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Paradiso (novel)
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Wikipedia article
'Paradiso' is a novel by Cuban writer Jos Lezama Lima, the only one completed and published during his lifetime. Written in an elaborately baroque style, the narrative follows the childhood and youth of Jos Cem, and depicts many scenes which resonate with Lezama's own life as a young poet in Havana. Many of the characters reappear in Lezama's posthumous novel 'Oppiano Licario', which was published in Mexico in 1977.
Background
The novel was originally published in Cuba in an edition regarded by the Argentine writer Julio Cortzar as being highly unsatisfactory, in part because of Lezama's poor punctuation and stylistic errors. With Lezama's blessing, Cortzar personally edited the text for a subsequent Mexican edition, correcting "thousands of errors and ambiguities."Cortzar, Julio. 'Cartas.' Tomo 4. Alfaguara, 2013, p.79
Despite having written one of the most accomplished novels in Cuba's history, Lezama said he never considered himself a novelist, but rather a poet who wrote a poem that became a novel. 'Paradiso' can thus be considered a kind of long poem, just as well as a neo-baroque novel.
Plot
The novel relates Cem's struggles with a mysterious childhood illness, describes the death of his father, and explores his homosexuality and literary sensibilities. He lives in the world of pre-Castro Havana, and the Cuban Revolution only appears as a secondary plot. Some of the later chapters incorporate narrative experiments in which several alternating stories, set during widely divergent eras and having no immediately apparent connection with Jos Cem, are interwoven and eventually merged. (In a letter to Julio Cortzar, Lezama explained that these chapters represent Cem's dreams after the death of his father.Letter dated October 21, 1966, reproduced in Aurora Bernrdez, et al., 'Cortzar de la A a la Z'. Alfaguara 2014.)
Controversy
Because of the graphic homosexual scenes and the novel's ambivalence towards the political situation of the day, 'Paradiso' encountered controversy and publication problems. Today it is widely read in the Spanish-speaking world but has not achieved the same fame in English-speaking countries despite a translation by the American translator Gregory Rabassa.
References
'Interrogando a Lezama Lima.' Recopilacin de textos sobre Jos Lezama Lima. Ed. Pedro Simon Martinez. La Habana: Ediciones Casa de las Amricas: 1970.
Category:1966 novels
Category:Spanish-language books
Category:Cuban novels
Category:Novels set in Cuba
Category:Novels with gay themes
Category:1960s LGBT novels
Category:Philosophical novels
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