Juan sin Tierra

Trilogía Álvaro Mendiola #3

by Juan Goytisolo

Juan sin tierra marca un quiebre definitivo en relación a Señas de identidad y a Reivindicación del Conde don Julián, obras en las que permanecen algunos valores de la novela tradicional. En la presente, Goytisolo ya no sólo ajusta cuentas con la tierra de origen, además con su tradición literaria y crítica oficial del país establecida a lo largo de los últimos siglos. Adentrándose en consecuencia en los territorios del Islam, su nueva morada. La única realidad palpable en el texto es la apuesta por una topología del discurso, gracias a la cual ese no lugar del discurso cobra una figuración por su pura superficie.

Si bien esta obra puede leerse de forma autónoma, en verdad es el último último eslabón de la trilogía Mendiola, integrada por Señas de identidad y Reivindicación del Conde don Julián.

Genres: Fiction, Spain, Spanish Literature, Literature

321 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Desde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008).

No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.

========

Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.

In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.

In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.

He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Juan the Landless is one of those books that are exclusively hard to read. It is a wall of words, a stronghold of sentences… It is a real verbal bastion.
The novel begins with the cynical contemplations of the high and the low, of the heavenly and the earthly…

…for just as the Eye of God radiates light and snow-white purity, so the bestial anus, the eye of the devil, emanates infection and fetor, filth and sin: their respective functions are absolutely exclusive and diametrically opposed: so the angelic Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us: what is corrupted in part is corruptible in toto, and such an eventuality would be regarded as odious, sacrilegious, even by the most stubborn heretics: this is clear, and indeed self-evident: neither the Redeemer nor the Virgin expelled fecal matter…

Sometime, somewhere, in filth and squalor, in a disgusting sinful conception the eternal exile was born… And ever since he endlessly wanders the lands homeless… And he has no rest…

When the harsh voices of the country that you despise offend your ears, you are overcome with astonishment: what more is expected of you?: have you not paid your debt in full?: exile has turned you into a completely different being, who has nothing to do with the one your fellow countrymen once knew: their law is no longer your law: their justice is no longer your justice: no one awaits you in Ithaca…

Refugees and slaves, spies and vagabonds – they all are exiles… Even tourists, pilgrims, explorers and seafarers are temporary exiles…

…and thus the Creator, situating man, who is His handiwork, in the middle of the universe, that is to say between heaven and earth as regards his physical location, between eternity and time as regards his duration, between Himself and the devil as regards his liberty, and between the angels and the beasts as regards his nature…

Adam and Eve were the first true exiles, all the rest are just imitators and followers.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking a number of steps outside of a narrative, Goytisolo proves capable of dissemination and ignition. Employing Torquemada’s need for closure, an absolute extinction of impurity, the sordid traditions of Christianity and Colonialism are given the torch in these pages. Juan the Landless may allude to a traitor who allowed the forces of Islam purchase into the Iberian peninsula. It may also be a statement of self exile, as in Senor Goytisolo knows no land as home. The opening sections literally wallow in shit and I was thinking along the lines of Gravity’s Rainbow. Alas, I now think that Goytisolo is declaring war on Franco, not moving in lockstep with Pynchon. It isn’t really that reductive.

Much like Mark of Identity, so much of the murk of the novel is autobiographical. The awakened passions for a musky sensuality is a call to arms on a number of fronts and bottoms, I must cheekily pun (or double pun). His recurring scene of the Couple, so necessary for the ongoing machination of the West, as they prepare for intimate congress in a store window: that is an amazing device.

Thanks to Mike Puma for the impetus to tackle this here and now.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is certainly heavy going and will not be to everyone’s taste – it is a very long way from anything like a standard novel or literary thesis. And this edition is the shortened, cut version Goytisolo issued three decades after the original publication. An ambitious undertaking, Goytisolo admitted it did not achieve what he envisaged. As he put it: “... in the case of Juan the Landless, my wish to break with artistic, social, intellectual and moral conformation doesn’t entirely succeed in fusing betrayal as theme and betrayal as language, the latter is too visible, and undermines the desirable unity of the book.”

[Will Cadle · Rating 2 out of 5]

After having read Goytisolo's The Party's Over, which I found well written, with an accurate eye towards characterization for the subjects populating this collection of (longish) short stories, I immediately picked up Juan the Landless, expecting the same level of craft and insight. The third novel in a trilogy (preceded first by Marks of Identity and then Count Julian), Juan the Landless left me baffled, perplexed and bemused.

