From Publishers Weekly
The Portuguese author of Elephant Memory and South of Nowhere makes no concessions to the reader in this dense and demanding work. Hundreds of pages elapse before settings, characters and events are explicitly identified; instead, the narrative progresses with Antunes recreating the thought processes of his four protagonists, who meet in their native Lisbon approximately 10 years after they have served a tour of duty in colonial Mozambique in 1970. The men reflect on their experiences there, on a subsequent revolution at home and on their personal histories as they spend a night in the company of five prostitutes--a night of revelations that ends in murder. Although Antunes, a practicing psychoanalyst, displays brilliance in the fluidity of his stream-of-consciousness and the complexity of his imagery (a stranger stares "with the distant distraction of corpses at wakes, their smiles softened into the amiable indifference of portraiture"), the elusiveness of the plot will frustrate and bewilder most readers.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Between 1960 and 1974 tiny but once mighty Portugal sent a million and a half troops to preserve its empire in Angola, where men--scapegoats for the politicians back home--became machine gun-clutching animals in Vietnam-like conditions. Ten years after the coup to overthrow the Portuguese dictatorship and the withdrawal of troops from the African country, four ex-soldiers gather over dinner and wine to confess to one another their respective brutalities, which naturally lead to their present-day brutalities at home. Like the author's highly acclaimed autobiographical novel South from Nowhere ( LJ 5/15/83), in which an Army surgeon relives his 1,001 days in the Angolan hell, this longer and more particularized novel unfolds on many levels, and its quadruple confession leaves no doubt about the decadence and corruption of contemporary Lisbon. Recommended.
- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll. , Cumberland, Md.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
