Gerardo Sámano CórdovaRezensionen

A very different sort of Bildungsroman. Monstrilio is about trying to find where you fit in and about unconditional love. I don’t think I’d put this in the horror genre at all, although some horrible things do happen, as they do in many novels. I’m not sure fantasy or magical realism is right either—maybe monstrous realism? In any case, it’s a very moving story about grief and acceptance, about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and ultimately accepting that it won’t fit and finding ways to accommodate and love it despite—or even for—its squareness.½

2.75
So this just wasn’t really for me.
It swayed from grief into kinky sex stuff which was a weird vibe with the whole dead-kid-lung-cannibal-monster thing happening.
Just didn’t connect to any of the characters or really feel anything.

Tragic and sometimes gross exploration of family and identity.

I love these types of books -- heartfelt, a mixbag of a bunch of things. Meanings that could be a bunch of things. Not so much horror as horrifying. A book that will live in my brain, more and more as time expands. Weird and gets weirder as the story expands. Who is the monster? What is monstrous? David Lynch's Eraserhead but focused on grief, combined with 'Chouette' by Claire Oshetsky (which I am now remembering has an Eraserhead epigraph, so there you go.) Plus, something else that haunts me at the edges of my mind, that I can't quite attach to a specific nightmare...
*Book #151/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books½

When her young son dies, a mother, overcome with sorrow, cuts open his body and takes a small segment of his lung. Placing it in a jar, she leaves her husband to return to Mexico City, where she feeds and nurtures the piece of lung until it eventually becomes something that isn't her son, or even human, but very much alive and with its own urges and tastes.

Monstrilio begins as a story about grief and how it can pull people together and drive them apart, and then it becomes something else. Structured into four segments, following the mother, her best friend, the husband and finally, Monstrilio itself, this is a story that goes in unanticipated directions as the human characters care for the strange creature, but struggle to find a balance between letting it live its life and forming it into something like the lost son. This is an odd and oddly compelling story despite the characters behaving in ways that no actual person ever would.½

WTF did I just read?! A really bizarre story of loss, grief, transformation and love. This was absolutely a wonderful and insane ride. The characters, the moods, the transitions.

Monstrilio by Gerardo Cordova is a masterpiece. The simple story about a young boy who dies and his mother removes his lung from his corpse and the lung grows into a living breathing monster, is a brilliant horror thriller.

Told in four acts from four perspectives, 'Monstrilio' by Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a lyrically written, (often times) horrific look at love and grief, acceptance and expectation. Thank you so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook, expertly narrated by Victoria Villarreal and Johnny Rey Diaz.

Margos, gripped by the loss of her young child, and armed with the promise of a folktale, takes a piece of her son, his lung, and tries to bring back the child she has lost. What comes is not her son, but she is moved by love and need to protect this "creature". This is horror, and terrible, disturbing things happen. The creature born of desperation and hope, is monster-like, driven by impulse, despite how human he seems. But it is profoundly moving, thought provoking and philosophical. I found myself aching for each perspective, empathizing with things I recognized and longing to understand, that which was unfamiliar. The family group we follow is complicated, nuanced, each bringing their own inner worlds to the decisions the make and secrets they keep. It was fascinating, and extremely well done. Additionally, the writing is magnificent. Tense, dark, atmospheric it begs that you lean in close.

I would definitely read more from this author. I loved this.

How to explain my love of this bizarre book? Almost impossible. It is grotesque, heavy, gut-wrenching and painful and I still loved it. How do you make a monster at once fierce and fragile? Cordova has succeeded. The characters each display a capacity for ferocious and often insane love while they navigate grief, hopelessness and rebirth of themselves while parting with all they have lost. There is a lot in this story to unpack around death, self acceptance, unconditional love and challenging social norms. Prepare for many uncomfortable squirmy moments while reading, but never without a purpose, and never boring!

Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a Mexican author with graduate studies in literature in the United States. This is his first novel. It is a novel in the tradition of Latin American magical realism and horror novels. Sámano Cordova even makes references to Bestiario (the short story entitled Carta a una Señorita en París by Julio Cortázar) and to Shirley Jackson and her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. In that sense, I like it. I like the ordinary treatment of the extraordinary in the novel. The characters react to mounstrillo naturally, the plot then focuses not on the wondrous nature of the monster born from the organ removed by a mother from her son's corpse but on the actions of mounstrilio and the characters surrounding him.

The book seems to speak to us about grief. Evidently. It seems that the origin of this little monster is the refusal of Magos (whose name is another reference to Cortázar in Rayuela's Maga) to let her son die and let him go, holding on to and nourishing a part of him, in the same way one holds on to the lost person and nourishes his grief in mourning. An analysis of the stages of grief against the plot of the novel would be interesting.

Grief is embodied in the novel with the character of Mounstrillo. A hybrid of the flesh and memory of the lost being who has learned to behave almost like a human being instead of a voracious beast. This mourning that has attained a personality of its own and is unwilling to leave without putting up a fight even when Magos is finally able to accept his loss by weeping at an art exhibition. Grief in the novel is a living being capable of influencing the lives of the characters and defining the course of their lives, interposing itself in their new relationships and destroying the lives of innocent strangers.

The novel is set in the hipster environment of 21st century New York. And for my taste, that may be where the work loses steam. Not because it is incorrect to place it in that context but because it seems to want to extend that culture and that moment to the universal. The sexuality of all the characters is diffuse. The height of this idea is that Magos' mother and her maid are involved in a romantic relationship. I don't think it is wrong, I recognize that it is even funny and symbolic of a relationship as peculiar in the Mexican idiosyncrasy as the patrona-muchacha relationship, but I do think that a romance between a lady from Las Lomas and her maid is more implausible than the existence of Mounstrilio himself. I think it misses the possibility of representing the upper class of Mexico City, where sexual and racial fluidity is definitely not characteristic.

Other cultural representations of Mexican, cool, hipster, urban and progressive culture do seem accurate, fun and interesting to me. The relationship between Magos and Joseph, the rich hipster gringo who ends up in Mexico City and gets the strawberry girl pregnant and when he feels lost in life flees to the beaches of Oaxaca. Magos' performance art. The U.S.-educated Mexican doctor who can get a job in the best hospital in New York like it's no big deal. In general, the cultural fluidity among these urban elites in countries as different as Mexico, the United States and Germany but in metropolises as similar as Mexico City, New York and Berlin. I am left wondering if this interpretation is intentional or simply a reflection of the world in which the author lives.

Some of these representations, however, do fall into cliché. Perhaps the key is not to have so many. For example, Santiago and Monstillo saying Fruti Lupis seems too much to me.

Something about the novel that particularly appealed to me is the character of Magos. She is a strawberry girl, but it seems to me that the author doesn't engage with that theme or try too hard to explain it, he doesn't define her. Within her strawberry girl personality Magos is stubborn, capricious and sensitive, but her character is not a satire. The author does not judge her and I love that because then the character takes on an unsuspected depth that is not exhausted in her social class or nationality.

The play and the idea are good. But if there was less emphasis on the woke and the Mexican it would be better. Perhaps if that were allowed to show in the background, subtly and unintentionally, from a distance, like the strawberry in the character of Magos, the novel would be more beautiful and less imposing, focusing more on the prose, the psyche of the characters and the marvelous real, in the purest style of Julio Cortázar.

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Gerardo Sámano Córdova es un autor Mexicano con estudios de posgrado en literatura en Estados Unidos. Ésta es su primera novela. Es una novela inscrita en la tradición del realismo mágico latinoaméricano y en la novela terror. Sámano Cordova hace incluso referencias a Bestiario (el cuento titulado Carta a una Señorita en París de Julio Cortázar) y a Shirley Jackson y su novela We Have Always Lived in the Castle. En ese sentido, me gusta. Me gusta el trato corriente de lo extraordinario en la novela. Los personajes reaccionan frente a mounstrillo con naturalidad, la trama entonces no se centra en la naturaleza maravillosa de monstruo que nace del órgano extirpado por una madre del cadáver de su hijo sino en las acciones de mounstrilio y los personajes que lo rodean.

El libro parece hablarnos sobre el duelo. Evidentemente. Parece ser que el origen de este monstruito es la negación de Magos (cuyo nombre es otra referencia a Cortázar en la Maga de Rayuela) a dejar morir a su hijo y dejarlo ir, reteniendo y alimentando una parte de él, de la misma manera que uno se aferra a la persona perdida y alimenta su dolor en el duelo. Sería interesante un análisis sobre las etapas del duelo contra la trama de la novela.

El duelo está encarnado en la novela con el personaje de Mounstrillo. Un híbrido de la carne y la memoria del ser perdido que ha aprendido a comportarse casi como un ser humano en lugar de como una bestia voraz. Este duelo que ha alcanzado una personalidad propia y que no está dispuesto a partir sin dar batalla ni siquiera cuando Magos por fin es capaz de aceptar su pérdida llorando en una exposición artística. El duelo en la novela es un ser vivo capaz de influir en la vida de los personajes y definir el rumbo de sus vidas, interponerse en sus nuevas relaciones y destrozar la vida de desconocidos inocentes.

La novela está ambientada en el ambiente hipster del Nueva York del siglo XXI. Y para mi gusto puede que sea ahí donde la obra pierde fuerza. No porque sea incorrecto situarla en ese contexto sino porque pareciera querer extender esa cultura y ese momento a lo universal. La sexualidad de todos los personajes es difusa. El colmo de esta idea es que la madre de Magos y su sirvienta están involucradas en una relación amorosa. No me parece que sea incorrecto, reconozco que es incluso divertido y simbólico de una relación tan peculiar en la idiosincrasia mexicana como la relación patrona-muchacha, pero sí me parece que un romance entre una señora de Las Lomas y su sirvienta es más inverosímil que la existencia de Mounstrilio mismo. Creo que se pierde la posibilidad de representar a la clase alta de la Ciudad de México, en la que definitivamente la fluidez sexual y racial no es característica.

Otras representaciones culturales de lo mexicano, fresa, hipster, urbano y progresista sí me parecen acertadas, divertidas e interesantes. La relación entre Magos y Joseph, el gringo rico y hipster que termina en la Ciudad de México y embaraza a la chica fresa y que cuando se siente perdido en la vida huye a las playas de Oaxaca. El arte interpretativo de Magos. La doctora mexicana con estudios en Estados Unidos que puede conseguir un trabajo en el mejor hospital de Nueva York como si nada. En general la fluidez cultural entre esas élites urbanas en países tan distintos como México, Estados Unidos y Alemania pero en metrópolis tan similares como Ciudad de México, Nueva York y Berlín. Me queda la duda si esa interpretación es intencional o simplemente es un reflejo del mundo en el que habita el autor.

Algunas de esas representaciones sin embargo sí caen en lo cliché. Tal vez la clave esté en no tener tantas. Por ejemplo, que Santiago y Monstillo digan Fruti Lupis me parece ya demasiado.

Algo de la novela que me atrajo particularmente es el personaje de Magos. Es una niña fresa, pero me parece que el autor no se engancha con ese tema ni se esfuerza demasiado en explicarlo, no la define. Dentro de su personalidad de niña fresa Magos es obstinada, caprichosa y sensible, pero su personaje no es una sátira. El autor no la juzga y eso me encanta porque entonces el personaje cobra una profundidad insospechada que no se agota en su clase social o su nacionalidad.

La obra y la idea son buenas. Pero si hubiera menos énfasis en lo woke y en lo Mexicano sería mejor. Tal vez si eso se dejara ver en el fondo, con sutileza y sin intención, a la distancia, como lo fresa en el personaje de Magos, la novela sería más bella y menos impositiva, enfocándose más en la prosa, la psique de los personajes y lo real maravilloso, al más puro estilo de Julio Cortázar.