Count Julian

COUNT JULIAN

by Juan Goytisolo

 

Award: PEN/Translation Winner 

 

Date Read: May 29, 2022

 

From sprinkling bugs in library books about Spain, to entering a model of a vagina at an amusement park, this novel is bizarre to say the least. I don’t know if it’s a cultural disconnect or a lack in my knowledge of Spanish history, Count Julian just didn’t resonate with me. I know how revered this book was, by the critics, by Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, and by the PEN committee. I just didn’t gain anything by reading it.

 

Count Julian is exiled from his native Spain and is now living in Tangiers. With no real plot to guide him and in prose that defies sentence structure, Count Julian obsesses about everything wrong with Spain from his distant vantage. He applauds Count Julian for “…facilitating the rape of Spanish virgins by the invading Moors. At one point he considers how to infect the whole country with syphilis.”[1] He abhors Spain’s literature, religion (Catholicism), cultural beliefs, myths (as is Count Julian himself) and language.

 

While I don’t really care what a mythical figure believes about Spain, I was repelled by the serpent-penis allegory, the categorization of female genitalia as “hideous, poisonous, nauseating,” and the torture of children via a Red Riding Hood fantasy. Even if Goytisolo is gay, female genitalia is what it is but there’s no excuse for the rape and exploitation of a small boy in the Red Riding hood part. 

 

Overall, this stream-of-consciousness style came across as blathering and whining to me and I reacted to the structure as I do to Faulkner. I’m glad there are those who were enlightened and enjoyed this novel, I’m just not one of them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Gentleman In Moscow

Image
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2018, Goodreads Finalist 2016, Kirkus Finalist 2016   Date Read: February 24, 2017   From Kirkus Reviews:   “Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.   Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfo
Read more

An Island

Image
AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 10, 2022   A short but mighty novel, An Island explores the concept of home, family, identity, the impact of political upheaval and the immigrant experience, when one’s suffering is so intense they move from one shitty country to the next. Samuel has finally found a peaceful home on an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. He was hired as a lighthouse keeper and after a tumultuous life, most of which was spent in prison as a political prisoner, he has carved out a life for himself on this island, enjoying a tranquil existence that basks in the quiet tasks of daily living.   Only after exploring Samuel’s life does the reader understand why such an isolated, spare and lonely existence satisfy him, with no desire to escape but only to grow deeper roots. His life witnessed the end of the British occupation, the installation of a brutal dictator and yet another dictator after the first was poisoned. Sam
Read more

The Changeling

Image
THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2019, LA Times Finalist 2017, PEN/Jean Stein Finalist 2018   Date Read: July 21, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “A  tragedy thrusts a mourning father into peculiar, otherworldly corners of New York City. When Apollo and Emma have their baby, Brian, it feels like both reward and challenge for the new dad. Apollo, the son of a single mother, had been scraping by as a bookseller who hunts estate and garage sales for rare first editions, so even the unusual circumstance of Brian's birth (in a stalled subway train) seems like a blessing, as does the way Apollo stumbles across a first edition of  To Kill a Mockingbird  (inscribed by Harper Lee to Truman Capote, no less) shortly after. But after some young-parent squabbles and inexplicable images on their smartphones foreshadow trouble, the story turns nightmarish: Apollo finds himself tied up and beaten by Emma, then forced to listen to the sounds of Brian’s murder. LaValle has
Read more