La cola de la serpiente

Mario Conde #7

by Leonardo Padura

Unas cuantas calles casi en ruinas, asediadas por los escombros y los delincuentes, es lo que queda del viejo Barrio Chino de La Habana. Cuando se adentra en el un Conde ya ex policia, dedicado ahora a la compraventa de libros de segunda mano, no puede evitar recordar que estuvo en ese rincon exotico y agreste de la ciudad muchos anos antes, en 1989. Todo surgio de la peticion de la teniente Patricia Chion, mujer irresistible, para que le ayudara en un extrano caso: el asesinato de Pedro Cuang, un anciano solitario que aparecio ahorcado, junto con su perro, con un dedo cortado y un circulo y dos flechas grabados con una navaja en el pecho. Eran rituales de santeria que obligaron a hacer pesquisas por otros ambitos de la ciudad. Pero el Conde descubrio hilos inesperados, negocios secretos y una historia de abnegacion y desgracias que le devolvio la realidad oculta de muchas familias emigrantes asiaticas. Como dice una expresion china, tuvo que encontrar la cola de la serpiente para llegar a su cabeza. / In Havanas Chinatown, a former policeman helps in a murder of a lonely man that was hanged with his dog, with a missing finger and a circle and two arrows engraved with a knife in the chest. The investigation found business secrets and a hidden reality of Asian immigrant families. As the Chinese expression, have to find the snakes tail to find the head.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Noir, Detective, Spanish Literature, Travel

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

About the author

Leonardo Padura Fuentes (born 1955) is a Cuban novelist and journalist. As of 2007, he is one of Cuba's best known writers internationally. In English and some other languages, he is often referred to by the shorter form of his name, Leonardo Padura. He has written movie scripts, two books of short stories and a series of detective novels translated into 10 languages. In 2012, Fuentes was awarded the National Prize for Literature, Cuba's national literary award and the most important award of its kind.

Leonardo Padura nasceu em Havana, em 1955. Licenciado em Filologia, trabalhou como guionista, jornalista e crítico, tornando-se sobretudo conhecido pela série de romances policiais protagonizados pelo detetive Mario Conde, traduzidos para inúmeras línguas e vencedores de prestigiosos prémios literários, como o Prémio Café Gijón 1995, o Prémio Hammett em 1997, 1998 e 2005, o Prémio do Livro Insular 2000, em França, ou o Brigada 21 para o melhor romance do ano, além de vários prémios da crítica em Cuba e do Prémio Nacional de Romance em 1993.
Sua tetralogia Las cuatro estaciones, com histórias do detetive Mario Conde, começou a ser publicada em inglês. Os livros são:
Pasado perfecto ("Havana Blue", 2007), 1991
Vientos de cuaresma ("Havana Yellow", 2008)), 1994
Mascaras ("Havana Red", 2005), 1997
Paisaje de otoño ("Havana Black", 2006), 1998.
Padura publicou também dois livros subseqüentes apresentando o detetive Conde: Adios Hemingway e La neblina del ayer Neste momento, Padura está a finalizar um romance em que os protagonistas são o revolucionário russo León Trotsky e o seu assassino, Ramón Mercader.
Livros de Padura editados em português (Portugal, Edições ASA)
Adeus, Hemingway
Morte em Havana (Máscaras)
A neblina do passado
Paisagem de Outono
O Romance da Minha Vida
Um Passado Perfeito
Ventos de Quaresma

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo...

Reviews

[Enrique · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pasé un rato entretenido, como siempre que leí a este autor, pero no me ha parecido de lo mejor de Padura.

Terminé hace años la tetralogía de este policía tan peculiar como es Mario Conde. Aquí no se le puede poner un pero a su escritura, narra retrocediendo quince años en el tiempo, buen ritmo, manejo insuperable de la técnica narrativa como buen veterano que es el amigo Leonardo, con sus pausas digamos que trascendentales. Es un personaje este Mario Conde para aquel que no lo conozca, que a pesar de la acción que requiere el género, también tiene sus momentos filosóficos y existenciales, es un policía leído, con vocación literaria… no se trata de una novela policíaca sin fondo. Eso es lo que más me gustó siempre de esta saga, ese trasfondo y planteamientos existenciales del protagonista.
 
