What do you think?
Rate this book
الكاتدرائية السوداء
"رواية وصفتها الـ""نيويورك تايمز"" بأنها مؤرقة، متعالية في أسلوبها الأدبي، وسريالية، ""الكاتدرائية السوداء"" لمارسيال جالا وترجمة محمد عبد العزيز تحكي عن عائلة ستيوارت التي انتقلت إلى أحد أحياء كوبا البسيطة. توسَّم أهل الحي في هذه العائلة الإيمان والتقوى، وخصوصًا حينما أعلنوا بعد وقت قصير من وصولهم أنهم جاؤوا لبناء أكبر كاتدرائية في كوبا، من أجل أهل الحي. لكنهم لا يعلمون أن هذه ""الكاتدرائية السوداء"" ستكون سببًا للعنة التي ستحل على الجميع. فيروي رجال العصابات، والأشباح، والقتلة المتسلسلين، ما يحدث في الحي من صراعات وجرائم قتل عند سفح الكاتدرائية التي تزداد تعقيدًا يومًا بعد يوم، وعلى إثرها يظهر جيل جديد مليء بالعنف والقسوة يتحمل مسؤولية التخلص من لعنة هذه الكاتدرائية."
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
40 people are currently reading
4252 people want to read
About the author
Marcial Gala
10 books62 followersMarcial Gala was born in Havana in 1965. He is a novelist, poet and architect, and is a member of UNEAC, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. He won the Pinos Nuevos Award for short stories in 1999. LA CATEDRAL DE LOS NEGROS received the Alejo Carpentier Award for novels in 2012 and the Critics' Award for the best books published in Cuba in 2012. Gala has also won the Premio Ñ 2018 with INTENSOS COMPROMISOS CON LA NADA. He currently lives between Buenos Aires and Cienfuegos.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
January 17, 2021
I thought my neighborhood was quirky growing up: we had Southerners with shotguns, we had Jews with two terrifying Doberman Pinschers, we had a Caribbean woman who never, in my entire childhood, wore anything other than a muumuu. We had two teenaged boys who tried, frequently, to get us girls to pull down our panties, and we had two teenaged boys who turned out to be notorious house burglars, wanted in three counties.
I've always chalked up my childhood neighborhood to being “colorful,” “diverse,” and, occasionally, “scary.”
But, now that I've read The Black Cathedral, I feel like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
My unique environs can't hold a candle to what the neighbors in Punta Gotica can claim: serial killers, necrophiliacs, rapists, voyeurs and cannibals.
Does it matter that much to know why we are so bad, so heartless and lacking in scruples?
This is one of the darkest novels I've ever encountered, and the ONLY reason I finished it was the exceptional writing.
Marcial Gala, a Cuban poet, landed himself, when he published this novel in 2012, into a group with some seriously good writers: Sandra Cisneros, Isabel Allende, Jacqueline Woodson, and Roddy Doyle. Authors who write with imagery and precision of the mystical and mundane worlds their protagonists occupy.
This is a powerful work, and it terrified me. As much as I love literary sex, this book made me want to don a chastity belt and a flannel apron. (A bonnet, too). It may have rendered me asexual.
This novel wasn't available in English until 2020, and, as far as my searches have informed me, none of Mr. Gala's poetry has been translated into English yet.
Mr. Gala is Black and Caribbean, so I fear the potential for his writing to be ignored, but if his work is circulated and continues to be translated as beautifully as this novel was, I can easily imagine him as a future recipient of the Booker Prize.
I've always chalked up my childhood neighborhood to being “colorful,” “diverse,” and, occasionally, “scary.”
But, now that I've read The Black Cathedral, I feel like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
My unique environs can't hold a candle to what the neighbors in Punta Gotica can claim: serial killers, necrophiliacs, rapists, voyeurs and cannibals.
Does it matter that much to know why we are so bad, so heartless and lacking in scruples?
This is one of the darkest novels I've ever encountered, and the ONLY reason I finished it was the exceptional writing.
Marcial Gala, a Cuban poet, landed himself, when he published this novel in 2012, into a group with some seriously good writers: Sandra Cisneros, Isabel Allende, Jacqueline Woodson, and Roddy Doyle. Authors who write with imagery and precision of the mystical and mundane worlds their protagonists occupy.
This is a powerful work, and it terrified me. As much as I love literary sex, this book made me want to don a chastity belt and a flannel apron. (A bonnet, too). It may have rendered me asexual.
This novel wasn't available in English until 2020, and, as far as my searches have informed me, none of Mr. Gala's poetry has been translated into English yet.
Mr. Gala is Black and Caribbean, so I fear the potential for his writing to be ignored, but if his work is circulated and continues to be translated as beautifully as this novel was, I can easily imagine him as a future recipient of the Booker Prize.
February 14, 2021
Violence, death, rampant misogyny, corpse mutilation, cannibalism, psychopathy, religious zealots, nihilism, fear, racism, poverty - if he'd thrown in a few horses, I might have thought I was reading a Cuban version of Blood Meridian. This book is relentlessly dark, a nightmare, an inferno. It's touted as darkly comic, but I failed to see the humour here. It must be deeply hidden under the rotting bodies.
This is the debut novel from Cuban poet Marcial Gala, and he has certainly created something powerful and disturbing, a portrait of modern Cuba that is appalling and frightening.
Set in Cienfuegos, it tells the fate of an impoverished black neighbourhood after the arrival of the Stuart family. The patriarch, Arturo, a cruel religious leader, begins the building of a cathedral.
It's only about 200 pages, but I found the novel fairly demanding, in that there are at least two dozen points of view, some characters only appearing once, some contradicting each other, their perspectives overlapping and/or jumping ahead in the time line. It's a chaotic cacophony of voices (some alive, some dead), which lost me at points, and stilted my reading mojo. There were three dominating narrators, which did help to string the story together. However, I noticed that the voices sounded very similar; there wasn't a lot that differentiated one from the other.
At the end, quivering and nauseated and determined never to eat steak again, I was left wondering, what exactly was this book about? The best I can come up with is that it is an indictment on religion, and a look at the destruction left behind by a society that is willing to heap money on the building of a church while their people's homes crumble and lives teeter into desperation and degradation. What happens when people are marginalized and desperate isn't pretty, let me tell you.
This is the debut novel from Cuban poet Marcial Gala, and he has certainly created something powerful and disturbing, a portrait of modern Cuba that is appalling and frightening.
Set in Cienfuegos, it tells the fate of an impoverished black neighbourhood after the arrival of the Stuart family. The patriarch, Arturo, a cruel religious leader, begins the building of a cathedral.
It's only about 200 pages, but I found the novel fairly demanding, in that there are at least two dozen points of view, some characters only appearing once, some contradicting each other, their perspectives overlapping and/or jumping ahead in the time line. It's a chaotic cacophony of voices (some alive, some dead), which lost me at points, and stilted my reading mojo. There were three dominating narrators, which did help to string the story together. However, I noticed that the voices sounded very similar; there wasn't a lot that differentiated one from the other.
At the end, quivering and nauseated and determined never to eat steak again, I was left wondering, what exactly was this book about? The best I can come up with is that it is an indictment on religion, and a look at the destruction left behind by a society that is willing to heap money on the building of a church while their people's homes crumble and lives teeter into desperation and degradation. What happens when people are marginalized and desperate isn't pretty, let me tell you.
god-knows-i-tried
May 23, 2023I happily read eighty pages out of two hundred and nine and then had to go outside and bury it.
Dead people can’t talk - they’re dead. Dead means dead. Period.
Dead people can’t talk - they’re dead. Dead means dead. Period.
December 30, 2019
Black Cathedral is interesting. The setting is mostly the Cuban town of Cienfuegos which has its fractured divisions of middle class and poor, black, white and mulatto, the good side of the tracks and the bad, the creative class and the workers, foreign and native born. The characters are static; the book seems to be about what happens to those who stay in Cienfuegos, those who immigrate to other countries but carry their hectic homes in their hearts, and those who immigrate to forget the place. Two things make Black Cathedral highly readable and suspenseful. First, the book is refreshing in its taut sense of real violence, not staged violence because the blood is real; every character is in imminent danger of physical harm. You turn the pages because you fear for them. Secondly, it overturns the idealized notion of Cuba as egalitarian society. Racial, gender, and class conflicts are complex and shifting, disappearing for a moment only to emerge relevant again. As a bookseller, I would recommend it to a reader drawn to the masculine perspective of Gabriel Garcia Marques, the religious iconoclasm of Salman Rushdie, and the national myth-busting of Naguib Mahfouz. If you are doing a book challenge this year to read a book in translation, Black Cathedral is a great choice.
March 11, 2020
If you’ve read My Sister the Serial Killer I would describe this as the next level of horrific violence and definitely more black than humour. Through a community of individual narrators, giving eye witness testimonies, we circle around the Cuban neighbourhood of Cienfuegos delving into the dark actions and motives of its inhabitants. The centre piece of this community is a cathedral that is being constructed to unite people but this plan seems very much doomed to failure. While it took me awhile to establish each cast member, as they have multiple names, this is an important structural technique that works really well to reveal the hierarchy that exists between them.
This is a definite contender for the International Booker Prize list for its unflinching portrayal of modern Cuba and cleverly constructed plot.
This is a definite contender for the International Booker Prize list for its unflinching portrayal of modern Cuba and cleverly constructed plot.
August 10, 2021
Righteous is defined as morally right or justifiable; virtuous. Some synonyms include, but aren't limited to: blameless, sinless, guiltless, pure.
Some antonyms to righteous include, but aren't limited to: wicked, sinful, unjustifiable.
Those antonyms describe someone like Ricardo Mora Gutiérrez a.k.a. Gringo; the villain of all villains in Marcia Gala's Splendid English Language Debut: The Black Cathedral—A villain of all villains who was a serial killer that would go to Punta Gorda, rob someone, kill them, cook them, & package them as meat to sell (at least he never sold them to the residents of Punta Gotica) his neighborhood; Who said killers didn't abide by a code?
