Living in the postcard

FLAWLESS, the poster in Brazil   

 

I will get out of my house any time to watch Michael Caine.  He is a tireless and exceptional actor who always apears to make a role bigger, fuller than anyone else.   So,  I was already inclined to like the film and I was not disappointed.

 

Michael Caine as Mr. Hobbs, janitor in the London Diamond Co.

 

The film has only been released in Brazil this month, one full year after its release in Europe, and four months after its release in the US.  Filmed in 2006, in England, France and Luxembourg, it is a British production and shows all the careful detailing the British are known for in period reconstruction.  Set in 1960, the story develops around two characters:  a janitor and a business woman, both working for the same company.  Each has a personal reason to wish ill will on the company, and together, they plan and execute a very large diamond robbery for which they will come out unscathed. 

 

 

Mr. Hobbs and Laura Quinn plan their attack.      

 

Demi Moore delivers her performance much better than I expected.  Her unflinching expression is usually responsible for  a delivery lacking in emotional depth.  And it also gives the impression of shallow character building.  But here, her expression is extremely appropriate for the portrayal of Laura Quinn, the  reserved business woman, already feeling the some age doldrums; a high achiever, an ambitious professional in  an age in which few women climbed to higher positions within a large multinational company.  It was interesting to see that even her delivery benefitted from small but effective physical adaptations to her character, one of them, the permanent thin upper lip she displays through the movie, leaving behind almost all sense of latent sensuality for which she is better known.

 

 Demi Moore as Laura Quinn: 38-year old, single business woman.

 

Despite rumors that this story was based on real facts, there is no evidence that they indeed took place.  It is for sure an excellent, entertainning story.  Great robberies  have long tradition in the movie industry: the suspense they build from planning to execution, has been key to many successful projects, that have brought their producers high profits.

 

There is one twist, however, in this script that is bothersome.  It is the hidden message that despite all the wrongdoing, this crime was or is acceptable.  After all it had a justified motive and it delivered much good throughout the world,  as a consequence.  I felt uneasy with the dubious endind, with the implied uncertainty  about what’s wrong and what’s right.   I am not advocating that films must have a clear moral message.  We don’t live in the 19th century!  But this film if it did not say the end justify the means, it came too close for my comfort.

 

Four of five stars.  Go.  It’s good entertainment.

 

  STREET KINGS disappoints…

 

In the many years I lived in the US, whenever there was a Brazilian film showing, I would drag my husband to see it with me.  It did not matter if the film was good or bad.  When you live abroad you are constantly trying to keep up with what is going on over there, in the land you have left behind.  So, nothing more natural than going to see some of the American action films that pass through Rio de Janeiro, for my husband to keep himself up to date with the American cultural scene.  Last Saturday we went to see Street Kings, the action film that opened in Rio de Janeiro, pratically at the same time it was released in the US.   I confess my first choice would have been another film, but I always remember the trips to far away artsy movies Harry made with me to refresh my standing with Brazilian culture and I end up accompanying him to what I would consider  films more to his taste.  In part this is what happened last Saturday.

 

 

But I was quite enthusiastic.  Two of my favorite actors were in this film: Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker.  In addition,  there was also Hugh Laurie, whose acting skills I had admired for years in the BBC television series Jeeves.  Well,  I guess their combined acting saved the film.  Whatever there was to be saved.  Under the circumstances, given the poor dialogues — there was one moment in which we turned to each other and asked:  who wrote these dialogues?  They’re unreal!  — all three men did a spendid job in trying to save an uncreative, boring, repetetitious script,  that added nothing to a tired, commonplace,  police intrigue that should not have made the leap  from script to screen.  It should have stayed there, in the drawer where for so long it rested.

 

Let’s note here that the script had a long list of possible adaptations, and long list of leading actors and directors.  James Ellroy who wrote the screenplay, originally had in mind the O.J. Simpson trial, that brought to the foreground in the US questions of LA police corruption and racism.  But it took a long time for the script to catch serious interest from Hollywood names.   Several directors at one time or another were listed as making the movie: Spike Lee, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone.   Instead of Keanu Reeves,  Sean Penn was thought to star.   I have no insider’s scoop to know why the movie was not made 15 years ago.  But it pleases me to imagine that the directors mentioned, may have had that gut feeling, the famous spiltsecond gut decision brought by years of fine tuning  their survival skills, which should have helped them reject this project.

