Rapaz, que livro maluco! É tão doido que eu não sei nem dizer exatamente o que foi que eu li. Impossível determinar o que é real e o que é viagem do narrador. Narrador este, por sinal, que muda frequentemente, às vezes no meio da frase. No começo parece que o narrador é o Mudinho, depois você começa a perceber que existem pelo menos uns 3, tem hora que a cachorra assume esse papel, e depois você começa a desconfiar que são todos personalidades distintas da mesma pessoa alucinada. O livro é um show de descrições de coisas repugnantes que podem incomodar os mais sensíveis. Eu, felizmente ou infelizmente (porque um dos destaques do livro é justamente esse), não me impressiono muito com as coisas que leio, então pra mim foi indiferente nesse aspecto. Apesar de ser uma leitura difícil e cansativa (não no sentido de chatice, mas de esgotamento mental mesmo), eu achei bacana. A forma como a narrativa flui em alguns momentos te coloca no meio daquela loucura toda, os pensamentos delirantes do narrador e o pandemônio que são as conversas e brigas das velhas.

Permanente vértigo, profundo desconcierto.

Oh boy. Where do I start with this novel? It secures its place in the "WTF did I just read?" category (and not in a good way). The Obscene Bird of Night was a monumental disappointment. My biggest problem with this book was its writing style. Donoso employs first person narration and suddenly switches to the third person and then goes back to the first person. Sometimes he does that in a single paragraph. It's nearly impossible to keep track of what the heck is happening in this book. The writing is dense and it feels like you're aimlessly traveling in a labyrinth of text. At the half-way point I gave up in trying to understand the text in front of me and just kept reading it without fully grasping what I was reading. I usually don't mind being challenged by a difficult text but this was too much. It also doesn't help that the book is not told in a linear manner. The story meanders and it becomes a chore to follow it.

Usually, I'm able to find some positives to recommend the book to a potential reader but I'm really struggling to find any positives in The Obscene Bird of Night. If you're interested in the Latin boom writers, it might be worth checking this book out. If you like magical realism, there might be something there for you in this book. Overall, this book frustrated me beyond reason. I struggle with not finishing books I don't enjoy and that was definitely the case with this novel. I ended up wrestling with this text until the end and, unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about this reading experience.

What did I even read?
--
Suffers from being too vague at times, especially with time.
Not as vulgar and obscene as I thought it'd be.
I don't think overhyped is the proper word to describe the book and though I did take a break while reading it, I found it enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend it people, personally.

Unsung masterpiece of universal literature. José Donoso takes the experiments of character shape-shifting and narrative built by William Faulkner and leads them into excess, twisting the plot(s) like a Deleuzo-Guattarian nightmare in which every character, word, description becomes liquid, heterogenous, formless shadows haunting from spider-web hallucinations stuck on a witch's palate which trap every cough from the schizophrenic nature of Humberto Peñaloza's ruminations and that we do not now if they reveal obscure truths of a decadent and rotten chilean aristocracy or if they are incoherent blabberings which melt away to form shimmering clouds of smog. This is not a romantic portrait of Latin America, this is not your 'la vie en róse' boring ass Gabriel García Márquez...this was the sound of the hallucinogenics wearing off at the end of the 60's, the black obscene birds casting their grey figures over the deserted prey, over the putrid carcass slung on the andean cordilleras. Yes, your fetish for third world exotism will be challenged when reaching this black polylogue of a book.

I'm not sure whether to give this one 3 or 3.5 stars (how about 3.25?). I liked it, but it didn't have that certain something (not sure what, flow maybe?). Magic realism with a heavy dose of the grotesque. Think Marquez, but filmed by David Lynch (or painted by Goya). A stream-of-collective-conscience narration of witches and nuns and freaks, where the dialog and the telling blend together.[1]

The structure is what makes it interesting. The narration and the narrator shift, are in constant flux. There are 30 chapters, but at times they feel like they could be read in any order. The narration shifts from first to second to third person. You're never quite sure which character the narrator has shape-shifted into. Maybe you?

I like to look at first lines, as a way to understand a book (as a sign and guide of what's to come). And I think here he could have chosen a better way to begin. It's almost a cliché that a magic realist book open with a death, or a mention of death, and this one's no different [2]. But since the structure and theme of the book are flux (and the difficulty of the artist in expressing such flux), why not begin with that? I might have begun with chapter 17, "Am I deaf, as well as mute? And blind as well because I can only just make out the shadows and ambiguous reflections...that appear and disappear and change places and become obscure and fade away and walk around without explanation, and then, in the middle of that movement, extinguish themselves, erase themselves?" [3] That's a pretty good description of the book itself [4].

So if you're up for a freaky magical monstrous ride, read this.


[1] In Italian the title contains a double entendre that I'm not sure exists in the original.

[2] "Doña Raquel Ruiz cried and cried when Madre Benita called her to tell her that Brígida was found dead at dawn." (my translation)

[3] My translation from the Italian translation (pg 239 in the Bompiani 1987 edition).

[4] Another taste, from chapter 21, page 301: "Security? Who could claim security in this fluctuating and nebulous business?"