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purepazaak's review against another edition
5.0
this book has such dense information, there are so many characters stories going on at the same time, that it boggles my mind that anyone bothers talking about dune
timbo001's review against another edition
4.0
Possibly the strangest book I've ever read, strange and wonderfully bizarre.
kelic's review against another edition
4.0
This book was mad; utterly, insanely, barking at the moon mad. I'm not sure what I have just read but it was a non-stop ride. It made me look up Guatemala and I learned that its history is rather tumultuous and mad. A civil war that lasted 30 years. Thirty years of fighting a dictatorship that was backed by the US. Atrocities occurred that should have made the world outraged were ignored for 3 decades. It only ended in 1996! So this book could be about so much more than I know.
I will be reading a non-fiction about Guatemala now.
Fascinating funny and strange. I recommend this to anyone who can deal with absurdity.
I will leave my favourite sentence below:
"Because of that foot business she was, without any doubt, the one who had made him unhappy with her public belly, a stranger's child, the child of a devil, putting horns on him, and reducing him to the state of a dwarf, minimal and horrifying, just like a fœtus with a moustache"
I will be reading a non-fiction about Guatemala now.
Fascinating funny and strange. I recommend this to anyone who can deal with absurdity.
I will leave my favourite sentence below:
"Because of that foot business she was, without any doubt, the one who had made him unhappy with her public belly, a stranger's child, the child of a devil, putting horns on him, and reducing him to the state of a dwarf, minimal and horrifying, just like a fœtus with a moustache"
nealadolph's review against another edition
4.0
My advice is this: Set everything you know about literature aside. This tosses out the notion of narration, of plotline, of symbolism, or metaphor. Mulata is just exactly what it is.
And so, it should be said, I've never read anything like this before. A surreal fever dream, a lagoon, a black lake where all of the bodies of the impossible are transforming into all of the other bodies of the impossible. A mess, beautiful and robust. Imagery that defies the brain and demands more of the reader than any book I have ever read. A suspension of disbelief beyond any previously accepted suspension. Never has a book forced me to pay so much attention to things I couldn't wrap my attention around.
This is a radical and bewildering mix of mythologies, ideologies, concepts, images, cultures, views of the world. Transformations abound and abound and abound. A grand, sweltering build up to an apocalypse, the collapse of an unrecognizable reality. Surreal? Is that the word here?
But don't be convinced that it is as complex as the language or the events suggest - the story here is simple and it is clear. And it is, in its attempt to bridge and supersede and honour the two worlds that it brings together, highly moral, serious work.
I'm saving this book. It has earned it's place on my shelf.
And so, it should be said, I've never read anything like this before. A surreal fever dream, a lagoon, a black lake where all of the bodies of the impossible are transforming into all of the other bodies of the impossible. A mess, beautiful and robust. Imagery that defies the brain and demands more of the reader than any book I have ever read. A suspension of disbelief beyond any previously accepted suspension. Never has a book forced me to pay so much attention to things I couldn't wrap my attention around.
This is a radical and bewildering mix of mythologies, ideologies, concepts, images, cultures, views of the world. Transformations abound and abound and abound. A grand, sweltering build up to an apocalypse, the collapse of an unrecognizable reality. Surreal? Is that the word here?
But don't be convinced that it is as complex as the language or the events suggest - the story here is simple and it is clear. And it is, in its attempt to bridge and supersede and honour the two worlds that it brings together, highly moral, serious work.
I'm saving this book. It has earned it's place on my shelf.
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