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A review by siria
Beautiful Maria of My Soul by Oscar Hijuelos
1.0
God, this was dreadful. The only way this book could have been more a straight male fantasy is if it had been narrated by a penis—and believe me, there enough descriptions of improbably huge penises in Beautiful María of my Soul that such a narrative device wouldn't have been an enormous stretch. The protagonist, María, is a man's bland idea of a beautiful woman; I never believed in her as a real person. Her great love affair with Nestor seems to be based mostly on the fact that they're both good looking and he has an enormous penis—and this sexist pap carries on for 300 pages.
The prose is also pretty terrible. Hijuelos seems to think that peppering his prose with italicised words in Spanish every other sentence is a good alternative to actually creating atmosphere and texture. Some words are not translatable into English, true, but Hijuelos delights in things like having his characters say "Muy bien. Very good," when they are ostensibly speaking Spanish all the time.
The final straw was the ending, in which the author inserts himself as a character (polite and modest and self-effacing!) who helps to tie up the last few strands of the narrative. It read as obnoxious. Really, really not recommended.
The prose is also pretty terrible. Hijuelos seems to think that peppering his prose with italicised words in Spanish every other sentence is a good alternative to actually creating atmosphere and texture. Some words are not translatable into English, true, but Hijuelos delights in things like having his characters say "Muy bien. Very good," when they are ostensibly speaking Spanish all the time.
The final straw was the ending, in which the author inserts himself as a character (polite and modest and self-effacing!) who helps to tie up the last few strands of the narrative. It read as obnoxious. Really, really not recommended.