What You Can See From Here by Mariana Leky (tr. Tess Lewis)
Review by Hannah Clark
What You Can See From Here is a novel that rests lightly on the hilt of our capacity for empathy, and approaches the struggle for meaningful connection with the very lightest touch. First published in Germany in 2017 as Was manvon hier aus sehen kann, Mariana Leky’s critically acclaimed novel is now available in English for the first time, in a fine translation by Tess Lewis.
There is an opening quote from Hugo Girard, who claimed the title of World’s Strongest Man in 2003: ‘It’s not the weight of the stone. It’s the reason why you lift it.’ This easy-going wisdom sets the tone for what is to come: a tale of life, loss, and the limitless joy of love. Above all else, this book manages to achieve that rarest of literary feats: it makes you happy.
Told in three parts, What You Can See From Here is narrated by Luisa, and follows her from her childhood into her thirties, as she begins to make sense of her family, her village, and her place within the world. Alongside Luisa is a cast of characters so vividly drawn that it would feel wrong to try and claim that Luisa is the novel’s protagonist. Rather, her character fulfils a similar role to that of a camera: without her we could not examine the moments which pass between others, and she presents them to us without judgement. Luisa reports what happens and what is said with a charming simplicity, often sharing her own reaction to events as an almost secondary matter. This deliberate and emotionally erudite style creates layers of intimacy and realism that cannot exist in a story where there is a catalytic protagonist. Fate can be influenced, but it cannot be dictated.
The story begins:‘When Selma told us she had dreamed of an okapi the night before, we all knew that one of us was going to die in the next twenty-four hours. We were almost right. It took twenty-nine.’ It goes on to explain that, although ridiculous, the connection between Selma’s dream of the Okapi and death has been tested before, and is now accepted by the village as an accurate predictor of fate. In less skilled hands, it could be easy for the reader to sneer at these kind of provincial beliefs held by the characters within this novel, but Leky leaves no room for such close-fisted cynicism. Life, this book correctly tells us, is far too rich and unknowable for that.
In a similar vein to the soft steel of Emily Dickenson’s poetry, or Fannie Flaggs’s deeply humanist 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, death is a close preoccupation of What You Can See From Here. The first two parts are each punctuated by a death. Part one takes place entirely within those twenty-nine hours, walking the reader through the complex and interwoven lives of a variety of villagers until it reaches its emotionally shattering conclusion. Part two leaps us forward in time, taking Luisa from aged ten to her early twenties, and the story merely resumes its gentle pace with no reference to the previous tragedy.
Luisa is working in a bookshop and going about her life with the listless uncertainty of most young people. Eventually her memories take us back to the aftermath but there is no hurry to do so. This is not through carelessness or teasing on Leky’s part: her technique of peeling back the veil of time for us before letting it softly fold over again is a perfect echo of real life. We must live our physical lives with relentless forward momentum, but our interior selves are free to loop and swirl as they will. We who have the pleasure and privilege, and the daunting challenge, of being alive, have a responsibility to live with the grace to know when to look back and when to remain forward facing.
Although the characters within the novel each have a special place and presence here, arguably the most singular is Selma. She is over six feet tall, a grandmother, prophet, and love interest. Kind and stoic, she guides Luisa through her youth with unassuming candour, a bolstering and formidable presence. Leky has a rare gift for characterisation and her characters will linger in your heart as well as your mind.
For all that it dances with death, this book is really about life; contained within its three hundred pages is a roadmap to happiness. Without death there cannot be life, and without sorrow there cannot be joy. Leky is not just a gifted storyteller, she is a compassionate one, and her ability to draw readers deep into the core of human existence and share with them the knowledge that everything really is alright, is a gift to be savoured.
What You Can See From Here is published by Bloomsbury, 22nd July 2021