- Hardcover: 245 pages
- Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre / Not Applicable (Nov 1 1989)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374270856
- ISBN-13: 978-0374270858
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 17 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,708,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The author's moral conscience and political consciousness (at one point he considered running for the presidency of Peru) are evidenced in this slim volume, less conventional novel than a blend of memoir, folklore and polemic. The narrator tells of his college friend Saul Zuratas, a man obsessed with preserving the culture of the Machiguengas, a tiny, isolated Indian tribe threatened both by rapacious rubber barons destroying the Amazon jungle and the missionaries who want to bring the Machiguengas into the 20th century. Saul, called Mascarita because of a disfiguring facial birthmark, and doubly an outsider because he is a Jew, has a particular sensitivity to this primitive tribe that seeks to live peacefully with the natural world. The narrative alternates the story of Saul's obsession with chapters relating the Machiguengas' myths, stories handed down by the hablador , or storyteller. Through a remarkable coincidence, the narrator discovers that the mystery surrounding the habladores can be traced to Saul, who has found his destiny among the tribe. Written in the direct, precise, often vernacular prose that Vargas Llosa embues with elegance and sophistication, this is a powerful call to the author's compatriots--and to other nations--to cease despoiling the environment.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In his dazzling new novel, Vargas Llosa (whose works include The War of the End of the World ) shows that "story-telling can be something more than mere entertainment." In alternating chapters, he tells the story of Saul Zuratas, a Peruvian Jew who becomes an habladore (storyteller) to the Machiguengas--a tribe still wandering the Amazon jungle--and the tribe's stories themselves. The examination of the roles of anthropologists and ecologists in preserving the integrity of native societies is here explicit, and the good reader reaps the rewards of a novel that tackles major political issues as it fulfills the basic human need to tell and hear stories. A well-written work, demanding that we think about the results of acculturation and ecological disaster.
- Vincent D. Balitas, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Vincent D. Balitas, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I CAME to Firenze to forget Peru and the Peruvians for a while, and suddenly my unfortunate country forced itself upon me this morning in the most unexpected way. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
I CAME to Firenze to forget Peru and the Peruvians for a while, and suddenly my unfortunate country forced itself upon me this morning in the most unexpected way. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written,
By Greta Rudolph (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Storyteller: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
5.0 out of 5 stars
quilt of mirrors,
By "mswhrw" (Mexico, Mo United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Storyteller: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
4.0 out of 5 stars
images of narration,
By frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Storyteller: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
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