From Publishers Weekly
In a spare, elegiac tale, physician and novelist Scliar ( The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes , etc.) continues to probe the ethnic diversity of Brazil with a singular cast of nimbly and graphically limned characters. On a December night in 1970, the tugboat Voluntarios sets sail from Porto Alegre; its mission is to bring the dying Benjamin, who is nostalgic for a Wailing Wall that he has never seen, to the legendary city of Jerusalem. The motley crew includes a prostitute; a Palestinian Maronite Christian who left Jerusalem after the Six-Day War; a preacher of a new religious sect, the followers of which are to build a Christian kingdom in Jerusalem; a captain who hasn't navigated a boat in years; and Paulo, the narrator, a self-described "son of the Portuguese bar owner, this goy." Scliar, an acclaimed practitioner of the Latin American technique of blending the mystical and fantastic with reality, here relays his visionsmore bittersweet than ecstatically magicalthrough the defeated narrator, who reminisces about his and Benjamin's escapade-rich childhood, and, like the other voyagers on the doomed boat, seeks a redemptive transcendence tragically beyond his reach.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Middle-aged bartender Paulo, of Porto Alegre, Brazil, here retells an episode from his youth, for what good is living without stories? His best friend was Benjamin, a Jew who longed to escape his humdrum life for the richly fabled city of Jerusalem. Since Paulo is descended from the medieval Portuguese crusader Sisenando the Mute, who sought to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidel, Paulo and Benjamin have something nominally in common. When Benjamin gets bone cancer, Paulo, Elvira (the prostitute both young men are seeing), and their ragtag circle of friends plot to kidnap the dying man from his hospital room and load him on a tugboat bound for Haifa. Scliar is already well known for his special mix of whimsy and reality, and this affecting little fantasy about devotion and abduction is a real joy to read.Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
