Jardín

by Dulce María Loynaz

El personaje de Bárbara, ha de quedar, como arquetipo de la mujer poética y la sensibilidad femenina que está en el mundo. Bárbara está encerrada en las paredes de su casa y de esta opresión desea salir, realizarse en otra realidad más abierta y vital. Su inadaptabilidad por estar habituada al silencio y a la soledad es asombrosa. Incluso su encuentro con el hombre que habría de sacarla de su encierro y trasladarla a otra realidad, que supuestamente le abriría nuevos horizontes y perspectivas, está matizado de silencios, incomunicación que define sus rasgos psicológicos. Los años anteriores al encuentro con el marino no han sido formativos, pues no prepararon a esta mujer para vivir en sociedad. La joven no puede escapar de su pasado y retorna al lugar de su infancia, con sus recuerdos y aislada de todo.

Barbara's character must remain, as an archetype of the poetic woman and the feminine sensibility that is in the world. Barbara is locked in the walls of her house and from this oppression she wants to leave, to perform in another reality more open and vital. Her inability to be accustomed to silence and solitude is astounding. Even his encounter with the man who would remove it from its confinement and transfer it to another reality, which supposedly would open new horizons and perspectives, is tinted with silences, incommunication that defines its psychological features. The years before the encounter with the sailor have not been formative, because they did not prepare this woman to live in society. The girl can not escape her past and returns to the place of her childhood, with her memories and isolated from everything.

Genres: Poetry

319 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Dulce María Loynaz (December 10, 1902 - April 27, 1997) Born in Cuba. Daughter of the famous General Enrique Loynaz del Castillo, a hero of the Cuban Liberation Army and author of Cuban National Anthem lyrics; and sister of poet Enrique Loynaz Muñoz. Dulce María was born in Havana City, on December 10, 1902, in a family of great sensibility towards artistic and cultural manifestations and deep patriotic feelings, home schooled, she grew up in a familiar environment highly propitious for poetry.

Reviews

[Nana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dulce María Loynaz es uno de los eternos pendientes de un lector cubano, su obra es muy accesible en todas las librerías del país, fundamentalmente su obra poética...es por eso que me acerqué a este libro sin saber que podría esperar. La propia autora califica la novela Jardín como una novela lírica y es por esta cualidad que debe leerse en pequeñas dosis, para captar los matices.
Con una estructura curiosa, la autora juega con el lector presentando estilos diferentes en cada sección, con toques de realismo mágico, con elementos góticos, se sufre y se goza...el texto te canta y te obliga a leerlo en alta voz como un conjuro; la trama se detiene como se detiene el tiempo en el jardín de Bárbara, en ocasiones parece fluir en la dirección opuesta y luego te trae de regreso de golpe y cuando reaccionas sigues en el mismo sitio, en ese jardín olvidado, en tierra de nadie, en una representación mágicamente aterradora del Paraíso prometido.

[Dusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if Tarzan had been an orphaned aristocratic Cuban woman? That's not exactly the story Dulce María Loynaz spins in El Jardín, but it's awful close. Bárbara (the orphaned aristocratic Cuban woman) lives in an old, white colonial mansion that has been in her family for generations. Behind it stretches a colossal garden. As a child she was abandoned in the house by her parents (her father is never present; her mother goes mad after the death of Bárbara's younger brother). Raised by an old black nanny (Laura) and sometimes visited by two shadowy uncles, Bárbara lives an enclosed life in the house and the wilderness out the back door. Until she is whisked away by a European sailor who stumbles into her garden and falls in love with her backward "primitiveness"...

El Jardín may be the best (eco)feminist book nobody reads. Near as I can tell it's only been published twice (in a first edition and, later, when Loynaz won a prestigious Spanish award for lifelong literary achievement) and it hasn't ever been translated into English. In the "Prelude", the author confesses she wasn't quite sure what to do with the book -- she subtitles it "Lyrical Novel" because its sparse plot and loosely-defined characters aren't what one typically finds in any other kind of "Novel" -- and the fact that Loynaz is principally known for her poetry seems to have reconciled the book to obscurity. This is a shame. I didn't care for the long third section in which Bárbara literally unearths and reads love letters received by one of her female ancestors (So many letters! All so corny!) but I can't think of another woman-written book of the early twentieth century that is this brave, this experimental.

Of course, now I have to reread...

[Francisca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es maravilloso, locuaz, silvestre, marítimo e íntimo. como si un ángel caído nos estuviera contando una historia. Terriblemente bello.

[Stefani · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be read again in the future

[Марија Андреева · Rating 1 out of 5]

She writes very beautifully, with beautiful descriptions, but this book is very boring. The beautiful style of writing is not enough. There is no specific plot or a point. I struggled to finish it, and if I must admit, I sometimes even skipped pages, which I have done only once or twice before. I was determined to like it, but it bored me to tears.

[Dani Cabrera]

Lo leí hace muchos años, pero no se porqué hoy me acordé y me dieron ganas de volver a leerlo....

[Itzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me gustaría más que terminase cuando la protagonista deja el jardín, aunque hasta ese punto, Loynaz es una MAESTRA escritora.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahora parte de la colección vindictas UNAM, con el objetivo de dar visibilidad a obras con vigencia y relevancia literaria que debido a una vision sexista no tuvieron difusión, Jardín es una historia acogedora, un libro para leer lento. Una novela lírica, una historia de amor, de crecimiento, de valentía.

[Monse Rosas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poesía pura que se escurre por las páginas de esta novela surreal, que rico es leer a Dulce María Loynaz. Ojalá se reediten sus libros porque es difícil encontrarlos.

[Manuel Espinoza Proudinat · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn't easy to find a copy of Jardín. It took me about 2 years to finally get one, but the discovery and marvel of this undersevedly forgotten book was worth the wait. I found myself reading a work of outreageous modernity, considering that Loynaz wrote it in the 30's but didn't publish it until 1951, unwillingly. The richness of Loynaz' Spanish is overwhelming and it is mainly at the service of contructing a world populated by people and things that seem to be abstractions of the human experience, a world that consists of a big white house which is sorrounded by a monstrous garden, inhabited by Barbara, a young woman to whom all things outside this environment are unknown, and by her black nanny. The story builds upon this sparse elements and, though sometimes at very slow pace, unfolds a whole universe of perceptions of interior and exterior realities. I'd go so far as to say that someone who hasn't read Jardín, doesn't know yet one of the most essential literary beauties ever written in Spanish.

[Alyx Valenzuela · Rating 3 out of 5]

En realidad es un 3.5. Es un libro poéticamente muy rico y bello, la propia autora lo llama novela poética pero siento que a veces se vuelve un poco cansino el tono. Hay imágenes muy bellas, el tema de la naturaleza como fuerza misteriosa y omnipotente me gusta, pero la parte inicial de los retratos y los vestidos la verdad se me hizo un poquito de hueva. De ahí, cuando se escapa con SU MARINERO CHACAL todo en nombre del amor, mejoró bastante. En general es muy bueno pero creo que a fuerza de tanta poesía, a veces se pierde la tensión narrativa. Sin embargo, es raro porque precisamente es a raíz de la reflexión poética como este libro nos permite asomarnos al pensamiento de la autora, vaya, que tengo el juicio dividido así que voy a re visitar mis subrayados y actualizo esta review.

[Quetzal Nimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Después de la mitad le perdí el chiste. No sé si fue mi falta de paciencia o entendimiento, pero no logré encontrarle el chiste más allá de la increíble prosa de Loynaz. Como poeta la amo, de narradora lo dudo...