Reviews

Paradiso by José Lezama Lima

livingprose's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

jonbrammer's review against another edition

3.0

Paradiso defeated me. It is a novel that requires more than focused concentration - it also asks for your imagination and devotion. There are narrative blind alleys, excessive (and seemingly irrelevant) erudition, and an unclear sense of time. Ostensibly about Jose Cemi's coming of age, the narrative thread is extremely loose. In order to make any sense of it, I realized that I needed to focus on paragraphs rather than trying to follow a linear story. Each paragraph is like a tone poem, loaded with allusion and imagery, and are disconnected from what comes before or after. In a way, I guess Paradiso like many other modernist works, attempts to simulate human consciousness, but I think Virginia Woolf mastered this mode of writing with very few successful imitators. Novels like Paradiso tread the line between art and egotism - what good is telling a story if no one can understand it? Is it just meant to be an abstraction that settles into the subconscious? Or is it a cover for bad writing?

I actually think this is a masterpiece, but it is also so mysterious and overwhelming that I can't say more than that there are some moments of real beauty, some brain-burning imagery (the scarecrows playing chess at the end will stay with me), and just an aesthetic sense of the poet in love with language more than interested in telling a coherent story.

rhaines46's review against another edition

I fought this every step of the way. To what purpose is not entirely clear, the sense of accomplishment from finishing a "difficult" 500 page book is undercut by having understood probably 10% of it. The extent of the literary criticism I can offer is that he used the words (or the translator used the words) "labyrinth" and "voluptuous" a lot, which are words I think I know the meaning of but almost never made any sense to me in the context in which they appeared here. He also used the word "Pythagorean" a lot, and never to describe a theorem or even a triangle. No idea what was going on there.

The best things I can say about my experience reading this (a) it instilled some healthy humility to read something that clearly has artistic merit but I was basically incapable of engaging with, (b) the few parts I did understand I usually liked, (c) a few of the parts I didn't understand I also liked, and (d) it made me excited to read something else

freewaygods's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Even in translation, the prose is gorgeous. I found Cemí, the central character, to be almost absent, in contrast to the myriad others populating the novel, who are so full and fleshed. Regardless, this high baroque novel is challenging, but ultimately worth your time. 

mmcloe's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

I'll be honest I've never read a more difficult book in my life and I've read Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses and Three Trapped Tigers and 2666. I don't really feel like I can give this a proper rating because I only understood about 20% of what was going on at any given point in time. Kudos to Lima for writing a book this dense though! Perhaps one day when I'm very old and have read much much more I'll be able to return to this book and glean something meaningful from it. I think there was gay stuff which is cool!

yossikhe's review

1.0

Una obra que hace al lector apreciar la riqueza y belleza del idioma español. Los capítulos 7, 8, 9, 10 y 11 son excelsos. Tanto las referencias a la filosofía como la autoexploración de la adolescencia, la meditación sobre la homosexualidad o el triángulo amoroso entre Cemí, Foción y Frónesis son dignos de aplausos. Sin embargo, es una novela densa. Los primeros capítulos son lentos y la trama es prácticamente inexistente. En los últimos tres capítulos, Lezama Lima se desvía de la historia para introducir nuevos personajes, a los que no les encontré la relación con el hilo previo. Personalmente, no me gusta leer el estilo barroco: es exageradamente descriptivo hasta la desesperación.

marisacarpico's review against another edition

3.0

Like the art, not so impressed by the storytelling.