 

Hugh Laurie and Forest Whitaker   

 

It saddens me to realize that Forest Whitaker and Keanu Reeves felt they should consider this project.  Forest Whitaker was under-utilized, and I hope that after he played this role and the African dictator’s role in another film, he will not find himself limited to violent, action scripts.  He has much more to offer and he can be quite overwhelming when he devotes himself to a serious, dramatic role.

 

Usually I don’t like to review a book or a film, or a play that I did not like.  I believe it is a waste of my time and free publicity for something that in my opinion should be forgotten.  But in this case, I had to do it.  For one reason alone: for warning of the gratuitous violence in the movie.  As a matter of fact, there are entire minutes of violent scenes interrupted by a 2-line dialogue and more minutes of violence.  For no reason.  Or was it?  If we take away the violent scenes, how many minutes of  acting would we be left with?  Probably only one third of the 109 minutes in takes to cover the story.  Maybe there was just not enough story.

 

Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker and Chris Evans

 

Perhaps I should finally give you an idea of the story:  A dense police officer, more muscle than brain mass, takes a long time to discover his closest associates in the police force were all dirty officers.  When he discovers it,  the fim ends.

One star out of 5, for the actors involved.  Don’t go.  Don’t waste your money.

 

 

A casa de papel, Carlos Maria Dominguez

 

This week, I spent one afternoon reading The House of Paper, by the Argentinean writer Carlos Maria Dominguez. It took only one afternoon. Still I had the time to savor the text; to re-read the novel and to read a couple of passages aloud to my husband. It is a small book; almost a novella: ninety-eight pages long. And yet, it was delightful to enter the magic world of Mr. Dominguez and to play along with him in the room of mirrors he so carefully created.

 

Cover of the Edition in Spanish   

 

 

This novel depicts the behavior of book collectors; or even collectors in general. For their attitudes despite the objects collected (matchbooks, Japanese porcelain or books), their passion, their quirks, and their oddness, are the same. Carlos Maria Dominguez makes us think about excesses, about extreme behavior. His book questions the line between a mad and a sane mind. He focused on books, exploring the consequences of passion for books as objects and repositories of ideas; he shows the traps of purchasing, gathering and collecting them. Where is the limit? He deftly touches on every book lover’s nightmare: which one to keep, where to store it and for how long? After a while, what do you do with books you will no longer read?

 

 Cover of the American edition

 

Indeed, The House of Paper is a long reflection on the art of reading, of studying and of collecting books and ideas. The text is packed full of literary allusions. Several writers and their intriguing lives are mentioned. The ultimate reference or perhaps I should say great affinity this book demonstrates, however, is to Joseph Conrad’s tale of 1917, Shadowline – a title that’s woven through the text, making it the central point of the narrative spread. In Conrad’s story a sailor who wants to leave his profession is seduced into one last trip in which he will captain the ship. He accepts. The trip becomes a nightmare and the men on the boat are led in despair to the edge of madness. Can collecting lead to a form of madness? Where is the line that divides sane from insane when collecting?

It is impossible to read this jewel in one single sitting without losing much of its charm, and certainly all of the text’s possible twists and kinship to others you have already read. It is very compact: a second reading only enriches the experience. Do it once and then again. You won’t regret it. Five stars. You will love it.

 

 

Carlos Maria Dominguez

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You can also find me at:

http://poetsonart.blogspot.com
http://fotolog.com/binkawest
http://ameiavoz.blog.com.br

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A Senhora das Savanas –  Savannah Lady

 

I picked up this book without knowing a thing about the writer. Frankly, I don’t know what caught my eyes, what made me choose it and read the blurb in the back page. But I did it and later had the pleasure to “discover” a new Brazilian writer, who had an interesting story, a good prose, a fast pace, an intriguing location, and a new kind of heroine.

Savannah Lady is set in the African continent, in an imaginary country bordering Angola and Zaire. The main character is a Brazilian physician, who after graduating from the University of São Paulo, joined Doctors without Borders and worked in Africa. She decided to stay in Africa. When the story begins she is directing a small hospital, which belonged to a mining company in what one could call Nowhere’s-Ville, the hinterlands.

The story is set during the years of civil war in Angola, after its independence from Portugal. The two forces of UNITA and the MPLA struggle for power. There are foreign mercenaries everywhere hired by either group. Among them is an Irishman who had spent years fighting for the IRA and who had broken with the separatist movement in Ireland and gone to Africa seeking a living, doing what he knew. Hired by UNITA and despite his being an excellent shot and a good military leader, his platoon had been ambushed outside of Angola, where they had stopped for a break, and every member was killed. He was also believed to have been killed. But he was discovered and saved quite by accident when he was still breathing but near death. Our doctor saves him, without knowing who he is.

