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Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano
Born with a rare affliction that leads him in pursuit of fame and fortune on the silver screen, Jaime Gabriel Holbrook puts his dream on hold to find the man who raised him after learning he is not his true biological father. The course of this journey takes him places he could never have imagined, opening his mind to secrets of the universe, science, the history of civilization and love.The search spans two continents and winds into a twisting, turning adventure of epic proportions, ranging from operating a Peruvian Cultural and Anchovy History Museum, to traversing galactic vastness with a Sinola Shaman to New York City high society. Along the way, Jaime discovers insights to his guardian angel, an extra-terrestrial link to human achievement and that fame comes with a price. But he also wins his father's freedom from political persecution and makes deep connections with new friends for life. A unique, humorous, zany tale of life and love.
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First published April 15, 2015
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About the author
Robert Scott
489 books23 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 18, 2017
A Postmodern Romp
Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano by Robert Scott trounces on conventional narrative and plot to follow Jamie Gabby Holbrook on his bizarre peregrinations. The novel is often experimental and loopy, prone to vignettes, catalogs, and mischievous tangents. And yet even as it unhinges itself from traditional expectations, Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano grounds itself in the literary canon as the opening with Jamie’s birth nods to Laurence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy (or even Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children) and the journey is marked by the controlled chaos of Voltaire’s Candide.
Scott is a clever, funny writer. He scatters his scenes with obtuse asides, like the explanation of how bird dung in South American colonies was transformed into ammonia-based explosives, a comment that leads to an exegesis on the varying uses of guano. His erudition expands outward to the Milky Way (“Jupiter serving as our solar system’s liver, swallows whole most menacing comets and larger meteors”) and grinds down to the elemental (“A by-product of [a nutritionally bereft body] is the release of acetone. Hence, our depleted pair are not experiencing hallucination of the nostrils when whiffs of Sally Hansen nail polish remover drift into their airways”). While Jaime finds himself in the roles of adult film star, traveler, bean picker, and museum curator, he is really the rascally everyman of a picaresque, one who can cross many lines of class and culture, especially after his fortunes rise. The phenomena he encounters (sacred cows, cocaine busts, arcana of the anchovy, Ramones lure, covert gene therapy operations . . .) and the characters he engages (a cosmic Hopi, a conspiratorial, pontificating deputy sheriff, a guardian angel, the titular gauchos, a chanting shaman, an ageless punk rocker, Amazonian cannibals, Manhattan socialites . . .) continue to fascinate: the novel’s jarring juxtapositions form patterns that bring meaning to Jamie’s seemingly random wanderings.
The sporadic quest for Jaime’s father (well, not really his father, since as with much of the novel relationships are constantly transforming) in a Peruvian prison propels Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano onto missions as hare-brained as a ransom scheme involving the theft of the sword of Jose da San Martin and as well-conceived as the historically rich anchovy museum.
Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano is a wild ride that rewards the reader who worries less about the advancement of plot than the insights gained from the journey.
Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano by Robert Scott trounces on conventional narrative and plot to follow Jamie Gabby Holbrook on his bizarre peregrinations. The novel is often experimental and loopy, prone to vignettes, catalogs, and mischievous tangents. And yet even as it unhinges itself from traditional expectations, Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano grounds itself in the literary canon as the opening with Jamie’s birth nods to Laurence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy (or even Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children) and the journey is marked by the controlled chaos of Voltaire’s Candide.
Scott is a clever, funny writer. He scatters his scenes with obtuse asides, like the explanation of how bird dung in South American colonies was transformed into ammonia-based explosives, a comment that leads to an exegesis on the varying uses of guano. His erudition expands outward to the Milky Way (“Jupiter serving as our solar system’s liver, swallows whole most menacing comets and larger meteors”) and grinds down to the elemental (“A by-product of [a nutritionally bereft body] is the release of acetone. Hence, our depleted pair are not experiencing hallucination of the nostrils when whiffs of Sally Hansen nail polish remover drift into their airways”). While Jaime finds himself in the roles of adult film star, traveler, bean picker, and museum curator, he is really the rascally everyman of a picaresque, one who can cross many lines of class and culture, especially after his fortunes rise. The phenomena he encounters (sacred cows, cocaine busts, arcana of the anchovy, Ramones lure, covert gene therapy operations . . .) and the characters he engages (a cosmic Hopi, a conspiratorial, pontificating deputy sheriff, a guardian angel, the titular gauchos, a chanting shaman, an ageless punk rocker, Amazonian cannibals, Manhattan socialites . . .) continue to fascinate: the novel’s jarring juxtapositions form patterns that bring meaning to Jamie’s seemingly random wanderings.
The sporadic quest for Jaime’s father (well, not really his father, since as with much of the novel relationships are constantly transforming) in a Peruvian prison propels Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano onto missions as hare-brained as a ransom scheme involving the theft of the sword of Jose da San Martin and as well-conceived as the historically rich anchovy museum.
Gauchos Cannot Sing Soprano is a wild ride that rewards the reader who worries less about the advancement of plot than the insights gained from the journey.
April 9, 2018
great read! It flows really well and takes you through an epic journey.
I like the travelling aspect and how a journey can take you to lots of different places.
I would definitely recommend to everyone
I like the travelling aspect and how a journey can take you to lots of different places.
I would definitely recommend to everyone
Want to read
April 13, 2023wild stuff. Fun! Enjoyable. Different.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews