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Farewell to the Sea: A Novel of Cuba (Pentagonia)

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A young Cuban couple gain permission to spend a week at a beach resort. They spend most of their time sitting by the ocean, silent in private thought. We get inside her head for the 7 days and then into his, receiving different perspectives and views on the vacation, and on their current lives. Arenas does a fantastic job of expressing both her and his frustrations at their station in life, and in the freedom they feel has deserted them. She laments the burden of motherhood and the loss of her personal sense of self. He laments his loss of freedom as the Castro government clamps harder down on writers and artists. Also, driving his frustration is his own frustration as a closet homosexual in a straight, macho world. Arenas does not overtly state his themes, but reveals them like one peeling an onion. There is layer after layer to discover.. and the underlying themes of the novel come across through reverie and daydreams.. hallucinations of the young couple as they stare at the water. It is this non-linear dual-narrative style of writing that is so effective as through their private thoughts, we start to understand the true essence of the lives of this young, but jaded young couple.

A young Cuban couple gain permission to spend a week at a beach resort. They spend most of their time sitting by the ocean, silent in private thought. We get inside her head for the 7 days and then into his, receiving different perspectives and views on the vacation, and on their current lives. Arenas does a fantastic job of expressing both her and his frustrations at their station in life, and in the freedom they feel has deserted them. She laments the burden of motherhood and the loss of her personal sense of self. He laments his loss of freedom as the Castro government clamps harder down on writers and artists. Also, driving his frustration is his own frustration as a closet homosexual in a straight, macho world. Arenas does not overtly state his themes, but reveals them like one peeling an onion. There is layer after layer to discover.. and the underlying themes of the novel come across through reverie and daydreams.. hallucinations of the young couple as they stare at the water. It is this non-linear dual-narrative style of writing that is so effective as through their private thoughts, we start to understand the true essence of the lives of this young, but jaded young couple.

In "Farwell to the Sea," Arenas continues his Pentagonia series by departing from the hallucinatory violence presented in the first two books ("Singing from the Well" and "Palace of the White Skunks") and entering the minds of a young married couple spending a week by the sea. Divided in two parts, the first part is the stream-of-consciousness narrative by the unnamed woman who resents her baby, fears losing her husband, and who feels helpless to cope with the communist society in Cuba. She aches for her husband's love, yet is suspicious of his infidelity, particularly when a handsome and taciturn teen-aged boy arrives with his loquacious mother and moves into the cottage next to theirs. Her dreams are mixed into her daily conscious narrative and reveal her anxiety, torment and fears. In one dream with sexual connotations, she sees visions of Greek warriors slaughtering each other in a violent orgy-like battle. And in another vivid rendition of the ubiquitous cue of the communist life, Cubans stand morosely in line while soldiers standy nearby, gunning down anyone that dares defies them or attempts to alter the cue.

The second part is from the husband's, Hector, perspective, but it's primarily told in poetic form and involves often allegorical portrayals of how he sees Cuban life and his own. His resentment underscores much of his tale, even his attraction to the boy next door, which becomes a central conflict during his stay. He longs for the boy and to freely express his homosexuality, yet feels the omnipresent oppression of the communist system as it systematically stifles all that is human. Perhaps one of the most poignant passages is the following poem in which Hector expresses what the communist system has done to his and everyone else's humanity: "You are no longer a man who calls things by their name -- you blaspheme. You are no longer a man who laughs -- you jeer. You are no longer a man who hopes -- you mistrust. You are no longer a man who loves -- you accept. You are no longer a man who dreams aloud -- you are silent. You no longer sleep and dream -- you are sleepless. You are no longer one who is wont to believe -- you consent. You are no longer a seeker -- you hide." And then he adds the line (not 30 yet) to signify how communism has jaded him and turned him into a hopeless cynic while still a young man.

Beautifully written, and a tale that will bear repeated readings.

I love each of the books in Pentagonia but this one especially stands out as a masterful work by a truly brilliant talent. Perfect as a stand alone read or as the center of the five novels, I cannot recommend this enough.

Having read them in their intended order, Farewell to the Sea seemed to anchor the five novels perfectly, fusing the stream of consciousness of Singing from the Well and Palace of the White Skunks and paving the way for the absurdity of The Color of Summer and the dystopian horror of The Assault. Farewell to the Sea places Arenas in the company of Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, but he still manages to forge a niche of his own that is remarkable, stunning and thoroughly rewarding. Read this book.

For sure the best of Arena's books, this middle novel of his five-book pentagonia series is brilliant and unwinding. This is one of my favorite books of all time - if you choose to read any Arenas book I highly recommend this one.