The Green House
On Sale: 02/01/2005
The Green House
On Sale: 02/01/2005
Format:
About the Book
"Dazzling. . . . An imaginative documentation of nature's sway over man." —New York Times Book Review
From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, an important and passionate novel set in Peru, that explores man’s struggle with both nature and civilization
Vargas Llosa’s classic early novel takes place in Puira, a Peruvian town situated between desert and jungle, and which is torn by boredom and lust. Don Anselmo, a stranger in a black coat, builds a brothel on the outskirts of the town while he charms its innocent people, thus setting of a chain-reaction with extraordinary consequences.
This brothel, called the Green House, brings together the innocent and the corrupt: Bonificia, a young Indian girl saved by the nuns only to become a prostitute: Father Garcia, struggling for the church; and four best friends drawn to both excitement and escape.
The conflicting forces that haunt the Green House evoke a world balanced between savagery and civilization—and one which is cursed by not being able to discern between the two.
Critical Praise
“The whole spread of the major special forces at work in Peru today—the neighborhood of pimps and criminals where the Green House stands; the strange maniacal alliance between the army and the missionaries who together subjugate the Indians; and the frightful economic exploitation wreaked on everyone by the next higher echelon of power. All these forces are described in luxuriant and at times dazzling detail...an imaginative documentation of nature’s sway over man, done with all the color and terror of anyone’s worst nightmare. The translation by Gregory Rabassa is, as always, luminous and transparent.” — New York Times Book Review
“His characters may be saints, villains, victims or nothing in particular, but they break out of the pages of this magnificent novel into the stubborn uncontainability of life itself.” — New Statesman
"A big, sprawling symbolic novel about dream and reality." — Kirkus Reviews
-Product Details
- ISBN: 9780060732790
- ISBN 10: 0060732792
- Imprint: Harper Perennial
- On Sale: 02/01/2005
- Pages: 416
- List Price:21.00 CAD
- BISAC1 : FICTION / Cultural Heritage
- BISAC2 : FICTION / Literary
- BISAC3 : FICTION / Hispanic & Latino
