Flores Azuis

by Carola Saavedra

No apartamento para onde se mudou depois de se separar da mulher e da filhinha de três anos, um homem recebe uma carta destinada ao antigo morador e não resiste ao impulso de abri-la. É uma carta de amor, escrita por uma mulher e assinada simplesmente com a inicial 'A'. Também separada, a autora da carta repassa, inconformada,as últimas horas de seu relacionamento amoroso com o destinatário. Novas cartas chegam diariamente, sempre revisitando o dia da separação e acrescentando detalhes cada vez mais perversos aos acontecimentos. O homem que as recebe não apenas sucumbe ao desejo de lê-las como passa a viver em função disso, o que acaba por desestabilizar a sua relação com o trabalho, com a ex-mulher, com a filha e com a atual namorada, todas elas mulheres que ele não compreende e pelas quais se sente acuado. Desse extravio de correspondência, que talvez não seja tão acidental como parece à primeira vista, constrói-se aos poucos uma trama virtual que funde as trajetórias da misteriosa 'A' e do perplexo protagonista.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Latinx, Contemporary, Romance

168 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2008

About the author

Romancista e contista. Aos 3 anos de idade, muda-se com a família para o Brasil, fixando-se no Rio de Janeiro. Na infância e na adolescência estuda em um colégio alemão. Na década de 1990, após se formar em jornalismo na Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC/RJ), transfere-se para a Europa, morando na Espanha, França e Alemanha, onde conclui mestrado em comunicação social. Trabalha como tradutora de alemão e espanhol. Publica seu primeiro livro em 2005, o volume de contos Do Lado de Fora. Entre 2005 e 2006, publica microcontos no blog Escritoras Suicidas. Seu romance Flores Azuis (2008) recebe o prêmio da Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (APCA), em 2008. (Fonte: Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural)

Reviews

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Thank you @riverheadbooks for gifting me a copy of Blue Flowers by Carola Saavedra! This is an unsettling book as events escalate to produce a disturbing and dark portrait of a violent relationship.
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For nine days, recently divorced Marcos finds letters in his mailbox from an anonymous woman writing to her ex-lover who used to live in Marcos’s apartment. Curious, he opens them despite not being the intended recipient, and quickly falls into an obsessive trance with the unknown writer.
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I stand by the fact that characters in a book don’t need to be likeable for it to be a good book. Marcos is an asshole, he’s distant with his daughter, resentful of his ex-wife, and disdainful towards his new girlfriend. The letter-writer, on the other hand, evokes sympathy as she is clearly struggling to process the end of her relationship, despite all the trauma.
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Blue Flowers is intimate in the extreme. You get the feeling the letter-writer doesn’t intend for her letters to be read, more like a personal cathartic experience as she dissects the last few days of her troubled relationship, but the fact that Marcos reads them, an outsider gaining this intimate perspective into a relationship, gives it that uneasy edge. His subsequent spiral into obsession gave me subtle YOU vibes, although not quite as crazy.
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The translation from Brazilian Portuguese by Daniel Hahn is pretty much flawless, and I imagine it was a tricky one as there are a lot of run on sentences and repetition. While it might be ‘easy’ for a writer to produce this style in the heat of the moment, reproducing it in translation and making the emotion seem natural would be difficult, but Hahn pulls it off!
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But, and sadly there is a but, despite everything I liked about this book, the ending left me with too many questions to be satisfied. I’d still recommend this one if you enjoy exploring fucked up relationships though!

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down

I'm a sucker for epistolary novels, and although only half of this narrative qualifies, it still caught my attention. Initially, the repetitiousness annoyed me, but it serves a purpose, in that it almost hypnotizes the reader. A back jacket cover blurb namechecks Marais and Carrère, but to me this is much more in the vein of Robbe-Grillet. And ultimately, I was won over by the mysteriousness of what is actually going on here, which - if not necessarily explicated fully - leads one to some intriguing questions.

[David W. Cofer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea for the novel was good. The blurb sold the book, but unfortunately, the book failed to deliver the promises of the blurb. The idea of a man receiving anonymous letters from a woman he does not know written to someone else is intriguing. However, Saavedra's execution of the idea fell flat.

