Gabriela Wiener

28. Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener
translation: from Spanish by Julia Sanches, 2023
OPD: 2021
format: 183-page hardcover
acquired: April read: May 5-8 time reading: 4:29, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary autofiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: Spain and Lima, Peru
about the author: Peruvian writer, chronicler, poet and journalist, born in Lima, Peru in 1975. She has lived in Spain since 2003.

My 7th from the International Booker longlist and another that I liked a lot but didn't love. (The award was given to [Kairos] on Tuesday.) What I especially liked, personally, was the touch of Jewish history, the autofiction (a theme in the longlist) and the nature of the overall structure - namely that it's a little random. What I didn't like was the shocking lines she puts in there, although I seem to see some of its purpose.

Weiner is not a typical Peruvian name, especially for an ethnically Peruvian family. They trace their name to an Austrian-born Jewish explorer trying to become French. He explored Peru for France in the 19th-century, and returned with thousands of pillaged artefacts, many apparently currently displayed in a neglected Paris museum. But what he is most famous for is failing to discover Manchu Picchu. He searched but went off course in the mountains. So, as reflected in the title, it went undiscovered. He also left behind a pregnant Peruvian woman.

Gabriella Weiner is the also the daughter of prominent Peruvian activists. Weiner explores her ancestor, her father and his long-time extra-marital affair and her own polygamous marriage - to a Peruvian man and also a Spanish woman. And she uses herself, her personal failures to shock. If you like, a section is a very traditional and interesting exploration, then it's wrapped with some shocking thing she does or thinks. End of section. So, you're reading relaxed, and then momentarily uncomfortable you have to decide to continue, or set the book down. Readers are generally not going to like this narrator when we're done. We aren't going to like what she does.

Let's be clear. What she does is no worse than what her colonial ancestor did, or what her father did, but we, the reader, are really only deeply bothered when she does it. And this I think this part of her point - not that the past justifies her present issues, even if she does argue that on the surface, but how different we react to and how different we judge, intuitively, these two things. We tolerate the men, and the ancestral men, overlooking the women, but we condemn the wayward women deeply.

The novel is a reflection on family and cultural history, on historical uncertainties and crimes and the colonization of Peru, on racism, legacies, and on variations of unfaithfulness. Much remains undiscovered. An interesting work and, really, a nice addition to the International Booker longlist.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/360386#8544366… (more)

"The strangest thing about being alone here in Paris, in an anthropology museum gallery more or less beneath the Eiffel Tower, is the thought that all these statuettes that look like me were wrenched from my country by a man whose last name I inherited."

[b:Undiscovered|70240502|Undiscovered|Gabriela Wiener|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1679456884l/70240502._SX50_.jpg|92726711] by Journalist [a:Gabriela Wiener|4601950|Gabriela Wiener|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1306876363p2/4601950.jpg] is a dive into Peruvian history as she traces the lineage of her Jewish Austrian/French great great grandfather, an explorer in Peru, grieves the death of her father and tries to understand his dual life with two families, and documents the racism and colonial-tinged political slurs she's encountered as a Spanish resident. She also discusses her polyamory relationship with her husband, Jaime, and her girlfriend, Roci, plus other affairs she experiences. She's a busy narrator. Although the book is catalogued as fiction, I am thinking it is more like autofiction from the online interviews. She's a good writer but I bogged down a bit in the ancestral family tree hunts and wanted to whip back to the contemporary which yielded plenty of drama. Her exchanges with her mother toward the end were satisfying in conversation and letters, although my overall assessment is that I would rather see any one of the story lines developed, particularly the effects of her move to Spain and life there as a journalist.… (more)

I am of two minds about this collection of articles/essays and I am unsure what to do with it. Wiener's style is gonzo journalism, she is not just present in every story she is the center of every story. No matter what happens, it is all about her and how she feels. Honestly, I found her insufferable nearly all the time. Not liking writers rarely impacts my feelings about works, but because she is central we see her spectacular narcissism hurt people and that sometimes shifts the balance making it impossible to find wisdom or enjoyment in the work despite the fact that Wiener knows how to write.

The first piece, an embedded week with a self-described sex guru and his seven wives (all of whom work to provide her with orgasms) is pure genius. It turns out to be the best piece in the collection, followed by her coverage of Isabel Allende. The last piece, about an abusive relationship she had and about gender violence was the weakest by far. In the middle, there are essays of varying quality. For the most part, I preferred her essays about everyday life. Her daughter is charming, and their life together (and with her husband who is a saint and/or a masochist) is interesting and often touching. The stories about her experiences vary in quality. There is a brief and very funny piece about female ejaculation and as a counterbalance a terrible piece about self-help seminars and a worse one about doing ayahuasca. The good is very good, the bad is very bad, the self-contempt hurts about the same amount as the self-aggrandizement/contempt for those who see the world differently from her (which honestly has got to be most people.) I am going with a 3-star though few if any of the essays are average, but there is a pretty equal balance of 2-star and 4-star material.… (more)

This is a fictionalized memoir – or ‘autofiction’ (new term for me).

Gabriela Wiener examines being a Peruvian indigenous person, while also having a fourth generation grandfather, Charles Wiener, who famously looted tens of thousands of pre-Columbia works from Peru that he took back to France. The author explores her grandfather’s legacy which seemed to include using (stealing) other explorers’ discoveries and research. He also left behind a native woman pregnant with his child, which he never knew. This child was (or perhaps was not) the founder of the numerous offspring with the surname Wiener in Peru.

The author lives in Spain in a polyamorous marriage to one man and another woman. She explores this aspect of her personality and how growing up with a split identity in Peru may contribute to her unusual marriage and affairs. In Peru she attends a group that explores why natives may prefer sexual relationships with those of the offspring of the white colonial offspromg mestizos.

It’s definitely a confusing background for her, with more than the average person’s conundrums in figuring out who she really is.

I thought that the indigenous/colonial conqueror tension was interesting. I was less interested in her explorations of her sexuality – frankly reading about other people’s sex bores me.… (more)