Customer Reviews

The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I read this book, for the first time, for a college American Literature course about seven years ago. The teacher warned everyone in advance that it "may appear to be a bit too descriptive, too sexual but to please keep an open mind" because this was an integral part of the book. He was right. I found this book to be fascinating, sensual and written clearly enough that I felt as though I was a character on the sidelines, watching these two brothers go through their lives. To the readers who found this degrading to women, try to realize that these were lovers in the true definition. They were Cuban men who absolutely adored women; they appreciated the beauty of all women and showed it in the most physical sense possible. As a woman, I found the book to be truly sensual and enjoyable. Since reading this book I have made a point to read all of Hijuelos' books and, every year or two, I pick up "Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" to go back to that time of raw sensuality that Hijuelos describes so well.

My teacher was right. Keep an open mind while reading this, or any, book. But, don't deny yourself the luxury of reading such a wonderful book!

I had already read Simple Havana Melody and Mr. Ives Christmas and was developing a deep admiration for Oscar Hijuelos' talent as a writer. Since this is his best known work I knew I had to check it out. It is a very engaging book about Cuban brothers trying to make it in the US during the 50's Mambo craze. The story is very entertaining as many memorable characters both fictional and real Cuban musicians from the period are introduced.
The story while full of colorful epsiodes is ultimately tragic as the brothers age and life takes it's toll on each of them in very different ways.
Hijuelos uses sexual imagery and descriptions of food to create a steamy intensity to the story with great effect. That said the lurid sexual descriptions cited by many other reviewers may turn off some readers. While I was enjoying the book enough to overlook this, there are times when he does rely too much on this device and the novel starts to feel like a guilty pleasure. If you are OK with that type of writing then there are rewards to be had in the characterizations and plot. If you cannot stomach the hard-core sexual references that are integral to this book then stay away and try one of his other novels.

This was an excellent read, if not sold simply because of the vivid colourful Latino descriptions of the people, the persusaive sense of the fire of Latin America, and of course, the constant, often coarse, sex scenes.

It was such a bittersweet book, such an undercurrence of sadness and loss. It was essentially, a lament to old age and wasted youth. The detail is incredible, the emotions very real. It effectively captures the horrible sinking inevitability of death.

Hijelo's characters are wild, if not dislikable. This is perhaps the finest point of the piece; the characters are utterly human and terribly flawed.

Cesor's incredible libedo is at the forefront of the work, and there is a sense of humidity, sweat and the smells of sex that pervade the work. Hijelo should be admired for being able to conjuer up such senses. I found it a sensual read, however I disagree with many who describe the sex as sensual. It seemed very coarse, but this is not a criticism, it served its coarse purposes.

The only criticism I have is the distracting nature of many of the sex scenes. The sheer amount of them seemed somewhat unnecessary, however, they began to fade once Cesar aged.

Over all, innovative and superb.

The lives of Cuban immigrant musicians explored. Two brothers, Nestor & Cesar, part of "The Mambo Kings", playing their music, making records, finding fame, until a traffic accident kills the music. This book shows how the brothers' personalities were formed by their abusive father. Nestor: Sorrowful, prone to anxiety attacks, who, even after many years of marriage, is still pining for Maria, who left him for another. He lacks self-esteem and needs sorrow to create his music. Cesar: Made powerless by his father, finds his own power in his sexuality. He beds many women without forming true intimate relationships. He is vibrant, handsome and charismatic and needs happiness to create his music. Be forewarned - there are many graphic sexual situations.

Despite numerous spelling and grammatical errors in the Perennial Classics edition, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is a novel of plucky inventiveness where the "post-modernist, non-linear style" and language lucidly conveys the wants that people -- men especially -- have: the longing for prosperity and achievement, the craving to feel good-looking, comely, the shaking off of a placid guise and to behave wildly, amorously as well as to let the inner appetite of what man wants to contribute to society manifest itself, make it palpable so people in the vacinity mutter to themselves, "I want to do that." Causing people to feel the pleasure and joy that is in one's mind and heart is the kernel of this book.

In this novel, we are introduced to two Cuban brothers, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, both musicians from Havana. One is outgoing and unreserved while the other is cogitative and solemn. As dreamers and immigrants, they hunger to make it is musicians, for that is where the good times are: women, alcohol, food, dancing and recognition. When they reach that peak, from blue-collar workers by day to saucy musicians by night, is the American dream as fulfilling as it was once thought to be? Or is there something in the essence of spirituality or love that can close the vacuous hole that plagues man's heart? Whatever you, as a reader conclude, there is no denying that the novel is brimming with vibrancy and life. A shimmering hue of ideals, culture and language make this book almost impossible to put down, despite the overlooked errors made by Perennial. Though sometimes graphic in its sexual candor and explicitness, the gratuitousness of the sex is what makes the "true love" theme so vitally important.

