Horacio Castellanos Moya
Auteur van Senselessness
Over de Auteur
Werken van Horacio Castellanos Moya
Envejece un perro tras los cristales: Cuaderno de Tokio seguido de Cuaderno de Iowa (Literatura Random House) (2020) 3 exemplaren
L'homme apprivoisé 2 exemplaren
Homem em Armas (Portuguese Edition) 1 exemplaar
La metamorfosis del sabueso (Spanish Edition) 1 exemplaar
Qusigno es usted, ni Berta? 1 exemplaar
Recuento de Incertidumbres 1 exemplaar
Indolencia 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers: An Anthology (2007) — Medewerker — 144 exemplaren
A Thousand Forests in One Acorn: An Anthology of Spanish-Language Fiction (2014) — Medewerker — 42 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Castellanos Moya, Horacio
- Geboortedatum
- 1957-11-21
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- El Salvador
- Geboorteplaats
- Tegucigalpa, Honduras
- Woonplaatsen
- Tegucigalpa, Honduras (birth)
San Salvador, El Salvador
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
San José, Costa Rica
Mexico City, Mexico
Frankfurt am Main, Germany (toon alle 7)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA - Beroepen
- journalist
novelist
Leden
Besprekingen
Lijsten
Prijzen
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Gerelateerde auteurs
Statistieken
- Werken
- 30
- Ook door
- 3
- Leden
- 964
- Populariteit
- #26,708
- Waardering
- 3.7
- Besprekingen
- 54
- ISBNs
- 96
- Talen
- 8
- Favoriet
- 3
Laura Rivera is superficial and spoiled. A self-absorbed chatterbox whose high-school graduation gift was a BMW -- her school quite conspicuously having been the American school, of course -- and who's never had a day of responsibility in her life.
Her very good friend Olga Maria is murdered just before the novel begins. On page one Laura is attending the wake, and in subsequent chapters, attends the funeral, the requiem service, and other related events following the murder, all the while chattering your ear off.
But what lovely, lilting, priceless chatter it is. Unlike Thomas Bernhard, whose unbroken streams of consciousness can sometimes weigh us down like leaden eyeglasses, requiring (quite worthwhile!) effort both to understand and to emotionally invest, Moya's text is airy, breezy, effortlessly propelling the narrative.
And what an unreliable narrator she is. Narcissistic, self-centered, divorced in her late 20s or early 30s, with nothing kind to say about her ex, very clearly in her own little world. But the story comes through her chatter nonetheless.
And what a story it is. Love affairs, politics, drugs, military abuses, capitalism versus communism versus religion versus everyone versus everything. There is corruption along every angle. Laura's anti-communist, anti-clerical father has had his lands confiscated in the past, giving this story's background an critical personal angle, but somehow the family appear to have remained wealthy.
Little by little, Laura reveals the details of her murdered friend's life, documenting one uncomfortable revelation after another. Chief Detective Handal is simultaneously her hope and her nemesis. She wants him to solve the case, but she is quite hostile to him from the very beginning -- surprisingly hostile, I'd say -- and continually insists he is an idiot who refuses to see the truth. Which, of course, she sees quite clearly.
At some point you realize that you've stopped focusing on the nattering narration, and started focusing on the murder mystery unfolding before you. You excitedly start assembling the facts, you eagerly start wondering who could have done what. You bewilderingly take note of scandal after scandal, in-fight after in-fight, while everything billows upward and blows up.
And then the narrative ends.
And then you ask yourself: What just happened??
And then you re-read the last chapter.
And then you get it.
This book should be required reading for all students of creative writing, and all fans of great literature. It's a small jewel of a book, fun to read, but deceptively profound.… (meer)