The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, Lidia Jorge, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Annie McDermott. This is a Portuguese novel that takes place in Valmares, a fictional town along the Algarve coastline. It portrays two rival families: the owners of the town’s previous canning factory (the Leandro family) and working class immigrants from Cape Verde (the Matas family) who now reside in the abandoned factory. The main character Milene is a Leandro and her suitor, Antonino, is a Matas. It is a slow moving novel but still quite good. I became impatient with Milene’s slow decision making but the behavior fit her character well and as the novel developed I enjoyed her introspective tendencies and freewheeling spirit. While a lot of the story centers around the developing romance between these two characters, Jorge also explores postcolonial memory and consequences, racial antagonism, economic divisions, and the nature of evil. The novel also includes a strong sense of place, from the placement of the factory near the coast, to Milene’s inherited isolated home, from the Matas matriarch longing for Cape Verde to the Leandro’s desire to develop the property. Overall, an enjoyable read.
How The Wind Whistling in the Cranes informs my writing.
The novel’s sense of place is outstanding, something I often neglect in my stories. While setting is important in my writing, such as in my short stories Bluebird (a school bus) and Sorting Through Clams (a clamming boat), they could have been stronger had I been clearer about the importance of those places in the development of my characters. Jorge does that really well.
Jorge explores the nature of evil (something I am studying now) in her novel and I appreciate how she wove it into daily conversations and internal thoughts, rather than a blatant exposition about evil. It is masterfully done and nicely parceled out throughout the novel. It is what I am attempting with the novel I am currently writing and I will revisit Jorge’s success in implementing this skill.
Check out my stories in my collection Not So You’d Notice available at Amazon. Let me know how sense of place is used in Bluebird and Sorting Through Clams.