He stays in her hospital and together they fight for the hospital to be kept open, even though the mining company has been sold and threats of the hospital’s closing are more real than originally believed.

This is the kind of romance novel that exist by the hundreds in other cultures. England, the US and France are three of the countries that have had such a tradition, rare in Brazilian publications: a hero, in this case a heroine, goes away and makes a tremendous difference in local life far away from her birth place. She is also able to contribute to better international relations.

This could have been an American film. Better yet, it could have been a mini-series for BBC, had our doctor been an American or an English woman, respectively. The big difference is that she is Brazilian. You would not believe how much I enjoyed this small detail. She is a woman who is Brazilian and who is responsible for saving the lives of many. How I wished I had read dozens of books like this one when I was a teenager. In my upbringing, in my generation, only foreign heroines had their lives told or filmed. Brazilians looked so much to the outside, that there were very few Brazilian heroes’ stories told that could inspire either sex.

So this book has everything for me to like it. This is a book of adventures. It is entertaining, with a solid and fast paced narration. It is fun to read. It is light.   It is not concerned in considering the latest philosophical trends, it does not intend to be post-modern, de-constructive or anything else. This is a novel for the entire family to read, all generations. It would be a great basis for a movie script. It gives us a good feel of what life could be in that Africa, and how groups fighting for power get to be involved in everyday life.

I like it and I recommend it. If you want some good entertainment, a good read for a long weekend, go ahead. This is your book!

You can also find me at:

http://poetsonart.blogspot.com
http://fotolog.com/binkawest
http://ameiavoz.blog.com.br

 

 

In the last two decades of the 20th c. Raleigh, North Carolina, had a booming economy and a large number of newcomers. More and different housing were required. Developments, entire communities popped up, sometimes around a lake but most often around a golf course. Initially they were just regular streets with expensive houses. But soon these developments became exclusive communities, gated, with their own social structure: smaller houses in one part, larger houses in another. In one area all houses had shingled roofs, in another only asphalt black tiles were permitted. These communities had several sports facilities, pre-schools, elementary schools and very strict rules of behavior within the community — all of this to address some sense of security. No one bothered to question the clipping of one’s freedoms, even if small: the choices of your house’s exterior colors, building styles, the landscaping of front yards. To someone living outside these communities, it appeared as if one needed to adjust oneself to the house, instead of having a home that expressed who you were.

Claudia Piñeiro’s book, As viúvas das quintas-feiras, portrays such a community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Like its American counterpart, those who live in Altos de la Cascada believe they not only breathe a purer air than everyone else in the world, but they deserve to have that kind of luxury. Indeed they go to that golf course community much for the same reasons an American from Detroit would want to go to such a development in Raleigh: a need not to mix with the “dangerous” crowds in the city, with the poor, the needy, the inner city social outcasts.

But when hard times come, these are the people least capable to deal with change. They are the least able to keep their dignity and pride unhurt, for they have lived such protected lives, believing their world was exempt from anything wrong, anything bad, anything devious. In this book, not even the country’s economic crisis was able to guide those living in the gated community to accept a different kind of living. And those who did were frequently laughed at, criticized behind their backs. Set at the turn of the 21st c. in Argentina, when the country entered in financial chaos, the inhabitants of Altos de la Cascada prefer to ignore and run away from the problems than to deal with the realities of bankruptcy and loss of jobs.

Cover of the Argentinean edition  

 

The novel has a good, fast pace for its first two thirds, losing some of its magic in the last chapters, but it does have an unexpected ending. This revived my interest in the narration. Not only the women — the Thursday’s widows, as they are know — are portrayed. Their husbands, their children are just as much part of the plot and equally responsible for the novel’s outcome. We are presented with subjects that are not so often talked about in light novels: anti-Semitism, skin color prejudices, wife beating, and strange sexual preferences. And to increase the interest there is also a mystery to be solved.

I thought this was a good book to take along on a small vacation, a long weekend. It depicts a world we all know, and makes us wonder if indeed, this modern mania of living only with our peers, of exiling oneself from the social texture, is worth anything.

This book was awarded the Clarín Literary Prize in 2005.

 

 

Cláudia Piñeiro, foto A. Lopez

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You can also find me at the following:

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br
http://poetsonart.blogspot.com
http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

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The Sea, cover of the Brazilian edition.

