Il cornetto acustico

by Leonora Carrington

«La signora Leatherby, protagonista e narratore del Cornetto acustico, partecipa con delicata equanimità della follia e della buona educazione; per di più ha novantanove anni, età numericamente significante, ed è detestata dai nipoti, che la considerano un ingombrante vegetale, qualcosa che dovrebbe essere "morto", e che sbaglia gravemente a non esserlo; i nipoti, dico, vogliono mandarla in un istituto per signore anziane; e accade che l'istituto si chiami la Confraternita del Pozzo di Luce, e abbia molti curiosi connotati... il racconto si dipana con la grazia di un'operetta, la deliziosa irresponsabilità di una conversazione assistita da un interminabile tè pomeridiano, notturno, aurorale, uno degli infiniti tè di Alice. Scricchiolano ogni tanto battute selvatiche, ma così ragionevoli: "I vecchi non fanno che morire"; "Che sollievo che non si debba veramente prendersi la briga del proprio funerale"... C'è anche un delitto, compiuto con fondants ripieni di veleno per topi, probabilmente quel veleno "Ultima cena" che non concede scampo; ma il delitto sbaglia destinatario e... Non vi dirò tutto... Dunque, un libro assolutamente delizioso, se appena avete inclinazione ai disordini ben regolati dell'intelligenza, se vi diverte una conversazione illimitata e apparentemente senza lacune». (Giorgio Manganelli)

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Classics, Art, Novels, Surreal

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Leonora Carrington was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

Reviews

[Lucy Dacus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wacky kooky fun for those of you into old ladies, cults, the occult, and the eccentric in general.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I spend time in a new city, I always look to see if their art museum has a Leonora Carrington piece there. If so, I make sure to go see it. While recently at the Art Institute of Chicago I was gazing at their Carrington sketch while thinking about how interpretive surrealist art can be and how much we frame our own narratives around it. Her work certainly offers a window into the bizarre, a single moment in a world of ghosts and monsters of which you can expand the horizons in the landscape of your own mind. Though Carrington’s art was not simply confined to that which can be framed upon the wall as words were another artistic medium in her repertoire and The Hearing Trumpet from 1974 is a novel that defies being easily framed by categorization or description. It is a book of mysteries, of cults, of subverting the narratives that oppress, of undoing the world and ushering in a new one. ‘We must do eccentric things,’ Olga Tokarczuk writes in her afterword and eccentricity is certainly at home in this work of an aging woman named Marian cast off into a care facility run under a cultish creed and sinister patient care regimen. Being an “eccentric” is cause for punishment, but as Marian soon learns, those who step outside the norms are often unflatteringly reframed by the narratives of those in charge and that there can be real power found in resisting those norms. A beautiful surrealist and subversive tale that is as beguiling as it is bewildering, The Hearing Trumpet is an awakening to the joys of freeing ourselves from the framing of others and reshaping reality into something new.

Carrington’s painting “The Magical World of Maya” is not about the novel but the visuals aren’t far off from the final portions of the book

Carrington was no stranger to having your own life poorly framed by those in power. After her lover, artist Max Ernst (who was 46 when she met him around the time she turned 20) was captured by the Nazi’s, Carrington’s father had her committed to an asylum on claims of insanity. It was a label she would spend her life mocking, writing about it at length in Down Below. The surrealist art movement to which she belonged had a fixation on ideas of “madness,” with Hans Prinzhorn’s book of studies on art by mental health patients, Artistry of the Mentally Ill: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Configuration, becoming a major inspiration to the Paris surrealists. André Breton, the founder and primary theorist of the surrealist movement, was particularly—and rather unfortunately—fixated on mental instability as a pathway to freedom of artistic expression though he also romanticized the concept of “hysteria,” a rather misogynistic diagnosis often used to repress women. He was fascinated with physician Jean-Martin Charcot, who’s photographs of patients writhing was said by Breton to be an idealized woman’s form (all this horrificness of exploitative “hysteria” studies by Charcot is fictionalized in the rather interesting novel The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas which I read recently) and Breton wrote ‘hysteria is not a pathological phenomenon and can in every way be considered as a supreme means of expression.’ In his novel Nadja, Breton creates an idealized surrealist woman, which seems like a prototype of today’s “manic pixie dream girl”: a woman undergoing a mental breakdown being romanticized for ignoring social norms and conventions. Though the real Nadja, who had an affair with Breton, was quickly discarded by him and institutionalized. Surrealist women were more objects for men’s artistic lusts, exploited and left to suffer.

The Hearing Trumpet is, in many ways, a subversion of that. The surrealist image of an idealized woman being young and naive is reversed with an aging woman represented as the vessel towards freedom. Here the women break social norms in order to gain agency on their own behalf. Subjected to the rules and strict regulations of the Institution and the cult underpinning it, Marian finds she must not only resist but completely wrest the narrative of life away from their control. In her book Artful, author Ali Smith says of Carrington’s art that it ‘asks questions about imprisonment and liberation,’ and this novel and all its bizarre internal logic is all bent towards this idea.

This is a strange story, full of giant homes built to look like boots, a possible fudge poisoning murder, ancient goddesses and a plot to trigger the apocalypse and refresh existence. Marian’s fascination with the art of a ‘leering abyss’ leads her to discover the truth of her life, a scandalous life of her own agency that has been repurposed by the cult in order to silence her into the oblivion of the past by vilifying her.

‘the snooping priest…had done his best to portray her in a pernicious light, hardly distorted the purity of her original image. She must have been a remarkable woman.’

Marian must carry on the quest of Abbess of the Convent of Santa Barbara of Tartarus, to find the Holy Grail (one through which Jesus was given powers by the Goddess Venus here) and trigger a new age. Change, or a metamorphosis, is the thematic key to the novel, with a whole host of erudite lore and comical misadventures swirling around it.

The Hearing Trumpet is a fascinating and funny novel, full of wonderful little quips and mind-bending moments. It does have some rather unfortunate bits of racism and the depiction of a trans woman—while likely deemed progressive and subversive for its time—is rather problematic. Though it is also a unique piece in the history of surrealism, particularly in the way it set about crafting a feminist surrealism in rebuttal to the general movement and served as a call to arms for women to resist the patriarchal framing and define themselves on their own terms. A quirky and unforgettable little adventure.

4/5



The aforementioned Carrington pieces in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I fantasize about one day being invited to be the writer interviewed for The NY Times "By the Book" column, if you read the Sunday Book Review you know the one, where authors are always asked the same banal questions like "what books do you have on your nightstand?" (what is a nightstand, anyway, and why would I put books on it?...do people actually READ in BED?) and "how do you organize your books?" (honestly there is only one good answer) and the question I've pondered over most is this one:

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

Because, hey, it's an invitation to redefine "CLASSIC NOVEL!" And yet no one, and I literally mean not a single writer they've ever asked, takes them up on that opportunity. They all say, "oh, I just read Middlemarch and now I kick myself for waiting so long!" To which I say: hmm. Did you really just read Middlemarch? I'm suspicious.

But I digress. The thing is I've always pondered is: what book I would slyly pretend to assume is in the CLASSIC NOVEL category, and just to slip it in there and redefine it as a CLASSIC NOVEL when no one was looking?...and now I have my answer. I would say "oh, I just read The Hearing Trumpet and now I kick myself for waiting so long!" oh, yes, I would. And maybe everyone who read the column that week would say to themselves "how come I haven't read The Hearing Trumpet yet? and would go out and find a copy and read it. And I would have changed the world for the better. That is my dream. Alternatively you can decide not to wait for that column to appear and can get yourself a copy, used or new, and read it for yourself right now. It's amazing. Another question the New York Times always asks in addition to the "which classic books" question and the "nightstand" question is: "Which three authors, alive or dead, would you like to invite to lunch together?" I wish I could call up Leonora Carrington right now and tell her how much she made me laugh. She'd definitely be on my list to invite to lunch. Maybe we'd get to be friends.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonora Carrington died only a month and a half ago at the age of 94, a surrealist and remarkable traveler across the 20th century. Though I only heard about her through a post on the Writers No One Reads tumblr, it seems that she was far from unknown. Here is her epitaph in the Telegraph:

Born in Britain, she eloped with Max Ernst, hung out with Picasso and Dali, fled the Nazis, escaped from a Spanish psychiatric hospital and later settled in Mexico, where she built a reputation as one of the most original and visionary British artists and writers of the 20th century.

And here she is, in 2007:



At the time, she was a couple months from turning 92, the age of Marion Leatherby, the protagonist of The Hearing Trumpet. Though published in 1976 when she was 59, Carrington chose an alter-ego a generation older, a plucky nonagenarian who wants only to retire to Lapland amongst snow and sled dogs, but instead is shipped off to a cultish rest home by a family impatient to have her out of the way at minimal cost, only to become embroiled in unexpected plots.



The book opens with brisk humor in generally everyday setting, but soon unexpected intrigue sets in without warning, the reader is sent off on a long (and fascinating) digression about 18th century feminist cults, and then immediately carried off on into a most exciting and indescribable adventure story at whiplash-inducing pace, dense with mythology and strangeness. This can all seem a little erratic, perhaps, but is perhaps apt to an aging but sprightly mind that still hopes to see Lapland. It's all terribly entertaining, our protagonists are remarkably engaging, considering, and there seems to be quite a bit of social observation strung throughout -- played mostly for humor, but there nonetheless. On the whole, a very weird, very enjoyable bit of storytelling. It could have been drawn out to twice this length and I would have had no objections.



Thanks, Leonora, and rest in peace.

[Zanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ali Smith's introduction to this edition very effectively renders any comment from me superfluous, since Smith seems to be coming from a perspective by my side and is much more eloquent and insightful than I could hope to be. As she points out, Carrington's vision of nuclear winter is entirely swap-outable for the in-progress fossil-fuel-induced climate catastrophe. Her comments on feminist themes in the book, including attitudes towards older women, were similarly on point. My urging fellow youngish whitefolks to value and respect the genius and (often subjugated) knowledge of elders will be less helpful than urging them to read this book. Read it!

If at times I felt the splendidly unconventional narrative, a spectacular hybrid of fairytale quest, apocalyptic mysticism-themed mystery (kind of a la Umberto Eco), and satirical fable, made no sense, I also felt that this was intentional, although occasionally I had a feeling that some privately intelligible symbolism was at work in collaboration with my own expansive ignorance. According to some participants in this discussion, all sorts of interesting things are going on structually and thematically that I only caught snatches of. Nonetheless, I had a feeling of bracing refreshment, as if the rug I was sitting on with my book and blanket had suddenly decided to fly out of the window and give me a tour of an enchanted land.

There are some issues. The 'Negress' Christabel Burns has an impressive role, revealing secret and spiritual knowledge. This inevitably reminded me of the Hollywood 'magic Negro' trope, since she seems to have no back story and unlike the other characters, no vulnerabilities, preferences or emotional ties. I was distressed by the narrative's victimisation of a trans woman and her misgendering, although I noticed that the deadnaming applied to her was partially reversed, hinting at a trajectory towards trans acceptance (I have to hope so anyway, since the 70s was a pretty dodgy decade for cis feminist attitudes to trans* issues)

I found this an easy read despite the ornate language and elaborate, frenetic creativity especially on the part of Marian's friend Carmella. It's really delightful to read something that so joyously and hilariously challenges attitudes to mental health. Carrington here makes unmistakable what is so often misunderstood in surrealism: the stimulus to see, hear, feel, more clearly and more deeply, to see beyond the myths and other illusions of conventional socialisation and the deadening of the senses enforced by a narrowed and narrowing culture, by recognising the absurdity, the surreality of what goes on in our lives every day.

Oh and I love that Marian doesn't eat meat (and is persecuted for it institutionally) and is friendly with animals. Cat lovers will appreciate this one = )

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is possibly the strangest book I've ever read. Much of it was very funny, albeit studded with sadness, but some of it was tiresome and a little confusing.

At 92, Marian Leatherby lives in Spain, or maybe Mexico, with her son, daughter-in-law, and their adult son. (Her own mother, who “lived a constant round of dizzy pleasure” and “found her spiritual home in the casino”, lives in London with her valet.) When her friend, Carmella, gives her a hearing trumpet, she discovers plans to send her away.
“Grandmother… can hardly be classified as a human being. She’s a drooling sack of decomposing flesh.”

The institution is a crazy old ladies’ home (the place and most of the ten women): it looks like a castle from the outside, but they live in individual huts including a toadstool, birthday cake, igloo, circus tent, and lighthouse. Dr Gambit (“a sanctified psychologist”) and his wife run it as The Well of Light Brotherhood, sponsored by a cereal company. It’s a mix of harsh Christian nunnery and new-age spirituality.
“Daydreaming saps more energy than riding a bicycle.”

Marian’s musing’s are delightfully entertaining and almost normal and realistic. But in the dining room, the curious portrait of a winking nun spurs her imagination and even infiltrates Carmella’s dreams, though she is still safely in her own home.


Image: Abbess Doña Rosalinda: “A nun with a strange and malicious face… enchantingly sinister… The old lady’s habit has the texture of orchid petals and the colour of Limbo.” Drawing by the author.

Investigating the nun’s history unveils dark tales that nurture rebellion.

I rather lost the plot, though maybe Carrington did not. As the Pope wrote in reply to a request to canonise Abbess Doña Rosalinda:
“Sunt enim plerique libri adeo obscure scripte, ut a solia auctoribus suis percipiantur”
Apparently that translates as “for most of the books are so obscurely written that they are perceived only by their authors.”

Things I loved

• The first 72 pages (of 158).
• Marian and Carmella, individually and, especially, together.
• Embracing life, even in old age - the joyous message of the book.
• Carmella’s fantastical letters to people picked at random from the Paris phone directory she stole from the consulate.
• The uniqueness of the residents’ backstory, appearance, quirks, allegiance, and plots.
• The boarding school vibe.
• The appreciation of cats.
• Carrington’s illustrations.
• Two-dimensional furniture, painted on the walls.
• Crazy escape plans.
• The way apparently trivial things, like Marian’s son’s name, the bee pond, and Marian’s longing to visit Lapland, turn out to be highly significant.
• Feminist anarchy - though perhaps more fun in fiction than reality.
• “Last Supper” brand rat poison.
• Casual mention of a man who was drowned in the bath by a still life painter because he recognised a carrot in a painting.

Things I didn’t love

• When Marian is lent a book about Doña Rosalinda, winking Abbess of the convent long ago, there are nearly 40 pages of stories within stories of myth, letters, Hebrew scrolls, hearsay, and heresy, which became confusing (only some were formatted to stand out) and repetitive.
• If I want page after page about the Knights Templar, corrupt and sometimes pederastic clergy, Mary Magdalene’s ointment, and the Holy Grail, I’ll read Dan Brown.
• Inconsistent and excess initial capital letters.
• The iridescent hearing trumpet was largely irrelevant.


Image: “Rosalinda and the Bishop inhaling Musc de Madelaine… becoming so saturated with the vapours of the ointment… [they] were wafted into the air and suspended, levitating.” Drawing by the author.

Other elements

Too delightfully random to be plot spoilers, but hidden because of a couple of quotes are slight spoilers.

“Hell is merely a form of terminology… Really this is the Womb of the World.”
• Deadly fudge.
• “Orgiastic dancing… pageantry and feasting.”
• Werewolves.
• A trans character who isn’t trans in the usual sense; nobody minds.
• Three riddles.
• Rhythmic drumming, dancing, and chanting.
• Levitation.
• Bees: individually, en masse, and mythical-cum-supernatural.
• The Snow Queen aka the Sphinx of the North.
• Earthquakes.
• Taliessin, a postman with borderline superpowers, who knows everything.
• Climate change.
• Unexpectedly discovering a uranium mine.
• An atomic-powered ark on skis.
• Witches and a cauldron.
• The magical “negress” trope: Christabel is kind and powerful, and the word was acceptable at the time.
“If the old woman can’t go to Lapland, then Lapland must come to the Old Woman.” - note inconsistent initial capitalisation.


What to do with the elderly

This was written in the 1950s or early 1960s. In an empowering and entertaining way, it tackles the very current problem of elderly care. I’m in my late 50s: I have concerns about my elderly mother (if, when, and how to intervene) but am also beginning to ponder my own ageing. Like Marian, and the character in Jenny Josephy’s poem, I aspire to be independent, feisty, and - occasionally - surprising, for as long as possible. I don’t want to be locked up, even if it looks like a theme park at first glance!

Quotes

• “People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
• “I am never lonely… Or rather I never suffer from loneliness. I suffer much from the idea that my loneliness might be taken away from me by a lot of mercilessly well meaning people.”
• “She stalked off with a certain creaking elegance.”
• “Souvenirs from the far past rose like bubbles in my mind.”
• “Vulgar curiosity in no way stimulated me; I was merely performing my duty as the Spiritual Director of the Community.” [A bishop or archbishop’s excuse for rummaging through the Abbess’ private effects]


Image: The Mother of Sephira, escaping the shattered tower: “A human being entirely covered with glittering feathers and armless. Six great wings … quivered ready for flight.” Drawing by the author.

Artist, author, surrealist

Leonora Carrington is best-known for escaping the life of a debutante to join the early Parisian Surrealists. She became the lover of the much older Max Ernst, and later moved to Mexico, married a couple of times, had a couple of sons, and continued to work until her death at 94. She also wrote this fantastical novel, which has some autobiographical elements. There is debate about exactly when she wrote it, but she was in her thirties or possibly early forties.

The book has ten illustrations by the author, but the cover of my edition is by Emilie Seron. Perhaps the publisher wanted colour, but as the author chose to illustrate her story, I think her pictures should be used.

See also

• I read a couple of her short stories in Paul Merton’s anthology, Funny Ha Ha, HERE. They are “The Neutral Man”, 3* and “The Royal Summons”, 4*.

• Carrington features in China Mieville’s alternative history novel about the Surrealists, The Last Days of New Paris, which I reviewed HERE.

• Portmeirion: a fantastical Italian-style Welsh village. You can stay in many of the buildings - and come and go freely. Highly recommended.

• Jenny Joseph’s poem, Warning, better known as When I am old I shall wear purple, HERE.

[emma]

gotta stan a quirky girl

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is wild. I was reminded of Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes only in that the story begins “normally” and then takes a drastic turn. Later, I thought of The Books of Jacob in one particular sense, so it’s interesting that Olga Tokarczuk wrote an afterword, which is excellent.

The 92-year-old main character and her best friend, also an old woman, are delightful, just so much fun to read. I did find the backstory of the Abbess, Doña Rosalinda della Cueva, a bit tedious in length due to the way it’s told, though it too is fun.

I thought of Lauren Groff’s Matrix’s main character, also an Abbess, as well as the real-life 17th-c Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who also wrote letters to a bishop, though certainly not the same kind of letters Doña Rosalinda writes. Groff’s Abbess and Sor Juana also don’t get up to the same things Doña Rosalinda does, not even close. Nevertheless, the comparisons came to mind, likely because they’re all “feminist nuns” of a sort, and this is straight-up a feminist novel:

Listen to old — even ancient — women. They can save the world.

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this surrealist classic rambling old lady Marian, toothless, spinning cat’s wool, and praying to Venus (the planet) gets a hearing trumpet. And then things get weird
What nonsense I exclaimed, there is nothing so clean as a healthy pussy.

Leonora Carrington is brilliant in her rendition of old women and how they gain agency in their 80/90s.
Cat’s Cradle of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, off course Orlando by Virginia Woolf and the supernatural part of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell came back to me while reading this work.

We have seances, poisoned fudge, revolutions, people called Saint Rasputina, a nun with a her black stallion Homunculus (in general this winking nun story in the middle is absolutely wild, if a slight detour to more pressing things happening in the world around our protagonist Mariana) and then we get this end with a cauldron and even Lapland come back, all united in a new ice age.
A book so imaginative I am awestruck.

To imagine that The Hearing Trumpet starts of so innocently, with our rambling old lady Mariana Leatherby, toothless, spinning cat’s wool, and praying to Venus (the planet) getting a hearing trumpet. Soon she finds out how Muriel (daughter in law), Galahad (child) and Robbert (grandchild) really feel about her. She is send to a house, which initially seems a shame as she has a brilliantly funny neighbour (Cowboys riding hither and tither on cows).
However the enclave of women she finds herself in, all housed in unique designed buildings, is a lot of wild fun. There is a whole side story that puts the DaVinci code to shame in terms of knight templars and length of build up.
The ending scenes are truly wild and imaginative as well, almost Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer level with the descend into a tunnel where a version of oneself awaits.

Is this the perfect, well paced and plotted book? No. But I wager this was one of the books the author had most fun writing, and where the reader is offered so much one cannot be less than grateful and want to read more of Carrington.

Quotes:
Beauty is a responsibility, like everything else

Time, as we all know, passes

I started to like Georgina, she seemed so gay

You cannot overcome so many psychic deformities in a short space of time. You are not alone as victim of your degenerate habits, everyone has faults!

The person who controls the distribution of food has a near limitless amount of power in a society like ours.

These women that are shut up in a sanctuary for senile women

Surrealism is no longer considered modern nowadays

Sorry I can’t return the compliment- burn

This is hell

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's the cover of the 1977 Pocket Books mass-market I have (192 pages), which isn't listed at the moment.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
“People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
Very unconventional and a product of surrealism. Carrington herself was also rather unconventional. I was aware she had spent much of her time in Mexico. I hadn’t realised she escaped there, following a period in an asylum in Madrid and her family’s plan to move her to an asylum in South Africa. The protagonist is 92 and it makes a change to have an older main character with a great deal of life in her. The best summation of the book I am borrowing from the back:
“After coming into possession of a hearing trumpet, 92-year-old Marian Leatherby discovers her son's plans to send her to a nursing home. But this is no ordinary place.... Here there are strange rituals, orgiastic nuns, levitating abbesses, animalistic humans, humanistic animals, a search for the Holy Grail, and a plan to escape to Lapland and knit a tent”
There is much more than this including an apocalypse and a nuclear winter. It is a sort of feminist fable as well. It’s idiosyncratic with a strong sense of the absurd. And yet it is also domestic at the same time. Marian’s description of herself:
“Here I must say that all my senses are by no means impaired by age. My sight is still excellent although I use spectacles for reading, when I read, which I practically never do. True, rheumatics have bent my skeleton somewhat. This does not prevent me taking a walk in clement weather and sweeping my room once a week, on Thursday, a form of exercise which is both useful and edifying. Here I may add that I consider that I am still a useful member of society and I believe still capable of being pleasant and amusing when the occasion seems fit.”
The novel starts rather sedately and goes into apocalypse mode towards the end. Marian’s friend Carmella always adds interest as when she finds out Marian is to go into a care home run by a Christian group:
“‘The Well of Light Brotherhood,’ said Carmella, ‘is obviously something extremely sinister. Not I suppose a company for grinding old ladies into breakfast cereal, but something morally sinister. It sounds terrible. I must think of something to save you from the jaws of the Well of Light.’ This seemed to amuse her for no reason at all and she chuckled although I could see she was quite upset. ‘They will not allow me to take the cats you think?’ ‘No cats,’ said Carmella. ‘Institutions, in fact, are not allowed to like anything. They don’t have time.’ ‘What shall I do?’ I said. ‘It seems a pity to commit suicide when I have lived for ninety-two years and really haven’t understood anything.’ ‘You might escape to Lapland,’ said Carmella.”
Some of the off the cuff remarks are amusing as well:
“At times I had thought of writing poetry myself but getting words to rhyme with each other is difficult, like trying to drive a herd of turkeys and kangaroos down a crowded thoroughfare and keep them neatly together without looking in shop windows.”
Olga Tokarczuk in the Paris Review describes the novel as having open-endedness and wild metaphysics. The Hearing Trumpet defies easy classification, but it goes in distinctly surprising directions which makes it worth reading.

[cypt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knyga-mielybė, žiauriai miela pasakotoja - vėl bobutė (92 m. Mariana), kaip ir pas Tokarczuk bei Bronsky, ir veikiausiai viena iš literatūrinių bobučių pirmtakių. Senutę išveža į senelių namus, prieš išvažiuodama iš kitos bobutės gauna dovanų klausymo ragelį ir pasiklausydama per jį ima girdėti, ką kiti slapta šneka: visus sąmokslus, visas tiesas, viską. Pasirodo, senelių namuose veikia paslaptingas kultas, vyksta žmogžudystės, bokšte gyvena kažkas, apie ką sužinosi tik įminusi 3 mįsles, o nusileidus į požemį transformuojiesi, išsineri iš vieno pavidalo ir virsti kitu.

Be galo patiko ir "detektyvas" / žmogžudystės, bobučių bado maištas prieš senelių namų vadovybę, taip pat ekokatastrofos / pasaulio pabaigos temos, kurios surašytos tokia lengva plunksna, kad tiesiog skaitai ir matai, kokia juokinga ir absurdiškoka tema tai buvo vos prieš keletą dešimtmečių ir kaip per juos pasikeitė šių dalykų svarba, kai dabar bet koks panašiai atsainus tokių temų traktavimas būtų nekorektiškas, nejautrus ir ttt. Gal tai ir yra laiko ženklas - kad šiandien jau nebegalėtume parašyti taip lengvai kaip Carrington, vis tiek išeitų kandžiai, piktai, naiviai. Ne linksmai.

Nepatiko - vidinis "teksto tekste" naratyvas, kuris prasideda maždaug knygos vidury, kai pasakotojai/personažei į rankas pakliūva slaptas dokumentas apie tamplierius, evil vienuolius, šventąjį gralį. Gal dėl to, kad jau tiek visokių Eco stiliaus knygų apie tai prirašyta. Gal Carrington savo laiku tuo irgi buvo naujesnė - bet tokia jau ta laiko našta, vienais aspektais prideda grožio (kaip su eko temom), kitais atima.

Skaitydama galvojau apie Tokarczuk. Ji pati yra sakiusi, kad Janina iš Drive Your Plow - įkvėpta Carrington bobutės. Bet pati Janina man rodėsi ir kaip Marta iš Dienos namų. O ir Carrington pateikiamas paslaptingos vienuolės pasakojimas labai primena šventosios gyvenimo aprašymo pasakojimą iš tų pačių "Dienos namų". Galbūt tas "Klausymo ragelis" ją labiau paveikė, ne vien tik toj vienoj knygoj. Bet galbūt tos gražios, nelabai tvirtos sąsajos tik paryškina, kad visos Janinos, Dunjos, Marianos - ne knyginis išgalvojimas, o gyvenimo dalykas, vis atsirandantis tai vienoj aplinkoj, tai kitoj. Kaip ir keistos šventųjų, šventų dalykų, slaptų ordinų istorijos - vienam tai siurrealistiniai juokingi išgalvojimai, kitam jau - vietinės kaimelio legendos.

Žiauriai patiko - Tolkieno stiliaus mįslės:

1. I wear a white cap on my head and my tail
All seasons my caps I wear without fail
Around my fat belly my girdle is hot
I move round and round tho' legs I have not. (p. 119)

2. I never move as you whirl round and round
I sit and I watch you with never a sound
If you tilt far enough caps become belt
New caps are made the old caps will melt
Though legless your whirling will then appear lame
I seem to move but I don't, what's my name?

3. One of you turns while the other will sit
And though the caps change they always will fit
Once in the life of a mountain or rock
I fly like a bird though bird I am not
When you get new caps my prison will break
The watchers who slept will now be awake
And over their land I will fly once again
Who is my mother? What is my name? (p. 120)

Kai jau pasakotoja tas mįsles atspėjo (pirma lengvesnė, kitos dvi - beyond me), bandžiau gūglinti jos atsakymus (ne viską supratau), bet pasimečiau tarp astrologijos, kabalos ir visokiausių įvaizdžių. Bet gražu, kad trečioj mįslėj tas perlūžtantis kalėjimas - toks beveik biblinis, apokaliptinis, ir knygoj jis išties tampa apokalipse, visišku ekologinių sąlygų persikeitimu. Kaip keista, kai pagauni save, kad jau skaitai tai nebe kaip siurrealizmą, bet kaip metaforą! Ir biški baisu.

Vieną žvaigždutę nuėmiau už tą vidinį pasakojimą ir už tai, kad mokinys (Tokarczuk) pranoko savo mokytoją.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brava.

In a 1977 interview that appears as a foonote on the first page of the introduction of this edition, Carrington notes that in this book she "wanted to appear as an old lady so that I could poke fun at sinister things." And this she does, and does it so well that I couldn't help falling in love with Marian as well as with the book itself.

