The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch

by Anne Enright

Beautiful Irishwoman Eliza Lynch became briefly, in the 1860s, the richest woman in the world. The book opens in Paris with Eliza in bed with Francisco Solano Lopez - heir to the untold wealth of Paraguay. The fruit of their congress will be extraordinary, and will send her across the Atlantic on the regal voyage to claim her glorious future in Asunción.

The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch is a bold and brilliantly achieved novel about sex, beauty and corruption at the end of the old world.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Irish Literature, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Ireland

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published three volumes of stories, one book of nonfiction, and five novels. In 2015, she was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. Her novel The Gathering won the Man Booker Prize, and The Forgotten Waltz won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Reviews

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are plently of well written reviews for this book. I thought it was worth 4 stars because I love the style in which it's written, I love the language and way the author intertwines words to create a vivid and tangible story. I also want to say that this story is not a piece of erotica, not even remotely, regardless of what anyone else may tell you. The first chapter is written that way to grab your attention, to give the reader in just a few short pages, an idea of what makes Eliza who she is! nothing more , it's not there to tittilate or evoke an erotic atmosphere although granted it is sensuously written until Eliza starts counting that is!! Read it,think about 'why' she is compelled to count! But whatever you do do not skip this chapter.

This story is written from two peoples POV.

Elizas narrative spans 10 months from her time in Paris March 1854 where she meets and entertains Lopez to her arrival in Paraguay in January 1855 as his mistress. The author vivdly brings to life what it must have been like on the hellish, although affluent journey long the river, the heat the decay and death together with the emotions of being very heavily pregnant.

Dr Stewart's [one of Elizas traveling companions employed to look after her during her pregnancy:], narrative runs from 1857 to 1870. His story is full of demons , of his alcohol addiction and his general demise into self loathing, and his desire to be loved which co~incidently is also true of Eliza.

The author manages to sway the readers sympathy between the accounts, so whilst reading about 'vile' Eliza 'the whore' we do perceive her to be that. However when reading Elizas account your sympathy flitters back to her, you wonder how she coped ,alone in a country where no other woman would talk to her, where rumours about her were rife.

Other reviewers have said that there is no Paraguayan history in this book, well I wasn't aware that there had been a war between Paraguay and it's neighbours during 1870, so I think the statement answers itself! I did know about the Theatre that was built in the middle of the jungle and that Elizas piano was left in the middle of nowhere whilst everyone was fleeing the Brazilians. So, maybe not history as some people would have it, but yes! there is history here for those who no nothing about Paraguay.

As I said before I loved this story despite it's death and decay, and saddness and hopelessness. Some of the things that happen are very vivdly described, there are scenes that will bring tears to your eyes, thrown in to jolt the reader, they are shocking in the telling ,the last thing you would expect and stay in your minds eye long after the book is shut. Death and depondancy are rife but to some extent relief is gained via Eliza and her ability to lift the reader by her frivoltiy despite her unhappy inner voice.

I don't know who I would recommend this book to, maybe it's just one of those books that finds it's reader.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the only book I have read about Lopez and Eliza Lynch, as I read The News from Paraguay three years ago, but it was picked for a book club I am in, so I read it! This one is a little less literary in tone, with some explicit but not steamy (or romantic) sex, lush depictions of Eliza's jungle-inappropriate wardrobe, and pretty decent use of Paraguayan language and history.

Something about the grammar - there are some awkward sentences and a few just plain errors. I'm not sure how that happens, lack of editing?

I'm just amazing that this person really existed! While Lily Tuck portrayed her more as a fish out of water, Enright shows her as a force to be reckoned with. Someone who would willingly waste copious amounts of money to prove a point, and not flinch at incredible violence directed by her lover.

"It amazes me, the power men have. How we make way for their desire."

[Bill H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this quasi-history of Eliza Lynch, the one-time First Lady of Paraguay, dreamy — almost hallucinogenic — in its reading affect. Perhaps the heat was getting to me.

Though based on historical figures, the author is at pains to point out that this version is "Not True". Nevertheless, there seemed to be some painstaking research involved, even where she intentionally veered from the facts (or the popular legend, at any rate). The book led to an increasingly depressing waltz through Wikipedia, though.

[Hanna Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had it times where it was written beautifully. But for some reason I just could not get into the book.

