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Ladataan... The Polish BoxerTekijä: Eduardo Halfon
2014 to read. (18) Ladataan...
Kirjaudu LibraryThingiin nähdäksesi, pidätkö tästä kirjasta vai et. Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta. The first novel by Eduarado Halfon to be published in English, it is the third novel by him that I have read. Like Monastery and Canción, the book is a series of interconnected stories that take place all over the world and are the experiences of a semi-autobiographical narrator also named Eduardo Halfon. (Fittingly the epigraph is: "I have moved the typewriter into the next room where I can see myself in the mirror as I write."—Henry Miller.) The novel opens with the story of Eduardo teaching literature to college students (the author attended college in the US, but returned to Guatemala to teach literature for eight years). Although most of the students are mediocre, one stands out as exceptional. This was my favorite section of the book. The next chapter is about the author's experience attending a conference (a common theme in his books), this time on Mark Twain in Durham, North Carolina. I love this passage: "Look, how tragic, Lewis said, pointing to a dead deer on the road. Real common said the driver, to see deer run over around these parts. It occurred to me then, as a limousine carrying a Guatemalan and a Mormon rumbled past deer carcasses toward an academic conference on Mark Twain, that I was in the wrong place. Sometimes, just briefly, I forget who I am." Several of the chapters feature Milan Rakić, a Serbian pianist who wants to reconnect with his Gypsy roots. The title story is from a conversation Eduardo had with his grandfather, the first time he told him about his experience in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Although each story is seemingly separate, they are held together by the common narrator and themes such as identity in a global world, a search for meaning, and, as Eduardo says, the fact that "there's always more than one truth to everything." I love Halfon's writing, which is personal yet universal, and often with a sardonic humor. I will happily read anything else by Halfon that is translated into English. 50. The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon translation: from Spanish by Thomas Bunstead, Lisa Dillman, Daniel Hahn, Anne McLean, & Ollie Brock (2012) OPD: 2008 format: 181-page paperback acquired: November from City Lights in San Francisco read: Sep 20-22 time reading: 6:32, 2.2 mpp rating: 4½ genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: TBR locations: Guatemala, North Carolina, and Belgrade, Serbia (roughly 2003) about the author: Guatemala-born Jewish author who went to school, from age 10, in South Florida and later taught literature in Guatemala. (born 1971) I loved this. Literature and life and a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural clashes and mishmashes. And many beautifully quirky lines. Halfon is a Jewish-born Guatemalan grandson of a Polish Holocaust survivor and here writes about himself fictionally or metafictionally, occasionally holding the seams up for us to see. 2023 https://www.librarything.com/topic/351556#8243739 This book started off with short stories which totally engaged me. Then I realized these were not short stories at all, but part of a novel. However, I subsequently realized that this book was neither short stories nor a novel but somewhere in between. It's the story of a Guatamalan man named Eduardo Halfon. Yes, that is also the author's name. In the end, I realized that this book was all about identity. Was this book about a fictitious character or about the author? Was this book a short story or a novel? Who knows? Then there is the component of the characters having multiple ethnicities or roles. A student of Eduardo Halfon, who was a college literature professor in Guatamala, was a member of an indigenous tribe in Guatamala. Eduardo Halfon himself had a grandfather who had been a Jewish Holocaust survivor. So did that make the author or the protagonist Jewish? How about the acqaintance of the professor, a Serbian pianist by the name of Milan Rakić. Did this musician discard his Serbian identity to take up his Gypsy roots? If all of this sounds confusing, it is not. It's all woven into a beautifully written story. I especially liked it because I've been to Guatemala and to Yugoslavia (the part that is now Serbia), and remembered with joy the people and culture of those two vastly different countries. Some of the scenes in this story were about Judaism, but those made me deeply sad. After reading this story, you will know why. This is such an interesting novel with information slipped in from many categories, such as music, geography, literature, culture, food, and language. I took the opportunity while reading this book to learn more about all of these topics in depth in order to better understand what Halfon was trying to say. There was also the theme of what is reality and what is story. Were the tattooed numbers on grandfather’s arm his phone number or his tattoo from his imprisonment in Auschwitz? Did he escape his imprisonment there because a Polish Boxer told him what to say, or was it because he had been a carpenter? How much of one’s identity is truth and how much is fiction? There’s lots to think about here. I see this book as an exploration of identities. There were different ethnicities, different locations, different names, different countries of origin, different religions, different languages, different social statuses, and different professions or roles. And yet, these differences locked together in such an interesting and amazing story! I just loved it all.
“These are the stories of life . . . the question of survival (of both people and cultures) and the way the fictional makes the real bearable and intelligible.” PalkinnotNotable Lists
"Covers a vast landscape of human experience while enfolding a search for origins: a grandson tries to make sense of his Polish grandfather's past and the story behind his numbered tattoo; a Serbian classical pianist longs for his forbidden heritage; a Mayan poet is torn between his studies and filial obligations; a striking young Israeli woman seeks answers in Central America; a university professor yearns for knowledge that he can't find in books and discovers something unexpected at a Mark Twain conference. Drawn to what lies beyond the range of reason, they all reach for the beautiful and fleeting, whether through humor, music, poetry, or unspoken words. Across his encounters with each of them, the narrator--a Guatemalan literature professor and writer named Eduardo Halfon--pursues his most enigmatic subject: himself."--Back cover. Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumEduardo Halfon's book The Polish Boxer was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current Discussions-Suosituimmat kansikuvat
Google Books — Ladataan... LajityypitMelvil Decimal System (DDC)863.7Literature Spanish and Portuguese Spanish fiction 21st CenturyKongressin kirjaston luokitusArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo:
Oletko sinä tämä henkilö? |
Halfons twijfel over zijn nationale en culturele identiteit heeft te maken met de grote diversiteit aan voorouders: die komen uit Egypte, Libanon, Syrië en Polen, zijn Joods en zijn moslim. En Eduardo werd dan wel geboren in Guatemala, hij groeide grotendeels op in de Verenigde Staten, waarna hij - op volwassen leeftijd - weer terugkeerde naar Guatemala, waar hij werkte als docent literatuur en begon met het schrijven van boeken en verhalen. Inmiddels woont hij in Parijs.
Elk van de verhalen in deze bundel is onderdeel van een zoektocht naar identiteit. In het openingsverhaal raakt de schrijver gefascineerd door één van zijn studenten, een jongeman met een inheemse achtergrond. Ja, die is een échte - een bijna stereotype - Guatemalteek, en staat een behoorlijk eind van de intellectuele en stedelijke wereldburger Halfon af. Maar in het verhaal waarin hij zijn orthodox-Joodse zus in Israël bezoekt blijkt dat ook het Jodendom waar hij mee opgroeide inmiddels heel ver van hem af staat. En in het Polen van zijn opa voelt hij zich net zozeer een vreemde.
Waartoe hij zich dan wél voelt aangetrokken? Tot het idee van zigeuner zijn, zwervend over de wereld. In verschillende verhalen komt een pianist uit het voormalige Joegoslavië voor. Deze man is gefascineerd door zigeuners en hun muziek, maar als Halfon hem probeert te traceren, tot in de zigeunerwijken van Belgrado, blijkt dat de zigeuners zelf weinig op hebben met al die romantici die een zigeuner in zichzelf zien. Ook deze identiteit ontglipt Halfon uiteindelijk.
Waar de schrijver zich trouwens ook toe aangetrokken voelt: vrouwen. Oudere vrouwen, jonge vrouwen, één van zijn studentes, een jonge (minderjarige?) prostituee in Belgrado, een stewardess. Over zijn genderidentiteit en zijn seksuele identiteit heeft de schrijver blijkbaar geen enkele twijfel. Helaas gaat een aanzienlijk deel van het boek wel over deze erotische fantasieën van de schrijver wat het geheel af en toe een beetje vermoeiend maakt om te lezen. Juist ook omdat de schrijver met zijn zoektocht naar identiteit in cirkeltjes rond blijft draaien en nooit tot conclusies komt. Zelfs niet tot de conclusie dat het er misschien niet zoveel toe doet, want wat is nationaliteit, of identiteit uiteindelijk? Is die uiteindelijk niet altijd vrij persoonlijk?
Moet je het boek lezen? Als je op zoek bent naar wat mysterieuze, dolende verhalen en bespiegelingen over identiteit, dan is het antwoord zeker ja. De verhalen zijn in het algemeen goed geschreven en kunnen dienen als interessant discussiemateriaal voor leesclubs. Zoek je echter naar verhalen over het leven in Guatemala, of verhalen met duidelijke conclusie, dan kan je het misschien beter overslaan. ( )