A General Theory Of Oblivion
by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Award: Dublin Winner 2017
Nomination: Booker Finalist 2016
Date Read: February 15, 2023
Ludo, a reclusive woman, lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Angola, a long way from their native Brazil. She rarely leaves their two-story apartment. When the country embarks on a chaotic political revolution and her sister and brother-in-law go missing, she is terrified of the thugs that arrive on her doorstep in search of non-existent diamonds, she vows to never be threatened like that again.
She builds a wall with some remaining building materials and seals herself off from the world and the political upheaval outside her door. For the next 30 years, her only contact with people are a child who steals from her but then saves her life. She reads, busies herself with the tasks of daily living and as the food diminishes, she eats fruit and vegetables from her garden, the occasionally caught pigeon and eggs from two chickens she stole from the veranda of an apartment beneath her.
Nevertheless, she lives a life – a life of meaning and purpose. A life where she is forced to survive, burning furniture, floor tiles and whatever else she can think of for survival. A life where she burns everything and is forced to write her story on the walls of her apartment in charcoal. A life where she is actually rich beyond her wildest dreams because of diamonds she discovers under a mattress but she lives in poverty. A life where she reads until her eyes give out and she is effectively blind. And a life where we learn her comfort with seclusion stems from a horrific rape when she was a young girl.
The rape at the end was horrific in and of itself but when she arrives home – bloody, dress torn, beaten – her father beats her again, calls her a whore and never looks at or speaks to her again. As if she had any say in the matter. As if she enjoyed the experience and chose this for herself. She was victimized twice. I was horrified for her and wanted to do the same thing to her father. I still am so disgusted!
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