Blank Gaze
by Jose Luis Peixoto

Release Date: 5th Nov 2007
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978 0 7475 8947 1
RRP: £15.99

An age old tale of love and its consequences

Touted as genius and of hugely poetic proportions, I wasn’t convinced about the accessibility of this novel. Now, having digested it over the course of several long days and alongside several long, stiff drinks I have to agree... with my initial impression and everyone else’s.

Peixoto is incomparable to any other fiction writer of recent years, because no one writes like this anymore. It is poetic and indecipherable and lustrously detailed, but also occasionally indistinguishable, irrational and irritating. Vargas is vaguely similar with her beautifully landscaped and moving portraits of the human mind, but in other ways she is entirely dissimilar because her writing style is less imposing and more pragmatic. Dickens (good heavens, Dickens!!) could perhaps meet Peixoto measure for measure on the descriptive narrative front – but then, Dickens is rather slow and old-fashioned and well, difficult.

So too is Blank Gaze. It is occasionally tedious and awkward and relentless in its grandiose posturing, but underneath it all, there is a heartfelt story about a lowly shepherd whose mind is tortured by thoughts of his spouses supposed infidelity. It is about the human emotion of love, with all its complexities... the uncontrollable nature of l’amour and who it finds for us.

I would recommend with a rather nice little Beaujolais, just to help lighten the mood whilst digesting. It is rather heavy going, but beautifully crafted.

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