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
The deeds of the righteous were supposedly going to be the light for the neighborhood of Punta Gotica—the land of the aforementioned Gringo, Guts, Maribel, Lupe, Bárbaro—by the Stuart family—Arturo, David King, Samuel Prince, Johannes among them.
Arturo Stuart, the head of the household, is a pastor for the Church of the Holy Sacrament & he has a vision: A vision to come to this neighborhood & build a Cathedral—the largest Cathedral in Cienfuegos. It'll become a spectacle with substance. A signal of the virtues of a neighborhood that, despite it's history & reputation, is turning a new leaf.
What Arturo Stuart & his righteous were blind to was that the sinful, wicked & unjustifiable had plans for him, the eponymous Black Cathedral & for the other members of his family.
Punta Gotica doesn't turn out to be a welcoming locale for the righteous & those who signal virtues. It turned out to be cursed. A predatory land that awaited the perusing of the weak so it could prey for dinner.
Perhaps the Stuarts would have been better off moving across town, to the safe space (as long as Ricardo hasn't cooked yet) of Punta Gorda.
The reader is better off, & probably grateful, for Marcial Gala deciding to place the Stuarts in a locale, that for some, was hell on earth.
The journey that the Stuarts, some people in Cienfuegos, whether Punta Gotica or Punta Gorda, go on is one that sends the following message in a resounding & emphatic manner: Righteousness Be Damned.
Some antonyms to righteous include, but aren't limited to: wicked, sinful, unjustifiable.
Those antonyms describe someone like Ricardo Mora Gutiérrez a.k.a. Gringo; the villain of all villains in Marcia Gala's Splendid English Language Debut: The Black Cathedral—A villain of all villains who was a serial killer that would go to Punta Gorda, rob someone, kill them, cook them, & package them as meat to sell (at least he never sold them to the residents of Punta Gotica) his neighborhood; Who said killers didn't abide by a code?
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
The deeds of the righteous were supposedly going to be the light for the neighborhood of Punta Gotica—the land of the aforementioned Gringo, Guts, Maribel, Lupe, Bárbaro—by the Stuart family—Arturo, David King, Samuel Prince, Johannes among them.
Arturo Stuart, the head of the household, is a pastor for the Church of the Holy Sacrament & he has a vision: A vision to come to this neighborhood & build a Cathedral—the largest Cathedral in Cienfuegos. It'll become a spectacle with substance. A signal of the virtues of a neighborhood that, despite it's history & reputation, is turning a new leaf.
What Arturo Stuart & his righteous were blind to was that the sinful, wicked & unjustifiable had plans for him, the eponymous Black Cathedral & for the other members of his family.
Punta Gotica doesn't turn out to be a welcoming locale for the righteous & those who signal virtues. It turned out to be cursed. A predatory land that awaited the perusing of the weak so it could prey for dinner.
Perhaps the Stuarts would have been better off moving across town, to the safe space (as long as Ricardo hasn't cooked yet) of Punta Gorda.
The reader is better off, & probably grateful, for Marcial Gala deciding to place the Stuarts in a locale, that for some, was hell on earth.
The journey that the Stuarts, some people in Cienfuegos, whether Punta Gotica or Punta Gorda, go on is one that sends the following message in a resounding & emphatic manner: Righteousness Be Damned.
January 24, 2022
I enjoyed every minute spent with this book: fast-paced and told through and from the perspectives of characters that were central to and who observed the narrative during and after the fact. I could not look away.
Gala uses his intimate knowledge of Cuba to render a character-centred story with location settings used to indicate changing fortunes.
-One day the pigeons will take over the unfinished cathedral, they'll smother it with their wings, and when that day comes, I'm going to be in Cienfuegos to see it- Berta.
Within five(less) pages I could tell I was going to enjoy this book. The alternating viewpoints highlighted not only the diversity of characteristics of the narratives, it also alerted the reader to the difference in identities and experiences of the characters themselves.
The twisted and dark characters who use religion to lend credence to their actions or the ones who turn to Christianity in order to satisfy certain desires were a definite draw when it came to my enjoyment of this book. I mean there were some less than morally upright people in this book.
The injection of the spirit world and the influences of Palo also served to keep me engrossed. Gala also highlights the poverty, social status, toxicity, casual transphobia, and misogynistic tendencies, without allowing it to become a focal point in the story.
The Black Cathedral that was to be a beacon of hope and light in the community and to the people, slowly morphed into a symbol for overgrown and darkened ambitions, becoming a character in it's own right, as the different influences and ramifications of its building are seen reflected in our characters lives.
The changing perspectives, introduction of new characters with different viewpoints and versions of what they saw happening in Cienfuegos broadened the scope of the narrative and kept me engrossed from start to finish.
This is a very character-centred story, even the Cathedral takes on a life of its own, with what it was meant to represent and in the end what it really stood for; the neighbourhood exists on the periphery, though the shadier aspects of it do not. READ THIS BOOK.
Gala uses his intimate knowledge of Cuba to render a character-centred story with location settings used to indicate changing fortunes.
-One day the pigeons will take over the unfinished cathedral, they'll smother it with their wings, and when that day comes, I'm going to be in Cienfuegos to see it- Berta.
Within five(less) pages I could tell I was going to enjoy this book. The alternating viewpoints highlighted not only the diversity of characteristics of the narratives, it also alerted the reader to the difference in identities and experiences of the characters themselves.
The twisted and dark characters who use religion to lend credence to their actions or the ones who turn to Christianity in order to satisfy certain desires were a definite draw when it came to my enjoyment of this book. I mean there were some less than morally upright people in this book.
The injection of the spirit world and the influences of Palo also served to keep me engrossed. Gala also highlights the poverty, social status, toxicity, casual transphobia, and misogynistic tendencies, without allowing it to become a focal point in the story.
The Black Cathedral that was to be a beacon of hope and light in the community and to the people, slowly morphed into a symbol for overgrown and darkened ambitions, becoming a character in it's own right, as the different influences and ramifications of its building are seen reflected in our characters lives.
The changing perspectives, introduction of new characters with different viewpoints and versions of what they saw happening in Cienfuegos broadened the scope of the narrative and kept me engrossed from start to finish.
This is a very character-centred story, even the Cathedral takes on a life of its own, with what it was meant to represent and in the end what it really stood for; the neighbourhood exists on the periphery, though the shadier aspects of it do not. READ THIS BOOK.
April 30, 2020
This book was absolutely phenomenal. It was a fractured, intense, fatalistic view of a poor neighborhood overtaken by fanaticism and a dark cathedral to rise, unfinished but not forgotten, amongst them. This is a hard look at Cuba, at the people who live, sweat, fight, steal, and raise children there. It is unceasing in its brutality. The style of the book was great - told from the multiple perspectives of those surrounding the building of this cathedral - the people with darkness in their hearts that lead eventually to the tragedy at the end of the novel. There is a healthy dose of suspense, the knowledge of something brutal and inhumane coming at the end and desperately wanting to know what could be worse than all the troubles and horrors we read about during the course of the novel. It's a short book, well written and a great translation. Difficult to put down, but also at times heartrending. So much tragedy, some much poverty, hardship, and anger. Prejudice runs like a sewer stream throughout those in the novel. Tradition rages against modernity. Stories are the heart of the book. Many of the characters are readers, lovers of poetry, desire books and education and class. Class is such a major struggle here - the type of clothes you wear, the type of home you live in, the type of job. That is your identity, that and you can never escape your roots, no matter how dark they are.
November 23, 2019
Twisted and comic in turn, The Black Cathedral follows a chorus of voices in Cuba - from gangsters to prostitutes - whose intertwined stories come together and blend into one another and hurtle towards a dark conclusion.
I found the novel to be fast paced and with great potential but the story left me cold and the narrative failed to grab me. Perhaps a (/any) knowledge of Cuba's people and history would have enhanced my enjoyment.
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
I found the novel to be fast paced and with great potential but the story left me cold and the narrative failed to grab me. Perhaps a (/any) knowledge of Cuba's people and history would have enhanced my enjoyment.
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
June 21, 2020
This was cool! Def made a mistake pausing this book to read x4 Harry Potter bc this story is told through switching between many narrators (ghosts, serial killers, lesbians, architects) and I forgot who was who by the time I returned to it. But brutal and magical and punk rock! Glad this book was finally translated into English, very cool depiction of Black communities in Cuba
February 11, 2020
Really good. Engaging characters, and a style of time/voice shifts which ensures that the reader never gets bored.
January 29, 2020
I was surprised by how much the narrative style worked for me. The way the story built with each passage from a different speaker, it felt like something halfway between a gossip circle or interrogation or even a courtroom drama. The development of all these different characters and their own tragedies, all united in the shadow of the Black Cathedral.
December 3, 2019
With this novel, winner in Cuba of the most important literary and critical awards, Marcial demonstrates that he is one of the essential authors of current Cuban literature.
It is a hard novel, full of life, full of human traumas, beautiful and subversive, but above all, very Cuban. Its characters, born in the harshest Cuban social reality, have a vital force that gives the plot of the story the breath of great novels.
It is a hard novel, full of life, full of human traumas, beautiful and subversive, but above all, very Cuban. Its characters, born in the harshest Cuban social reality, have a vital force that gives the plot of the story the breath of great novels.
Read
March 19, 2020DNF - this is a short book, but after reading about 30% of it, I have no desire to pick it up again, so quitting on this one.
April 2, 2021
Mad ting.
Yo, on the real this whole book defies genre. First off it was darkly comical, which is a style of writing I didn’t realize that I liked this damn much! Serious. It just didn’t ever occur to me, that I would find something so remarkably violent so fascinating.
