The characters of the novel all bear the name of birds -- spirits that do not change but are rather transformed, departing and returning until they have reached perfection. Only with her untimely death does the Lady White Dove, the third sister of the protagonist, Lord Mallard, achieve this.
In his previous incarnations, Lord Mallard was a scribe in Ancient Egypt,an illuminator monk in the Middle Ages and Lady White Dove's Siamese twin scribe in the mid 16th century Nigeria. In the early 21st century he writes of the past lives of Lord Shearwater and Lady Lark’s six siblings, tracing their previous lives in Occitania, Imperial Rome, Scandinavia, Iceland, Newfoundland, Nigeria, Russia or the land of the Thais.
In a parallel story Lord Mallard will recount five generations of his family: from his great grandparents arriving in Elx in 1890, all the way to his own son’s migration to England in 2012. But he will focus on the migrations from Elx in February 1956, to Marseilles, and on April 1968, to Sydney, until the family moves back to Elx, the week before Christmas 1972. Lord Mallard will be the first member of the family born outside the Iberian Peninsula in quite a few centuries.
Lady White Dove, the twin of his soul, will make him pledge to write over one hundred thousand words, which will enable her brother to take the path of wisdom. Behind it all, he will feel the heart beat of Lady Mallard, the wife who will give him a son and a daughter. In a pristine lyricism, that recalls the author's polyglot upbringing, the reader learns of the initimate details of a sprawling Valencian family, driven by need and shattered by tragedy, not quite united by love.
A 'tallamar’ is a wooden plank used in the Elx irrigation system to divert water to different irrigation channels. Lord Mallard will choose the land of his family whilst he sings his love for the lands that gave him his story.
North Wind
Mirai Nikki 04
Berserk 15
Ranman 1/2 05. Edicion Integral