Customer Reviews

Mazurka for Two Dead Men

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

 

 

TRAGICOMEDY: it's all the rage. Or, at least in the establishment of "literary greats," this appears to be a trend. Camilo Jose Cela's book _Mazurka for Two Dead Men_ is no exception, and in this particular work, macabre humor is found on every page, interspliced with beautiful, confidingly poetic prose which Cela uses primarily to subtley change the moods of this book, which ends up playing out as something like an epic poem crossed with a drinking song with never-ending refrain. As a work of experimental fiction, this book is amazing. Cela's masterful control of his characters and dialogue is the token of his talent, which is showcased here in a manner which might seem cumbersome at first, but should be read in the manner in which a viewer attempts to see the image in the Magic Eye pictures at the mall- not by focusing directly on it in order to find it, but instead by shifting focus more to the periphery of the work. This book is hard to categorize and it's even harder to defend, since so few people I've recommended it to share my view that this is a masterpiece of rare achievement. (At least the Nobel Prize committee recognized his worth.) I still contend that they were reading it without realizing that Cela prefers to embed his story within the inobvious. This is how I ended up shucking the book off the three times before I ended up finally finishing it. It sure was worthwhile, though! I rushed out to get anything else he'd written. LITERARY SUPERSTAR

~It's probably not a classic for the ages, but I was still fairly entertained by this strange, rambling, wickedly funny revenge tale set during the Spanish Civil War. The simple, episodic plot (man kills his brother's murderer) is really just an excuse f~ in the grotesque. And it isn't as impressive as the other Cela novels I've read ("The Hive" & "The Family of Pascual Duarte"), but it's still a good opportunity for general readers to acquaint themselves with this delightfully eccentric--and st

I rated this movie as a "3" because I would have rated the first two thirds of the books as a "2" and the last third of the book as a "4". I can believe that many a reader gave up on this book because of the repetitious, meandering, and confusing first two thirds of the story. I kept wondering why I didn't just put the book down and leave it because I was getting next to nothing out of it. There were a lot of different characters and brief accounts of a moment in their lives. Many of these were rather earthly events but we kept revisiting them albeit with an occassional expanded (or is it expended) insight. There was no coherance and, for my part, there wasn't even a clue who was narrating at any given time. Some events were recounted at least a dozen times with the only advantage being that we were starting to become more familiar with the names of the different characters. Although I came to appreciate why the author chose this technique, I think it put too much responsibility on the reader to sort things out. I believe Cela could have done a better job of bringing his ideas to life.

Finally, at the two thirds point in the book, we get a narration that we can follow and the various characters and events are woven into a story. The writing becomes impressive and I found myself underlining phrases such as, "Faith is the corkscrew of conscience" and "When life dies, death is born". Cela gives us a perspective of the effects of the Spanish Civil War and that was the reason I chose to read the book in the first place. Cela paints a picture of the dispair born of man's outrage against his fellow man. Man is both the protaganist and the victim and it is joy the is the biggest casualty.

The effects of the fraternal civil war has taken the joy out of life. That is, I believe, what Cela meant with his meandering beginning. The many recollections were of people who represented the past when life enjoyable. We are reminded of their demise as though it were a bookmark for the beginning of dispair. The theme expands to explain the title; the death of Lionheart was mourned as the primary bookmark of the beginning and the revengeful murder of his assassin bookmarks the end. Each was celebrated with the same mazurka that was played for no one else. The end of hostilities does not invite the return of the joy of life. Too much damage was done, too many memories were etched in stone. Life for the contempories of the Spanish Civil War would never again be the same.

Camilo Jose Cela's works aren't generally for the masses--often Nobel Prize winners fall into this category!--but don't let his "literary success" frighten you. In "Mazurka for Two Dead Men," Cela's powerful style (read in translation, of course) is moving, argumentative, sophisticated, sometimes subtle--sometimes not: in short, an adventure in literary appreciation at the same time being worthy of one's time.

Set in 1936 at the onset of the Spanish Civil War, "Lionheart" Gamuzo is abducted and killed, thus setting off (to borrow from the Greeks) a blood-will-have-blood revenge story. Tony, his brother, knows that revenge is his. Cela is high in symbolism as in these events the blind accordian player Gaudencio continually plays the same mazurka--the book echos just about every musical symbol possible, with its themes, moods, movements, rhythms, melodies, and so forth. Symbolism, too, is not lost on the Spanish society Cela captures and the political, social, and religious overtones are not easily missed. Still, "Mazurka" is a worthy continuation of Cela's writing abilities. Granted, this one's not his best, but still is in keeping with Cela's l989 Nobel Prize winning style. While, quite likely, "something may be lost in translation," still reading Cela, for me, is a pleasurable adventure. (Blllyjhobbs@tyler.net)

The rambling, experimental style of this book is good for about 50 pages. Unfortunately, the book is six times longer. The story's simple revenge plot really only provides a convenient place for it to begin and end; what it really relies on is its dozens of preposterous characters, each of which is the embodiment of a sardonic, brutally funny joke, a brief anecdote that leaves you laughing under you're breath because you're ashamed to do it out loud, and if there's anyone else in the room you feel compelled to read them the line, but halfway through you tail off, realizing that out of context, it really isn't all that funny and just makes you sound demented.

The problem is, the book mostly consists of the repetition of these anecdotes, in different orders and slightly different contexts, a few new ones introduced and a few removed each time around. But once you've been through this freak show once, you've been through it a dozen times (and Cela will make you go through it a dozen times by the time the book is over).

The style robs you of your ability to feel anything for the book's tragic elements and by the third time around, you've lost the ability to laugh at its comic elements. What is terribly funny at first quickly becomes old, then tiring, and by the time the plot of the book is finally recapitulated one last time, this time in more or less chronological order, at the end, you're more than ready for it to be over.

Cela has done much better than this unbearably long, at times pointless and repetitive collection of peculiar characters and circumstances. It reads more as a collection of random, vaguely related pictures, smells and sounds (which are occasionally effective) than a coherent story. Granted, the author never intended for linear plotlines and well developed characters, thus creating caricatures with memorably exaggerated eccentricities. The end result, however, is too long by about a couple of hundred pages and an exhausting, frustrating read.
The book revolves around murder and revenge in Spanish Galicia circa the Civil War. Cela uses these themes as an excuse to serve a mosaic of idiosyncratic characters, loosely connected to the story line and on occasion affected by it one way or another. On a more subtle level, fate is what drives revenge and the characters are mere puppets bound by their powerlessness, be that through their physical, behavioral, mental or emotional states.
The novel is raw in its sense of humor and its portraits but its chaotic, often repetitive narration inhibits its full potential.

Maybe something gets lost in the translation. Fans of modernism may rejoice, but the average reader may not like Cela's distinctive style. The book succeeds only in disgusting its readers. I read this in an International Novel course and can honestly say, it was the least favorite book among the majority of students. The guys seemed to like it, but that could be because of the explicit sex or the perverse sense of humor. Many female readers felt that Cela was being extremely negative towards the female characters in the book. (The major female characters include a prostitute and a mentally unstable woman). Don't waste your time on this one.