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The Marx Family Saga
Spanish
185 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
7 people are currently reading
484 people want to read
About the author
Juan Goytisolo
179 books167 followersDesde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008).
No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.
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Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.
In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.
In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.
He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...
No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.
========
Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.
In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.
In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.
He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 3, 2022
The Marx Family Saga asks the important, age old question: what if Marx and his family were alive in the 1990’s to see the fall of the Berlin Wall?
I expected to read a lot about Karl Marx yelling at Pepsi commercials on his television set, and sure, there’s a tiny bit of that. There’s even some fairly gratuitous descriptions of bourgeoisie breasts. But then in chapter 2, the author of the book meets with his editor, who it turns out hated the weird, meandering, allegorical first chapter, and asks him to write a more intimate, traditional biography of the Marx family. So the author goes to Karl Marx’s house and interviews his ghost.
I had a pretty technically hard time reading this book - I don’t have much experience with the almost poetic style of long, run-on prose, and the ambiguous character identities, time skips, and even writing format changes are all VERY postmodern, not to mention the difficult to follow in-jokes, nicknames, and long political diatribes. Halfway through the book, Marx and his family turn out to be actors playing themselves in a television adaptation of their life.
It’s not nearly as silly as it sounds. Essentially this book is made up mostly of imagined socratic dialogues where the author argues all sides of communism and anarchism, and ends up being a very obviously personal work in which Juan Goytisolo grapples with the man vs. the myth of Marx in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s also a (somewhat speculative) study of the women in Marx’s life: his wife Jenny, his three daughters, two of whom killed themselves, and ultimately his family’s lifelong housekeeper Helene Demuth, or Lenchen - who helped discover the manuscript for the second volume of Kapital after Marx’s death, and was buried in his family tomb when she passed.
I liked it? I think? It got more cohesive as it went. Juan Goytisolo seems like he was probably pretty cool.
I expected to read a lot about Karl Marx yelling at Pepsi commercials on his television set, and sure, there’s a tiny bit of that. There’s even some fairly gratuitous descriptions of bourgeoisie breasts. But then in chapter 2, the author of the book meets with his editor, who it turns out hated the weird, meandering, allegorical first chapter, and asks him to write a more intimate, traditional biography of the Marx family. So the author goes to Karl Marx’s house and interviews his ghost.
I had a pretty technically hard time reading this book - I don’t have much experience with the almost poetic style of long, run-on prose, and the ambiguous character identities, time skips, and even writing format changes are all VERY postmodern, not to mention the difficult to follow in-jokes, nicknames, and long political diatribes. Halfway through the book, Marx and his family turn out to be actors playing themselves in a television adaptation of their life.
It’s not nearly as silly as it sounds. Essentially this book is made up mostly of imagined socratic dialogues where the author argues all sides of communism and anarchism, and ends up being a very obviously personal work in which Juan Goytisolo grapples with the man vs. the myth of Marx in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s also a (somewhat speculative) study of the women in Marx’s life: his wife Jenny, his three daughters, two of whom killed themselves, and ultimately his family’s lifelong housekeeper Helene Demuth, or Lenchen - who helped discover the manuscript for the second volume of Kapital after Marx’s death, and was buried in his family tomb when she passed.
I liked it? I think? It got more cohesive as it went. Juan Goytisolo seems like he was probably pretty cool.
November 3, 2019
Karl Marx vynalezl komouše. To už ho samo o sobě diskvalifikuje v anketě Největší sympaťák všech dob. Já teda doufám, že v ty anketě skončím nějaký příčky před Marxem. A před Hitlerem.
O Marxovi jsem toho věděl asi jako každý průměrný pečivo. Díky této knize jsem se dověděl mnohem více. Čeho si velmi cením je forma výpravy trampot rodiny Marxů - autor jednou pošle Marxovy do televizního seriálu, jindy se s nimi osobně setká v různých fázích jejich života a jindy zas pozve různé teoretiky včetně sebe do televizní debaty, kterou sledují Marxovi.
Literární guláš, tak jak se k pečivo servíruje. Rubato opět nadprůměrně. 8/10
O Marxovi jsem toho věděl asi jako každý průměrný pečivo. Díky této knize jsem se dověděl mnohem více. Čeho si velmi cením je forma výpravy trampot rodiny Marxů - autor jednou pošle Marxovy do televizního seriálu, jindy se s nimi osobně setká v různých fázích jejich života a jindy zas pozve různé teoretiky včetně sebe do televizní debaty, kterou sledují Marxovi.
