PositiveAsymptote... sets the mind racing with blurs and glitches—periodic and perturbing reminders of just how malleable our reality, both past and present, can be in the hands of an expert ... Far be it from me to judge a book by its factuality, but in this case, it is as though the author is daring the reader to believe, to latch on to the recognizable markers of our shared world ... We are once again thrown between past and the present, and it is here perhaps that the novel reaches its most coherent stage, despite the soft-focus through which reality is presented—a style that translator Thomas Bunstead has clearly mastered. Although Bunstead must be intimately familiar with Fernández Mallo’s prose by now, his translation is nonetheless impressive. The writing is disorienting, almost aggressive in its cyclical litany of motifs, and the reading experience suggests an at times excruciating translation process.
