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Mar. 30th, 2011 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWow, LJ is not happy today, is it. Still, I am so behind on booklogging that I am going to give this review a try anyway!
I'd been meaning to pick up The Lady Matador's Hotel since hearing Cristina Garcia read an excerpt at the Brooklyn Book Festival back in September. The bit she read was about a former revolutionary whose dead brother appears to inform her that the general who killed him is staying in the hotel where she's now a waitress, and she'd better get cracking on that revenge thing. I thought: intriguing! and put it on my mental list (although as always it takes me several months to get around to anything on that list.)
Anyway that is not really the plot of the book, or at least not more than 1/6 of it. The book is not one of those that actually has a plot. It follows six people staying in or working at the hotel as they go about their own concerns, although it's a bit more exciting than the usual version of this sort of book, seeing as those people's own concerns include "become the champion of the ALL LADY MATADORS, ALL THE TIME bullfighting tournament," "deal with the fact that my husband has run off with one of the mothers from my baby farm operation," and, of course, "murder a high-ranking general on the say-so of my dead brother." There are a lot of interesting women at this hotel. (The storylines around the men are more depressing and less interesting. The general is arrogant and evil; an exiled Cuban poet adopting a baby fails in his marriage and is philosophically angsty; a Korean businessman with a pregnant teenaged mistress is even angstier, although there is some dark comedy around his repeated failed attempts to just commit suicide and be done with it.)
The prose is gorgeous and dreamlike, the political satire is occasionally heavy-handed, the plots are slow and semi-resolved (although actually more resolved than I was expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised by that). From this, you will probably know whether or not this is the kind of thing you'll like. I enjoyed it, although to be honest I probably would have enjoyed a book that was entirely (instead of 1/6) about Suki Palacios, MOST DASHING LADY MATADOR, even more.
I'd been meaning to pick up The Lady Matador's Hotel since hearing Cristina Garcia read an excerpt at the Brooklyn Book Festival back in September. The bit she read was about a former revolutionary whose dead brother appears to inform her that the general who killed him is staying in the hotel where she's now a waitress, and she'd better get cracking on that revenge thing. I thought: intriguing! and put it on my mental list (although as always it takes me several months to get around to anything on that list.)
Anyway that is not really the plot of the book, or at least not more than 1/6 of it. The book is not one of those that actually has a plot. It follows six people staying in or working at the hotel as they go about their own concerns, although it's a bit more exciting than the usual version of this sort of book, seeing as those people's own concerns include "become the champion of the ALL LADY MATADORS, ALL THE TIME bullfighting tournament," "deal with the fact that my husband has run off with one of the mothers from my baby farm operation," and, of course, "murder a high-ranking general on the say-so of my dead brother." There are a lot of interesting women at this hotel. (The storylines around the men are more depressing and less interesting. The general is arrogant and evil; an exiled Cuban poet adopting a baby fails in his marriage and is philosophically angsty; a Korean businessman with a pregnant teenaged mistress is even angstier, although there is some dark comedy around his repeated failed attempts to just commit suicide and be done with it.)
The prose is gorgeous and dreamlike, the political satire is occasionally heavy-handed, the plots are slow and semi-resolved (although actually more resolved than I was expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised by that). From this, you will probably know whether or not this is the kind of thing you'll like. I enjoyed it, although to be honest I probably would have enjoyed a book that was entirely (instead of 1/6) about Suki Palacios, MOST DASHING LADY MATADOR, even more.
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Date: 2011-03-30 07:58 pm (UTC)Also, the Brooklyn Book Festival! My favorite! I missed last year's, but I'd gone to the ones prior. I LOVE the author panels and readings.
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Date: 2011-03-30 08:04 pm (UTC)I've been wanting to go to the BBF for like the past three years, but I kept being out of town when it was happening - this was the first year I finally got to go and it was AWESOME. I just love so much that this is a thing that happens every year! "Let's take over a chunk of Brooklyn and TALK ABOUT BOOKS."
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Date: 2011-03-30 09:29 pm (UTC)The BBF is definitely a beautiful thing. I met my favorite author a couple times and talked to him about writing, and it was just nothing short of glorious and mind-blowing to be able to do that. And all those independent publishers gives me so much hope in literacy, in creativity, all that good stuff, ya know? September's a long way away yet, but once it rolls around, we should totally go! (And you will be in town, dammit!)
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Date: 2011-03-31 01:48 am (UTC)*___* That is pretty fantastic. We totally should! (I have my FINGERS CROSSED that I will be!)
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Date: 2011-03-30 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-04-01 03:18 am (UTC)