Literární guláš, tak jak se k pečivo servíruje. Rubato opět nadprůměrně. 8/10
January 11, 2026
Self-banished Goytisolo's biting satire on both the result of communism after the Soviet Union AND the empy, idiotic and nasty consumer society we live in. Some say one of the better novels of the 90s. I concur.
June 14, 2019
Experimental, post-modern "biography" of the Marx family written in the early 90's. I enjoyed both its playfulness and the subject matter. Written by a Marxist (I presume, since I haven't read anything else by Goytisolo) trying to come to grips with the waning of Marx's status and general credibility of the communist agenda. I did enjoy the biography aspect of it as I have not known much about Marx the man before. The questions at the heart of the book, however, are more about the craft of literature itself: when we write of a live person, where does the reality turn into a tale, a literary construct? Even when we limit ourselves to basic facts, is there anything such as objective perspective on a person; especially on such an intellectually and ideologically towering figure? How do we use subjective to tell the story?
Goytisolo is at turns self-depreciating and impassioned in his approach, sometimes both at the same time. There is more raw and sincere emotion than the "post-modern" adjective might imply - his writing is experimental, uneven, but never dull. Many scenes are evocative of pop culture both in subject and structure.
Goytisolo is at turns self-depreciating and impassioned in his approach, sometimes both at the same time. There is more raw and sincere emotion than the "post-modern" adjective might imply - his writing is experimental, uneven, but never dull. Many scenes are evocative of pop culture both in subject and structure.
June 5, 2011
Silly GR put this under read, when I am just about to open it for the first time.
Interesting, though somewhat frustrating book. The premise is that the narrator, "you", is writing a history of the Karl Marx family in the early 1990s, right after the fall of the Soviet block. The Marx family is somehow still around, or are they just the actors who are taking part in a telenovela about the Marxes? "You" interviews the various family members and/or actors, as well as a multitude of other Marxists and anarchists contemporary with Marx. Throw in a boatload of thousands of Albanians who are trying to get to "Dallas" (as in the TV show they saw back home) by landing in either Barcelona or Bari, Italy (this is unclear, as is much of what's going on..).
This Felliniesque book would work better, imho, if there weren't so many pages on end of the various Marxists/anarchists/revolutionaries arguing their POVs, and if you could figure out who the heck "he" is most of the time (much worse than Mantel in Wolf Hall!)
Interesting, though somewhat frustrating book. The premise is that the narrator, "you", is writing a history of the Karl Marx family in the early 1990s, right after the fall of the Soviet block. The Marx family is somehow still around, or are they just the actors who are taking part in a telenovela about the Marxes? "You" interviews the various family members and/or actors, as well as a multitude of other Marxists and anarchists contemporary with Marx. Throw in a boatload of thousands of Albanians who are trying to get to "Dallas" (as in the TV show they saw back home) by landing in either Barcelona or Bari, Italy (this is unclear, as is much of what's going on..).
This Felliniesque book would work better, imho, if there weren't so many pages on end of the various Marxists/anarchists/revolutionaries arguing their POVs, and if you could figure out who the heck "he" is most of the time (much worse than Mantel in Wolf Hall!)
December 3, 2024
Call no man happy until his followers are dead. What would Marx have thought of 1991 if he and his family had been unfrozen then?
An exhausting book, for two reasons: a semi-punctuated stream and dense with historical minutiae. More of a screenplay than a novel. Despite the 90s sexy irreverent rampage and pomo National Inquirer plot and lack of line breaks and superfluity of exclamation marks, it's really a scholar-novel. "Oh I know Vyshinsky. Oh I know Sterne. Oh I know Lasalle." It is the brilliant performance of someone who has wasted an awful lot of time reading old and dubious things, more than me. The literary equivalent of a world record in tiddlywinks.
One thing Gotyisolo gets right, and gets right for all time, is the sheer shock of the fall of the regime.
It's true that imperialist-authoritarian-Marxist socialism is not all there is to socialism. But I'm not convinced that the empire would have been any better if it had picked Bakunin to pay lip service to instead.
Goytisolo splits Marx into two persons: the quiet father-scholar and the violent accelerationist-clown. Most of the book is humiliating the former with the latter.
