This is what the main character, Zavalita, and the author, try to find out in the book: how, when, where, why, Latin America went wrong. It is a political, social and personal novel. Without a clear answer, of course, Vargas Llosa boldly exposes before our eyes the crap, the misery, the injustice and the depravation that rule life in most parts of our continent. He is unsparing, cruel and realistic. The lives of Santiago Zavala and Ambrosio Pardo meet time and again through a conversation in "The Cathedral", a bar in Lima, Peru. As they tell to each other their stories, they tell the story of Peru in those years. Zavalita is an upper-middle class journalist, the son of a politician, who resigns his social position for idealistic reasons. He is a loser because he refuses to fit in a world like that, where in order to succeed you have to be a part of corruption, pervertion, and immorality. He prefers to be marginalized and isolated.

To tell a chaotic story, Vargas Llosa uses a complex style: jumps in time, different voices from separated times speaking simultaneously. But it is not a hard reading, once you get used to it. The author is superb at eliciting suspense, progressive revelations that give an additional clue into the whole picture. It is fascinating how he reproduces the way people talk in an informal conversation at a bar. Think about it and try to remember your conversations with friends, when sharing a complex story.

If the style is great, the substance is chilling: it is a glimpse into the reality most of us refuse to acknowledge. Wherever you live, you will recognize people in almost every character. While MVLL is an excellent writer, this is definitely one of his best. It is certainly one of my favorite novels of all times, and I strongly recommend it.

Conversation in the Cathedral is a novel of power and politics in 1950s Peru. Two of the main characters meet in an inexpensive restaurant (the "cathedral" of the title) and spend the afternoon conversing about the past. The novel is, for the most part, encapsulated within their conversation, although we are occasionally reminded of some events accessible only to the omniscient narrator.

While somewhat unusual, the structure of Conversation in the Cathedral is most impressive. The vast bulk of the book is dialogue, and a common occurrence is for different dialogues to be interlaced at the level of the sentence with no overt marking in a kind of point and counterpoint. There also exists an hierarchical layering, with events described in individual conversations recounted within the meta-conversation that spans the entire novel.

The narrative includes many jumps in time, with significant events that take place in the middle of the story often not being recounted until near the end of the book. The result is an almost "fractal" narrative, but one that is singularly impressive.

Despite its somewhat complicated structure, Conversation in the Cathedral has an irresistible feeling of movement and once readers become used to Vargas Llosa's sophisticated style, the book becomes more than engrossing. Conversation in the Cathedral also presents the clearest picture of exactly how a Latin American military dictatorship actually works.

While all of Vargas Llosa's books rate five stars, Conversation in the Cathedral is certainly his most impressive.

This is a great novel. At the beginning I found it a little hard to follow the story but once I got used to the author's narrative style, I was spellbound.

It is just amazing how much knowledge the author (in his early 30s when he wrote this novel) displays about Peruvian, and by extent Latin American, society and people's psychology, especially those in positions of power (since this is also a political novel).

The narrative revolves around the story of Zabalita, a journalist from an upper middle class background. Zabalita is essentially a rebel and idealist who renounces fortune and fame out of both political/ideological convictions and parental resentments. His own personal family deceptions and disappointments are somehow projected onto the whole Peruvian society (it is hard to tell the author from his personage).

As it turns out, Zabalita's misfortune is that the vices he resents in his family (his father is an important politician) are inextricably linked to those the author very ably depicts as taking place in Peruvian society as a whole. The author skillfully depicts this reality throughout the novel by showing us his other characters with all their vices; here we have the opportunistic, corrupt, deceitful and immoral politicians.

Vargas Llosa greatly succeeds in narrating Zabalita's misfortune and gaining adepts in his readers (at least in my case) to Zabalita's cause. The climax of the novel comes towards the end of the book when Zabalita and the reader are revealed the darkest secrets of Zabalita's father. This is the climax towards which the novel inexorably unfolded starting with the initial conversations, between Zabalita and one of the main protagonists, in the bar "The Cathedral".