The chapters alternate between the letter received by Marcos and his reactions to the letter. However in some of Marcos' chapters, he barely reflects on the letter he just received and in other chapters he is heavily influenced by the letter. The letters are extremely long for a letter, lasting eight to ten pages. Not long for a book chapter, but long for a letter. The letters ramble, go off on tangents, and are incoherent. No one would write a letter such as these.

The book was difficult to finish. I literally had to force myself to trudge through it. Fortunately, it is only 200 pages long and not a lengthy trek. The ending unfortunately was no better than the rest of the book, a huge disappointment. It is too bad the blurb oversold the book, or perhaps the book failed to live up to the hype. I really liked the idea and was anxious to see what an author would do with the concept.

[The Artisan Geek]

------------------VIDEO REVIEW------------------


28/2/20
My full review is up on my channel now! :)

16/12/19
This book was so intoxicating, wow! Need some time to gather my thoughts - what an experience. I'm going to be thinking about this for such a long time bahahha


8/11/19
Riverhead Books kindly gifted me a copy of this book. :)

12/12/19
Some aesthetics



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[Elizabeth☮ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure I’m the audience for this book. It’s existential in a way my mind can’t wrap itself around. Definitely engaging writing - A fraught situation - unreliable narrator(s)? I’m not sure I understand what is really going on with this man at the center of the story. This is a story about love gone wrong, desire, obsession and the inner workings of a man unhinged.

I’ll leave it at that.

[Never Without a Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

What the...... did I just read?! 😳

[reading is my hustle · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this book about desire, misogyny, intimacy, & obsession in one sitting. it is a scorching & uncomfortable read FWIW i will forever find it startling that a woman wrote it. the premise of blue flowers is the hook; marcos is a recently divorced man living on his own after alienating pretty much everyone in his life. soon after moving to his new apartment he finds handwritten letters in his mailbox that are meant for the previous occupant. he opens them without one whit of compunction b/c he is rubbish & what follows is an obsessive preoccupation with the anonymous woman who writes them. it is quickly apparent that the relationship she writes about in her letters was a dark & violent one. A. writes about her relationship in an almost philosophical or stream of consciousness style. as she reveals the painful story, marcos is moved & begins to take stock of his own life. the story takes place over nine days which is the same amount of letters marcos receives it was waaay too long to spend time with marcos. what i thought was going to be a read about a sort of self-discovery post divorce turned out to be a dark story about the aftermath of dysfunctional relationships & a screed on gender. the sheer amount of negative assertions & imagery surrounding women are profound (so much so that) "resentment toward women" could have been a character. it is irksome that the story falls apart at the end & is then ambiguous to boot (it is also the reason for a 3 star rating vs. 4 stars) but marcos is unchanged. he is in the same place emotionally as he was at the beginning of the story; he considers himself an innocent victim or outsider in his life but that's just how he rationalizes being a dick. in reality he is a misogynist & selfish.

[Jaclyn Moyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely write reviews, but this was one of the worst books I’ve read in a while. Aside from the fact that I wanted to read it fast just to get to the end, but I don’t think that turned out to be a good thing.
The main character had a real issue with women, and sounded so narcissistic and snobby- he honestly annoyed me crazy. and then the letters... ahh the letters. The letters tried so hard to be poetic, but my interpretation was that the author of the letters was obnoxiously avoiding saying what she meant and was SO repetitive, which I believe was the point... I found myself literally skimming lines because she was repeating everything about 3-5 times.
I really just didn’t get the point do this book. It was definitely a waste of time unfortunately, I was really looking forward to it based off of the synopsis on the back.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

but i think, now, perhaps it's precisely in this contradiction, in this space that opens up between what i claim and what i deny, between your suffering and your cruelty, between my suffering and my cruelty, between my body and yours, in precisely this incoherence—this is the only means of communication. isn't this space, this gap, the only place we can possibly meet?

a semi-epistolary novel of jilted lovers, obsessive rumination, and foreboding tension, blue flowers (flores azuis) is the first of carola saavedra's novels to be translated into english (she was recognized by granta as one of the best young brazilian novelists). the sparse plot is overshadowed by a wonderful character study of both intimacy and psychic injury. saavedra's prose is often propulsive and while her novel mines some well-trod territory, it does so with verve and a striking immediacy.

*translated from the portuguese by daniel hahn (halfon, agualusa, tavares, saramago, fuks, millás, et al.)

