Before reaching cruising altitude the plane sliced through a thick layer of cloud and for a few seconds there was nothing but white outside the window and I couldn’t help feeling, as we cut through the ephemeral landscape slowly thinning and dispersing and branching out in a thousand unmappable directions, that this moment had been prepared especially for me, some kind of aerial requiem held in honor of the city I was leaving behind, and in the end, I remember thinking a few minutes later as the Lufthansa stewardess rattled down the aisle with her drinks cart, there was little difference between clouds and shadows and other phenomena given shape by the human imagination.
It is sometimes obvious when a newer author organizes an entire book around a single paragraph or image, as if they've decided on the thesis they wish to present and spend the intervening pages gathering supporting evidence to bolster its strength. This little bon mot — clouds are like shadows! history is pareidolia! — quoted above as the final paragraph of Book of Clouds lampposts the entire novel, as if Aridjis' discursions on lights and fogs were insufficiently subtle.
There are good moments in this book, in much the same way that chatting with a clever but self-absorbed friend can still leave you with a smile on your face. Aridjis has a prose that manages to be both humane and detached, and her flirtations with the world of magical realism are not exactly Marquez-tier, but they're still interesting.
But — as is often the case with these sort of pseudo-autofictional debuts that have become increasingly common over the past two decades — wit and skill makes for a great garnish but a poor main course. This book is a pleasant way to spend a few hours, but it lacks substance and insight: it is, in fact, quite akin to spending two years in Berlin in your twenties and flying back home to consider yourself a changed person. You have nicer shoes; you can chat with your friends about your favorite spots on the Hermannstraße; your eyes are thinner and sharper. But you're still you; you haven't changed enough, you haven't changed at all.
★★