I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book when I got it from the library. But it is slowly growing on me. OK it took almost half of the book for that to happen.
Reading this book is like being plunked into a foreign country not knowing the language or the customs of the people. I felt disoriented and lost. But like a total immersion class in a foreign culture and language I gradually started to understand what I was reading. And when I did then I started to understand and enjoy the characters. I still have no clue where all these places that are talked about are located. So I read the names without worrying about that. The ones I don't recognize are not especially important to the story. They simply keep your feet in the location of the story.
Two renewals and 3 days late to the library, I am finally finished.
It was ...... LONG. Part 5, Chapter 18 summed it all up quite nicely. From Dona Flor: "Why is everybody 2 different people? Why is it necessary to be torn between 2 loves? Why does the heart hold at the same time 2 emotions, contradictory and opposed?" Also Chapter 24 from Vadinho: "I am the husband of poor Dona Flor, the one who comes to stir up your longing and provoke your desire, hidden in the depths of your being, your modesty. He is the husband of Madame Dona Flor, who protects your virtue, your honor, your respect among people. He is your outward face, I your inner .... We are your two husbands, your two faces, your yes and your no. To be happy, you need both of us."
Seems like an awful lot of pages to illustrate this point.
Although long, there were some memorable parts: Vadinho, Dona Rozilda, the iron bed (with its new mattress), and Saturday (with sometimes an encore).
Overall, it fit YOUR book choice style Angie! But I won't be reading it again.
Uggggggggh. I finally finished too. So sorry ladies, I really had high hopes for this but ended up thoroughly disappointed. Probably would make a decent movie, because you wouldn't have to read about Vadinho's gambling 3868974614 times, nor the 24992034 times Flor mentioned what a good husband Teodoro was.
Dona Flor is a perfect example of the classic theme for women in Latin American literature: Mary vs Eve. You're either a saintly virgin or a despicable whore, with no grey area in between.
The only good part about my reading slowly is that I take time to mark my favorite lines, and there were some great ones: part II ch 2 "She's a flying turd, she doesn't have the patience to sit down on the toilet." Zé Sampaio about his wife, Dona Norma.
part II ch 3 "In his case the phrase 'departing this for a better world' is not just a cliché, but the literal truth. ... anything would be better by comparison than his life with Dona Rozilda." and then later "He..took advantage of the damper days of winter to pick up a cheap pneumonia -- 'not even a double pneumonia' was Dr. Carlos Passo's ironic observation -- and depart for heaven."
part II ch 14 "What Dona Flor wanted was to be like everybody else, and to have a husband like other husbands. ... Loving, in bed, but early, before they went to sleep, on fixed days."
pat II ch 20 "A night to enter the narrowest, most tightly closed doors, a night to surrender the last bastion of her modesty, Glory hallelujah! When gall is turned into honey and suffering is strange, exquisite, divine pleasure, a night to give and to receive."
part IV ch 2 "On Wednesdays and Saturdays, at ten o'clock, give or take a minute, Dr. Teodoro took his wife in upright ardor and unfailing pleasure, always with an encore on Saturday, optional on Wednesday."
part IV ch 7 "Had he never heard talk about a certain Messalina? No, she did not operate in the district, she belonged to history, and what a reputation she had. But compared to Dona Magnólia, she was an unsullied virgin.."
I think this one will be going back to the book sale..
I've requested Peony by ILL and will try to have this book finished by Tuesday (when it is due back to the library). I'm sorry to hold us up, but it I just am having a hard time slogging through this. It reminds me of Moby Dick in that there are multiple chapters that could quite easily have been left out and improved the plot.
Right now I'm about halfway through; at the part where she is awake all night because she is horny. Is it just me or did anyone else think to themselves, "Just do it yourself, already!"? Seriously. Urgh.
I also had some quotes I wanted to point out:
Part 1: Ch 2: After talking about how the men were dressed as women: "There was not a faggot in the whole lot, praise be to God. Vadinho had even tied under his white starched petticoat a huge cassava tuber, and at every step he raised his skirts and displayed the outsized pornographic trophy..." Yes, because that is SO much better than being homosexual.
Interlude: "He had some unpronounceable Russian name, and the girls had nicknamed him Lev the Silver-Tongued, perhaps because of his fund of stories. Perhaps." A, what a naughty book you have us read!
