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Latin American Trilogy
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán
With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzmán decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.
On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.
On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
75 people are currently reading
1934 people want to read
About the author
Louis de Bernières
77books2,087followersLouis de Bernières is an English novelist. He is known for his 1994 historical war novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. In 1993 de Bernières was selected as one of the "20 Best of Young British Novelists", part of a promotion in Granta magazine. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was published in the following year, winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book. It was also shortlisted for the 1994 Sunday Express Book of the Year. It has been translated into over 11 languages and is an international best-seller.
On 16 July 2008, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts by the De Montfort University in Leicester, which he had attended when it was Leicester Polytechnic.
Politically, he identifies himself as Eurosceptic and has voiced his support for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
On 16 July 2008, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts by the De Montfort University in Leicester, which he had attended when it was Leicester Polytechnic.
Politically, he identifies himself as Eurosceptic and has voiced his support for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
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August 30, 2024
Has anyone seen the beast? Has anyone seen the beast? called the three-hundred-year-old-man, as he cantered over the drawbridge upon his rachitic horse. "Has anyone seen the beast whose stomach rumbles like a pack of dogs, taking many shapes, and devastating the land? Has anyone seen the beast?
A spectre from the past , like an oracle of doom, announces troubled times for Cochadebajo de los Gatos, the mountain refuge that is sheltering most of the characters from the first two novels of Louis de Bernieres' South American trilogy. The villagers have fought against the rogue army forces of the republic in the first book, they have opposed the drug lords in the second book. Who else is casting an envious eye at the happines they have carved for themselves out of the rocky slopes of the Andes?
The title suggest that the problems might be related to Cardinal Dominic Trujillo Guzman, the leader of the Catholic Church in the capital. After civil wars and drug wars, the trilogy tackles now religious war. The offspring of the Cardinal is a multi-layered metaphor: it stands for the natural son he fathered on a servant in his palace; for his renegade brother who roams the countryside reciting ancient scatological poetry in Latin; for the nightmares that haunt the cardinal's waking hours with visions of devils and Hell; for the medical canker that is actually consuming him from the inside out; most of all it stand for his pet project of bringing his unruly flock back into the fold of the Church, sending priests into the countryside to combat heresy and to preach the true word of the gospel.
I am forcibly obliged to reflect upon how it is that those of us who are connected directly with God and are enamoured of reason and law can deduce with such clarity propositions whose practical application can lead to such lamentable consequences.
The words in the quote above belong to Thomas d'Aquino, the practical philosopher who organized and explained the tenets of the Catholic Church. He is one of the supernatural actors who are mixed by Bernieres into his narrative. Among d'Aquino's offspring, the most (in)famous is the Inquisition. His teachings might have been honest and well argumented, but their practical application resulted in some of the worst crimes perpetrated by man against man. When an accolite of Cardinal Guzman is put in charge of the spiritual revival project, the result is a murderous crusade against the villagers in their path.
I had seen a vision of Hell, such as each generation sees it. My parents saw just these things during La Violencia, and their parents saw just these things during the civil war. It was the same play with new actors, and I asked the same question as my parents: "What is wrong with us that we shit on paradise?"
Louis de Bernieres is consistent over the three books of this South American trilogy, driving his point by juxtaposing Hell and Heaven. Hell is the establishment: the power hungry military, the corrupt politicians, the cruel drug lords, the mega-corporations laying waste to the natural resources, poverty, dogma, violence. Armed with the arrows of satire, the authors makes clowns of the bad guys, but I couldn't really laugh at the descriptions of young girls forced into prostitution, of children dying of hunger, of indiscriminate killing and constant terror imposed by armed thugs. These are still prominent features of the South American continent: islands of opulent wealth surrounded by rundown favellas, wealth and power pretending their poor neighbors are invisible and somehow guilty for their own misfortune. They are called 'los olvidados', the forgotten ones. Cardinal Guzman would like to see them all gone.
It is true that they are uneducated and their morals are frequently deplorable, Your Eminence, but they are masters of improvisation. Every time it rains their cardboard shacks are washed away, and twenty-four hours later they are built again. They make delicate stews from rats and sandal-leather, they live by swarming over the garbage tips raking them over for scraps, and in this way they are akin to Lazarus, Your Eminence. They suffer typhoid and cholera, and yet they hold the best carnivals in the capital.
A never-ending carnival is what the author builds by contrast in Cochadebajo de los Gatos, out of the simple pleasures of living and of sharing in the meagre resources at their disposal, of working hard together and afterwards singing and dancing and fornicating to their hearts' desire. It's an Utopian society, that can only be created by bringing magic into the storyline, but like other Utopias before it, it simply points the way to a better society, and is not describing an existing one. Like a magnet, the little village in the mountain attracts the misfits and the wanderers of the land, the oppressed and the desperate souls in need of a salvation that the church is unable to provide. Among them a Mexican musician who has a little problem with a girl that keeps visiting him
It was an ideal place for me, because I wanted fresh mountain air, space, privacy, a place where one could palpably feel the presence of ancient gods and the spirits of nature. But also it was a place where, when in the appropriate mood, one could find spectacular revelry and good humour.
My favorite episode of life in the village is hard to pick among several funny anecdotes, but I am tempted to mention here the 'Battle of Dona Barbara', a case of troubles in paradise that also arose out of the good intention of providing the locals with reading material. Don Dionisio Vivo, slayer of drug barons, uses his contacts in the valley to start a local library, but his friends there persuade him to buy all the unsold copies of a romance novel. The project is an instant succes:
The habit of literacy being unconsolidated, the hush lasted for an entire week whilst brows furrowed and lips silently repeated the text. Work stopped, or those working would cut alfalfa with the book in the left hand whilst the machete in the right swept aimlessly over the same spot. People read walking down the street, treading on the jaguars' tails and tripping over the kerbs, bumping into each other and forgetting to go and eat what their spouses had failed to cook because it had burned unstirred in its pot.
As many Goodreaders know, one is not only a reader, one is also a critic. Luckily for me, I am expressing my opinions online, carefully insulated from more robust counterarguments from fans of the novels I occasionally thrash. In Cochadebajo de los Gatos, the critics are all living together and so will soon come to blows over the merits of the plucky heroine or of the dastardly seducer:
From this episode Dionisio deduced that the principle reason for religious schisms was that everybody derives their information from the same book.
Nominally Catholic, the inhabitants of the village are in practice polytheistic, grafting the saints and angels of Christianity onto the more robust branch of the West African pantheon the slaves brought with them in their forced crossing of the ocean. The result is called 'santeria', a system similar to voodoo, that absorbs and accepts a lot of different opinions and beliefs, fluid and unruly in its manifestations, with the celebrations coming closer to drunken orgies than to the singing of holy hymns. It is the kind of heresy that Cardinal Guzman and his dogs of war would like to eradicate. The scene is set for an epic confrontation of the two sets of beliefs, a confrontation that I will not spoil for the future readers. I would leave only one short quote that I consider the most important lesson I found in the novel:
It seems to me that tolerance only ever prospers where people have grown weary of bogus certainties.
---
I have started writing reviews here on ŷ mostly for my own use, knowing I have a poor memory for details, and that after a time the plots and the names of characters from different novels will start to get mixed in my head. I am thinking now, what I would like most of all to remember from the three South American books? My answer for the moment is that I would very much like to live for one year among the people of Cochadebajo de los Gatos, sharing in their revelries, helping them with the crops, strolling around with the magical black jaguars, eating the dangerous "Chicken of a True Man" at Dona Flor's restaurant, listening to their outrageous stories by the campfires.
Once there was a woman worm who met her friend under the floor of my hut, and I heard them talking. One said to the other, "where is your husband?" and the other replied, "He has gone fishing."
Thank you for the good times: Pedro the Hunter, with his pack of silent dogs and his clothes made of animal skins; Father Garcia, with his gentle conscience, his wild metaphysical ideas, and his appearance of a depressed hare; Misael, with his honest black face and his love of revelry; Remedios, with her Kalashnikov and her gift of military acumen; Josef, with his ability to find compromises that accommodated everybody's plans; Hectoro, who had three wives, never dismounted from his horse except to drink or make love, and looked every inch a conquistador; Consuelo and Dolores, the two whores who reminded the men that they were not gods on account of the possession of testicles; Aurelio, the Aymara Indian who crossed the veils between this and the other worlds and seemed to be in every place at the same time; and General Fuerte, who had deserted the army by faking his own death; Profesor Luis and Farides, Dionisio Vivo and his harem, Don Emmanuel and his Felicidad, and all the other friends I made here. I promise you I will try to come and visit you in your mountain fastness.
A spectre from the past , like an oracle of doom, announces troubled times for Cochadebajo de los Gatos, the mountain refuge that is sheltering most of the characters from the first two novels of Louis de Bernieres' South American trilogy. The villagers have fought against the rogue army forces of the republic in the first book, they have opposed the drug lords in the second book. Who else is casting an envious eye at the happines they have carved for themselves out of the rocky slopes of the Andes?
The title suggest that the problems might be related to Cardinal Dominic Trujillo Guzman, the leader of the Catholic Church in the capital. After civil wars and drug wars, the trilogy tackles now religious war. The offspring of the Cardinal is a multi-layered metaphor: it stands for the natural son he fathered on a servant in his palace; for his renegade brother who roams the countryside reciting ancient scatological poetry in Latin; for the nightmares that haunt the cardinal's waking hours with visions of devils and Hell; for the medical canker that is actually consuming him from the inside out; most of all it stand for his pet project of bringing his unruly flock back into the fold of the Church, sending priests into the countryside to combat heresy and to preach the true word of the gospel.
I am forcibly obliged to reflect upon how it is that those of us who are connected directly with God and are enamoured of reason and law can deduce with such clarity propositions whose practical application can lead to such lamentable consequences.
The words in the quote above belong to Thomas d'Aquino, the practical philosopher who organized and explained the tenets of the Catholic Church. He is one of the supernatural actors who are mixed by Bernieres into his narrative. Among d'Aquino's offspring, the most (in)famous is the Inquisition. His teachings might have been honest and well argumented, but their practical application resulted in some of the worst crimes perpetrated by man against man. When an accolite of Cardinal Guzman is put in charge of the spiritual revival project, the result is a murderous crusade against the villagers in their path.
I had seen a vision of Hell, such as each generation sees it. My parents saw just these things during La Violencia, and their parents saw just these things during the civil war. It was the same play with new actors, and I asked the same question as my parents: "What is wrong with us that we shit on paradise?"