What really makes this novel great is not only the substance of its subject matter but also, and perhaps most important, the way it is expounded. The author reveals his characters (their darkest secrets, their noblest actions and so on) in a very gradual way, eliciting in the reader suspense, and all kinds of emotions at every turn of a page. The way the author weaves his personages, treating one at a time and then relating them, with the way the story unravels makes it so hard to take a break from reading. This is as much a psychological novel as a social and a political critique, and a great one.

Jose Lezama Lima achieved one of the most complex and mesmerizing novels of the XXth century in Latin America. Paradiso is a Bildungsroman (a novel about an individual's growing process) as it is a Kunstroman (novel about the artist). The reader will find many references to Lezama's life, but his work goes beyond a self portrait. Jose Cemi is a little cuban boy who grows up having breathing problems, and grasping the lifes of those who were before him.
His individuality mixes with the other's and the result is a complex narrator, an overwhelming amount of literary, cultural and mythological references, a refined use of the metaphor and a hightened sense of reality. Cemi's world is more than nature... it is supernatural. Cemi attends to the world of death, as he remembers the lifes of his ancestors, as they are told to him by his mother Rialta, and grandmother Augusta. The first half of Paradiso is all about the family... then uncle Alberto's death marks a point of change in the novel. From that moment on, it focuses in Cemi's friendship with two other students: Fronesis and Focion. The three of them constitute a triangle in which homosexuality, love, erotism, unity, mythology and androginy are the main topics. As well as incest.
When this simbolic triangle breaks, Cemi is ready for the epiphany: he meets Oppiano Licario: a friend of his father who promised him, as he was dying, to look after his son (Cemi). Licario also witnessed Alberto's sexual iniciation. He is a poet, and he is the one who can bring Jose Cemi out of the time of desperation into a rythm of reflection and artistic contemplation.
There is so much more to this novel... You can only know what it is all about by reading it. I can here only give you a few pieces. As Lezama believed: only what is hard is really rewarding, and this is particularly true for young people.

I would argue that Paradiso is the best novel of the 20th century. I don't believe this because of the plot; as a matter of fact, I don't really think there is much of a plot here. I say it because of factors that have to do with the author, the time in which he wrote this, and how those elements combined to make this incredible piece of literature.

A little bit of history: by the time Lezama Lima wrote this novel, he was already a well-known writer in Cuba. He and some friends had started a literary magazine, and actually, he was best known for his poetry. When Castro's revolution came to be in 1959, it marked the end of Cuba's literary life. Writers like Lezama Lima could keep writing so long as they wrote nothing controversial, nothing too "out there," nothing that could even hint a thought of anything that could be deemed "counter-revolutionary." And soon after Lezama Lima wrote Paradiso.

Now a little bit about the novel. Consider it, really, a long, endless conversation with many, many asides. It is complex if only because there are so many run-on sentences, so many thoughts and descriptions and details, that it's easy to lose track and just find yourself thinking, period. And I think that's what he was going for. The book covers just about everything: politics, ethics, philosophy, homosexuality, love, religion, etc. I thought when I read it that basically Lezama Lima just wanted to express his thoughts and opinions on everything (I later learned I was pretty correct about that, but more on that in a minute). What this brilliant man had to say is well-worth reading, even today.

But now, let's go back to the time and place when this was written. A few years after Castro came into power, and after he had declared his Communist intentions. With the publication of this novel, Lezama Lima's fate was sealed. As a homosexual man living in a country with a severely homophobic dictator, life had already been getting more and more difficult for him. But when Paradiso came out, he was officially declared "non-person" by the regime. For those unfamiliar with the concept, I will explain that being declared "non-person" essentially means just that: you cease to exist in the eyes of the government. You are erased from the history books, from the record books, you lose your job, people who visit you or have anything to do with you risk losing their government freebies and suffering reprisals. Lezama Lima was no longer a national literary treasure, and the man who up until that moment was considered one of the most respected writers in Latin America, was reduced to nothing.

I had the honor of meeting his younger sister a short while ago. She was sharing the contents of private letters between her and her brother from the years after the publication of Paradiso to those before his death. They revealed so much about Lezama Lima as a person, how he saw life, how he regarded his family (all of whom were in exile and whom he missed terribly). They reveal his gentleness, the tenderness he felt about nature, his family, his memories. And they also reveal the hell that his life had become: the loneliness, the constant vigilance, the pain he felt over what had become of his country.

