The Obscene Bird of Night (Verba Mundi)

Rating:
Summary: a horror tale
Review: 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 [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: The best in surrealism
Review: Rarely is a book more complex, more funny or more harrowing. The magical tale of Humberto Penazola who spends the last days of his life in a convent taking care of old women, is narrated through a series of surreal hallucinations. Questions of his identity and his sexuality are explored beyond the realms of imagination. Tumbling through a dark spiral of black magic - this book is a MUST read for one and all!!

Rating:
Summary: The deformed prism
Review: 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:
Summary: Fantastical
Review: This novel is the most weird and fantastical novel I have ever read. This, of course, means it is one of the best. The plot is surreal, the words are deep and rich, and it is so original, so beautiful and so brave, that any reader if affected by it.
When reading, you are plunged into such a different world that the images created encase you, lock you into the plot.
This novel, is a step into the mist for anyone who has only stuck to the odd thriller. It is a opening to wider horizons - that of magic realism.