A visual essay inspired by Sepharad, a novel by Antonio Munoz Molina.
One of my favorite ways to read and remember a novel is to visualize the text through charts.
- sacristan
- copenhagen
- those who wait
- silencing everything
- valdemún
- oh you who knew so well
- münzenberg
- olympia
- berghof
- cerbére
- wherever the man goes
- scheherazade
- america
- you are...
- narva
- tell me your name
- sepharad
"something else that until that moment I hadn’t known was in my memory"
"I had abandoned the everyday and entered a kingdom very much like the world of films or books: the insomniac world of travelers."
"the reality in which large holes, pits of darkness even at midday, begin to open"
"in old Spanish to remember means to wake up"
Okay, a pause. First two chapters introduce a narrative “I” who moves in and out of other people’s stories. The third chapter moved further into the personas of Buber-Neumann, Klemperer, and Ginsberg. Most recently, we’ve moved fully into the soldier’s “I” and reflected on the concept of persona
"for memory is never as precise as literature would have us believe"
"At some moment in the reading, without my knowing, there came a shift in attitude, and the person who had been nothing more than a name..."
At this point in reading we’ve seen a wide range of storytelling modes plus some major payoffs for earlier references. It’s passed the 1/3 mark and my thinking brain is mostly turned off. I trust the book to take me wherever it wants to go.
"You will not swim twice in the same river, nor will you live the same summer twice"
"there are others who reflect any brightness near them, beaming it back as if it were their own"
"like explorers who get lost and go mad in deserts of ice"
The next describes a visit home that’s very hard to leave. This chart would be better as a spiral.
"already hard and stiff as the bolt on a gate"
By chapter 14, the book's ending has been announced. Words like "symmetry" and "loose strings" are thrown around. It's time to tie up the loose ends...
Then, a single mention of a new name leads to a new story, just as things were coming to a close...
"I am never more myself than when I am silent and listening"
We end at a new beginning: "that strange nontime on the eve of departure..."
