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Overview
Set against the maze of Madrid’s congested and contested streets, Learning to Lose follows these four individuals as they swerve off course in unexpected directions. Each of them is dodging guilt and the fear of failure, but their shared search for happiness, love, purity, redemption, and, above all, a way to survive, forms a taut narrative web that binds the characters together.
From one of Spain’s most celebrated contemporary writers, Learning to Lose is a lucid and gripping view into the complexities of lives overturned and into the capriciousness of modern life, with its intoxicating highs and devastating lows.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781590513880 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Other Press, LLC |
| Publication date: | 06/22/2010 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 520 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
novelist and as a scriptwriter. La buena vida was his widely acclaimed debut as a
film director and was followed by Obra Maestra (2001), Soldados de Salamina
(2003), Bienvenido a casa (2006), and La silla de Fernando (2007). He is also the author of two previous novels; his debut, Four Friends, sold over 100,000 copies with twenty reprints. Learning to Lose won the Critics Award in 2009.
Mara Faye Lethem is the translator of Spanish and Catalan authors such as
Albert Sánchez Piñol, Juan Marsé, Javier Calvo, Jorge Semprún, and Pablo DeSantis. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she has lived in Barcelona since 2003.
Read an Excerpt
Aurora broke her hip in a completely unspectacular way. Getting out of the
bathtub, she lifted her leg over the edge and suddenly heard a small crunch. She
felt a slight shiver and her legs turned rubbery. She fell slowly, with time to brush
the tips of her fingers along the wall tiles and prepare for the impact. Her elbow
hit the fixtures causing a cold pain and a second later she was lying down, naked
and overcome, on the still-damp bottom of the bathtub. Papá, she wanted to
shout, but her voice came out weak. She tried to raise her voice, but the best she
could do was emit a repetitive, well spaced out lament.
Papá…Papá…Papá.
The murmur reaches the little back room, where Leandro is reading the
newspaper. His first reaction is to think that his wife is calling him for another
one of her ridiculous requests, for him to get down a jar of spices that’s on too
high a shelf, to ask him something silly. So he answers with an apathetic what?
that gets no reply. He leisurely closes the newspaper and stands up. Later he will
be ashamed of the irritation he feels at having to stop reading. It’s always the
same, he sits down to read and she talks to him over the radio or the ringing
telephone. Or the doorbell sounds and she asks, can you get it? when he
already has the intercom receiver in his hand. He goes down the hallway until
he identifies where the monotonous call is coming from. There is no urgency in
Aurora’s voice. Perhaps fatalism. When he opens the bathroom door and finds
his fallen wife he thinks that she’s sick, dizzy. He looks for blood, vomit, but all
he sees is the white of the bathtub and her naked skin like a glaze.
Reading Group Guide
1. Which thread of the story captivated you most? Whom do you consider the main character of this novel? In a book with so many strong and complex personalities, why do you think the author chose to open and end the book with Sylvia?
2. What first draws Leandro to the chalet? What keeps him coming back? Discuss his fascination with Osembe, even after she assaults him.
3. Does trust exist between any of the novel's characters?
4. What is life like for Ariel as a celebrity in a foreign land? How does the constant media attention influence his life? How is he able to have such a close relationship with Husky, who is a reporter?
5. How commanding is sex in each of the lovers' relationships?
6. What kind of man and father is Lorenzo? What is his true motive for murdering Paco? What draws Lorenzo to repeatedly visit Don Jaime, the man whose apartment he cleaned out?
7. Do you think Lorenzo should have confessed his crime? Why or why not?
8. Discuss the various friendships in Learning to Lose (Sylvia/Mai, Leandro/Joaquin, Ariel/Husky, Lorenzo/Wilson). How is jealousy intertwined into them? Do any of the friends have ulterior motives?
9. Why does Aurora want to keep her illness a secret from her family? Discuss the bond between Aurora and her granddaughter.
10. Discuss the various ways that chance plays out in the novel.
11. Do you think any of the characters are capable of feeling at ease with their lives?
12. Trueba writes that soccer "is the only line of work where you can do everything wrong in a game and win, and you can do everything right and lose." Discuss the title Learning to Lose with this in mind. Does "learning to lose" apply to one character more than the others?
13. Learning to Lose is almost completely devoid of quotation marks. When they do occur, they never appear around dialogue. Why do you think the author chose this unconventional style choice? How did it affect your reading?