Being privy to such an experience really only affirmed my thoughts about this novel. He must have known what lay in store for him, and yet it didn't stop him. He still wrote it. When the government demanded that he denounce his own book, the one he considered his masterpiece, his message to the world, in essence, he refused. It simply fills me with awe. For that alone the book is worth reading.

I was thrown a bit by the first, say, hundred or so pages of this monumental novel. What was going on with the almost unbearably baroque prose style? The author's very sentences, cluttered and clogged with obscure adjectives, parentheical asides, dangling clauses, incomprehensible imagery, seemed to be undermining the flow of his (admittedly digressive, non-linear) plot. I felt like no one was getting anywhere, which, after persevering for a few hundred more pages, I realized was the point. It would be all but impossible to synopsize this novel's central action--if you can even call it action, for, as in Proust and the Great Russian novels (which served as obvious models, it seems safe to say)--there's a lot more conversing than carrying on. There are great, chapters-long debates on homosexuality, philosophy, and politics. Evidently a voracious and learned reader, Lezama Lima seems to have tried to cram all of his knowledge into this, his one and only novel, which, again, is appropriate considering that the book itself seems to be about the totality of human existence (I'm still riddling this one out.) Once I became used to the style and to the rather lenghty debates, I realized that what I was immersed in was a masterpiece, a book as confusing, messy, overwhelming and beautiful as life itself. I can't say that every reader will warm to Paradiso--it is hard going from start to glorious finish--but I do believe that the book deserves a crtical reevaluation. Let's put it alongside not only Gabriel Garcia Maquez and Carlos Fuentes, but also Joyce, Flaubert, Tolstoy and Proust and see where it stands. I have the feeling it might be one of the more important books of the last century.

Jorge Amado is one of the very finest novelists from Brazil. He combines a rich love for people with a sympathetic view of their life complications. Mix in a little humor, and a tragedy becomes comedy . . . yet the serious commentary remains. His amazing imagination makes the mystical seem as real as what you are holding in your hand. It's almost as though you've entered an alien world, yet on the surface it seems familiar. I'm always reminded on Alice in Wonderland when I read one of his novels.

In this story, the statue of Saint Barbara of the Thunder, a highest esteemed icon is on its way for a special exhibition in Bahia. Upon arriving in that fair city, the statue vanishes and the fun begins! Saint Barbara has come to life and begins to travel all over Bahia. Those who appreciate religious belief will enjoy the fun as people are unable to grasp this miracle.

At the same time, there's another story thread. Young Manela wants to enjoy a festival whose roots are of the spiritualist sort. Fearing for her soul, her aunt Adalgisa seeks to avoid this. At the same time, Manela is drawn to a handsome young man whom Adalgisa sees at inappropriate. Will the path of true love prevail? This story thread is used by Mr. Amado to explore the nature of what it is to do good.

The two story lines eventually merge in one powerful river of satire, irony and good humor. When the heavens collide, can mere mortals hold their ground? Probably not. As in Shakespeare's storms, the turmoil in nature and in the heavens eventually affects the people in all sorts of unexpected ways. You cannot escape it. You also cannot escape the good fun and magical quality of this very funny book.

Be sure to refer to the book's glossary to understand the non-English words in the text. That will expand your appreciation of the book.

After you finish, think about where your religious beliefs may sometimes cause you to be intolerant rather than being open to all of God's gifts and children. How can you open your heart and mind?

I bought this book to take on my trip to Bahia for Carnaval - my holiday reading - and it was the perfect choice. The sights, sounds and smells of Bahia described by Amado were waiting for me when I arrived. On Ash Wednesday, the day Carnval ended, I had the worst hangover of my life! I sought refuge for my sins in the church of Bonfim which is vividly described in the novel. It had a great significance for me that day.

Amado has been criticized for creating a trivialized stereotypical image of brazil and brazilian people but beneath the riotous humor one can detect the harsher socio/political realties of Brazilian life.

Loved it.

