Guadalupe Nettel

Yes, this story started out talking about a toe fungus. The  narrators mother suffered from an incurable infection she was both embarrassed about and allowed to tale over her general countenance. 

“However, more than the dubious shifting appearance, more than its tenacity and attachment to the invaded toe, what I remember best about the whole affair was the disgust and repulsion the parasite inspired in my mother.”

As unpleasant as a story about fungus may be, this quickly became about a love story between a violinist and her musical idol. But yet, just when we thought the fungal story lines have subsided, it comes back as syphilis. And not is a small way. Her syphilis grows and grows and she cultivates it as a symbol for her love of the man that gave it to her. She is proud of the infestation and connects it to her most base desires.

As you can imagine some of the details here are just outright unpleasant. It’s hard to properly evaluate this story when you are left with a sense of extreme nausea. No thank you.

Rating: 7-6-5-4 Total= 22

#661 Felina- Guadalupe Nettel

#661 Felina- Guadalupe Nettel

Animals can be just as caring as humans, and often can take the place of humans for roles of companionship and friendship. A doctoral student once had roommates, but now she had two cats, a male and a female. They quickly take up the place in her life that her roommates and casual romantic partners one held. 

Both the female cat and her got pregnant at he same time, and comforted each other during the process. When she lost her pregnancy (an act of fate), the cat’s childbirth was kind of a spiritual surrogacy for her own. There was a lot of surrogacy in this story; people or animals taking the place of others. There was also a lot about fate and choice.

“A team of scientists I met a few months later at Princeton University claim that if they put all our genetic information, education, and the most significant events in our lives into a computer and give us a hundred different dilemmas and make us choose for each one, the machine would figure out our responses before we could think of them. In reality—so they say—we don’t make decisions. All of our choices are predetermined.”

Whether fate or not, her decision to go to Princeton was made, or at least helped along by someone else. And when it was made for sure, the cats made their own choice too.

Rating: 8-8-8-7 Total= 31

#633 War in the Trash Cans- Guadalupe Nettel

#633 War in the Trash Cans- Guadalupe Nettel

A child is lonely and abandoned by his parents. They are “hippy” parents and have been fighting. When they separate, they feel unable to care for the child, so she is left with her aunt, a more proper middle-class family.

She misses her mother, even though she is a disaster, “An incredibly tender disaster to which I was of course deeply attached.”

She is lonely and quiet in her new surroundings. Her school is divided between the English speaking blond-headed children and the lower-class Mexicans. She is with the latter while her cousins are in the better school. Instead if integrating, she makes the decision to stay by herself, eat by herself and wander the kitchen at night.

“I ate alone, like a ghost shoes life unfolds alongside the living but is uninterrupted by them. I liked the silence and the stillness of those moments.”

One night she comes across a cockroach, and is frightened and angered by its presence. She squashes it, and Clemencia, the superstitious maid warns that the cockroaches will now invade. She is right. The house is suddenly overrun by roaches and the family is on high alert trying to rid themselves of the scourge.

“Of one thing I was certain: if we didn’t exile them, they would us.”

Only one thing will scare off the roaches, eating them. So all week they prepare meals with roaches, and eventually they disappear. The roaches could represent the child’s fear, or loneliness or any of her emotions. By trying to aggressively squash them, they will only come back bigger and more invasive. But by embracing them, literally making them a part of her, they will no longer haunt her. And when the roaches disappear she becomes more outgoing and a part of her adopted family.

However, there will always be that roach, or fear or loneliness lurkng around the corner, if only to remind her of what was once there.

Rating: 9-9-9-8 Total= 35

#605 The Marriage of the Red Fish- Guadalupe Nettel

#605 The Marriage of the Red Fish- Guadalupe Nettel

Guadalupe Nettal’s collection Natural Histories came to me highly recommended. With influence from Mexico, Paris and Montreal I expect a pretty broad spectrum of input in these stories. The opening piece is The Marriage of the Red Fish. A couple living in Paris is about to have their first child. They live modestly and have a pair of Red fish to keep them company.

The wife, having left her job for maternity leave, has time for contemplation and notices a lot about these fish living in the same bowl. She gets books to learn more an realizes that they are an aggressive species and need more space. As she is more conscious of the fish, they seem to reflect the emotional ups and downs her and her husband are experiencing.

“You tend to learn a lot from the animals you live with, even fish. They are like mirrors that reflect the buried emotions and behaviors we don’t dare see.”

In the aquatic equivalent of her husband sleeping on the couch, she puts one of the fish in a second tank. The human couple also separates briefly causing even more emotional turmoil. In the end neither the fish, nor the couple survive living together. 

Rating: 8-8-8-7 Total= 31