Name: ashley's review of Elena sabe / Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
Item: Elena sabe / Elena Knows
Rating: 3.5
Author: ashley

Claudia Piñeiro

Finalista del International Booker Prize 2022 Pronto en Netflix Autora galardonada con el Premio Pepe Carvalho de Novela Negra 2019 Enigma policial y conflicto íntimo se unen en esta novela de la autora de Las viudas de los jueves. Poco después de que Rita aparezca muerta en la iglesia que suele frecuentar, la investigación se da por cerrada y su madre es la única que no renuncia a esclarecer el crimen. Pero asediada por la enfermedad, ella es también la menos indicada para encabezar la búsqueda del asesino. Un penoso viaje de los suburbios a la Capital y una conversación reveladora guían la trama de esta novela íntima y crítica donde el cuerpo femenino es el verdadero protagonista. Elena sabe desnuda a la vez los secretos de sus personajes y las facetas ocultas del autoritarismo y la hipocresía que pueden determinar el curso de una vida. Un relato que rompe el silencio y se pronuncia en voz alta sobre la libertad de elegir. Fue galardonada con el Premio LiBeraturpreis 2010 a la mejor novela escrita por una mujer. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022 Soon to be a Netflix series. Claudia Piñeiro, winning author of the Pepe Carvalho de Novela Negra 2019 Prize. A police mystery and internal conflict come together in this novel by the author of Thursday Night Widows. Soon after Rita's body is found, the investigation into her death is closed. Her mother seems to be the only one unwilling to give up on the truth, but racked by illness she is the least likely candidate to go after a murderer. A difficult trip from the suburbs to the capital, an old debt of gratitude, and a revealing conversation are the facts that are unfolded in this novel. It is an intimate, yet critical novel which holds the female body as its real protagonist as it uncovers secrets, the hidden facets of an authoritarian regime, and society’s hypocrisy. This is a story that breaks through the silence and loudly ratifies the freedom to choose. In 2010 Piñeiro was awarded the LiBeraturpreis Prize for the best novel written by a woman.

Elena sabe / Elena Knows

In a single day, a journey across Buenos Aires reveals a daughter to her mother, a mother to herself, and the oppressive weight of received ideas to women connected by a fleeting encounter, twenty years before.

Elena Knows

Aina

But you only know something once you've experienced it in your life, life is our greatest test.

What’s left of you when your arm can't even put on a jacket and your leg can't even take a step and your neck can't straighten up enough to let you show your face to the world, what's left? Are you your brain, which keeps sending out orders that won't be followed? Or are you the thought itself, something that can't be seen or touched beyond that furrowed organ guarded inside the cranium like a trove?

She loved and still loves her daughter even though she never said it, even though they fought and kept their distance, even though their words were like cracks of a whip, and even if she didn't hug or kiss her daughter, she felt a mother's love. Is she still a mother now that she doesn't have a child? If it had been her who'd died, Rita would have been an orphan. What name does she have now that she's childless? Has Rita's death erased everything she was? 

If so many people believe that we are all of dust and to dust must turn again, why delay the return. They pick fancy caskets just to show off, she thinks, why would they do it otherwise, if they know neither the coffin nor what's inside it are destined to last but to rot, to be eaten by worms, both the wood and that body that no longer holds the person it was, a body that no longer belongs to anyone, like an empty bag, incomplete, a pod without seeds.

𝒏𝒐𝒏 ❦

As if her religion were based more in the rituals, in the folklore and traditions, than in the dogma or faith. 

People confuse thinking with knowing, they let themselves confuse the two. 

People like your daughter, who didn't even know me, your daughter who didn't have the nerve to become a mother herself but who treated my body as if it were hers to use, just like you, today, you didn't come here to settle a debt but to commit the same crime all over again twenty years later. You came here to use my body. 

camila

ashley

diya

Not long ago I was told I was arrogant. Don't keep the names other people give you, Elena.

indri

... (stares into a figurative camera like i'm in The Office) (this is a compliment by the way)

This was a horrible book.. in the best way possible. 