“Rufino giraba apaciblemente en su pecera (…) lo impulsaba aquella danza circular que solo terminaría con la muerte del animal. Y se reanudaría con la llegada del siguiente Rufino, siempre idéntico al anterior, y al ante anterior, y al de más atrás, pues el pez rojo y su vida de ciclos repetidos le ofrecían al Conde la sensación de que algo en el mundo podía ser, o al menos parecer permanente o inmutable “Vivimos en eso Rufo”, le dijo el Conde a aquel Rufino: “todo el tiempo dando vueltas en el agua sucia, hasta que nos jodemos. Pero siempre habrá otro dispuesto a empezar a girar: hasta que se joda todo, ¿no?...”
 
Decía que ese trasfondo me gusta y que siempre se desarrolla en esa Habana decadente, con un clima húmedo y asfixiante, las comidas sabrosas criollas, siempre se detallan las comidas, las bebidas en exceso…muy al estilo Pepe Carvalho, sus músicas, se palpa el ambiente.
 
Aquí sin embargo la trama me pareció algo forzada y menos creíble que las novelas de las cuatro estaciones. Aun a pesar de esto, queda claro que Padura conoce perfectamente el tema que toca: el Barrrio Chino de La Habana (que afortunadamente conocí). Las costumbres, los misterios y la cultura china de esa comunidad, sobre todo el desarraigo. Al final del libro hay una nota del autor explicando de donde le viene el conocimiento de toda esa cultura china y la causa de estar tan bien documentado como consecuencia de una labor de investigación periodística y una “noveleta” que creó y que posteriormente amplió para publicar en Cuba y en España: puede ser que esos añadidos fueran lo que me hicieran verla como una novela a base de recortes.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Padura is one of the best known Cuban writers. His most famous creation is the detective, Mario Conde. There are nine Mario Conde novels available in Spanish, but so far English translations have not been available for all. In English, there is the famous quartet consisting of Havana Blue, Havana Gold, Havana Red, and Havana Black. And now: Grab a Snake by he Tail, an exploration not just of Havana, but of Havana's Barrio Chino (Chinatown), which Conde finds to be a world apart from Spanish Havana, closeknit, filed with secrets. There's a brutal murder in the Barrio Chino, one where marks were etched into the corpse. And, Conde is assigned to the case.

Don't read these books expecting pitched battles, faceoffs with evil, or the like. The novel is more a character study in a dark foreboding atmosphere. Conde is a character, more at home in a bar or drinking with his friends than in a gun battle. He likes reading books, fantasizing about his former lover, Tamara, and about his shapely lieutenant. He is fond of inner monologues. It's not a plot driven novel so much as a mood, an atmosphere, an intoxication, a seduction.

[El lector de l'antifaç · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lectura entretenida, peculiar (con un peculiar sentido del humor) y sin muchas pretensiones. Buenos retratos de los ambientes cubanos por donde transcurre la acción.

[Aneliya Petrunova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me parece que esta es la novela (o noveleta, como el mismo Padura la describe) más divertida sobre Mario Conde que he leído hasta ahora. Lo que me gusta más en las novelas policíacas de Padura no son las historias criminales - es la descripción de la realidad cubana, de los sueños fracasados de los cubanos, hasta cierto punto también de las borracheras del Conde y su humor negro.

Antes de empezar a leer, vi que otros lectores se quejaban del "español chino" que les había parecido difícil de entender y de mal gusto. Pues, yo no lo vi así, todo lo contrario. Me pareció que era una buena forma de darle autenticidad al relato.

[Hugo Rios-Cordero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es el Conde así que hay que leer. Sin embargo, de las novelas del Conde esta es quizás la menos fuerte. El español chino también resulta un poco incomodo de leer pero en general es mas bien la sala de sorpresas la que me dejó un poco son ganas. Pero claro la fuerza está en el personaje central, Mario Conde es una criatura de hábitos y la botella de ron es ya como los gatos de Murakami. En fin, me la pasé bien.