Louis de Bernieres is consistent over the three books of this South American trilogy, driving his point by juxtaposing Hell and Heaven. Hell is the establishment: the power hungry military, the corrupt politicians, the cruel drug lords, the mega-corporations laying waste to the natural resources, poverty, dogma, violence. Armed with the arrows of satire, the authors makes clowns of the bad guys, but I couldn't really laugh at the descriptions of young girls forced into prostitution, of children dying of hunger, of indiscriminate killing and constant terror imposed by armed thugs. These are still prominent features of the South American continent: islands of opulent wealth surrounded by rundown favellas, wealth and power pretending their poor neighbors are invisible and somehow guilty for their own misfortune. They are called 'los olvidados', the forgotten ones. Cardinal Guzman would like to see them all gone.
It is true that they are uneducated and their morals are frequently deplorable, Your Eminence, but they are masters of improvisation. Every time it rains their cardboard shacks are washed away, and twenty-four hours later they are built again. They make delicate stews from rats and sandal-leather, they live by swarming over the garbage tips raking them over for scraps, and in this way they are akin to Lazarus, Your Eminence. They suffer typhoid and cholera, and yet they hold the best carnivals in the capital.
A never-ending carnival is what the author builds by contrast in Cochadebajo de los Gatos, out of the simple pleasures of living and of sharing in the meagre resources at their disposal, of working hard together and afterwards singing and dancing and fornicating to their hearts' desire. It's an Utopian society, that can only be created by bringing magic into the storyline, but like other Utopias before it, it simply points the way to a better society, and is not describing an existing one. Like a magnet, the little village in the mountain attracts the misfits and the wanderers of the land, the oppressed and the desperate souls in need of a salvation that the church is unable to provide. Among them a Mexican musician who has a little problem with a girl that keeps visiting him
It was an ideal place for me, because I wanted fresh mountain air, space, privacy, a place where one could palpably feel the presence of ancient gods and the spirits of nature. But also it was a place where, when in the appropriate mood, one could find spectacular revelry and good humour.
My favorite episode of life in the village is hard to pick among several funny anecdotes, but I am tempted to mention here the 'Battle of Dona Barbara', a case of troubles in paradise that also arose out of the good intention of providing the locals with reading material. Don Dionisio Vivo, slayer of drug barons, uses his contacts in the valley to start a local library, but his friends there persuade him to buy all the unsold copies of a romance novel. The project is an instant succes:
The habit of literacy being unconsolidated, the hush lasted for an entire week whilst brows furrowed and lips silently repeated the text. Work stopped, or those working would cut alfalfa with the book in the left hand whilst the machete in the right swept aimlessly over the same spot. People read walking down the street, treading on the jaguars' tails and tripping over the kerbs, bumping into each other and forgetting to go and eat what their spouses had failed to cook because it had burned unstirred in its pot.
As many Goodreaders know, one is not only a reader, one is also a critic. Luckily for me, I am expressing my opinions online, carefully insulated from more robust counterarguments from fans of the novels I occasionally thrash. In Cochadebajo de los Gatos, the critics are all living together and so will soon come to blows over the merits of the plucky heroine or of the dastardly seducer:
From this episode Dionisio deduced that the principle reason for religious schisms was that everybody derives their information from the same book.
Nominally Catholic, the inhabitants of the village are in practice polytheistic, grafting the saints and angels of Christianity onto the more robust branch of the West African pantheon the slaves brought with them in their forced crossing of the ocean. The result is called 'santeria', a system similar to voodoo, that absorbs and accepts a lot of different opinions and beliefs, fluid and unruly in its manifestations, with the celebrations coming closer to drunken orgies than to the singing of holy hymns. It is the kind of heresy that Cardinal Guzman and his dogs of war would like to eradicate. The scene is set for an epic confrontation of the two sets of beliefs, a confrontation that I will not spoil for the future readers. I would leave only one short quote that I consider the most important lesson I found in the novel:
It seems to me that tolerance only ever prospers where people have grown weary of bogus certainties.
---
I have started writing reviews here on ŷ mostly for my own use, knowing I have a poor memory for details, and that after a time the plots and the names of characters from different novels will start to get mixed in my head. I am thinking now, what I would like most of all to remember from the three South American books? My answer for the moment is that I would very much like to live for one year among the people of Cochadebajo de los Gatos, sharing in their revelries, helping them with the crops, strolling around with the magical black jaguars, eating the dangerous "Chicken of a True Man" at Dona Flor's restaurant, listening to their outrageous stories by the campfires.
Once there was a woman worm who met her friend under the floor of my hut, and I heard them talking. One said to the other, "where is your husband?" and the other replied, "He has gone fishing."
Thank you for the good times: Pedro the Hunter, with his pack of silent dogs and his clothes made of animal skins; Father Garcia, with his gentle conscience, his wild metaphysical ideas, and his appearance of a depressed hare; Misael, with his honest black face and his love of revelry; Remedios, with her Kalashnikov and her gift of military acumen; Josef, with his ability to find compromises that accommodated everybody's plans; Hectoro, who had three wives, never dismounted from his horse except to drink or make love, and looked every inch a conquistador; Consuelo and Dolores, the two whores who reminded the men that they were not gods on account of the possession of testicles; Aurelio, the Aymara Indian who crossed the veils between this and the other worlds and seemed to be in every place at the same time; and General Fuerte, who had deserted the army by faking his own death; Profesor Luis and Farides, Dionisio Vivo and his harem, Don Emmanuel and his Felicidad, and all the other friends I made here. I promise you I will try to come and visit you in your mountain fastness.
June 13, 2018
The finale of this stupendous trilogy is not unlike the 3rd Batman/Dark Knight movie-- seriously complex and overblown. "Troublesome" is the longest of the three, and unfortunately for those who were devastated by the central love story in "Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord"--calling it a quintessential love tragedy-- will recognize rather this type of "communicating vessel" plot system (more than 65 separate vignettes which are wisely inter-cut to make the story seem all too sprawling and incredibly vast) from the first book, the topsy-turvy prone "War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts." (What unites a trilogy is, I would guess, the coming back to the origin tale, or part I, in the last part of the series.) What I love in de Bernieres' fantastic fantasias ("The English answer to Gabriel Garcia Marquez" states its back book cover) is his dog gone playfulness--absolute & rather enviable. For instance, the central story is NOT the central story, or, rather, Cardinal Guzman's dilemma stemming from his "offspring" (which is bizarre and o-so-right--giving way to a religious, if not pretty unethical, conclusion which makes me smile with absolute satisfaction) reminds us that in this trilogy no one has the center stage at any given time...the convolusion thence creates intricate/comedic/dramatic stages fueled by wit and utmost originality. Louis de Bernieres loves to devastate his reader with tragedy piled upon tragedy, albeit all gloriously intercut by episodes of complete and utter hilarity. It is truly rollercoasteresque... the air leaves your lungs freely only to be the cause of your intense suffocation later on. Belonging next to, I am quite serious, Tolkien, this fake Latin American community belongs, where mere mortals and ghosts and even omnipresent gods convene and all have a merry, satirical, whimsical, and sometimes quite tremendously sad, time. I call it lovely, I call it wondrous--unlike all the Latin writers because it possesses authentic Britishistic flair. There should be an edition which unites all three tomes... hell, it should be available on the nook since sadly it isn't!
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts: A-
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord: A
The Troublesome Offspring: B+
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts: A-
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord: A
The Troublesome Offspring: B+
May 11, 2020
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.� Rumi
“It is given to no human being
to stereotype a set of truths,
and walk safely in their guidance
with his mind closed.�
John Stuart Mill
Knowledgeable about, maybe comfortable with, history’s brutality, and armed with coruscating wit and perfectly timed irony - apparently collected, and carefully curated, from everywhere - twinned with the understanding of the damage done by believing anything to be absolute, especially when acted upon by the venial and greedy, de Bernieres has written a timeless tale with delicious magical realism and real human terror.
“There has been much argument among historiosophists as to what conditions must pertain in order for history to occur�.
Surely, the historians feel, mankind had reached a stage when almost everyone recognized that no belief was so certain that it was worth killing for...
Such historians are possibly out of touch with reality, being insufficiently cynical about people’s motives…�
Classic characters including Thomas Aquinas (who returns totally aghast at, and unable to make penance for, all the human suffering and cruelty his writings resulted in) find themselves in a modern day Inquisition. A crusade with the moniker "The New Albigensian Campaign" in honor of St. Dominic, who Thomas Aquinas tells us, "has never been seen in paradise."
An elderly woman about to suffer a terrible demise, sums up the Church:
“Despite her rheumy vision she perceived in them a revolting self-righteousness, an appalling collection of unexamined certainties, a terrible spiritual hubris masquerading as gentle humility, and she was utterly repelled.�
At one point Thomas Aquinas, trying to change what is happening in his name, notes:
“I have seen the intellectually modest informed that doubt is sinful, and summarily dispatched, and I have longed for the humanism of the ancients who declared that in philosophy all things are doubtful and open to question�.and I have heard it laid down as law that writers, doctors, clerks, and itinerant artists are all heretics by nature and inclination, and the doctors are killed and the heretics told that medical treatment is forbidden them.�
And I think. “Doubt is sinful�. This is doctrine in the Mormon Church where missionaries are told “when the church authorities speak, the thinking has been done� and being called an “intellectual� is an insult. Really. True.
The author creates a brilliant metaphor when the Cardinal who sets the violence in motion - somewhat unwittingly - and is constantly tortured by demons who, among other things while mocking him, write “in the air with fire the names of all his sins�
is found to have a rare, but real, medical condition. Dreaming about its contents, done by the doctor who diagnoses him, is truly some of the most hilarious writing I’ve ever enjoyed.
Other sweet bits (from random pages):
About an one-hundred-meters race:
“No one else had been practicing, because it was considered that a real man could triumph without so wasting his time and energy; there was also a general feeling that training was a form of cheating.�
“I have made the acquaintance of the British ambassador�..He is a great linguist, you know; he speaks Hindi and four African languages, and so they sent him here where he cannot use any of them. Very British, I understand, to do that.�
(As putting a dog-breeder in charge of the coronavirus response is Very like the USA)
Because of the necessity for unanimity in every decision among a group of radical priests that initially participated in the crusade, and:
“Additionally, like all people who enjoy addressing each other as “comrade�, they were violently addicted to clauses, composites, subclauses, points of order, wording of paragraphs, procedural formalities, and amendments of amendments.�
- it took too long for them to decide what to say or do, for them to take any relevant action. Or change the outcome of anything.
Ah, the Left.
An epic, the end of de Bernieres trilogy set in an unnamed South American country, and about those
�...souls he shrouded in stone so that the ice of fanaticism froze out the light of reason and the exhilarating wisdom of conjecture. In this way was the modesty of speculation replaced by the iron cage of certainty.�
versus those who can feel they
�... had been purified by [their] complete lapse of dignity…�
May there be a future of content bewilderment, exhilarating conjecture, and purifying lapses of dignity.