 

          Only this month have I had a chance to read John Banville’s The Sea. I had been waiting for the proper moment to read it, something like a quiet, rainy weekend, for I have been acquainted with some of his earlier works — which I truly enjoyed – and I knew how reflexive his style was. I rightly imagined it would require my undivided attention and careful reading. In addition I confess that I came to this book with great expectations: I am a lover of English books and have systematically been in agreement with the Man Booker prize selections and winners for several years.

 

The Sea, cover of the British edition.

 

          I first got acquainted with John Banville’s work in the late 80s, when I had the opportunity to spend a couple of years in Europe. At that time John Banville was not as well known a writer and I had that delightful feeling of “discovering a new talent that no one else knew about.” Of course he had already been well discovered, but among my group of friends I was the first. My introduction to his work was Newton’s Letter, which, though a small masterpiece, gave me the opportunity to brag about his talents with friends. He had won me over. I then read Kepler and later on I read The Book of Evidence. Since neither of the last two compared with Newton’s Letter, I took a vacation from his work for I feared I had just overdosed on the writer.

The Sea, cover of the American edition

 

          So I was doubly disappointed after finishing The Sea. First, for disagreeing with the 2005 choice of the Man Booker prize. Not that Banville didn’t deserve it. Of course he did; but not for this book. Second, I was disappointed with the book itself, whose narrative I found to be self-indulgent and manipulative, despite the beautifully crafted language. I thought the story rather common, with foreseeable consequences and I felt that the narrator was deliberately circuitous, his stream-of-consciousness style a mere excuse to transform what should have been a short story into a small novel.

          Of course John Banville is a fine craftsman and great master of the English language, which he has always used with precision and this novel is no exception. There are throughout the text precious phrases, poetic pearls, clever observations that could easily outlast the book. Not known for particularly endearing characters, John Banville in this novel has given time and space to a despicable main narrator; something that further distanced me from the pure enjoyment of his style. He is still, however, an excellent writer despite all his efforts to antagonize the reader with his characters. It becomes impossible therefore not to give him four out of a maximum of five stars. But I would not recommend this book as an introduction to Banville’s work.

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     John Banville

 

For further information on the author:

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth13

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 You can also find me at the following:

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://poetsonart.blogspot.com

http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

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          At the end of February I took some days off – one entire week — from my regular activities to attend the First Symposium of 19th century Brazilian Art taking place in Rio de Janeiro. One full week of papers from 20 minutes to one hour, covered a wide spectrum of subjects from architecture, sculpture, and paintings to all other related cultural expressions. 

         

Back Entrance: Casa de Rui Barbosa

 

          Even though I am an art historian, all of my studies were done abroad. The fields I specialized in never included either Latin American or Brazilian art. My specialties were strictly European. But Brazil followed the rhythm established in Europe, particularly in France, in the 19th C., and those artists and those movements I studied quite well.

Casa de Rui Barbosa’s backyard

 

          The location couldn’t be better. It took place in the Museum and Cultural Center Casa de Rui Barbosa, located in the Botafogo neighborhood, one block from a Metro Station. The house itself is a tourist attraction. Rui Barbosa was a famous a law maker, a statesman and a journalist. He was born in 1849 in Bahia State and died in 1923.

 

 

          The house itself was built in 1850 for the Baron of Lagoa. In neo-classical style it has all doors and window frames set in granite and in its front are mounted sculptures representing the four continents. It is 4 stories high. Rui Barbosa purchased it from the Englishman John Roscoe Allen in 1895. Not only is the house worth a visit, but it has a most beautiful garden of about 27,000 square feet with fruit trees, and an iron trellis for grape vines. At the end of the terrain, a modern building was built to house the Research Department of the Foundation. And it was there that the Congress took place.

 

 

 

          I don’t know how many people participated altogether in the week’s sessions, but many times the large auditorium was filled by what looked like young faculty members and graduate students from all over the country. National congregations in Brazil are difficult. This is an extremely large country. It is larger in territory than the continental United States. Professors and students in the humanities, as in many countries in the world, here are not paid well enough to justify regular airplane traveling crisscrossing the country. And travel grants are virtually unheard of here. But for the purposes of this gathering, the entire country was well represented with scholars from the deepest South to the Amazon Region, working on 19th c. art. It was impressive to say the least.