If you don't know Bahia yet, the delicious food of Salvador, the magic of the african Saints, the sensual beauty of brazilian women, the songs of Caetano Veloso, the powerful capoeira and the burning taste of the cachaça this book is for you. Then, if you want to discover one of the grandmaster of the latin american literature, the funniest and sexiest, run to buy this true masterpiece now. Probably the only book I have read twice. Magical and absolutely not to be missed.

This book is a amazing voyage to the most deepest places of the mind. Here you live, and on this book you will really live, the life after the african colonial war of four portuguese veteran. Their most inner desires, feelings and thoughts are exposed in a really vivid picture. You almost see them in a Lisbon City long lost.

I agree with the previous reviewer. Antunes is a marvellous writer. Once you get into his way of writing it is hard to put the book down. His poetic language is so filled with images that you could actually feel the smell of Lisbon. In this story we follow the life stories of a couple of war veterans before, during and after the revolution in 1974. They come from different social backgrounds, so Antunes succeeds in portraying many aspects of his society. But to me is that not the main issue, no it is the moving life-stories of his characters. It is not an easy read but he can also be very amusing in a rather absurd way. Antunes has bee critizised for writing the same book over and over again. This is the second novel I read. His style is very similar but once I get into it I'm moved by the beauty and captivated by the energy of his prose.

Anyone interested in modern fiction must have a go at Antunes.

Secker published a couple of Antunes' books in the UK in the late eighties, but then they dropped him. On a trip to the US I found Fado Alexandrino. I was astonished. It is rare that you come across an experimental novel which is a page turner too. It is the story of a handful of army vets who have a reunion. The narrative weaves from one man's disturbed thoughts to the next man's. This creates a confusion in who is speaking, but - like I say - this is not off putting: it adds to the effect of the novel. The book looks daunting, but I unreservedly recommend it. It is moving. It is well written. It is thought provoking. Antunes is a devastating writer.

En "La Casa Verde" Mario Vargas Llosa va dando muestras de su progreso a un estilo totalitario que quedaría demostrado finalmente en "La Guerra del Fin del Mundo". De allí en adelante el totalitarismo aparecería de manera desenfadada en todas las novelas que ha escrito hasta el momento.

Sería fácil pensar que el nombre de la novela debería otorgarle el tema central a un personaje, a un lugar o simplemente a un hecho cualquiera. Sin embargo, "La Casa Verde" es una excepción porque son varias historias contadas al mismo tiempo sin un tema central, excepto que el Perú es el lugar común en donde se desarrollan. Lo maravilloso es que con una habilidad innata, MVLL nos pinta al Perú de una manera integral, recorriendo costa, sierra y selva (las tres regiones naturales que presenta este país) a través de tres historias que se desenvuelven paralelamente y sin una relación aparente al inicio pero cuyo desenlase las unificaría. El totalitarismo de MVLL podría parecernos atrevido pero nos demuestra una vez más que esa palabra no existe para este escritor peruano.

Por un lado Fushia, mientras escapaba por el Río Amazonas, narra a Aquilino los embrollos en los cuales se encuentra involucrado tras haber intentado estafar a otro estafador más poderoso que él. El motivo sería el robo de caucho, cuya explotación se encontraba en boga en el departamento selvático de Iquitos en ese momento.

Por otro lado, Don Anselmo construye La Casa Verde, llamada así por el color del cual fue pintada su fachada, y se convertiría en el primer prostíbulo que rebolotaría la pasiva vida de Piura (una ciudad al norte de Perú). Con el transcurrir del tiempo y a pesar del progreso favorable del negocio, Don Anselmo seguiría sintiéndose solitario. Pero su soledad se vería aplacada al enamorarse; el único inconveniente, para la sociedad, era que Don Anselmo le triplicaba en edad y además ella era invidente. Debido a esto decide ocultar su relación que saldría a la luz de manera trágica cuando los pobladores deciden incendiar aquel antro de perdición sin saber que en ella habitaba la niña amada de Don Anselmo y que además estaba embarazada. El final de la historia es excepcional ya que une, como lo dije anteriormente, las tres historias alrededor de una mesa de un restaurant barato, simbolizando la pobreza humana, la cual suele actuar sin pensar en las consecuencias que podría conllevar sus actitudes cucufatas y salvajes.

