The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights

Pentagonía #4

by Reinaldo Arenas, Andrew Hurley (Translator), Thomas Colchie (Introduction)

Critics worldwide have praised Reinaldo Arenas's writing. His extraordinary memoir, Before Night Falls , was named one of the fourteen "Best Books of 1993" by the editors of The New York Times Book Review and has now been made into a major motion picture.

The Color of Summer , Arenas's finest comic achievement, is also the fulfillment of his life's work, the Pentagonía , a five-volume cycle of novels he began writing in his early twenties. Although it is the penultimate installment in his "secret history of Cuba," it was, in fact, the last book Arenas wrote before his death in 1990. A Rabelaisian tale of survival by wits and wit, The Color of Summer is ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Spanish Literature, Queer

465 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Arenas was born in the countryside, in the northern part of the Province of Oriente, Cuba, and later moved to the city of Holguín. In 1963, he moved to Havana to enroll in the School of Planification and, later, in the Faculty of Letters at the Universidad de La Habana, where he studied philosophy and literature without completing a degree. The following year, he began working at the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí. While there, his talent was noticed and he was awarded prizes at Cirilo Villaverde National Competition held by UNEAC (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists). His Hallucinations was awarded "first Honorable Mention" in 1966 although, as the judges could find no better entry, no First Prize was awarded that year.

His writings and openly gay lifestyle were, by 1967, bringing him into conflict with the Communist government. He left the Biblioteca Nacional and became an editor for the Cuban Book Institute until 1968. From 1968 to 1974 he was a journalist and editor for the literary magazine La Gaceta de Cuba. In 1973, he was sent to prison after being charged and convicted of 'ideological deviation' and for publishing abroad without official consent.

He escaped from prison and tried to leave Cuba by launching himself from the shore on a tire inner tube. The attempt failed and he was rearrested near Lenin Park and imprisoned at the notorious El Morro Castle alongside murderers and rapists. He survived by helping the inmates to write letters to wives and lovers. He was able to collect enough paper this way to continue his writing. However, his attempts to smuggle his work out of prison were discovered and he was severely punished. Threatened with death, he was forced to renounce his work and was released in 1976. In 1980, as part of the Mariel Boatlift, he fled to the United States. He came on the boat San Lazaro captained by Cuban immigrant Roberto Aguero.

In 1987, Arenas was diagnosed with AIDS; he continued to write and speak out against the Cuban government. He mentored many Cuban exile writers, including John O'Donnell-Rosales. After battling AIDS, Arenas died of an intentional overdose of drugs and alcohol on December 7, 1990, in New York City. In a suicide letter written for publication, Arenas wrote: "Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life... I want to encourage the Cuban people abroad as well as on the Island to continue fighting for freedom... Cuba will be free. I already am."

In 2012 Arenas was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display which celebrates LGBT history and people

Reviews

[José · Rating 5 out of 5]

El Color del Verano es sin dudas el mejor libro que he leído de Reinaldo Arenas, y digo libro en un sentido muy amplio porque este texto es al mismo tiempo carta, oración, poema, teatro, venganza, chiste, música y novela. La estructura del texto es lo que más llama la atenión al inicio, el mismo Arenas la describe como una obra circular y ciclónica, con un centro o vértice hacia donde parten todas las flechas, y gracias a esta cualidad de circunferencia, el texto en realidad no comienza ni termina en un punto en específico, por lo que puede empezar a leerse en cualquier capítulo, y esto lo noté cuando por la mitad del libro me topé con el prólogo.

La historia gira en torno al carnaval que se celebra como conmemoración de los 50 años en el poder del dictador cubano "Fifo", durante las preparaciones para la celebración se describen una serie de transmutaciones alucinantes, sexualidades desbordadas, imágenes surrealistas, y anécdotas verdaderamente chistosas. Al sufrir tanta represión, las personas de la Isla llegan a la conclusión de que la única forma que tienen para ser libres es separando a la isla de su base insular, y dejar que el viento y el mar la lleve a la deriva.