The writing was excellent and I assume the translation was well rendered, too. But, as I found out, this novel was a break from his more traditional style. Here, he chose a different approach, one that burdened the reader with demands almost as onerous as Joyce's final novel, Finnegans Wake, placed upon its readers.

Undeterred, I summoned all my courage and mentally muscled my way through the novel, finally finishing it having no knowledge or understanding or recollection of what I read.

As a follow-up, I next read Gabriel García Márquez' The Autumn of the Patriarch. While reading it, I noticed some similarities with Goytisolo's Juan the Landless.

For that reason, this is less a review of Goytisolo's novel than a comparison and contrast between the two novels and the situations in which they were written, though, by the end of the review, I hope it will be clear what my opinion is of both works.

The comparisons, first, are interesting. García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia, but had relocated to Barcelona, where he finished and published Autumn of the Patriarch; Goytisolo was born in Barcelona but had relocated in exile to Paris, thence to tenures in the US as a teacher, with his novel, Juan the Landless being published in Spain after the death of Franco.

Both novels were published in 1975. Both novels, in hardback, are 269 pages. Both novels are essentially about one person (though both novels delve into other characters). Both novels use punctuation sparsely. Whereas García Márquez uses lots of commas with the rare period appearing about 20 or perhaps 30 times, total, Goytisolo doesn't use a period but prefers a colon scattered relatively frequently but with little help for the reader. Goytisolo certainly has more chapters, if that's what they are, than García Márquez, who has, I think, a chapter approximately every 40 pages or so. But neither numbers their chapters, and you'd best be prepared to simply arbitrarily stop when you've read enough for the day. Finally, they are both written in a stream-of-consciousness style that can leave the reader slack-jawed with the resulting linguistic pyrotechnics being both head-scratching and mesmerizing.

Both novels do tell a story. Juan the Landless starts in the Caribbean (I think) on a sugar cane plantation held by descendants of Spanish adventurers who had come to the New World in search of wealth and a better life. Goytisolo dissects the decadence and corruption of spirit and character of the plantation owner and his family as the result of slavery, the abuse of the land, and the indulgence inherent with the vices of a privileged oligarchy. The novel quickly switches to Europe, going from France (I think), thence to Greece and finally to Turkey, but it takes a lot of keen analysis to really know what's going on beyond a few sentences, sometimes paragraphs, because Goytisolo seems determined to keep the reader in confusion, possibly purposely so.

García Márquez, on the other hand, keeps a tighter rein on his story, which is restarted a number of times and retold from a different character or perspective; but, it is always, finally, about a caudillo who has ruled a Caribbean country for more decades than a normal dictator could possibly live.

Because both novels use stream-of-consciousness, the reader is tasked with keeping up at a dizzying pace. With García Márquez, it's akin to riding in a train but periodically having to shovel the coal to keep the train active and at a good pace and sometimes having to back the train up a few miles so that one can better understand where they are as viewed from the window. With Goytisolo, you're pretty much following orders to help construct the rails so that the train can keep moving at all. They are both demanding, but the former at least keeps the reader engaged while the latter leaves the reader wearied and in need of a long, cool drink of clarity, and often (which, unfortunately, never happens or at least it didn't for me).

I think it's fair to say I much preferred García Márquez' Autumn of the Patriarch. With it, I did feel that I was working hard, say, like pushing a handcar along a railroad track, but I could follow the story, and as I committed myself more to the novel, I found its imaginative and creative qualities satisfying such that (I was amazed at this, myself) when I reached the end, I was wanting more.

With Goytisolo, not so much. I felt as exhausted mentally and physically as a marathon runner and glad to see the finish line come into view. I couldn't help but think of Goytisolo's novel while reading García Márquez' novel and my feeling was that if Goytisolo had followed a similar construct we would be talking about his work in the same way we still discuss García Márquez' work. Because, to be fair to Goytisolo, he is an excellent writer whose craft and creativity are evident, and if he'd only given the reader a bit more support I think his novel, too, would've stayed with me as something marvelous. As it is, I still have no idea what happened, who it was about, where exactly we were on any given page (well, sometimes I could tell) or why...why any of it.

