Empress of the Splendid Season

Rating:
Summary: Not his best but very enjoyable.
Review: "Empress of the Splendid Season" is the story of Lydia Espana, who was a society girl in Cuba before the revolution and who doesn't have such a wonderful life when she emigrates to New York. She is a very complex character, filled with longings and human frailities, but a positive character who is even heroic at times in a modest way. She meets and falls in love with a waiter and they have two children. When Lydia's husband, Raul, becomes ill with his heart, she has to assume the responsibility of supporting the family by her work as a "cleaning lady." She's forced to give up her dreams of romance and of a better life.

This is a wonderful book, well worth the time and effort it takes to read it. Oscar Hijuelos is one of the best writers around and fans of his work will not be disappointed by this one. However, I had the impression that this book doesn't break any new ground and doesn't quite rise to the level of his great earlier novels, "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" and "Mr. Ives' Christmas."

Rating:
Summary: A splendid look into Latin American life
Review: Hijuelos has a way with his words that makes this book easy to read and enjoy.
The story is interesting and captivating. I really enjoyed his portrayal of Latin Americans.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: I kept thinking I was missing something, so I would go back to it, but it never kept my attention, and I did not care about the characters. Quite a dissapointment. I would not reccomend this read. I very rarely put a book down before the end, but I have not even hit page 100 and I am done! Oh well...

Rating:
Summary: Another Beautiful Character Study From Hijuelos
Review: In EMPRESS OF THE SPLENDID SEASON, Oscar Hijuelos does again what he does best: he creates a unique and unforgettable character, in this case, Lydia Espana Colon.

Lydia was the "spoiled, rich daughter" of a small town Cuban mayor whose life takes a definite turn for the worse when she's banished to New York City's Spanish Harlem for daring to love a man her father didn't approve of.

In New York, instead of being catered to, Lydia must do the catering. She becomes a cleaning woman for a wealthy WASP family...the Ospreys...to help support her husband, Raul, a waiter and their two children, Rico and Alicia.

Hijuelos always creates strong characters, but Lydia really dominates EMPRESS OF THE SPLENDID SEASON and with good reason. She's proud. She's arrogant. She's even something of a bully. She manages to alienate both her son and her daughter by insisting that they live their lives "her" way rather than their own way.

Hijuelos makes Lydia's character even more complex by making her a carbon copy of the rigid and unforgiving father she can't forgive; the father who drove her away from him just as Lydia, herself, is driving her own children away from her.

To Hijuelos' enormous credit, the reader not only understands why Lydia does what she does, he actually admires her for doing it. In another brilliant piece of characterization, Hijuelos makes Lydia's weaknesses, her strengths. Her pride and vanity hold her family together and keep them from falling into depression and despair, especially when Raul's health begins to deteriorate.

EMPRESS OF THE SPLENDID SEASON contains several subplots, most of them centering around the children of Raul and Lydia and exploring the assimilation of Cuban immigrants into US society. I thought these subplots enriched the book, but the characters of Rico and Alicia, as well as Raul's estranged son from another marriage, simply pale when compared to the character of Lydia. She overshadows them all. This is definitely Lydia's book and Lydia's story.

Hijuelos' prose is, as always, very fluid, his transitions seamless. The narrative contains little dialogue and is rather elegant and even stilted (but in a good way). It's prose that one associates with elegance, with good breeding, with gentility. It's prose befitting Lydia, herself.

EMPRESS OF THE SPLENDID SEASON isn't Hijuelos' best book, but it's better than 99.9% of the books out there. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who loves Cuban-American literature (Hijuelos has no equal when it comes to this) and to anyone simply looking for a wonderful, character driven book.

Rating:
Summary: The Empress of the Splendid Season, Lydia
Review: It never ceases to amaze me that a male author can "capture" the spirit of a female, and represent a female as well as this author does. I also respect his ability to illuminate poverty--what it feels like to be poor, a minority, a stranger in a strange land. This author has much wisdom about the counter-balancing force of a strong worth ethic in this poor woman's life. The striving is melancholy; the mentality of poverty is in part that things will never change. She has a chronic sorrow . . . But Lydia is a lifelong learner, I feel, and a person able to adapt.

Rating:
Summary: A splendid look into Latin American life
Review: Oscar Hijuelos writes of people with intense rich interior lives. These are people we admire for their emotional constancy and pity for their obsessions. I've read three of Oscar Hijuelos' novels. This is the least engaging of the three, but still a very nice book.

Rating:
Summary: Never judge a book by its cover..
Review: This book is impossible to read. It is sooooooo boring. There is really no plot to it, just description after description. I found myself rereading passages thinking "I'm missing something." Finally I gave up. Thank God for Borders' book exchange policy.

Rating:
Summary: Hijuelos goes on auto-pilot
Review: This is a novel that could be turned into a dramatic and engaging movie along the lines of "Mambo Kings." Nothing happens in this or other Hijeulos novels of great magnitude beyond the small circles of characters they embrace. But that's what makes this book great. He does a good job of transporting the reader into the lives of nobody important but who are filled with great dreams and aspirations. And there's enough intelligence and political and social commentary to elevate it beyond the typical hack drama and movie of the week dribble that books like this often are. It won't change the world, but it's an engaging and enjoyable read.