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In Avenue of Mysteries, Juan Diego--a fourteen-year-old boy, who was born and grew up in Mexico--has a thirteen-year-old sister. Her name is Lupe, and she thinks she sees what's coming--specifically, her own future and her brother's. Lupe is a mind reader; she doesn't know what everyone is thinking, but she knows what most people are thinking. Regarding what has happened, as opposed to what will, Lupe is usually right about the past; without your telling her, she knows all the worst things that have happened to you. Lupe doesn't know the future as accurately. But consider what a terrible burden it is, if you believe you know the future--especially your own future, or, even worse, the future of someone you love. What might a thirteen-year-old girl be driven to do, if she thought she could change the future? As an older man, Juan Diego will take a trip to the Philippines, but what travels with him are his dreams and memories; he is most alive in his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico. As we grow older--most of all, in what we remember and what we dream--we live in the past. Sometimes, we live more vividly in the past than in the present. Avenue of Mysteries is the story of what happens to Juan Diego in the Philippines, where what happened to him in the past--in Mexico--collides with his future.--Dust jacket.… (more)
User reviews
The book goes back and forth in time, and in
About halfway through the book, I realized I was bored and just wanted to get on with the story. About 3/4s of the way through, I just wanted some ends to be tidied up and the book to be done. But I had another 100+ pages before that would happen.
It's a book about faith. And sex. Lots and lots of sex. A preoccupation with sex. Discussions of sex. Thinking of sex. Having sex. It got old.
This novel is not so much dark as it is just sad.
I have liked John Irving's writing for years, especially A Prayer for Owen Meany and Cider House Rules, but not all of his books work for me. This one didn't. But I still am fond of Juan Diego and some of the other great characters in the book.
Now, half a century later, Diego is an established and respected writer. All of his friends from his days as a dump kid are dead including Lupe and he has health problems. He is on a pilgrimage in the Philippines to honour a promise he made to a friend all those years ago in Mexico. On his journey, he meets two women, a mother and daughter, who claim to be fans and quickly seem to take over his life including sharing his bed but who may not be what they seems. As Diego travels around the country meeting old friends and visiting shrines, and as he mixes his beta blockers with Viagra, he dreams about his former life and how it led him to here.
Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving is a beautifully written book containing many of the motifs and themes of his previous works: the circus, orphans, and, of course, the Church and sex. But this is John Irving and because he revisits older themes does not make this a rehash of earlier books. This is a story about the importance of dreaming and imagination not only in youth but perhaps especially in old age. It is about sacrifice and love and mystery both in the secular and the religious and it is full of empathy, humour, and just a touch of the mystical. It will make you laugh in parts and frustrate you in others but the story and its many quirky characters will stay with you long after you finish reading.
In this case, we have a story with many vintage Irving themes and motifs. Which, while some find it "lazy", I enjoy very much...reading his books always
This is the story of Juan Diego, a writer in bad health, who is reminiscing about his life. The back story of Juan Diego and his mind-reading sister Lupe is gripping. John Irving can bring the reader into the lives and places of his characters so well. The current story of Juan Diego has him skipping and doubling doses of his beta-blockers, which makes him an unreliable narrator of the present day. I'm not a fan of magical realism, and got a bit frustrated, but Mr. Irving managed to pull it off with a strongly executed ending.
I will continue to be a devoted fan.
This was true of [Avenue of Mysteries], which introduces us to Juan Diego and his younger sister Lupe. Their mother is a cleaning woman at a Jesuit orphanage and a prostitute. They are not sure who their fathers are, but they live in the Oaxacan dump with the dump boss. No one but Juan Diego understands Lupe, so he interprets for her. She reads minds very well and somewhat less accurately tells the future. Juan Diego teaches himself to read and becomes known as the dump reader. We gradually learn about Juan Diego and Lupe's childhoods through the dreams of an adult Juan Diego who is a famous author in route to Manila. Along the way, he meets Miriam and Dorothy, a mother and daughter who come to play a big role in Juan Diego's trip.
The flashbacks, which comprise much of the book, were my favorite parts. Lupe is a memorable character, and the relationship between Juan Diego and Lupe is tender and multi-layered. Their relationships hwith the Catholic Church (and especially with Virgin Mary or Mary Monster, as they refer to her) adds to the story, as does the cast of supporting characters. I didn't enjoy the present day storyline as much, but I was willing to overlook that in order to spend time with the resilient Juan Diego and Lupe.
Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving is a highly recommended story of a man looking back at his childhood while navigating a trip overseas.