But he's not crowing. Again, you don't know the things he knows about Marxism if you're a sneering outsider. You can't take Marx apart if you're not inside it. He uses an interminable chatshow and Marx's servant Demuth to chastise himself, his book. Why is mere biography - imagined, invented biography - important? Why does it matter that Marx was bourgeois, had a servant, seized control of socialism and marginalised the democratic and libertarian strands in preparation for even more unapologetic authoritarians?:
The satire is then as much about 90s ass-covering and about-faces as about Marx.
You might benefit from this book if you're still inside it. Note the glossary at the back first.
Look, you have the incredible fortune to live at a time where you need not engage with the great false theories, Marx or Freud. Their followers are on the outs. Use this fortune.
why had the sudden acceleration of history, so often predicted by the day's most illustrious thinkers, in the end turned against his own teaching?
who had helped them off the train of Progress or, even worse, thrown them out of the window?
youths invested with the portable glories of Levi Strauss
(Californian, not College de France!)
advertise on their chests and backs the new beacons of European culture
Yosef Visionaryovitch scattering the dew from his lips over an ecstatic group of children, peasants of both sexes competing to beat new records, flaxen-haired villagers and blue-eyed heroines of the last Five-Year Plan
the atmosphere of beatitude and fervour permeating the canvases seemed to soak the whole room, infect all present
a dismayed Europe welcomed the survivors from the wreckage of his teaching!
An exhausting book, for two reasons: a semi-punctuated stream and dense with historical minutiae. More of a screenplay than a novel. Despite the 90s sexy irreverent rampage and pomo National Inquirer plot and lack of line breaks and superfluity of exclamation marks, it's really a scholar-novel. "Oh I know Vyshinsky. Oh I know Sterne. Oh I know Lasalle." It is the brilliant performance of someone who has wasted an awful lot of time reading old and dubious things, more than me. The literary equivalent of a world record in tiddlywinks.
One thing Gotyisolo gets right, and gets right for all time, is the sheer shock of the fall of the regime.
It's true that imperialist-authoritarian-Marxist socialism is not all there is to socialism. But I'm not convinced that the empire would have been any better if it had picked Bakunin to pay lip service to instead.
Goytisolo splits Marx into two persons: the quiet father-scholar and the violent accelerationist-clown. Most of the book is humiliating the former with the latter.
But he's not crowing. Again, you don't know the things he knows about Marxism if you're a sneering outsider. You can't take Marx apart if you're not inside it. He uses an interminable chatshow and Marx's servant Demuth to chastise himself, his book. Why is mere biography - imagined, invented biography - important? Why does it matter that Marx was bourgeois, had a servant, seized control of socialism and marginalised the democratic and libertarian strands in preparation for even more unapologetic authoritarians?:
the presenter: time is short and I'd like to ask the writer of this novel, who has not spoken yet, for his personal view of Marx!
the plain truth is that his system's crimes and misdemeanours have been relegated to the inner recesses of your mind, you're more distressed by the succession of disasters in a world condemned to the rule of rampant monetarism, whole continents sunk in unremitting poverty, the devastation of the planet, xenophobia, racism, Eurobanking mafia, ethnic cleansing, Orwellian world programming!
that he erred perhaps in thinking in terms of power and not of happiness, even though the pursuit of the latter is of much more interest to the vast majority?
that only a project able to transcend the limitations of men and women can sustain them at a humane level, whereas a society reduced to its purely economic dimension inevitably leads to subhumanity, to new forms of orchestrated tyranny?
(the philosopher portrayed on the set raises his bushy eyebrows even higher, clearly upset by the tenor of this interior monologue!
Marx (whispering): for heaven's sake... rather than worrying about me and my ideas ou would do better to explain to your readers the aim and structure of your novel!)...
voice-over: a sociologist from Murcia formulated two questions specially for Francois Punset! first of all, is it true that Marx wrote 'I hope the bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles to the bitter end'? secondly, if the answer is yes, might one deduce that Marxism and its theory of class-hatred sprang from the aforementioned carbuncles?
Godelier's student (sarcastically): our sociological gentleman ought to ask hiumself what kind of softness in the head, whether transient or incurable, led him to formulate such questions!