A story about motherly trauma, my favourite kind of genre, just rip my heart out and make me scream. This novel is based around a mother with a debilitating condition of Parkinson’s who is confronted with the fact that her daughter committed suicide, refusing to accept and rejecting the suicide diagnosis she makes a voyage across town to call in an old debt, to prove that her daughter would not kill herself. 

Confronting & heartbreaking, this is a book focused on emotional depth rather than plot and I ate it up. 

jaz ☁️

This was a horrible book.. in the best way possible. 

A story about motherly trauma, my favourite kind of genre, just rip my heart out and make me scream. This novel is based around a mother with a debilitating condition of Parkinson’s who is confronted with the fact that her daughter committed suicide, refusing to accept and rejecting the suicide diagnosis she makes a voyage across town to call in an old debt, to prove that her daughter would not kill herself. 

Confronting & heartbreaking, this is a book focused on emotional depth rather than plot and I ate it up. 

donna 

charisa

this was a tough read. 

a lot of difficult issues, heavy emotions, and exchanges that were nothing short of heartbreaking. 

at the center, this book was about the agency we have over our corporeal bodies. in sickness or in health, in dire emotional distress, when reckoning with life sprouting within us, how much control and agency do we (and should we) truly have? and how much should we give over to others to care for and protect us from our own dark inclinations? 

as a christian, i wrestle with this concept — i am my own, but simultaneously do not belong to myself (romans 14:8). in a way, i am a temporary caregiver, much as rita was in this story. lots of thoughts and questions, things to ponder. (and time to read something a bit lighter lol)

i love it i love it i love it so muchh!! such a peculiar approach to tackle the issues surrounding womanhood, death, and faith. 

Siya S

4.5 Stars 

HOLYSHIT THIS BOOK IS A FUCKING WILD RIDE. That part on the third act when Elena met Isabel (and unraveled and unspooled the whole suspense) was probably the best literary shit I've encountered in a long while. 

This book will live rent-free in my head for a long time. Damn, it explores all the hard contemporary questions on body rights, motherhood, caregiving the aging parents, societal norms vs free wills, and many more. It's a clever book that packs a punch and hits very close to home. 

It took me a while to get into the book, but when it did my jaw was on the floor. It's about the titular character Elena and her journey to see a woman whom Elena's deceased daughter had helped 20 years ago. The thing was that Elena believed that her daughter was murdered, and so she'd do everything in her deteriorating power to make it right. 

10/10 would recommend.

Dana Kraft

Meh. Very well written but I didn’t care for the ending

Fraser Simons

A mother with Parkinson’s, Elena, believes her daughter did not commit suicide and embarks on a physical and mental arduous journey to come to a central truth. It is a novel that starts small and ends large; from the alleged suicide of her daughter to a harrowing journey that, because it is internal and intersectional, becomes something about multiple systemic and insidious ways in which society removes agency from women and those not performing to puritanical standards.

It very much has no concern with genre expectations, as most literary intersections tend to be. My largest issue is with the formatting, though. I think it’s supposed to reflect, somewhat, the mental state of the protagonist, but it doesn’t actually seem formatted as such. Coupled with a necessary much retreading of ground to more effectively hit on memory issues Elena has, it creates an effect that constantly excises the reader from the text. Perhaps the formatting is supposed to be random, but because it’s walls and walls of text I spent my time looking for an answer and never found a satisfactory one. 

However, it’s certainly novel and interesting, and has very human, well-rendered characters—primarily featuring women. None feel archetypical and the plot also has that quality. I liked it quite a bit… after I just rolled with the unusual dense prose that I couldn’t understand the reason for.

Gary Homewood

A determined, aging widow with late Parkinsons undertakes a gruelling journey across town to investigate the suicide of her daughter. 

Plays out over the course of a day managed by her medication, their relationship is revealed in flashback, in all its complexity. 

The tropes of crime fiction, uniquely reinterpreted and used as an investigation of morality, personal beliefs, motherhood, religion and society, with an unforgettable protagonist.

camila &
Elena sabe / Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

camila &Elena sabe / Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

camila &
Elena sabe / Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro