Boxwood [Paperback]

Camilo Jose Cela (Author), Patricia Haugaard (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2008

The extraordinary experimental final novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Boxwood might perhaps be best described as a kind of whirlwind: a vortex of marvelous writing about folklore, traditions, superstitions, cooking, nautical disasters on the Coast of Death (ships from afar spilling cargoes of oranges, typewriters, iron ore, oil, spices), elements of nature both cruel and beautiful, whales, priests, witches, ghosts—sprinkled with various autobiographies— everything exquisite and crass in Cela's native home, Galicia, Spain.

"If the Holy Ghost were a bat instead of a dove our religion would not be the one true faith and there would be fewer Catholics, and if he were a magpie or a jackdaw there would be none at all, the devil appears in the guise of a billy goat whose rump you kiss as a mark of homage and respect, the Holy Ghost could have been a swallow, but not a cormorant, the form taken by the Holy Ghost is well thought out, you immediately see the hand of God in it, Father Xerardino, the priest of San Xurxo, supposes the form might also have been a butterfly in all the colors of the spectrum...." (from Boxwood)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

More ambitious and far-reaching than hisMazurka for Two Dead Men, Cela's dizzying portrait of life during the Spanish Civil War is a considerable achievement. Like other novels by this rebellious and adroit Nobel laureate, the book's movement is much like a skewed ballroom dance, in which mini-narratives waltz to a music made up of the squeaks, crashes and mighty crescendos of human history. The book's four sections take up four different stories of Galicia, a community on the Spanish coast: a hunt for Marco Polo sheep, a hunchback's love affair with an earthy and sensitive woman, the misadventures of a flamboyantly adulterous woman and the search for the fabled city of Cibola. Interwoven with these narrative threads are repeated, almost mesmerizing references to ships sunk off the Spanish coast, local myths, amusing and insightful platitudes, and snatches of dialogue (which occasionally offer lighthearted critiques of the book itself). Boasting few paragraphs, sparse periods and few apparent connections between trains of thought, the novel would be frustrating if Cela's fragments were not so true to the humanity of the characters they describe. The images circulating here - a blind man's vision of peacocks strutting on the ocean floor, a road strewn with crosses and gold - acquire dimension with each appearance, ripening in a manner somewhat new for Cela, whose previous works vivified swirling human activity instead of considering its consequences. The novel is a rich pleasure for readers patient enough to appreciate its intrinsic harmony.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A complex adventure that weaves and branches through varying narratives, including traditional wisdom, folklore, history, superstition, seafarers' stories, and autobiography. -- Review of Contemporary Fiction, Mark Tursi, Spring 2003

Cela's fullest realization of tremendismo, which combines aspects of existential philosophy and brutal realism with a surreal atmosphere. -- Context, Mark Tursi, Spring 2003

If there is any Spanish novelist who deserves the Nobel Prize...it is without doubt Cela. -- Miguel Ugarte, The Nation --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (June 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811217515
• ISBN-13: 978-0811217514
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,141,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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