“It is given to no human being
to stereotype a set of truths,
and walk safely in their guidance
with his mind closed.�
John Stuart Mill
Knowledgeable about, maybe comfortable with, history’s brutality, and armed with coruscating wit and perfectly timed irony - apparently collected, and carefully curated, from everywhere - twinned with the understanding of the damage done by believing anything to be absolute, especially when acted upon by the venial and greedy, de Bernieres has written a timeless tale with delicious magical realism and real human terror.
“There has been much argument among historiosophists as to what conditions must pertain in order for history to occur�.
Surely, the historians feel, mankind had reached a stage when almost everyone recognized that no belief was so certain that it was worth killing for...
Such historians are possibly out of touch with reality, being insufficiently cynical about people’s motives…�
Classic characters including Thomas Aquinas (who returns totally aghast at, and unable to make penance for, all the human suffering and cruelty his writings resulted in) find themselves in a modern day Inquisition. A crusade with the moniker "The New Albigensian Campaign" in honor of St. Dominic, who Thomas Aquinas tells us, "has never been seen in paradise."
An elderly woman about to suffer a terrible demise, sums up the Church:
“Despite her rheumy vision she perceived in them a revolting self-righteousness, an appalling collection of unexamined certainties, a terrible spiritual hubris masquerading as gentle humility, and she was utterly repelled.�
At one point Thomas Aquinas, trying to change what is happening in his name, notes:
“I have seen the intellectually modest informed that doubt is sinful, and summarily dispatched, and I have longed for the humanism of the ancients who declared that in philosophy all things are doubtful and open to question�.and I have heard it laid down as law that writers, doctors, clerks, and itinerant artists are all heretics by nature and inclination, and the doctors are killed and the heretics told that medical treatment is forbidden them.�
And I think. “Doubt is sinful�. This is doctrine in the Mormon Church where missionaries are told “when the church authorities speak, the thinking has been done� and being called an “intellectual� is an insult. Really. True.
The author creates a brilliant metaphor when the Cardinal who sets the violence in motion - somewhat unwittingly - and is constantly tortured by demons who, among other things while mocking him, write “in the air with fire the names of all his sins�
is found to have a rare, but real, medical condition. Dreaming about its contents, done by the doctor who diagnoses him, is truly some of the most hilarious writing I’ve ever enjoyed.
Other sweet bits (from random pages):
About an one-hundred-meters race:
“No one else had been practicing, because it was considered that a real man could triumph without so wasting his time and energy; there was also a general feeling that training was a form of cheating.�
“I have made the acquaintance of the British ambassador�..He is a great linguist, you know; he speaks Hindi and four African languages, and so they sent him here where he cannot use any of them. Very British, I understand, to do that.�
(As putting a dog-breeder in charge of the coronavirus response is Very like the USA)
Because of the necessity for unanimity in every decision among a group of radical priests that initially participated in the crusade, and:
“Additionally, like all people who enjoy addressing each other as “comrade�, they were violently addicted to clauses, composites, subclauses, points of order, wording of paragraphs, procedural formalities, and amendments of amendments.�
- it took too long for them to decide what to say or do, for them to take any relevant action. Or change the outcome of anything.
Ah, the Left.
An epic, the end of de Bernieres trilogy set in an unnamed South American country, and about those
�...souls he shrouded in stone so that the ice of fanaticism froze out the light of reason and the exhilarating wisdom of conjecture. In this way was the modesty of speculation replaced by the iron cage of certainty.�
versus those who can feel they
�... had been purified by [their] complete lapse of dignity…�
May there be a future of content bewilderment, exhilarating conjecture, and purifying lapses of dignity.
October 23, 2023
Third instalment of de Bernières� highly imaginative and magically real South American Trilogy. Must-read if you like Gabriel García-Márquez, Günter Grass et al.
May 3, 2012
I recieved this book as a surprise gift and had never heard of it before receiving it but as I read and enjoyed Captain Corelli's Mandolin some years ago I expected it to be something along the same line just set in another continent. How very wrong was I? It turned out to be a rare gem.
The story is set about a small fictional town in some impoverished country in South America and is basically a tale of good overcoming evil but it is also a tale who are remote from the Central Government of their land have to improvise, just roll up their sleeves and get on with their lives without much Central help. The townspeople relocate their town after their original one is destroyed by a mudslide and using their own ingenuity rebuild their lives only to be then threatened by a modern day Spanish Inquisition. The book is also a comment on the higher echelons of society with its corruption and how a thirst for power can lead to extremism. The tale is packed with great characters and fabulous demons. Those in authority are left looking rediculous but you still feel a little sorry for them.
Apparently this is the third part of a trilogy which I knew nothing about beforehand but having not read the first two I can attest that this book can be read as a stand alone tale. The story is full of wit and humour (although some of it was a little obvious) and on more than one occasion made me laugh out loud. The blurb on the front says that it is 'A novel of predigious imagination' and I would certainly have to agree with that. De Bernieres is either a genius or a fruitcake but he writes great novels.
The story is set about a small fictional town in some impoverished country in South America and is basically a tale of good overcoming evil but it is also a tale who are remote from the Central Government of their land have to improvise, just roll up their sleeves and get on with their lives without much Central help. The townspeople relocate their town after their original one is destroyed by a mudslide and using their own ingenuity rebuild their lives only to be then threatened by a modern day Spanish Inquisition. The book is also a comment on the higher echelons of society with its corruption and how a thirst for power can lead to extremism. The tale is packed with great characters and fabulous demons. Those in authority are left looking rediculous but you still feel a little sorry for them.
Apparently this is the third part of a trilogy which I knew nothing about beforehand but having not read the first two I can attest that this book can be read as a stand alone tale. The story is full of wit and humour (although some of it was a little obvious) and on more than one occasion made me laugh out loud. The blurb on the front says that it is 'A novel of predigious imagination' and I would certainly have to agree with that. De Bernieres is either a genius or a fruitcake but he writes great novels.
June 6, 2007
This is a magical realism book. I never know what to say about those.
"It was strange but I enjoyed." is the most accurate. . . but doesn't really tell you anything useful at all. De Bernieres is an amazing writer, if only because of the number of plots and sub-plots he can weave into a whole. Then there is his combining of the magical and the actual -- done in such a was as to make you feel that there is not any tangible difference between the two and our perceptions of said difference are a mere product of a mutually agreed upon reality. He doesn't seem to always agree with that reality.
I liked re-meeting the characters from Don Emmanuel. Especially Remedios. She's my favorite. Sometimes the descriptions of violence and gore hurt me. But De Bernieres always makes up for that with equal (or better) descriptions of beauty and wonderful comedic bits. It's a good balance, but I don't think I could read more than one or two of his books each year.
"It was strange but I enjoyed." is the most accurate. . . but doesn't really tell you anything useful at all. De Bernieres is an amazing writer, if only because of the number of plots and sub-plots he can weave into a whole. Then there is his combining of the magical and the actual -- done in such a was as to make you feel that there is not any tangible difference between the two and our perceptions of said difference are a mere product of a mutually agreed upon reality. He doesn't seem to always agree with that reality.
I liked re-meeting the characters from Don Emmanuel. Especially Remedios. She's my favorite. Sometimes the descriptions of violence and gore hurt me. But De Bernieres always makes up for that with equal (or better) descriptions of beauty and wonderful comedic bits. It's a good balance, but I don't think I could read more than one or two of his books each year.
December 6, 2017
This is the final and weirdest book in De Bernieres Magical Realist Latin American Trilogy. Set in a fictional South American country. We return to the wildly eccentric inhabitants of the tiny Andean village of Cochadebajo de Los Gatos, where sleek black jaguars are treated like pets and roam freely through the streets joined by Marxist guerilla fighters, resurrected conquistadors, whores , levitating priests and ghosts. As is typical with magical realism, there are elements of the plot that are feasible and believable except for aspects that clearly aren't. The plot centres on the tormented Cardinal Guzman, who is having a crisis of conscience and decides to sanction a religious purge partly to bring to an end the torments of various demons. Not wanting to spoil the plot the good ( ?) Cardinal ends up leaving the priesthood to search for the son who he may or may not have killed by throwing him into a river thinking he was a demonic donkey with a large penis.
The Cardinal’s rash decision to appoint a fanatical monsignor to head up a New Albigensian Crusade to rid the country of heretics using many of the same graphic methods that were used in the inquisition. The Cardinal eventually repents of his rash decision but not before his orders have been cruelly carried out under the direction of the monsignor, a great fan of St. Thomas Aquinas.
De Bernieres' thinly veiled satirical commentary on the Church’s misguided attempts to enforce its dogmas and teachings throughout history was quite hard hitting but it made it quite confusing for the reader as there were several plots going on at once at in several locations. There was a fair bit of tying up of loose ends in this last book in the trilogy and it ended on a note of karma with the terrible president who had been away in the USA getting a penis extension ( what is it with genitalia in this book) being impeached while his feet were stuck in the toilet. His replacement takes guidance from the Archangel Gabriel which perhaps indicates that nothing changes in this fictional country.
If you are interested in this book you have to read the two previous novels as nothing will make any sense if you don't and maybe only a little bit more sense if you do.
The Cardinal’s rash decision to appoint a fanatical monsignor to head up a New Albigensian Crusade to rid the country of heretics using many of the same graphic methods that were used in the inquisition. The Cardinal eventually repents of his rash decision but not before his orders have been cruelly carried out under the direction of the monsignor, a great fan of St. Thomas Aquinas.
De Bernieres' thinly veiled satirical commentary on the Church’s misguided attempts to enforce its dogmas and teachings throughout history was quite hard hitting but it made it quite confusing for the reader as there were several plots going on at once at in several locations. There was a fair bit of tying up of loose ends in this last book in the trilogy and it ended on a note of karma with the terrible president who had been away in the USA getting a penis extension ( what is it with genitalia in this book) being impeached while his feet were stuck in the toilet. His replacement takes guidance from the Archangel Gabriel which perhaps indicates that nothing changes in this fictional country.
If you are interested in this book you have to read the two previous novels as nothing will make any sense if you don't and maybe only a little bit more sense if you do.
May 8, 2009
A great conclusion to the trilogy. I actually read this one first before realizing it was part of trilogy, and you can really enjoy each of these books on its own.
August 26, 2018
3.5*** (rounded up for use of language)
The third and final installment in this author’s “Latin American Trilogy� returns to the village of Cochadebajo, in the mountains of an unnamed South American country (presumably Columbia). Many of the characters from earlier novels reappear, including Dionisio Vivo, the General, the President, various rebels, and the giant panthers. De Bernières also gives us a demented Cardinal and his horde of fanatical followers, bent on destroying those who refuse to adhere to their version of the faith.