[Dídac Gil Rams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trenca amb gran part del que he llegit fins ara. La seva dificultat és veu compensada amb el desevolupament d'una capacitat nova per al lector.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goytisolo is one of the most celebrated of 20th century Spanish authors. He was ardently anti-Franco and spent most of his adulthood in exile (Paris, Marrakesh). He strongly rejected all the traditions (nationalism, family, Catholicism, etc.) that the Franco regime aimed to protect, and that rejection is aggressively present in "Juan the Landless." The novel is the third in a trilogy, preceded by "Signs of Identity" and "Count Julian." The novel is aggressively anti-realistic, and Goytisolo works very hard to explode the conventions (plot, character, setting, time) of the novel form, which he does quite successfully.

The $1.98 price tag on the cover of this book is dated 6/22/81, so "Juan the Landless" has been on my bookshelves or, more recently, packed away in a box for over 40 years. I thought it was about time. Two admissions: I have not read the first two volumes in the trilogy, and because of the difficulty of the book I’ve turned to Manuel Duran’s 1978 article “Un orden desordenado: la estructura de Juan sin Tierra” (“A Disordered Order: the Structure of Juan the Landless") to help me make sense of the book.

The book is broken up into a number of numbered and named sections. Given the distinct threads that Goytisolo develops in these sections, the book almost reads like a collection of short stories. Almost. The title might also have been translated Juan without Earth, Juan the Homeless, Juan without Place, Juan the Nomad. Juan is the main character and narrator; he is a writer; and he could be Goytisolo himself. Identity is fluid. He is a nomad. He has left Spain. If there were a plot, Juan’s journey arc would seem to be it, but it isn’t, because there is no plot. Goytisolo writes without using periods. He uses other punctuation marks, diacritical marks, and other kinds of signage/illustrations to organize his words, but not periods. As a result, the words of the book flow in interesting ways, and it is often difficult to follow the shift in focus or subject. It is very easy to lose one’s focus while reading "Juan the Landless."
Section I begins by referencing Hindustani meditation practices meant to purge the body of needs and desires, but it shifts quickly to a Caribbean slave plantation narrative about Catholicism, punishing the enslaved bodies, and redemption, where the purging is heavy rather than light. The contrast is stark. It reminds me of Patrick Chamoiseau’s "Slave Old Man"(1997) and Caryl Phillips’s "Cambridge" (1993). Like Chamoiseau and Phillips, Goytisolo eschews realism for surrealism, the absurd, and the ridiculous to capture life on a Caribbean plantation. In the heat of this disconcerting and violent dreamscape, the Catholic plantation owners and the priests who serve them speak a sado-masochistic language to justify the enslavement, punishment, and redemption of their involuntary labor force, which produces violence as well as the enslaved population’s efforts to flee it. As with Chamoiseau and Phillips, Goytisolo’s use of surrealism viscerally captures the cycles of production, profit, ideology, language, faith, oppression, violence, and escape that structured plantation life. Horror is everywhere.

But this is simply the book’s first section, and in the subsequent sections the narrative moves to different times, geographical locales as well as maintaining a running meta-commentary on the nature of narrative, because the writer is always trying to free himself from narrative conventions. Basically, Juan–all the Juans–rejects all exploitative hierarchies–reason, morality, religion, society, patriotism, family, capitalism, reproductive sex. Juan excoriates bourgeois life and Catholicism for their deadening, dehumanizing conformity. Juan apriori rejects the socioeconomic forces that have structured western civilization, turning us all into commodity producers and consumers. For Juan, do I dare say Goytisolo, humanity is achieved once those restrictions, repressions, oppressions are escaped. To this end, he posits nomadic life, to live divorced and alienated from places while exploring the lowest of the low, the marginal, the outsider, the abject: such is the nature of freedom. He reminds me of Rimbaud, Lautremont, Baudelaire, and de Sade: escape all the restrictions, escape, escape.

Throughout the book, Goytisolo contrasts restrictions (torture, police brutality, enslaved labor, urban infrastructure, family, reproductive sex, tourist economies) with the freedoms one can experience by rejecting, transcending, traveling beyond such restrictions. He seethes with anger, which sends him into spaces, geographical and mental, where he is alienated, othered, marginalized, abject. He feels human through movement, sloughing off the hierarchical world. Disgust is liberating.
As Juan (the Landless/Goytisolo) moves and writes, he travels through and out of European urban centers into the Arab and African worlds (Istanbul, Fez) and then into the desert. As outsider in an “out” space, he can exist, feel, think, and experience as an unencumbered human. Juan (the Landless/Goytisolo) now feels like William Burroughs or Paul Bowles: deracinated, deterritorialized, and rhizomatic. Again, there is a compromising, structured past that he would transcend and then to be tempted by a world beyond the guidebooks, tours, etc. He is attracted by an estranging Otherness, a cacophony of untranslated languages and behaviors. Writing launches from this strangeness, rapid fire, obsessively covering its newness. Intellect can also be freed to experience much more, including, finally, the abjection of self.

As the reader, I came to think that I was following the nomad’s journey, that it was structuring my reading experience, but then Goytisolo ends the nomad’s journey (his own journey to Marrakesh?)--or at least shifts attention from it–before the end of the book. In the last four numbered sections (IV-VII), Goytisolo returns to excoriating the hegemonic, hierarchical world (Catholicism, monarchy, family, society, economy, sex), and then he follows up with behaviors, thoughts, language that would disrupt the bland, dehumanizing existence. Finally, in the last couple of sections, Goytisolo introduces a writer named Vosk, who begins by telling a story that seems like it is from The Arabian Nights. Vosk breaks up the story immediately, commenting on it, going off on meta-level tangents, even tangenting into a tribunal of “readers” who criticize what he has written. As with everything in this book, Vosk’s attention span is short and his narrative slips and slips and slips. As the reader, I feel like I too lose focus, but I have a feeling that I’m supposed to lose track, because the fluidity of Goytisolo’s periodless prose produces a wandering attention in the reader. By its end, Juan the Landless reminds me of Rabelais’s "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1532-64), which as a proto-novel is aggressively episodic and distracting as Rabelais’s febrile creative mind churns out more and more stories without the guiding (that is, repressive) structure of the novel form.


Difficult read, but worth the puzzling. Interesting that this was published by Viking. Today, it seems that only small specialty presses would publish such a difficult work in translation.

[Falkner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juan Goytisolo demuestra que, a través de su alter ego Alvaro Mendiola, se puede crear gran arte desde el odio, desde la cerrazón y desde el rencor. Su obra saca su belleza y fuerza del odio más visceral: es la conmovedora y desesperada denuncia del rechazado que se vuelve para maldecir a la tribu que le ha excluido y de la que conoce los puntos flacos.

También demuestra que España es un caso especial. Es el único país que conozco capaz de financiar con fondos públicos (mediante la compra de archivos, mediante la concesión de premios de gran remuneración) la actividad de un escritor que con ensaño insulta en sus obras a ese país y a sus habitantes. Probablemente en sus países de adopción no lo tendría tan fácil, de ser ellos la diana de sus ofensas, o haber hecho su religión oficial blanco de sus blasfemias.
Desde Señas de identidad hasta Juan sin Tierra, su obra es el registro de todas las miserias de la cultura europea, el minucioso inventario de reproches a esa patria que le ha rechazado y a la que en revancha rechaza.

Goytisolo no dice nada nuevo, por supuesto, pero la ferocidad y la expresividad con que trata las contradicciones y miserias de occidente no deja de ser impactante. Aun así, sus insultos no podemos tomarlos demasiado en serio, no más que las obscenidades y mezquindades de la poesía burlesca de Quevedo: puede que para pesar del propio escritor, acaben resultando ante todo un recurso estilístico.

Juan sin Tierra es la tercera, y posiblemente mejor, parte de su trilogía de Álvaro Mendiola, que marcó un hito en la literatura española de los años 70.

La prosa de Juan Goytisolo es un alarde estilístico que no se veía en España desde la generación del 27, con una riqueza de lenguaje y variedad de registros casi equiparable a Quevedo, con un talento para la parodia al que, desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX, muy pocos escritores pueden aproximarse. A este exiliado que quiere romper todo lazo con su odiada patria, le queda el amor por la primera literatura castellana; y la influencia y fascinación por la obra y el lenguaje del arcipreste, de Fernando de Rojas o de Cervantes, es tan evidente como su cercanía a otros grandes pecadores de la literatura europea: Rimbaud, Celine, Genet…
Juan sin tierra me resultó fascinante en una primera lectura hace años, pero una segunda lectura, pasada la sorpresa, se resiente por momentos. Es más, su gran hallazgo se resume en las absolutamente soberbias 50 páginas de sus dos primeras partes, aquí está ya todo: la portada de la reina del disco, el trono y la zanja, Papá y Marita en el cielo, el escaparate nupcial, King Kong, la invasión de los reptiles. Y de nuevo a la magnífica sexta parte. El resto es mucho más rutinario.

El problema de la prosa de Goytisolo es que, inevitablemente, a la larga puede resultar monocorde: hay un falsete sarcástico, una elocuencia paródica, por ejemplo con el uso indiscriminado de epítetos, de estructuras gramaticales arcaicas y lenguaje rimbombante, muy adecuados para sus viñetas demoledoras, pero que le encasilla. Se pierde el riesgo de que si no hay una gran variedad temática, si disminuye la tensión que se genera por lo inesperado de sus recursos narrativos, si se repite el insulto hasta la rutina…nos acostumbremos y se rompa el hechizo. Y los temas, los motivos, en Juan sin tierra, como antes en Don Julián, acaban siendo reducidos. Obviamente Goytisolo no es el arcipreste, ni es Cervantes, ni Rimbaud, ni Celine...

Así, la parte III, un viaje por todo el mundo islámico, se repite, se afloja y pierde la densidad de las primeras páginas. Las estampas no dejan de ser mínimas variaciones sobre lo ya leído en las partes I y II. No todo es prescindible, pero sí mucho es redundante.

La parte IV retoma el espíritu inicial; pero habiendo desentrañado las divertidas trampas, habiendo pillado el mecanismo, la lectura se nos hace demasiado fácil y percibimos un cansancio. Goytisolo nos repite el acertijo cuando ya sabemos la solución, y se demora encima en explicárnoslo con detalle.

La parte V es una farsa francamente divertida donde describe la revolución soñada por Juan sin tierra: un nuevo sistema basado en la zanja...junto con medidas de desarrollo económico que nos hacen pensar..."pillaje de los pueblos laboriosos vecinos", "proteger a los vagos", "condenar, sin apelación, el trabajo".

Con la parte VI volvemos al mejor Goytisolo. Desde el comienzo, una desternillante defensa del realismo en la literatura, en forma de pastiche de novela pastoril renacentista, hasta las mutaciones del señor Vosk, es una absoluta obra de arte: ingeniosa, variada y original.

Una última VII parte expone su credo artístico y cierra la obra repitiendo los insultos que hemos leído durante toda la novela.
Con un desprecio absoluto hacia la narrativa tradicional, obviamente burguesa para su gusto, Goytisolo recuerda a Celine en su capacidad absolutamente delirante e hiperbólica de metamorfosear una realidad cotidiana en un surrealista festín obsceno, por su fijación escatológica, por su rabia denunciadora, por su acendrado rencor. Le gusta superponer varios planos argumentales o temáticos, deslizándose imperceptiblemente de uno a otro en la misma frase, jugando con la polisemia; le gusta adoptar una voz, que él llama proteica, capaz sin que nos demos cuenta de transformarse, de viajar de cuerpo, de época o de bando.

Podemos sentirnos sorprendidos por las decisiones vitales de este abogado de la democracia que criticando los regímenes dictatoriales vivía tranquilamente en estados de dudosa participación ciudadana; de este defensor de las clases oprimidas que no decía ni mu ante controvertidas situaciones de ocupación territorial de su país de adopción; de este adalid de la libertad sexual al que no molestaba vivir en un país donde la denuncia por prácticas homosexuales te cuesta la libertad; ante este denunciador de las crueldades y represiones del catolicismo que sin embargo nada tenía que decir sobre el burka o la sharia. A pesar de toda la intelectualidad y el conocimiento, de toda la sed de justicia y de toda la valentía denunciadora… el fanatismo puede hacer estragos en la mente.

Pero pensemos lo que pensemos del autor, la lectura de Goytisolo es obligada para todos los amantes de la gran literatura española, como un hito que en sus mejores momentos es deslumbrante y único. También, puede ser, como un callejón sin salida que nos gusta investigar pero del que tenemos que volvernos para continuar por la senda más habitual.

[Alamgeer]

what brilliant auto fiction what a prose writing from the Spanish writer opens a huge window of perception

[Leonard Klossner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goytisolo's what-have-you, Juan the Landless, is more of an anti-novel; there are no definite characters; there are sudden shifts in perspective, focus, and subject; occasional breakdowns in language.

