Conversations in the Cathedral

Mr. Durick,

I believe you're wanting to discuss this book? Have at it. I just got it myself recently. We've got two weeks over the holidays here w/nothing on the docket (besides those who are finishing up Dusty). What do you think: spontaneous group read of Conversation in the Cathedral right now?

I say go for it! You only live once man.

I am in, if I can find a copy.

Can't do this now, but it would a great book for 2011. I'll come back.

I read it in college. Would not mind reading again.

Well, we're going to need Mr. Durick to show up; otherwise, it's a no go.

I'm attempting a hostile takeover (a Christmas invasion) of another Group Read - Literature group that's been on virtual life support for awhile, and w/out Mr. Durick's (and perhaps Gene's support), I don't see how I'll be able to pull it off alone. Salonistas, brace yourselves, take cover, we could be at war soon should the invasion commence.

That group's so disorganized most of them don't know they already selected Conversation in the Cathedral to read the last time they selected two works. They are trying to decide whether to nominate it again, or just start talking about it. They're a group begging for a takeover.

Well, Gene, then let's you and me go in there and tell them where they can go in order to read the damn book, with or without Mr. Durick!

Actually with explicit recognition that it had already been selected, but not discussed, I renominated it in hopes of finding renewed enthusiasm and a chance finally to start the conversation there. I nominated it rather than just picked up the thread so that it wouldn't lie in the background.

Meanwhile Barny Noble tells me he has shipped the Schiller play for discussion in this thread. Now it is not beyond me actually to read both works. It is not beyond me actually to discuss either of them in more than one place.

I have found, however, that despite an interest in something, say The Brothers Karamazov that I have read, I may have little to say about it.

Robert

Has anyone else noticed how many times the phrase fu$%ed up" is used in the first five pages of this novel? Is it just my translation?

Okay, I've dug out Conversations in the Cathedral and have pretty much got it in mind to start it next time I lie on my bed. A difficult little book on American Liberalism may call loudly enough to attract me to it instead, though.

Robert

No no no no, Robert, Peru is more interesting than those American Liberals ...

A friend from my church book group recently walked in Peru. Unlike most others she came upon Machu Picchu from above, rather than from below. It sounded interesting to me.

Robert

I read the first five chapters, 90 pages, last night.

The brutality of page 10 is sufficient reason not to read the book.

The scrambled narrative is probably purposeful, but that purpose has not so far been shown to be as important as, say, providing readability to the account would have been for another author.

I haven't found anything compelling about the novel yet, but I'll keep at it for at least a while longer.

Robert

>13 Mr.Durick: ha ha cool/harsh

I've passed the ¾ mark. I'll probably finish it. I am now not enthused about reading Feast of the Goat for our church book group discussion in February.

In a bar in Lima called The Cathedral there is a drunken conversation between two long separated acquaintances of very different social classes regarding their lives among the tyrannies. At 460 and some odd pages I have not become attached to any character or the setting. I wish somebody who likes or at least respects the book would tell me what it is about it that they like or respect.

Robert

Reserved for future messaging, reduction of liability, alleviation of embarrassment, and so forth.

I'm glad you're reading it, Mr. Durick. This thread was established just for you. Anna_in_pdx has read it before, but not since college, so I don't know if she'll be able to relay anything about it she liked or respected. What say you, Anna? Don't leave Mr. Durick in the lurch!

Imma get to it also--will pop in/unearth this thread as appropriate:)

I read it a few years ago, I remember it being good, not great. Adjectives like "well-constructed" and "workmanlike" come to mind. I don't remember it that well; its portrayal of the Peruvian dictatorships of the mid-20th century seemed realistic and compelling. Lots of stories artfully spliced together into a big thick book...Vargas Llosa's not a favorite of mine, but from the portion of his work that I'm familiar with, I prefer La casa verde and especially his early novella Los cachorros (mostly because it was one of the first books I read in Spanish).

I remember I read it right after The Idiot and thought that Vargas Llosa probably saw himself as a 20th-century-Peruvian Dostoevsky, or aspired to be one. Maybe now, Premio Nobel in hand, he feels like he is. I will continue to return to his books in the hope that as I age I will find more and more to like; to that end, I bought a copy of Los Jefes a few months ago thinking that I might prefer young MVL to old MVL.

I finished it last night. I believe it was a lot of hard work to write it.

Robert

Isn't it interesting that the F. L. (Enrique) has picked such a JOYCEAN title, in which to read?

20: Did you end up liking it any better? Sounds like it was a bit of a slog for you. I read it as part of a seminar on MVL and I preferred other books to it, particularly Historia de Mayta and El Ciudad y los Perros. But I found it interesting, because of the way all the stories were contained in the conversation, and how the people doing the conversation could be assumed to be more or less reliable narrators.

That's why I thought it was probably hard work to write it, keeping all the conversational gambits tidy in such a mishmash. In the end, though, their conversation didn't interest me, the subjects or the drunken meanderings. That is, reading was a lot of work to find out about people consequential only among themselves.

Robert

Martini's solid left uppercut to Mario Vargas Llosa's, Conversation in the Cathedral. If the review were a prize fight, Martini'd of knocked Mario out in the second round!

Ha, I come across harsher than I meant to perhaps. He did keep the momentum up for a good 200 pages in the middle--if the book weren't 600 pages long that would be worth something. Anyway, I'll take the KO. I hope they give me a Nobel Prize for it.

Did you read an English translation? I read it in a Spanish Lit class and I liked it quite a bit better than that. I wonder if it just reads better in the original.

's possible, for sure. i don't read Spanish, but the English trans had that lethargic, meandering quality I refer to in the review.

On top of things here: I read Conversation in the Cathedral three times (in translation) and have been more excited with each reading. It's amazing that he can teach the reader to follow the different conversations, especially one that involves a line every 50 pags or so. And he more or less announces right away that the quest is the moment Peru fucked itself up and he provides more than an answer.

Since when did the salon get a cathedral. I go on a perilous thirteen-day adventure of the darkest kind from which I need a week to recover and find we have a cathedral. There's an agent preachermaniere hiding out somewhere in this group. I feel an ominous cloud moving in.

I showered both today and yesterday.

Cathedral Salon would like to take this opportunity of welcoming one of LibraryThing's newest groups, Hellfire Club.