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blueyorkie's review against another edition
2.0
There are none for those accustomed to political and explicit allegories, which may disappoint some fans more assiduously. This book of short stories, very brief in its six narratives with a simple background, had such violence that operates between the lines and where the center of the stories is a male character.
deanjean_reads's review against another edition
3.0
My first exposure to Mario Vargos Llosa. Oh boy, if only somebody could have warned me what I was about to face...
The prose is a spectacular, tangled mess, as thick and tangled as the intertwined vines of the Amazon foliage. One is dragged into a single sentence of colour, violence, exotica and ruin, which one soon realizes is a plot of sorts after finishing a chapter, but the next chapter ends up being another subplot with three other different characters. After some chin scratching, several paths become more recognisable in the plots - that of Bonificia, the champs, the bandits and Father García. However, one has to search within the text to surmise who is who, or what is happening, or the chronology of the events.
I must confess that the whole book gave me a headache, but going along with the chaotic flow grants one a perverse happiness in a 'well, since the plot is already fucked, what the fuck is going to happen next?' manner. Likewise, the characters in the book experience life with extreme uncertainness but with a fierce j'oie de vivre, which I feel is most accurately described in the subplot of Fushía.
The prose is a spectacular, tangled mess, as thick and tangled as the intertwined vines of the Amazon foliage. One is dragged into a single sentence of colour, violence, exotica and ruin, which one soon realizes is a plot of sorts after finishing a chapter, but the next chapter ends up being another subplot with three other different characters. After some chin scratching, several paths become more recognisable in the plots - that of Bonificia, the champs, the bandits and Father García. However, one has to search within the text to surmise who is who, or what is happening, or the chronology of the events.
I must confess that the whole book gave me a headache, but going along with the chaotic flow grants one a perverse happiness in a 'well, since the plot is already fucked, what the fuck is going to happen next?' manner. Likewise, the characters in the book experience life with extreme uncertainness but with a fierce j'oie de vivre, which I feel is most accurately described in the subplot of Fushía.
alexwont's review against another edition
3.0
Parts of this book were very compelling, and I read it faster than I normally read a novel with big block pages -- but ultimately it left me wanting a lot more, and I attribute the speedreading to my interest in the settings, and my familiarity with them -- Iquitos, Piura, and the spaces in between. The sense of nostalgia he conjures of them is fantastic.
kamihara's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
araysuslibros's review against another edition
2.0
No es un mal libro, pero ciertamente no es para mí. Tuve muchos problemas mientras lo leía. Por un lado, la complejidad estructural y el "alarde técnico" generalizado, al que no le vi un propósito concreto. Hay algunas historias interesantes y otras no tanto, y me da la sensación de que si estuvieran narradas cronológicamente serían muchísimo más aburridas, porque la verdad es que la trama en sí no es la gran cosa. Recién a la mitad de la novela comencé a entender de qué iba todo, pero ya no me daban ganas de leer. Si no hubiera resultado ser una lectura obligatoria, la habría abandonado en seguida.
Estoy bastante decepcionada porque me gustó mucho "La ciudad y los perros", otra novela bastante compleja; pero esta ya se va de mambo. ¿Por qué hacerle la vida tan difícil al lector?
Además de eso, me molestó que los episodios cruciales en la vida de los personajes no estén relatados, sólo mencionados por arriba en algún diálogo o recuerdo. Entonces tenemos al mismo personaje presentado en dos épocas distintas, pero no parecen ser la misma persona. Anselmo joven y Anselmo viejo son dos personajes distintos para mí. Tampoco conocemos la interioridad de ninguno (salvo de Anselmo en sus monólogos, en los que justifica el secuestro y la violación de una niña ciega y muda diciendo que fue por amor. Bue.) Todos los personajes son vistos como desde afuera, en especial los indios nativos, presentados como animales que "gruñen" y "escupen" para comunicarse.
Y para rematar, el maltrato a las mujeres fue demasiado para mí. Las violan, las insultan, las rebajan, las humillan, las desacreditan todo el tiempo, no tienen ni voz ni voto. Son objetos. Aparecen como criadas o prostitutas. Y la única que no lo es, la Chunga, que tiene su propio negocio y es independiente, es presentada como una persona huraña, maliciosa, fea, medio marimacho. Todos los personajes son detestables, no rescato ni a uno.
Estoy bastante decepcionada porque me gustó mucho "La ciudad y los perros", otra novela bastante compleja; pero esta ya se va de mambo. ¿Por qué hacerle la vida tan difícil al lector?
