Posted in 9c-2009 Reviews, Argentina, Experimental, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Uruguay on Jan 18th, 2011
This short, literary novel explores themes which academicians have discussed for generations–the relationship between reality and language, the belief that creating a library is akin to creating a life, the idea that books can take on a life of their own, and the obsessive collection of books and reverence for them. Creating an allegory of the literary world and its complications, author Carlos Dominguez tells what appears to be a simple story–part mystery, part satire, and part quest.
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Pedro Zabalaga, with a freshly minted PhD from Cal Berkeley, is a professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Madison (New York), a young man much in demand by American magazines as a commentator on the political situation in South America, and Bolivia, in particular. Pedro is the son of Bolivian hero Pedro Reissig, one of six men massacred by the army as their socialist cell was meeting to plan the overthrow of President Montenegro. Reissig died in the 1970s, when his son was still a small child, and the only legacy young Pedro has is a book his father has written entitled Berkeley. This he regards as “a long letter from Dad to me. By discovering the message he had hidden in the book, I would discover him…” The tight construction, despite the constant changes in time and setting from Rio Fugitivo to Madison, NY, and Berkeley, along with the consistent thematic development, make this a novel which conveys a message without sacrificing the literary qualities which make good mystery novels and their characters come alive.
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Dense with ideas and complex in its plots, Turing’s Delirium confronts the issues of globalization and the conflicts generated by a perpetual underclass. Within a thriller set in Rio Fugitivo, Bolovia, author Edmundo Paz Soldan, described by Mario Vargas Llosa as “one of the most important Latin American writers of the new generation,” brings social unrest to life in this Third World country. Though young intellectuals have always relied on strikes, demonstrations, and indigenous riots by miners, coca growers, and other laborers to emphasize their grievances—and do so in this novel, too—they now have a new weapon, the computer. Now it is possible for the resistance and revolution to be conducted in cyberspace, and hackers are the front line in the waging of the new war.
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Author Elizabeth Kostova’s unusual debut novel combines her ten years of scholarly research on Vlad Tepes, the Impaler of Wallachia, sometimes known as Drakulya, with the stories that have become part of local folklore in Bulgaria and Rumania, and the legends created and perpetuated by Bram Stoker (in his novel Dracula). A sadistic prince from the mid-fifteenth century who killed up to 15,000 of his own people, often impaling them on stakes and leaving them to die horrible deaths, Vlad terrified his enemies from the Ottoman Empire, though it was Stoker who created the belief that he was a vampire. Historians and scholars will be fascinated by the detailed information revealed in this novel as the three main characters uncover key information about Vlad/Drakulya. Though the story is often exciting—and has a conclusion which packs a wallop–the novel involves serious, scholarly research, and the “novel’s” characters themselves are undeveloped.
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The first of Brazilian author Verissimo’s novels to be translated into English, The Club of Angels is a fascinating, carefully detailed, and darkly humorous study of ten deaths, the deaths of ten gourmands following their favorite meals. The men have been friends for more than twenty years, meeting once a month for sumptuous feasts together. They represent all levels of society and have achieved differing degrees of professional success, enjoying and respecting each other because of their shared love of food and their long friendship. Playing with the reader’s perceptions from the outset, Verissimo writes with tongue firmly in cheek, the ironies piling up as the deaths continue. His observations about life and death, about men and their friendships, and about our responsibilities, if any, to each other add depth to this unusual novel. The ending, which extends the concept of “orgiastic release” to its logical conclusion, will satisfy even the most jaded reader.
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