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Loading... Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (original 1958; edition 1975)by Jorge Amado
Work InformationGabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado (1958)
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8481301795 Jorge Amado's novel "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon" is the story of a Brazilian town going through its growing pains. I liked the book, but didn't love it.... the story was a little simple though the characters were interesting enough to keep things going. Ilheus is a growing town -- its character changing from a wild west type place where men had to carve their cacao plantations out of deep groves to a booming metropolis that, with removal of a sandbar in its port, will be able to trade directly with European cities. In the midst of this, a migrant worker arrives named Gabriela, who symbolizes all that was wild and free about the area in the past. The book has a whole town of characters, who are varying and interesting. The "romance" aspect of this book actually kind of bogged it down for me, surprisingly, but I found the town politics and characters more interesting. Gabriela is a force of nature. Originally from the backlands of Brazil, she treks barefoot with a group of people to the port town of Ilheus to seek work. She is hired by Nacib Saad, whose parents were Syrian immigrants, to cook first for him (to test her out) and then for his bar, because his previous cook has just left on the eve of a major dinner he is holding to celebrate the creation of a bus line between Ilheus and other places. When she cleans herself up, she is stunningly beautiful, and Nacib soon finds her way into her bed. She turns out to be not only a star at cooking but also a star in the bedroom. But this is not just a book about Gabriela; it is first and foremost a book about the town of Ilheus: its cacao colonels and their wives and mistresses and children, its politics, its economy, its classes, its romances and trysts, and its reformers. Much of the plot revolves around a go-getter named Mundinho, who has come from Rio after a tragic romance, and challenges the reigning colonel by first getting someone in Rio to agree to send an engineer to evaluate removing the sandbar in the port that interferes with big ships entering it (the colonel had previously failed at this task) and later challenging him politically. The cast is large and extends beyond Mundinho, the colonel, Nacib, and Gabriela, although Gabriela wafts through the novel and the town like a breath of fresh air. The reader gets a vivid picture of life in the town of Ilheus in the mid-1920s when change -- economic, technological, and political -- was coming. Of course, since this is Amado, there is a lot of interest in sexual and romantic interludes. In fact, the novel opens with a colonel who kills his wife and her lover when he surprises them together, an action which is widely approved of, and this hangs over the novel until its end when a surprise occurs. The romance of Nacib and Gabriela is not uneventful, but unlike some Amado novels, this has a happy ending, and not just in the romance department. I am an Amado fan, and this is one of my favorite novels of his. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesAlianza Tres (79) Biblioteca Sábado (20) Colecção Século XX (29) rororo (838-839) Is contained inAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
When Gabriela came to the Brazilian town of Ilheus, things would never be the same again ... In 1925, the town's cacao plantations are flourishing and progress reigns, but Nacib the Arab's most desperate worry is that his cook has walked out of his bar. He ventures over to the market to hire a migrant worker to help him and comes across a young mulatto girl named Gabriela who is wild and has hair filthy with dust. But something in her voice makes him take a chance, and it seems he's not the only man who's noticed her. Suddenly there is more to think about than everyday concerns: love affairs, murder, banquets, funerals, desire, hatred, vengeance and miracles. No library descriptions found. |
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