Este libro fue publicado 9 años despúes de la muerte de Reinaldo, un proceso bastante complicado ya que debido a su caracter subversivo, crítico e implacable, tanto la izquierda oxidadad como la derecha obstinada pusieron trabas para su publicación. Es curioso que un libro tan brutal también tenga la habilidad de hacer reír, y nunca me había reído tanto leyendo un libro. Lo recomiendo principalmente para todos aquellos que ya estén familiarizados con la obra de Arenas, principalmente con la Pentagonía y su autobiografía.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arenas nos sumerge en una narrativa que es un equilibrio perfecto entre una autobiografía sensacional y una crítica envuelta en realismo mágico.
Recomiendo su lectura por muchos motivos. El principal, es porque vas a descubrir bajo un ojo crítico la dura realidad de la Cuba mancillada por un régimen comunista. Porque vas a empatizar con un personaje, el propio Reinaldo, y vas a entender la frustración de un pueblo robado de libertad de expresión, de libertad sexual y de libertad, a secas.
Hay cosas que no he comprendido, y prefiero que así haya sido. En parte creo que nadie puede entender del todo este libro si no eres el propio Reinaldo, o Gabriel, o la Tétrica Mofeta, o todos a la vez. Pero al mismo tiempo, cualquiera podemos entenderlo, ponernos en su piel, y llorar con el autor. Este libro va a hacer que te plantees muchas cosas y que aprendas de muchas otras.
Quizás fue porque me lo leí en Cuba y siento una conexión especial con lo inculcado por Reinaldo, pero sin duda es una lectura obligada. Reconozco que el final se me hizo un poco cuesta arriba por repetitivo, pero una cosa no quita la otra.

[Leopoldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela desbordada, como una isla que se desprende de la tierra, como un intentar fijar todas las voces del naufragio cuando comienza a hacer agua.

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Color of Summer begins with an impossible play titled "The Flight of Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda" (with a cast of over 100) and spirals into a dizzying fractured narrative documenting the festivities celebrating Fifo's (a Castro stand in) 50th year running Cuba. The novel is a loud mess with tongue twisters, a shifting central character, bitchy queens, and a lot of outlandish sex, but still manages to be a truly moving work. Arenas is a genius satirist, and he shows all of his cards in this book.

[Antonio Parrilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distopía maricona de Cuba, criticando al regimen, homosexualizando al régimen, recordando desde el exilio una juventud llena de locas, una realidad underground que, como siempre, es importantísimo contar, aunque aquí esté tan exagerada.

Lo he leído en dos momentos, lo acabo ahora y hace meses escribí esto que ahora no llego a entender:
Tiene mucho de Copi, todo autoficción mientras escribe el libro, la propia escritura es un conflicto, realidad distópica donde todo pasa, aunque aquí no es tan feliz ni ideal. Si en Copi había infelicidad era por la idiosincrasia de un mundo travesti que se toma por normalidad. Aquí es una crítica al gobierno cubano que ha "degenerado" en isla travesti con policía.

[Liván · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnífica obra cíclica que, deliciosa y rítmica, no deja de ser cínica energía semi-bíblica donde la voz más Tétrica, felizmente antiestética, convierte a Cuba trágica en alucinación poética.
Reinaldo Arenas me deslumbra siempre, sobre todo en esta novela que, en mi opinión, es sin igual.

[Michael Beblowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the five semi-autobiographical "agonies" of Cuban, queer, dissident writer and poet Reinaldo Arenas, The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights was the most savage, witty, ribald and accessibly satirical. Told in a series of short chapters, tongue twisters, letters, a parodic play of rhyming couplets that recalls certain translations of Moliere, and erotic surreal anecdotes that can be read in any order (the author's forward is found on page 252 and explicates the project of his "pentagonia" a "secret history of Cuba" of which The Color of Summer is a "cyclonic" work). A Carnival celebrating fifty years of tyrannical rule by the mercurial and flamboyant dictator "Fifo" (who a minority of detractors argue has actually only ruled the Island for forty years) is being held in Old Havana and the most celebrated Cuban literati are being resurrected to praise his benevolence. But when poetess Gertudis Gomez de Avelleneda flees the country in a boat rather than celebrate the dictator she is formally and ceremonially denounced by an array of sycophants, drag queens, double agents, exiled Cuban authors who would rather be murdered in Cuba than die in Key West. Her escape devolves into a media spectacle between two empires in shallow ideological opposition culminating with the President of the United States having intercourse with a rabbit in order to steal television ratings away from Fidel Castro (I mean Fifo). The scripted drama ends here and we are introduced to the author embodied in an unholy trinity of "Reinaldo, Gabriel and Skunk in a Funk (his bitchy queer persona, girl!!!)" trying to compose his novel "The Color of Summer" only to have it stolen, confiscated, submitted as evidence of his counterrevolutionary activities, eaten by the dictator's trained sharks, written in prison and smuggled out by a drag queen with an immense capacity for storing contraband in her rectum. He is assisted, betrayed, subverted, and annoyed by his fellow outcasts, opportunists, size queens, voracious virgins, international literary celebrities (including Gunter "Greasy," Carlos "Puentes," The Marchesa de Macondo (who I believe to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and Salman "Rishidie") all participating in an absurd, adjective heavy conference purported to illuminate the creative freedom and serious intellectual debate fostered under the totalitarianism of Fifo. Jean Genet never dreamed of such raunchy and hilarious homoeroticism! Voltaire could not have conceived of a public mourning for the fallen breasts of a famous prostitute and visual artist, a killer shark that sodomizes the victims it devours before the carnivore falls in love with a drag queen who gets burned at the stake, a luckless devouress, who uses an ever changing volume of the Collected writings of Lenin as a protective charm in her quest to seduce a man, a political assassination by vaginal painting and other outrageous and hilarious antics.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok, but I was disappointed. I tried to get into it, but it seemed like one long gay-inspired rant on Fidel. Now, I can handle some of this, and it was both interesting and funny at times---but there is only so much I can handle.