[Viv JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lyrical and atmospheric, but dragged a bit at times.

[Carl R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing and as far as I know little-noted literary event took place in 2004. One element of the drama was the publication of Lilly Tuck’s national book award winner The News From Paraguay, an historical novel based on an obscure 19th Century South American military conflict between Paraguay and her neighbors--Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. I read News a couple of years ago and found it in every way deserving of its award. I even had an accidental lunch with Lilly Tuck at Sewanee, where I commented that I’d been disappointed that she was not teaching there that year, as I had led to believe. She told me I should be happy, that she was a terrible teacher. Not a terrible writer, though, and we all thought it a shame that only one of the five women nominated that year could win.
The second element of the said 2004 event came into my consciousness in the last month. After I was inspired by my reading of last year’s Booker Prize winner, The Gathering, by Anne Enright. I went looking for more Enright and picked up Eliza Lynch. I’d forgotten the name of Tuck’s heroine, but I was only a couple of pages into the Eliza Lynch before I realized this was The News From Paraguay revisited. What are the odds of that? When I realized they were both published in the same year, I wondered even more about the odds. Why and how would two fine authors fall upon the same obscure story accidentally and independently and publish novels virtually simultaneously? I did a little googling, but still don’t know the answer. On the web page of an unlikely organization called The Institute of Latin Irish Studies I discovered that said Lynch was the subject of a widely published biography and that she has become sort of the Evita of Paraguay, a heroine in death as much as she was a disgraced and celebrated sybarite in life. However, that twin novels about her would emerge this way seems passing strange, but a good deal for such as I.
So, what about Eliza, anyhow? She’s Irish, but both Enright and Tuck pick up her story in Paris with her meeting with Francisco Solano Lopez. Tuck has her meeting Lopez aboard a horse. Enright, in one of the best openings of a novel I’ve ever read, has Lopez aboard Lynch:
Francisco Solano Lopez put his penis inside Eliza Lynch on a lovely spring day in Paris, in 1874. They were in a house on the rue St.-Sulpice, an ancient street down which people have always strolled in a state of pleasant imagining. In he spring of 1854, no imagination was needed as Francisco Solano Loperz pushed his penis into Eliza Lynch and pulled it back again, twenty times in all.
We then get a countdown of Lopez’s strokes and a rather complete account of the events and feelings of Eliza’s life from birth to the present as each thrust inspires another memory and emotion. Utterly masterful--breathtaking, really--writing.
The rest of the book is similarly magical as we follow Eliza to South America, through her simultaneous rise and disgrace (Lopez’s family refuses to accept her.) as the powerful courtesan of Paraguay’s megalomanic, possibly insane, dictator. We see her situation through her own eyes as well as those of others, particularly a Scottish alcoholic Dr. Stewart, who is both infatuated and repelled by her. What we see is an ambitious, sensual, and sensitive woman. A woman with a lust for beauty, flesh, power, and affection, one with whom we greatly sympathize because she is such an outcast and because she acts out of a sort of innocent immorality. I know that’s an oxymoron, but that’s who she is.
When Lopez’s war fails, she leaves the country with great wealth and returns to Paris. Lilly Tuck follows her there and into the penury that surrounds her unto her death in 1886 at the age of 51. Enright, instead, chooses to follow Dr. Stewart to Scotland, where he lives with the Paraguayan maid he has married. The last sight we have of Enright’s Lynch is a glimpse as she climbs the steps of a courthouse, where her suit to seize some of Stewart’s property is about to be heard. Tuck follows her life’s collapse, Enright leaves us with an image of her as a warrior.
Lynch was obviously a woman with beauty and power to spare. More important to me at this moment, is that her beauty and power have inspired two such terrific books. Tuck’s and Enright’s writing goes beyond craftmanship into the realm of high literary art. It would be wonderful to have read both books in tandem, but a real treat to have read them both at all. Viva la coincidence.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well now this was an interesting book. I was a little underwhelmed by the size of it at first - but this slim volume packed a much bigger punch than many of the 400-odd page blah fiction I've been powering through recently.

This book is less a story, more like being handed a bundle of postcards from a person that are not in order and about half are missing. The chapters are brief glimpses into the story, and at various points in the timeline.

