From Publishers Weekly
Antunes examines the legacy of the Portuguese conquistadors in his latest novel, a murky, hallucinatory affair in which the author follows half a dozen characters through the breakup of Portugal's colonial dominion in the 1970s while occasionally backtracking to the 16th century to trace the effects of Vasco da Gama's journeys. Da Gama is by far Antunes's most intriguing creation, particularly when the author posits a scenario in which the explorer returns to 20th-century Portugal as the colonies are fading and proceeds to reestablish his power within the country by winning a series of high-stakes poker games. Antunes also delves into the fate of one of da Gama's admirals, Diogo Cao, who tries to raise money for a second voyage to India while engaging in an interlude with an elderly prostitute. None of the secondary figures measure up to the promise offered by those two characters, however, and Antunes fails to follow up on the intriguing plot line with da Gama. What he opts for instead is a lyrical but nonlinear narrative full of long, labyrinthine sentences in which he draws from the tradition of magical realism, using imagery ranging from the grotesque and lurid to the poetically beautiful to frame Portugal's loss of power. Antunes is definitely a writer worth reading for his literary talent and his insights into Portugal's history, geography and national character, but readers must be willing to leave behind any expectations regarding straight-line narrative and coherent plot.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
This highly praised Portuguese author, who was trained as a psychiatrist and has been compared with Faulkner, C‚line, and Proust, characteristically writes about the decadence and corruption of contemporary Lisbon after the collapse of his tiny nation's world empire. In this phantasmagoric novel, Antunes conflates 400 years of history with the likes of a one-handed Spaniard named Cervantes just back from selling lottery tickets in Mozambique and Vasco da Gama, bored with tempestuous seafaring, pellagra, and venereal disease, challenging strangers to duels of blackjack in hopes of winning the entire nation with his luck at cards. The caravels of the Golden Age are moored beside Iraqi tankers outlined by the flames of steel mills as Castilian warships threaten to invade the realm. Written in 1988, this inventive novel is a romp through the vagaries of Portuguese history, a collage of anachronisms, and a satire of the greed and pettiness typical of the human condition. For all larger public libraries. Jack Shreve, Allegany Coll. of Maryland, Cumberland
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
