Review: The Private Lives of Trees

The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Zambra.

This is a short fleeting book, a snapshot really. It flows from narrative to narrative seamlessly, merging and mixing. At first, you're confused as to what is real. Only for a brief moment. Quickly, it becomes clear that it doesn't matter. Everything is real in some way.

The book is tensely held together, but it is held together. Tangents all lead back to the same place. The phrases that are repeated glow within pages of softly swimming poetry. The book is held together by the fact that it is a book about a specific thing.

I will not discuss character or plot, because that feels wrong. There are characters and there is a plot, but they serve a greater purpose than being characters or plot. At the end of it all, I took a deep breath and could feel it all come together, all at once. There is complexity here that I cannot capture with my limited ability with language. I feel like I was at least a little devastated, a little surprised, a little calm, and a little warmed by the beats of the story.

What more can I say?

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