This makes it all sound incredibly cerebral - but I loved the character of Eliza from the first chapter, gradually falling out of love with her as the parts narrated by others, such as the doctor, progressed. Likewise the opening was very sexy, but that all cooled over the course of the story - much like the intensity of a love affair gradually waning.

I also have to confess to not really knowing much about the real Eliza Lynch, Lopez and the wars in Paraguay. This is one of the first books in a while where I had to look a few things up (on things like Wikipedia.)

I highly recommend just briefly familiarising oneself with the events of the novel, as there is almost no exposition about the historical events - but likewise the characters themselves are perhaps not self-aware enough to pick up in the narration that we are dealing with a South American dictator - to the main characters (and therefore to the reader) it's just about a couple who fight and he comes from an important family.

So I recommend this book - because I really enjoy books that make you think and fill in gaps - however at times I was a little too tired some nights to play the game of re-reading passages just to try and work out what is happening (and being in the final weeks of pregnancy the passages about Eliza's discomfort during pregnancy were a little too vividly realised).
But this is well worth working through the system.

[Katie Grainger · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really enjoy this book, I found it a little dull and difficult to read.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the late 1970s, when I first moved to London, a read an very amusing book by Cecil Beaton (if the name means nothing Google him - he was a very famous photographer) called My Bolivian Aunt which first introduced me to Eliza Lynch, the dictator Lopes and the dreadful war that nearly destroyed Paraguay. Like almost everything then, and even now, in English on the war and the horrendous decimation of Paraguay's Indian population is put squarely on the shoulders of the dictator Lopes and by default his mistress Eliza Lynch. It was only many years later reading Eduardo Galeano that I discovered a totally different way of understanding the war and what happened to Paraguay.

This novel is one of many other novels and/or biographies of Eliza Lynch (aside from this one three others were published in 2004-5: Lily Tuck, News from Paraguay; Michael Lillis, The Lives of Eliza Lynch; Nigel Cawthorne, Empress of South America; and Sian Prees, The Shadows of Eliza Lynch; while previously there was Alyn Brodsky, Madam Lynch and Friend, 1976 and Henry Lyon Young, Eliza Lynch Regent of Paraguay, 1966; and I don't pretend that list is exhaustive) and aside from being amazed that the mistress of a dictator almost no one can name of a country no one knows anything about (except for harbouring Nazi war criminals - maybe) should have so many biographies published within months of each other being surprising what is even more surprising is that all of them tell the same story from the same point of view with same hero's and villains. That, as I mentioned earlier, that there are many who view the Paraguayan war not as a result of the megalomania of a dictator and his mistress but a colonial land grab, financed and possibly instigated by London, against a small country which did not persecute and suppress the Guanari Indians with the vigour that the rulers of Argentina and others would have liked.

Although Ms. Enright's is a well written historical novel what her novel and all the recent and previous books about Eliza Lynch (including Beaton's amusing but utterly unreliable book) is the voice of a Guanari Indian to speak of what it meant to die in hundreds of thousands against enemies who despised you as barbarian and committed unspeakable barbarities to destroy your land and steal all its most productive parts away from you. They did not fight and suffer unimaginably for Eliza Lynch but during those hard years she was there, with them and a bond was forged. It is easy to draw parallels with Evita and her relationship with the poor but it is much harder to understand what it actual meant or amounted to. That it was a confabulation of lies, delusions, misapprehensions, etc. is all to true, but it was not simplistic. Eliza Lynch no doubt had many, many failings, but there had to be something more there. It is the failure of Enright and the other writers to penetrate or even recognise that there is 'something' to penetrate that makes all these books such a disappointment. The life of Eliza Lynch could provide a window onto the complex forces that have made modern South America. Instead we get only the soap opera version.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really couldn't get into this book at all, had a couple of stabs at it before I managed... and I'm afraid the whole thing dragged for me which, considering it is a pretty short novel, seems a shame. I have enjoyed other novels by Enright, but found the whole concept of this to be somewhat laboured and pretentious. The continued attempts to make everything appear in the most sensual light possible just seemed to cloud what was actually a potentially interesting story. Not a fan. :(

[Eleanor]

Bored. First chapter: deliberately un-erotic, if naughty, sex on the Continent, every thrust punctuated with an un-erotic memory of a different lover. Second chapter: mosquitoes on a sea-journey to Paraguay. Bored again.

