Review of COLD SKIN by Albert Sanchez Pinol
Posted on March 21st, 2010
Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, US, 2005
First, in order to be introduced to the special powers of Albert Sánchez Piñol’s darkly beautiful novel, you might wish to begin by considering a discrete synopsis of the story:
A young, nameless narrator arrives by ship sometime after World War I at a remote island somewhere in the south Atlantic near the Antarctic Circle. It is there—far away from the normal shipping lanes, apparently more than six hundred leagues from the nearest large landmass—that he is to remain alone for a year. He will take on the unlikely job at this desolate outpost as the weather official for a company that has an incomprehensible need for such a person.
When the narrator arrives on the L-shaped, mile-long island, however, there is no sign of the previous weather official who is scheduled to be replaced by the narrator, and the weather official’s cottage—which is surrounded by an unusual forest and is situated at the tiny island’s center—is a deserted scene of chaos and neglect. It seems as though the incumbent weather official has long ago abandoned his post.
Meanwhile, at the northern end of the bleak island there is a strangely fortified lighthouse, and it is there that the narrator briefly meets Gruner, the coldly taciturn maritime signal technician who apparently occupies and maintains the lighthouse. Rebuffed by the inhospitable and gloomy Gruner, and surrounded by what the narrator perceives as malignantly unnatural scenery, the narrator retreats to what he thinks is the relative safety of his central section of the island where he begins the work of settling himself into the derelict cottage.
As the initial hours of daylight on the first day pass, however, the narrator already begins to worry about his new isolation. Apparently having escaped a mysterious past of devastating and disreputable failures at home somewhere in Europe, he now faces an uncertain future of self-imposed exile on a strange island where he already frets that he will become, as the expatriate narrator himself says, a “recluse in my memory” who should “never underestimate the power of solitary thoughts.”
Then night begins to fall. And during the darkest hours, the narrator is horrified to discover that he and Gruner are not alone on the island. Extraordinary creatures—the humanoid Sitauca—fill the nighttime hours with the sounds of indescribable melodies, strange howling, lethargic moaning, and unearthly screams. Then—intensifying the narrator’s terror—the island’s indigenous creatures close in upon the narrator, advancing from the island’s shorelines, and begin a series of increasingly intense late night attacks upon the weather official’s cottage.
Repeatedly repelling the Sitauca with gunshots, bonfires, and other remarkable strategies, the narrator—after enduring several nights of terrifying attacks and after managing to capture an apparently docile, female member of the extraordinary Sitauca—the narrator seeks refuge and alliance at the lighthouse. However, when the narrator learns of Gruner’s surprising, prior familiarity and intimacy with the female Sitauca, the narrator faces unusual challenges as he seeks to forge an uneasy partnership for survival with the unpleasant Gruner. And quite soon the narrator realizes that Gruner will, in fact, be even more dangerous and savage than the remarkable Sitauca!
Now, there you have a necessarily abbreviated preview of what the narrator says happens in Piñol’s incredible novel. To include more details in this context would, I think, be inexcusable because I wish to do nothing here to compromise prospective readers’ pleasures, which should be both complex and intense as they discover what life is actually like for the troubled narrator on his fascinating and repellent outpost in the south Atlantic.
Cold Skin, enriched by a gripping plot, complex characterizations, and provocative themes, will at many points remind some readers—as it did me—of works by Daniel Defoe, H. G. Wells, Franz Kafka, or H. P. Lovecraft. Certainly some readers will see the tale as an engrossing gothic horror tale filled with surreal terror, and others will see it as speculative science fiction teeming with stimulating philosophical reflections. Still other readers will see Piñol’s debut novel as a robust and savory example of magical realism in the tradition of Gunter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.
Actually, Cold Skin seems simultaneously to be a legitimate and uniquely compelling descendent of all of the above. More specifically, though, I think all readers—regardless of their initial reactions—will thoroughly embrace Piñol’s elegantly brutal novel and see it ultimately as a disturbingly phantasmagoric allegory that unerringly meditates on the most profound meanings, potentials, and limits of solitude, violence, and humanity.
[Cold Skin was originally published by Ediciones la Campana of Barcelona in 2002 as La pell freda; Piñol’s highly recommended novel has been translated into 15 languages and is now finally available in this first American edition in an excellent translation by Cheryl Leah Morgan.]
Tags: Albert Sanchez, Antarctic Circle, Cold Skin, Derelict Cottage, Farrar Strauss, Giroux, Hours Of Daylight, Initial Hours, Landmass, Lighthouse, Nameless Narrator, Neglect, Outpost, Previous Weather, Relative Safety, Retreats, S Center, Shipping Lanes, Tiny Island, Uncertain Future
Filed under News and Reviews |
Comments are closed.