Además de eso, me molestó que los episodios cruciales en la vida de los personajes no estén relatados, sólo mencionados por arriba en algún diálogo o recuerdo. Entonces tenemos al mismo personaje presentado en dos épocas distintas, pero no parecen ser la misma persona. Anselmo joven y Anselmo viejo son dos personajes distintos para mí. Tampoco conocemos la interioridad de ninguno (salvo de Anselmo en sus monólogos, en los que justifica el secuestro y la violación de una niña ciega y muda diciendo que fue por amor. Bue.) Todos los personajes son vistos como desde afuera, en especial los indios nativos, presentados como animales que "gruñen" y "escupen" para comunicarse.
Y para rematar, el maltrato a las mujeres fue demasiado para mí. Las violan, las insultan, las rebajan, las humillan, las desacreditan todo el tiempo, no tienen ni voz ni voto. Son objetos. Aparecen como criadas o prostitutas. Y la única que no lo es, la Chunga, que tiene su propio negocio y es independiente, es presentada como una persona huraña, maliciosa, fea, medio marimacho. Todos los personajes son detestables, no rescato ni a uno.
chloe_s's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
The Edge of Existence
Almost everyone in The Green House lives at the extreme edge of existence. But it is not death or annihilation that threatens; rather, it is an entirely different kind of existence. The novel opens with the abduction of two Amazonian Indian girls, an event that rips them out of their way of life and puts them into an alien land in which literally nothing has meaning for them. This is not merely displacement; it is an extinguishing of their former lives in all but their bodily functions. At least that is what is intended by the missionaries and soldiers who perceive this trauma as a noble cause and moral duty. Some victims feel a genetic pull to the former jungle-life but reversion is impossible.
The theme of fragile existence runs throughout the narrative as it shifts continuously between the dense tropical rain forest of North Eastern Peru and the enormous coastal desert lying on the other side of the Andes around Piura. It is difficult to imagine two more extreme environments within such proximity to each other. Water is the basic substance of one world; sand of the other. Both substances rain down on the inhabitants continuously, and change their environment visibly as they watch. There is no forest-land that cannot become water as capricious rivers change course; and each morning when the residents of the desert-city arise, every surface is covered once again by the sand that erodes its houses and seeks to cover them completely.
But it is religion, military force and commercial interests, not water or sand, that erode existence most rapidly and most decisively. The primitive jungle tribes are mirrored in the closely knit coastal communities of the Mangaches, descendants of the African slaves brought by the Spanish from Madagascar in the 16th century. Each group is distinguished by, among other traits, language and colour (red and black a recurring theme), which isolate them from the white population. Both groups are constantly threatened by exploitation, expropriation and extinction. These common threats force them into contact with one another in the world of smuggling, human trafficking, and, most significantly for Vargas Llosa's story, prostitution.
Life is universally degraded in the worlds Vargas Llosa describes. The Green House in the desert is a brothel. But functionally so is the Mission in the jungle which grooms young native girls for the Governor. All women - white, red and black - are chattels with only minor differences in their status as slaves. Sexual violence is always present or imminent. Rape is the usual form of courtship. Alcohol is a basic food group, consumed continuously by men whenever available. Cocaine is a festive alternative. All white people suffer terribly from the heat and molestation by insects, and they despise their environment as much as they despise the reds, blacks and women. Government is merely a criminal monopoly of power. Native tribes terrorise one another and in turn are terrorised by the whites. Bandits dominate the desert and the jungle.
Reflecting this existential fragility, the narrative shifts unpredictably from sentence to sentence in time and place, even more energetically than in some of Vargas Llosa's other novels. Characters travel under different names depending on which of the two primary locations they are in. Different characters have the same name. Conversations are interleaved. Sentences are often fragmentary and appear as badly translated obfuscations. Add the Peruvian cultural allusions strewn throughout and the result Is a sort of literary jigsaw that often demands trying an identity or meaning to see if it fits; if it doesn't the reader can only choose another possibility and tentatively move on.
The Green House is consequently an exhausting work. It demands continuous close attention to detail to catch signals of identity and continuity. Emotionally, it is frankly tiring to immerse oneself in 400 pages of unremitting squalor and hopelessness. And a not inconsiderable degree of confusion must be tolerated as the narrative unfolds. So, all in all, not a work for the casual or faint-hearted reader.
Almost everyone in The Green House lives at the extreme edge of existence. But it is not death or annihilation that threatens; rather, it is an entirely different kind of existence. The novel opens with the abduction of two Amazonian Indian girls, an event that rips them out of their way of life and puts them into an alien land in which literally nothing has meaning for them. This is not merely displacement; it is an extinguishing of their former lives in all but their bodily functions. At least that is what is intended by the missionaries and soldiers who perceive this trauma as a noble cause and moral duty. Some victims feel a genetic pull to the former jungle-life but reversion is impossible.
