This review contains spoilers for the novel, Boulder, by Eva Baltasar.
Frozen over and shrouded in mysticism this novel has been like a whisper in the air recently. Every other person I know is reading Boulder, and upon finishing each person has subsequently run to me and said, “oh my gosh I need you to read this so we can talk about it together!” Finally, after the onslaught of pleading and recommending by friends and strangers alike, I sat down and read this short novel. And I must say, after finishing it I understand the hype.
At only 105 pages, Boulder is a prosaic unwinding of the isolated psyche. Equal parts poetry and depravity, this book feels acrid when reading and leaves a bitter taste in the back of the pallet. But at the same time Boulder is transfixing, magical, almost spiritual in its prose. A completely intoxicating read.
Following a cook on a merchant ship we watch our narrator sift through the dregs of an isolated existence on board, indulging in everyday pleasures we usually overlook entirely, like the heartiness of root vegetables marinated in fat, or the quiet companionship one feels late at night with the self. Through our narrator’s eyes we also explore the withdrawals our body goes through when we have not touched another in months, maybe years. The internal curling of the self, the freezing over of the senses.
When our narrator docks at last we follow her through bars and cafes, until she finds Samsa, an Icelandic woman with “white-blonde hair and swimmer’s shoulders.” It is this woman who gives name to our narrator, nicknaming her Boulder. Through paragraphs of poetry we see Boulder and Samsa fall into an indulgent and fraught love affair, balancing their deep attraction with the separation that comes from Boulder’s commitments on board.
Their love affair progresses when Samsa takes a job in Reykjavik and Boulder follows, leaving behind the isolated sailor life she has grown to love so much. Believing Samsa to be the love of her life, Boulder is content trying to establish a stable home on land. However, it does not take long for their relationship to fall apart, with Samsa working long hours and Boulder trying to find a space in Iceland where she feels comfortable and content. In a last-ditch effort to save their failing relationship, Samsa begs Boulder for a baby, who agrees even though Boulder has no desire to partake in motherhood.
The rest of the novel unfolds into an interesting and perplexing study of gender-dynamics, commitment, attraction, and motherhood. But more than anything I feel like this novel explores the beautiful pain of committed relationships, that bitter space of loving someone, vowing to spend your life with them, and then living through decisions they make for the relationship that go against every aspect of your being, that violate each way you wish to live your life.
Reading of Boulder and Samsa made me look at my own life, my own relationships, and explore the give and take each of us participate in with the ones we love.
Eva Baltasar so poignantly captures the human experience. She elucidates desires we are sometimes too ashamed to address, and weaves together the fabric of two women who fall in and out of love with each other, and yet remain so intrinsically tied together.
This novel made me feel at times frozen inside, at times feverish and frenzied. It’s as if Baltasar writes with every color of the rainbow, painting lush and vibrant imagery from the sparsest of sentences. I would have given anything to read this in Baltasar’s original language, Catalan, but Julia Sanches does an excellent job in achieving a seamless and poetic English translation. Nothing feels lost.
If you are looking for a novel that will challenge you, force you to examine your relationship to desire and companionship, or you are simply looking for a book you can easily finish in a single sitting, I would recommend Boulder. I feel like each reader will take something unique from this book, and no two readers will feel the same about this despondent and captivating narrator.
