Rating: 
Summary: A stunning narrative - at once both fierce and tender
Review: THE WEIGHT OF ALL THINGS is Sandra Benitez's gripping third novel. Unlike the epic 'Bitter Grounds', which spanned the lives of three generations of women across almost half a century, THE WEIGHT OF ALL THINGS is a six-week snapshot in the life of nine-year old Nicolás de la Virgen Veras, sandwiched between two real events in the harsh backdrop of El Salvador's civil war. In and around the humble two-roomed hut his grandfather calls home - a two hour hike (the difficult terrain is made easier by Nicolás' sturdy rubber-soled boots) from the village of El Retorno ("whitewashed in hopefulness"), the scenes are so finely crafted that the reader can almost smell the wood smoke and "the odour of brewing coffee," or squint with Nicolás as he emerges from his hiding place (a cave) into the bright light of an April day. These scenes we see through the eyes of a child; we might even be only four feet tall. In others, our imagination - and what we know from historical fact - is left to fill in the gaps: the scorched earth, and the stench of human carnage left by the helicopter gun-ships. Separation is a central theme running through the book - from the opening pages when our courageous boy hero ("I am a lion now") begins the search for his mother, and again when he is dragged away from his doting grandfather ('Tata'). Nicolás' faith keeps him going (and alive), as others much his senior drop their guard and fall around him. He confides in his mother's spirit, gaining strength from the symbolism of the contents of his backpack: the "little boat" that was his mother's lost shoe and the chipped statue of 'La Virgen Milagrosa' ("another [gash], like a tiny teardrop, marred the cheek under one eye") salvaged from the bombed out shell of the village church. There are reunions - with Tata, by the empty niche (their chosen 'meeting place') in that same ruin - but not the reunion Nicolás seeks most of all. There are two particular moments of poignancy in the story where his solitude brought an ache to my heart: once when writing to his mother in el señor Alvarado's lilac house in Tejutla (a kindly man who becomes the boy's role model), and another, as he sleeps on a petate under the umbrella tree in the army compound soon after his capture, where he seeks comfort in the company of the guard dogs. It is there that it hits him - the realisation that his mother is dead. We feel his innocence slip another notch, as it does from one short chapter to the next. There are moments of almost dream-like tranquillity, like when Nicolás allows the lazy waters of the Sumpul river to flow over his prone body; like when Capitán (his grandfather's rusty-coloured dog) slumbers beneath Tata's hammock. Then there are the huddled displaced masses on the riverbank bordering two nations readying themselves for the crossing. These pauses, while enough for us to gain an impression of the beautiful but poverty-stricken and war-ravaged Salvadoran countryside, prove the calm before the storm. Soon enough, the world is turned upside down again, armies slaughter their own brothers and sisters and once benign waters surge and flow red with the tears and blood of the innocent. Nicolás and his grandfather retain their dignity even when they endure provocation and hardship from soldiers and guerrilleros. The boy first befriends the rebel group who commandeer his grandfather's rancho, and later bides his time in the army garrison, meticulously planning his escape. He is always respectful (he tells the truth), and clever (not the whole story, but the truth). For those caught in-between, the burden was great ("we are caught in the middle", Tata had said), they were all men - and women - with guns, but like 'Bitter Grounds' before it, THE WEIGHT OF ALL THINGS does leave the reader on a note of optimism. Sandra Benitez has cemented her position as my favourite author writing contemporary fiction about the realities of Latin American life. Like Archbishop Romero, whose funeral marks the beginning of Nicolás' odyssey, Benitez is a 'voice for the voiceless'. Share this book with your friends.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book by a maturing writer
Review: This is the third novel of Sandra Benitez, and it is a pleasure to follow her maturation as a writer. Her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, was short and simple in concept, but utterly charming. Her second, Bitter Grounds, was more ambitious and heavily political, even partisan. While well written it ended up feeling more polemical than charming. This book strikes a better balance, being charming and nuanced in a way Bitter Grounds didn't manage while still employing a much larger canvass than A Place Where the Sea Remembers. I won't bother with a "book report", there are a couple here already. But this is a book worth reading, and Benitez is an author worth following.
Rating:
Summary: AN ELOQUENT VOICE FOR THE INNOCENT
Review: War, as they say, is hell. It is hell compounded when endured by a nine-year-old boy who sees his mother killed. In later years he describes that moment as "Like water pouring over stone, that is how she slipped away from me." Ms. Benitez, who unforgettably drew Latin American life in "A Place Where The Sea Remembers" (1993) and "Bitter Grounds" (1997) now turns to a chaotic El Salvador. Born of both fact and imagination, "The Weight Of All Things" depicts that country's 1980s violence as seen through the eyes of Nicholas de la Virgen Veras. Nicholas lives with his grandfather, Tata, in the small village of El Retorno, a place of cane and mud buildings "whitewashed with hopefulness." Acceding to his mother's request, he joins her in the city for the funeral of a slain archbishop. It is here that mass murder takes place, and his mother dies shielding the boy with her body. Clinging to the belief that she still lives despite having seen her limp form dragged away, Nicholas begins a painful and dangerous search for her. His quest takes him throughout the ravaged Salvadoran landscape, into the hands of guerrilla rebels, the Popular Liberation Forces, who have commandeered his village. Nationalist soldiers, the Guardia, will later ransack El Retorno and take the boy captive. To escape the army compound takes all the wily courage and faith Nicholas can muster. With "The Weight Of All Things," a scorching but beautiful narrative, Ms. Benitez speaks for the innocent, those caught between forces who would eradicate all in their blind quest for power. When Nicholas is wounded he longs for a place "where there are no guns, no soldiers, no guerrilleros." So does the world.
Rating:
Summary: AN ELOQUENT VOICE FOR THE INNOCENT
Review: War, as they say, is hell. It is hell compounded when endured by a nine-year-old boy who sees his mother killed. In later years he describes that moment as "Like water pouring over stone, that is how she slipped away from me." Ms. Benitez, who unforgettably drew Latin American life in "A Place Where The Sea Remembers" (1993) and "Bitter Grounds" (1997) now turns to a chaotic El Salvador. Born of both fact and imagination, "The Weight Of All Things" depicts that country's 1980s violence as seen through the eyes of Nicholas de la Virgen Veras. Nicholas lives with his grandfather, Tata, in the small village of El Retorno, a place of cane and mud buildings "whitewashed with hopefulness." Acceding to his mother's request, he joins her in the city for the funeral of a slain archbishop. It is here that mass murder takes place, and his mother dies shielding the boy with her body. Clinging to the belief that she still lives despite having seen her limp form dragged away, Nicholas begins a painful and dangerous search for her. His quest takes him throughout the ravaged Salvadoran landscape, into the hands of guerrilla rebels, the Popular Liberation Forces, who have commandeered his village. Nationalist soldiers, the Guardia, will later ransack El Retorno and take the boy captive. To escape the army compound takes all the wily courage and faith Nicholas can muster. With "The Weight Of All Things," a scorching but beautiful narrative, Ms. Benitez speaks for the innocent, those caught between forces who would eradicate all in their blind quest for power. When Nicholas is wounded he longs for a place "where there are no guns, no soldiers, no guerrilleros." So does the world.
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