I love these books. I love his clever writing and vivid imagery, the outlandish plot points, and outrageous scenarios. While I am not a great fan of satire, I enjoy this kind of novel which satirizes and skewers political and religious fervor run amok. There are passages that had me laughing aloud, and others that completely horrified me.
The reader who can suspend disbelief and tolerate a great deal of magical occurrences will be delighted. However, I definitely recommend you begin with the first book in the trilogy:
The third and final installment in this author’s “Latin American Trilogy� returns to the village of Cochadebajo, in the mountains of an unnamed South American country (presumably Columbia). Many of the characters from earlier novels reappear, including Dionisio Vivo, the General, the President, various rebels, and the giant panthers. De Bernières also gives us a demented Cardinal and his horde of fanatical followers, bent on destroying those who refuse to adhere to their version of the faith.
I love these books. I love his clever writing and vivid imagery, the outlandish plot points, and outrageous scenarios. While I am not a great fan of satire, I enjoy this kind of novel which satirizes and skewers political and religious fervor run amok. There are passages that had me laughing aloud, and others that completely horrified me.
The reader who can suspend disbelief and tolerate a great deal of magical occurrences will be delighted. However, I definitely recommend you begin with the first book in the trilogy:
December 21, 2016
Poslední část latinsko-americké trilogie je věnovaná církvi a náboženství a za mě je to nejslabší kniha z kompletu. Je možné, že jak jsem to četla celé za sebou, tak už se dostavila únava, také asi mělo vliv, že jsem to četla rozsekané na malé kousky díky pracovnímu shonu, ale nějak jsem se prostě nemohla začíst.
Celé to tažení proti novým albigenským mi přišlo přitažené za vlasy a časově mě to vrhalo někam do středověku, byť děj se odehrává v druhé polovině dvacátého století - tak to bylo mimo čas, a vlastně i prostor. Samotná postava kardinála Guzmána byla hodně zajímavá, kapitoly věnované jeho běsům jsou z celé knihy asi nejlepší a ten jeho "čin" je opravdu strašlivý, takže to finální vykoupení mi přišlo trochu přes čáru.
Když se zpětně zamýšlím nad celou trilogií, tak je to pro mě především o síle moci a především o její korumpovatelnosti - ne snad z ekonomických důvodů, to tady až takovou roli nehraje, ale moc opravdu korumpuje, činí z lidí polobohy, kteří si mohou dělat, co uznají za vhodné a jak jednou překročí Rubikon, tak není cesty zpět. Tím je to všechno myslím velmi aktuální - protože Rubicon je jen o něco větší potok a překračuje se velmi lehko, ale ty následky jsou nedozírné pro všechny.
Určitě nelituji, že jsem trilogii přečetla celou, ale nejsilnější pro mě zůstává první díl - .
Kontext: Během čtení jsme měla trochu čtecí krizi a především bylo takové práce, že na zasednutí s knížkou nebyl vůbec čas a večer jsem padala únavou po dvou stránkách - takže se mi to čtení trošku protáhlo :-)
První věta: "K těmto událostem došlo krátce poté, co se nejmocnějšímu světovému výrobci nealkoholických nápojů podařil husarský reklamní kousek, který v moderních dějinách nemá obdoby."
Poslední věta: "Vzato kolem a kolem to pro Jeho Excelenci prezidenta Encisa Veracruze byl velmi neblahý týden."
Celé to tažení proti novým albigenským mi přišlo přitažené za vlasy a časově mě to vrhalo někam do středověku, byť děj se odehrává v druhé polovině dvacátého století - tak to bylo mimo čas, a vlastně i prostor. Samotná postava kardinála Guzmána byla hodně zajímavá, kapitoly věnované jeho běsům jsou z celé knihy asi nejlepší a ten jeho "čin" je opravdu strašlivý, takže to finální vykoupení mi přišlo trochu přes čáru.
Když se zpětně zamýšlím nad celou trilogií, tak je to pro mě především o síle moci a především o její korumpovatelnosti - ne snad z ekonomických důvodů, to tady až takovou roli nehraje, ale moc opravdu korumpuje, činí z lidí polobohy, kteří si mohou dělat, co uznají za vhodné a jak jednou překročí Rubikon, tak není cesty zpět. Tím je to všechno myslím velmi aktuální - protože Rubicon je jen o něco větší potok a překračuje se velmi lehko, ale ty následky jsou nedozírné pro všechny.
Určitě nelituji, že jsem trilogii přečetla celou, ale nejsilnější pro mě zůstává první díl - .
Kontext: Během čtení jsme měla trochu čtecí krizi a především bylo takové práce, že na zasednutí s knížkou nebyl vůbec čas a večer jsem padala únavou po dvou stránkách - takže se mi to čtení trošku protáhlo :-)
První věta: "K těmto událostem došlo krátce poté, co se nejmocnějšímu světovému výrobci nealkoholických nápojů podařil husarský reklamní kousek, který v moderních dějinách nemá obdoby."
Poslední věta: "Vzato kolem a kolem to pro Jeho Excelenci prezidenta Encisa Veracruze byl velmi neblahý týden."
June 27, 2008
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman is the hilarous sequel to The War of Don Emmanuels Nether Parts and continues the history of the surreal South American country which de Bernieres created in that book.
The president is still undertaking his bizarre search for sexual fulfilment with his ex-stripper wife, this time travelling to Paris for the fitting of a mechanical device to extend the length of his erections.
The government continue with their unbelievable corruption to govern the country in their inept manner, staging pretend assasinations,petioning FIFA to have a penalty decision against the country reversed and funding guerillas.
Cardinal Guzman is visited by a pantheon of private demons and in an effort to rid himself of them he launches a horrifying Inquisition upon the country. The Inquisition descend upon the unsuspecting populace to root out heresies and unbelievers.
The citizens of Cochadebajo de los Gatos continue to establish their idyllic neo-civilisation in the mountains, the ex-whores, ex-guerillas, de-frocked priest and giant black cats living their lives apart from the rest of the country. They entertain the British Ambassador, bring down a helicopter and finally come to a spectacular confrontation with the Inquisition.
I loved this book as much as Don Emmanuel and Captain Corelli, Louis de Berniers writing style is wonderful, his sense of humour is perverse and slightly black but very entertaining. The characters introduced in Don Emmanuel are here enlarged upon and we grow to love them even more, along with the new friends we meet.
This book is unlike anything else you will have read and is a wonderfully imaginative story which will keep you entertained throughout. I read it on holiday in about two days and loved it.
Enjoy.
The president is still undertaking his bizarre search for sexual fulfilment with his ex-stripper wife, this time travelling to Paris for the fitting of a mechanical device to extend the length of his erections.
The government continue with their unbelievable corruption to govern the country in their inept manner, staging pretend assasinations,petioning FIFA to have a penalty decision against the country reversed and funding guerillas.
Cardinal Guzman is visited by a pantheon of private demons and in an effort to rid himself of them he launches a horrifying Inquisition upon the country. The Inquisition descend upon the unsuspecting populace to root out heresies and unbelievers.
The citizens of Cochadebajo de los Gatos continue to establish their idyllic neo-civilisation in the mountains, the ex-whores, ex-guerillas, de-frocked priest and giant black cats living their lives apart from the rest of the country. They entertain the British Ambassador, bring down a helicopter and finally come to a spectacular confrontation with the Inquisition.
I loved this book as much as Don Emmanuel and Captain Corelli, Louis de Berniers writing style is wonderful, his sense of humour is perverse and slightly black but very entertaining. The characters introduced in Don Emmanuel are here enlarged upon and we grow to love them even more, along with the new friends we meet.
This book is unlike anything else you will have read and is a wonderfully imaginative story which will keep you entertained throughout. I read it on holiday in about two days and loved it.
Enjoy.
July 7, 2020
V prvním díle jsme tu měli tajnou policii a občanskou válku, ve druhém jsme potkali narkobarony a gangy, a teď jsme do třetice dostali náboženské fanatiky rozhodnuté spasit celý svět, i kdyby ho měli kvůli tomu vyhladit. Je zajímavé že nakonec to vždycky končí stejně, v krvi a smrti, a nejvíc to pokaždé odnesou ti, kteří s tím mají nejmíň společného.
Potkáte tu spoustu postav z prvního i druhého dílu, zdá se, že všechny cesty nakonec nevedou do Říma, ale do Cochadebajo de los Gatos. A tam se chystají na obranu proti novodobým křižákům, čili máte se na co těšit.
A abych to úplně shrnul, tohle je v každém případě výborná série kterou můžu každému jen doporučit a Louis de Bernières je bez debaty vynikající spisovatel. Čili už tu mám od něj připravených řadu dalších věcí a těším se co s tím provede tentokrát.
Potkáte tu spoustu postav z prvního i druhého dílu, zdá se, že všechny cesty nakonec nevedou do Říma, ale do Cochadebajo de los Gatos. A tam se chystají na obranu proti novodobým křižákům, čili máte se na co těšit.
A abych to úplně shrnul, tohle je v každém případě výborná série kterou můžu každému jen doporučit a Louis de Bernières je bez debaty vynikající spisovatel. Čili už tu mám od něj připravených řadu dalších věcí a těším se co s tím provede tentokrát.
January 20, 2023
Tentokrát už jsem nějak neměla náladu na další brutality, tak jsem musela chvíli zvažovat hodnocení. Ale synek mě bavil, jako celek jsem si to zas užila. Takže celkově opět 4*. Nevím, jestli by to nešlo bez těch kruťáren, určitě ale sáhnu po další knize autora.
September 14, 2019
All’ombra di Gabo
Cosa ci fa uno scrittore inglese nel mondo di Gabriel García Márquez? È la domanda che mi sono posto mentre leggevo La strana prole del cardinale Guzman di Louis de Bernières, ed al termine della lettura non ho potuto che darmi questa risposta: sfrutta un filone letterario redditizio per costruire una propria personalità artistica che in qualche modo possa attirare l’attenzione del pubblico.
Louis de Bernières, il cui nome rivela chiare ascendenze francesi, è nondimeno, come detto, uno scrittore inglese, nato nel 1954, il cui romanzo più noto è probabilmente Il mandolino del capitano Corelli, del 1994, dal quale nel 2001 fu tratto un non memorabile film con protagonista Nicholas Cage.
Può essere preliminarmente interessante ripercorrere le fortune editoriali di questo autore in Italia, in quanto a mio avviso riflettono bene i meccanismi commerciali dell’industria culturale contemporanea.
