I am reading one of the most captivating novels I have come across in a long time. Usually, I speed through a book rapidly. With this book, I am savoring each paragraph, lingering to feast on each line, as I would a decadent piece of chocolate, slowly melting in my mouth. Some lines are worth re-reading all over again.
I am seldom in awe of what I find, be it in film, literature, art, etc.
I love it, when I find something which enthralls me.
“Man, Woman, and Hunger” by Daina Chaviano
“Claudia’s hand still held the glass of lemonade…he felt the current of attraction which ran through them. The confession had left a secret imprint, a sign of fraternity….
They had both been born in a strange time….that uncertainty provoked a discharge of emotions destined to save the species…as it is with the beasts when they smell danger: in presence of death, the desire to procreate reawakens. What were they if not animals who listen the voice of instinct?
She tried to oppose that loving call, so similar to anguish….she understood it was futile. Neither knew who caressed first, or kissed afterwards…neither could explain the origin of the impulse which made them disrobe, seek their bodies, and open to each other.
The lemonade spilled over them from above the table. Rain of acid-sweetness like their reality. He drank from her breasts the sugar and the rest of the pulp, and she caressed his back drenched in juice. He got up and went to the refrigerator, took out an orange, and cut it in two. Then he squeezed the orange all over Claudia’s body…only when she was completely soaked, did he dedicate to lick the juice which covered from her face to her feet.
He closed his eyes, like a feline, while his tongue traveled her knees, her thighs, eluding the pubic zone, and ran over her stomach, her breasts, her neck and face, before returning again …yet untouched where the juice had accumulated, like rain in a crevice…labor which ended intoxicating them.
More than an act of love, it was an act of relief. They both surrendered to a game ….The pleasure of their bodies was the acknowledgement that they were made to live, not for dying. That fever in their bellies was the major proof that no call for the apocalypse had any validity….they only aspired to quench the hunger for love, without asking permission to do so.
The siren of a ship whistled like a beast in the port that night, while they licked their juice and milk, forgetting to hate the enemy, which they had never seen...”
“El hombre, la hembra y el hambre” by Chaviano Daina 1998 Barcelona,editorial Planeta, S.A.
More than an act of love, it was an act of relief. They both surrendered to a game ….The pleasure of their bodies was the acknowledgement that they were made to live, not for dying. That fever in their bellies was the major proof that no call for the apocalypse had any validity….they only aspired to quench the hunger for love, without asking permission to do so.
The siren of a ship whistled like a beast in the port that night, while they licked their juice and milk, forgetting to hate the enemy, which they had never seen...”
“El hombre, la hembra y el hambre” by Chaviano Daina 1998 Barcelona,editorial Planeta, S.A.
Azonin Award for best novel, Spain 1998
