Be Specific About Containing Books The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Latin American Trilogy)
| Title | : | The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Latin American Trilogy) |
| Author | : | Louis de Bernières |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 368 pages |
| Published | : | July 29th 1997 by Vintage (first published 1990) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Magical Realism. Humor |
Louis de Bernières
Paperback | Pages: 368 pages Rating: 4.06 | 5705 Users | 342 Reviews
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This is the type of book I really relish: Epic, with myriad POVs &, therefore, too, a plethora of characters: satirical, tragicomic. How can somebody possibly populate this South American Question Mark of a Town? de Bernieres is on the same line as Tolkien and John Kennedy Toole-- his characters are fleshy and complicated. The war is fought at many angles and everybody has a part to play.Don Emmanuel makes a "Queen-Elizabeth-in-"Shakespeare in Love""-like cameo (Dame Judy Dench... in all her splendor), & yet his name is bestowed upon the title; not Remedios, the Guevaraesque woman, the main revolutionary, nor her fellow guerillas (all of which are underdogs and Suffer, yet constantly fight for freedom as in all the best of narratives). It is not "Dona Costanza's Sexual Awakening". It is not "Holocaust in the Tropics". It has a silly, quirky title, and it is exactly this: a silly, quirky novel. It is also relevant, it is bittersweet, it is complex. It is more than one thinks it is. It would fit perfectly with "Slumdog"... dead serious, yet heartfelt to the nth degree (the atrocious rapes and killings are dispersed among vignettes of intense happiness and the unification of native peoples).
There is also the clever prose, the important pseudo-irrelevancies, the constant flights of fancy. De Bernieres obviously has much fun inventing.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is serious and poignant; this more modern storyteller has a larger sense of humor and takes a less direct approach with symbolism; the population of the little besieged town is all of a sudden plagued with cats: the townspeople care about them and integrate them into their rural lives. The cats then become panthers... though there is an obvious exodus, there is, too, a return to a mother land. Oh yes- & according to the Santa figure that is the jolly Don Emmanuel, a cure for the war is... yes, sex. How more simple can it get in its complexity?
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| Original Title: | The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts |
| ISBN: | 0375700137 (ISBN13: 9780375700132) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Latin American Trilogy |
| Setting: | South America |
| Literary Awards: | Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in South Asia and Europe (1991) |
Rating Containing Books The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Latin American Trilogy)
Ratings: 4.06 From 5705 Users | 342 ReviewsCrit Containing Books The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Latin American Trilogy)
I couldnt resist tapping into the early work of an author who flashed like a comet into my reading pleasure with his delightful and stirring Captain Corellis Mandolin (1994) and Birds Without Wings (2004). While the former delved into a Greek island community invaded by Italians in World War 2. the latter rendered a portrait of a multicultural community in Anatolia shaken from death throes of the Ottoman empire and World War 1. Here our ensemble cast is from a village in some nameless SouthThis is the first of de Bernieres' Latin American trilogy, set in a fictional South American country, heavily resembling Colombia (but with elements from many other Latin American countries as well). The plot follows multiple story lines and protagonists, including several villagers in the town of Chiriguaná, who are terrorized by corrupt militia, and the selfishness of the local landowners, and eventually decide to fight back. Other parts of the story show the terrible corruption of the
This is the type of book I really relish: Epic, with myriad POVs &, therefore, too, a plethora of characters: satirical, tragicomic. How can somebody possibly populate this South American Question Mark of a Town? de Bernieres is on the same line as Tolkien and John Kennedy Toole-- his characters are fleshy and complicated. The war is fought at many angles and everybody has a part to play.Don Emmanuel makes a "Queen-Elizabeth-in-"Shakespeare in Love""-like cameo (Dame Judy Dench... in all her
Its a masterpiece. A hullabaloo (which somehow succeeds to make sense) of all the highlights of Latin America, its forests, its magic, its corruption, its revolution, its heat, its way of life, its passionate people and all of its energy - all merged into this fictitious country which Bernieres creates.
This was honestly higher than a 4-star for me...not quiet a 5-star, but I am having trouble putting my finger on why. Perhaps I worry that what I liked about it was a little too personal and might not gel with others (although why that should influence my rating is yet another unresolved mystery).The first aspect of this book that struck me was the setting. I spent a decent amount of time in Ecuador and Chile, and considerable amounts of time studying the region. de Bernieres does a great job of
I feel inherently bad whenever I decide to rate a book with such a dismal rating as 1 Star. Yes, I am fully aware that my opinionated 1 means diddlysquat in the totality of things; that I am just a minuscule reader, one of millions, and my less than stellar rating is predictable should a publisher or an author apply even the most rudimentary standards of the law of averages. Yet even so, there is a dread and a hollowness that comes when I find myself decisively clicking 1 as a measure of the
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