I primi tre romanzi di de Bernières, pubblicati nei primi anni �90 e formanti la cosiddetta Trilogia latino-americana, furono all’inizio sostanzialmente ignorati dall’editoria nostrana. Nel 1994 uscì Captain Corelli's Mandolin, che ebbe un buon successo, ed un paio di anni dopo Longanesi lo pubblicò nel nostro paese con il titolo Una vita in debito. Null’altro accadde fino al 1999, quando Fazi pubblicò il secondo volume della trilogia. Quindi nel 2001 uscì il film, molto pubblicizzato in Italia sia per il suo ottimo cast sia perché narrava di un soldato italiano in Grecia durante la seconda guerra mondiale, ed entrò in scena la casa editrice Guanda, che pubblicò nello stesso anno il romanzo, dandogli ovviamente (e correttamente) il titolo del film, e nel giro di un lustro anche due romanzi della Trilogia latino-americana e altre due opere dell’autore, non mancando di riportare in copertina Autore di “Il mandolino del capitano Corelli�; quest’ultimo viene pubblicato nel 2003 anche dalla casa editrice TEA.
Insomma, un fortissimo interesse culturale per le opere di questo autore che appartiene a quella schiera di grandi romanzieri che comprende Charles Dickens ed Evelyn Waugh, come ci informa Antonia Susan Byatt in quarta di copertina de La strana prole del cardinale Guzman. Senonché questo interesse editoriale sembra essere scemato altrettanto celermente quanto era cresciuto all’uscita del film, se è vero che oggi di de Bernières in libreria si trovano malinconicamente solo 2-3 titoli sugli scaffali dei remainder, editi anni fa, e del celebrato Mandolino non vi è più traccia. Insomma, siamo di fronte all’ascesa e alla caduta di un autore dettate unicamente dall’uscita di un film tratto da un suo romanzo.
Purtroppo devo ammettere che questi meccanismi editoriali evidentemente funzionano, se una dozzina di anni fa ho acquistato, forse ammaliato anche dalla copertina indubbiamente attraente, questo volume che ora mi sono trovato a leggere.
La strana prole del cardinale Guzman è l’ultimo romanzo della Trilogia latino-americana, essendo preceduto da e concatenato a Don Emmanuel e la guerra delle bacche e a Señor Vivo & il Coca Lord. Prima di diventare scrittore, de Bernières ha tra l’altro vissuto in Colombia facendo l’insegnante di inglese, ed è da questo periodo della sua vita, dalla vicinanza anche fisica con Gabriel García Márquez che ha indubbiamente tratto l�ispirazione per scrivere la trilogia. I luoghi del romanzo, infatti, ed anche alcuni personaggi, pur essendo in gran parte frutto della fantasia dell’autore richiamano spesso esplicitamente contesti colombiani.
Le vicende narrate nel romanzo sono complicate e contengono numerosi rimandi ai capitoli precedenti della trilogia, cosicché a volte non è facile per il lettore districarsi tra le cose che lo scrittore dà per scontate essendo riferite ad avvenimenti già narrati.
Nei primi due romanzi si narra infatti della fuga verso le montagne e la giungla di un nutrito gruppo di abitanti della città di Chiriguaná, vittime della violenza dell’esercito, tra i quali vi sono sacerdoti, indios custodi di antiche conoscenze magiche, prostitute, ex guerriglieri, professori e scienziati più o meno ingegnosi, antichi conquistadores usciti da una plurisecolare ibernazione nei ghiacci della sierra; questi giungono in una zona inaccessibile dove, a seguito di una inondazione, sono venuti alla luce i resti di una antica città Inca, i cui edifici vengono ripuliti dal fango ed abitati: alla città viene dato il nome di Cochadebajo de los Gatos, sia perché numerose vi si trovano antiche raffigurazioni di giaguari, sia in quanto molto presto in città si installa una colonia di giaguari neri che convive con gli abitanti come fossero grossi gatti. Gli abitanti si danno delle regole di vita di tipo comunistico condite da una sorta di religione della fratellanza reciproca, fatta di un mix di cristianesimo delle origini, di teoria e pratica della liberazione sessuale e di elementi animistici e magici presi dalla tradizione india. Il denaro non esiste e la fertilità del terreno e l’ingegno degli abitanti fanno prosperare l’agricoltura. Insomma, a Cochadebajo de los Gatos, isolata dal resto del paese, si sviluppa una comunità felice e solidale, nella quale giungono, per varie ragioni, altri originali personaggi.
Tra questi vi è Dionisio Vivo, giornalista molto conosciuto ed inviso al potere per il suo spirito critico, figlio di un generale dell’esercito e gran donnaiolo, che ha seminato figli in tutto il paese. Nel secondo romanzo della trilogia egli è riuscito ad uccidere il potentissimo signore della coca Pablo Ecobandodo (pseudonimo facilmente identificabile), detto El Jerarca, che aveva tentato più volte di assassinare il giornalista per i suoi articoli e la sua attività contro il narcotraffico.
All’inizio de La strana prole del cardinale Guzman conosciamo il prelato che compare nel titolo: vive nel palazzo episcopale della capitale tormentato da acuti dolori e da visioni di demoni lascivi e crudeli, che gli ricordano i crimini commessi e la condotta tutt’altro che casta. Il potente cardinale infatti ha appoggiato attivamenteil potere politico del corrotto presidente Veracruz nella repressione delle rivolte popolari, della guerriglia marxista e della teologia della liberazione; frequentatore di bordelli, ha avuto un figlio dalla giovane perpetua Conception, con cui segretamente convive more uxorio. Per salvare la sua anima, decide di riportare alla vera fede il popolo: un dettagliato rapporto del Sant’Uffizio descrive infatti una situazione drammatica, nella quale moltissimi sacerdoti sono dediti alla simonia e al commercio di presunte reliquie, in cui i potenti, compreso lo stesso presidente Veracruz, praticano l’occultismo durante orge e festini, in cui buona parte del popolo � a causa della crescente povertà e del degrado sociale, non riconosce più l’autorità della chiesa. L’ultima parte del rapporto è dedicata al ritorno del paganesimo e delle eresie, soprattutto nelle comunità rurali, e tra gli altri esempi di questa tendenza viene citata anche Cochadebajo de los Gatos. Il cardinale Guzman decide di organizzare una vera e propria crociata di evangelizzazione, ovviamente solo per combattere il paganesimo e l’eresia del popolo, ed ordina a Monsignor Rechin Aguilar, un fanatico domenicano che ha già dato prova di sé, di reclutare uomini fidati e utilizzare ogni mezzo adeguato per riportare il popolo alla vera fede. Uno dei principali obiettivi della crociata sarà Cochadebajo de los Gatos.
Questi sono a grandi linee gli antefatti e le vicende iniziali del ponderoso romanzo, la cui struttura essenziale è data dal connubio tra un contenuto generale di forte connotazione politica e una matrice letteraria che fa suoi i precetti del cosiddetto realismo magico latino-americano.
Il contenuto politico del romanzo e della intera trilogia è evidente. Esplicita è la denuncia della corruzione e della violenza del potere, sia di quello civile del presidente Veracruz sia di quello ecclesiastico di cui è massimo interprete il cardinale Guzman. Esplicito è anche il richiamo alla tragica storia della Colombia negli anni dal 1946 in poi, quando il periodo de La violencia tra liberali e conservatori portò ad oltre 200.000 morti, alle dittature e ad una insurrezione strisciante delle aree rurali che continua ancora oggi. Esplicito è ancora il riconoscimento del ruolo della chiesa ufficiale quale supporto sia ideologico sia pratico al potere politico ed economico, contrapposto ai fermenti che all’interno della stessa chiesa latino-americana hanno dato luogo alla teologia della liberazione (tra l’altro viene esplicitamente citata una figura come Camilo Torres). Esplicita infine è la comunanza dell’autore con le spinte liberatrici della popolazione, che � essendo il romanzo scritto già in un’epoca post-ideologica - de Bernières declina nella ricerca di una felicità basata sulle piccole cose, sulla capacità di essere comunità, sulla lontananza dal caos urbano.
Questo contenuto politico è immerso come detto in un’atmosfera di realismo magico di cui si riconosce subito la diretta ascendenza. L’ombra di García Márquez e di Cent’anni di solitudine è di fatto presente in ogni pagina del romanzo, e Cochadebajo de los Gatos, fondata dopo un lungo peregrinare nella giungla, ci ricorda subito Macondo. Così Dionisio Vivo ha molti tratti caratteriali che ricordano da vicino quelli del colonnello Aureliano Buendia, la storia di Ena e Lena spose dello stesso uomo può essere vista come speculare e ammorbidita ripetto a quella di Amaranta e Rebeca, e molti dei personaggi che abitano la città, che pure in alcuni casi sono delineati con sufficiente cura, potrebbero essere stati abitanti o visitatori di Macondo. Questa eccessiva vicinanza tra i due autori, o meglio, questa aderenza di de Bernièrs all’opera di Gabo finisce, almeno per quanto mi riguarda, non solo per generare qualche sospetto rispetto all’originalità dell�ispirazione letteraria dell’autore, ma anche per togliere fascino all’opera. Ancora una volta, di fronte ad un autore contemporaneo, mi sono insomma trovato di fronte al deja vu, ad un voler (o dover) ripercorrere sentieri letterari già tracciati, che questa volta mi è parso piuttosto smaccato e funzionale � anche in considerazione dell’estrazione culturale affatto diversa dell’autore � alla sua legittimazione nell’ambito di un filone che all’epoca andava per la maggiore non solo culturalmente. Così si ha l’impressione che il realismo magico latinoamericano di de Berniers rimanga in superficie, sia solo una patina molto utile (anche commercialmente) per rivestire le sue storie, un modo come un altro per raccontare, volto più a stupire il lettore che a connotare intimamente la sua opera. Del resto lo stesso de Bernièrs deve essere stato cosciente dei limiti della sua letteratura di quel periodo, se è vero che egli stesso si è definito un parassita di García Márquez: bisogna dare atto che si tratta di un raro esempio di onestà intellettuale da parte di un rappresentante di una categoria nella quale l’ego gioca necessariamente un ruolo importantissimo.
C’� però un elemento ancora più importante rispetto a questa evidente ascendenza letteraria (per usare un eufemismo) che mi ha fatto concludere che La strana prole del cardinale Guzman sia un romanzo di second’ordine: si tratta proprio del suo contenuto politico, attinente come ho già accennato alla società e al potere in America Latina.
Il mio giudizio negativo in proposito è relativo a due aspetti. Il primo riguarda la forma che tale contenuto politico assume nel romanzo, ovvero il fatto che è spesso espresso in modo troppo diretto ed esplicito, inserito di forza in parti del racconto, con il duplice effetto di far pensare ad un romanzo a tesi e di rompere a tratti l’atmosfera narrativa che, sia pur di seconda mano, connota il romanzo. Che differenza in questo con la capacità di Cent’anni di solitudine di essere romanzo pienamente politico senza il bisogno di dichiararlo mai al lettore. È questo uno dei motivi per cui in un caso ci troviamo di fronte ad un capolavoro e nell’altro ad un romanzo che giudico di second’ordine.