[Buccan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es la que menos me ha gustado de la serie, pero... acepto la explicación de Padura.
Surgió gracias a un reportaje del autor, y a raíz de esta publicación, como una pequeño cuento o novelita. Luego, "rellenó" el argumento y le dio algo de volumen para editarla para la publicación en español de Tusquets, muchos años después.
Lo mejor es el trasfondo sobre la comunidad China en Cuba.

[Daniel Calle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer a Padura siempre va a ser una buena idea por lo entretenido y bien escrito que es cada historia del detective Mario Conde. Aunque esta no es la historia mas increíble si es un muy buen libro que se mete dentro de la cultura china en cuba. 4.3

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novela de ficción que perfectamente podría ser una historia real. Relata el asesinato de un hombre de nacionalidad china en el Barrio Chino de la Habana. Por pedido de la policía Patricia Chion, el inspector Mario Conde investiga el hecho. Hubiera deseado que el escenario de La Habana hubiera cobrado más protagonismo, aunque lo suplió la majestuosidad de la descripción de los personajes.
Como temas principales de la novela se rescata la soledad, el desprecio, discriminación y el desarraigo.
El origen de los chinos en Cuba es conmovedora, como llegaron con esos contratos de trabajos casi en condiciones de esclavitud y como se adaptaron al ambiente cubano.

[Adosinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Puedo perdonar que la trama esté a la altura de Barco de Vapor-Serie Blanca, o que el protagonista sea más plano que un paseo por Castilla, pero lo que no puedo soportar es que se escriban diálogos enteros sustituyendo la "r" por la "l", imitando patéticamente a un chino; o esas construcciones gramaticales cubanas, que aparecen y desaparecen sin ton ni son rozando lo absurdo. En definitiva, una tentativa de novela sobre el desarraigo y los vínculos de sangre que se queda en poco más que un folletín caribeño.
Aunque se desvanecen las ganas de leer a Padura, me veo obligada a hacerlo nuevamente: necesito saber que le han dado el Premio Princesa de Asturias a un gran escritor que un día escribió una baratija.

[Pi. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro de leer de una sentada. Estos policíacos de Padura se sienten como anécdotas narradas por un buen contador de historias caribeño: excelente humor, lenguaje exquisito (tengo una debilidad por el uso vulgar de palabras anticuadas) y buen suspenso. No menos ni más.

Y bueno, conocer donde se pasa la historia también siempre la mejora.


Buena lectura para largas esperas.

[Jarhat Pacheco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siento que me quedó debiendo cosas, pero de igual manera, es buena lectura.

[Tatiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Primera y última novela de Padura que leo, ni un minuto más de mi tiempo para este señor.

[Karen Paramio · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 *
Excepto el primero, no leo los libros del Conde en orden, pero tampoco es problema. Lo que sí se le nota a este es que fue un relato breve, ahora más amplio, pero no novela desde el principio.
Las informaciones sobre el Barrio Chino de la Habana me eran desconocidas, y también he aprendido algo sobre la santería.
Entretenido y 100% Cuba, como siempre.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mario Conde #7

This novella is the weakest of the installment s to the series. The author takes us back in time to 1989, when Conde was still on the police force. Conde investigates a murder in Java ma's Chinatown, thereby revealing the effects of racism, crime and poverty on the residents of the barrio. Conde must overcome his own prejudice to solve the crime.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s great to have Mario Conde back in this reworked novella by Padura. His writing style is as sharp as ever and Conde has lost none of his appeal as developed in the Havana series of books.

[Leigh Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW/CW: discussion of anti-black and anti-Asian racism, as well as sexism.

Dude, why are you like this? Oh. I see.

Readers who aren't familiar with Padura's "Havana Quartet" may find Mario Conde a bit off-putting when they first meet him. To be blunt, he's kind of an asshole, racist and sexist from page one, and unless you've been living in his Cuba-noir world, it's a lot to stomach. Regular fans, however, will rejoice over this novella, while newbies who can stick it out will get the character development they'd hoped for.

