González’s novel is a slight, storm-tossed thing. Set on an island off the coast of Colombia, it tells the tragic tale of J, a man who has had to flee the city for reasons that are never made clear, with his haughty, difficult girlfriend, Elena. J is an intellectual who isn’t cut out for island life, no matter how much he tries. Already in debt, his efforts to generate money from the land they’re living on are catastrophic. Elena succeeds in offending the locals, he becomes an alcoholic, their relationship goes to pot and J comes to a sticky end. Whilst the novel is always readable, it’s sometimes hard to fathom what, exactly, the author’s intentions are in the telling of it, beyond a somewhat obvious cautionary tale. Middle class intellectual hipster types should steer away from seeking out an idyllic hippie life, because it’s an illusory dream. Life at the rough end of civilisation is always going to be harder than the pampered middle class bank on. J’s journey has something in common with Robinson Crusoe’s, or the Lord of the Flies, or even The Beach. In the Hobbesian world, there’s no place for the weak. However, it might have helped had the book revealed more of the context for J and Elena’s fateful flight to the island and the world these protagonists’ emerged from, which might be obvious to the native Colombiano, but is less so to the average gringo.
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