Chapter 5: I did enjoy Flor turning down the suitors, especially the graduate from Para: "There will be no lack of nice, pretty girls for Pedro to marry, for he certainly deserves it. I only wish it were here in Bahia so I could prepare the wedding banquet." Smooth.
Chapter 10: "Fighting every day to break down her resistance and destroy her chastity, he nevertheless felt happy and proud of her modesty and seriousness." This reminded me too much of the situation for many women in the Middle East right now, where virginity is prized more than anything else and yet rape is prevalent. It is the women who get punished for being raped (giving in) rather than the rapists.
Chapter 13: Dona Norma's response to Flor's guilt over premarital sex: "This business of giving a little in advance happens to three out of two, and among the best people, my dear." :-)
Chapter 15: "She, however, had not felt the desire for a child to fill the house with its noise and laughter. She lived thinking about Vadinho, who was her child; it was he she ewanted in the house, her husband and her child, her "big baby".'
FINALLY finished, which is good because I have to return it tomorrow. Not one of my favorites, though at least the last half was a quicker read with a little more action.
I'm just a little unclear about how it ended. Vadinho fades away and... Flor lives happily ever after with her husband?
Quotes of note:
Part III, ch. 7: The wisecracks of loafers... "what a swinging bum", "let's go make a baby, beautiful". Pick-up lines really haven't change much have they?
Part III, ch. 11: "..for a maidenhead is not everything, not by a long shot, in spite of all the todo that had been made over it. When all is said and done, it is nothing but a fragile membrane, a drop of blood, a moan, and, above all, an old prejudice, and if it is rated so highly that is because it has been in the hands of public relations agents for centuries, and they have been backed up by the army and the clergy, the police and the whores, all of them making of this pellicle the be-all and end-all." Too true.
Part III, ch. 13: "Dona FLor flatly refused to give up here school, as he had suggested." And her house. Flor has some spirit! And later, to her mother, "WHat yhou want is to come here to live for good, but you can just forget about it." :-)
All in all, it got better as it progressed, but still not my favorite book. Too many deviations into other people's lives and too much repetition of ideas.
8 comments:
I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book when I got it from the library. But it is slowly growing on me. OK it took almost half of the book for that to happen.
Reading this book is like being plunked into a foreign country not knowing the language or the customs of the people. I felt disoriented and lost. But like a total immersion class in a foreign culture and language I gradually started to understand what I was reading. And when I did then I started to understand and enjoy the characters. I still have no clue where all these places that are talked about are located. So I read the names without worrying about that. The ones I don't recognize are not especially important to the story. They simply keep your feet in the location of the story.
I just got my copy yesterday and probably won't be able to start it until later next week. Don't expect detailed comments from me for a while!
Work has been exceptionally crazy for the past few weeks. I am terribly behind on my reading, and am about 100 pages in so far.
B, I felt the same way at the beginning of the last Amado book I read. By the end I loved the book, so I hope this one follows the same course.
Have to say Angie, I am struggling. I am half way and waiting for some "action".
Two renewals and 3 days late to the library, I am finally finished.
It was ...... LONG. Part 5, Chapter 18 summed it all up quite nicely. From Dona Flor: "Why is everybody 2 different people? Why is it necessary to be torn between 2 loves? Why does the heart hold at the same time 2 emotions, contradictory and opposed?"
Also Chapter 24 from Vadinho: "I am the husband of poor Dona Flor, the one who comes to stir up your longing and provoke your desire, hidden in the depths of your being, your modesty. He is the husband of Madame Dona Flor, who protects your virtue, your honor, your respect among people. He is your outward face, I your inner .... We are your two husbands, your two faces, your yes and your no. To be happy, you need both of us."
Seems like an awful lot of pages to illustrate this point.
Although long, there were some memorable parts: Vadinho, Dona Rozilda, the iron bed (with its new mattress), and Saturday (with sometimes an encore).
Overall, it fit YOUR book choice style Angie! But I won't be reading it again.
Uggggggggh. I finally finished too. So sorry ladies, I really had high hopes for this but ended up thoroughly disappointed. Probably would make a decent movie, because you wouldn't have to read about Vadinho's gambling 3868974614 times, nor the 24992034 times Flor mentioned what a good husband Teodoro was.
Dona Flor is a perfect example of the classic theme for women in Latin American literature: Mary vs Eve. You're either a saintly virgin or a despicable whore, with no grey area in between.
