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*Menchu Gutiérrez. Besanji. 1994. 137 pp.

A lighthouse keeper and his dgo, Besanji, named after an Egyptian god. The unnamed narrator, the lighthouse keeper, seems to go gradually insane as he anticipates his own death. This was Menchu's first novel. I've read all of them now except for one that our library doesn't have.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. La tabla de las mareas. 1998. 96 pp.

This is a strange tale of several nameless characters, male and female and of varying ages, and their relation to two demons, one male and the other female. There are two churches, one black and one white, on either side of a river. I took a couple hours after dinner to read it this evening. I'm not sure of the whole demon thing, but, once again, very nice writing.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. Viaje de estudios. 1995. 112 pp.

Here's another, very similar but completely different novel by MG. The narrator is an orphan going on a university "field trip" by train to various monasteries. The activity of the trip seems to be investigating various parareal "agujeros" (holes). One of the other orphans, X, (all the students on the trip are orphans) gets sucked into one of these holes at the end. There are frequent flashbacks about the various orphanages where the narrator has lived. The narrator has strange visions.

All these novels are about the same length and have very short chapters. All relate eery spiritual quests in an unreal environment. All are very well written, with a nice eye for visual detail. I checked out another one, La tabla de las mareas at the library today, and recalled another from the annex as well. That will be five in total. There's a sixth our library doesn't have.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. Disección de una tormeta. 2005. 114 pp.

Another strange and beautiful short novel: a woman is interned in a kind of institution/retreat where the therapy consists of a series of rituals having to do with human hair. Everyone's hair is shaved off; the paint brushes, the strings of the musical instruments, are all made of hair. Books in the library are all about hair too, of course.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. De barro la memoria. 1987. 55 pp.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. La mordedura blanca. 1989. 67 pp.

This is an author I have decided to explore in a little more depth--both her poetry and prose. She presents striking images.

Con hilo rojo
la mujer de luto
bordaba rosas en la nieve.

Del pinar venía yo cantando,
a distancia me detengo
y la ramita que traigo
cae de mis manos.

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*Menchu Gutiérrez. La mujer ensimismada. 2001. 90 pp.

A woman visits twelve nearly identical houses on one street and describes their contents. In each house, a woman is engaged in some artistic endeavor, whether of the fine arts or the practical arts. Music, cooking, gardening, sewing, painting, etc... The weather outside in the plaza changes every time she emerges from one of the houses. The descriptions are lovely, and the writing exquisite throughout. Despite its excellence, there is something unsatisfying here. Not just that nothing happens, which is to be expected in a "poet's novel" as this one is, but that there is an absence of negative emotion: everything is too prettified, somehow. Nothing is really at stake.