Finished! Father, son and wife - they certainly all deserve eachother. I will throw at you all the thoughts that this novel throws at me. These three characters continually throw the real and the imaginary at each other. Delightfully, absurdly and horribly. What is real and what isn't? Well the reader never really knows, and finally one stops caring. This is a fairy tale for adults! Did I enjoy reading it? Sometimes yes and sometimes I hated it. The author plays with the readers. So how many stars should I give this book? I both hated it and loved it. One thing is certain - the author is gifted! The book is amazing - amazingly good and amazingly bad. I could classify it both as a favorites AND I also disliked it. I could give the book no stars at all. That would be a solution, since half of the time I loved it, and half of the time I hated it. That would be the most just solution! That is what I willo do.Through page 221: So some aspects of the book I like alot and some I don't like at all. The thoughts about HOW Egon Schiele paints are fascinating. Are they true? Look at Schiele's paintings and you will see that the observations seem valid. Many facets of Schiele's painting are brought to the reader's attention - that often the painter sees his models from up above them, that many of the self-portraits and other portraits are multiple immages of one person, that the hands are very masculine both on the women and the men, that thumbs are not visible and the painter's frequent use of mirrors. Here is a quote: "Fonchito was explaining to Justiniana that the mirror is 'where we are when we look at the picture.' And the the model seen from the front wasn't flesh and blood, but an image in the mirror, while the painter and the model seen from the back were real and not reflections. Which meant that Egon Schiele had begun to paint Moa from the rear, in front of the mirror, but then, drawn by the part he did not see directly but only in projection, he decided to paint that too. And so thanks to the mirror, he painted two Moas, who were really only one: the complete Moa, the two halves of Moa, the Moa no one could see in reality because 'we only can see what we have in front of us, not the part behind that front.' Did she understand why the mirror was so important to Egon Schiels?" I doubt that the next book I have lined up to read about Schiele will go into such depth!
Through page 205: Yes the humor remains, if you can just wade through the long sentences on every philosophical subject imaginable. Here the author is definitely speaking to me concerning my opinion that the text becomes "pure sophistry": "If you think this letter is beginning to show signs of incoherence, think of Valéry's Monsieur Teste:'The incoherence of a discourse depends on the listener. The spirit apparently is not conceived in a way that allows it to be incoherent with itself'." Only when Rigoberto's writing takes takes the stage does the language become so convoluted!
Through page 187:Sometimes the writing gets me totally confused and I get annoyed and frustrated and wish it would just end. I wonder where is this going and is it going anywhere but in circles? Sometimes the ideas expressed about religion, freedom, politics seem pure sophistry. I have another book to read about Egon Schiele. Yes, I will read that next, if this book would only end....... Maybe it will pick up again?!
Through page 125: Tantalizing! What is real? What is not? What is intentionally erotic and what is just the readers' imagination? I don't like books that spell thing out in black and white. This is the opposite! Marvelous writing.
Through page 50: Oh I forgot to say, some of the lines are just too funny! No, I am not going to quote them.
This book is without question a guide to sexual arousal. I wouldn't recommend this book to any prude. Enticing, but beyond that the psychological ploys are amazing. She, Lucretia the wife and stepmother to Fonchito, is able to arouse her husband, Don Rigoberto, by describing her sexual encounters with Pluto, who invited her for that fabulous vacation week In Europe. Roberto encouraged Lucretia to accept - and what a trip it was! Willingly husband,wife and lover play this game. There is no reason to judge this immoral; they ALL know what they are doing. They all choose to play the game. These are quite extraordinary characters! (A sidenote - I mean if you love somebody, do you really not mind sharing them?!) Constantly I am wondering is this real or just arousing dreams of fantasy. Knowing this is not a "spoiler". I believe it helps a reader determine if it is a book they want to read. I like it, but it is certainly for adults. I hope I get more about Schiele; I am pretty sure I will.
Through 38 pages: The author dreams up very unusual and bizarre, but not unbelievable, scenarios - a young stepson's affair with his stepmother, a fabulous European vacation with the wife's previous lover and there are no strings attached, a house built for the things in it rather than the people. The circumstances are just so weird that you cannot help but wonder how you yourself would react. And yes some passages are erotic and very well expressed.
In Lima a stepson has affair with his stepmother, but what is real and what is fantasy is mixed/ not always clear. Schiele's life plays a central role in the novel. Erotic and sensual passages. Perhaps read In Praise of the Stepmother, which is tied to this novel. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is also praised by Kirkus
