Ana Serrano, celebrity editor: The aerostatsby Amélie Nothomb
Amélie Nothomb’s latest novel has, to no one’s surprise, something of the author herself. In this case it is the protagonist, Ange, who is a philology student at the University of Brussels, as was the author herself. The young woman, 19 years old, begins to give private French lessons to a young man named Pie, whose wealthy family is as eccentric as could be expected when it comes to Nothomb’s works.
Ange and Pie begin to deepen their relationship, with literature as a link between them, while the boy’s father acts as an uncomfortable witness. They move between that cinematic ‘unresolved tension’ and the ‘teacher-student’ while Ange, for her part, deals with the madness of her no less eccentric roommate and one of her professors at the Faculty. .
The aerostats It happens quickly, it starts and ends abruptly without leaving, however, a feeling of emptiness, as always happens with Nothomb’s novels. They are brief but they manage to condense the entire essence of the story and draw its characters with almost surgical precision.
Blanca de Almandoz, adaptation and fashion editor: ‘Gone with the Wind’, by Margaret Mitchell
With this novel it happened to me as with The Miserables: I knew the movie(s) so well that I never thought the book could contribute anything new. Boy did he do it! It is one of those readings so long, so intense that, if only because of the time that has passed, you end up acquiring a certain relationship with the characters, they become old acquaintances, and their story becomes part of yours. When you close it for the last time, an irremediable feeling of longing invades you, so it is not strange that “apocryphal” sequels emerged.