Considero a esta novela como una de las mejores de la producción literaria de MVLL y se la recomiendo sólo a los que gustan de la verdadera literatura, los demás desistirán en las primeras páginas.

This complex novel evolves during many years, through the memories and experiences of the characters, within the characteristic arbitrary timing of Vargas Llosa: flashbacks, voices from different ages speaking simultaneously, sudden jumps in time. The action takes place in two basic locations: the high and dry city of Piura, and the Amazonic region of Peru. There are several stories which interact and cross at several points: Fushia, the smuggler who dominates the Indians, whose story is told during his trip with the old Aquilino, down a river; the love story of Lalita and Nieves the soldier; the soldiers of Santa María of Nieva; Sargent Lituma and the Woman from the Jungle; Don Anselmo, the mythical founder of Piura's nightlife, and thereafter a harp-player at brothels; The Unconquerables and the nuns from the convent.

The novel is an epic of life in Peru, a solid and vast book. Characters from the past and the present speak their minds and tell their deeds. The tone is varied, from the sordid to the epic, from city to jungle. A great novel by an accomplished author, in which the different stories slowly converge to paint a broad landscape. In a less dark way, from time to time Faulkner seems to be in the background, Latinamericanized.

este libro es tremendo, puedes sentirte dentro de el con una facilidad increible, puedes sentir la lluvia que no cesa por semanas y la vida en las zonas de la selva. es muy buen libro para comenzar a leer a vargas llosa, aunque tambien se puede comenzar con algo como la ciudad y los perros. magnifica lectura

The late Brazillian author Gregory Rabassa' Avalovara is an enduringly impressive work of Latin American Literature (aptly translated into English by Gregory Rabassa), about one man and his three great loves. One seems unattainable despite his pursuit; one is a kindly hermaphrodite who enjoys the fruit of passion; and one goes only by an ideogram for her name. Sensual, meticulous, erotic, with a complex plot and tangled human machinations, Avalovara is a uniquely written, inventive, and original literary experience.

This gorgeous novel is that chimera, that impossible novel that is both an intellectual endeavor and a magical fiction that seamlessly blends Borges and Garcia Marquez. The book is structured as a spiral, and it recounts the story of a man and the three women he loved. The book is filled with intellectual games, as in the fiction of Borges and Cortazar, yet the writing is as sensual and erotic as in the fiction of Amado and Garcia Marquez. I loved it!

This book is really amazing because you'll find the historical formation of Brazil. Since colonial period till today.

The author will explain the formation of this great country and the complex formation of brazilian people. There's no how to understand Brazil without read this book before. This is one of the most complete book I've read abou this country

A Certain Lucas demostrates the writting ability of Julio Cortazar, focused on the everyday things that make him laugh. If Cronopios and Famas touched you, this will make you laugh

Amado's literary output falls rather neatly into two periods. His early work is imbued with a strong sense of social responsibility, a fact for which he had some difficulty under the Vargas regime, and I believe he may have even done a short stint in jail over. The second period, the post-"Gabriela" books, are a lot more laid back and anecdotal.

Sorry to say that in general the second period is the one that's more fun to read, and the books he wrote in the second half of his life are what established his international reputation. A lot of his earlier stuff is not that great, with one exception - this book.

The story is about the kids on the street in Fortaleza, back in the 1930's. To say that they're poor doesn't do justice to it - they live on the street. By necessity they're thieves, but you can't help liking them. They have aspirations of their own in life.

Explaining it in a few words like that may make the American reader think that he's dealing with some "Angels with Dirty Faces" sort of story. It's not. This is not a sentimental novel. It's a reflection of some of the hard realities of Brazilian life, like the urban poverty that never seems to disappear. But it also reflects some of the inherent optimism and the very un-American concern with each other that Brazilians manifest - features of their society that make Brazil such a wonderful place.

hey, I know that this book is awesome, but is old too, the reality of Brazil is not that anymore, some people tend to form opinions about things that they don't know, that they have never seem with their own eyes. But the best thing is that it still is a really interesting novel, and if you read you won't forget, it is just the best book I ever read.

