The Marx Family Saga
by Juan Goytisolo
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In Juan Goytisolo's surreal fiction Karl and Jenny Marx sit on their sofa in Hampstead and watch a television documentary. Albanian refugees land on a private Italian beach flourishing photocopies of dollar bills in search of paradise Dallas. Find out how Karl reacts to the demise of the systems Josef Visionariovitch and Co. build on his word! Read all about the family life of the Marxes, moving upmarket from Dean Street to Highgate and beyond, yet never free of the hock shop! A resurrected show more Marx visits scenes of former triumphs in Moscow, where MacLenin T-shirts and harmburger freedom are all the rage, and returns to a Hempstead housewarming reception and ball filmed by the cameras for a Merchant-Ivoryish Red Baroness--which subsequently becomes the subject of a Saturday-night talk-show featuring a feminist sexologist form UCLA, an anarchist form the Spanish Civil Bar, Bakunin . . . But the narrator's publisher, the urbane pipe-smoking Mr. Faulkner, wants a bestselling novel, a proper story with real facts and heart-rending descriptions of the Marx menage. Some hope! Goytisolo returns to the techniques of his youth, sticks in a photo of Helen Demuth, the family servant. Why bother with all that description? Leave that to Balzac. Now was Marx or Engels the father of her child? Juan Goytisolo's text, his most mordant satire yet, is a roller-coaster of bitter incentive and witty paradox, a verbal whip-lashing for the cheerleaders of the new world order. "The most important living novelist from Spain."--Guardian "The Marx Family Saga is a surreal fantasy . . . Witty, clever and entertaining as well as provocative and insightful,The Marx Family Saga is a remarkable achievement."--Danny Yee, Danny Reviews Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. Since 1956 he has lived in voluntary exile outside Spain and now divides his time between Paris and Marrakesh. His novels areThe Virtues of the Solitary Bird andQuarantine. show lessTags
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Self-banished Goytisolo's biting satire on both the result of communism after the Soviet Union AND the empy, idiotic and nasty consumer society we live in. Sheer brilliance. The best novel of the 90s.
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134+ Works 2,855 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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- Original publication date
- 1993
- Important places
- Spain
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- Members
- 118
- Popularity
- 275,282
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.78)
- Languages
- 5 — English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 8
