... depicts the griefs and joys of one human family against the vibrant backdrop of the Pyrenees mountains where they live. With its crisp prose, compassionate eye, and emotional precision, Solà’s novel pays tribute to the interconnectedness of the natural world. When I Sing, Mountains Dance illustrates that when we step back to see those connections, our own lives take on greater meaning ... Solà encourages us to view the world from more than just a human perspective ... Solà invites us to settle into each perspective—and, in doing so, to feel as much sorrow for the frightened fawn skittering away from the gunshot as we do for Hilari’s death ... Solà also encourages temporal empathy by zooming in and panning out, challenging human conceptions of time ... Solà’s kaleidoscopic technique offers perspective on Sió’s grief but does not diminish it. When I Sing, Mountains Dance triumphs because Solà gives voice to many perspectives and, in doing so, infuses the human characters’ experiences with greater poignancy.
... inventive and lyrical ... By setting past and present side by side, and plunging us into human and nonhuman perspectives, Solà reveals the beauty and brutality of life in a mountain village that holds the scars of the past but also the seeds of slow repair and renewal ... Moving from the perspective of the rain clouds, the chanterelles, the bailiff, and the roe-buck, Solà moves through the story like a dance, flinging the reader from one elemental force to another ... [a] work of unexpected emotional power.
Set among the villages, forests and rivers of the Pyrenees, the book builds a layered history of the area while focusing primarily on one family ... This democratic approach to storytelling works remarkably well. The chapter told from the perspective of the dog is one of the best: funny, intimate and sad. The witches we hear from are enjoyably cackling and foul ... an out-of-town hiker is superbly patronising ... Other sections are slightly less good. Hilari, in particular, hasn’t much to say except effusive slogans ... Solà’s prose, excellently translated from the original Catalan, is expansive and tactile. Her sentences accumulate, running along, taking in as much as possible, senses alert ... There are numerous memorable moments of deeply felt contact—with the landscape, with animals, or between people ... Solà convincingly implicates everyone in the quickening pace of history and environmental decline; there are apocalyptic warnings. Will they be heeded? In the meantime, this attentive, playful, responsive novel makes an excellent case for stopping and listening.