Gringo is the stuff of nightmares. That character, wow. I had to put the book down numerous times and read something lighter because there were too many levels to just how nuts he is. So many characters had such unique backstories and the incorporation of crime, murder, cannibalism all out of this one neighbourhood — it was A LOT. Yo, I honestly was like: ...Cuba is willlld - never been btw. Still want to go one day, but damn homie.
Second, Marcial Gala — phenomenal writing omg. Funny! Casually terrifying in an everyday, shouldn’t be a surprise sort of way! Which worked out to be completely unsettling with every page. Layered and grotesque, the inclusion of the fanatical people building this Cathedral under Arturo Stuart. A man so sinister that my hair stood straight! The involved psychoanalytical deliberations over the need to kill, the want to eat people, the craving for sex and the passion that exists under everything. Masterful writing. It was a wild ride. It was thrilling. Dramatically absurd at points. I felt like I was watching America’s Most Wanted reading Gringo continuously shape shift. I was scared, rightfully so, for every woman he came across. The ghosts coming back and speaking from the dead! I loved the inclusion of the ghosts.
Lastly, the final thing that got me was the way the men committed from beginning to end to be the people that they had set out to be. Killers. Cowards. Etc. Very few come to God moments, even when they were going out. Even at the last second — the fact that many characters were fine in who they were even within the evil. Many held judgments over others while pretending to be in love or caring for others. It was terrible and yet great writing. Scary. Very frightening. Sociopathic? Psychopathic? Whatever the term - great writing.
I had so many more thoughts about this very crazy read, like how I also loved how author Marcial Gala eviscerated racist rhetoric from around the globe, one of my favourite scenes being a character, Guts, from Cuba becoming a bouncer in Barcelona and these white kids think they can fuck with him and keep calling him an “Arab” - a nod to racist whites in Spain labelling all Black people as outsiders from the same place. Our boy Guts can ignore these stupid kids until one of these kids touches him and so Gut’s response is to beat the kid to a pulp and piss on his face, much to the horror of the once laughing friends standing by once taunting... it’s a crazy sequence of events. Gala touches on the treatment of and experience of Black Latin people in Spain and America and although he restructures the narratives through violence, it’s interesting to read.
Anyway, I loved this book as nuts as it was. I hope someone brings this to life in a tv show or movie, I’d watch it — as absolutely crazy as it was to read.
Yo, on the real this whole book defies genre. First off it was darkly comical, which is a style of writing I didn’t realize that I liked this damn much! Serious. It just didn’t ever occur to me, that I would find something so remarkably violent so fascinating.
Gringo is the stuff of nightmares. That character, wow. I had to put the book down numerous times and read something lighter because there were too many levels to just how nuts he is. So many characters had such unique backstories and the incorporation of crime, murder, cannibalism all out of this one neighbourhood — it was A LOT. Yo, I honestly was like: ...Cuba is willlld - never been btw. Still want to go one day, but damn homie.
Second, Marcial Gala — phenomenal writing omg. Funny! Casually terrifying in an everyday, shouldn’t be a surprise sort of way! Which worked out to be completely unsettling with every page. Layered and grotesque, the inclusion of the fanatical people building this Cathedral under Arturo Stuart. A man so sinister that my hair stood straight! The involved psychoanalytical deliberations over the need to kill, the want to eat people, the craving for sex and the passion that exists under everything. Masterful writing. It was a wild ride. It was thrilling. Dramatically absurd at points. I felt like I was watching America’s Most Wanted reading Gringo continuously shape shift. I was scared, rightfully so, for every woman he came across. The ghosts coming back and speaking from the dead! I loved the inclusion of the ghosts.
Lastly, the final thing that got me was the way the men committed from beginning to end to be the people that they had set out to be. Killers. Cowards. Etc. Very few come to God moments, even when they were going out. Even at the last second — the fact that many characters were fine in who they were even within the evil. Many held judgments over others while pretending to be in love or caring for others. It was terrible and yet great writing. Scary. Very frightening. Sociopathic? Psychopathic? Whatever the term - great writing.
I had so many more thoughts about this very crazy read, like how I also loved how author Marcial Gala eviscerated racist rhetoric from around the globe, one of my favourite scenes being a character, Guts, from Cuba becoming a bouncer in Barcelona and these white kids think they can fuck with him and keep calling him an “Arab” - a nod to racist whites in Spain labelling all Black people as outsiders from the same place. Our boy Guts can ignore these stupid kids until one of these kids touches him and so Gut’s response is to beat the kid to a pulp and piss on his face, much to the horror of the once laughing friends standing by once taunting... it’s a crazy sequence of events. Gala touches on the treatment of and experience of Black Latin people in Spain and America and although he restructures the narratives through violence, it’s interesting to read.
Anyway, I loved this book as nuts as it was. I hope someone brings this to life in a tv show or movie, I’d watch it — as absolutely crazy as it was to read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 9, 2021
An intriguing, strange and mysterious story. Told from the perspective of many narrators, mostly from the impoverished town of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The people are vibrant, good, bad, murderous. There is prejudice, sex, crime. It's all here. Society in one small town. This is a story of race, class and faith.