[Nereyda · Rating 5 out of 5]

La mejor novela de Arenas.

[Javier Calderón · Rating 4 out of 5]

“El color del verano se ha instalado en todos los rincones. Un cosquilleo sin límites recorre nuestros cuerpos empapados. Y aun a veces, mientras envejecemos, soñamos. Y aun a veces nos parece que, dentro de la luz cegadora, un ángel desnudo con hermosas alas nos visita. Y aun a veces, como viejas solteronas, estamos prestos a enternecernos por equivocación. Y seguimos avanzando en medio de este vaho espeso y candente que por momentos adquiere tonalidades rojizas. Nuestros cuerpos húmedos y afilados como cuchillos cruzando una quietud temible, transverberándonos, retando al cielo que se nos viene encima, queriendo encontrar en el resplandor del mar una respuesta. Pero no hay más que cuerpos que se retuercen, que se enlazan y engarzan en medio de un carnaval sin sombras, donde cada cual se ajusta la máscara que más le conviene y la traición y el meneo forman parte de la trama oficial y de nuestra tradición fundamental... Vendrán los grandes aguaceros, y una desesperación sin tiempo seguirá germinando en todos nosotros. Vendrán nuevas oleadas de luz y de humedad y no habrá roca, portal o arbusto que no sea pasto de nuestra desolación y desamparo. Seremos ese montón de huesos abandonados pudriéndose al sol en un yerbazal. Un montón de huesos calcinados por el tedio y la certeza sin concesiones de que no hay escapatorias. Porque es imposible escapar al color del verano; porque ese color, esa tristeza, esa fuga petrificada, esa tragedia centelleante —ese conocimiento— somos nosotros mismos. Oh, Señor, no permitas que me derrita lentamente en medio de veranos inacabables. Déjame ser sólo un destello de horror que no se repite. No permitas que el nuevo año, el nuevo verano (el mismo verano de siempre) prosiga en mí su deterioro, y otra vez me conmine a lanzarme a la luz, ridículo, arrugado, patético y empapado, buscando. Que el próximo verano yo no exista. Déjame ser tan sólo ese montón de huesos abandonados en un yerbazal que el sol calcina.”

Esta novela es un caos absoluto. La he disfrutado con locura, aunque no se la recomendaría a nadie. Sacrifico mi comentario por la cita.

[Betina Barrios Ayala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es una zona de incendio, los destrozos después de la fiesta, la euforia de bailar sobre los restos trágicos de una vida marcada por la segmentación, las vueltas, el arrojo, la indagación, el exilio, la renuncia, el desenfado, la insistencia.

Es un cañaveral, reunión de pedazos que han sido escritos, reescritos, perdidos, prohibidos, rescatados. Al mismo tiempo constituye un ejercicio de imaginación admirable, de ironía, erotismo, rabia, denuncia, humor un ejercicio para revisar la ruina personal, social, histórica, contextual.

Reinaldo Arenas es un faro luminoso, una reunión de experiencia física, sensible e intelectual. Reinaldo es una guía, un testigo del horror del mundo, un mago, una muestra de lo que es el amor por la vida, el riesgo, la búsqueda de cierta audacia útil para la supervivencia, contar lo que nadie creería.

