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The Iliac Crest
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
15 posts | 8 read | 14 to read
On a dark and stormy night, two mysterious women invade an unnamed narrators house, where they proceed to ruthlessly question their hosts gender and identity. The increasingly frantic protagonist fails to defend his supposed masculinity and eventually finds himself in a sanatorium. A Gothic tale of destabilized male-female binaries and subverted literary tropes, this is the book's first English publication.
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review
Robotswithpersonality
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Mehso-so

Well, what little I heard about this book, indeed verbatim of the blurb on the back, that caused me to pick it up, wasn't a lie.
It's just that the experience of actually reading it was so far from what I expected that it feels less like a disappointment and more a displacement. 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? Surreal, perhaps feminist, it seems to be grazing both the injustice of misogyny/patriarchy robbing women of respect and recognition, and also the spectrum beyond the gender binary, except that it's also got the backdrop of a dystopian/police state society and a cruel sanitarium for society's unwanted, shuttered away to die. 3w
Robotswithpersonality 3/? The floaty, nightmarish quality of the narrative didn't help me connect the dots, and I found myself focusing less on certain plot points the author was obviously drawing the reader back to, and more on the part where evidently the protagonist's original form was a tree. Never explained. Kind of wanted that story more, or at least to have it hook up more securely to one of the other fragments involved. 3w
Robotswithpersonality 4/4 I think if this had been a short story in the 50-75 page mark, this level of ambiguity wouldn't phase me, but 130 page novella? At some point the line between reinforcing the theme (if one is confident the theme has been clearly conveyed) and redundant repetition starts to blur. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 3w
9 likes3 comments
review
Sidreadsalot
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Mehso-so

I have been meaning to read this very short Spanish-to-English translated novel for a whiiiillleeee. I was hoping that at the end of it, it will all somehow tie together, that everything I had read prior to the ending would make sense... but it didn‘t. And I was left CONFUSED AF.

Nute Welcome to Litsy! It‘s a warm and friendly community. I know that you will enjoy yourself here. I‘m looking forward to getting to know you!🙂 3y
3 likes1 comment
blurb
Emilymdxn
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Hello #integrateyourshelf friends! Sorry I‘m so late posting this week, I‘m in Scotland with almost no internet signal. These are some of my favourite #womenintranslation from the Americas. I particularly love the iliac crest which is by a Mexican writer, and anything at all by Clarice Lispector!

TheBookHippie Daughter of Fortune I loved 4y
ChasingOm Oh woooow, Iliac Crest sounds super great. 4y
85 likes2 comments
quote
Cecil
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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One idea that really stuck with me after reading this book was the impossibility of turning away after restricting delineations (of language, gender, and the physical as a whole) begin to dissolve. I‘ve been thinking lately about how once you start to challenge your own narratives it‘s impossible to not start seeing—and then rejecting—lots of restrictive views. It‘s good to be questioning, to be curious.

review
Cecil
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Mehso-so

A book about identities, bodies and language is just the kind of dense thematic fiction I usually enjoy. There were a lot of ideas here, but despite its beautifully translated prose style, this tangle of symbols and signifiers didn‘t add up for me. While this book gestures at the freedom that comes with the dissolution of social, semantic and personal norms, it‘s failure to engage with the pressure and power behind these norms rang hollow for me.

review
mreads
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Mehso-so

On a dark and stormy night, two mysterious women invade an unnamed narrator's house. And they hang around an awful long time. A novel about borders; physical, past/present, gender, sanity and reality. This is a book in translation and I would read others by the author as I like her writing style however it's a so-so based on a main thread of a famous untranslated Mexican author that I have no knowledge of so I'm definitely missing something.

