|
|
Sold Out
Book Categories |
For Goytisolo, great writers are 'solitary birds' whose voice is an enchanting cry that pierces time. On his hospital bed, the persecuted narrator identifies with St John of the Cross, himself forced by the Inquisition to swallow his Treatise on the Qualities of the Solitary Bird. Through a scintillating succession of visions, soliloquies and ecstatic chants he converses with the banished saint. The agencies of repression have changed but, as in the past, a hideous revenge will be wrought on the heretic whose work is seen to be as deadly a contamination as AIDS. Four hundred years ago, St John creatively ransacked in his writing the cultures of Christianity, biblical Judaism and Muslim mysticism. Juan Goytisolo now pays rich homage, with atonal dissonance and constant invention.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Andrew Nicolai
reviewed The Virtues of the Solitary Bird on December 12, 2018
The Virtues of the Solitary Bird
The last of Goytisolo's anarchonistic, disjointed and surreal writings for me (for now). The book opens with a tale describing the enormous, thin-legged witch on the book's cover stomping about the city causing widespread destruction and casting curses of AIDS and plagues (I believe that this witch-hatted figure is the personification of a nuclear bomb that is detonated later in the novel).
The narrative shifts from churches and cities and shelters where those covered in buboes and dying from the plague suffer their slow demise. The solitary bird, infected with its grievous diseases, is sealed away so that it does not contaminate others. This is the solitary bird, stricken by dangerous and toxic ideas, exiled and sealed away to avoid contaminating the minds of others who might suffer the plague of ideas possessed by the independent thinker.
The novel weaves through disjointed perspectives from a number of unnamed figures, and the tone shifts between them, from the somber to the ecstatic; from the miserable to the joyous, all in Goytisolo's familiar serpentine style, and in an indistinguishable pastiche of visions, dreams, and dreams within dreams.
Login|Complaints|Blog|Games|Digital Media|Souls|Obituary|Contact Us|FAQ
CAN'T FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR? CLICK HERE!!! X
You must be logged in to add to WishlistX
This item is in your Wish List
X
This item is in your Collection
The Virtues of the Solitary Bird
X
This Item is in Your Inventory
The Virtues of the Solitary Bird
X
You must be logged in to review the productsX
X
X
Add The Virtues of the Solitary Bird, For Goytisolo, great writers are 'solitary birds' whose voice is an enchanting cry that pierces time. On his hospital bed, the persecuted narrator identifies with St John of the Cross, himself forced by the Inquisition to swallow his Treatise on the Quali, The Virtues of the Solitary Bird to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
X
Add The Virtues of the Solitary Bird, For Goytisolo, great writers are 'solitary birds' whose voice is an enchanting cry that pierces time. On his hospital bed, the persecuted narrator identifies with St John of the Cross, himself forced by the Inquisition to swallow his Treatise on the Quali, The Virtues of the Solitary Bird to your collection on WonderClub |