Book Notes: Fernando Aramburu’s Patria

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Clarissa

February 11, 2018

This is the cutey-cute 650-page bestseller novel about Basque terrorism that I mentioned before and that I read twice in a row for work. Yes, the degree of tear-jerker sentimentality in the novel is through the roof. The happy ending is sugar meets artificial sweetener meets honey.

But hey, 27 editions in under 2 years, and there’s not a single sex scene or even a chaste love story in this doorstopper of a book. There’s got to be something to it if people are so eager to read it. I mean, I actually had trouble buying the book. Amazon regretfully had to inform me it wasn’t able to fulfill the order because it had run out of copies. This literally never happened before with a book I bought.

I’m going to write my next article about this novel. My best pieces have been about novels I don’t massively admire. Patria is not a great work of art but I enjoyed reading it and I do recommend because it’s a pleasant read and Aramburu is very good at holding the reader’s attention.

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3 responses to “Book Notes: Fernando Aramburu’s Patria”

DWeird

February 11, 2018

So what is that something that keeps the readers’ attention?

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 11, 2018
  
  It’s an easy read, it’s very sentimental, it all sounds very gossipy, the characters are vivid. It’s clear the writer detests Basques because they are a total parody. And it’s kind of funny how much he hates his own people.
  
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cliff arroyo

February 12, 2018

Cute Basque terrorism.

“The small car stopped at the edge of the plaza and 37 clowns got out and the last one threw a bomb at a bunch of schoolchildren. When it exploded thousands of butterflies carrying ice cream cones flew out and the hot sun quickly melted the ice cream into the children’s hair.”
“Dios mio” cried an old lady “they have made their point about political oppression and without causing real harm! Long live Euskal Herria!”
“But my hair’s ruined!” countered Juanita who thought that the ice cream wasn’t so bad but dreaded trying to comb the candy sprinkles out of her braids.
“Those bandits in Madrid must listen to us now!” said Xavier so startled that the spelling of his name changed.

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