Variations on the Body
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A constellation of short stories illustrate the intersecting lives of women on various peripheries of society in and around Bogotá, Colombia.
In six subtly connected stories, Variations on the Body explores the obsessions, desires, and idiosyncrasies of women and girls from different strata of Colombian society. A former FARC guerilla fighter adjusts to urban life and faces the new violence of an editor co-opting her experiences. A woman adrift in the city she left as a child looks for someone to care for, even if it has to be by force, while another documents a flea infestation with a catalog of the marks on her flesh. A little girl copes with her anxiety about the adult world by exacting revenge on her nanny, who she thinks belongs to her. Combining humor, heartbreak, and unexpected violence, Ospina constructs a keen reflection on the body as a simultaneous vehicle of connection and alienation in vibrant, gleaming prose.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Ospina's smart, vibrant debut collection, women struggle to carve out lives for themselves in early 2000s Bogotá. In the engaging "Policarpa," Marcela adjusts to civilian life after leaving a paramilitary outfit, but a cashier job in a store proves as doctrinaire as the guerrillas. Zenaida, a live-in worker for a wealthy family in "Occasion," is inured to class disparity, but her knowledge can't protect her from the whims of her clients' troubled young daughter. In "Saving Young Ladies,"Aurora, an aimless young woman, moves back to Bogotá from the U.S. and forms a bond with Jessica, a student at a nearby Catholic boarding school—and Aurora's fantasies of rescuing Jessica from their conservative society shade into erotic obsession. Mirla, the protagonist of the title story, is "confused about certain things" after the death of her husband and determines to carry on the lifestyle his money had afforded her while putting herself and his family in danger by neglecting a granddaughter. Throughout, Ospina draws out the class distinctions among her characters with stark, incisive contrasts. The strongest stories have clear conflicts, while others meander, such as the diaristic "Fauna of the Ages" and "Collateral Beauty." Still, Ospina's central themes consistently resonate, and some of the stories are quite memorable.
