I suspect I may be more of a fan of the idea of Fitzcarraldo Editions (I assume they were named for the excellent Werner Herzog film) than I am of the actual books they publish. Yes, everything they publish does indeed sound — at the very least — interesting, but there’s no way I could read them all, not without devoting all my reading time to their output. And all my other time as well. I really like the uniform design, blue for fiction and white for non-fiction; and I really like their roster of writers.
The few I’ve read have been very impressive. I’m a fan of Ed Atkins’s video installations, and his A Primer for Cadavers (2016, UK) is an astonishing and almost unclassifiable work. I’m looking forward to buying and reading his second book, Old Food (2019, UK).
Fitzcarraldo Editions also publish Agustín Fernández Mallo’s Nocilla trilogy. To be honest, I had a bit of a Nirvana moment with these books — you know, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” sounds quite poetic until you learn Teen Spirit is a brand-name for a deodorant. And so too with “Nocilla”, which is apparently a rival Spanish brand to Nutella, the hazelnut-chocolate spread. Bafflingly, there’s no link in the books — Nocilla Dream (2006, trans. 2015, Spain), Nocilla Experience (2007, trans. 2016, Spain) and Nocilla Lab (2009, trans. 2019, Spain), all translated by Thomas Bunstead— to the product.
Despite this, they inspired a movement among Spanish writers, the Nocilla Generation.
I don’t know if there’s a story arc to the Nocilla trilogy, at least I don’t recall any actual plot in the first two books. They were structured as short sections — 113 and 112 of them, respectively — some of which were non-fiction, some of which were parts of several different narratives. Nocilla Lab has, like the other two books, an unconventional narrative structure… but it also has a plot. Of sorts. The first section is a single sentence 71 pages long. It describes the author, later identifiable as Mallo, through references to Mallo’s own life and the genesis of the Nocilla trilogy, and his partner on “an island south of Sardinia”, in which the narrative circles around itself, repeatedly impressing on the reader that the two are in a café, having dumped a suitcase containing “the Project” into the sea, all wrapped up in anecdotes from the narrator’s and couple’s past.
During their exploration of the island, they discover an old prison converted to an environmentally-friendly hotel. They stay there, and learn they are the only guests. The owner proves to be somewhat eccentric, and the narrator’s identity and the owner’s identity begin to blur. The woman leaves, and the two men end up as some sort of weird reflection of each other, nearly taking over each other’s lives. This is initially triggered by the hotel owner discovering the suitcase containing the Project dumped earlier.
Nocilla Lab ends with a short graphic story, which I’m not convinced was reproduced correctly in the Kindle version, and which features Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas, who is mentioned earlier in the book several times.
I explicitly referenced Nocilla Dream and Nocilla Experience in the fifth (yes, I know) book of the Apollo Quartet, Coda: A Visit to the National Air and Space Museum; but having read Nocilla Lab, it strikes me the entire quartet (of five books) is a Nocilla work itself. I’ve always been a big fan of experimental narrative structures, and the Nocilla trilogy is pretty much defined by that. It works, more so, I think, in this third book, Nocilla Lab, than the other two, and perhaps chiefly because it has a more coherent, or at least nominally linear, narrative. Mallo plays with the presentation of his story, but then makes the presentation itself part and parcel of the story. It is not only metafictional, it also deconstructs itself from within. And that, I admire. That, I find fascinating. That, I want to do in my own fiction.
I’m still not entirely sure what the Nocilla Generation is, and my one read of a book which identified with it, entirely coincidentally titled Uppsala Woods (2009, trans. 2013, Spain), by Álvaro Colomer, translated by Jonathan Dunne, didn’t really help. I don’t know of any other books from the Nocilla Generation published in English. I would like to read more.
So, on the one hand, I’m disappointed the Nocilla Generation is not so readily definable; on the other, I’m well aware science fiction’s history is awash with movements and artistic groupings and political causes, and they rarely amount to anything actually identifiably textual. I’m no fan of New Criticism — context is vital — but I’m fascinated by uncommon narrative structures, different ways of telling stories, and while there are many extra-textual influences on that — literary tradition by language, culture or nation, is just one — it’s the influences that are entirely artificial I find most interesting.
Fitzcarraldo Editions have published many books which make use of uncommon narrative structures. I know I should read more of their output.
I just need to devote a bit more time to it.
