Simmering

摘要

“Su txikian” [“Simmering”] by Uxue Alberdi was published in 2013 as one of the stories in her book Euli Giro [A Sense of Chagrin]. As Alberdi states, “The source of inspiration for this story was an article I had read about an eighty-year-old married couple from Pamplona who had been found in their car parked in the garage after having committed suicide. u22Simmering” is a response to the shock the news provoked in me […]. On the one hand, I wanted to hold onto the stereotype of the Basque grandmother. It is not typical to imagine an eighty-year-old Basque woman as a writer or someone engaged in intellectual discourse. Traditionally, our grandmothers have been portrayed as devoted caregivers, and we have emphasized their sweet character. On the other hand, I intended to write in a lively, ironic, and twisted way about an elderly woman who has her own interests and ambitions. It is also a humorous u27defenseu27 of the mediocre housewife. After all, she escapes death because of her poor housewife skills: because she burnt her lentil soup. But at the end of the story, we realize that it all could have been just a scheme to get rid of her husband. There is a great deal of ambiguity in this story and it is within this ambiguity that I imagine a homicidal wife, an ambitious writer, a loving wife, a scatterbrained housewife…”