I would recommend this book to anyone as an absolute must read. I read it in the original Portuguese at the suggestion of a friend and if you have the ability, I suggest you do the same. The translation simply doesn't portray the magnificence and beauty of Amado's original. After living in Brazil for sometime, this novel is, to me, the most incredible portrayal of these youth and the circumstances in which they live. The book may be 70 years old, but it is certainly as applicable today as anything else I've read.

First things first - _A God Strolling..._ was an engaging read. Previous reviewers have touched on the excellent development of setting and atmosphere, and I agree that de Carvalho pulls the reader into a colorful and complex representation of the Roman Empire at the precise moment it began to wane. The book is certainly worth reading for this reason alone, especially for those interested in historical fiction.

But above all, the book is a character study; the protagonist Quintius is its focus. As a character study, the book left me wanting a bit more - it's not the study of a strong and inspiring character as the other reviews here suggest. The N.Y. Times review above focuses on his "moral code, as well as a provocative meditation on the difficulty of leading a virtuous life in as era of tumultuous change." Quintius is a reluctant magistrate, forced into the seat of power by lazy demagogues who would rather not be burdened with responsibility. And though Quintius holds steadfastly to his perception of duty as a Roman citizen, his perception is out of step with the society around him. Rather than drawing strength from his convictions and being a strong ruler, he seems buffeted by the sea of events around him: political rivals, threats from without, the emerging Christian faith within his city, and a strange obsession with a female, Iunia.

In short this is not an inspiring story of the triumph of a moral soul, but a study of the torture of seeing things differently than the masses. If this was the author's desired effect, then the book is an unqualified success. However, I thought some of the tools used in reaching this end were under-developed. Quintius' obsession with Iunia drives the novel near the end, and I never understood the motivation for this relationship (admittedly, I guess neither did Quintius...). And ultimately, I hoped to see a development or substantial change in the protagonist in the end, and found little.

Readers who enjoy Jose Saramago will likely find de Carvalho interesting. I enjoyed reading the book. I don't know if I _liked_ the book. If you crave historical ambiance, or generating feelings of uneasiness in yourself, you will enjoy reading the book. I'm not sure if you'll _like_ it either, though...

Quite frankly, I was drawn to Carvalho's excellent novel by a combination of three factors: (1) The title was fascinating; (2) I am a sucker for fiction set in Roman times; and (3) the translator was Gregory Rabassa.

Picture to yourself a basically good men who was the magistrate of a small city in Roman Portugal (then called Lusitania) during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Lucius Valerius Quintius is basically a good man who is left to his own devices because his social peers could not care to help shoulder the burden of governing.

But suddenly, news is heard of a large group of Moors that have crossed the Mediterranean and are pillaging Lusitanian towns. In addition, a small group of Christians is playing havoc with the local citizenry, who suspect them of cannibalism or worse. Quintius fortifies the town and helps to foil a Moorish attack, but he finds the Christians to be a stickier problem.

To begin with, he is fascinated by Iunia Cantaber, a well-born widow who, as leader of the Christian community, has a lemming drive toward martyrdom. The crises lead to an energizing of the citizenry, who begin to push Quintius farther than he wants and leads to a trial, which has a surprising outcome -- that I will not divulge -- and the outcome is that Quintius is forced to take on the Christians. After the trial, he takes the hint and surrenders his office to retire to his villa.

Christianity has suffered a setback in Tarcisis, but the God who strolls in the cool of an evening bides His time. A good men has been befuddled -- but isn't that always what happens in the political arena?

Carvalho's novel falls under the heading of light fiction. It partakes of a gentle irony that wears well through its length. The translation is by the great Gregory Rabassa, whose renderings of Latin-American fiction by Jorge Amado and Gabriel Garcia Marquez have made his name a standard of quality.

For a long time I have searched for historical fiction in an antique setting that is of the caliber of Bryher, Yourcenar, Graves, Duggan. So many current examples are modern projections, anachronistic, unlettered, or just the wrong voice. In this novel, I can happily say I have found a great work to accompany my favorites. Carvalho's narrator speaks authentically with that unique voice of his era, at once worldly-wise, oppressed by fate, caught in the inevitability of not being able to reconcile his world with his convictions.