(coughs, clearing of throats, an almost imperceptible flapping of wings, as inside a hen-coop attacked by a nocturnal intruder)
voice-over: a former full-time Community Party member, who now votes for the right, pointed out how upon the death of his friend Roland Daniels, young Marx wrote to his widow along these lines: 'I'll always remember him as a Greek god thrown by chance to a bunch of Hottentots' and the question is as follows, isn't this comparison pejorative and racist?
you: Marx's sense of humour can be easily misunderstood by someone who is ignorant of his life! he always employed the term Hottentot affectionately, even using it as a nickname for one of his daughters!
producer: in the two minutes we have left on air, do any of you want to reply to any of this?
The satire is then as much about 90s ass-covering and about-faces as about Marx.
You might benefit from this book if you're still inside it. Note the glossary at the back first.
Look, you have the incredible fortune to live at a time where you need not engage with the great false theories, Marx or Freud. Their followers are on the outs. Use this fortune.
July 1, 2013
رغم إن الحبكة غير متماسكة .. إﻻ ان الرواية جميلة .. تتحدث عن كارل ماركس ابو الشيوعية ، كرجل في بيته وزوج واب ..
تسلط الرواية الضوء على فداحة الرأسمالية وانتشارها في المجتمع .. قبل قراءتها ينبغي على أي شخص شوية يقرأ عن تاريخ ماركس وعﻻقته بإنجلز ...
رواية لطيفة :)
تسلط الرواية الضوء على فداحة الرأسمالية وانتشارها في المجتمع .. قبل قراءتها ينبغي على أي شخص شوية يقرأ عن تاريخ ماركس وعﻻقته بإنجلز ...
رواية لطيفة :)
June 30, 2019
Hikayesiyle, kurgusuyla, anlatımıyla uzun süredir okuduğum en farklı kitaptı. Özetle Marx ailesinin Berlin Duvarının yıkılışıyla zirve yapan komünist blokun dağılışı sırasında hala hayatta oldukları varsayımından hareket ediyoruz. Ama bu kadar basit değil.
Arnavut mültecilerin bir gemiyle kaçak olarak batıda bir plaja varışlarıyla başlayan okunması son derece zor bir bölümle açılıyor roman. Göndermeleri, ironileri, anlatıcı özneyi takip etmek büyük bir dikkat gerektiriyor. Burada yazarın tercihlerinin yanında, çevirinin de zora düştüğü algısına kapıldım.
İkinci bölümde okur kendini birdenbire kitabın yazarı konumunda buluyor. Okuma kolaylaşırken, Marx ailesinin bireyleri ile, dostları ile, kitabın yayıncısıyla diyaloglar devreye giriyor.
Son bölümde ise kendimizi Marksizm üzerine bir açık oturumda buluyoruz. Oturumda kimler yok ki; feminist bir seksolog, militan bir Marksist, Hintli bir tarihçi, doğulu ve Amerika'ya yerleşmiş bir mülteci, İspanyol bir anarşist:)
Marksizm'le ilgili en azından temel bilginiz varsa, Marx'a ve Marx ailesine ilginiz varsa, ideolojik tartışmalardan hoşlanıyorsanız kesinlikle tavsiye edilir. Son bölümdeki argümanlar bu konularla ilgili çok kafa yormuş kişilere tekrar gelebilir, ancak bu denli farklı bakış açısından ve eleştirel bir duruşla, roman akışı içinde verilmesi apayrı bir okuma deneyimi getiriyor.
Kitabın baskısı yok. Nadir kitap üzerinden bulmak mümkün. Zor ve çok katmanlı kitapları seviyorsanız arayın, bulun, okuyun. Üşenmeyin:)
Arnavut mültecilerin bir gemiyle kaçak olarak batıda bir plaja varışlarıyla başlayan okunması son derece zor bir bölümle açılıyor roman. Göndermeleri, ironileri, anlatıcı özneyi takip etmek büyük bir dikkat gerektiriyor. Burada yazarın tercihlerinin yanında, çevirinin de zora düştüğü algısına kapıldım.
İkinci bölümde okur kendini birdenbire kitabın yazarı konumunda buluyor. Okuma kolaylaşırken, Marx ailesinin bireyleri ile, dostları ile, kitabın yayıncısıyla diyaloglar devreye giriyor.