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mrozzz
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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I have heard only great things about The Iliac Crest and I was happy to discover these 2 other books at Foyles published by the same small press. They each seem to have weird & enticing plots— can‘t wait to read them all 😃 #bookhaul

mklong Alright, I‘m getting really jealous of your British #bookhaul!! 5y
Eyelit What‘s the remainder about? Litsy doesn‘t have a synopsis... 5y
mrozzz I can‘t copy the text or summarize the summary so I thought I‘d just share the link 🙂 @Eyelit https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40201224 5y
mrozzz @mklong 😉📚📚📚📚📚 5y
93 likes4 comments
review
Emilymdxn
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Pickpick

This was unlike anything I‘d ever read before and I loved every page of it. So rich and strange, such lyrical writing, and every page and everything that happened was so original. I‘d recommend for anyone looking for something gothic and surreal.

I‘m in love with this publisher And Other Stories, everything I‘ve ever read that they‘ve published has been breathtaking. Probably my fave indie publisher rn.

44 likes2 stack adds
blurb
Emilymdxn
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Its nearly 1pm and I‘m in my dressing gown with coffee and an astonishingly good book. Does it get better than this??

I‘m going out for New Years and I‘m very excited, I want to rest up in advance as I have a sight cold and will need all my energy. I‘ve never been out for nye before, and I‘ve never managed to spend it with my bf in 5 years, so even tho nye is often disappointing for a lot of people I‘m excited for my first proper one 💖

Kaye Have a wonderful time. 5y
TrishB Have a good one 😁 5y
Oryx Have fun! 5y
Kalalalatja Have a great time! It is 2 pm here, and I‘m still in my pj‘s and trying to pull myself together to get ready 😅 5y
Emilymdxn @Kalalalatja my book and I have made it to the bathtub... it‘s a hard life 5y
47 likes5 comments
blurb
Emilymdxn
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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This will be my first book of 2019 and im starting as i mean to go on - I want to spend this year reading more by women, by poc, books translated from other languages and books I already own so that I can give them away and feel like I‘m not just hoarding dead trees for nothing. This book is all four and it looks incredible

Bradleygirl "hoarding dead trees" is beautifully apt and will make me feel better about purging, thx ✊ 5y
Emilymdxn @Bradleygirl thank you! I always feel like books are fulfilling their function and living how they‘re meant to if they‘re being read and appreciated, but they‘re not made for being stored and displayed, unless they‘re gifts, reference books or favourites I always like to set them free! 5y
Kimzey I admire your reading goals! And I definitely need to read more books that I already own and then set them free! 📚🦋 5y
See All 9 Comments
mreads Awesome goals 😁👍 5y
Bradleygirl @Emilymdxn amen to that! 5y
tina_b.ooks I set myself the goal to only read books by women in 2019. I'm going to use #RemarkableWomen. Maybe you want to use it too 😊 5y
Emilymdxn @tina_b.ooks absolutely I will!!! Thank you for telling me about it. That‘s an amazing goal to have, I‘m super excited to see what you come across 5y
batsy This really sounds good! 5y
Emilymdxn @mreads @batsy @Kimzey thanks all! It‘s a phenomenal book so far, I recommend 5y
48 likes2 stack adds9 comments
blurb
Mel
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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LauraBeth Thanks for sharing! 5y
15 likes1 comment
blurb
DennisJacobRosenfeld
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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My friend Kristina, whose opinion I regard very highly, recommended this to me ages ago. Now I‘m getting around to it and so far it was a wise decision.

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SkeletonKey
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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I‘ve been thinking about this topic a lot.

Copying the article here to read it in full sometime soon:

https://pentransmissions.com/2018/05/17/cristina-rivera-garza/

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brownekr
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza
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Yesterday was a snow day (!), so I tore through 3 new/upcoming books:
--Bernice Yeung's IN A DAY'S WORK, about sexual violence against immigrant women in agriculture & domestic work;
--Sandhya Menon's FROM TWINKLE WITH LOVE, which is a delight!;
--the fifth Penderwicks book, which was lovely in many ways & disappointing in one.

So now I'm back to this weirdo, which I started a while ago but really need to concentrate on. Creepy and discomfiting.

7 likes3 comments
blurb
willevans
The Iliac Crest | Cristina Rivera Garza

“you are never more authentic than when inside your own nightmares.”