Multiple Choice, Alejandro Zambra
This is a funny book. It is not like anything else you have ever read. The books is short and the pages are filled with questions, some inane, some inspirational, some insightful, some downright ridiculous and laughable, but hidden within the questions is an investigation of human nature, politics, marriage and divorce, love and hate, loyalty and infidelity, morality and immorality, the happenstance and the extraordinarily well planned, the everyday occurrences and the exceptional moments of life. The thing that all of the questions and sections in this test example seemed to have in common, was an overlay of humorous hypocrisy.
It is a presentation of the mundane and the extraordinary, the absurd and the rational all within the 100+ pages of this book. If nothing else, at times this book will make you chuckle, smile, and shake your head in bewilderment. Then, it will make you think about the messages Zambra so artfully intimates, subtly and overtly, as he expresses ideas from the political to the spiritual, from the moral to the amoral, from the ridiculous to the sublime. It won’t take long to read, but it will be what can only be described as a delightful experience. Although you may not realize it, as you read, what you think is a very lighthearted gallivant through every day events will instead, in the end, provide you with a very profound message about life. This author says so much with so few words!
FYI: If I was a student, and if this was my entrance exam, I probably would not have gotten my degree. This spoof on the Exam, for students in Chile, points out the failures of these tests to adequately judge performance and qualifications. Often test questions can be confusing, may have double meanings, and some might even seem to require extra sensory perception!
***This is a review of an Advanced Uncorrected Proof.