Son bölümde ise kendimizi Marksizm üzerine bir açık oturumda buluyoruz. Oturumda kimler yok ki; feminist bir seksolog, militan bir Marksist, Hintli bir tarihçi, doğulu ve Amerika'ya yerleşmiş bir mülteci, İspanyol bir anarşist:)
Marksizm'le ilgili en azından temel bilginiz varsa, Marx'a ve Marx ailesine ilginiz varsa, ideolojik tartışmalardan hoşlanıyorsanız kesinlikle tavsiye edilir. Son bölümdeki argümanlar bu konularla ilgili çok kafa yormuş kişilere tekrar gelebilir, ancak bu denli farklı bakış açısından ve eleştirel bir duruşla, roman akışı içinde verilmesi apayrı bir okuma deneyimi getiriyor.
Kitabın baskısı yok. Nadir kitap üzerinden bulmak mümkün. Zor ve çok katmanlı kitapları seviyorsanız arayın, bulun, okuyun. Üşenmeyin:)
May 25, 2024
Bella l’idea di Marotta & Cafiero di rendere il libro come una serie tv.
Romanzo non lineare, molto difficile da seguire (come lo stesso Goytisolo afferma più volte) ma senza dubbio con un certo fascino
Romanzo non lineare, molto difficile da seguire (come lo stesso Goytisolo afferma più volte) ma senza dubbio con un certo fascino
February 24, 2021
Wow, really an amazing book! I loved the interview s with the redactor, but the whole book is wonderful too. It is nice way to learn something about Marx and his thougts.
October 23, 2023
Omg.. taková píčovina.. proklínám tu paní z knihkupectví, která mi to doporučila.
Read
September 28, 2024crazy
January 30, 2022
Una novela de tesis que ni es novela ni tiene mucha tesis, un biopic donde el protagonista parece ser el autor más que el biografiado... y, sin embargo, un libro genial que muestra las incoherencias del padre del socialismo científico y que provoca ganas de leer sobre la vida de su mujer, todo ello enmarcado entre la miseria y las demandas de miles de refugiados de países que en su día se creyeron el cuento de la dictadura del proletariado.
Debería ser lectura obligatoria para talibanes de izquierdas y para todos los que pretenden imponer sus verdades (ideológicas, religiosas...) a las masas y se olvidan de que al final la masa, la clase o como se le quiera llamar, es una suma de individuos, hombres y mujeres, que necesitan una atención individual.
Como diría la bruja Avería : ¡viva el mal, viva el Kapital!
Debería ser lectura obligatoria para talibanes de izquierdas y para todos los que pretenden imponer sus verdades (ideológicas, religiosas...) a las masas y se olvidan de que al final la masa, la clase o como se le quiera llamar, es una suma de individuos, hombres y mujeres, que necesitan una atención individual.
Como diría la bruja Avería : ¡viva el mal, viva el Kapital!
March 19, 2010
oh, but the beginning is brutish to get through! the first layer of the book...had to be written that way, i guess. but still, to trudge through as a reader! and then the book becomes "important", like what they call "papo cabeça" in brazil: all high-level clap-trap. but then, four stars: in the last 20-40 pages it becomes a compelling apology for revolutionaries in the face of complete historical failure. oh, and dallas.
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October 9, 2010goytisolo a radical writer a friend of susan sontag , jean genet and godard and many others this book showing contrast of now a days advancement of technological intervention and marx's surplus value! can't coincide
Want to read
May 18, 2011received A+ rating at the complete review: http://www.complete-review.com/review...
July 29, 2011
The arguments are rather predictable.
September 15, 2011
surreal, peculiar, entertaining...
September 3, 2014
rave review here: http://www.complete-review.com/review...
I suspect my lack of interest in Marx and Marxist theory meant this left me cold...lots of playful PoMo fun though.
I suspect my lack of interest in Marx and Marxist theory meant this left me cold...lots of playful PoMo fun though.
Read
February 16, 2014silly albanians
February 11, 2016
El retrato de un Marx pauperrimo, un poco chovinista, perseguido por el fantasma de Bakunin. Un libro maravilloso.
Read
May 3, 2018I had really high hopes for this, honestly. I'd read Goytisolo years before, and had been rather impressed. This... this was like a second-rate Jean-Luc Godard film, from the period when he was more interested in this sort of Brechtian free-for-all, Marxist principles crammed down your throat like you're a fucking foie gras goose combined with the sort of "playful" and "ironic" high jinks that only make sense if you were a Parisian Normalien at the time. So yeah, this is like an early '90s version of that. Which is to say it sucked.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews