Julia Navarro - Tell me Who I Am

Tell Me Who I Am surprises and enchants with a captivating and heartrending story. This is a novel about memory and identity with an exceptionally well-drawn and unforgettable literary character: a woman who throughout her extraordinary life was able to achieve the highly difficult feat of knowing herself. A victim of her mistakes, aware of her guilt, frightened by her traumas, she is above all an anti-heroine, a flesh-and-blood woman who always acts according to her principles, facing up to every challenge and making errors for which she will never fully pay. A woman who decided that she couldn't be neutral in this life.
Navarro's most personal novel surprises for its melodrama and the raw emotions transmitted by many of its stories. It is filled with pure adventure, introspection and political chronicle. From the tumultuous years of the Second Spanish Republic to the fall of the Berlin Wall, including World War II and the Cold War, these pages are packed with intrigue, emotion, politics, espionage, love, betrayal and settings like Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Moscow, London, Berlin and Warsaw with brief stopovers in The Basque Country, Cairo, Athens, Lisbon and New York.

Comment: After a lengthy book which was Anna Karenina here I went again with reading a big book and this 1083 pages story was my first pick of March. Again, this was a book I've read in Portuguese and it was lent to me by the same person who has lent some others in the past.

In this book, we sort of follow the story of the 20th century through the investigation of Guillermo, a journalist who's had bad experiences because he feels he is honest and doesn't want to be on any political side. To help his finances, his wealthy aunt asks him to investigate her grandmother, someone very shady in the family. In order to do that, Guillermo embarks on  trips all over the world and what he discovers starts to become more than a job, it's like getting to know a woman no one would ever think could have achieved what she did. But why can't he simply investigate, why does he need to follow her steps one at a time until the end?

This is not my first book by the author. I've tried one of her historical mysteries and was not impressed, especially after having it to read for years.

There are more or less 6 years between the publication of that other book and this one and, content aside, I think the writing itself has improved to the extent that this story felt more fluid than the other. Or, because I've read translations and not the originals, it might be just a random detail.

In this book, the story is told by several characters the main protagonist, Guillermo, is interviewing so he can collect information about his great grandmother, someone not talked about within the family. In his investigation, Guillermo finds out Amelia, that was her name, had sisters and a family that was never part of Guillermo's. After finding out those links, Guillermo embarks on a trip through a century filled with revolutions and wars and, somehow, his great grandmother has been in the middle of it all.

The story is basically told in the first person, through witnesses that lived with, or around or knew Amelia during her youth. Some sections are very difficult to read because it involves what we know were some of the worst moments of the human species in this planet. Guillermo stops being the enter of the action and Amelia becomes it, through the voices of others. The book is divided into 6 major parts, all focusing on a specific stage of Amelia's life and actions. I liked the story, I confess some parts were a lot more intriguing than others, but what really makes this feel heavier in terms of emotions is the notion that all those things - especially the bad ones - did happen for real and we can imagine how many people did suffer and were affected by what was happening around the world.

Amelia, the real protagonist is describes as many things and she is considered a lot more than that but I have to admit it bothered me a bit how she got herself in danger so many times. For someone with her experience, at some point, she should have been more careful. But of course this is the point, sometimes we just loose ourselves in what we do and we sort of loose track of why. i think this was it with Amelia, she started her whole life adventure because she fell in love and she exchanged everything for that and what came after. But some actions just don't make sense... 

At the same time, what can we say? In the sight of suffering and injustice, if we can do something, is it that easy to not be involved if our spirit is on that page? I'm talking about a period where people lived things in a way the current generations more or less don't, where information wasn't available at any moment and we had to wait to see what would happen... in terms of inserting the historical facts with fiction, I think this worked out pretty well.

I think this huge book is a sort of summary of the big conflicts in the 20th century, obviously focused on the Spanish civil war. But more than the fictional stuff, it's the real facts that make this come alive. It's so sad to think so many things could and should have been avoided but... now it's a lesson to be learned and sadly most people in power don't see it that way.

In terms of fiction, it was more or less cleverly done. The end was a bit abrupt and we don't really have closure on every little aspect but I suppose the impact feels bigger because of that as well. It was a surprise alright, the reason behind all the investigation.

Despite everything, it was entertaining to read this, that was for sure.

Grade: 8/10

Julia Navarro - The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud

The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud is the explosive international bestseller that mixes fact and fiction to tell the riveting story of one of the world’s most controversial relics—the Holy Shroud of Turin—and the desperate race to save it from those who will stop at nothing to possess its legendary power....
A fire at the Turin cathedral and the discovery of a mutilated corpse are the latest in a disturbing series of events surrounding the mysterious cloth millions believe to be the authentic burial shroud of Jesus Christ. Those who dare to investigate will be caught in the cross fire of an ancient conflict forged by mortal sacrifice, assassination, and secret societies tied to the shadowy Knights Templar.
Spanning centuries and continents, from the storm-rent skies over Calvary, through the intrigue and treachery of Byzantium and the Crusades, to the modern-day citadels of Istanbul, New York, London, Paris, and Rome, The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud races to a chilling climax in the labyrinths beneath Turin, where astounding truths will be exposed: about the history of a faith, the passions of man, and proof of the most powerful miracle of all….

Comment: This is another one of the books I was lent by my Portuguese friend. Actually, I also have this book in one of my shelves at home but my edition is a paperback and the font is smaller. I didn't mind reading the HC edition and, well, it was a good excuse to finally get to it. It's been in the pile for more than 7 years. How shameful (but it was not the worst case)!

This book tells us the story of how the Holy Shroud, one of the Christianity most beloved relics, has come to be where it is and why.

A fire at the Cathedral where the relic is located is the starting point of this book, that crosses ages and historical facts to let us understand why anyone would be interested in having the Shroud, other than religious dedication. To investigate the fire and other things related to it, a team of police members and history experts arrives in Turin and what they start revealing can be dangerous for everyone, but why is it all such a secret?

This book follows the tradition of the adventurous historical based plot type of books we've come to look for and even enjoy since Dan Brown got famous. Even is books are older than his work, we still think of him as the starting point of the genre.

Here, ms Navarro has exploited the idea of the Holy Shroud, a relic that any Christian knows about and that has led people to worship it through time. Apparently, studies and the Church has accepted the fact the Shroud is not original, simply because the fabric was only made in the medieval times, like C-14 test has indicated.

In the novel, this is an idea most characters already have but the twist is something we can pretty much guess at some point.

The book can be divided in two different times, the contemporary investigation of the fire and the way characters learn more about contemporary activities and then the historical settings of how the Shroud begun and where it traveled to and why. This is not such a bad tactic but to be honest I always feel some reluctance in dual times plots because inevitably, I always prefer to read about one and not the other. In this case, both were interesting somehow but the contemporary investigation always interested me the most. One can say the historical parts explain some of the secrets of the contemporary parts but it got to a point where it just felt like information the author wanted to include but wouldn't make much sense otherwise.

For a while, the main characters interested me a lot, despite not really liking one of the main ones because her attitude and choices seemed wrong even if realistic. 

Then, the obvious mystery others enhanced here and there only made everything seem rather silly. It got better when a reporter arrived and started to ask questions. Close to the end the contemporary part, the one I was more and more eager to see solved, feel flat because it was excessively melodramatic and the end was one of the most indecisive endings I saw. I mean, the mystery stayed on, people got hurt and nothing really was solved or came to a conclusive decision. How disappointing, after so many pages, the end is like that!

I guess I can understand why the author took this path. Some things do sound better if we don't have all the answers. But then why bother, this would have suited a non fiction essay much better, or even a book without the conspiracy elements in there because the reality is that it promised a lot, I wanted to see how the "good guys" would solve things or what would happen, this is a fictional tale after all, but then...we get a conversation at the end between protagonists and we learn what has happened in the last chapter, things we didn't have full access to. It was a let down. 

Because of this, the book only rates average to me. It wasn't so bad but the end ruined it for me.

Grade: 5/10