Casual racism is, in fact, at the center of this investigation, whether Conde realizes it or not. Someone's been murdered in Chinatown, and it looks like it might be some sort of gang killing: strange markings on the body preclude this from being an ordinary break-in or attempted theft. Conde, who is technically on vacation, gets sucked back in by the earnest pleas of his smoking-hot fellow cop, Patricia, for whom Conde has lusted a long time. Patricia, who is both black and Chinese, begs Conde to talk to her dad, who may be able to grease the wheels of mutual mistrust that can get Conde into Chinatown to solve the murder.

Simple enough, but: Conde's consciousness is pretty much a stream of hot garbage, but in the casual "I'm just a guy" kind of way. Chinese folks are continually referred to as "chinos," and while the translation may muddy the waters here a bit, it's hard as an American NOT to read that word, flung around so casually, as a slur (especially when he makes other stereotypical assumptions and backhanded remarks). There's plenty of anti-blackness in the novella, too, and Patricia isn't so much a character as she is a sexualized character for Mario to project his fear/desire for black women upon. Her father, Juan Chion, speaks in pidgin, which again, may be accurate in translation, but reads as horribly, horribly tone-deaf. It's as if Dashiell Hammett had moved to Cuba and given us Sam Spade from the inside, forever shattering our admiration for the hard-drinking, tough-talking noir detective type.

So, why should you bother, and how on earth can I give it four stars? Readers who insist on character development -- and I am one of them -- will appreciate the slow crawl toward a satisfying payoff, which, while not entirely involving changes of heart or behavior, at least shows a grasp on self-awareness and the possibility of a choice point. The payoff passage itself, which appears on 111, does not redeem the detective so much as it does expand him - yes, he's still an asshole - but he's definitely aware of it. The murder itself is, in fact, secondary to Conde's own interior state of affairs and how he conducts them.

Is that enough? Readers who insist on sympathetic characters can leave this one alone - it will only upset them. Furthermore, nobody needs to read a string of slanders about themselves, so think carefully before offering this to POC readers, and FFS make sure to offer TWs and CWs. Female characters are heavily sexualized and/or reduced to objects designed to improve Conde's character development, so folks who can't hang with sexism can give this a pass as well, especially if it would be triggering.

So, lots and lots of people are not going to like it. Those, however, who like to watch shitty characters move around on the board of self-awareness will be fascinated, even as they find themselves appalled. Conde's an asshole, but he's an intelligent asshole; whether that makes things better or worse is definitely for the reader to decide. Best left to those who enjoyed the "Havana Quartet," so it's an optional purchase unless you've got the whole set, and/or it's popular.

Tl;dr: not good good, but "in this essay I will" good. Recommended, with caveats above.

[Jorge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una saga del detective Conde, donde un extraño asesinato de un viejo chino en el corazón del barrio chino de Cuba interrumpe su periodo vacacional, todo por un favor a cambio de un acostón imaginario y posteriormente real con la hija de otro Chino amigo de Conde. Muchos descubrimientos y una historia vieja que sale a flote hacen de esta novela un relato detectivesco normal, no hay nada trascendente que me haya hecho brincar detrás de las páginas, es bastante simple el manejo de las emociones de los personajes y totalmente predictivo el detective. Después de leer a Chesterton, Poe, Borges u otros autores que tienen relatos de intriga y descubrimiento, Padura siento que es una novela para pasar un rato y solamente eso. Es un poco molesto el intento de utilizar diálogos como un chino hablando español, de igual manera el intento de manejar acentos y frases cubanas es desagradable. Una novela que se lee para leer un texto cubano, no leería otro libro de Padura. Enero 2012

[Rafa Sánchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una nueva entrega de la serie Mario Conde, quizás un poco irregular al principio. El retrato del mundo del Barrio Chino de La Habana es muy bueno, se nota que Padura hizo un buen trabajo de campo para documentarse. Después de leerla en quinto lugar, me pregunto si no hubiera sido mejor leerla siguiendo la cronología de su publicación, en lugar de la cronología del personaje, puesto que está escrita después de las dos siguientes, como en una especie de flashback de Mario Conde. El final dramático de la novela salva la obra, está al nivel de lo mejor de la serie.

[Alfredo · Rating 3 out of 5]

No malo. Ágil y ameno. Por cierto, incluye un acertijo interesante y, sobre todo, para conocedores. Los no conocedores se dejarán llevar por la mención a Raymond Chandler que aparece por ahí. Sin embargo, cualquier conocedor sabe que la escena de referencia es de Van Gulik.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un cuento chino reconvertido en novela corta. Y eso... se queda corta.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

El final es muy apresurado e improvisado, quedan muchos cabos sueltos.

[Terpsicore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't like it as much as The man who loved dogs but when I saw it initially was a short story about the chinese immigrants in Cuba that he rewrote later it began to make more sense.

[Birgitte Bach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stemningsfuld krimi, der foregår i Cuba. Jeg føler jeg ville have fået betydelig mere ud af bogen, hvis jeg havde læst de forgående seks bøger.

[Clara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pésimo. Una decepción absoluta después de haber disfrutado de La neblina del ayer. No lo leáis.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable. Not sure if it's the translation or original text but I couldn't figure who was talking. The first chapter has Mario completely objectifying an exotic female colleague, a no-no in 2019.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

For decades, glimpses into Cuban life were hard to come by, and for Americans will be harder to come by again with renewed travel restrictions. English-language crime fiction about contemporary Cuba, written by Cubans, also has been sparse, despite reader curiosity about a tropical culture with such a heady mix of Caribbean, Spanish, African, and Indian influences.
Leonardo Padura, whom the book jacket calls “Cuba’s most celebrated living author,” is the author of the Havana Quartet, crime novels that in their English versions each have a color in the title: Havana Gold, Havana Blue, Havana Red and Havana Black. Spanish-language television films were created from them, and they appeared on Netflix with English subtitles as Four Seasons in Havana. This police procedural follows the protagonist of those popular earlier works, police inspector Mario Conde, as he reminisces about a murder investigation from 30 years ago in Havana’s Barrio Chino (Chinatown).
Cuba’s significant Chinese community immigrated to the island under contracts that amounted to slave labor, and which led to the atmosphere of loneliness, contempt, and uprooting that forms the backdrop to the narrative and sets the stage for murder. Even in a culture where diverse racial and ethnic identities are a commonplace, the dirty, poverty-ridden Barrio Chino is considered mysterious and alien to most Havana residents.
Conde is persuaded to look into the murder by a beautiful African-Chinese police lieutenant Patricia Chion, about whom Conde has impure thoughts. Patricia tells him to engage her father, Juan, as his guide through the barrio's labyrinthine streets and cultural ways. That’s because, as Conde says, “There were complications, as there almost always are in situations involving a chino.” (So evocative of the last line of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”)
Patricia explains that the dead man, Pedro Cuang, was a friend of her godfather and an acquaintance of her father, even though her father denies knowing him. That would be one of the complications.
Cuang was a retired dry cleaner, no family, living alone on a pension in a dingy one-room apartment. Conde visits that apartment, where the corpse has yet to be removed. He and his sergeant Manuel Palacios see the 73-year-old has been hanged, with a couple of peculiar flourishes: a severed index finger and a circle with two crossed arrows inside carved on his chest.
Crime was rampant in the Barrio Chino, but what Cuang’s link to it may have been is murky. As is the meaning of the strange symbols. In Havana, there are lots of possibilities: a Congolese practice called nganga, Yoruba santaria, voodoo, or some heretofore unknown Chinese witchcraft. Investigating these possibilities and their practitioners gives Padura an excuse to delve into them a bit. These interesting diversions into cultural anthropology aren’t distractions from the main thrust of the story. It needs them to move forward.
Grab a Snake by the Tail is short book that employs a somewhat literary style, appropriate for a cop who wants to be a writer. The translation seems good – you aren’t frequently reminded of it, at least. The characters, especially Conde, his aide Manuel, and his unofficial deputy, Juan Chion, engage in lively interplay. There’s some sex. You never have the sense detective Conde is in any serious, thriller-style danger. It’s more that you’re following him around a fascinating town trying to avoid the complications—criminal, female and cultural.

