Book Review: La Soledad era Esto

[Prof. Gustavo Flores]

Book Title: La Soledad era Esto (This was solitude)
Author: Juan José Millás (Spain)
Series: N/A
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary

This is the story of Elena Rincón, a 43 years old woman who, after the death of her mother, enters an existentialist crisis. Elena lives a monotonous marriage, her relationship with her daughter is not good, and she didn’t get along very well with her mother either, however her death triggered so many emotions and memories that changed her life completely. In order to find herself, she decides to hire a detective and makes him follow her. The detective doesn’t know that he has been hired by Elena and send his reports to his “client”. Elena enjoys reading about her but finds the reports very technical and formal, and soon asks the detective to be as subjective as possible and to also interpret what he was seeing. Elena is very pleased with the change of tone of the reports because she can read herself from a different perspective, and these reports, along with her mother diaries (which Elena found after her death), become a very important part of Elena’s life, and are the main tools that help her to define her and find her true-self.

I really enjoy this reading. I loved the format in which it is written and the way the author combined the three narratives (Elena’s story, her mother diaries, and the reports from the detective) is simply marvelous. It is truly a contemporary text that makes us reflect about solitude about existence, and the purpose of life without being indoctrinating. By the end, you are left with a feeling of uneasiness combined with sweet hope and freedom (if you know what I mean), so if you like these kind of readings, I’m sure you are going to enjoy it a lot!