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like beautiful prose, but it really must be combined with something happening in the plot. This one described a lot of things that occurred in the past, in beautiful, complicated language, but no action, no plot, no conclusion. Just not for me. I received this book as a free giveaway in exchange for my honest review. Not worth it. 2 stars

[Taylor Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ooooh. This one was unsettling and uncomfortable in a good way. It’s a searing, intimate, examination of two people recently at the end of relationships and all the violence, heartache, trauma, and obsession that follows. I wasn’t wild about the ending (but didn’t hate it!) and didn’t always understand what was happening but otherwise found it absolutely enthralling from beginning to end (I read it in one sitting). The translation is so well done.

[Paulo Veloso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primeiro eu preciso dizer que a classificação geral que o livro tem aqui no Goodreads me pareceu bem injusta: é um livro muito bom. Gosto de como a autora utiliza do romance epistolar e da primeira pessoa pra narrar uma história de amor obsessivo, possessão, violência (ou não, a narradora pode não ser tão confiável assim). O final, em um primeiro momento, não me pareceu tão interessante, mas depois repensei e achei que fez todo sentido dentro da estrutura e da história que estava sendo contada. Já tinha lido dela O Inventário das Coisas Ausentes (baita título de romance, aliás), mas gostei bem mais deste Flores Azuis. Por sinal, a forma como A. (a personagem sem nome e conhecida apenas pela inicial) constrói a linguagem das suas cartas me fez querer voltar a escrever.

[Jillian Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling story, with a darkly introverted and contorted protagonist~ you had me at hello!

In its essence it reminded me of Joaquin Phoenix' movie Her.
The obsessive qualities; the pure delight in stepping away from reality to immerse himself within a fantasy~

Also for fans of Karl Knausgaard's meditative, male perspectives too.

Galley borrowed from the publisher.

[Gemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

This made me feel uncomfortable, and not in a good way.
It was hard to finish and then I had to re read the ending 3 times to try to see what I was missing.. it made no sense to me .

[hanna (lily) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"mas o que eu via era sempre outra coisa, alguém muito mais distante que você ali, sentado no sofá da sala" (p. 98).

flores azuis foi, até agora, o livro que menos gostei da carola. entendi os motivos por nao ter gostado, mas também entendi que esses desagrados foram em relação a pontos cruciais da narrativa. a historia tem dois momentos, o presente e o passado de um dia anterior, que é o das cartas. esse passado é alimentado por um passado ainda mais distante, já que as cartas sao escritas no dia anterior, mas o conteúdo delas é sobre um relacionamento que terminou há um tempo. desde os personagens já pude entender que, claro, o livro falava sobre distância. a distância temporal, a distância dos personagens fisicamente e emocionalmente também. um pai que vê o reflexo da ex-mulher na filha de 3 anos, que a personagem feminina que ele mais sente empatia e compaixão é a voz das cartas que recebe, uma voz sem rosto e que fala apenas sobre um homem outro. interessante pensar no lugar dos personagens, como eles nunca, na historia inteira, não conseguem se aproximar com o protagonista e, mesmo quando parece que vai acontecer, essa esperança se evapora em algum acontecimento.

apesar de não ter me agradado, acho bonito como a carola encontra diferentes formas para falar sobre movimento, distância, o estrangeiro, o outro, que dá pra ver nesse livro, mas que se reflete em toda sua obra. não é ruim! eu que me estressei muito com o protagonista e alguns detalhes bobos !

[Alan M · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Memory tends to deceive, memory and time and the desire for things to be the way we think they were.'

In his new apartment, recently divorced Marcos starts receiving letters addressed to the previous tenant. Curious, he opens them and then over the course of a couple of weeks he starts to become obsessed with the story behind these letters, signed only as 'A'. As the letters develop, the female writer of these letters explores what turns out to have been a toxic relationship with this other man. Her version of events constantly shifts, and the reader starts to question exactly what is truth and what is unreliable memory. Unable to sleep, and becoming increasingly alienated from his ex-wife, daughter and his work, Marcos manages to track down the man to whom the letters are addressed, but the outcome is not what he might have expected.

