Status
Disponible
Call number
Publication
Seix Barral
Description
"One of Cuba's-and Latin America's-greatest historical novels, about imperial conquest carried out under the guise of liberation, in its first new English translation in sixty years and featuring a new foreword by Alejandro Zambra. When he arrives in Cuba at the close of the eighteenth century, Victor Hugues, a merchant sailor from Marseille, brings with him not only the idealism of the French Revolution but also its ambition and bloodlust. Landing at the Havana doorstep of a trio of wealthy, eccentric Creole orphans, he sweeps them across the Caribbean Sea to Guadeloupe, whose African slaves he frees only then to exploit them in his fight against the British for colonial sovereignty. What ensues in Alejo Carpentier's swashbuckling, magical realist masterpiece is an explosive clash between the New World and the Old World, and between revolutionary ideals and the corrupting allure of power"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
This is an historical novel in the fullest sense of the term: it works as a novel with a storyline that gives us an entertaining fictional view of events from the past, it brings in extra context from the perspective of the time in which it was written, and it pushes us to think more generally
Carpentier looks at the effects of the French Revolution in the Caribbean by following the career of the French colonial administrator Victor Hugues. (No relation to the Notre Dame chap, but Carpentier mischievously finds a reason for him to exclaim "Les cloches, les cloches!" the first time he appears...). Hugues was almost a forgotten figure in the 1950s, but Carpentier became interested in him when he realised that the same person was responsible for implementing the abolition of slavery in Guadeloupe in 1794 and reintroducing it in French Guiana barely a decade later. From the little Carpentier could find out about the early political career of Hugues it was clear that he must have begun as someone ideologically committed to the Revolution - how did he go from being a Jacobin disciple of Rousseau and Robespierre to enforcing Napoleonic directives that went against all the beautiful, logical ideals of the Age of Enlightenment?
We follow Hugues through the eyes of two young middle-class Cubans, the cousins Esteban and Sofia. They have grown up in a house full of subversive books and scientific toys in Havana, and make friends with Hugues when he calls at their home on a business trip shortly before the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution. There's a great deal of Candide-like zipping about the region and across the Atlantic in ships as a complicated triangular relationship develops between the three of them, in which erotic bonds are made to compete with political disenchantment.
There are some very beautiful lyrical passages in which Carpentier shows us how the baroque complexity of the Caribbean natural environment and its human history can't be reduced to the arbitrary "rational" concepts of political theory, which are especially represented in the book by the two machines of political power Hugues takes to Guadeloupe: the printing press and the guillotine. Just one example: I was especially struck by the description of a rain shower in Guadeloupe in Ch.XXII, which brings in practically an entire symphony orchestra of musical metaphors.
There are also a lot of implicit references to 20th century history, although Carpentier never officially steps outside the frame of his 18th century narrative. When he writes about Hugues's veneration of Robespierre and his utter disbelief when he hears about the coup of 9 Thermidor, it is pretty obvious that Carpentier is thinking about Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, for instance; Billaud-Varenne in exile has a certain resemblance to Trotsky, and I don't think anyone could read the final chapter without thinking about the Spanish Civil War. Carpentier was of course writing whilst the Cuban Revolution was in progress, so I would imagine there are a lot of references to Cuban politics as well, if you know where to look.
This is another of those books where publishers around the world have had their fun changing the title: in the Spanish original it's El siglo de las luces ("The century of lights", or "The age of enlightenment"), and at least the French, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish and Swedish editions have taken this over literally. The English publishers, on the other hand, were obviously afraid that it would be mistaken for a history textbook and chose the more dramatic Explosion in a cathedral (from the title of a painting that hangs in the home of Esteban and Sofia, and which Carpentier uses as an image of the collision between the Enlightenment and the Baroque). The Germans do the same with Explosion in der Kathedrale, but the Dutch take another striking image out of the text and call it De guillotine op de voorsteven ("The guillotine on the prow").
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about the nature of political commitment and historical change. I don't know if it was ever available in socialist Hungary, but if it was then I'm sure György Lukács would have found quite a few copies under the Christmas tree the year it came out (do Marxist philosophers even have Christmas trees?).Carpentier looks at the effects of the French Revolution in the Caribbean by following the career of the French colonial administrator Victor Hugues. (No relation to the Notre Dame chap, but Carpentier mischievously finds a reason for him to exclaim "Les cloches, les cloches!" the first time he appears...). Hugues was almost a forgotten figure in the 1950s, but Carpentier became interested in him when he realised that the same person was responsible for implementing the abolition of slavery in Guadeloupe in 1794 and reintroducing it in French Guiana barely a decade later. From the little Carpentier could find out about the early political career of Hugues it was clear that he must have begun as someone ideologically committed to the Revolution - how did he go from being a Jacobin disciple of Rousseau and Robespierre to enforcing Napoleonic directives that went against all the beautiful, logical ideals of the Age of Enlightenment?
We follow Hugues through the eyes of two young middle-class Cubans, the cousins Esteban and Sofia. They have grown up in a house full of subversive books and scientific toys in Havana, and make friends with Hugues when he calls at their home on a business trip shortly before the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution. There's a great deal of Candide-like zipping about the region and across the Atlantic in ships as a complicated triangular relationship develops between the three of them, in which erotic bonds are made to compete with political disenchantment.
There are some very beautiful lyrical passages in which Carpentier shows us how the baroque complexity of the Caribbean natural environment and its human history can't be reduced to the arbitrary "rational" concepts of political theory, which are especially represented in the book by the two machines of political power Hugues takes to Guadeloupe: the printing press and the guillotine. Just one example: I was especially struck by the description of a rain shower in Guadeloupe in Ch.XXII, which brings in practically an entire symphony orchestra of musical metaphors.
There are also a lot of implicit references to 20th century history, although Carpentier never officially steps outside the frame of his 18th century narrative. When he writes about Hugues's veneration of Robespierre and his utter disbelief when he hears about the coup of 9 Thermidor, it is pretty obvious that Carpentier is thinking about Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, for instance; Billaud-Varenne in exile has a certain resemblance to Trotsky, and I don't think anyone could read the final chapter without thinking about the Spanish Civil War. Carpentier was of course writing whilst the Cuban Revolution was in progress, so I would imagine there are a lot of references to Cuban politics as well, if you know where to look.
This is another of those books where publishers around the world have had their fun changing the title: in the Spanish original it's El siglo de las luces ("The century of lights", or "The age of enlightenment"), and at least the French, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish and Swedish editions have taken this over literally. The English publishers, on the other hand, were obviously afraid that it would be mistaken for a history textbook and chose the more dramatic Explosion in a cathedral (from the title of a painting that hangs in the home of Esteban and Sofia, and which Carpentier uses as an image of the collision between the Enlightenment and the Baroque). The Germans do the same with Explosion in der Kathedrale, but the Dutch take another striking image out of the text and call it De guillotine op de voorsteven ("The guillotine on the prow").
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LibraryThing member pessoanongrata
Stunning flights of description (you can see who Garcia-Marquez borrowed from), an interesting enough story...yet one could barely shake the hands of his marionette characters. No depth to any of his characters, not much to inform their psychology beyond their limited scope within the confines of
But it's still the kind of novel I wish I could write.
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itineraries and detailed mis-en-scene This book was serving the History of a region, the History of things and objects, more than it was serving a Story or Novel. But it's still the kind of novel I wish I could write.
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Subjects
Awards
Original publication date
1962
ISBN
9688470007 / 9789688470008
Other editions
El siglo de las luces by Alejo Carpentier (Hardcover)
El siglo de las luces. by Alejo Carpentier (Hardcover)