NOCILLA DREAM - AGUSTÍN FERNÁNDEZ MALLO

I think this novel gets the vibe right. There is a strain of thinking about novels, where the goal is not so much to tell a story as to replicate what it feels like to be alive (either generally or at a specific point in time/history). I’m thinking of something like TO THE LIGHTHOUSE here. For lack of a better term, i think of these as vibe novels. Often times these sorts of books are very closely focused on one or a small number of characters who’s lives were shown and made to experience. DREAM was cool because it managed to be a very vibe-y lil’ number but also not have much in the way of main characters. The books broken into over 100 numbered chapters, none of which are more than a few pages, many of which are a handful of lines. By the end there were a few stories or at least narratives emerging. There were, however, themes and ideas that circled around and looped and marinated and repeated. It has an almost Bolañoian post-national, this-is-happeing-all-over-the-world-and-all-these-forces-are-sinister-and-defuse-and-global thing going on as well as lots of great stuff about micro-nations, which I always find to be a fun topic. I think the book did a good job replicating what it’s like to walk around thinking nowadays, when facts and other narratives and vast global implications seem to pop-up constantly and nothing stays still for more than a page or two. It felt like having a bunch of tabs open, some of these obviously related, some that’ve been open so long it’s not clear why it was pulled up. This book is one of three in the NOCILLA trilogy. I’ve got the whole set and I really don’t know anything about the series as a whole. Perhaps the other books are in this style. Perhaps the continue the “story” of this book, such as it is. Who knows? I think I’ll catch up on a few other things I’m part way through before fucking with the second part of this collection. 3 dreams.