WATER OVER STONES

Deep slices of life from the Basque Country evoke the beauty and banality of the world.

Elías hasn’t spoken since returning from college to the village of Ugarte, spending his time carving a toy boat alongside local twins Luis and Martín. Bakery employees Donato and Eliseo serve in Franco’s army barracks, secretly sheltering a magpie while they await their discharge. A coal mine engineer named Antoine blames Eliseo for his dog’s death and suspects Martín of sabotaging his lab in the name of Maoism.These are just some details of the plot—somehow both expansive and intimate, straightforward and elliptical—described by Atxaga in languid, unadorned prose. Scenes have room to breathe and often conclude without fanfare; conversational dialogue, poetic imagery, and small gestures rather than propulsive conflict advance the story. Particular attention is paid to pedestrian scenic metadata such as the date, time of day, and weather. Atxaga helped translate his book from the original Basque to Spanish, and the crisp Spanish-to-English translation is courtesy of longtime Atxaga collaborators Jull Costa and Bunstead. The language teems with repetition; each character frequently returns to different topics of fixation: Antoine thinks his therapist resembles Raisa Gorbacheva; Luis hears the soundtrack to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly in his head. The undramatic innocuousness of the story is eerie, as though anything could happen. So, what is the point? What are these sections—almost interconnected novellas—building toward? As Luis asks himself: “Was there anything significant about that coincidence? Who knows?” Atxaga inspires trust from the reader through his authorial command. There is indeed a method to the madness and an unexpected payoff that meaningfully reframes the entire book.

A quietly remarkable offering from the first name in Basque literature.