Book of Clouds
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A young Mexican woman adrift in post-unification Berlin encounters romance, violence, and revelation in this “stirring and lyrical first novel” (Paul Auster, award-winning author and filmmaker).
Having escaped her overbearing family in Mexico, Tatiana settles in the newly reunified city of Berlin, where she hopes to cultivate a life of solitude. But when she takes a job transcribing notes for the reclusive historian, Doktor Weiss, Tatiana’s simple life becomes more complex—and more perilous. Through Weiss, she meets a young meteorologist who, as a child in East Germany, took solace in the sky’s constant shape-shifting, an antidote to his grim and unchanging reality. As their three conflicting worlds begin to merge, the tension culminates in an act of violence that will leave none of them untouched.
Unfolding with the logic of a dream, Book of Clouds is both “a stunningly accurate portrait of Berlin” and a beautiful exploration of the myths we cling to in order to give our lives meaning. From a crowded U-Bahn where Hitler appears dressed as an old woman to an underground Gestapo bowling alley whose walls bear score marks from games long settled, Chloe Aridjis guides us through layers of history with wit and compassion, blurring the lines between real and imagined. Her debut novel is “required reading of the most pleasurable sort” (The New York Times).
Named one of the 10 Best Books Set in Berlin by The Guardian.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aridjis's lithe debut novel is a brooding, dreamy tale of a young Mexican woman in Berlin, burrowing an escape from the siblings and expectations awaiting her back home. Placing first in a nationwide language exam, university student Tatiana wins a year's room and board in Germany, quickly dissolving into Berlin life ("On some days I felt attached to the city and assimilated, on others like some kind of botched transplant with a few renegade veins") and deciding to stay on when the scholarship runs dry. After a series of odd jobs, Tatiana lands with Dr. Friedrich Weiss, an eccentric historian who needs an assistant to transcribe a number of his "mesmeric" dictations. A loner with a fertile imagination, Tatiana is well-suited to the job, and quickly grows absorbed; Weiss's obsession with Berlin's Nazi and Stasi past dovetails nicely with Tatiana's fascination with the city's underbelly. Ultimately, the characters and landmarks of this ephemeral novel (Tatiana included) never quite emerge from a fog of mystery, making this less a satisfying narrative than a lofty meditation on the power of what's obscured and unknowable.
