The Trap

The subheading ""Disordered Diary,"" which appears at the start of this novel, is all too apropos. While there are passages of beautiful writing here, and the translation flows easily, it is unrelentingly difficult to grab a foothold in this dense work filled with numerous changes of heart. The narrator feels that she has always been at the mercy of men and recalls that while she was chatty and behaved badly in school before the Spanish Civil War, afterward she became first subdued and docile as a boarding student and then completely mute. A boy named Bear, born to the narrator while his father was at war, grows up during the course of the novel as well and is often the focus of endless deliberation: ""Why have I accepted the fact that Bear might get used to it here, in this country? I am not tied to countries, I am indifferent to origins and ties, to old concepts of land and lineage, like a fly."" Scattered among other fragments are the narrator's recollections of her brief marriage to David, Bear's father, before he had to leave for the war. These fragments are too disparate and come too infrequently to create a story, however, and the narrator's agonized storytelling begins to grate. ""I am going to tell the story of my life. No, I am going to tell the story of my story. I am not going to tell anything,"" the narrator pours out at one point. All too true. (Oct.)