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Loading... The Mapmaker's Operaby Béa Gonzalez
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Bea Gonzalez has created a lyrical historical novel by using an operatic structure to reveal the story of a Spanish immigrant finding his life's work among the birds of the Yucatan Peninsula. Long enthralled by the work of James Audubon, Diego Clemente finds work with an American naturalist working to catalog the birds of the Yucatan. Gonzalez provides rich historical detail about the henequen plantations and the social injustices of the colonial system. As Diego catalogs and draws birds, he falls in love with a local landowner's daughter who is trying diligently to dissuade another suitor. Caste and gender constraints are an essential part of the novel, but read this to soak up the history and the beautiful writing. ( ) The book uses opera as a device to tell the story of 2 bird lovers. Diego, the bastard son of a Spanish noble, is drawn to birds after he sees an amazing book in his step-father's bookshop. This is the start of a journey that will take him all the way to pre-Revolution Mexico, a country on the brink. There he meets his counterpart, the soprano, a girl who is not interested in the superficial men that are trying to court her. There love of birds draws them closer. Well-written, enjoyable read. no reviews | add a review
Distinctions
In the tradition of Allende, this is a magical novel, written in the form of an opera, and set in Seville and Mexico in the late 1800s. Act I opens in Seville. Emilio has been forced by his overbearing mother into the priesthood. Monica is a governess in a wealthy household who falls pregnant by the head of the house. A chance meeting in Seville cathedral suggests a solution to both their predicaments - they decide to marry, though it is not a love match. Emilio raises Monica's son Diego as his own, and they form a close bond over their mutual love of language, books, maps and birds. When Emilio dies, Monica reveals that he was not Diego's father. She grows ever more embittered and eventually dies, leaving Diego to pursue his true calling - his love of birds. Act 2 follows Diego's life in Mexico - his apprenticeship to an American who is mapping the birds of Mexico; his love for Sofia, the beautiful, independent daughter of a Mexican farmer; and his obsession with saving the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. The cities of Seville and Mérida are so central to the narrative, and evoked so beautifully, that they are almost characters themselves. Taking in many of the stock characters that appear in the best operas - the philanderer, the wronged wife, the harassed servant, the star-crossed lovers - The Mapmaker's Opera is an original and magical novel which will appeal to lovers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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