Reviews for Marks of Identity

The average rating for Marks of Identity based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-09-13 00:00:00 Stephen mcguinness I believe any country in the world has had and has its exiles so there is a special kind of literature - a literature of exile, which is fraught with extraordinarily bitter angst and sadness. And Marks of Identity belongs to this sort of literature. The narration is nonlinear and the novel is a mixture of realism, modernism and postmodernism - a tortuous blend of sarcasm and sorrow. Niches with vases, wreaths, laurels. The dim photograph of a gentleman ceremoniously dressed in a cutaway coat. An allegory of death carved in alabaster on the base of a column topped by a Virgin Mary. A tomb decorated like an Egyptian sarcophagus. A wrathful and solemn angel, standing straight like the Statue of Liberty in New York. Violent, oppressive, the sky was blending its dark emptiness in with the sterile environment of the headstones spread about on the grass. Marks of Identity is a novel about vanity and cemetery is a real exhibition of vanity - vanity of the living, the dead aren't vain… Time had gradually erased the vestiges of the event (as if it had never happened, you thought) and, every so often, the memorial stone seemed like a mirage to you (the sudden product of your confused imagination). Other acts of violence, other deaths had disappeared without leaving a trace, and the organized and somnolent life of the tribe went on insatiably along its course. Your father's executioners were also rotting in the common grave in the village cemetery, and no stone requested a remembrance or a prayer for them. Some were remembered, and others were forgotten, shot during the summer of 1936 and the spring of 1939, all of them, executioners and victims alike, were links in the repressive chain… Marks of Identity is a novel about ideals and futility and ruined hopes… The air filled his lungs, fresh and restoring, like a caress. The people had gone to bed early and the terraces of the bars were deserted. The town looked to him like a gigantic cemetery, where every window was a tomb, every building the mausoleum of a dream or hope… A barbarian and barren homeland, how many generations of his breed would still be frustrated? for how many days, weeks, months, years would it still be uninhabitable? He crossed the square opposite the Mater Dolorosa carved by Salcillo. The sad god of his ancestors was watching over the emptiness with his extended dead arms. Insensible and shut off from the pain of men, he was obscenely nourishing himself like a leech on their useless prayers. But wherever one is one wishes to be happy and to be loved.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-01-12 00:00:00 Perry Gong Juan Goytisolo died today (04 June 2017) Muere el escritor Juan Goytisolo a los 86 años en Marrakech Recently a friend gave me "La sombra del viento" (Shadow of the Wind) in Spanish to read. I heard good things about this book so I began in earnest to read it. I was enjoying it and reached the half way point when I was heading south for a vacation. On the plane I felt the somber tone wasn't my idea of holiday reading so I picked up "Señas de identidad" and couldn't put the book down. Strangely these two books have something in common. Both are set in Barcelona during the 1930s to the 1950-60s. This period involves the Spanish Civil War (pre World War 2) to the time under Franco. Communism, Republicanism and Falangism were polemics to all concerned and key fodder for these two writers. Each one takes a vastly different approach. Writing in 1966 and with Spain firmly entrenched under the rule of Franco, Goytisolo chose rebellion. Like many writers of this period, if you disagreed with Franco, exile was the only option. First Paris, then publishing this book in Mexico, Goytisolo wrote a magnificent reflection of the times. While reading "Señas de identidad", I remembered reading Juan Marse's "Úlitimas tardes con Teresa" which is also set in Barcelona during the 1960s. I have no idea why I seem to gravitate to this time period but the writing style in Spanish is a pure delight to read and captures the time brilliantly. Goytisolo writes in a provocative, arty style like in "Rayuela" by Cortázar. The text is sexual, political and evokes the moment of each event-incident. I savored every word, technique and sentence structure that he threw at me. Sometimes it felt like watching an 8 mm film - short, choppy, out of focus that added to the taste of his style (perhaps influenced by one of the main characters who makes movies). The story line is an abstraction of vignettes and yet the outline moves along. For some this can be a challenge. The story is simple. Álvaro Mendiola, a kid who has it all gets involved with left-leaning professors at university and leaves because of political issues. Exiled to France he gets more involved with the left and ends up in Cuba to see the revolution and returns to Europe. Things happen. Typical to writers of the time, Goytisolo paints disturbing images of the poor, illiterate folk who become "whipping people" for the development of Spain. One of the more challenging themes is his reflection on the development of the tourism industry in the 1950s to help move Spain out of poverty. Goytisolo is very critical of this and I wonder how he feels today, with tourism even more rampant in Spain and so many other countries? There is lots to chew on here and it lives up to his title - what are one's signs of identity? Does he reach this conclusion? Like a good art book there is a good degree of ambiguity although his political views are not. And yes its part of a trilogy. This was simply a delight to read. Read in Spanish (French and Catalan as well). Shadow of the Wind review to follow.