Hay que tener paciencia y disposición para esto, para el jardín de las delicias, para la vida, para el amor, para los sueños, para el horror.

[brian annan · Rating 3 out of 5]

not his best or most coherent book. tho some allowances are to be made since it is a collection of pieces.
filled with all the visionary satire and insight to the human condition that permeate his other works. more out there in some parts. well worth reading for someone familiar with Reinaldo's works but not a good starting point.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few novels are so brazenly anti-establishment, so joyous in the midst of suppression and violence. Reading The Color of Summer is like watching a delightfully dark, unforgivingly sexualized Disney movie with chorus lines full of ironic, anthemic and hysterical political statements sung while the whole ship (or island, in this case) goes down.

[Alf Bojórquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro bien importante para lxs que son críticxs con la cultura cubana revolucionaria de los 60 y 70. Abre brecha para lo que después harán Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Zoe Valdés, Daína Chaviano entre otrxs narradorxs cubanxs contemporáneos de esa estirpe.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild fictional ride through the gay subculture of Cuba. Not for those who are easily offended, this satirical novel delves into all kinds of sexual “deviant” behavior in minute detail. Very well written but also a slow-going read. Book 4 of the author’s five book Pentagonia series.

[Rodrigo Moreyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con una prosa picante y sátira: Reinaldo, la Tétrica Mofeta y Gabriel nos mostraran como es la vida en una isla gobernada por un tirano. Escrita y re escrita muestra la cruda cara de vivir en la marginalidad

[Maria]

q alguno de vosotros se lo lea q necesito hablar de este libro

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magistral.

[John Waytena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very long- very strange - I did not enjoy as much as Before Night Falls but great writing.

[Rodney Jenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Special indeed
We'd heard of Fifo's persecution of homosexuals since The Early 70's
but this poetic riff of pain beauty intelligence and comedy
MEMORABLE

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

...Coco Salas' mosquitos, the seven wonders of cuban socialism, sucking cock under water at the beach, masturbating cats with toothbrushes, sex with Bloodythirsty Shark with his enormous member, Clara's purportedly disease ridden paintings, tongue-twisters galore, The common or 'simple queen' who lives with their mother and who every Friday goes to see 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", backstabbing relatives, infamous poetry readings... these are passages that meant much to me. Overall, a wonderful read (if the profanity and repetitiveness does not bother you) once you get past the opening play. I laughed many times, almost cried once and am glad that I took a chance on this one.

[Jennifer Mccombs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuba sits on the idea of a facade of hardworking men and the idea that Communism is a balanced and equal governing idea during the late 50's and 60's but if Arenas aims to point out anything in this novel it is that ignorance sure is bliss. The guts of Cuba is full of betrayal, deceit, and dishonesty layered with a sexual revolution that Castro and his sharks aim to seek and destroy. It's a shame Reinaldo Arenas is no longer with us...then again, his death might just be the necessary ingredient in order for his story to be complete, as tragic as it might be.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is crude but yet so beautiful, wildly humorous, imaginative and dark, all in one. It is a brilliant book and so unique in style, taking you on a journey through the eyes and passions of youth. The anger at a world that does not allow one to simply enjoy its pleasures rebounds throughout the book. Yet there is also such a strong vein of unabashed hope, love and joy that beats across each page that distills life to its essence. We are so lucky for something that so quickly can be taken away.

[mazal bohbot berrie]

Reinaldo Areanas, you will always be known to me as the first love of my adult life. So it is with sadness that I put you away, for now, unfinished. As far as I'm concerned in your brutal life, lived with much passion, you have mastered the mysterious dance between dominance and revolt; the richness of your detailed and inventive mind matched only by the lushness of your lonely Island. I will come back and visit soon. Warm hugs, mazal.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is this book is stunningly beautiful and so,so funny. However, I do recommend that you read Before Night Falls first because you will get all of the references and understand the humor. I used this book for a Queer Literature research paper so I kind of flipped around the short story format and still fully appreciated this book. Love this so much!

[mtthw · Rating 4 out of 5]

fatalistically sexy?

[Mo · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was all the fuss about? I just sold this on Amazon and am glad about the $1.75 I made on it!

[Lina]

Crazy!!

[Patty · Rating 1 out of 5]

unreadable. either that or currently unreadable by me. shelving for later.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very descriptive and iconical read. I love the way that he creates mythical characters and scenes based on what was going on during the Cuban Revolution. Highly recommended read.