Book Review: Ice For Martians by Claudia Ulloa Donosa

 Are you qualified to write a review if you've read only half of a book? My review for Ice for Martians is being written after only reading the first fifty percent of it, because the next fifty percent is 'testo original en español'. It means the second half is all Greek to me.

Ice for Martians is an upcoming collection of six short stories written by Peruvian writer Claudia Ulloa Donosa, originally in Spanish. The book is translated ably by Lily Meyer. I received an advance copy of this bilingual edition from its publisher, Sundial House, through Netgalley in exchange for my honest feedback.

To be honest, I am never convinced of releasing a book in a bilingual edition. If it's meant for a reader who is well versed in both languages, which evidently forms a small subset of the total readers, would they take the trouble to read the same story in two languages? I have seen some poetry books using this gimmick. But at least in them, the printing is done in a parallel way and aesthetically, which gives them a certain beauty. I don't see its necessity in this volume other than as just a page-filler. Consider buying all 120 pages of a book but being unable to read only 60 of them. There is only one instant in my memory where I encountered a bigger folly.

Years ago, in a bookshop, I found a copy of Gitanjali, renowned mystic poetry by the great Bengali cultural icon Tagore, with its title in Malayalam. As it came with a heavy discount, I didn't inspect it as I should have. Later, when I opened it, I found that it's not a translation, but the Bengali verses are just written verbatim in Malayalam script. I could read the poetry but couldn't make any sense of it.

Ice for Martians consists of six stories that are pretty simple from the outset. All the stories deal with ordinary people who find themselves outcast from the larger cross-section of society. They are essentially aliens among humans, and they find it difficult to function within society. The term Martians in the title of the book probably denotes this behavioural difference.

The reason for the behaviour of the protagonists varies from story to story, and the final effects of it range from ecstatic to fatal. In most of the stories, there is an element of black humour that arises from their interactions with society, while in some cases, their interactions turn out to be so painful that it becomes difficult to proceed with the reading. In one story, though, the 'climax', because it is literally the protagonist climaxing, is very blissful, and one feels elated while reading it.

Among the six, my favourite is the most harrowing one, titled Animal, which describes the travail of its protagonist trying to run from her abusive partner. The reader travels with her, experiencing her fears, embarrassments, and the trepidation of a return to him. The stories of these Martian-Human protagonists, who find it impossible to connect with the larger society, are narrated with very few embellishments. I loved the unadorned nature of them. Even though I love novels that are obese, I prefer my short stories bareboned, never reluctant to hit where it hurts most. Ice for Martians delivers its verbal thwacks pretty fiercely.