The thing is, this (anti-)novel is seething with detestation for his native Spain, whose civil war not only led to senseless bloodshed en masse, but whose bombs took his mother's life. Spain was a country of brutal colonizers, of Christians who burned heretics at the stake, a country that took up arms against itself, murdering its own people.

The informality of the writing - there isn't a period to be found, meaning perhaps that the book consists of a single unbroken sentence which explains the lack of capitalization - is a sign of marked disrespect for his native language. He internalizes his mother tongue, ingests its vitriol, absorbs its spirit of violent history, and spews it back onto the country he despises, seething with racial slurs, hatred for the Africans they kept as slaves, violence toward the heretics the Spaniards burned at the stake, et. al. No hateful epithet, of course, is meant to be understood as Goytisolo's own. They are the historical concentrate of Spain's own hatred; internalized, sharpened, and thrown back in its face.

The final pages of the book is a sort of apologia of his literary methods, beginning with a panel of critics serving as a sort of meta-critique of the book's lack of characters, the absence of a single unified voice, and the fact that the book is markedly empty of nearly all of the components that are characteristic of a novel.

Finally, the bomb that Goytisolo was building throughout the course of the book explodes at the very end, leading to the absolute combustion of his language; his words smolder and melt, turning more and more into an incomprehensible, garbled mess, bearing little resemblance to the language that once stood in its place until, at long last, the facade goes up in smoke, the infrastructure collapses. What is left standing is the stolid substructure of the Arabic language belonging to his adopted homeland of Marrakech, Morocco which he lived in for 25 years after living in Spain.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

some really great long sentences in here, although i didn't find the book quite as singlemindedly hateful as Count Julian, it's much more diffuse in its targets. there are some standout bits attacking spanish colonialism and the realist novel, among other things.

[Pedro Camuñas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goytisolo despliega un abanico de herramientas narrativas buscando romper con la literatura de la misma manera que rompió con España en Reivindicación del Conde Don Julián. Éste libro está lleno de pasajes muy curiosos y bonitos, otros son bastante tediosos de leer y te pierdes con facilidad, sigo viendo a mucho Thomas Pynchon aquí, es un libro muy interesante pero no apto para lectores con poca paciencia.

[Jesús Alcaide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es de 1975 y aún así es la obra más moderna que se ha escrito en España en los últimos 50 años.

[Shannon Ludeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has interesting relevance today regarding racism and a (how to put this...) sterile attitude toward sexuality. There were pieces that certainly prompted deeper thought. That being said, the writing is extremely cryptic and there isn't much of a through line that the reader can follow. I also think I saw about half of the words on my GRE vocab list in this book (words that are extremely rarely used in conversation). It failed to really keep my attention, maybe because I wasn't devoting a ton of brain power towards really understanding what the author was trying to say it was so mired down in esoteric language and veiled plot elements. It utilized some interesting metaphors, but I did struggle to get through this short book. Not something I would recommend.

[Asa Krenein]

" listen carefully to what we say
the traps set by your logic won't catch us
morality
religion
society
patriotism
family
are threatening noises and their sonorous clatter leave us
indifferent
don't count on us
we believe in a world without frontiers
wandering Jews" -


"Now I am fearless, a man with nothing to lose, a man who
finds your company irksome, like a poor wayfarer who walks
and sings at the top of his voice, unafraid of cruel brigands." - Fernando de Rojas , Celestina

"If you don't understand,
stop following me.
Communication between us is ended.
I've gone definitively to the other side,
with the eternal pariahs,
sharpening my knife. "

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

EDIT: All done now. What in the fuck did I just read?




Still in the process of reading so this may very well change. An experimental, inconsistent work that requires a slow, marinated reading. I have reasons to believe that Goytisolo got more out of writing this than I have in reading it - there's a lot of arcane stuff in here. Just me but I get tired of having to get multiple dictionaries to get through what things mean. The images - which could do well to serve as immersion in what Goytisolo's saying - are hampered by this throughout.

[Edward ott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I understand he is talking about racism sexism the problems with religion but many other writers have done the same and they did it without writing an incoherent mess.

[Ana Esteban · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reconozco su calidad, pero es demasiado "abstracto" para mí en este momento