L’altro aspetto su cui intendo porre attenzione è la ܲà di questo contenuto. Ho già accennato al fatto che La strana prole del cardinale Guzman potrebbe essere definito da una certa critica un romanzo post-ideologico, nel senso che a fronte della denuncia dell’ingiustizia e della crudeltà della costruzione sociale propone il ritiro nella piccola comunità che si dà nuove ed autonome regole di convivenza, trattando con distaccata ironia i movimenti rivoluzionari che praticavano la guerriglia. Questa sensazione, di una risposta consolatoria e in qualche modo palingenetica alla violenza del potere, che di per sé non mi convince molto, è accentuata a mio modo di vedere dal finale lieto del romanzo, condito della inevitabile terribile punizione dei cattivi, nel quale anche il cardinale Guzman trova la sua pace interiore. Anche qui, quanta incommensurabile distanza dal terribile, splendido finale di Cent’anni di solitudine: si potrebbe quasi dire che de Bernières abbia voluto concedere alle stirpi condannate a cent’anni di solitudine quella seconda opportunità che García Márquez aveva loro sapientemente negato nelle ultime righe del suo capolavoro.
Segnalo un altro fatto secondo me curioso, relativo all’epilogo del libro. Nelle ultime due pagine viene descritto un incidente che capita al presidente Veracruz, che in bagno finisce per cadere nella tazza tra i suoi stessi escrementi. Questo episodio grottesco ricorda molto da vicino (pur avendo anche in questo caso un finale meno incisivo) un episodio di un film italiano del 1976 oggi credo dimenticato, Signore e signori buonanotte, nel quale uno straordinario Ugo Tognazzi è un generale che si trova nella stessa situazione del presidente Veracruz. Non so se Louis de Bernières abbia mai visto questo episodio, ma se l’avesse visto prima di scrivere il suo romanzo potremmo certamente definirlo anche un parassita della commedia all’italiana.
Per concludere, credo che, al di là dell’oblio interessato che l’editoria italiana gli ha già decretato, questo romanzo non resterà nella storia della letteratura, né che il suo autore possa essere annoverato tra i maggiori esponenti del realismo magico, ”alla pari dei mostri sacri Franz Kafka e Kōbō Abe, per citarne due�, come afferma con una buona dose di involontaria comicità la voce italiana di wikipedia a lui dedicata.
Cosa ci fa uno scrittore inglese nel mondo di Gabriel García Márquez? È la domanda che mi sono posto mentre leggevo La strana prole del cardinale Guzman di Louis de Bernières, ed al termine della lettura non ho potuto che darmi questa risposta: sfrutta un filone letterario redditizio per costruire una propria personalità artistica che in qualche modo possa attirare l’attenzione del pubblico.
Louis de Bernières, il cui nome rivela chiare ascendenze francesi, è nondimeno, come detto, uno scrittore inglese, nato nel 1954, il cui romanzo più noto è probabilmente Il mandolino del capitano Corelli, del 1994, dal quale nel 2001 fu tratto un non memorabile film con protagonista Nicholas Cage.
Può essere preliminarmente interessante ripercorrere le fortune editoriali di questo autore in Italia, in quanto a mio avviso riflettono bene i meccanismi commerciali dell’industria culturale contemporanea.
I primi tre romanzi di de Bernières, pubblicati nei primi anni �90 e formanti la cosiddetta Trilogia latino-americana, furono all’inizio sostanzialmente ignorati dall’editoria nostrana. Nel 1994 uscì Captain Corelli's Mandolin, che ebbe un buon successo, ed un paio di anni dopo Longanesi lo pubblicò nel nostro paese con il titolo Una vita in debito. Null’altro accadde fino al 1999, quando Fazi pubblicò il secondo volume della trilogia. Quindi nel 2001 uscì il film, molto pubblicizzato in Italia sia per il suo ottimo cast sia perché narrava di un soldato italiano in Grecia durante la seconda guerra mondiale, ed entrò in scena la casa editrice Guanda, che pubblicò nello stesso anno il romanzo, dandogli ovviamente (e correttamente) il titolo del film, e nel giro di un lustro anche due romanzi della Trilogia latino-americana e altre due opere dell’autore, non mancando di riportare in copertina Autore di “Il mandolino del capitano Corelli�; quest’ultimo viene pubblicato nel 2003 anche dalla casa editrice TEA.
Insomma, un fortissimo interesse culturale per le opere di questo autore che appartiene a quella schiera di grandi romanzieri che comprende Charles Dickens ed Evelyn Waugh, come ci informa Antonia Susan Byatt in quarta di copertina de La strana prole del cardinale Guzman. Senonché questo interesse editoriale sembra essere scemato altrettanto celermente quanto era cresciuto all’uscita del film, se è vero che oggi di de Bernières in libreria si trovano malinconicamente solo 2-3 titoli sugli scaffali dei remainder, editi anni fa, e del celebrato Mandolino non vi è più traccia. Insomma, siamo di fronte all’ascesa e alla caduta di un autore dettate unicamente dall’uscita di un film tratto da un suo romanzo.
Purtroppo devo ammettere che questi meccanismi editoriali evidentemente funzionano, se una dozzina di anni fa ho acquistato, forse ammaliato anche dalla copertina indubbiamente attraente, questo volume che ora mi sono trovato a leggere.
La strana prole del cardinale Guzman è l’ultimo romanzo della Trilogia latino-americana, essendo preceduto da e concatenato a Don Emmanuel e la guerra delle bacche e a Señor Vivo & il Coca Lord. Prima di diventare scrittore, de Bernières ha tra l’altro vissuto in Colombia facendo l’insegnante di inglese, ed è da questo periodo della sua vita, dalla vicinanza anche fisica con Gabriel García Márquez che ha indubbiamente tratto l�ispirazione per scrivere la trilogia. I luoghi del romanzo, infatti, ed anche alcuni personaggi, pur essendo in gran parte frutto della fantasia dell’autore richiamano spesso esplicitamente contesti colombiani.
Le vicende narrate nel romanzo sono complicate e contengono numerosi rimandi ai capitoli precedenti della trilogia, cosicché a volte non è facile per il lettore districarsi tra le cose che lo scrittore dà per scontate essendo riferite ad avvenimenti già narrati.
Nei primi due romanzi si narra infatti della fuga verso le montagne e la giungla di un nutrito gruppo di abitanti della città di Chiriguaná, vittime della violenza dell’esercito, tra i quali vi sono sacerdoti, indios custodi di antiche conoscenze magiche, prostitute, ex guerriglieri, professori e scienziati più o meno ingegnosi, antichi conquistadores usciti da una plurisecolare ibernazione nei ghiacci della sierra; questi giungono in una zona inaccessibile dove, a seguito di una inondazione, sono venuti alla luce i resti di una antica città Inca, i cui edifici vengono ripuliti dal fango ed abitati: alla città viene dato il nome di Cochadebajo de los Gatos, sia perché numerose vi si trovano antiche raffigurazioni di giaguari, sia in quanto molto presto in città si installa una colonia di giaguari neri che convive con gli abitanti come fossero grossi gatti. Gli abitanti si danno delle regole di vita di tipo comunistico condite da una sorta di religione della fratellanza reciproca, fatta di un mix di cristianesimo delle origini, di teoria e pratica della liberazione sessuale e di elementi animistici e magici presi dalla tradizione india. Il denaro non esiste e la fertilità del terreno e l’ingegno degli abitanti fanno prosperare l’agricoltura. Insomma, a Cochadebajo de los Gatos, isolata dal resto del paese, si sviluppa una comunità felice e solidale, nella quale giungono, per varie ragioni, altri originali personaggi.
Tra questi vi è Dionisio Vivo, giornalista molto conosciuto ed inviso al potere per il suo spirito critico, figlio di un generale dell’esercito e gran donnaiolo, che ha seminato figli in tutto il paese. Nel secondo romanzo della trilogia egli è riuscito ad uccidere il potentissimo signore della coca Pablo Ecobandodo (pseudonimo facilmente identificabile), detto El Jerarca, che aveva tentato più volte di assassinare il giornalista per i suoi articoli e la sua attività contro il narcotraffico.
All’inizio de La strana prole del cardinale Guzman conosciamo il prelato che compare nel titolo: vive nel palazzo episcopale della capitale tormentato da acuti dolori e da visioni di demoni lascivi e crudeli, che gli ricordano i crimini commessi e la condotta tutt’altro che casta. Il potente cardinale infatti ha appoggiato attivamenteil potere politico del corrotto presidente Veracruz nella repressione delle rivolte popolari, della guerriglia marxista e della teologia della liberazione; frequentatore di bordelli, ha avuto un figlio dalla giovane perpetua Conception, con cui segretamente convive more uxorio. Per salvare la sua anima, decide di riportare alla vera fede il popolo: un dettagliato rapporto del Sant’Uffizio descrive infatti una situazione drammatica, nella quale moltissimi sacerdoti sono dediti alla simonia e al commercio di presunte reliquie, in cui i potenti, compreso lo stesso presidente Veracruz, praticano l’occultismo durante orge e festini, in cui buona parte del popolo � a causa della crescente povertà e del degrado sociale, non riconosce più l’autorità della chiesa. L’ultima parte del rapporto è dedicata al ritorno del paganesimo e delle eresie, soprattutto nelle comunità rurali, e tra gli altri esempi di questa tendenza viene citata anche Cochadebajo de los Gatos. Il cardinale Guzman decide di organizzare una vera e propria crociata di evangelizzazione, ovviamente solo per combattere il paganesimo e l’eresia del popolo, ed ordina a Monsignor Rechin Aguilar, un fanatico domenicano che ha già dato prova di sé, di reclutare uomini fidati e utilizzare ogni mezzo adeguato per riportare il popolo alla vera fede. Uno dei principali obiettivi della crociata sarà Cochadebajo de los Gatos.
Questi sono a grandi linee gli antefatti e le vicende iniziali del ponderoso romanzo, la cui struttura essenziale è data dal connubio tra un contenuto generale di forte connotazione politica e una matrice letteraria che fa suoi i precetti del cosiddetto realismo magico latino-americano.