This is a challenging, engaging novel from the Brazilian writer Carola Saavedra. If you are looking for easy answers then this is not the book for you. The transposition of A's relationship and Marcos' life makes for an intelligent exploration of love, desire and intimacy. But the lack of resolution becomes more and more unsettling; as A plays over certain events again and again, so Marcos feels himself questioning his own priorities. As the novel ends he, and the reader, is left to question what 'meaning' the letters and the events that have unfolded actually have.

Beautifully written, this is a quiet and subtle work of fiction, well deserving attention and a wide audience. 4 stars.

[Crystal Teichrieb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I legitimately have no idea what the point of this book was. The ending left me so confused. The main character was super misogynistic. Definitely one to skip. The premise sounded cool, but the author fumbled the ball on this one.

[Emily Colette Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

such a heartbreaking, vulnerable story. i love the repetition, it captures anxiety and confusion perfectly.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is delicate and beautiful in a soft and subtle way. I also think the cover is stunning and is a perfect picture of the tone of the novel. I’m not usually a fan of plots told with an epistolary structure but this is only half so and I think it works very well. Each anonymous letter opened by an unintended reader becomes darker and more intense. As he reads them, the reader becomes more obsessed as the unknown writer becomes more a part of his day. I’m comfortable with the ambiguous ending. These two people are nothing to each other and their connection is accidental. However, they share an obsession over past love (affairs that we cannot evaluate since we have only one part of the story), making them understood as humans in pain.

[Ladie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

Would I recommend this book to anyone? No, not really. It was a hard read full of vulnerability from a woman who can’t let go of an abusive relationship, unknowingly being preyed upon by someone who would only repeat the cycle.

This novel is unlike anything I’ve read before. It’s fully character driven, with two characters that never truly interact. The MMC is an incel at best, with most of his monologues full of disdain and cowardice for women. Yet it’s written incredibly well. The spiraling, the vulnerability, the repetition and obsessions showcase an ugly, yet real side of love. The kind that is broken and harmful.

I found this book at the dollar tree of all places, and decided to get it on a whim. I’m glad I did

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5ish?? Hmm. I was disappointed with this one! The jacket makes it sound goooooood, but the actual book didn’t seem to reflect the jacket. The language is really beautiful and the observations about human behavior were really nuanced. But the plot left a lot to be desired, as did the main character. I don’t always have to like or sympathize with main characters by any means, but this one was a misogynistic asshole and it was hard for me to look last that...

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had promise, portraying a (rather awful) man receiving letters to the former occupant, letters by a woman that are full of desire and obsession with her abusive ex. Marcos becomes obsessed with her and with her story. Ultimately, the ending was just deeply unsatisfying. I had many theories about where the story would go, and "we'll never find out or get any resolution" was not one of them.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Torn between 2 and 3 stars on this book: 1. There is no resolution as to a key mystery in the story, i.e. lady A who is writing very intimate letters to a ex- lover; 2. None of the characters are pleasant or evolves, and 3. I expected a major resolution or reveal of the man and woman involved in this often violent relationship-- without it the book seems to lack its heart.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

“In bed, next to you, I hardly moved, my body had become an ovum, a closed structure, my whole body a spiral turning in on itself, silent, still; I avoided any gesture, any doubt, avoided the casual brush of your skin against mine. The brushing of your skin against mine, however lightly, would be a concession, forgiving you silently.”

[haley jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

i enjoyed the letters in the book and think they were the highlight of the story. as far as the sections written from the male perspective, they all fell short for me and seemed incredibly disconnected from the letters. i feel like both perspectives could’ve been blended together much better for a more enjoyable read

[Zak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blue Flowers blooms with a compelling & disturbing premise and a blend of beautiful & brutal language that intoxicates.

[alira · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

Interesting concept. The ending gave nothing. I found the translation a bit repetitive but otherwise the prose was extremely deep and emotive. I’m glad the main character is fictional.

[Lillian Rocha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cartas de uma mulher a um homem, sobre abusos e uma separação, ou total ficção? e um fim sem fim.

[Jules!! · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read it in 2 days, the letters interested me but they were pretty repetitive, nothing at all happens in marcos part of each chapter and the end made reading the book feel useless cause it was so open ended and just not satisfying at all

[Katie DeAngelo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, but just found myself hating both main characters. Marcos just sucks as a human being and his thoughts on the women in his life (including his 3 year old daughter) are deplorable.