The only good part about my reading slowly is that I take time to mark my favorite lines, and there were some great ones:
part II ch 2
"She's a flying turd, she doesn't have the patience to sit down on the toilet." Zé Sampaio about his wife, Dona Norma.
part II ch 3
"In his case the phrase 'departing this for a better world' is not just a cliché, but the literal truth. ... anything would be better by comparison than his life with Dona Rozilda."
and then later
"He..took advantage of the damper days of winter to pick up a cheap pneumonia -- 'not even a double pneumonia' was Dr. Carlos Passo's ironic observation -- and depart for heaven."
part II ch 14
"What Dona Flor wanted was to be like everybody else, and to have a husband like other husbands. ... Loving, in bed, but early, before they went to sleep, on fixed days."
pat II ch 20
"A night to enter the narrowest, most tightly closed doors, a night to surrender the last bastion of her modesty, Glory hallelujah! When gall is turned into honey and suffering is strange, exquisite, divine pleasure, a night to give and to receive."
part IV ch 2
"On Wednesdays and Saturdays, at ten o'clock, give or take a minute, Dr. Teodoro took his wife in upright ardor and unfailing pleasure, always with an encore on Saturday, optional on Wednesday."
part IV ch 7
"Had he never heard talk about a certain Messalina? No, she did not operate in the district, she belonged to history, and what a reputation she had. But compared to Dona Magnólia, she was an unsullied virgin.."
I think this one will be going back to the book sale..
I've requested Peony by ILL and will try to have this book finished by Tuesday (when it is due back to the library). I'm sorry to hold us up, but it I just am having a hard time slogging through this. It reminds me of Moby Dick in that there are multiple chapters that could quite easily have been left out and improved the plot.
Right now I'm about halfway through; at the part where she is awake all night because she is horny. Is it just me or did anyone else think to themselves, "Just do it yourself, already!"? Seriously. Urgh.
I also had some quotes I wanted to point out:
Part 1:
Ch 2: After talking about how the men were dressed as women: "There was not a faggot in the whole lot, praise be to God. Vadinho had even tied under his white starched petticoat a huge cassava tuber, and at every step he raised his skirts and displayed the outsized pornographic trophy..." Yes, because that is SO much better than being homosexual.
Interlude: "He had some unpronounceable Russian name, and the girls had nicknamed him Lev the Silver-Tongued, perhaps because of his fund of stories. Perhaps." A, what a naughty book you have us read!
Chapter 5: I did enjoy Flor turning down the suitors, especially the graduate from Para: "There will be no lack of nice, pretty girls for Pedro to marry, for he certainly deserves it. I only wish it were here in Bahia so I could prepare the wedding banquet." Smooth.
Chapter 10: "Fighting every day to break down her resistance and destroy her chastity, he nevertheless felt happy and proud of her modesty and seriousness." This reminded me too much of the situation for many women in the Middle East right now, where virginity is prized more than anything else and yet rape is prevalent. It is the women who get punished for being raped (giving in) rather than the rapists.
Chapter 13: Dona Norma's response to Flor's guilt over premarital sex: "This business of giving a little in advance happens to three out of two, and among the best people, my dear." :-)
Chapter 15: "She, however, had not felt the desire for a child to fill the house with its noise and laughter. She lived thinking about Vadinho, who was her child; it was he she ewanted in the house, her husband and her child, her "big baby".'
FINALLY finished, which is good because I have to return it tomorrow. Not one of my favorites, though at least the last half was a quicker read with a little more action.
I'm just a little unclear about how it ended. Vadinho fades away and... Flor lives happily ever after with her husband?
Quotes of note:
Part III, ch. 7: The wisecracks of loafers... "what a swinging bum", "let's go make a baby, beautiful". Pick-up lines really haven't change much have they?
Part III, ch. 11: "..for a maidenhead is not everything, not by a long shot, in spite of all the todo that had been made over it. When all is said and done, it is nothing but a fragile membrane, a drop of blood, a moan, and, above all, an old prejudice, and if it is rated so highly that is because it has been in the hands of public relations agents for centuries, and they have been backed up by the army and the clergy, the police and the whores, all of them making of this pellicle the be-all and end-all." Too true.
Part III, ch. 13: "Dona FLor flatly refused to give up here school, as he had suggested." And her house. Flor has some spirit! And later, to her mother, "WHat yhou want is to come here to live for good, but you can just forget about it." :-)
All in all, it got better as it progressed, but still not my favorite book. Too many deviations into other people's lives and too much repetition of ideas.
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