Il contenuto politico del romanzo e della intera trilogia è evidente. Esplicita è la denuncia della corruzione e della violenza del potere, sia di quello civile del presidente Veracruz sia di quello ecclesiastico di cui è massimo interprete il cardinale Guzman. Esplicito è anche il richiamo alla tragica storia della Colombia negli anni dal 1946 in poi, quando il periodo de La violencia tra liberali e conservatori portò ad oltre 200.000 morti, alle dittature e ad una insurrezione strisciante delle aree rurali che continua ancora oggi. Esplicito è ancora il riconoscimento del ruolo della chiesa ufficiale quale supporto sia ideologico sia pratico al potere politico ed economico, contrapposto ai fermenti che all’interno della stessa chiesa latino-americana hanno dato luogo alla teologia della liberazione (tra l’altro viene esplicitamente citata una figura come Camilo Torres). Esplicita infine è la comunanza dell’autore con le spinte liberatrici della popolazione, che � essendo il romanzo scritto già in un’epoca post-ideologica - de Bernières declina nella ricerca di una felicità basata sulle piccole cose, sulla capacità di essere comunità, sulla lontananza dal caos urbano.
Questo contenuto politico è immerso come detto in un’atmosfera di realismo magico di cui si riconosce subito la diretta ascendenza. L’ombra di García Márquez e di Cent’anni di solitudine è di fatto presente in ogni pagina del romanzo, e Cochadebajo de los Gatos, fondata dopo un lungo peregrinare nella giungla, ci ricorda subito Macondo. Così Dionisio Vivo ha molti tratti caratteriali che ricordano da vicino quelli del colonnello Aureliano Buendia, la storia di Ena e Lena spose dello stesso uomo può essere vista come speculare e ammorbidita ripetto a quella di Amaranta e Rebeca, e molti dei personaggi che abitano la città, che pure in alcuni casi sono delineati con sufficiente cura, potrebbero essere stati abitanti o visitatori di Macondo. Questa eccessiva vicinanza tra i due autori, o meglio, questa aderenza di de Bernièrs all’opera di Gabo finisce, almeno per quanto mi riguarda, non solo per generare qualche sospetto rispetto all’originalità dell�ispirazione letteraria dell’autore, ma anche per togliere fascino all’opera. Ancora una volta, di fronte ad un autore contemporaneo, mi sono insomma trovato di fronte al deja vu, ad un voler (o dover) ripercorrere sentieri letterari già tracciati, che questa volta mi è parso piuttosto smaccato e funzionale � anche in considerazione dell’estrazione culturale affatto diversa dell’autore � alla sua legittimazione nell’ambito di un filone che all’epoca andava per la maggiore non solo culturalmente. Così si ha l’impressione che il realismo magico latinoamericano di de Berniers rimanga in superficie, sia solo una patina molto utile (anche commercialmente) per rivestire le sue storie, un modo come un altro per raccontare, volto più a stupire il lettore che a connotare intimamente la sua opera. Del resto lo stesso de Bernièrs deve essere stato cosciente dei limiti della sua letteratura di quel periodo, se è vero che egli stesso si è definito un parassita di García Márquez: bisogna dare atto che si tratta di un raro esempio di onestà intellettuale da parte di un rappresentante di una categoria nella quale l’ego gioca necessariamente un ruolo importantissimo.
C’� però un elemento ancora più importante rispetto a questa evidente ascendenza letteraria (per usare un eufemismo) che mi ha fatto concludere che La strana prole del cardinale Guzman sia un romanzo di second’ordine: si tratta proprio del suo contenuto politico, attinente come ho già accennato alla società e al potere in America Latina.
Il mio giudizio negativo in proposito è relativo a due aspetti. Il primo riguarda la forma che tale contenuto politico assume nel romanzo, ovvero il fatto che è spesso espresso in modo troppo diretto ed esplicito, inserito di forza in parti del racconto, con il duplice effetto di far pensare ad un romanzo a tesi e di rompere a tratti l’atmosfera narrativa che, sia pur di seconda mano, connota il romanzo. Che differenza in questo con la capacità di Cent’anni di solitudine di essere romanzo pienamente politico senza il bisogno di dichiararlo mai al lettore. È questo uno dei motivi per cui in un caso ci troviamo di fronte ad un capolavoro e nell’altro ad un romanzo che giudico di second’ordine.
L’altro aspetto su cui intendo porre attenzione è la ܲà di questo contenuto. Ho già accennato al fatto che La strana prole del cardinale Guzman potrebbe essere definito da una certa critica un romanzo post-ideologico, nel senso che a fronte della denuncia dell’ingiustizia e della crudeltà della costruzione sociale propone il ritiro nella piccola comunità che si dà nuove ed autonome regole di convivenza, trattando con distaccata ironia i movimenti rivoluzionari che praticavano la guerriglia. Questa sensazione, di una risposta consolatoria e in qualche modo palingenetica alla violenza del potere, che di per sé non mi convince molto, è accentuata a mio modo di vedere dal finale lieto del romanzo, condito della inevitabile terribile punizione dei cattivi, nel quale anche il cardinale Guzman trova la sua pace interiore. Anche qui, quanta incommensurabile distanza dal terribile, splendido finale di Cent’anni di solitudine: si potrebbe quasi dire che de Bernières abbia voluto concedere alle stirpi condannate a cent’anni di solitudine quella seconda opportunità che García Márquez aveva loro sapientemente negato nelle ultime righe del suo capolavoro.
Segnalo un altro fatto secondo me curioso, relativo all’epilogo del libro. Nelle ultime due pagine viene descritto un incidente che capita al presidente Veracruz, che in bagno finisce per cadere nella tazza tra i suoi stessi escrementi. Questo episodio grottesco ricorda molto da vicino (pur avendo anche in questo caso un finale meno incisivo) un episodio di un film italiano del 1976 oggi credo dimenticato, Signore e signori buonanotte, nel quale uno straordinario Ugo Tognazzi è un generale che si trova nella stessa situazione del presidente Veracruz. Non so se Louis de Bernières abbia mai visto questo episodio, ma se l’avesse visto prima di scrivere il suo romanzo potremmo certamente definirlo anche un parassita della commedia all’italiana.
Per concludere, credo che, al di là dell’oblio interessato che l’editoria italiana gli ha già decretato, questo romanzo non resterà nella storia della letteratura, né che il suo autore possa essere annoverato tra i maggiori esponenti del realismo magico, ”alla pari dei mostri sacri Franz Kafka e Kōbō Abe, per citarne due�, come afferma con una buona dose di involontaria comicità la voce italiana di wikipedia a lui dedicata.
June 8, 2016
Much like its predecessors, there’s a lot that’s good in this absurdist, magical realist history of a small South American country, but there’s a lot that’s average, and there’s some that’s actually quite bad. ‘The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman� essentially weaves together numerous different narratives concerning various comic characters and exaggerated grotesques � some of which link together, some of which only brush arms � so that the results are almost by design disjointed and variable. When it’s good the book is clever and amusing, when it’s bad it’s self-satisfied and smugly amused.
If there’s a theme it’s the terrors of rigid beliefs, and how one fixed system is bound to suffer when it clashes with all the rich variety of life. Cardinal Guzman inadvertently allows a new crusade to be called in his little country, and it’s up to a small city � each of whose citizens are blessed with absurdity � to stop it. If the book focused solely on that tale I might like it more, but there are so many diversions, so many fizzled out tales (the saga of Cardinal Guzman himself is particularly anti-climactic) and the result is a jumbled rag-bag of a novel where the author frequently seems to be having more fun than the reader.
In the prologue there’s a fantastic comic image of Coca-Cola paying to have their logo painted right across the face of the moon. But as the lunar winds take hold, the logo breaks up and it looks to the people of the Earth as if the moon is bleeding. It’s a wonderful visual, but one that’s barely mentioned again for the rest of the book. Thus reinforcing the notion that de Bernières is happy here to just throw paint at the wall and doesn’t really care if the whole coalesces.
If there’s a theme it’s the terrors of rigid beliefs, and how one fixed system is bound to suffer when it clashes with all the rich variety of life. Cardinal Guzman inadvertently allows a new crusade to be called in his little country, and it’s up to a small city � each of whose citizens are blessed with absurdity � to stop it. If the book focused solely on that tale I might like it more, but there are so many diversions, so many fizzled out tales (the saga of Cardinal Guzman himself is particularly anti-climactic) and the result is a jumbled rag-bag of a novel where the author frequently seems to be having more fun than the reader.
In the prologue there’s a fantastic comic image of Coca-Cola paying to have their logo painted right across the face of the moon. But as the lunar winds take hold, the logo breaks up and it looks to the people of the Earth as if the moon is bleeding. It’s a wonderful visual, but one that’s barely mentioned again for the rest of the book. Thus reinforcing the notion that de Bernières is happy here to just throw paint at the wall and doesn’t really care if the whole coalesces.
December 24, 2015
This book started off a little slow but once I got going the story was a real hoot. This Cardinal beds the maid, has a child and he tries to hide the child. Eventually all hell breaks loose in this story set in a mythical Latin American place ( but really sounds like Peru). The cast of characters come alive and de Bernieres almost creates a parody of Garcia Marquez but the story never looses steam. Fun ending.
August 12, 2011
Bailed after 150 pages. I just couldn't get into this one. It's written as a series of silly episodes, and no one episode was particularly interesting. Maybe it's one I'll return to in the future --- it isn't poorly written, but it wasn't pulling me in either.
December 12, 2024
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán is the third part in Louis de Bernières’s Latin America Trilogy. Even though Dionisio Vivo managed to eliminate the coca lord El Jerarca in part two, all is not well in this imaginary Latin American country. There is still plenty of corruption, other drug lords have stepped in and now the Catholic church is adding to the mess. Cardinal Guzmán has had a child with his mulatta kitchen maid Concepcion. While the cardinal is suffering from severe stomach pains, Monsignor Anquilar gathers a group of crusaders that go on an Inquisition, wreaking havoc in the country.
This book felt a bit repetitive after having read parts one and two of the trilogy. We hear about all of the quirky characters from Cochadebajo de los Gatos, including the levitating priest Father Garcia, the frisky Doña Constanza and her campesino lover Gonzago, Aurelio the Aymara Indian and all of the black jaguar cats. The book also is longer than parts one and two.
There is plenty of humor and critic of corruption and abuse of power in the government and in the Catholic church. I was glad to have read the trilogy, although the third book definitely felt a bit long at times.
This book felt a bit repetitive after having read parts one and two of the trilogy. We hear about all of the quirky characters from Cochadebajo de los Gatos, including the levitating priest Father Garcia, the frisky Doña Constanza and her campesino lover Gonzago, Aurelio the Aymara Indian and all of the black jaguar cats. The book also is longer than parts one and two.
There is plenty of humor and critic of corruption and abuse of power in the government and in the Catholic church. I was glad to have read the trilogy, although the third book definitely felt a bit long at times.
November 28, 2023
As always, a masterclass in imagination and descriptive storytelling. The excessive violence was maybe slightly less of a focus than book 1 and I enjoyed it the more for that. I was surprised by how positively it ended when I was slightly dreading it! My main negative was that it seemed a lot of characters were introduced where there seemed a slightly unfulfilling or limited payoff for them - Guzman being a case in point. But still enjoyed it a lot.