To quote The New Yorker review/blurb in the book jacket: "The story is so utterly American that it's a wonder we haven't heard this particular version of it before, and a credit to Mr. Hijuelos that we're hearing it now..." To the Amazon.com reviewer who said that Perennial published the book as though they didn't care and that they should apologize, I concur.

I bought this book when it first came out in paperback (I believe that was in 1990), and when I took it to the counter to pay for it, the young woman said, with a look of awe on her face, "Oh, what a wonderful book." I couldn't agree more with that bookstore clerk. This is the first book I read by Hijuelos, and as soon as I finished it, I went and got Hijuelos's first novel, "Our House in the Last World," and loved it every bit as much as "Mambo Kings." I've read Hijuelos's three novels that followed "Mambo Kings," and while they were all OK (this is a talented writer) they were not as good as his first two.

Oh, I almost forgot. About a year after I read "Mambo Kings," I lent it to a woman -- a very bright woman -- but, unlike me, she's just not much of a reader. She also loved this book.

I'm a female. The two aforementioned people are females. Unlike many of the previous reviewers, not one of us was one iota offended by the book's sexuality. Everything in the book rang true, and that's what counts.

My tastes change. I'm not so sure I would love this book now as much as I did about a dozen years ago. But that doesn't matter --my memory of how much I loved it back then is all that matters.

There are only a handful of books that have charmed me into rereading them, and this is one ... I somehow think that at the end of my life when I am a confused old lady, I won't be able to distinguish these characters from people who really existed. I'm genuinely astonished by the reader/reviewer below who found this novel degrading to women. Mambo Kings changed the whole way I perceived men, and sexual attention. I equated men viewing women in a purely sexual context as somehow coming from a dark, and unkind place- that it was degrading. Oscar Hijuelos's Mambo Kings view women in a purely sexual fashion, but it is rooted in wonder, awe, with a kind of gratefulness about and for women. Sad to say, it was sort of an epiphany. I liked men better after reading this book.

Any serious reader who has failed to read The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love has missed on the pleasure of savoring this masterpiece. Hijuelos has written an extraordinary book: outstanding in its originality and heart-wrenchingly honest. Trust me, once you meet the Castillo brothers you will be wondering whether they are characters created by Hijuelos or close relatives that you had never heard of. I fell in love with this book because it is a book about life--it is the type of book that compels readers to wonder: What did I do today to enjoy life at its fullest. Bravo for Hijuelos; he belongs to a very exclusive group of writers whose books made me cry.

This won a pulitzer for reasons I don't understand. Maybe it's because I'm not sophisticated enough, but after reading Gunter Grass I'm starting to think literary awards are given out on the basis of how regular and detailed the physical descriptions of male genitalia and its veins are in the book. This is a leaving Las Vegas style story about a guy who decides to drink himself to death. The only problem is he's lived his whole life and settled in to die by a quarter of the way through the book. This book gives you empathy with the main character not by putting you in his skin through skilled storytelling, but by boring you to the point you yourself know what it's like to want to die. This book seems mainly to be loved by those who deem it a mark of sophistication to like things most people find offensive. Sex, foul language, crude descriptions - they're all fine as a means to an end but this books parades them for no literary purpose I can detect. This book has interesting elements, but it's bad.

The moment I started to read The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, I knew I would like it. The writing is descriptive and creative, and the author, Oscar Hijuelos makes you want to keep turning the page. The two main characters, Cesar and Nestor, are two musicians trying to make it big in the 1950's writing the music of the time, jazz. While playing jazz, the two brothers experience everything from writing new songs, appearing on the "I Love Lucy" show, meeting other famous musicians, new women, and a new lifestyle after moving to America from Cuba. The brothers experience life as Cuban immigrants feeling the positives and negatives of being the minority in the country. Different clothes, different people, and the love of women are what the two brothers get out of writing their sexy, smooth,jazz songs.
Hijuelos tells their lives before an after as struggling musicians with wittiness, detail, and flair. Hijuelos combines these three aspects causing the reader to become anxious and constantly curious. I have never read an author who wrote with such detail, imagination, and description. The descriptive scenes make the reader feel as if they were another one of the characters in the book. Since the story is very descriptive, the book tends to be long and drawn out at some times, but only occasionally. Don't get me wrong, the book does keep you interested and sometime even laughing out loud. At some points I even found my self in disbelief at the vivid descriptions of the many sex scenes in the book, and the smooth, sly ways of the Mambo Kings. This book has it all, love, heartache, sex, and emotion. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is one that you have to add to your reading collection today!