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Cleopatra Dismounts
Carmen Boullosa is one of Latin America’s most original voices, and in Cleopatra Dismounts she has written a remarkable imaginary life of one of history's most legendary women. Dying in Marc Antony’s arms, Cleopatra bewails the end of her political career throughout ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Mediterranean. But is this weak woman the true Cleopatra?
Through the intervention of Cleopatra's scribe and informer Diomedes, Boullosa creates two deliriously wild other lives for the young monarch—a girl escaping the intrigues of royal society to disguise herself and take up residence with a band of pirates; and the young queen who is carried across the sea on the back of a magical bull, to live among the Amazons.
Magical, multifaceted, and rippling with luminous imagination, Cleopatra Dismounts is a work that recalls Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry and confirms Carmen Boullosa as an important international voice.
Through the intervention of Cleopatra's scribe and informer Diomedes, Boullosa creates two deliriously wild other lives for the young monarch—a girl escaping the intrigues of royal society to disguise herself and take up residence with a band of pirates; and the young queen who is carried across the sea on the back of a magical bull, to live among the Amazons.
Magical, multifaceted, and rippling with luminous imagination, Cleopatra Dismounts is a work that recalls Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry and confirms Carmen Boullosa as an important international voice.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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169 people want to read
About the author
Carmen Boullosa
79 books177 followersCarmen Boullosa (b. September 4, 1954 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a leading Mexican poet, novelist and playwright. Her work is eclectic and difficult to categorize, but it generally focuses on the issues of feminism and gender roles within a Latin American context. Her work has been praised by a number of prominent writers, including Carlos Fuentes, Alma Guillermoprieto and Elena Poniatowska, as well as publications such as Publishers Weekly. She has won a number of awards for her works, and has taught at universities such as Georgetown University, Columbia University and New York University (NYU), as well as at universities in nearly a dozen other countries. She is currently Distinguished Lecturer at the City College of New York. She has two children -- Maria Aura and Juan Aura -- with her former partner, Alejandro Aura --and is now married to Mike Wallace, the Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
(from Wikipedia)
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 5, 2011
You can't approach this book as historical fiction. It may focus on the last part of Cleopatra IV's life, but it is too dissimilar in tone and delivery to historical fiction. This is not a genre work; it is pure literary fiction, and it's about as literary as it gets.
Told through the translating pen of a scribe who is interpreting the works of a man who took down dictation for an aging/dying Cleopatra (if memory serves me), the book itself was originally written in Mexican Spanish and translated into English for the American market. This leads to a sensory tangle of words (intentional and unintentional) that may overwhelm some readers. But those who love to read literary works in order to be carried away by a river of images will love it.
The essence of the plot, sparse though it is, is a recounting of Cleopatra's memories as she looks back on her life with some pain and regret. But the strength of the book -- and its actual point, I believe -- is its brilliant, powerful writing, filtered through all these fictional and actual translators until it becomes a study in the potency of pure emotion. It leaves you not with the experience of having lived an adventuresome life, as a straight historical novel might, but rather with the feeling that you have felt all the urgency, desperation, and futility of a once-powerful, now-fallen leader as she contemplates the end, and what that end means.
It's a powerful book, and it's not for everybody.
Told through the translating pen of a scribe who is interpreting the works of a man who took down dictation for an aging/dying Cleopatra (if memory serves me), the book itself was originally written in Mexican Spanish and translated into English for the American market. This leads to a sensory tangle of words (intentional and unintentional) that may overwhelm some readers. But those who love to read literary works in order to be carried away by a river of images will love it.
The essence of the plot, sparse though it is, is a recounting of Cleopatra's memories as she looks back on her life with some pain and regret. But the strength of the book -- and its actual point, I believe -- is its brilliant, powerful writing, filtered through all these fictional and actual translators until it becomes a study in the potency of pure emotion. It leaves you not with the experience of having lived an adventuresome life, as a straight historical novel might, but rather with the feeling that you have felt all the urgency, desperation, and futility of a once-powerful, now-fallen leader as she contemplates the end, and what that end means.
It's a powerful book, and it's not for everybody.
January 21, 2023
For me this was a really poor start to 2023, a book with very few positives and a truckload of negatives.
The book is split into 3 distinct sections, the first 40% is Cleopatra lamenting her life with Mark Anthony, or at least lamenting large sections of it. The scene is Mark and Cleopatra in a secure room having already lost a decisive battle against the Romans and the arrest of Cleopatra is seemingly imminent. Mark Anthony has already, through the addition of a large knife, turned his insides into a Doner Kebab and lays dying/dead. Cleopatra wails away, using analogies like confetti throwing them out to the point of boredom. One analogy maybe fine, two just about acceptable but in this section of the book there are lists of them, not so much illuminating a point but repeating it to the point of distraction.
The second 20% tells the story of Cleopatra escaping Rome and finding herself on an island on route to her return to Egypt. This is, for me, the best part of the book. I do not mean that it is good but feels it in comparison to what surrounds it.
The third and final section is Cleopatra is some kind of dreamlike setting with a large group of Amazons and Gods. There is some lesbianism that somehow is about as erotic as watching paint dry. This section stumbles from bizarre scene to weird scene to what is this? scene.
I read this book quite uickly simply because I wanted it to be over, like a dose of flu.
The book is split into 3 distinct sections, the first 40% is Cleopatra lamenting her life with Mark Anthony, or at least lamenting large sections of it. The scene is Mark and Cleopatra in a secure room having already lost a decisive battle against the Romans and the arrest of Cleopatra is seemingly imminent. Mark Anthony has already, through the addition of a large knife, turned his insides into a Doner Kebab and lays dying/dead. Cleopatra wails away, using analogies like confetti throwing them out to the point of boredom. One analogy maybe fine, two just about acceptable but in this section of the book there are lists of them, not so much illuminating a point but repeating it to the point of distraction.
The second 20% tells the story of Cleopatra escaping Rome and finding herself on an island on route to her return to Egypt. This is, for me, the best part of the book. I do not mean that it is good but feels it in comparison to what surrounds it.
The third and final section is Cleopatra is some kind of dreamlike setting with a large group of Amazons and Gods. There is some lesbianism that somehow is about as erotic as watching paint dry. This section stumbles from bizarre scene to weird scene to what is this? scene.
I read this book quite uickly simply because I wanted it to be over, like a dose of flu.
January 22, 2014
This was going so well! For the first 120 or so pages, I was enthralled by Boullosa's writing and her vision of Cleopatra and then came the chapter (? Section?) called 'The Queen Dismounts With A Single Leap' – the largest chapter and presented as Cleopatra's true final words – and I just... got bored? Found it nonsensical, too fantastical and verging on irritating? Lacking all the magic and power that the previous sections had?
Maybe it was deliberate choice to represent the dying Cleopatra's mindframe, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I felt let down by it, to be honest, expecting something on a par with the first half of the book to produce a powerful ending to Cleopatra's life and Cleopatra Dismounts.
Additionally, I felt that the idea Cleopatra's downfall and the deaths of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony was blamed on her being "weak" enough to fall in love, to be addicted to be part of a couple, was a poor choice.
So, yes: I loved the first half or so of Cleopatra Dismounts, but found the conclusion disappointing and a letdown after such a powerful beginning.
Maybe it was deliberate choice to represent the dying Cleopatra's mindframe, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I felt let down by it, to be honest, expecting something on a par with the first half of the book to produce a powerful ending to Cleopatra's life and Cleopatra Dismounts.
Additionally, I felt that the idea Cleopatra's downfall and the deaths of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony was blamed on her being "weak" enough to fall in love, to be addicted to be part of a couple, was a poor choice.
So, yes: I loved the first half or so of Cleopatra Dismounts, but found the conclusion disappointing and a letdown after such a powerful beginning.
July 29, 2008
I didn't read the whole book. To be honest, I didn't get off the first page. This book is horrible! It was given to my mom by her friend who only got through half the book. My mom got through two chapters. I got through the first page. I want to leave it out somewhere for someone else to pick up and read, but I'm afraid that may cause bad karma on my part. Don't read! Totally not worth the effort.
April 22, 2013
A great take on classical literature, as Carmen Boullosa breathes life into the ancient tomes of Rome and Alexandria.
January 31, 2018
The summary on GR is atrocious but I can't help but read something relatively based on Cleopatra.
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November 24, 2008Cleopatra Dismounts by Carmen Boullosa; Translator-Geoff Hargreaves (2003)
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews