Fish and trees are alike (p7)
Recently as part of a module on my masters course we were given an interesting task: we were let loose in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art and encouraged to write something inspired by a piece of art we found. Translation from the visual to the written. This couldn’t but remind me of Kirmen Uribe’s brilliant debut novel Bilbao-New York-Bilbao. If you’re wondering why, you’re about to find out and hopefully you’ll also be convinced to explore the novel for yourself.
There I was, standing in a gallery in Norwich looking at an Indian painting and thinking about a Basque novel in which the reader is taken to the writer’s homeland and to America, Scotland, Estonia and elsewhere, as well as several generations into the past. A book is a wondrous thing, a magic carpet and a time machine rolled into one.
Journeys, evidently, are a key theme in Uribe’s novel. The author/narrator’s journey by plane from Bilbao to New York functions as a clever framing device from which he departs to tell us an anecdote or two and then returns.
Art, too, is a major theme in this novel, so much so in fact that its very premise is inspired by Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas. Uribe is trying to do with the novel as a form what Velázquez did with the painting. That, of course, is what made me think of this book that morning on the UEA campus. Artwork inspiring fiction. It is also what helps make the novel so rich and rewarding and yet despite its high literary concept, it remains a very accessible text. At times it is almost conversational, we are behind-the-scenes, so to speak, and given an access-all-areas tour of the novel writing process.
In Uribe’s own words (or, rather, in those of his translator Elizabeth Macklin):
Las Meninas makes visible a picture’s insides and I reasoned that I had to tell the story of what’s inside a novel… And just as in Velazquez’s work the image of the picture being painted appears hazy, in the novel too the reader will only suspect what kind of novel the author is writing. The novel itself will never appear per se. (pp. 127-128)
To add another twist on the journey theme, this is a novel about the journey, not the destination. Nevertheless, there are certainly a number of destinations worth visiting that get a mention. Let’s take a look at just one, which admittedly doesn’t feature heavily in the text, but it doesn’t need to for it to be relevantly connected in my mind.
Vitoria-Gasteiz
Uribe studied in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque autonomous community in Spain, where I spent a year myself. Despite being the seat of the regional government, Gasteiz is not the best known Basque city. Likely you haven’t heard of it, unless you have lived or travelled nearby. Bilbao is bigger. San Sebastian is more beautiful and has beaches. So Gasteiz often gets overlooked, even in the minds of those who live relatively close. It is not even well known enough for me to be sure whether it is more usual to call it Vitoria (Spanish) or Gasteiz (Basque) when writing in English. Even the small town of Eibar might be better known due to the recent rise of its football team. Gasteiz also has a team currently playing in the Spanish top flight but they do not bear the name of the city but instead a reference to the province: Deportivo Alavés.
Does Gasteiz deserve its relative obscurity? In a word, no. Perhaps it is unfortunate to be lumped together with Bilbao, famous once for its port and now the Guggenheim, and San Sebastian with its stunning coast, but Gasteiz is well worth a visit in its own right and despite often disparaging comparisons to its local rivals, it is a very attractive and pleasant city. Not for nothing was it named European Green Capital in 2012 and Spain’s Gastronomy Capital in 2014.
A spacious, clean, modern city surrounds the raised old town at its centre. Facilitating the climb at various points of entry to the old town for those wishing to explore the bars, restaurants, street art (highly recommended), architecture or simply to cross to the other side are outdoor travelators. These curious installations were a godsend for me in the days when my daily commute involved crossing the old town to get from my flat to the old bus station. Meandering through the old town is a must for any tourist in Gasteiz, as, of course, is taking in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca you’ll see on the postcards and posing in front of its ‘Vitoria-Gasteiz!’ garden sculpture.
For art lovers there is an impressive museum of contemporary art; for nature lovers it is the greenest provincial capital in Spain, has numerous parks and is surrounded by a green belt; for sports fans it has a Primera Liga football team and a EuroLeague basketball side. In its many bars you’ll find an array of pintxos (small tapas), and excellent wines from the nearby Rioja-Alavesa region which lies within the province of Araba/Álava of which Gasteiz is capital. A short trip to tour a bodega in Rioja-Alavesa or neighbouring La Rioja can also be a great day out.
Sometimes I recall being sat with a friend under the shade of a tree in the courtyard of a bodega in Haro (La Rioja) as we worked our way through their wine menu one summer afternoon and wonder why I ever returned to the UK.
A language you didn’t know… it’s the map to a treasure (p22)
To study and to translate is why, and works like Uribe’s masterful debut are an inspiration to do so. Curiously, from a translation perspective, this novel arrived in English directly from the Basque original. Most Basque works in translation will have made a detour via the Spanish translation to reach the target language. The translator herself is in fact mentioned within the text (is she a character?) which seems appropriate for a novel in which language is important and also has a very international feel.
On the one hand, this is a family history and an exploration of the Basque fishing tradition, but this work of meta-fiction is much more than that. As we have already seen, it is a novel about writing a novel, it is also about the relation between memory and fiction – something Uribe highlighted as of interest when I saw him speak at a literary event. It is often hard to discern what might be fact and what might be fiction, but that is perhaps rather the point. Memory and fiction are intertwined and, as he pointed out in a TV appearance, we tell each other stories every day and there will be elements of truth and elements of fiction, that’s life. Unsurprisingly then, folk tales and traditions form an important part of the novel.
It is a book that fits a lot into relatively little space. Full of gems you will want to remember and share. The sort of book you can dip into at random and enjoy the rediscovery of an interesting anecdote or tale from this treasure trove of a novel.
*All quotes are from Bilbao-New York-Bilbao by Kirmen Uribe (trans. Elizabeth Macklin), Seren Discoveries, 2014.