Weather Among Men

Tomás González's novel The Storm set off at early 4:00 am when the twin sons Mario and Javier and their father ('the old bastard', as called by his sons) start making preparation for their journey far off into the sea for catching fish for their tourists. From the very beginning we feel the resentment the sons, especially Mario holds for his father. They have a 'nut case' mother Nora, probably a schizophrenic, who talks to her imaginary followers, and mostly stays all day indoors, driven to conclusions, sensing a scheme of her murder or else making incoherent comments about her sons or her husband, whom she has grown to resent.

Novel progresses, treating each passing hour like a chapter, and unfurls the psychological relation between the father and sons, meanwhile making them lively with intense descriptions largely about their inner world. While at the sea, we could feel how each of them consider themselves superior to the other, and the narrative voices—which  are experimental, shifting, inclusive—perfectly tailored to characterize them doesn't let the tension wane. We sense the storm gathering strength and momentum at the far sky and the tension dramatized in the boat, or developing in their fishing line will at some time all conflate to extreme limits and story engrosses us completely what happens in this account.

Where a captain rules, a sailor has no sway, she thought. Hopefully the

 twin would stab the sailor’s captain. And hopefully not. He could

 also drown him – they say it’s a sweet death. A sweet death

 in saltwater, what do you say to that.

The author has spared no character to go away without saying something, and which serves as portrayals done by others of the father, the twins and their delusional mother. Kids speak, adult tourists speak, neighbors speak, even Nora's 'throng' speak, and we gather all these elements to create the atmosphere surrounding the life of the family. The father considers his sons losers, and himself a king. And, Mario wants him dead for good, or to get rid of his taunting remarks forever any way. The translation is almost poetic, and mostly thoughts of the characters have spoken for themselves. What we find is a finely braided storytelling, where not a sentence can be overlooked—nothing overly done, hanging resentment keeping things apart and together at a time.

Despite Nora’s madness and his complicated relationship with his sons, the

 father thinks, when looked at the right way, and especially given the prosperity the

 hotel has brought them, things have turned out pretty well.

Everybody’s got problems.

He knows that no individual, not even him, understands everything

 about the world, and so he recognizes that human beings

will be forever doomed to humility

Despite the growing loathing and want to inflict pain, something holds the family together, and whatever we see happening, there is a glow that everything will in fact come back to normal, or it has always been like this, even before the story started. Their personal moods and vanity, their delusion and bare truths, their reclusive sense of life has given each of the characters their height in the story.

So that we're not confused with the voices, characters introduce themselves, and the accounts are funny, sad in the part of Nora, and all shed light to the Bungalow holder family, and also the coastal life. We're reminded of The Old Man and the Sea, and Moby Dick, but here the force that drives the story is human flaws and complex. And like a magician, González has turned an ordinary family chemistry to something extraordinary. We are driven to understand the sons and the father, weigh their values, realize their personal truth and observation, judge their little actions, and hear their thoughts. The Storm approaching them soon adds up and down emotional graph to their fishing expedition, and to their lives, and we are astonished how everything concludes.

Author: Tomás González

Translator: Andrea Rosenberg

Publisher: Archipelago

Page Count: 120

Price: $11 (Paperback)