Fernanda Melchor’s Paradais
Continuing on with my 2026 reading and following along with Anthony Jeselnik’s bookclub. His February pick was Paradais, by Fernanda Melchor. I wasn’t familiar with the author’s work, and to be honest I tend to stay away from works in translation ever since I thought I’d read Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter), and then happened upon Michael Henry Heim’s translation from 2004 and didn’t even see them as the same book. It recalled to mind the conversation between Hemingway and Pound about the Constance Garnett translation of Tolstoy in A Moveable Feast, with Pound quipping, “They say it can be improved upon.” But I digress.
Paradais is sort of like if the characters in Superbad—particularly Jonah Hill’s character—were to go horribly, horribly wrong. For the first 20 pages or so, from the introduction of Franco, I was sort of picturing Hill’s over-the-top, desperately horny character. There’s a certain hilarity in a ridiculously oversexed incel teen character, but hilarity soon turns to horror here as a far darker, sadistic side emerges in the character of the obese Franco. Meanwhile, the narrator Polo is a pitiful loser whose frustrations with the world and his perceived powerlessness are another good depiction of the incel mindset.
In short, neither are remotely likeable characters, and I didn’t find them relatable. But they were identifiable, and quite well-drawn. That said, a little of Polo’s endless bitching goes a long way, and the novel started to become a slog until we reached the backstory of his cousin Milton, who apparently gets kidnapped into a gang.
I suppose it’s dangerous to try and read English metaphors and symbolism into a translated work. But when you have a work called Paradais and a character named Milton, I naturally start thinking of Paradise Lost and the possible implications there. This is definitely a story about temptation, among other things, and temptations that neither of our boy characters are resisting as they spiral into their fall. Milton, however, comes across as having his free will taken away from him and is forced into a criminal life. There’s a lot of potential interpretations to tease out there, but again I’m reluctant to pursue it because I don’t know Spanish or the literary/cultural assumptions that might be in play. Along those lines, for example, I really wanted to read Polo as a pun on “pollo,” the Spanish word for chicken. I think you can make a push for that interpretation in the English translation, but does it hold any merit in the original language? No idea.
One aspect of the novel that really intrigued me was the decrepit mansion that exists on the outskirts of the gated community of Paradais, and the legend of the “Blood Countess” who lived there decades—centuries?—earlier. I’m quite the fan of ruined or abandoned buildings in stories. In his video review of Paradais, Jeselnik hits upon the idea that old mansion represents the Internet. It’s an interesting reading, but it feels like a stretch. I tended to think of it more along the lines of Sutpen’s Hundred in Absolom, Absolom, the decayed wreck of a history that’s fading away into myth and legend (maybe the stream-of-conscious style just has me thinking of Faulkner). Or perhaps the Marston House in Salem’s Lot is the better analogy. The main thing for me is that Polo seems to become more of a little boy when he’s near the mansion; he’s more childlike in his ability to creep himself out. And of course, the Blood Countess herself is another dark representation of women and femininity, a ghoulish spectre who killed boys and men for sport and pleasure.
Paradais is not a book I’ll ever pick up again, and I could understand why people would hate it. I can’t say I loved it, but I have a strong appreciation for its artistry. The fever dream narration of the critical final scene was just brilliant.
I must say, so far Anthony Jeselnik has made fantastic picks. I’m about a quarter of the way through his March selection, Mother Night, and it is also very good so far. I’m quite a bit more familiar with Kurt Vonnegut than Jim Thompson or Fernanda Melchor, but I’ve never read Mother Night before and my intrigue is growing.
