Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Inquisitors' Manual by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Richard Zenith ISBN: 0-8021-1732-5 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 10 December, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Readable Consciousness Novel
Comment: Most reputable journals have already reviewed this novel favorably, and inside these reviews most have mentioned its author as the perennial Nobel prize contender.
Presumably, then, there is no need to defend the novel's literary merits.
Instead, I will focus on why I love this novel:
Besides the torrential prose that bends itself on the page like the best of Woolf, and besides the summation of consciousnesses that together trap the aftermath of a dictatorship like no plot-based narrative could, this novel surprises the reader by accomplishing what most time-shifting consciousness novels have never offered us: readability.
The energy of the prose is such that we are fast moving between disparate places in time, but through repetition Antunes creates place holders in the readers' mind, such that you end up with a paragraph like:
"Don't kiss me"
"Open you mouth, you bugger, thanks to you I'll miss the five o'clock bus, Jesus.."
"Don't cry Francisco, please don't cry, it's useless to cry"
the elm trees on the square of Palmela, the melancholy Major spreading wide his dismayed hands
"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do, official instructions from the Prime Minister, we can't antagonize supporters.."
Confusing, yes, but only if we had not heard those phrases over and over before. In the aforementioned paragraph, the character's consciousness wanders to three different time periods, and yet the reader seamlessly jumps time along with the character's mind because phrases like "don't kiss me" have already being repeated in fully developed scenes.
Since this' an Amazon review I do not have to end with a summarizing literary sound-bity sentence.
Ack.
Oh, and if you love Saramago and Marquez's "Autumn of the Patriarch," you'll love Antunes.
Rating: 2
Summary: This isn't a bad book, but
Comment: I thought this book had a great deal of potential. The subject matter was bleak, yet it had purpose. Stream of consciousness can be quite enlightening when done right. Unfortunetly, I could not get involved in this book. Perhaps it was because it is a translation, but I don't know. There were certain passages that were quite lyrical, while others left me totally lost. Perhaps one day I will try this book again.
 |
Title: Fado Alexandrino by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Gregory Rabassa ISBN: 0802134211 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: The Return of the Caravels by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Gregory Rabasso ISBN: 0802139558 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0670031305 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: An Explanation of the Birds: A Novel by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Richard Zenith ISBN: 0802134203 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
 |
Title: The Natural Order of Things by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Richard Zenith ISBN: 0802138136 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 09 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
