The luxury housing complex at the centre of this novel is called Paradise, but groundskeeper Polo has trouble pronouncing this English word so his employer orders him to say it phonetically as “Paradais”. Polo is trapped in this dead end job where he's ordered to perform menial tasks for rich people. He's paid little and what money he does make goes directly to his overbearing mother who makes him sleep on a palate on the floor. Polo's cousin lives with them and she may be pregnant with his baby. Outside of work he spends time getting drunk with one of the older boys who lives in the complex named Franco, but Polo refers to him disparagingly as “fatboy”. He's disgusted by Franco but the boy steals quality alcohol or small sums of money for Polo to buy them booze. The sour dynamic of this friendship of convenience is so vividly conveyed as the boys waste their time together and hatch an evil plan. Franco has failed socially and academically so will probably be sent to a military school. He becomes obsessed with his masturbatory fantasies about his female neighbour who is a mother. So they decide to break into the neighbour's home so Franco can force her to have sex with him and they can rob the property. These are young men who feel they have nothing to lose which makes them incredibly dangerous.
As with Melchor's novel “Hurricane Season” there is a hypnotic intensity to her prose which spills out in an almost stream of consciousness style. We're bombarded by Polo's sensory experience of the world and his emotional interpretation of it. All the while we deeply feel his growing resentment for the callous wealthy residents of this complex and anger about his limited options in life. This takes the form of long blocks of text and extended sentences. It's a narrative structure which is entirely suited to conveying Polo's point of view and made me feel trapped in it just as he feels ensnared by his circumstances. In this way it feels somewhat similar to Damon Galgut's technique in “The Promise” because while being locked into the perspective of this character the reader is also implicated in his misogyny, bitterness and fury. While this can't exactly be called a pleasant experience it is so effective in conveying his worldview, his warped reasoning and his motivations. It made me feel empathy for him as he essentially doesn't seem like a bad person. He's just overwhelmingly frustrated by his economic and social position in life. He's also been raised to embody a pernicious form of masculinity. At the same time, I'm repulsed by his attitude and decisions. It's an effective way of completely drawing me into this menacing character's life.
I also don't entirely trust Polo's perspective as he frequently refers to most of the women around him as horny sluts so I question whether his interpretation of events and people are entirely accurate. Polo can clearly see that Franco's neighbour would never be sexually interested in Franco, but Franco is convinced that she really does want him. Similarly, Polo is certain his cousin is constantly flirting with him and tricking him into having sex with her so I'm cautious about accepting whether this is actually the case. It brings an interesting level of ambivalence to this narrative which is saturated with a misogynistic attitude. Interestingly, there is also an intimidating female figure in the story whose power resides in her absence. This is a notorious long-dead tyrannical Countess rumoured to haunt her dilapidated mansion which Polo must fearfully pass by on his way to the luxury housing complex. Just as in “Hurricane Season” the only way women can escape this masculine-driven community is to become a menacing almost mythological figure. I appreciated how Melchor incorporates the imagined spectre of the Countess' presence into the narrative as a counterpoint to these hyper-masculine points of view.
For such a short novel, “Paradais” makes a big impact and leaves a lasting impression.
