欧宝娱乐

Loved it, enjoyed it, totally engrossed. It seems stupid (even to me) to have a bookshelf labelled "Latin American" but the reason I do so is b/c 11 yrs ago I organized a Latin American Festival at Chatham College that stimulated me to read a shitload of Latin American novels - so I tend to lump them all together: not w/ any sortof nationalizing intentions but more geographic/lingual/whatever. Anyway, it never ceases to amaze me how many great Latin American novelists there are. This is the 1st one I've read by Jorge Amado - whose "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" was very popular.

This ISN'T "magic realism" - let's get that out of the way: not every Latin American novel is magic realism - that's just become a pseudo-critical catchphrase. It IS fanciful, though. The basic story is of a man who poses as a retired sea-captain in order to 'enoble' himself & the trouble he gets into as a result. There's a more general philosophical thrust here & most or all of the characters are deluded in some way or another.