The many narrators tell their story, which spans a number of years (20 or more, I think), but the feeling of time passing doesn't really happen. The stories overlap, are sometimes "hijacked" by the next voice. It's humorous in a dark way. It's mysterious as we know that something awful happens at some point but it's only occasionally referred to with no hints as to what it is. This mystery is a pulling thread throughout this book. Meanwhile the stories of the people shine. They and their motives & thoughts come alive. We're pulled into the mind of a psychopathic murderer, the fears of a transvestite, the dreams of the everyday person.
A surreal story, with preachers, murderers, prostitutes, criminals, everyday folks, ghosts. The blend is good. I'm not sure whether knowing more about Cuban history and society would be helpful in finding the ties within the story. Is Gringo a representation of the dreams and hopes brought to Cuba from the States? The want for name-brand, the need for the best? There is an element of "want" causing "destruction" in many of these stories.
I would read more by this author. I cannot say that I understood the message of this book. The cathedral of faith that is never completed is central to the story. Is the author saying that faith isn't enough or that people will abandon faith for "wants"? I'm not sure but the story was well told, humorous and intriguing.
The many narrators tell their story, which spans a number of years (20 or more, I think), but the feeling of time passing doesn't really happen. The stories overlap, are sometimes "hijacked" by the next voice. It's humorous in a dark way. It's mysterious as we know that something awful happens at some point but it's only occasionally referred to with no hints as to what it is. This mystery is a pulling thread throughout this book. Meanwhile the stories of the people shine. They and their motives & thoughts come alive. We're pulled into the mind of a psychopathic murderer, the fears of a transvestite, the dreams of the everyday person.
A surreal story, with preachers, murderers, prostitutes, criminals, everyday folks, ghosts. The blend is good. I'm not sure whether knowing more about Cuban history and society would be helpful in finding the ties within the story. Is Gringo a representation of the dreams and hopes brought to Cuba from the States? The want for name-brand, the need for the best? There is an element of "want" causing "destruction" in many of these stories.
I would read more by this author. I cannot say that I understood the message of this book. The cathedral of faith that is never completed is central to the story. Is the author saying that faith isn't enough or that people will abandon faith for "wants"? I'm not sure but the story was well told, humorous and intriguing.
January 25, 2020
Multiple narrators tell various strands of a compelling, often lurid and violent story surrounding the arrival of a cult-like Protestant Christian sect to the Cuban city of Cienfuegos. The title of the book refers to the massive, strange church the new arrivals start to build in the Punta Gotica neighborhood of Cienfuegos. Though the church is always only on the periphery of the narrative it becomes a symbol of the moral decay of a small town, illustrated by the tragic, violent, and unhappy ends many of the characters meet.
March 9, 2020
So incredibly good. Really dark and gritty for my normal tastes. I finished it with a lot of anxiety in my chest. Stylistically reminds me of Augustown, and Max Porter.
My only knock is that there were too many italicized words, which were distracting---like the translator was trying to dumb it down for the reader.
My only knock is that there were too many italicized words, which were distracting---like the translator was trying to dumb it down for the reader.
March 5, 2020
I won an Uncorrected Proof of The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala from Goodreads.
Readers are immersed directly into the minds of the characters in The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala. This complex story is stripped down to the bare essentials as the reader spends brief moments observing each scene and the world at large from any one character's viewpoint. As each incident in the plot unfolds, readers feel as if they share every thought in the room, or in the crowd, including the ruminations of criminals, innocents, and ghosts. The story keeps moving rapidly from one character to another, flashing from one view to another until a three hundred sixty degree picture emerges, shaded by opinion or insight.
Graphic and spellbinding, The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala is unique and unexpected.
Readers are immersed directly into the minds of the characters in The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala. This complex story is stripped down to the bare essentials as the reader spends brief moments observing each scene and the world at large from any one character's viewpoint. As each incident in the plot unfolds, readers feel as if they share every thought in the room, or in the crowd, including the ruminations of criminals, innocents, and ghosts. The story keeps moving rapidly from one character to another, flashing from one view to another until a three hundred sixty degree picture emerges, shaded by opinion or insight.
Graphic and spellbinding, The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala is unique and unexpected.
May 4, 2020
I really enjoyed the "documentary" style of this narrative, with a cast of eclectic characters telling their stories and their interactions with the builders of the cathedral. Like a documentary, however, there is little character development, though some were more fleshed out than others. The final "secret" was somewhat anticlimactic. Still, I appreciated the multiple voice storytelling and the insight into the town and people, and did not mind the unanswered questions.
January 31, 2023
The last paragraph of this made me exclaim “oh my.. GOD!” out loud because it is so miraculous and stunning and existential and horrific and beautiful.
A really superb, multi-POV novel that is about much more than simply a cathedral being built in Cuba. It is a story of violence, of colorism, of family, of murder, of poetry.
A really superb, multi-POV novel that is about much more than simply a cathedral being built in Cuba. It is a story of violence, of colorism, of family, of murder, of poetry.
