The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzi, translated by Rahul Bery.

The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Phenomenal book. Gothic psychological horror which begins with quotes from RLS's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, and which starts with RLS's cousin David Alan Stevenson arriving with a patient at the doors of a post WW1 sanatorium just outside of Edinburgh where the first and final, third, chapters of the book take place and which is managed by Dr Edward Pierce, a proponent of hypnosis as treatment as against the established Germanic school of psychiatry's treatments and protocols.
The patient is lighthouse Engineer David Bradley, whose diary forms the middle part of the book. Bradley had been set to assess lighthouses in southern Argentina and ended up being left alone with limited provisions on the Eye of Goliath lighthouse of Ushuaia, when his return boat was delayed by bad weather and where haunted by the story of its previous occupant murderer and taxidermist, Juan Evans, his mental state deteriorates to such an extent that he becomes delusional and a bit unhinged.
Both Bradley and Pierce had served in the trenches of WW1 and the novel is set at that notorious time when electrotherapy was used to 'cure' various psychoses. This book investigates the impact of war on people's psyche , how no one ever comes back from war unchanged and the various ways that dual personalities a la Jekyll and Hyde can be manifest.
The novel is comparatively short at 188 pages but punch way above its weight. It is a very well constructed novel, the detailed layering and linkage between the men and the chapters is exceedingly well done. I know horror is not everyone's genre but in my opinion this book is so well written that it is worth putting any bias aside and looking at it as a psychological treatise.
I will most definitely be looking forward to more of Diego Muzzio's books to be translated, Pushkin Press website gives a minimal bio as does the Royal Literary Fund site for translator Rahul Bery who I suspect is one to follow too.
Highly recommended.

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Not a River by Selva Almada, transl by Annie McDermott (4*)

Shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker and translated by Annie McDermott I've been wanting to read this since the English Translation came out . Also on my to be read list are her other books The Wind that Lays Waste and Bricklayers and although these are the first of this loosely connected trilogy I've always been under the impression they can be read in any order. In the UK it is published by the marvelous Charco Press from Edinburgh who produce the great Central and South American Literature in English. This edition includes a post note by the translator which is well worth a read. She was shortlisted also for Brickmakers.

This is a story of a weekend island fishing trip by 3 friends, which echoes a previous trip made some years before. Almada works her storylines back and forth, flowing like a river, and rivers we know can be smooth and steady, welcoming and also dangerous fierce raging torrents. So with this book. I read that the author was born and raised in Entre Rios which is a province to the north of Buenos Aires that is full of rivers dotted with lush islands. You feel that tension between water and land, between island and mainland in this book as Almada explore classic topics such as the bonds of friendship and family, the dangers facing women and girls, and the male urge to solve problems through violence.

One group consists of the fishermen from the mainland Enero and El negro and the younger Tilo, son of their friend Diana and now taking his father Eusabio's place in the fishing group. The islander group is led by Aguirre, his sister Siomara and her daughters Lucy and Mariela. Their backstories lap upon the reader as short sentences, short paragraphs as waves on the page. It is a beautifully constructed story, has an ease of reading, a great build up of tension and grand storytelling in under 100 pages.

The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter, narrated by Max Porter (3*)

I didn't enjoy this as much as Porter's other books, but then I suspect not many people will. Having said that it is a highly experimental work , even by Porter's standards. One which only covers 74 A6 pages, and the seven chapter title pages are in fact only picture medium and size labels. But again it is all about the voice - this time the author himself narrates this and he does it very well - in my opinion like a great actor can deliver with momentum, with speeds changes, employing tone and voice pitch, slow and soft, fierce and firm, brutal and blunt , without apparently taking a breath. As I read it and listened to it, it struck me I didn't know much about Francis Bacon's art and life, much less how and where he died. The book left me remembering the live, one man stage show that Simon Callow did of Dickens - a performance that required not only inordinate memory but total commitment to the part, the giving of 100% of the actor's life for that hour or so to be someone else, without the breathing space afforded by fellow actors playing their part. Here we do have the intermittent voice of the clinic's Sister and quotes from others like John Berger, but they are a tiny part. The rest is Porter's impressions of the final chaotic workings of a mind of the artist, its a homage in many ways as Porter transforms these scenes into the 7 text pictures and tries to catch the the torment of Bacon's artwork and the inevitable chaos of what was for most of his life an illicit love live, full of characters and full of violence. The range of topics that Porter has tackled in his 4 novels is broad. This is a great author in the making.