AnyBook4Less.com
Find the Best Price on the Web
Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Developed by Fintix
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |  
 
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money

The Obscene Bird of Night

Please fill out form in order to compare prices
Title: The Obscene Bird of Night
by Jose Donoso, Hardie St. Martin, Leonard Mades, Hardie St Martin, Leonard S. Marcus
ISBN: 1-56792-046-2
Publisher: David R Godine
Pub. Date: June, 2003
Format: Paperback
Volumes: 1
List Price(USD): $18.95
Your Country
Currency
Delivery
Include Used Books
Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble
Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)

Customer Reviews

Rating: 5
Summary: The deformed prism
Comment: The mutations of characters, the non-linear style in which this story is told, the repetitions, shifts in perspective add to make this work a remarkable book. Without a doubt not only one of the finest magical realist works I've ever stumbled upon, but one of the finest novels I have ever read.
As the work has multiple foundations, one of the major ones about Humberto Penaloza, who as a child & adolescent was always told by his father that he must become something, it doesn't matter what, as long as Humberto doesn't go through the same social obscurity that he endures. Later on, he becomes the assistant to Jeronimo, a wealthy politician who is trying to lengthen the family tree. His wife, Ines de Azcoitia is unable to bear him children. Then through either an act of black magic, or Humberto's intimacy Jeronimo is given his child. The child, simply called Boy, is horribly deformed. Jeronimo decides to build the child it's own world, entirely secluded from anything outside of it and surrounded by other people with monstrosities. Humberto is put in charge, and becomes the abnormal one in this newly formed world where deformities is not the exception but the rule. Humberto's abnormality is his plain everyman look, social obscurity. He ends his days in a former catholic church, now peopled by elderly women, either nuns or former servants waiting to die.
This book works on so many different levels & they're always communicating to one another, effortlessly the past becomes the present, it is a hallucinatory poetic parade of the grotesque and the beautfiul, of the grotesque as the beautiful. It is also a commentary on domination in its many forms- husband & wife, father & son, the elderly & the young, master & servant. Sometimes the dominant position is usurped & the roles are reversed.
It's no wonder that both Carlos Fuentes & Luis Bunuel considered it to be a masterpiece.

Rating: 5
Summary: a horror tale
Comment: la vida vista desde las tinieblas de una mente retorcida, de una casa en decadencia, de una muerte que se retrasa y no llega y que es liberacion de podredumbre de la carne. el autor se enfrenta con la decadencia frente a frente y nos da este cuadro de horror. y esa trama tan bien hecha, esos planes de nuestro querido narrador humberto penaloza, alias el mudito, que nos lleva por la novela por caminos que no sabemos cuando terminan sus suenos y cuando empieza su realidad. el plan de la educacion de boy, su aljamiento del mundo, fantasia, realidad? la vejes, vista como decadencia y como fuerza a la vez, fuerza por las cosas que se saben al traves de los anos, las verguenzas que se tapan, los secretos que se esconden, fuerza para ser el patron de tus patrones, para manipularlos con tu humildad.... y ese nino que va a nacer, debe de ser nuestro, estar al servicio de la decadencia, ser nuestro imbunche, depender de nosotros, estar cosido,no caminar ni hablar, que todo dependa de nosotras, las viejas y ahora que soy una de ellas, ya deje de ser luis mendez el que escribe para ser una de ellas de las viejas que comparten el secreto de la iris mateluna, de la guagua milagrosa que va a nacer y de la que yo tambien sere parte y cuidadora porque quiero ir al cielo cuando se vaya y que me lleve con el y me saque de este martirio de tener que observar a jeronimo y ser su lacayo, estar a su servicio. dejare de ser una presencia sobre la que los ojos resbalan para ser una vieja. bueno al menos se que sere alguien y no como mi padre un ser simple admirando la belleza desde lejos, yo estare del otro lado de las cosas bellas, pero no en la mediocridad de sus ojos melancolicos que me miran y miran las vitrinas de lo que no puede comprar y de lo que jamas podra ser.... humberto penaloza.

LUIS MENDEZ [email protected]

Rating: 5
Summary: A truely hypnotic story into magical realism
Comment: This book is a true masterpiece into hallucinatory writing. Donoso captures the essence of classical latin american magical realism while flickering between narratives and schizophrenia. A truely touching novel, full of life, imagery, love and disgust. A masterpiece.

Similar Books:

Title: Paradiso
by Jose Lezama Lima, Gregory Rabassa
ISBN: 156478228X
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr
Pub. Date: April, 2000
List Price(USD): $14.50
Title: Pedro Paramo
by Juan Rulfo, Margaret Sayers Peden, Margaret S. Paden
ISBN: 0802133908
Publisher: Grove Press
Pub. Date: May, 1994
List Price(USD): $11.00
Title: The Lost Steps
by Alejo Carpentier, Harriet De Onis
ISBN: 0816638071
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Pub. Date: March, 2001
List Price(USD): $16.95
Title: The Kingdom of This World
by Alejo Carpentier, Harriet De Onis
ISBN: 0374521972
Publisher: Noonday Press
Pub. Date: 01 September, 1989
List Price(USD): $12.00
Title: The Garden Next Door
by Jose Donoso, Hardie st Martin
ISBN: 0802133681
Publisher: Grove Press
Pub. Date: February, 1994
List Price(USD): $12.00

Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!

Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments

Powered by Apache