Kristalli tas-Silġ
by Kirsten Spiteri
Kristalli tas-Silġ (a title which could be translated as “Ice Crystals” or, possibly, “Snowflakes”) is Kirsten Spiteri’s second novel in Maltese, following his Covid novel Perfettament Imperfetta which I had reviewed some years back. Its protagonist is Megan, who, at the time of the events described, is in her late teens. Megan makes for an interesting psychological study. She is often depressed and suffers from a pronounced body image problem. She attempts to compensate through self-harm, dabbling in drugs, and finding solace in the arms of horny, toxic young men, who clearly use her as a distraction from their steady partners.
Megan’s self-destructive behaviour has a
streak of masochism to it – at times, literally so. Yet she is not merely a
victim and, like Charlotte in Spiteri's earlier novel, can also be controlling and manipulative. This becomes more evident in the
second part of the novel. Megan befriends an unconventional young couple: Mark,
a tattoo artist who dabbles in satanism, and his partner Kimberly, who are
parents to a little boy. At first, Mark and Kim groom Megan, turning her into a
canvas onto which they project their fetishistic, violent sexual fantasies.
Eventually, however, Megan develops an obsession with Mark, takes matters into
her own hands, and attempts to draw him away from Kim. Inevitably, the ménage
à trois begins to crumble.
While Kristalli tas-Silġ features a varied cast of characters, the focus remains firmly on its protagonist throughout. Admittedly, Spiteri sets himself a demanding task: authentically projecting the internal psyche of a troubled young woman. His solution in the first part of the book is to resort to a blog kept by Megan, which combines frank, confessional outbursts with brief, “poem-like” entries expressing a recognisable teenage angst. In the second part, the novel shifts to a more traditional first-person narration.
This approach generally works. The brief, punchy sections and pared-down prose make for a flowing read, despite the dark and disturbing subject matter. There are, however, some tantalising ideas that are left undeveloped. The final part skips several years and appears to rush towards its conclusion. The “blog” format, too, could have been put to better use: while we are shown Megan’s posts, and there is an indication that readers comment on them, these interactions are not included. They remain outside the narrative sphere, even though they could have provided a useful counterpoint to Megan’s voice. In this sense, the novel sometimes feels as though it has not quite reached its full potential.
This is not, of course, to say that it
is not a good work. Indeed, Kristalli tas-Silġ won the Konkors
Letteratura għaż-Żgħażagħ, a Maltese prize for books aimed at a youth or “young
adult” audience. I am not convinced that this categorization is particularly
helpful, as it tends to pigeonhole a book and discourage (older) readers who
might otherwise find it interesting and challenging, even if they do not share
the age, background, or experiences of the protagonists. The novel may also
prove eye-opening for those who hold a nostalgic, saccharine view of the
teenage years. Spiteri does not pull his punches or sanitize his story. The
frank references to self-harm, drug-taking, and violent sex, though hardly
“shocking” in the context of adult literature, are perhaps not what one would
traditionally expect from books intended for younger readers. Yet they offer a
snapshot of what many youths face in the contemporary world. And while, as the
novel’s central metaphor reminds us, “no snow crystal is the same” and, to
misquote Tolstoy, all unhappy people are unhappy in their own way, Megan’s
problems will, alas, feel all too familiar to young readers. In this sense, Kirsten
Spiteri has taken the mantle of chronicler of disgruntled youth.
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