– Je n’ai jamais vu de route qui ne soit pas triste, répondit-il sans détacher ses yeux de l’osier avec lequel il tressait un panier.
Et comme mon frère n’en démordait pas, montrant que la réponse ne l’avait pas satisfait, mon père continua à argumenter. Nous n’avions qu’à voir ce qu’amenait la route. (…)
– Des attentes. Voilà ce que ramène la route. Et ce sont les attentes qui font vieillir.
(p. 34, Chapitre 2, “Mon père, Silvestre Vitalício”, Partie 1, “L’humanité”).

Cela faisait longtemps que je tournais autour de ce livre, pas sûre qu’il soit fait pour moi. Après avoir lu coup sur coup plusieurs notes de lecture élogieuses, j’ai fini par sauter le pas.
Et effectivement, ce n’est pas un livre pour moi. Une histoire qui dit peu et suggère trop, une longue métaphore filée tout au long du roman sans que j’arrive toujours à savoir si mon interprétation est la bonne, un peu trop de violence gratuite entre les personnages… Non, décidément, pas vraiment mon style de roman.
Et pourtant, avec la dernière partie, je me suis laissée prendre dans les rets de l’histoire, et j’ai regardé le cœur serré les personnages se débattre avec leur deuil, leurs culpabilités et leurs regrets. C’est surtout lorsque les personnages quittent Jesusalém que l’histoire m’a happée, un moment que j’identifie à la sortie du deuil, une sortie que chacun négocie à sa façon, pas toujours avec succès.
Je ne suis pas certaine que c’est un livre qui remonterait le moral à quelqu’un qui en aurait besoin, ni qui permettra de cheminer à qui doit trouver son chemin. Mais c’est un livre sur la façon dont les vivants et les morts cohabitent, une façon souvent difficile à démêler et qui peut conduire sur les rivages de la folie.

Mwanito was three when his mother died, and his father takes him and his older brother off-the-grid. Mwanito's maternal uncle drives them to a deserted game preserve, where his father declares the nation of Jezoosalem and gives them new names. The boys are never to speak of the past or life outside Jezoosalem, which their father declares no longer exists. Their only companions are the ex-soldier, Zachary, and the occasional resupply visits from their uncle. One day, when Mwanito is eleven, a woman arrives in Jezoosalem, and life is never the same for any of them.

Although the plot line is interesting, it is Couto's writing which made reading this book such a delight. I read once that Couto considers himself a poet who writes novels, and that's a wonderful way to put it. Here are a few quotes out of the many lines that struck me as beautiful:

Describing uncle: He was timid, bowing formally and respectfully as if confronted by a low doorway whichever way he turned. Aproximado would speak without ever abandoning his modest ways, as it he were always mistaken, as if his very existence were no more than an indiscretion.

Describing father: He who loses hope, runs away. He who loses confidence, hides away. And he wanted to do both things: to run away and to hide away. Nevertheless, we should never doubt Silvestre's capacity to love.

—Your father is a good man. His goodness is that of an angel who doesn't know where God is. That's all.

His whole life had been devoted to one task: to be a father. And any good father faces the same temptation: to keep his children for himself, away from the world, far from time.

Describing Zachary: ...he slept like a guinea-fowl. On the branch of a tree for fear of the ground. But on the lowest branch, in case he fell.

The woman's thoughts: This is how I grow old: dispersed within me, a veil abandoned on a church pew.

And again: This is my conflict: when you're here, I don't exist, I'm ignored. When you're not here, I don't know myself, I'm ignorant. I only exist in your presence. And I am only myself in your absence. Now, I know. I'm no more than a name. A name that only comes to life when uttered by you. ( )

Mwanito is an 11 year old boy whose father, Silvestre Vitalício, has taken him and his older brother Ntunzi to live in Jezoosalem, the ruins of an abandoned game preserve in the countryside of Moçambique after the mysterious and sudden death of his beloved wife. Silvestre's brother in law and friend make a community of five, and the domineering Silvestre insists that Jezoosalem is the last remaining civilized place on Earth. He loves his sons, especially Mwanito, whose gift as a "tuner of silences" helps mitigate Silvestre's tortured mind and most violent instincts, especially towards his rebellious older son, who rejects his father's incredulous claims and beliefs.

Life in Jezoosalem is suddenly transformed by the appearance of Marta, a Portuguese woman who befriends Mwanito and sets Ntunzi's hormones raging, but she is a dire threat to Silvestre and what he has taught his sons. Tension steadily builds in the altered community, and the increasingly unstable Silvestre boldly vows to remove the stranger by force if she does not leave willingly.

