PanThe Arts DeskGiven that \'weird\', \'strange\', \'odd\' and \'mind-bending\' are just some of the words employed to describe The Things We’ve Seen, it is a surprise, and a shame, to have to add: \'mundane\'. The task of translation is trusted to Thomas Bunstead, and this is a novel of breadth, variety, and texture; nevertheless, a late reference to \'fractal theory\' as a structural model all but confirms a hunch that Mallo’s universe is the product not of desultory, surrealist magic, but of joyless and methodological experiment. Perhaps it is the natural end result of a set of characters shaped by the same niche, historical moments that they should each blur into one – that, personalities expunged, they should be each reduced to the role of mouthpiece, to exist as expounders of the philosophical themes rather than fully-fledged, living individuals.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