May 17, 2024
Absurd, ridiculous and divine. This story felt like being drunk in a dream on a wild Spanish holiday. Loved all the characters and stories, got a bit lost and confused due to all the different threads and the very poetic, descriptive writing style. Overall a really enjoyable and unique read
May 20, 2015
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman is the last part of de Bernières' Latin-American trilogy. For me it was also the best book of the three. This book is magical realism at its best, without ever taking the magic part too far. The colourful characters that de Bernières introduced in the first book were somewhat pushed into the background in the second book (for the biggest part of this book the spotlight was on Dionisio Vivo's adventures), but in this third book they take up their righteous place in the story.
The humour is definitely fantastic, there were a lot of times I had to laugh aloud. Besides the many jokes, the story contains many cruel events, just like in the first two books, but here they are described less detailed and extensively. In Senor Vivo and the Coca-Lord there were some passages that were so horrifying to read that it became almost unpleasant.
The way this fictional country in Latin America is described, is absolutely marvelous. While reading, you can really feel the searing heat, you can see the wild animals and nature and you can almost taste the spicy food and strong spirits. Another great aspect is the fact that the author fills the story and the dialogues with Spanish, Portugese and indigenous words and expressions. It really brings the story to life and makes the jokes stand out better.
The world de Bernières created is funny, full of fantastic elements, cruel, sometimes absurd, exotic, loving... and all these things just blend perfectly together. This third book has a good ending so you're not left behind unsatisfied. You know that the situation in the country is still far from good, but the end leaves you with a positive and hopeful feeling.
The humour is definitely fantastic, there were a lot of times I had to laugh aloud. Besides the many jokes, the story contains many cruel events, just like in the first two books, but here they are described less detailed and extensively. In Senor Vivo and the Coca-Lord there were some passages that were so horrifying to read that it became almost unpleasant.
The way this fictional country in Latin America is described, is absolutely marvelous. While reading, you can really feel the searing heat, you can see the wild animals and nature and you can almost taste the spicy food and strong spirits. Another great aspect is the fact that the author fills the story and the dialogues with Spanish, Portugese and indigenous words and expressions. It really brings the story to life and makes the jokes stand out better.
The world de Bernières created is funny, full of fantastic elements, cruel, sometimes absurd, exotic, loving... and all these things just blend perfectly together. This third book has a good ending so you're not left behind unsatisfied. You know that the situation in the country is still far from good, but the end leaves you with a positive and hopeful feeling.
May 16, 2021
Set in an imaginary Latin American country the novel's political themes parody the worst excesses of the Pinochet government of Chile, the collapse of democratic social order in Uruguay in the 1970's and other dirty wars of the 1960's to 1980's in Southern and Central America.
In the village of Cochadebajo macho philosophers, defrocked priests and reformed (though still active) prostitutes live in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is about to be interrupted when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.
Cardinal Guzman lives extravagantly and immorally, due to the discovery of his having fathered a son, and his loathing of the poor shanty-dwellers who live below his palace. He has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. His clergy and the corrupt military set out to destroy the heresy of the countryside, and in doing so the hypocrisy of his faith and his promiscuousness is revealed, as is the hypocrisy of religion in general and the Catholics in particular.
I tried a few times to read this but couldn't get into it. I'm glad I persevered though because I did enjoy it. It's quirky, full of very funny characters (had to make notes of who they all were!), and a brilliant plot. It was rather gruesome at times.
In the village of Cochadebajo macho philosophers, defrocked priests and reformed (though still active) prostitutes live in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is about to be interrupted when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.
Cardinal Guzman lives extravagantly and immorally, due to the discovery of his having fathered a son, and his loathing of the poor shanty-dwellers who live below his palace. He has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. His clergy and the corrupt military set out to destroy the heresy of the countryside, and in doing so the hypocrisy of his faith and his promiscuousness is revealed, as is the hypocrisy of religion in general and the Catholics in particular.
I tried a few times to read this but couldn't get into it. I'm glad I persevered though because I did enjoy it. It's quirky, full of very funny characters (had to make notes of who they all were!), and a brilliant plot. It was rather gruesome at times.
May 18, 2019
What you may need to read this trilogy of fantastic fiction;
. A knowledge of Greek mythology,
. A smattering of tourist Spanish,
. A complete disdain of organised religion,
. A suspension of any disbelief of the metaphysical,
. Time.
If someone had told me this before I considered reading any of these novels, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, but boy...... I’m glad I did.
I haven’t read all three parts of a trilogy consecutively since I devoured “A Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy � (yes, I know, that was a trilogy of four, err, nope, actually five.....ahh, just bought the sixth)
Curiously, this collection did in fact bring to mind Douglas Adams, along with Christopher Hitchens, Tom Sharpe And a smidge of David Mitchell.
Superbly written, I can’t believe that De Bernieres has evaded my attention for roughly thirty years.
The three books are an incredible maelstrom of comedic nonsense, sex, poverty and horrific barbarity in the name of politics and religion.
There are plenty of people who have not enjoyed De Bernieres, but if you’ve not tried him and you were a friend of mine I would insist you give him a go.
. A knowledge of Greek mythology,
. A smattering of tourist Spanish,
. A complete disdain of organised religion,
. A suspension of any disbelief of the metaphysical,
. Time.
If someone had told me this before I considered reading any of these novels, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, but boy...... I’m glad I did.
I haven’t read all three parts of a trilogy consecutively since I devoured “A Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy � (yes, I know, that was a trilogy of four, err, nope, actually five.....ahh, just bought the sixth)
Curiously, this collection did in fact bring to mind Douglas Adams, along with Christopher Hitchens, Tom Sharpe And a smidge of David Mitchell.
Superbly written, I can’t believe that De Bernieres has evaded my attention for roughly thirty years.
The three books are an incredible maelstrom of comedic nonsense, sex, poverty and horrific barbarity in the name of politics and religion.
There are plenty of people who have not enjoyed De Bernieres, but if you’ve not tried him and you were a friend of mine I would insist you give him a go.
May 2, 2019
THIS is one of my Favourite Books of All Time! The language is interesting, beautiful and funny, all without trying too hard. The characters are captivating. I have read this book twice and will no doubt read it again. The other books in the series are good but this one is the best by far. I tried reading Captain Corelli by the same author but found it dull... if ANYONE out there knows a book as weird and interesting as this one, please let me know. I tried reading American Gods on the basis that it was interesting in the way of The Troublesome Child but NO. American Gods is horrible, trying to be interesting by being random. And boring. And the characters are mind-numbingly dull. If any readers out there enjoy weird/wacky/interesting/funny stories and characters READ THE TROUBLESOME CHILD! And please let me know what your other fav books are!
January 25, 2014
I struggled between 3 and 4 stars. He's a fantastic writer, his story interesting, his
characters unforgettable. Though he's not South American, the book is set in a mythical
South American country and his writing reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Like Marquez, he's a master of magical realism, a genre I like. But his bleak, picture of human (or should i say inhuman) nature with it's graphic details, was very disturbing. I didn't realize this was part of a trilogy; I had read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which I also liked. I will eventually read "Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord," but will take a long rest first. I also read his Corelli's Mandolin (not part of the trilogy) which I liked a lot.
characters unforgettable. Though he's not South American, the book is set in a mythical
South American country and his writing reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Like Marquez, he's a master of magical realism, a genre I like. But his bleak, picture of human (or should i say inhuman) nature with it's graphic details, was very disturbing. I didn't realize this was part of a trilogy; I had read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which I also liked. I will eventually read "Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord," but will take a long rest first. I also read his Corelli's Mandolin (not part of the trilogy) which I liked a lot.
October 17, 2009
I know people hate LdB but I'm a fan. For a start, it's rare for me to find a word I've never seen before but his books usually have a handful. I like the way he structures his books too - how apparently disparate threads suddenly pull together into tight meaning. And I admire how unflinching he is about human cruelty and violence - even if those passages often make me throw the book into a wall.
This book is very similar to Captain Corelli's Mandolin (which I also really like) - in its approach to politics and ideologies, and how ordinary people carve out a life around and outside them.
This book is very similar to Captain Corelli's Mandolin (which I also really like) - in its approach to politics and ideologies, and how ordinary people carve out a life around and outside them.
April 25, 2012
This is the fourth or fifth book I've read by this author and as usual, I enjoyed it.
He has a devilish sense of humor and it keeps erupting throughout the story of a small, fictional town hidden away in the hills of some South American country. The plot revolves around a fanatical, hypocritical zealot and his hideous modern-day inquisition, but the book is far more about some very distinctive and quirky characters and their interactions.
This book is a sequel of sorts to another book, but can be read and enjoyed on its own.
It does have some very graphic passages and bawdy humor, so if you don't like these things, I'd suggest you avoid this one!
He has a devilish sense of humor and it keeps erupting throughout the story of a small, fictional town hidden away in the hills of some South American country. The plot revolves around a fanatical, hypocritical zealot and his hideous modern-day inquisition, but the book is far more about some very distinctive and quirky characters and their interactions.
This book is a sequel of sorts to another book, but can be read and enjoyed on its own.
It does have some very graphic passages and bawdy humor, so if you don't like these things, I'd suggest you avoid this one!
May 2, 2022
The beautiful finale to Louis De Bernieres' Latin American trilogy. I am lost for words. How charmingly and wittingly written this book was, for a book which is fundmanentally about the horrors of rape, war, genocide and religious corruption. I laughed out loud several times and teared up slightly at the end... this entire trilogy has drawn my soul out of my body but in a good way and I am glad to say that these books have made me a better and happier person. Vive La Cochadebajo de los Gatos!!!
I'll leave anyone who actually read this review with a quote that I consider quite fitting...
"Maybe one day it will be an ancient story. Every story has to begin somewhere."
I'll leave anyone who actually read this review with a quote that I consider quite fitting...
"Maybe one day it will be an ancient story. Every story has to begin somewhere."
February 23, 2025
Struggled through the paper book. It was too quirky; in places grotesquely violent; satirical with such vitriol that the pages were almost dripping with it. I found the constant switching between storylines disjointed and exhausting. I didn’t read the previous books in the loose series, which didn’t help since a large number of characters carried over from there, and I felt I was missing a great deal of background. Nothing endearing or captivating or enjoyable about it. My first and last book by this author for sure.
April 6, 2011
Full of the delight and the grotesque that marked the first two books of this trilogy, though I felt like this lacked a bit of the sparkle and cruelty of the previous books. In particular, it made me want to go back and re-read Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord. For all of the profound horror and heartbreak of that book, it did a better job of capturing De Bernieres's magic.
So not bad--just overshadowed.
So not bad--just overshadowed.
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