[Ina]

One of the few books I just couldn't finish.

[Melissa Sheets · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was horrible. It was like it was in a different language. I could never figure out what was going on.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd book, but there are at least two elements of this book that stand out to me in making it less enjoyable to read than it could have been.  For one, the book has a confused timeline as the author appears not to want to write a straightforward tale but wants to jump forward and backward as a way of increasing the drama, even though the narrative involves the lives of people where there is little surprise.  If people know anything about the Paraguayan War, they know how it ended and they know the hatred that Eliza Lynch attracted from others for her (never formalized) relationship with the nation's dictator.  Ambitious and social-climbing women with a light sense of moral decorum have always been viewed with contempt by other women and it is no different here.  Likewise the other problematic aspect of this book is the way that it purports to tell the story of Eliza Lynch but it does so from the perspective of Lopez's Scottish surgeon, so what we are getting is a view of Lynch that is colored by the perspective of someone else whose relationship with Lynch was problematic in a way that is only hinted at in the end of this novel.

This novel is a bit more than 200 pages and it is divided into four parts, each of them called "The River," relating to Eliza Lynch's relationship with the Paraguay River, and each of them with rather odd chronological jumps to hide the general progression of her life and to allow the author to repeat various matters over and over again, like Eliza's beauty and seeming shallowness, the dire plight of Paraguay under the rule of its dictator who put people to death as Eliza played on the piano.  The author seems to make much of the way that Eliza buried her lover and her son after they were killed at a remote massacre in 1870 that ended the Paraguayan War with the nation prostrate, but the book does not really end there and instead ends in Europe where two people compete over the right to make money off of a yrba mate concession that the author seems unwilling to discuss openly and honestly.  Still, though, the main characters are interesting enough that this is a book worth reading even if it's not straightforward enough for its own good.

This book is a novel so it makes no pretensions to historical fact.  That said, it is a historical novel that takes a popular historical figure and puts her at the center of a novel and ends up not really being the sort of novel it sets out to be does lead to at least a few questions about the author's own skill.  Fortunately, the material included here is compelling enough that even if the author isn't very skilled that the material makes up for it enough that this is still an enjoyable book to read.  This is a literary fictional view of Eliza Lynch's experiences in Paraguay, and it makes no pretense at being well-structured in an obvious sense.  I don't think this is my favorite novel (in fact, it is probably my least favorite novel) of three related novels I read about Paraguay during this time that all featured Eliza Lynch as an important character and all conveyed in at least some sense the horrors of life under the Lopez regime in the face of paranoia and the denial of accepting defeat so as to save one's population from near-destruction.  It seems like a message that should resonate in our troubled times.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical novel based on the life of Eliza Lynch, First Lady of Paraguay with President Francisco Solano Lopez (1862-1870).
As the author says in the acknowledgements, "...this is a novel. It Is Not True." Still, I did some digging around and the history of the war between the "Triple Alliance" and Paraguay, as narrated by Dr. Stewart, is fairly accurate.
Eliza was in questionable financial straits, living in Paris, when she met Lopez, extremely wealthy heir to Paraguay's throne, in 1854.
They became lovers and she conceived a child. He decided not to leave her behind when he returned to Paraguay, and the rest IS history.
The book alternates between Eliza's (mostly fictional) account of her journey by sea and river to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, and the account of Lopez's Scottish physician, Dr. Stewart, which starts with Eliza's journey to Paraguay and goes through and past the war.
Eliza's narrative is one of playfulness and frivolity usually, although at times she breaks through to comment on her plight and the plight of women in general. Stewart's commentary is introspective and often melancholy.
I enjoyed reading the book, and from it I derived two things. First, history-especially of women-can be manipulated to suit almost anyone or anything. For example, Eliza is a patriot in Paraguay now, when she once was considered a whore. Second, it gives a glimpse of an important part of history in South America. Sometimes historical novels are a means of introducing obscure (and not so obscure) history.
For a relatively accurate portrait of Eliza, there is the documentary "Eliza Lynch, Queen of Paraguay", https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3171758/...

[Lisa Wynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a promotional edition published by Paperview U.K. in association with The Irish Independent, for the paper's "Irish Women Writers" collection. I picked it up because it was by Anne Enright, but then cover art almost put me off (a painting showing a woman's torso, dressed in underwear and corsetry - the style of which is not even contemporary to the events in the book). Intrigued by the back cover blurb promising a story based on the real life of an Irish woman in the nineteenth century who briefly became the richest woman in the world via South America, I went for it. Even with that enticement, this book was not what I expected. I loved it. It's about persona and perceptions and autocracy, told through alternating accounts of Eliza heading for her new life, and flashbacks from others of how her life in South America played out. Sometimes its refreshingly explicit for a historical/period novel, sometimes its abstract and vague, merely implying the arcs of Eliza's story, respectfully reflecting how unknowable the details of her actions and her true motivations were.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautifully written and I really enjoyed reading it. The fifth star is lost because I found the backwards and forwards in time difficult, which is likely partly my fault for knowing nothing at all about this war in Paraguay. The unending voyage which is the first part of the book is fantastic and reminds me of Magnusson’s “the seal woman’s gift”. The reception of Eliza by the women of Paraguay and the descriptions of the war are personal and believable. The actual history behind the narrative is astonishing.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

the story just felt tired ... The Irish woman living by her wits and beauty. It seemed so old-fashioned, with no new slant on it, nothing exciting to offer. It's just not the kind of novel that moves me in any way. I kept hoping for more, some twist to the tale. It seems a strange book to write in the 21st century

[gorecki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Still the unapologetic and raw Anne Enright I love, but I felt this book was somehow scattered and distracted and rambling at times. Beautiful paragraphs were followed by whole pages I had to re-read because I just couldn't understand what she was talking about. Looking forward to my next Enright, though!

[Philippa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely luscious descriptive writing, interesting era and setting(s), but too much stream of consciousness and not a strong enough narrative for my taste. Also I didn't really like or relate to any of the characters particularly. Probably didn't help that I set it aside for quite a while.

[Lucia Gannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written but I found it difficult to follow the story. I didn't like any of the characters but enjoyed the book overall. The language is such a pleasure to listen to on audible. So unlike anything else I have read by Ann Enright.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a bit 'meh' about this - overall it was pretty boring, but it had some moments of beautiful, rhythmic writing.

[Louisa Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

.

[Terry O'Brien · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stopped reading at 10%

[Jo Birkett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a howling success, I prefer her books set on home turf not S America, & time slips constantly confusing. Loved the bit about the picnic from hell & the rest entertaining enough to keep going.

[Lizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Joseph Conrad meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez…. Not aan original story. Tedious navel gazing.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eliza lynch was the mistress of the ruler of Paraguayan in the 1800s . Not a bad story but couldn't hold my interest

[Rowan Creech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing

This was an interesting novel about an intriguing woman and life lived so fully. It was very well-written and engaging.

[lorrainelowereads · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Pleasure Of Eliza Lynch by Anne Enright is the type of book that you can appreciate for it’s excellent writing and it’s interesting subject matter, but at the same time be quite relieved when you’ve finished it! It’s what I would call a niche book, very specific to a particular type of reader and not really a page turner that can be recommended to the masses.⁣

⁣What I enjoyed about it was that Enright’s wit, intelligence and talent shone from every page. And it also opened my eyes to a really fascinating Irish woman. Eliza Lynch was a real person (this book is fictional, although Enright has stuck to the general facts of Lynch’s life). ⁣

⁣Eliza was born in Cork but her family had to emigrate to Paris when she was 10 because of the Great Famine. She was married at a very young age but became estranged from her husband quite quickly and became a courtesan, i.e. a prostitute. One of her clients was Francisco Lopez, son of the Paraguayan dictator. He fell in love with her, promptly impregnated her and brought her back to Paraguay where she became First Lady (although they never married). She was abhorred by the Paraguayans, who just thought she was a filthy whore. Enright’s story focuses on the journey from Europe to Paraguay and then several years later when the country is at war. ⁣

⁣What I didn’t enjoy so much about the book was the cryptic nature of a lot of the writing; I didn’t always know what was going on. And I didn’t really enjoy the alternating chapters that were not from Eliza’s point of view. These were less interesting than when it was Eliza who was telling her tale.

[Carmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many people would come to regret this moment. You might say that everyone came to regret it -except for the two participants, Francisco López and Eliza Lynch, El Mariscal and La Lincha, Paco and Liz. Already unreal.