           It was obvious, after this week, that there is much to be done in terms of art historical studies. But it was rewarding to see that some long-held prejudices regarding the evolution of the fine arts in Brazil were being questioned and frequently discarded. I refer to questions about the quality of the craftsmanship and the obsessive search for a so-called Brazilian DNA, as it were, in the arts. I was reminded of US art history studies in the late 1960s, when many still looked at American art as a poor cousin of their European counterparts.

         Many of the great names in Brazilian early 20th c. art were present as objects of study but from the perspective of Brazilian 19th century influences on these painters. Cândido Portinari is one whose works were mentioned, as were the works of those who participated in the 1922 Modern Art Week as it happened with Tarsila do Amaral.

 

José Ferraz de ALMEIDA JR, (Brasil 1850-1899) Fishing, 1894, oil on board, Private Collection.

 

          However, the strength of what was demonstrated was the study of 19th c. art within the context of 19th c. society in Brazil. Few, outside of Brazil, are aware that this period was characterized by a unique form of government in the New World. Brazil had its own Royal family, and two kings, after it became independent from Portugal. The monarchy in Brazil, after independence, lasted from 1822-1889. This was a crucial period in the development of any of the countries in the Americas. They were almost all recently independent and sought a national identity rooted in that “infant” faze, as it were. And having a monarch, having a nobility, having an economy based on the exploitation of African slavery – something that had been installed since 1540 in the country, were the bone structure, one could say, of the adult Brazil would become in the 21st c.

 

Pedro WEINGÄRTNER, (Brasil 1853-1929) Tempora Mutantum, 1898, oil on canvas, Museu de Arte do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul.

 

          I look forward to the next 19th century Congress of Brazilian art. I believe Brazilians are finally coming to terms with their identity independent of Brazilian fine arts as seen from the European perspective.

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For more information on the Rui Barbosa Museum:

http://www.casaruibarbosa.gov.br/

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For infomation on Brazilian 19th c. art:

In Portuguese:

http://www.dezenovevinte.net/

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You can also find me at the following:

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://poetsonart.blogspot.com

http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

 

 

I’ve just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, a Moroccan-born French writer, who delights the reader with a witty, humorous and ironic story, set in Paris, in a wealthy neighborhood.

We are guided through these pages by two very different narrators: a smart pre-teen girl, who perceives much more of the false values of her family, her friends, her world at large than she is given credit for; and by a very well read, self-taught, and sharp-witted concierge, who is also capable of noticing much more than she lets on. Through their eyes we discover the world they have in common. At almost every other chapter we share the thoughts of one of them. In the Brazilian edition, each character is given a different typeset, so the chapters do look different from one another. This is a helpful device, but I am not sure it’s completely necessary, since their thoughts and personalities are substantially different. Eventually these two outcasts, each in her own social class, encounter each other, become friends, cross cultural barriers established by centuries of civilization and discover in one another the great familiarity common to those who think and analyze the world they live in.

The action takes place almost in its entirety in a luxurious building, at Rue de Grenelle, 7 . This is where Renée the concierge lives and works; it also where our precocious adolescent, Paloma, lives with her family. Both spend their lives attempting to erase their marks from the world and succeed in being quite unnoticeable to others. Even though they have a rich interior life, and miss very little of what people’s intentions and prejudices are. They guard against indiscretions and deceitful behavior so as not to be caught and have to account for their sensitive and witty commentaries on the behaviors of those around them.

They are discovered by none other than an oriental, a Japanese man, who moves into this bourgeois shelter of Parisian upper class causing much curiosity. He, however, assumes that he is indeed an outsider, despite his precise use of the French language and as an outsider can reach in and bring forth Renée and Paloma’s personalities, encouraging them to come out of the closet, as it were.

The book is full of witty remarks about modern life; very humorous descriptions of expected behaviors, and ironic coincidences that make the text perfect for gems on the nature of writing, the nature of literature, on old age, psychoanalysis and many other aspects of modern life. All of this comes wrapped in witty word choices, ironic contrasts and humorous tones. I found myself occasionally laughing out loud. And if you are, like me, who likes to select a wonderful phrase, to underline a particularly sharp observation, who marks your book in pencil, to come back later on to specific outstanding passages, you will find yourself having to keep a pencil sharpener close by, and resign yourself to a book full of notations and lead marks.

