Chloe Aridjis’s impressive debut novel, Book of Clouds centers around a young Mexican Jew named Tatiana living in Berlin. A young woman in her 20s, Tatiana has minimal contact with her family, which runs a Jewish deli in Mexico City, and speaks to almost no one. She prefers to spend her days in thoughtful reminiscences, wandering the marketplaces and streets of Berlin alone. She earns her living by transcribing recorded notes for an old historian. Her closest human contact comes from the recorded voices on the S-Bahn, the Berlin subway system: “I preferred this recorded voice to any other voice I had heard in my life,” she explains.

Through the eyes of this strange narrator, we see Berlin, a city unable to separate itself from its past. The bowling alley is marked by Gestapo signs. The marketplace contains remnants of a grim history. Dirt rises from Tatiana’s floorboards, like secrets that can’t be repressed.

Like the title suggests, the novel has an ethereal, lyrical quality, and Tatiana’s observations and descriptions are enthralling, reflective and disturbing. Aridjis weaves together references to meteorology, ancient Mexican culture and World War II history to create an interesting narrative even though not much happens. There are a few episodes that punctuate her reflections, and when Tatiana actually does wake up from her dreamy, inattentive state, it is usually to note something equally distracting: the presence of a black, hairless dog called Xoloitzcuintle, “member of the ancient canine breed from Mexico that in Aztec myth would guide human souls through Mictlan, the ninth and lowest circle of the labyrinthine underworld”; the appearance of Adolf Hitler disguised as a woman on the subway; or a mysterious figure dressed in a black skirt and red cape on a tram from Alexanderplatz.

Tatiana begins to date a meteorologist named Jonas Krantz despite the fact that he isn’t someone she would normally date. They rub along comfortably enough, although Tatiana’s social awkwardness seeps through even her dreamy, ethereal narration. In fact, her inability to interact with anyone, whether it be a friendly next-door neighbor or her boyfriend is one of her more irritating characteristics. Tatiana explains that she never quite got along with her family — which is not surprising — and describes attempts at friendship like trying on a new pair of shoes.

The climax of the story comes when neo-Nazi punks attack Tatiana and her employer, Doktor Weiss in anti-Semitic rage. For Tatiana, her near-death experience is just as remarkable as the appearance of the Aztec dog or an intense summer storm. After Doktor Weiss is seriously injured in the attack, she spends paragraphs wondering about her lost watch and calmly consuming two cups of coffee. After this event, Tatiana decides to return to Mexico City, although that decision isn’t based on the attack: “It’s never about just one event, but rather a whole sequence of smaller events, all those loaded seconds and minutes and hours that lead toward a decisive moment.”

In the same way, Book of Clouds is not about one event, and one doesn’t get the feeling that Tatiana’s adventures in Berlin made a huge, lasting impact on her. Book of Clouds is not a life-changing story but rather a dream, in which one puzzles over meaning even though none of it was real.

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Created Jul 10, 2009 at 2:54pm • Submit your own review...