{"id":784,"date":"2025-12-31T17:02:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/?p=784"},"modified":"2025-12-31T17:02:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:02:29","slug":"a-quirky-creature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/31\/a-quirky-creature\/","title":{"rendered":"A quirky creature"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Book<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>Monstrilio<\/a> by Gerardo S\u00e1mano C\u00f3rdova<\/a>

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars<\/a>


Gerardo S\u00e1mano C\u00f3rdova<\/a>‘s first novel Monstrilio<\/a> begins as a couple’s young son dies, and his mother, in grief, excavates a piece of his lung to keep. His father, discovering the mutilated body, is horrified.

This brief prologue is told in a third-person voice. The point of view next switches to Magos, the boy’s mother, and the story continues as an allegory of grief: She nurtures the lung until it forms a sentient creature. From here, the novel splits tonally between the theme of grief and the fun of this quirky creature. “Lung,” as Magos calls him at first, is cute and mischievous, like a cat given to extremely violent episodes when it gets hungry.

The book splits further as it progresses, driven by a narrative structure that’s revealed from the beginning. After Magos, it switches to Magos’s old friend Lena, then the boy’s father Joseph, and finally, Monstrilio himself. This splitting allows C\u00f3rdova to focus on other aspects of the story, but it also dilutes the effectiveness of the themes he’s developed. The voices aren’t very distinct, and the characters are coarsely drawn. In the end, Monstrilio is the only one we understand well. The others make inexplicable choices that serve more to complicate Monstrilio’s life than anything else. This approach would be fine if the book were a silly rollick, but it certainly wasn’t set up that way.

As it progresses, the novel focuses more on homosexuality and otherness than on grief and loss. Much of this aspect seems forced, grafted awkwardly onto the players. I would have liked to have seen the characters and themes that were set up at the beginning developed and played out more thoroughly. In general, though, Monstrilio<\/em> is an enjoyable read, and Monstrilio himself a remarkable creation. Without the unconvincing detours, it might have been a fantastic short story. I’ll be interested to see what C\u00f3rdova comes up with next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monstrilio by Gerardo S\u00e1mano C\u00f3rdova My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars Gerardo S\u00e1mano C\u00f3rdova‘s first novel Monstrilio begins as a couple’s young son dies, and his mother, in grief, excavates a piece of his lung to keep. His father, discovering the mutilated body, is horrified. This brief prologue is told in a third-person voice. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRPpr-cE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}