Currently Juan Diego Guerrero, 54, is a recently retired professor and writer with a limp from a childhood accident. He is taking Lopressor for his blood pressure
Many years ago he and Lupe grew up as dump kids in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was a self-taught reader and interpreter for his sister, whose speech no one else could understand or interpret. Lupe is known for her ability to read minds, which she freely shares while Juan Diego translates to those around them. In these dreams, he and Lupe freely discuss their problems with the Catholic Church, their prostitute mother, their unknown fathers, and love of dogs.
While traveling he meets two women, Miriam and Dorothy, who he thinks are a mother and daughter. He lusts after both of them and they assist him in his journey, in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of sudden naps, pill dosage juggling and sex in the present day.
First and foremost the quality of the actual writing is excellent, which helps facilitate following the present and past story lines. For me, the dream segments, which take you back to Juan Diego's childhood, are much better than the present day travels with the eerie women. Admittedly, I grew tired of the sex-capades and simply kept reading to learn about what happened in his childhood and to confirm what I thought about the two women.
For Irving fans there are going to be many themes repeated here that have shown up in previous novels. Those who are new to Irving may struggle a bit with these themes; specifically, anyone who is a practicing Catholic might want to pass this one. I'd have to reread some of his earlier books, but this time around it felt excessively critical of Catholicism.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Simon & Schuster for review purposes.
Avenue of Mysteries is a coming of age novel focusing on Juan Diego, a boy who along with his younger sister Lupe lives along side a huge garbage dump in Oaxaca, Mexico protected by the man who may or may not be Juan Diego’s father. Juan Diego and Lupe are children of extraordinary talents. Juan Diego has successfully taught himself to read in both Spanish and English by studying the books he manages to save from the garbage dump’s fires. But despite Juan Diego’s prowess with words, his sister’s talent may be even greater than his: she reads minds and can sometimes predict the future.
Juan Diego is, however, no longer a child. He and Lupe left the dump almost sixty years ago, and those times now live only in his memories and dreams. Despite being so largely self-taught, Juan Diego managed to carve out a successful writing and teaching career for himself in the United States, but now recently retired from the world of academia, he is on his way to the Philippines where he plans (or, depending on how you look at it, will be forced) to spend some time with a still enthusiastic ex-student of his.
Early on during the trip, the professor, no longer a healthy man, finds that tinkering with the dosage of his daily meds has a great impact on his wakefulness, his energy level, his sexual prowess, and most importantly, on his dreams. Juan Diego so enjoys reliving his past through his dreams that once he finds the dosage combination that most often allows him to reach his most vivid dream state he is reluctant to return to taking his medicines as prescribed – no matter the consequences to his health. So, in alternating segments (sometimes within the same chapter), the reader learns Juan Diego’s childhood story and follows him on his sexual adventure across the Philippines.
Typical of previous John Irving novels, Avenue of Mysteries is a complicated blending of realism and magic, a long story filled with memorable characters that come and go in the life of the book’s main character. There are Mexican prostitutes of both sexes, the strictest of Catholic nuns, orphans galore, unbending priests, an evil lion tamer, girl acrobats, inspirational female doctors, dogs with personality, a Virgin Mary statue whose eyes move and shed tears, a mother and daughter who both spend hours in bed with our hero - and most important to Juan Diego, there is the failed candidate to the priesthood who changes Juan Diego’s life forever for the better.
All that said – and despite how much I enjoyed much of it – Avenue of Mysteries is not destined to rank anywhere among my favorite John Irving novels. Parts of it are simply more of a chore to get through than they should be, and the story takes a little longer to tell than it should have taken. Despite that, the author’s fans will not want to miss Avenue of Mysteries, because who knows which of Irving’s novels will be the one he decides is his last.
I read for pleasure and I wasn’t going to waste time (again) slogging through a story so weighted down by grammatical baggage it couldn’t get off the ground. Irving even admonished himself in the voice of his protagonist, Juan Diego, critiquing his graduate student, Clark French: “… it wasn’t only his writing that suffered from an overuse of exclamation points.” Clever John, but you forgot the italics.
No rating – wouldn’t be fair – but don’t waste your time. Like “A Widow For A Year,” “Avenue of Mysteries” has fallen victim to Mr. Irving’s fame-induced lack of competent, authoritative editing. A shame really, the book was a gift.
The stories and characters from the past were interesting and endlessly entertaining to me, but everything that was happening in the present day seemed tedious, distracting and just dragged on.
Although they were one
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813.54 |