Rating: 
Summary: images of narration
Review: A Peruvian writer explores his own past when he encounters a picture of a Machiguenga storyteller in an Italian gallery. He believes that ths storyteller in the photograph is not himself Machinguenga, but is instead a friend of his youth, Saul Zuratas.A story about telling stories, and all the different ways that there are to tell (and receive) stories. From the Kafka parrot, to the narrator's stint as a television producer, to the storyteller's stories themselves, this is a book which struggles with identity and with the real. The character of Saul is notable for his lack of place and his struggle as both a monster and an angel to exist in the world of Peru. The translation felt smooth, although it was rough enough in places that I was sorry for my inability to read Spanish. It's easy to get a bit lost in the beginning, and the stories of the storytellers seem to have lost at least a little bit in translation-- although at which level of language isn't clear to me.
Rating: 
Summary: A kind of magic
Review: A story of magic and pasion. In somewhere, in the Peruvian Amazon there's a man that preserves the memory of a tribe that the time and the progress?!? (nor the religion or the factories) have not killed yet. This tribe keep their miths alive because of this storyteller, who is always walking, looking for new stories to tell, there in the hughe jungle.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing story of an anthropologist who goes 'native'
Review: Having lived in Latin America, and being Jewish, I was amazed at Vargas Llosa's ability to describe his 'friend' - a Peruvian Jew from a small town, who moves to Lima with his father, but who cannot fit in, no matter where he goes. A brilliant student, who refuses to accept a grant to study in Europe. Instead, he turns his back on academia and on everything he knows to move permanently to the Amazon and live in a nomadic fashion with a tribe. He takes on the role as their 'storyteller'; and he is finally able to find his place in the world. What impressed me the most is the author's ability to describe the inability of this minority within a minority - a Jew from a small town in Peru - to be able to fit in anywhere. The author has a tremendous insight and sensitivity re: Jewish people generally, particularly Jews in Latin America, and the plight of the main character in particular. I have not read anything quite like this book. I highly recommend it. It is also wonderful how he weaves actual Indian myths into the story.
Rating:
Summary: Insight of storytelling, writing, and the human mind
Review: I picked up this book at a used bookstore, intrigued with what I thought would be an interesting storyline: a modern man goes through a stunning transformation into that of a savage, seen from the viewpoint of an old friend staring at his picture in Florence, trying to imagine the journey his friend had taken upon himself, alone, scarred, and in the dense jungle of magic.
After the first few captivating pages (one of the best beginnings I have ever read), It became apparent that there was much more to this book than a story about a Peruvian academic and outsider becoming a Machiguenga. It is a story of a writer's obsession with his craft, and his seeking of a deeper meaning in stories, and his exhaustive search into these mysterious storytellers of the jungle, and how it will validate his own strange seeking in the world of words.
It is the story of an outsider, now a central member of an exclusive and ancient order, of the determination and resolve, ("that of a lunatic or a saint"), that drove him onward. It blends the academic intelligence of Borges and the magic of Marquez, but better, and with a fervor and intelligence that betrays an intellect to be reckoned with.
It is a masterpiece. Bravo Llosa.
Rating:
Summary: We need more Sauls!
Review: I read this book years ago for the first time and was blown away by the style and story from the start. I think this is Mario Vargas-Llosa's best book but I am sure there are many that would debate me on that point. The writing coming in alternating chapters between the Peruvian author writing of his college friend who disappeared and the hablador works beautifully to keep suspense. Actually, on first read the hablador's writings can be a bit cryptic but very poetic and that, if focused on, gets the message across. The translator on this work should be commended. The English flows so beautifully that one has to wonder how many hours were spent to do this and if the translator is not a gifted hablador themselves!
Rating:
Summary: quilt of mirrors
Review: Kafka and Joyce would've loved this multi-storied story. Taking us from Florence to Peru's urban and jungle life in a single bound, the author gives us a friend's devotion, and a people's insular lore. A perspective on perspectives, the book's rarified heights of awareness open vistas on storytelling as a cultural bloodstream: anti-establishment, subversive and yet nutrient-rich. Who, though, will follow in the storyteller's footsteps? Llosa is a mental emperor contemplating existence as a cockroach, a peruvian dreaming he's an innocent primitive, a sophisticate drinking expresso, dreaming of pristine jungle streams, and strains of stravinsky amid the confusion of birdsong. Llosa shows us the fly on the wall's complex view of the mind and the ingenuity and prerequisites of elemental humanity's endurance.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This book has the most amazing sense of voice and character I have ever read. The storyteller recounts the Machiguengas' mythology, day to day life, and even a few familiar stories (Kafka's The Metamorphosis) with an achingly beautiful love for the subject matter combined with the bitter knowledge that all this might be lost. The writer in Firenze sounds like a writer, constantly making connections between actions and the larger, metaphorical picture. The book delves into more than just a tribe, but the human mind as well. I think I'll read it again, next time in Spanish.
Rating:
Summary: Well Written
Review: This book weaves together the lives of a Peruvian man who goes to live with an ancient tribe in the Amazon and a college friend who is haunted by the thought of the tribes. It alternates between sections of the writer`s life and the stories told deep in the rainforest. At first these seem incoherent and leave the reader groping for something left out, but the last section of storytelling is lyrical, the best piece I have read for quite a while, and we finally understand.
The traslation is admirable, and the prose is descriptive and readable. I would reccommend this especially to those interested in Spanish culture or storytelling.
Rating:
Summary: Well Written
Review: This book weaves together the lives of a Peruvian man who goes to live with an ancient tribe in the Amazon and a college friend who is haunted by the thought of the tribes. It alternates between sections of the writer`s life and the stories told deep in the rainforest. At first these seem incoherent and leave the reader groping for something left out, but the last section of storytelling is lyrical, the best piece I have read for quite a while, and we finally understand.
The traslation is admirable, and the prose is descriptive and readable. I would reccommend this especially to those interested in Spanish culture or storytelling.
Rating: 
Summary: And so it goes.
Review: This is one of those books that you can tell is a really great book. It exudes deep thoughts, alienated characters, and cultural sensitivity. It reeks of innovative storytelling techniques, challenges to provoke the reader, and a finely tuned moral sensibility. And yet, somehow, I did not care for it. The story concerns a Peruvian writer, reminiscing about a friend from his youth, who disappeared after developing an intense interest in one of Amazonian Peru's last remote indigenous tribes, the Machiguengas. What makes the book unusual is that a large portion of the text is dedicated to narratives of Machiguenga legend, as told by one of their habladores, a sort of travelling storyteller. The storyteller is the two-legged storehouse of cultural knowledge, and he wanders from each of the small and temporary Machiguenga family settlements, passing on collective wisdom. It is these segments which have probably brought the book as much acclaim as it has, but for me, they made for very difficult reading and their great length and apparent loose connection to the plot caused me to become detached from the framing story. Reading this book is like eating vegetables, or taking bitter medicine. It is a great book in that it will make you think; it is powerful in that way. But I suspect many readers will have as difficult a time as I had in making it through the habladore's stories; I'd suggest skipping them, but then you lose the point of the novel.
|