July 9, 2024
Rounding down from 4.5. This is a choral novel whose main character is, in truth, the town in which it (and the eponymous cathedral) exists. Cartoonish spirituality paints a darkly humorous backdrop to a story whose main motivating force is hatred, verbal and physically manifested. With violent racism, misogyny, serial murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism emerge and (literally) haunt the worlds that these characters move through, the story is firmly oriented toward the "hopeless". There are no happy endings here, just entertaining ones. Yet Gala's propulsive, polished writing and smart characterization kept me locked in for its entirety. I'd recommend this to fans of Hurricane Season and Tender Is the Flesh.
January 19, 2021
This book has strong roots in Cuban history and culture, and paints a surreal, twisted picture of the the country in the modern day. Set predominantly in the town of Cienfuegos, the story is dark, captivating and suspenseful. Told through the differing perspectives of a whole cast of characters, the narrative structure is relatively unique too - it just took me a while to grasp who exactly was who as they alternated often, hence the four stars.
April 6, 2020
Not really sure this book worked for me - it's purposefully chaotic with so many narrators and surreal plot lines. I think I just wasn't in the right mood for this but the library hold waits for no one
January 25, 2020
I think this author must have read Palahniuk's latest. I liked the serial killer the best.
October 14, 2022
بينما لا أجد متسعًا للقراءة فهذا العام هو الأسوأ علي الاطلاق من ناحية كم الكتب التي قرأتها، ولكني قررتُ البدء في هذه الرواية رغم كل شئ، ظنًا مني أنها قد تكون رواية رعب تتحدث عن رجال دين يواجهون الشياطين والأرواح المجنونة وهذا النوع من الروايات المحبب لقلبي، إلا أنها لم تكن إلا قصة إجتماعية عن حي فقير من أحياء كوبا اسمه "بوتنا جوتيكا"..ولم أجد اسم الرواية الذي جذبني بالأساس يدل علي حقيقتها..إلا أنها لم تكن قصة سيئة علي الإطلاق، وإنما فقط عادية..فأنا عندي بعض التحفظات كذلك بخصوص أن الكاتب كان يجعلنا نشعر طوال الوقت أن هناك مفاجأة رهيبة في النهاية وسنفهم سر العائلة الغامضة التي تبني الكاتدرائية..ولكن القصة فجأة انتهت..
فهي تتحدث عن آل "ستيوارت" الذين تحيط بهم الغرائبية والغموض الشديدين منذ وصولهم إلي المدينة الكوبية حيث الحي الفقير "بوتنا جوتيكا"..يبدأ رب الأسرة وهو رجل مخبول اسمه "أرتورو ستيوارت" في جمع التبرعات لبناء كنيسة لجماعة اسمها "السر المقدس"، ويبدأ الكاتب في وصف كم هي ملعونة ولا ينتهي بناؤها وبلا بلا بلاااا دون سبب واضح لكل تلك الدراما..ثم تتابع القصة سيرها مع أبناء الحي الكوبي الفقير، وأنا أعتبر "جرينجو" هو البطل فكانت حكايته هي الأكثر تسلية وكان أكثر شخصية جيدة بالعمل، لربما لو كان جعلها قصة عن هذا القاتل المتسلسل بالكامل لكانت الطف..
وكما فعل الكاتب بخصوص الكاتدرائية فهو منذ بداية القصة يتكلم عن الابن الأصغر للعائلة المجنونة والذي كان اسمه "برينس"، وكيف أنه هو الشر الخالص دون تزييف فأتوقع أن يصدر عنه اشياء أكثر فظاعة، إلا أنه لم يعطيه الدور الكافي في القصة بعد كل هذا الحديث عنه أنه رهيب، كذلك العراب "بابلو" ومذهبه "بالو" توقعت أن يحكي عنهم الكثير ولكنه كان شديد الاقتضاب..أما عن شخصيات الفتيات فحدث ولا حرج من كثرة الاستفزاز وخاصة ابنه العائلة المجنونة "يوهانيس"..لا تعليق سوي أنه يفوز بالاوسكار علي خلقه أكثر فتاة مستفزة في عالم القصص..
من ضمن الأسباب التي جعلتني لا أحب الشخصيات أيضًا أنها تذكرتي بنوعية الافلام التي لا يتواجد بها إلا الامريكان السود، لا أريد أن يظنني أحدًا عنصرية بالمرة فأنا نفسي خمرية، وممثلتي المفضلة العزيزة هي "فيولا دايفس"..ولكن لأفلامهم التي يكون فيها كل الابطال من الزنوج لها طابع هكذا لا أحبه..لعل السبب في ذلك هو مسلسل سيئ وبذئ للغاية اسمه Lovecraft country.. أضف إلي أن الكاتب يعشق ضيق التنفس فتجد أنه يختار اسماء أبطاله علي نحو متشابه للغاية..فتاة اسمها "يوهانيس" وفتي اسمه "يوهاندريس"، فتي اسمه "برينس" وفتاة اسمها "بيرنيس"، "مارجريت" و "مرجريتا"!!
