In Her Absence

I bow to the genius of Munoz Molina. Separad was the one truly great book I read in the past decade. In Her Absence is different. For one thing, it is a smaller book. Munoz draws a fine focus on the ways of the heart. The main character convinces himself that he has found deliverance in the form of the woman he married, but it is a trick and he discovers the trick when love dies. I felt great sympathy for him, but I also felt compassion for his wife who turns all of her formidable energies to transcending the provincial life in which she finds herself. I can hardly wait to read the other of Munoz' writings.

I found this book very good and thought provoking. This is written from the perspective of the husband who is the one who loves more in the unbalanced relationship. In the end, I wasn't sure what was real and what was not. I felt it was written intentionally to make you think and wonder and draw your own conclusion. I can imagine two people reading this and describing the story differently. It was surprising that a book this short and easy to read can provide so much insight into a relationship and also make you wonder about man's reaction to a love that is not appreciated.

I read In Her Absence in one breath and immedeatly started re-reading it. It reads like a poem. For me it was a revelation about the nature of human perception and its connection to emotions. It opens up the path to the mysterious side of everyday existence, and makes us question our relationship with the contemporary art. The size of the novella is perfect, compact and essential (one thinks of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, and Nabokov's Despair). It also evoked for me Dionysios' negative definition of God. A must.