In many aspects this book reminded me because of its wit and humor the works of the Belgian artist René Magritte and his famous contradictions between image and painting, as seen in the series: Ceci n’est pas une pipe.  As a matter of fact, Muriel Barbery may have honored the painter since one of her main characters is Renée, the feminine form for Magritte’s given name. Just as in this book she names two sisters: Paloma and Colombe, both meaning “dove” in different languages.  Indeed, Ms.  Barbery is a philosophy professor and certainly familiar with Magritte’s plays on words, which have in the latter part of the 20th century illustrated many modern philosophical currents.  I am almost certain that the next time I read this novel I will find other interesting “coincidences”.

Frankly, I read a lot, and it has been a long time since I was so charmed and enthralled. I recommend this book with all the stars. This is definitely a book for those who love books and ideas.

 

  Writer,  Muriel Barbery. 

 

René Magritte (Belgium  1898-1967)  Ceci n’est pas une pipe

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For more information on this book:

http://www.evene.fr/livres/livre/muriel-barbery-l-elegance-du-herisson-21524.php

For information on the writer:

http://muriel.barbery.net

For information on René Magritte:

http://www.magritte.com

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You can also find me at the following:

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://poetsonart.blogspot.com

http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

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Over this past holiday season I asked to receive as a gift Ondjaki’s People from My Street.  I felt I had to taste again from his prose, so delighted I had been earlier on with his Good Morning, Comrades, a book I proposed for the January 2008 meeting of the Papa-livros Book Club, a group of readers meeting every month for the past five years to discuss current, interesting literature in Portuguese.

And I was again delighted to witness his style had not changed and that the same enchantment I had experienced from the first book was also present in the twenty-two very short stories that make up this book. Ondjaki’s great talent for seeing the world through a child’s eye is unique and his lyricism imprints with ease in our hearts the reality of his characters. I continue to like his work and recommend to all of those interested in good literature.  Literarure that will keep you smiling and dreaming while acquainting yourself with modern Angola.   People from My Street is a small pill of enchantment and hope.

For a review of Ondjaki’s Good Morning, Comrades, please see this blog’s December 2007 entry.

 

                             Ondjaki

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For more information on this book:

http://ondjaki.tripod.com

http://www.linguageral.com.br

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You can also find me at the following:

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

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I had seen this book in several bookstores in Lima, Peru, last October. But I don’t read well in Spanish, so when I came home I thought it interesting to find the Portuguese version of it, which had recently been released.  Ignorant of the author’s previous works I purchased it as a souvenir of my recent trip. And it took me a while to get to it because I didn’t care for the title: the emphasis on a woman’s weight or size just pushed me away. Eventually I got to it. Was I glad! It is a great book, and I realized it only in the end, and then several hours and a couple of days later, because I had to go back and back, unraveling it in my imagination and talking it over with my buttons. I like books that make me think.

Two teenage girls form a friendship in school which was very important to each girl while it lasted. Years later, as adults they meet. Each has had a fair share of luck and success in her destiny, though neither one is fully satisfied. As they engage in a new way of relating we begin to discover not only the powerful dormant emotions each had about their friendship but also to unveil the tragic event had led these two friends — who in each way needed each other — to part their ways.

The story line is clear as is the manner in which the characters are portrayed. There is an attention to detail of everyday actions, that initially appeared inconsequential, but which were extremely well worked as a multi-layered curtain hiding the emotions of the two main characters.

Finely paced, masterfully colloquial and modern, Alonso Cueto is in complete control of the narration from beginning to end. We discover, as these two women remember their lives, the need adolescents have for belonging, and how teens can be most cruel to each other. We perceive the depth of the wounds these years can inflict and how difficult it is sometimes to overcome them.

After experiencing Alonso Cueto’s writing it was not surprising for me to discover that he is a well known Peruvian writer who has had more than a dozen books published and has received several awards for his fiction including the 1985 Viracocha Award with “El Tigre Blanco”; the 2005 Herralde Award with “Hora Azul”. In 2002 he received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Writers and in 2003 his book “Grandes Miradas” was made into a film directed by Francisco Lombardi.

This is a book about friendship, loyalty, rage and vengeance. It is about crippled souls and their survival techniques. It has a surprising end: iconographical and beautiful. It is not surprising that it was a finalist for the Planeta Prize, of Iberian-American Narrative in 2007. I strongly recommend it. And I will suggest it for my book club’s next reading.

 Foto: Walter Craveiro

Alonso Cueto speaks at FLIP [Feira Literária Internacional de Parati]  — Parati International Book  Fair –  in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, 2007.

 

For more information on this edition:

http://www.editoraplaneta.com.br

Information on Alonso Cueto:

http://www.librosperuanos.com/autores/alonso_cueto

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You can also find me at the following: 

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest

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