Marian Leatherby is ninety-two and lives with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel, and one of their five children who still lives at home. Her best friend is Carmella, who "writes letters all over the world to people she has never met and signs them with all sorts of romantic names, never her own." On one of Marian's regular visits to Carmella, her friend gives her a hearing trumpet, which she says will change Marian's life:

"Not only will you be able to sit and listen to beautiful music and intelligent conversation but you will also have the privilege of being able to spy on what your whole family are saying about you, and that ought to be very amusing."

What Marian hears is her family's plan to put her in an institution in Santa Brigada, which is run by the Well of Light Brotherhood and financed by "a prominent American cereal company." Once there, it doesn't take Marian too long to figure out that the place is a front for a cult, and among other things, she begins to have weird dreams and becomes obsessed with a strange portrait of a winking nun. And while all of this seems patently absurd, there's a certain logic to it all, none the least of which is that in leaving the mundane world, Marian has crossed over into another. It is a great story, laugh-out-loud funny at times while deadly serious; it is cloaked in mythology and alchemical lore, and offers the story of a woman whose life begins to take on purpose at a ripe old age as she becomes initiated into a special world of secrets. It's so much more, but it is difficult to describe the indescribable, so we'll leave it there.

This is my favorite of Carrington's fiction so far, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know where to begin describing this. I feel that knowing anything going in might spoil the craziness of this book. It is well-written, imaginative, and about old ladies.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book I've been circling for years, even before I joined Goodreads: depending what I heard about it, sometimes it sounded enticing and light (a charming, funny, Alice-like fantasy with intellectual depth) sometimes depressing (about an old lady in an oppressive nursing home). I was finally induced to read it by this recent interview with Olga Tokarczuk, in which she says it influenced her newly-translated Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead.

Some editions of The Hearing Trumpet, including the Virago Modern Classic, include a 1991 introduction by Helen Byatt. This contains material about crones and witches in surrealism and feminism, madness, boarding schools, occultism including Gurdjieff, the Grail and Robert Graves' The White Goddess (a book I'm glad I read when I was younger, before I knew people rarely bother with it these days, as it's referenced in a surprising number of things) and vaguely Margaret-Murrayish ideas of wild pre-Christian matriarchal religion, equating maleness with Christianity and authoritarian sky-gods generally. This did not make me look forward to The Hearing Trumpet itself - it made me glad the book was short - but it was interesting to have my attention drawn to the ideas about modernity and religion while in the middle of Sarah Moss' Ghost Wall, which includes the idea that modernity is better for women, and soon after reading a friend's review - of yet another book - which pointed out the contradictions between feminisms.) By the end of the book, I thought there were topics the introduction had unjustly neglected, but more of that later. If I have read the newer introduction in the Penguin edition, by Ali Smith, it would have been years ago in a bookshop and I can't remember anything about it - I'd like to read it (again?) now.

In the novel, I was surprised how good, and how instantly likeable, the narrative voice is. Marian, 92, absolutely sounds like an old lady. (And like the author, she is an English expat in Mexico.) In the early part of the novel, it reads like a really good children's book, with delightful lines like "people under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats" on nearly every page. Her existence seems idyllic, and so one inevitably feels it is unjust that her callous, image-obsessed son and daughter-in-law decide to put her in a home. (Even if one is an age at which peers consider homes for aged parents.) Although the home turns out to be architecturally adorable (and worthy of a surrealist art exhibition) and to have intriguing fellow-residents, the management are a new-age cult who continually invalidate and refuse to listen to the people in their care. Carrington portrays them with sufficient lightness of touch that they are ridiculous caricatures at least as much as monsters. Rather than making a big deal out of the 'reality' or otherwise of what Marian says - as many contemporary authors would, creating an unreliable narrator who may have dementia, or in children's fiction, in which a child hero needs to persuade at least one adult that something is real - she is a reliable narrator of her own reality, a reality which makes up pretty much all the book and which reads as a slipstream fantastical narrative. (She is always clear other than one passage near the beginning, in a stream of consciousness mode like disjointed thoughts from the edge of sleep). Even if a reader were to bring a cold and clinical attitude that most of what happens is in Marian's imagination, it would surely make one think about the amazing worlds that a person may contain.

The humour tapers off in the second half (or perhaps becomes darker and more subtle) as the narrative approaches the story-within-a-story, an account of a covertly occult 18th-century Spanish saint and abbess. It reads, minor historical inaccuracies and all, like an early-20th century horror tale. I think it was at the end of the story of Abbess Rosalinda, when Marian remarks "I had become affectionately attached to the intrepid and energetic Abbess. The fact that the snooping priest... had done his best to portray her in a pernicious light, hardly distorted the purity of her original image. She must have been a most remarkable woman" that I first thought 'what a twentieth-century book'. Perhaps it's because of a comment I read somewhere online recently that only from a century's 20s does the character of a century start to emerge (there are counter-arguments, but in English history, the late 30s of the 16th and 19th centuries fit) and sufficient distance is established to characterise the earlier century as a whole. Approbation of the Abbess disregards her own crimes and her disregard of those committed by others. I've seen it said elsewhere, with disgust, that sexual abuse, especially of boys, by male clergy was such an open secret that it had become a running joke in 20th century British literature, and one that should no longer be funny. Perhaps that's an especially 2010s sentiment - it's far too early to tell. But in the context of fantasy literature, it feels like this is another way in which this isn't just a very 1960s-1970s book, but encompasses ideas that ran through more decades either side: the lineage from the Golden Dawn through Gardnerian Wicca to the New Age; from Kellogg's sanatorium to dodgy hippie cults; elderly people talk of the First World War and have peculiar deference to aristocracy in a world of plastic wallpaper and electric fires with glowing fake logs, and on one level it's about social liberalisation and increased human rights, and the throwing off of a stuffy old order, the big Western narrative of the whole second half. (It still seems remarkable that Carrington apparently wrote this in the early 60s - if only she'd published it then, she'd have been so ahead of her time, and I suspect the book would have been better known. It's full of stuff which feels like end-60s burnout: indictment of cults and their leaders, jumping off tall buildings and dying under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs; apocalyptic tabloid scare of the time, a new ice age, also fictionalised with flair by Anna Kavan, as well as the playful, psychedelic exuberance of a couple of years earlier, and the principles of Szasz and Laing.)

There's quite a lot of upper-middle-class Englishness here (though Leonora, is rather remarkably, nothing at all to do with Dora Carrington of the Bloomsburies) but I'd love to hear more, well, anything, about The Hearing Trumpet in the context of Latin American art & lit. (Byatt describes Carmella's repeated mentions of firearms as masculine, but I thought them more likely to relate to the prevalence of revolutions, coups and armed rebels in the region.) I haven't read enough Latin American myself to say exactly what's relevant, but it does feel like there's something connectable in The Hearing Trumpet to the magic realism and tricksiness of the Boom.

The line-drawn illustrations in this edition, by the author's son, are in a style quite different from the cover painting (hers) and are not my sort of thing, but may appeal to fans of David Shrigley and Allie Brosh.

I've rated it 4 stars rather than 5, unlike many GR friends, because I didn't find the joy in it that makes a 5-star read (due to the setting) but it is absolutely a wonderful little book that deserves to be more widely read.

[Léa · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I love a surreal little modern classic and in many places this was so compelling, unique and beautifully written however, this was SO SURREAL that at times it felt slightly tiresome to read... it unfortunately didn't work entirely for me

[knig · Rating 2 out of 5]

A wonderful beginning quickly plateaued to a cruising altitude of banal and uninspired until the final couple of chapters, when Carrington seemed to shake out of her dithering reverie and started throwing her weight about: but the turgidity of phantasmagorias was simply not enough to save this book from the doldrums.

Mirian Leatherby is 92 and a character: the first chapter had me in stitches: between her ‘gallant’ beard, the crazy concoctions she plots with her friend Carmella who steals the French yellow pages and writes letters to random recipients within, as well as plans to defect to Lapland, and even more hilarious, her unwelcome intrusions in her sons parlour where she recites fourteen stories about multicoloured parrots but forgets the ending of a mere six of them, I was constantly in mirth.

Too quickly though Marian gets dispatched to a nursing home and things here become beyond tedious. A coterie of utterly uncharming residents, whose (non)idiosyncratic ways are described a tad too loquaciously, charge onto the scene and my eyes glaze over. Not even a rather overlong and mysteriously uninspired soliloquy into the life of an 18c nun can bestir me from apathy. In fact, I’m cringing: its obvious Carrington is giving it all she’s got, trying to be witty, innovative and engaging, but its coming out a dud. A minor murder mystery adds some salt to this bland soupcon, but I’m unmoved.

The end part switches gear and now its a magic mystery tour. (I.e. there is a lady with a wolf head who give birth to werelets. Yay). This was mildly enjoyable, even if it came like a curve ball out of nowhere. One minute we’re on solid ground, next minute, cuckoo land. (Mirian had probably had a puff of the weed Carmella smuggled in )Fine, fine, I’m good with that. But, still. Not so much a little too little too late, but rather a little too much not a little too early.

[Karen·]

A novel way of spring cleaning

It was this interview in the Guardian that brought me here. Olga Tokarczuk mentions that one influence on Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead was the hilarious, sassy 92 year old narrator of this novel, Marian Leatherby. For the first 72 pages I was with her, absolutely, laughing like a drain and thinking that my wholehearted recommendation here would say things like "Do not read in a public place or when drinking tea", you know, a high snort count. But then, mysteriously, Marian left the stage to a "true and faithful rendering of the life of Doña Rosalinda della Cueva, Abbess of the Convent of Santa Barbara of Tartarus, translated from the original Latin text by Friar Jeremias Nacob of The Order of The Holy Coffin". And no doubt as a function of how highly entertaining Marian is, the true and faithful rendering, by contrast, was so excruciatingly tedious that my eyeballs dried up and my nose began to bleed and I found, suddenly, that there were all sorts of things I would much rather be doing than reading this, like scrubbing toilets or scouring kitchen worktops or laboriously cleaning away the green algae layer on the terrace.
Marian pops back in occasionally, but not enough, not enough to redeem the other 82 pages. Time taken to read first half: two hours. Time taken to read second half: six days. I see it, yes, that there are themes in there, hallucinatory drugs, nuclear winter apocalypse, infantilisation of older people, the anarchy of independent thought:

"It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves 'Government!' The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy."
"It has been going on for years," I said. "And it only occurred to relatively few to disobey and make what they call revolutions. If they won their revolutions, which they occasionally did, they made more governments, sometimes more cruel and stupid than the last."
"Men are very difficult to understand," said Carmella. "Let's hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen and parliaments."

I'm all for people thinking for themselves.

[Tony]

This had moments, some really wry and well-wrought observations, and I really liked the protagonist, 92 year-old Marian Leatherby, and her friend Carmella.

But then it got weird. And weirder. And weirder yet.

Some readers will no doubt nod knowingly when they get to the part of the woman with the wolf's head who delivers a litter of baby werewolves. Sadly, I missed the larger message.

I hope I haven't plot-spoiled.

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ne acayiptir ki İncil de hep ıstırap ve yıkımla sona eriyor sanki. Onların öfkeli ve şiddetli Tanrı’sının bu kadar popüler olmasına çoğunlukla şaşırmışımdır. İnsanlık çok acayip ve herhangi bir şeyi anlıyormuş gibi yapamayacağım, ama size yalnızca vebalar ve katliamlar gönderen bir şeye neden inanılır ki? Ve neden her şeyden Havva suçlanmıştır ki?”


120 yaşında bir annesi olan, 92 yaşında, kedileri ve sakalıyla gurur duyan ve oğluyla birlikte İspanya’da yaşayan Marian Leatherby ‘nin hikayesi. Uzun zamandır işitmesi çok iyi olmadığından kendi iç dünyasında yaşarken, yakın dostu Carmella’nın hediye ettiği bir işitme trompeti ile yeniden duymaya başladığı gün ailesi tarafından bir bakım evine gönderileceğini öğrenir. Bu noktadan itibaren eğlenceli ve sivri dilli yaşlı bir kadının huzurevi hikayesini okuyacağınızı sanıyorsunuz. Ancak gittiği bakımevinden itibaren kitabın yönü, konusu her şeyi değişiyor. Marian bir anda kendisini tarikat eğilimli bir huzurevinde buluyor. Burada deniz feneri, çizme hatta benekli bir şapkalı mantar şeklinde, farklı ve fantastik tipteki bungalovlarda yaşayan kadınların hikayesi kutsal kase arayışının feminist bir versiyonuna evriliyor. Cinayetten, ekolojik felaketlere, mecburi bir transvestitizmden, kurt adamlara, Lapland’e sürrealist bir masalı okuyorsunuz.

Ancak, Carrington yarattığı Işık Kaynağı Kardeşliği ile aslında Gurdjieff’in Institute of Harmonious Development’ına dair ciddi bir eleştiri ortaya koyuyor. Bu “tarikat”a ve döneme dair çok fazla fikriniz yoksa bu bölümler sizin için oldukça sıkıcı bir hale gelebilir. Aynı şekilde yazarın - ressamın hayatına dair Nazi döneminde akıl hastanesine kapatılması, rahibe okuluna uyumsuzluğunun zeka geriliği olarak tanımlanması gibi detaylar bu kitabı daha anlamlı hale getiriyor. Fantastik, grotesk, zaman zaman güldüren zaman zaman - bazı konulara aşina olmamaktan kaynaklı- sıkılmanıza sebep olan farklı bir kitaptı. Maalesef mutlaka okuyun diyemem ama fantastik ve gerçeküstücü edebiyatı seviyorsanız, yazar ve tarikatlara dair araştırma yapmaktan da sıkılmıyorsanız tavsiye ederim.

“Yetmişin altındaki ve yedinin üzerindeki insanlar kedi değillerde çok güvenilmez oluyorlar. Yeterince dikkatli olamıyorsun. Ayrıca, senin duyamadığını sandıklarında ötekilerin konuşmalarını dinlemenin insanı keyiften coşturan gücünü düşünsene.”

[Kevin Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect weekend read. Funny, weird. Beautiful writing. Nothing better than a nonagenarian character to lead us into this crazy world.

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

92-year-old Marian Leatherby is quite content living with her son and his family; she holds no illusions that she is a welcome presence in the home, so she stays out of everyone's way in the hope that they will stay out of hers, a strategy that has always paid off so far. Her hearing is none too good, so she is given a gift of a hearing trumpet by her eccentric, beatific best friend Carmella. With her newly enhanced hearing she is able to overhear that her family plans to ship her off to a home for old women.

The old ladies' home is a bizarre affair, run in Draconian fashion by a married couple who belong to a cultish but ostensibly Christian religious sect. The buildings are in odd shapes, such as a big boot, an igloo, a castle tower, an Egyptian sarcophagus...see, I told you it was bizarre. There are all sorts of strange goings-on—occult rituals, a poisoning plot, a murder, a search for the Holy Grail, a devastating cataclysm, some Kabbalistic stuff, Taliessin fits in there somewhere—and there's a female Anubis who is named Anubeth. And much more. Bottom line, this book is absolutely batshit bonkers, and also absolutely delightful, full of humor and absurd lunacy, zipping along on its own internal logic. Note: Coincidentally, I read this immediately after Barbara Comyn's Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, another delightful novel featuring an elderly woman with an old-fashioned hearing trumpet. Is there an esoteric genre called "hearing trumpet fiction"? If so, I'm open for further recommendations, because so far I'm on a roll.

[WndyJW · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surreal indictment of the erasure of old women in patriarchal culture explored in a novel that is wild, fantastic, and fun. Thelma and Louise have nothing on Marian and Carmella.

[Caro the Helmet Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did I end up feeling like this was written by Atwood? You know, this gentle wise Cheshire's smile over the general wtf of the story? It is just my "feelz", not suggesting anything here. Or maybe I do. I do not know. I'm just waiting for my werewolf fiancee over here, so don't mind me.
It was pretty fun and with some unexpected twists, which I adore, also the granny humour was delicious, but for the first 1/3 of the book I was falling asleep constantly... so consider yourself warned and do not throw the book away frowning, because it's worth your time. And it might not be the book actually but my constant sleep deprivation.
But also be ready for a pinch of surrealism. Not a problem with me but just so you know.

P.S. Note for Lithuanian edition - thanks for keeping us, readers, in high regard, dear, idk, translator? Editor? but we don't all speak fluid Latin, you know, for example my knowledge of Latin ends on "Asinus asinorum in sæcula sæculorum", so sometimes we like our books with footnote translation, just so you know next time, thank you very much!!!!!!

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sırdaş Trompet” göndermeleri ve imgelemeleriyle, anlaşılması güç çok zor ama o ölçüde de güzel ve etkileyici bir metin. Esas olarak bir hiciv romanı, sürrealist olarak değerlendirenler çoğunlukta olsa da bence fantastik bir kurguyla yazılmış. Felsefe, psikoloji, mitoloji, teoloji gibi temel konularda çok iyi bir mizah/ironi seviyesi tutturularak yazılmış bir roman.

Hristiyanlığın, huzurevi, kilise hatta aile konağı gibi kurumların, pedofilik din adamlarının, eril dil sahibi batı dinlerinin, mistik-felsefi tarikat gibi toplulukların eleştirildiği, yazarın yaşamına dair kesitlere ve olaylara göndermelerle dolu, oldukça eğlendirici ve sürükleyici bir roman. Eğer kitabın başında Helen Byatt’ın açıklamaları olmazsa belki de bazı imgeleri, betimlemeleri anlamaz ve bu kadar beğenmezdim.

Sonuçta sıradışı oldukça güzel bir eser.

[Katya]

A Corneta Acústica é, na sua essência, um conto de fadas anarquista e surreal cuja protagonista Marian, uma velhota desdentada, praticamente careca, barbuda e surda que nem uma porta, no meio de um périplo pela salvação da humanidade, irá fazer todo um percurso iniciático, qual herói de demanda, até aos primórdios do ser e à essência de estar vivo.
Eis o mote: Marian partilha o seu lar com dois gatos, uma galinha, a empregada e os seus dois filhos, algumas moscas e um cacto chamado maguey. Mas filho, nora e neto têm planos para acabar com esse idílio:

- O governo providencia instituições para os idosos e os enfermos - vociferou a Muriel. - Há muito tempo que ela devia ter sido internada.
- Não estamos em Inglaterra - disse o Galahad. - As instituições aqui não se adequam a seres humanos.
- A avó - disse o Robert - dificilmente pode ser considerada um ser humano. É um saco babado de carne em decomposição.

Marian é, pois, recambiada para o asilo Casa da Luz, uma instituição cristã gerida pela Irmandade do Poço da Luz. Felizmente, a sua boa e velha amiga Carmella arranjou-lhe, entretanto, uma bonita corneta acústica com que se entreter nas horas vagas (embora pareça que na Casa da Luz tudo o que vai ouvir são sermões de doutrinação sobre a Obra e o Ensinamento Original do Mestre...). Como seja, o desafio está lançado, e mesmo que Marian se oponha - como compete ao herói -, a sua jornada está em andamento e a aventura pode prosseguir.

- O que devo fazer? perguntei. Acho lamentável suicidar-me quando vivi noventa e dois anos e, na verdade, não compreendi nada.

Uma vez na espartana Casa da Luz, um aglomerado de edifícios de contos de fadas que já viu melhores dias (iglus, botas, cabanas e altas torres de castelo), Marian vai escapando à catequização muito graças à sua surdez, às excêntricas novas amizades mas, sobretudo, porque a sua atenção está toda num retrato que preside às parcas refeições em grupo - o retrato de doña Rosalinda Alvarez Cruz Della Cueva, uma exótica freira com um atrevido piscar de olho. Entretanto, coisas (ainda mais) estranhas estão a acontecer à sua volta: envenenamentos, transvestismo, traficância de substâncias e alterações climáticas são apenas algumas delas. Felizmente, entre rituais manhosos patrocinados pelo guru da casa, visões proféticas e freiras que piscam o olho aos visitantes, também há espaço para inúmeros debates neste refúgio de velhinhas: moda, história, política, religião, a era atómica ou o fim do mundo. Nada está proibido.

- Toda a gente sabe que a Bíblia é completamente inexacta. A sério. Noé partiu, de facto, na Arca, mas embebedou-se e caiu ao mar. A Sr.ª Noé ficou na popa a vê-lo afogar-se; não fez nada acerca do assunto porque ia herdar todo aquele gado. As pessoas da Bíblia eram muito sórdidas e uma grande quantidade de gado era, nesses dias, o equivalente a uma conta bancária.

Marian Leatherby é a figura perfeita para acicatar estes debates e a figura perfeita para, perante um apocalipse, revelar a coragem e o sangue frio da maturidade feminina. Daí que, no passo seguinte, comece o seu percurso iniciático. E Carrington esmera-se aqui. Num rápido descambar, estamos numa nova era glaciar e o convénio de velhinhas da Casa da Luz enfrenta terramotos, fome, aparições cabalísticas e, finalmente, é presenteado com a sua missão: a salvação do Graal e a sua devolução à Grande Deusa - Hécate, símbolo do feminino primordial.
As restantes etapas da jornada culminam num crescendo esotérico com uma ressurreição autofágica dentro de uma caverna - a que se chega descendo por uma torre -, e na qual se encontram apenas um espelho de obsidiana que reflete a trindade feminina - menina, mulher, anciã - e um caldeirão (ambos elementos ritualísticos das culturas pré-cristãs), bem como um doppelganger intrigante de Marian:

- Velha como Moisés, feia como Seth, dura como uma bota e tão desprovida de juízo como uma vassoura. Porém, a carne escasseia; por isso, salte cá para dentro.
- O quê? - disse eu, esperando ter percebido mal.
Ela acenou gravemente com a cabeça e apontou para a sopa com a comprida colher de madeira.
- Salte para o caldo, a carne escasseia nesta estação.
Com um silêncio horrorizado, vi-a descascar uma cenoura e duas cebolas, que atirou para o caldeirão espumante. Nunca tive quaisquer aspirações a uma morte gloriosa, mas acabar como caldo de carne nunca fizera parte das minhas previsões.

Tudo isto pode parecer estranho - afinal, é Carrington -, mas nada é tão estranho quanto à primeira vista possa parecer.
Num final estrambólico, num fim do mundo como o conhecemos onde os lobisomens, as abelhas e as cabras governam sem autoridade humana (a escrita de A Corneta Acústica data do pós-II Guerra Mundial), Marian, uma espécie de projeção presciente de uma velhice irreverente por parte da autora, pode ser lida como uma original com pensamento próprio num mundo normativo; uma rebelde que, mesmo perante a tenacidade da idade, não cede na procura da sua verdadeira identidade e liberdade; ou uma improvável revolucionária anarquista que salvará a humanidade (e os seus símbolos) da sua própria rotundidade e estupidez.

Não consigo compreender como é que milhões e milhões de pessoas obedecem a uma colecção doentia de cavalheiros que chamam a si mesmos «Governo»! A palavra, suponho, assusta as pessoas. É uma forma de hipnose planetária particularmente insalubre.

Tudo isso ou nada disso, a sua aventura de autodescoberta é tão ternurenta, divertida e rocambolesca quanto pragmática. Mais sólido do que isto, só escrito na pedra.

Embora a liberdade nos tenha chegado um pouco tardiamente na vida, não tencionamos voltar a abdicar dela. Muitas de nós passaram as suas vidas com maridos dominadores e rabugentos. Quando finalmente nos livramos deles, vimo-nos pressionadas pelos nossos filhos e filhas, que não só já não gostavam de nós, como nos consideravam um fardo, um motivo de ridículo e de vergonha. Acha mesmo, nos seus sonhos mais delirantes, que, agora que saboreamos a liberdade, nos vamos deixar dominar outra vez?

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky is the most fitting adjective for this book. It has the surreal ridiculous sense of fun that is the mainstay of British humour. Our heroine is the hard of hearing 92 year old Marian (the characters all reach Biblical ages as her mother is still alive at the age of 110 and still described as ‘sprightly’ though Marian is quite correct to question how sprightly one can be when confined to a wheelchair) who lives with her son and his family. Despite keeping to her own quarters of the house and occupying herself by grooming her cats and collecting their fur for her friend to knit into a winter sweater – 2 years and only 2 jars full she accedes that it may have to be a gilet- her family are keen to move her into a home. She overhears this discussion when given a hearing trumpet by the cat-fur friend – a scene deliciously illustrated in the author’s child-like line drawing of a trumpet peeking out from behind a curtain as the oblivious family eat supper.

Marian goes unwillingly but uncomplainingly and finds the home constitutes several individual residences in various designs including a lookout tower, an igloo and a shoe. She becomes intrigued by the painting of a winking or is it leering nun (the nun it turns out has plenty to wink – or leer - about returning, as she does, from a long trip heavily pregnant). Marian is given a book that relates the life story of who turns out to be the Abbess and the reader is treated to a fun romp of a tale within a tale. So far so good. And then it all turns a bit Suspiria with winged creatures creating havoc and destruction and it descended from fun to silly hence the 3 stars.
No regrets reading it, the good parts more than made up for the ending and the humour was right up my street, take this exchange Marian relates between herself and her lover as a young couple, (must be imagined in that clipped English accent of the 1930’s think Brief Encounter),

“The woods are full of wild anemones now, shall we go? No Darling, I didn’t say wild enemas, I said wild anemones…”

[B. Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Όσοι είναι κάτω των εβδομήντα και άνω των επτά είναι πολύ αναξιόπιστοι, εκτός αν είναι γάτες».
Αγαπητή Λεονόρα μας κέρδισες με το καλημέρα ή αλλιώς γκολ από τα αποδυτήρια 😎
Αν είστε φαν του σουρεαλισμού απλώς διαβάστε το*

[Cláudia Azevedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*
Diverti-me muito a ler A Corneta Acústica. É verdadeiramente um livro surreal, povoado por personagens excêntricas, lobisomens, gatos e objetos mágicos.
Quando Marion, de 92 anos, é enviada pela família para um lar pertencente a uma irmandade, deixando a melhor amiga, Carmella, para trás, fiquei apreensiva desnecessariamente. A heroína irá viver grandes aventuras, com as novas companheiras, misturando a história de um quadro com uma freira a piscar o olho, a Ordem dos Templários, o santo Graal, muita alquimia, umas doses da Cabala, astrologia e muita loucura.
O resultado é como um quadro de Leonora Carrington (há uma exposição ainda decorrer em Milão): o reflexo das suas vivências pelo mundo (de Inglaterra ao México, passando por Portugal), da sua personalidade avessa às regras e à religião (foi expulsa de vários colégios), das pessoas que conheceu (foi amante de Max Ernst e amiga de Remedios Varo).
As adversidades que enfrentou, particularmente a II Guerra Mundial e o internamento num hospital psiquiátrico), também se refletem aqui num terrível medo da bomba atómica e da destruição insidiosa da Terra.
Apesar do cenário de pós-guerra, Leonora Carrington nunca perde o sentido de humor e a esperança, ancoradas no amor e da amizade.
Esta edição da Antígona está maravilhosa, com ilustrações do filho de Carrington e prefácio de Ali Smith.

[Chrissie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wikipedia says the following about Leonora Carrington (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011), the author of this short surrealist novel:
(She) was a British-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the Women's Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

The novel is a work of fantasy, a genre that is not my usual cup of tea. I thought I would give it a try. Heck, why not? It is in the style of the popular, contemporary author Italo Calvino's The Daughters of the Moon. If that is to your taste, you might like this. Neither have worked for me. Surrealist art I like, but not this. Its message is too absurd, too over-the-top, nothing I can relate to.

The story concerns a ninety-two-year-old woman sent by her son and family to an institution for the aged. They were sick and tired of caring for her. Fifteen years she had lived with them and that was enough! This says nothing about what lies in store for the reader though.

Here, this gives you a better idea. Put in a blender the following ingredients--a winking abbess, a murder, earthquakes, a home where the aged live in bizarre toadstool, lighthouse, birthday cake styled residences, werewolf cubs tumbling with kittens, recovery of the Holy Grail and a new ice age. On with the blender, and then turn it off. Pour out the ingredients and there is your story. Maybe this will work for you, but it did not work for me!

The audiobook is narrated by Sian Phillips. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the narration. It’s good.

The book, on the other hand fits someone other than me! It is considered a classic of fantasy literature.