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The Heart Has Its Reasons (2012)

by María Dueñas(Favorite Author)

3.26 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1451668333 (ISBN13: 9781451668339)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Atria Books

review 1: Sure wish there were half stars. 3.5Maria Duenas’ second novel to appear in translation, The Heart Has Its Reasons, is dramatic in a different way from her previous international bestseller, The Time In Between, a novel that dealt with the suspense of both love and war. The Heart Has Its Reasons is more a novel of the havoc of love. The book is told in the first person: Blanca Perea, a Spanish professor of linguistics, discovers that the husband who just left her is having a child with his lover—the third child he never wanted, and Blanca did. She wants to get far, far away, and lick her emotional wounds far away from her grown sons and ex-husband, and takes a sabbatical from the university to travel all the way to California to work on a project far beneath her level ... moreof expertise, compiling and classifying some documents—a project that requires a Spanish native with a humanities doctorate.When Blanca arrives at the University of Santa Cecilia, she discovers much disarray—tumult that matches her own life. The papers she’s to deal with have lain in a basement for many years; there’s a conflict between the department head and a former University professor who’s visiting Santa Cecilia (but why is he neglecting his own university?); there’s the very odd daughter of the very creepy ex-department secretary; there are students protesting against the proposed construction of a mall in a beautiful park. There’s a mess to match the mess of her heart. There’s lots of academic intrigue, many hints of dangers lurking. In the end, though, this is not a novel of plot, but an exploration of grief, loss, and recovery; of growing up and growing onward, of heart and home.I wish I had read the previous novel (still on my to-read list) so that I had a little more perspective on how much of the book’s sense of emotional disconnection is due to the author, and how much to the translator—that book had a different translator. But I am not intrigued enough to read it in the original Spanish.Pros: accurate depiction of academics and university culture, intriguing background of Spaniards in California if you don’t know it, a snapshot of Spain’s modern history. Cons: like I said, I don’t know if it’s the translator’s choice, or the author’s: despite the very dramatic, sometimes passionate, actions and words of the characters, it feels like one is “reading about,” rather than immersed in the story. The very formal, sometimes literal translation definitely lets you know you are in the head of a foreigner, but the lack of colloquialism imposes a distance. The most egregious “literal” example: Chapter 6, “four portentous GE electric irons.” In order to be “portentous” in English, they should signify something that comes up later. What came up, at the very end of the book, was that Chapter 6, a flashback, is supposedly based on something that a native English speaker wrote. Liked it, didn’t love it. Pretty sure I could predict that as the overall opinion of my book group, as well; some will love it, some will hate it, most will like it. (Thanks to Atria and Netgalley for the E-ARC for review.)
review 2: I'm normally a very fast reader but this book took me a long time to finish. At the beginning, it moved slowly for me. But the back story kept drawing me in and made me want to finish. I'm so glad I did!In an effort to escape the abrupt ending of her marriage, Blanca accepts a position in California, far away from her home in Madrid. She is to work on the legacy of a former professor at the college where she ends up. Although she is over qualified for the position, it was what she needed to get past the hurt in her life.As she progresses through the life of the professor via his papers, she meets Daniel Carter. It is Daniel's story that is the back story there. How, as a young man, he went to Spain to become entrenched in the culture and society so he could be a Hispanist.This story was wonderful. I didn't know exactly how the two stories would merge until close to the end. If you start to read it, and think it's not moving fast enough, hold on and finish it! You'll be glad you did. less

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