Customer Reviews

THE WAR OF DON EMMANUEL'S NETHER PARTS: A NOVEL

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts is one of the most original books I have ever read. It is, in turns, witty and horrific but always engaging. Having travelled throughout South America myself, I found myself nodding and laughing at his cultural refrences such as the Ford Falcons. De Bernieres writing style evokes Garcia Marquez but with edgier prose. This book left me smiling and wanting more.

De Bernieres' first novel owes a great deal to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE. It's to de Bernieres' credit that this novel goes beyond mere pastiche and claims its own intellectual and artistic territory.

At once grim and hilarious, THE WAR OF... traces a swirl of events that occur within a fictional (and unnamed) South American country, focusing on the inhabitants of a single village. The language is strong, the imagery clear and effective. The story is drenched in absurdism and magic realism (two favourite subjects of mine), occasionally going a little too far with such (particularly towards the end).

Pacing is uneven - a persistant problems with first novels - and it may take a little work and effort to get past the first 50-odd pages, to where the book's energy and direction takes form. But soldier on - despite its flaws, this is an intelligent, well-written book, solidly worth your time.

(I've yet to read de Bernieres' other novels, but I plan to track them down, based on the strength of this book. That's one of the best recommendations I can give, frankly.)

Brilliant! A captivating and funny book filled with romance, passion and confrontation. Tender in parts ,aggressive in others truely a typical DeBernieres novel. Those familliar with his later written ,and more well known "Captain Correli's mandolin" may find this book a little more violent and political than his later peices, also the romance element is far less prominent. Unfortunately those who like their fictional novels to take a non-fictional slant may be put off by some of the more outlandish plot developements, however this shouldn't put you off the book completely. If anything the "weird and wonderfull"(yet sometimes not so pleasant) events of the book help to accentuate the passionate emotions present throughout the novel. A great read for anyone who appreciates a little peculiarity, adventure and suspense in a novel.

Perhaps it's not fair to compare a first novel like this with a later, more acclaimed novel from the same author some years later. But as I had just finished "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" before starting "The war of Don Emmanuel's nether parts", I cannot help relating the two. 'Don Emmanuel' is a dazzling patchwork, seemingly encompassing all aspects of every Latin-American country you can think of. De Bernieres makes it abundantly clear he comes prepared for the topics he wants to tackle; there is evidence of meticulous research throughout the book. As such, each chapter is brilliant in its own right, though there seems to be a certain desire to show off, perhaps understandably so in a debut novel. Some of the threads are overdone, and some are inflated to the point of becoming ridiculous. Personally I could have done without the many scenes of excessive violence and torture. "Corelli" also has its grim share of atrocities, but these are not being exaggerated, and they are a logical and even inevitable part of the story. Besides restraint, what "Don Emmanuel" lacks is coherence. The wild and woolly sequence of brilliant chapters somehow does not quite add up to a story. At least I could not figure out where the book was trying to go to. This is not being helped by the insufficient development of the main characters. Whereas in "Corelli" one can readily identify with Pelagia, the doctor, and the captain, it's not quite clear who are the main persons here. Having said all this, "Don Emmanuel" is still a hugely enjoyable book, sharp, funny, educating and thought-provoking. Though not for the faint-hearted or those with a romantic disposition.

Great characters. Magical story. Corruption, greed and salvation. Humans being humans.
This book has everything and I really can't recommend this book highly enough. I found Correlli's Mandolin convoluted and dragged out, although a brilliantly written book. I found this and the other two books in the trilogy to be masterful works full of passion, truth and wit. The theme of magic running throughout is fantastical and fantastic, the characters real and lovable. When a character dies, as they have a habit of doing, you are taken aback and upset, you care about them and is there a higher praise than that?
Anyone who thinks that this book lacks gravitas is mistaken; De Berniere's pen is so light that he is able to fully deal with the political situation in South America without becoming bogged down in moralising or political dogma.
De Berniere deals with life and death and the injustices that surround us as only a gifted writer with a soaring imagination can. I read in other people's reviews that he has borrowed heavily from other works, but seeing as I have never read these works this book is as crisp and fresh to me as "Rock around the clock" must have been when Bill Haley released it.
I did have problems with the list of characters that De Berniere introduces in this book, but I started again when I got to page 50 and wrote out who was who whenever anyone new was introduced. My friend who lives in Spain just reckons it is that I am not used to Spanish names as opposed to poor characterisation that led me to this confusion, and I have to agree.
I read this book on a cliff top overlooking the Atlantic in May during a heat wave and was taken to South America with the heat and dust, the valleys and forests. I even developed a worrying accent in the pubs at night. A hard read, but once you enter it, it is one of the easiest books you will ever read.
I loved it.
Watch out for Hectoro, a character who gets better and better throughout the trilogy.

I bought this after 'Mandolin,' expecting something similar. This expectation was not met - this book is completely different in style and form, but still displays his marvelous use of language. In any case, two of us in the house read the book by turns at the same time, reading each other bits out loud. It is one of those books where you read passages several times to enjoy the turn of phrase. The book is absolutely marvelous, no matter to the similarity to '100 Years...' Not for the faint of heart though, nor the chaste; this book is filled with graphic torture and sex.