الترجمة كانت جيدة ولا غبار عليها، وحتي الآن فترجمات دار النشر هذه بالنسبة لي ممتازة للغاية..
بالنهاية أن القصة العادية ولكنها لم تكن كما توقعت من العنوان والملخص، فأنا منذ أن شاهدت انمي Hellsing Ultimate الذي لا أتخطاه حرفيا وأنا معجبة بقصص رجال الدين بسبب شخصيتين في عرض الانمي كما ذكرت في مراجعة "قضية ضد الشيطان" التي كانت رائعة، ولكنها لا تستحق بالتأكيد أن اشتريها بمائة وعشرين جنيها :)
"بقي كل شئ كأنه قصيدة غير مكتملة، كأنه مصباح ينغلق ولا سبيل لمنع هذا، لا نستطيع، ثم بقي كل شئ.."
فهي تتحدث عن آل "ستيوارت" الذين تحيط بهم الغرائبية والغموض الشديدين منذ وصولهم إلي المدينة الكوبية حيث الحي الفقير "بوتنا جوتيكا"..يبدأ رب الأسرة وهو رجل مخبول اسمه "أرتورو ستيوارت" في جمع التبرعات لبناء كنيسة لجماعة اسمها "السر المقدس"، ويبدأ الكاتب في وصف كم هي ملعونة ولا ينتهي بناؤها وبلا بلا بلاااا دون سبب واضح لكل تلك الدراما..ثم تتابع القصة سيرها مع أبناء الحي الكوبي الفقير، وأنا أعتبر "جرينجو" هو البطل فكانت حكايته هي الأكثر تسلية وكان أكثر شخصية جيدة بالعمل، لربما لو كان جعلها قصة عن هذا القاتل المتسلسل بالكامل لكانت الطف..
وكما فعل الكاتب بخصوص الكاتدرائية فهو منذ بداية القصة يتكلم عن الابن الأصغر للعائلة المجنونة والذي كان اسمه "برينس"، وكيف أنه هو الشر الخالص دون تزييف فأتوقع أن يصدر عنه اشياء أكثر فظاعة، إلا أنه لم يعطيه الدور الكافي في القصة بعد كل هذا الحديث عنه أنه رهيب، كذلك العراب "بابلو" ومذهبه "بالو" توقعت أن يحكي عنهم الكثير ولكنه كان شديد الاقتضاب..أما عن شخصيات الفتيات فحدث ولا حرج من كثرة الاستفزاز وخاصة ابنه العائلة المجنونة "يوهانيس"..لا تعليق سوي أنه يفوز بالاوسكار علي خلقه أكثر فتاة مستفزة في عالم القصص..
من ضمن الأسباب التي جعلتني لا أحب الشخصيات أيضًا أنها تذكرتي بنوعية الافلام التي لا يتواجد بها إلا الامريكان السود، لا أريد أن يظنني أحدًا عنصرية بالمرة فأنا نفسي خمرية، وممثلتي المفضلة العزيزة هي "فيولا دايفس"..ولكن لأفلامهم التي يكون فيها كل الابطال من الزنوج لها طابع هكذا لا أحبه..لعل السبب في ذلك هو مسلسل سيئ وبذئ للغاية اسمه Lovecraft country.. أضف إلي أن الكاتب يعشق ضيق التنفس فتجد أنه يختار اسماء أبطاله علي نحو متشابه للغاية..فتاة اسمها "يوهانيس" وفتي اسمه "يوهاندريس"، فتي اسمه "برينس" وفتاة اسمها "بيرنيس"، "مارجريت" و "مرجريتا"!!
الترجمة كانت جيدة ولا غبار عليها، وحتي الآن فترجمات دار النشر هذه بالنسبة لي ممتازة للغاية..
بالنهاية أن القصة العادية ولكنها لم تكن كما توقعت من العنوان والملخص، فأنا منذ أن شاهدت انمي Hellsing Ultimate الذي لا أتخطاه حرفيا وأنا معجبة بقصص رجال الدين بسبب شخصيتين في عرض الانمي كما ذكرت في مراجعة "قضية ضد الشيطان" التي كانت رائعة، ولكنها لا تستحق بالتأكيد أن اشتريها بمائة وعشرين جنيها :)
"بقي كل شئ كأنه قصيدة غير مكتملة، كأنه مصباح ينغلق ولا سبيل لمنع هذا، لا نستطيع، ثم بقي كل شئ.."
February 5, 2025
Una puta locura, és impossible avorrir-te i ixir-te'n del llibre. Per a mi va de la mà en "Temporada de huracanes", lleig, ple de burraes, violent i desagradable, però genial. M'ha encantat la estructura del llibre i escoltar a tots els personatges i, com no, a personal favorite of mine, vore els seus idiolectes taaaaan marcats. Realment genial. Si m'ho pense un rato més li pose 5 estrelles.
June 7, 2024
i don’t really know how to give a book less than 5 stars i guess. the voices were sublime, the characters felt so fluid, that they were all the same but different
October 18, 2024
Hypnotic and pitch black.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews