Amazon.com: The Carnivorous Lamb (9780854490189): Agustin Gomez-Arcos: Books

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a perfect book, June 21, 2005

By

Suzanne Bourchier (Byron Bay, NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Carnivorous Lamb (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

Its been a while since reading a book that was so profoundly satisfying and well-finished. It is a beautiful book celebrating an exuberant, deep love. It sells the book short to call it simply homo-erotic, just because the main protaganist is a man who loves his brother. The book deals with love and its devastating mutations in a protective confined stultyfying Spanish home in the Franco years. The metaphors for the "chronically dead" fascist regime are so graphic that you find yourself gasping for air...and the characters, as portrayed by Ignacio, the younger brother, are gruesomely real as he tells his story with wit and skill that have you smiling hard as you read. Very sexy too, even for a hetero woman.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars magic realism?, October 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Carnivorous Lamb (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Carnivorous Lamb unfolds itself like a particularly lovely, intricate, and satisfying dream. Things that at first appear to be matter-of-fact reveal themselves to be larger metaphors for politics, philosophy, social atmospheres, and religion, in prose both decadent and surreal. At heart this is a love story: love between brothers, literally and figuratively.

One of my favorites. :)

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, freedom and politics: loaded book!, January 10, 2002

By

"rils" (Mountain View, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Carnivorous Lamb (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

Augustin Gomez Arcos makes several political statements on the appearance of a love story.
At first, everything looks wrong: incestuous love, uncaring parents...
Then the colors appear: red - yellow - red...
Yellow is the color of the church and the military 'dictatura'
Red is the one for Revolution, with defeated freedom dreams.
Augustin plays his colors with a very fine hand. Self-exhiled from Spain, he writes in French as a first statement against Franco. The love story will move you, but still the surface of it may repel the puritan in you. And those two colours will haunt you until you finish this book... But you have to restrain yourself... if you still want some for tomorrow...

My only complain is the translation: the original text is so beautiful and yet it's been translated into slang... Hum, if you understand two words of french, that would be a good twisted training book- and it's not 'out of print' over there!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Too deep for me to get the allegory...
...but it obviously was one. The house evidently represented Spain, and everyone in it ostensibly exemplified different aspects of Spanish society, but after finishing the book I... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Anisia Majdanek

2.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful language describes creepy incestuous brothers in an either romantic or scary (but ultimately frustrating) allegory
The NYC LGBT Center book group discussed this book in January 2010. It came with high recommendations. We had a good sized group turn out to discuss it, but...

Wow. Read more

Published on January 10, 2010 by HWilliams

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've read in months
Rating: 10/10

PROS:
- Phenomenal writing. I read this simultaneously in English and French (my French is functional, at best), but I can't comment, as other... Read more

Published on June 22, 2009 by Charly T. Anchor

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet another must read!
I just stumbled on to this book while I was roaming through recommendations one day. I can tell you this is the sort of thing I have hoped I was purchasing and ended up getting... Read more

Published on February 26, 2009 by S. C. Matthews

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing.
Agustin Gomez-Arcos, The Carnivorous Lamb (David R. Godine, 1975)

I find myself somewhat astonished that a book this explicit was published in 1975. Read more

Published on May 30, 2008 by Robert P. Beveridge

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Get It Now............Less Than 20 Copies Left

((I award a Secondary Title for this review: "A One-Of-A-Kind Take on Brotherly Love"))

I can't tell you if this was a beautifully written book....... Read more

Published on August 25, 2006 by JUST A REVIEWER2

5.0 out of 5 stars My all time favourite novel
Of all the many books I've read, this is my favorite.

Published on January 23, 2006 by TRio

5.0 out of 5 stars Food for starving hearts...
I read the french original and do not know the translation. Is was given to me by a dear friend, years ago, and was one of the best readings I ever had. Read more

Published on November 29, 2001 by nan_luke@hotmail.com

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Translation
This book is a masterpiece written in beautiful French by a Spanish exile. Unfortunately, however, the English translation loses the purity and clarity of the original. Read more

Published on July 13, 2000 by Mr Edward Hughes

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure, captivating emotion held weakly in a husk of words.
I am so sorry this book had to end, but from it, one can learn so much about one's self. Through the watchful eye of society and ubiquitous religion, comes harsh criticism and... Read more

Published on June 27, 1999

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
Eyes closed. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
carnivorous lamb, invisible coterie, se�ora your mother, black prayer book, old chestnut tree

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Agustin G�mez-Arcos, The Carnivorous Lamb, Good Lord, Clara the Clean, American Evelyn, New York

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!