Avalovara

by Osman Lins

Book Overview

Avalovara is a modern epic on a grand scale, a rich and lyrical novel of quest that considers the difficulties of love and celebrates its pleasures.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394498518
• ISBN13: 9780394498515
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Difficult, yet Remarkable

The feeling that remains in any normal human being who stumbles through that passage is one of complete and utter disorientation. In fact, throughout the book, the reader is likely to feel lost more often than not. But, in a twisted sort of way, that is the whole point behind Lins' book. After all, what is life but a journey through which we know no end, no point, no destination? Instead of telling the story of Abel's three affairs in 330 pages of neatly packaged prose, complete with beginning, end, climax and character, Lins takes the reader on a journey that is much more real.Avalovara will prove to be a colossal struggle for anybody that attempts to "understand" it as he or she is reading it. In short, those looking for plot will, much like Bono, never find what they're looking for. Instead, the beauty of the novel lies in the language. Lins' writing is rambling, Faulkneresque, stream of consciousness at some points, and brilliantly beautiful lyricism at others. At most points, it is a luscious combination of the two. "The smell of dust is dissipated by her presence or by the lukewarm afternoon air coming in through the window," Lins writes on page seven. "Our tongues repeat the game of advance and retreat. Our incisors touch at times and then our muscles retract." On page 223, he writes, "I suck in Abel's mouth, I speak in his mouth, inside his mouth, I say that I love him, with his tongue entangled in mine he says that he loves me, the word "love" rolls between our teeth." The repetition is incredibly simple, but incredibly poetic.Love, human emotion, human attraction, sexuality: all are among the most common words and phrases in the English language, but all are utterly impossible to define in a sentence or two. They are among the most complex subjects ever studied by the minds of man. They are mysteries, enigmas, riddles. They are, much like the magic square and its accompanying spiral, puzzles for which we may never have the entire answer. Lins writes his book in such a way. Instead of getting lost in people, places, things and events, the readers is lost in a dizzying array of feelings, emotions and desires, the same way anybody involved in a love affair is lost. There are novels that require you to think, novels that require you to follow, novels that require you to decide. Lins' novel requires you to feel, and the answer behind the puzzle that adorns the first page of the novel lies in the way these characters feel - about each other, about the world, about their desire for one another.Lins' book is not for everyone. There is no quest, no mission, no end. There is no Holden, no Demian, no George. There is, however, a brilliant trip through the minds, hearts and souls of the characters - minds, hearts and souls that take the readers into and through the very essence of human emotion. There is some of the most beautifully poetic prose to ever come out of Latin America. And, by the end of the novel, there is a resoundi

Sensual, meticulous, erotic, with a complex plot

The late Brazillian author Gregory Rabassa' Avalovara is an enduringly impressive work of Latin American Literature (aptly translated into English by Gregory Rabassa), about one man and his three great loves. One seems unattainable despite his pursuit; one is a kindly hermaphrodite who enjoys the fruit of passion; and one goes only by an ideogram for her name. Sensual, meticulous, erotic, with a complex plot and tangled human machinations, Avalovara is a uniquely written, inventive, and original literary experience.

Can you imagine a fusion of Borges and Garcia Marquez?

This gorgeous novel is that chimera, that impossible novel that is both an intellectual endeavor and a magical fiction that seamlessly blends Borges and Garcia Marquez. The book is structured as a spiral, and it recounts the story of a man and the three women he loved. The book is filled with intellectual games, as in the fiction of Borges and Cortazar, yet the writing is as sensual and erotic as in the fiction of Amado and Garcia Marquez. I loved it!