In this opening salvo of a trilogy on Colombian society and politics, de Bernieres demonstrates his outstanding abilities. His descriptive powers are vivid, often chilling, in conveying what humans are capable of perpetrating on one another. He produces characters that prance over the pages in a tantalising dance, challenging you to predict their next outrage or fallacy. The story is intricately woven through a loom of surprises, tragedies, and disasters. There are light moments, but they leave you wondering what depth of misfortune is likely to follow. Lest this analysis leave you feeling the book is depressing, take heart. The author portrays solemn realism, but swifts and butterflies of hope and satisfaction will reward the reader, even if their passage seems evanescent.

The "war" is more than simply the manifestations of one man's loins. Don Emmanuel is but one soldier in a wider context. De Bernieres is here campaigning for a broader sense of justice than this semi-imaginary society has been experiencing. What is the justice in a village gathering to defend a local, perhaps the last, virgin from salacious soldiers, only to have a grenade slaughtering the inhabitants. The army, supposedly called up to defend the nation, proves its most rapacious element. How to halt their depredations becomes the focus of this intricately woven tale. In one deliciously described sally, the village uses a local, well, "experienced", young women to visit the army's camp with her charms - and infections, such as neisseria [google it!].

This thinly disguised tale of modern Columbia's stresses depicts a society topped by an oligarchy of vested interests. "Right" and "Left" are but easily swopped labels by elements that have no essential differences. The "natural rulers" are buttressed by a compliant church, which is far more concerned with its own interests than that of the resident peasantry. This agrarian foundation of the country, who have little enough for themselves, occupy remote villages while underpinning the urban society. They are ready victims, easily manipulated or simply ignored. Their attackers are many and defenders few - yet it is typical of de Bernieres' sense of irony that among their champions stands an Army General.

That de Bernieres has copped many awards is adequate testimony to his prowess. He entertains and informs with equal verve. A dash of fantasy added to this story brings home the fact that "religion" is a term requiring expanded definition. The new definition would encompass human feelings more intimately than our present models. Death, never welcome, becomes something less than absolute in this author's hands. If the images he depicts are but our memories of lost loved ones, perhaps we should spend more time celebrating them. These and other questions permeate this book while prompting us to confront and judge our own values. If that's de Bernieres' intent, he's succeeded admirably.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This brilliant, hilarious, tragic novel tells the story of a village in a fictional yet all-to-real South American country whose villagers lives are thoroughly disrupted when the wife of the local Jefe--the arrogant and haughtily Dona Constanza--attempts to divert the flow of the local river to fill her swimming pool.

The villagers, who depend on the river to water their crops, are outraged, and turn to Don Emmanuel to plead their case. The campaign the dissolute, foul-mouthed, corrupt, entirely gallant Don Emmanuel wages leads to government intervention into the fracas and the outbreak of a full-scale civil war.

A novel that effectively portrays the life of the modern day South American peasantry as well as the beauty, viciousness and insanity of life in a region torn by strife and riven by corruption told with a sense of compassion, love and humor that are truly rare in today's ethnic fiction.

Highly recommended.

The first part of a trilogy which grows increasingly strange as it develops, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts is sublimely funny and brutally realistic. There is all the randomness of life and all the brutality and banality of mankind displayed against a backdrop of South American splendour.

The characters are often obscene but beautifully drawn, their Falstaffian joking set in stark contrast to the environment they inhabit. Though it may not be the easiest of reads for those who like out and out realism, for anyone who wants the fantastic to emerge from the realistic, this is a gem.

Read this book and I defy you not to finish the trilogy. Magical and magnificent.

In the 80's, there was a fun independent board game that we would sometimes play called Junta. You played a corrupt power elite family member who gets assigned a stereotypical role (General, guerrilla leader, etc.) in an anonymous banana republic. For all its light-hearted fun of its subject, the underlying assumptions of the game were quite stark if you started to match things up to some of the news of the day. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts is similarly troubling. Louis de Bernieres took the real history of several Latin American countries and merged them together to create the unnamed country featured herein. On top of that he also works in stories of the campisinos and peasants, native indians and colonial landowners, left-wing revolutionaries and patriotic army careerists. The characters are almost impossible to keep straight without a game card in front of you, and many over the course of the novel change their affiliation and beliefs.

This book truly covers the range of human activity and emotion--the good, the bad and the ugly--but I never felt that it was out of place, especially in comparison with the last "modern" novel that I finished, wherein the author seemed to strain to find something shocking. des Bernieres shocks you sometimes by the simple off-handed nature in which life is so cheaply valued by some of these characters or the ease by which a perceived insult can lead to some real consequences.

I must also mention that this novel, while not abstaining from the ultra-realistic (the description of the torture techniques of the secret police being the most disturbing), is also a work of fantasy ("but then, aren't they all?" to quote Alan Moore). des Bernieres incorporates some of the magic realist tropes to give his novel a bit of the flavor of that tradition, and while I think doing so was mostly unnecessary, it didn't distract from the pleasures of the rest of the book.

This is probably the best book I've read in recent years and I highly recommend it.