[Ian Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the seventh novel in Leonardo Padura’s Mario Conde series and the third novel since El Conde resigned from the Havana police. The novel was published in 2011, eight years after La Neblina Del Ayer but it jumps further back in time…..
Mario Conde is heading for El Barrio Chino (Chinatown) in Havana in search second-hand books when he remembers a case involving the Chinese community that he investigated in May 1989. That places the action of this novel between the second and third novels in the original El Conde series (Vientos De Cuaresma and Mascaras). For most of the novel I wondered why Leonardo Padura had written this novel so many years after those original novels. In an afterword he explains all. This novel started out as a story that was set “on the margins” of the original four novels. It was then recast as a novella and was published in Cuba in 1998. Thirteen years later he revised it again and republished it as La Cola Del Serpiente.
The case itself is a tricky one for El Conde. A colleague, Patricia Chion, a police officer of Afro-Chinese heritage, asks him as a favour to investigate the murder of an elderly Chinese man who was a friend of her father’s. The two men had emigrated to Cuba many years earlier from the same hamlet in Canton. Strange marks were inscribed on the dead man’s chest with a knife. The marks suggest that this was a ritual killing related to some kind of arcane Chinese cult…..
This is an excellent detective novel, but it did feel odd reading it. I felt as if it should have been included in the original sequence of novels because we have El Conde’s old friends, including the one who later emigrated to the US. We have his partner, Sergeant Manolo Palacios. And we have Tamara, El Conde’s teenage crush, whom he is still pining for. This makes it required reading for anyone who is following El Conde’s path from one bottle of rum to the next.

[Sue F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been wanting to try the Mario Conde series by Leonardo Padura for a while, so I was happy to receive a review copy of Grab a Snake by the Tail from Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for my honest review. And, I enjoyed this short entry in the series, with some reservations.

As the author explains in the intro, this book evolved over many years from a shorter work into something that just barely is long enough to be a book, or maybe a long novella. Much of the action in the book takes place in Havana’s Barrio Chino, or Chinatown, which I didn’t know anything about – or even that there was one - prior to reading this title. And although translation can sometimes result in awkward writing, that’s not the case here, where descriptions are sharp and really convey a mood for the story. The translator did a good job, I think.

With that said, I really did not like the way that the Chinese dialect was portrayed, sort of as a caricature, with blatant “l’s” instead of “r’s” and awkward word structure. Although at one point, Conde asks one of the main characters, Juan Chion, about why he doesn’t speak better Spanish and Juan says, “Because I don’t feel like speaking like yourr people,” which implies that the dialect is on purpose, it still was annoying. The dialect kept pulling me out of the story, which was quite annoying.

Overall, I enjoyed enough of the book to go ahead and give one of the more classic Padura/Conde books a try, but this doesn’t seem to be a strong entry in the series.

[Malcolm Wardlaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an off-beat detective yarn set in Cuba at the end of the Soviet Era - despite which there is a notable lack of much reference to repression, censorship or surveillance, the main complaint being the lack of decent liquor available for those restricted to the Cuban pesos (decent lines are generally only available for US dollars, which Cuban citizens are not allowed to use).
The tale is curious in that at one level it is banal: an elderly chinese ex-pat is murdered in the Chinatown of Havana with curious signs carved on his body. The explanation for the crime turns out to be typical and the perpetrators were quite sloppy anyway.
However, we are not reading Padura to learn about the minutiae of police procedure, but to breath the air of Havana and the exotic, racially diverse people who jostle there and whose cultures have mixed and meshed in baffling ways. A lesser writer would have used the characters as crude instruments to attack the results of Castro's Marxist ways. Padura's characters are all vividly and crudely human.