The theme of fragile existence runs throughout the narrative as it shifts continuously between the dense tropical rain forest of North Eastern Peru and the enormous coastal desert lying on the other side of the Andes around Piura. It is difficult to imagine two more extreme environments within such proximity to each other. Water is the basic substance of one world; sand of the other. Both substances rain down on the inhabitants continuously, and change their environment visibly as they watch. There is no forest-land that cannot become water as capricious rivers change course; and each morning when the residents of the desert-city arise, every surface is covered once again by the sand that erodes its houses and seeks to cover them completely.
But it is religion, military force and commercial interests, not water or sand, that erode existence most rapidly and most decisively. The primitive jungle tribes are mirrored in the closely knit coastal communities of the Mangaches, descendants of the African slaves brought by the Spanish from Madagascar in the 16th century. Each group is distinguished by, among other traits, language and colour (red and black a recurring theme), which isolate them from the white population. Both groups are constantly threatened by exploitation, expropriation and extinction. These common threats force them into contact with one another in the world of smuggling, human trafficking, and, most significantly for Vargas Llosa's story, prostitution.
Life is universally degraded in the worlds Vargas Llosa describes. The Green House in the desert is a brothel. But functionally so is the Mission in the jungle which grooms young native girls for the Governor. All women - white, red and black - are chattels with only minor differences in their status as slaves. Sexual violence is always present or imminent. Rape is the usual form of courtship. Alcohol is a basic food group, consumed continuously by men whenever available. Cocaine is a festive alternative. All white people suffer terribly from the heat and molestation by insects, and they despise their environment as much as they despise the reds, blacks and women. Government is merely a criminal monopoly of power. Native tribes terrorise one another and in turn are terrorised by the whites. Bandits dominate the desert and the jungle.
Reflecting this existential fragility, the narrative shifts unpredictably from sentence to sentence in time and place, even more energetically than in some of Vargas Llosa's other novels. Characters travel under different names depending on which of the two primary locations they are in. Different characters have the same name. Conversations are interleaved. Sentences are often fragmentary and appear as badly translated obfuscations. Add the Peruvian cultural allusions strewn throughout and the result Is a sort of literary jigsaw that often demands trying an identity or meaning to see if it fits; if it doesn't the reader can only choose another possibility and tentatively move on.
The Green House is consequently an exhausting work. It demands continuous close attention to detail to catch signals of identity and continuity. Emotionally, it is frankly tiring to immerse oneself in 400 pages of unremitting squalor and hopelessness. And a not inconsiderable degree of confusion must be tolerated as the narrative unfolds. So, all in all, not a work for the casual or faint-hearted reader.
epictetsocrate's review against another edition
3.0
Sergentul îşi aruncă o privire spre maica Patrocinio şi viespea e tot acolo. Barca se leagănă pe apele tulburi, printre două ziduri de copaci care răspândesc un abur fierbinte, lipicios. Ghemuiţi sub acoperământul din frunze de palmier, goi până la brâu, jandarmii dorm la căldura soarelui galben-verzui de amiază: capul Piciului zace peste pântecul Barosanului, Roşcovanul e lac de sudoare, Oacheşul sforăie cu gura căscată. O umbreluţă de ţânţari escortează barca, printre trupuri se mişcă fluturi, viespi, muşte grase. Motorul sforăie şi el, se îneacă, sforăie, şi pilotul Nieves ţine cârma cu stânga, cu dreapta fumează şi chipul lui, lucios, rămâne neclintit sub pălăria de pai. Pădurenii ăştia nu erau normali, de ce nu năduşeau ca toţi oamenii? Ţeapănă, maica Angélica stă la pupă, cu ochii închişi, faţa îi e îngrozitor de zbârcită, din când în când scoate vârful limbii, soarbe sudoarea de pe mustaţă şi scuipă. Sărmana băbuţă nu ţinea la o tăvăleală ca asta.
brenda8's review against another edition
3.0
Desde la primera página puedes reconocer todas las señales de estar entrando en todo el mundo construido por Mario Vargas Llosa, pero este libro no fue exactamente para mí. Por alguna razón no pude conectar con los personajes ni con la historia por completo. Es como si podía ver y escuchar las cosas que resaltan y que son de elogio en su escritura, pero las veía de lejos, ajenas, casi como si alguien más me estuviera diciendo qué reconocer o poner atención en el libro. No fue para mí en esta ocasión.