State of Siege
by Juan Goytisolo
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A writer looks out from his hotel room in Sarajevo at a city under siege. He watches a woman struggling to avoid the snipers as she makes her way home. Suddenly a mortar explodes nearby and he is killed. But by the time the Spanish military investigator arrives, the corpse has disappeared, leaving only a few personal effects and a notebook of stories and poems, marked with the initials, J.G. As the investigator continues his search for the man's identity, he begins to read the stories, of show more dreams of a rebellion of a city's underclass, of a district of Paris under siege that is ignored by the rest of the city. As he paints a compelling picture of a city laid waste by the barbarism of war, another picture begins to emerge, of a society so callous it is capable of standing by and watching its citizens be destroyed. show lessTags
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My wife bought me this. Someone could imagine this an act of sorts, considering the subject. My wife has an eye for literature, what works and what is simply fad. She finally read this when we were coming back from Morocco. The trip was inspired by Goytisolo himself, not that he suggested such. He was simply there, hence we went. I reread this on the short British Airways flight back to London. I was noshing sausages and drinking ale to make up for lost time. This is a mystic work, one which flips our understandings of Sarajevo, inserts and transpalnts the sufferings to our Western idleness and indifference. The narrative is rife with eschatology, it probes into the ancient wisdom of the souk and follows such into the toxic vapors of show more nationalism. show less
"The voices of a siege are myriad and multivalent, even though we are usually only treated to that of the victor—either the voice of the army that finally storms the beleaguered city or the collective voice of the citizenry that successfully repels the besiegers. Rarely do we hear the voice of the military commander of the impotent and inept International Mediation Force. Rarely do we hear the voice of the victim of fatal sniper or mortar attack. Rarely do we hear the voice of one enduring the siege, attempting to navigate bullets and a "war" economy. Yet, these are exactly the voices that we hear in Juan Goytisolo's novel of war-torn Sarajevo, State of Siege, in addition to the voice of one who has been in the city to observe and show more write about it (as Goytisolo has).
His novel is a Möbius strip of narrative. There are at least three main interconnected narratives woven into one seamless story that falls in on itself again and again. A character in one of the narratives reads about himself in another; a character in that other narrative reads about himself in the prior. The absurd, claustrophobic, paranoid existence of a siege is perfectly captured by Goytisolo."
Read it all at http://troysworktable.blogspot.com/2007/05/siege-dreams.html show less
His novel is a Möbius strip of narrative. There are at least three main interconnected narratives woven into one seamless story that falls in on itself again and again. A character in one of the narratives reads about himself in another; a character in that other narrative reads about himself in the prior. The absurd, claustrophobic, paranoid existence of a siege is perfectly captured by Goytisolo."
Read it all at http://troysworktable.blogspot.com/2007/05/siege-dreams.html show less
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137+ Works 2,865 Members
Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona, Spain on January 5, 1931. He studied law at the University of Madrid and the University of Barcelona, but did not earn a degree. His first novel, The Young Assassins, was published in 1954. He wrote Children of Chaos and performed six months of military service before moving to Paris in 1956. He found work show more as a reader for Gallimard, one of France's premier publishing houses, and continued to write. His novels include Fiestas, Island of Women, Marks of Identity, Count Julian, Juan the Landless, Makbara, Landscapes after the Battle, The Marx Family Saga, A Cock-Eyed Comedy, State of Siege, and Exiled from Almost Everywhere. He also wrote two political travelogues entitled Countryside of Níjar and La Chanca and two memoirs entitled Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife. He died on June 4, 2017 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1995 (original Spanish) (original Spanish); 2002 (English: Lane) (English: Lane)
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Suspense & Thriller
- DDC/MDS
- 863.64 — Literature & rhetoric Spanish Literature Spanish fiction 20th Century 1945-2000
- LCC
- PQ6613 .O79 .S5813 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures Spanish literature Individual authors, 1868-1960
- BISAC
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- 90
- Popularity
- 357,103
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.71)
- Languages
- English, French, German, Spanish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 1
