The novella’s strange, shifting structure lends 'Bonsai' a playful quality...The whole story feels ruled by a dream logic, filled with coincidences and ghostly echoes...There’s a way that such coincidences might make a story feel silly or clumsy, as though they were lesions on reality or cheap effects...But I did not find that to be the case in 'Bonsai'...Part of this is because of Zambra’s mastery of tone and timing, but more than anything, it’s because of the offhand yet casual way Zambra presents these coincidences — there’s a little surprise, but nothing too fussy, nothing made too much of... There’s a dreamy associative quality of the novella that made it feel true and beautiful and moving.
Bonsai is a delightful work...A love story that’s both wry and melancholy...Bonsai doesn’t just mock its characters’ fantasies and deceptions; it also shows how such chimera are necessary to their happiness, and their undoing...If Bonsai were a building, it’d look rather like the Centre Georges Pompidou, all its mechanicals exposed and painted bright primary colors rather than hidden behind the walls...Zambra wants not only to explore conflict and emotion but also to revel in the medium that allows him to express these things.
Bonsai is an appealing miniature, a novella that, despite its brevity, feels airy and full...It is a love story, of sorts, and Zambra lays it out clearly right from the get-go...It's not an entirely original story, of course; that's one of the problems with fiction that relies so much on literature itself...Bonsai feels even more derivative because Zambra's entire approach to presenting these lives, and their relationship...Still, Zambra does it well, making for an enjoyable, pleasantly surprising, and clever read.
