You know how sometimes you read a book and it wiggles its way into your brain and sets up camp there refusing to leave even after you've turned the last page? That's how I'm feeling days after finishing Luis Leante's See How Much I Love You. There's nothing ordinary about this novel in either the story he tells or the way he tells it. On the surface it's a love story spanning nearly thirty years, but it transcends mere romance and in Leante's deft hands it becomes so much more than that. Winner of the prestigious Alfaguara prize for fiction in 2007, Leante's inspiration came from a Humanitarian trip to the Western Sahara in 2005.
Until the mid-1970s Western Sahara was Spain's last African colony. Under pressure from the Polisario movement formed by the Saharawi people and the impending death of Francisco Franco, Spain decided to finally pull out. The Saharawis are a nomadic people whose home has always been of strategic interest to their neighbors and those farther abroad. When Spain decolonized in 1975 Morocco moved in and Mauritania cast a hopeful gaze their way as well, forcing the Saharawis to flee across the desert to safety becoming little more than refugees. It's against this backdrop that Leante tells his story, weaving together not only past and present but also the stories of lovers Montserrat Cambra and Santiago San Román as well as those of the Saharawi people.
Part of what I found so compelling about this story was how Leante structured it. It's very much like a puzzle and with each successive chapter a new piece of the story falls into place. It's in no way linear and it doesn't just move backwards and forwards. There may have been a pattern, but it felt random and slightly haphazard to me in its telling. This isn't meant as a criticism, however, as it only persuaded me to read 'just one more chapter' until I oriented myself and by then I was hooked. The style created a sense of urgency to the action that leant itself well to the circumstances in the story.
Chance guides so much of what happens in people's lives. When Montse Cambra accepts a ride from a handsome, impetuous young man one summer day in Barcelona, it'll result in a passionate whirlwind romance only to end when she discovers she's pregnant. Twenty-six years later Montse, now a doctor, believes her first love to be long dead. When she discovers a photo of Santiago dated a year after his supposed death in the possession of one of her patients, her life will once again be thrown into an upheaval. Montse is no stranger to upheaval. Her life was shattered after the accidental death of her daughter and the failure of her marriage. With nothing to hold her back, on a whim she decides to travel to the refugee camps in Tindouf to search her first love.
The simplest of misunderstandings can have the most profound effects sometimes, and what drives a wedge between the two young lovers might be simply explained, but alas the stars and planets weren't aligned. When Montse and Santiago break up, he goes off to do his military service. Crushed by Montse's refusal to speak with him he chooses the worst purgatory for his sins. He becomes a legionnaire and is sent to El Aaiún. His happy go lucky nature doesn't always serve him well in the harsh environment of Western Sahara. He naively gets mixed up in questionable dealings as good-hearted people so often do. Not entirely attuned to the confusion going on around him, he falls in love with the culture and people of the Sahara despite his country's imminent withdrawal. A culture so generous in their hospitality and one that thrives on simple conversation, the Saharawis will stop in the middle of the desert to drink sweet tea and put their trust in Allah that all will turn out well. When things finally do begin to implode, Santiago agrees to lead a family he has befriended through the desert to what is hoped to be safety.
Separated by nearly thirty years each of the two lovers will make a harrowing journey across an inhospitable desert threatened by advancing armies or by foes unknown. This is as much an adventure story and even a war story as it is a love story. One might even argue who the real stars of the novel are--Montse and Santiago, or perhaps the Saharawi people themselves who have struggled to this day to retain and inhabit their homeland. See How Much I Love You is a moving story that works on so many levels. It's vividly told and there is a beauty and vastness to it, much like the Sahara itself.
Once again a reminder of all the wonderful literature out there not originally written in English that's so often overlooked (and perhaps not translated?). Definitely a book to watch out for.