'The Tuner of Silences' is a lyrical, captivating and unforgettable novel filled with damaged souls who struggle to find meaning and happiness in lives permanently altered by the deaths of those they love the most. Mia Couto is one of Africa's most celebrated contemporary writers, and after reading The Tuner of Silences, one of my favorite novels of 2021 to date, it is easy to see why. ( )

Si potrebbe essere tentati di estrarre, da un libro come questo, i fili che ne rappresentano l’ordito: la donna, il passato, il dolore della memoria, la colpa e la paura, l’amore, il ruolo della parola scritta, quanto la storia incida sulle esistenze individuali, la vita e la morte… E altri ancora. Tutti temi, e non solo questi, che con rilievo diverso vengono intrecciati dalla navetta della trama. Ma che ovviamente non saprebbero, enunciati in questo modo, lasciar indovinare la bellezza e la ricchezza di linguaggio e di armoniche cui questo autore mozambicano di famiglia portoghese – uno dei maggiori scrittori lusofoni viventi – ci ha abituati.
In un Paese e in un tempo non specificati, che si evince poi essere un Mozambico contemporaneo, un padre padrone costringe i due figli – di cui il più piccolo, l’undicenne Mwanito, è la voce narrante – e un misterioso ex soldato che ha combattuto sempre con la divisa sbagliata a vivere – dopo la fine di una guerra – in quel che resta di un «abbandonato accampamento di cacciatori» nel cuore di una riserva. Silvestre Vitalício, un padre che ispira rabbia e pena, sostiene con forza che «il mondo era terminato e che noi eravamo gli ultimi sopravvissuti». L’unico che va e viene dall’«eremo» è lo zio Aproximado, con il suo camion con cui porta periodicamente allo strano gruppo – del quale fa parte anche un altro «semi-abitante», l’asina Jezibela – i generi di prima necessità. Ma anche lui sta alla finzione. E a Jesusalém non c’è una sola donna, fino al giorno in cui, non si sa come, appare Marta, la portoghese. L’incipit infatti è: «La prima volta che vidi una donna avevo undici anni e mi sorpresi di colpo così disarmato che scoppiai in lacrime».
Come in ogni opera di narrativa che si rispetti, solo un poco per volta – e si dovrà arrivare fino alla penultima pagina – il lettore metterà assieme i tasselli dei perché di tante stranezze.
Mia Couto si rivela anche questa volta un prestidigitatore della parola, continuando a smontare e rimontare a modo suo la lingua portoghese. E onore al traduttore, Vincenzo Barca, per come riesce a stargli al passo, per quanto rimanga, inevitabilmente, sempre qualcosa di intraducibile. Come il nome che il padre dà alla sua nazione personale, Jesusalém – che è anche il titolo dell’edizione originale del libro –, un gioco di parole in cui la città santa diventa una sorta di “Gesù-oltre”: per Silvestre, «in quel luogo Gesù si sarebbe scrocifisso». E Dordalma, la mamma che Mwanito non ha mai conosciuto e di cui nessuno osa dire come sia morta, sta per “Dolor-d’anima”.
È ben di più, naturalmente, che un gioco enigmistico: grazie anche alle sue invenzioni, ma non solo a queste, l’autore dà vita a un’atmosfera tutta sua, tra favola e verismo, con l’uso di metafore inattese e di dialoghi che non di rado sono sorprendenti pillole filosofiche.
«Nessun governo del mondo comanda più della paura e della colpa. La paura mi ha fatto vivere insignificante e schivo. La colpa mi ha fatto fuggire da me, disabitato dai ricordi. Era questo Jesusalém». E l’unico rimpianto nostro, a chiusura di libro, è che non sia stato mantenuto il titolo originale (nemmeno nell’edizione brasiliana, peraltro!). ( )

Two stars -- it was okay. I don't read a ton of literature in translation, so for me, this was a stretch I probably wouldn't have taken if not for the Tournament of books. The author was born in Mozambique and this was originally written in Portuguese.

The snippets of poetry that begin each chapter make more sense in that context, but I found myself impatient with them, as they were so much more touchy-feely than the rest of the text that they didn't feel organic.

The first lines are pretty phenomenal, as far as grabbing your attention:

I was eleven years old when I saw a woman for the first time, and I was seized by such sudden surprise that I burst into tears. I lived in a wasteland inhabited only by five men. My father had given the place a name. It was called, quite simply, Jezoosalem. It was the land where Jesus would uncrucify himself. And that was the end of the matter, full stop.

Unfortunately, the seed of the narrator seeing a woman for the first time doesn't come to fruition until nearly the end of the book, which was longer than I wanted to wait.

And I tripped over the word Jezoosalem every time I read it. Every single time. I kept hearing it in my head as "Jeloosazem" or "Zejoosalem" and even though it's a silly thing to get stuck on, it interrupted the flow of my reading incredibly often.

Also, while the bestiality is tactfully handled, it's still in there, so don't read if you have trouble with really squicky concepts. ( )