AVALOVARA

by Osman Lins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 8, 1979

An ecstatic, mytho-poetical puzzle of a book--part magic square, part sledge-hammered metaphor, and more a ""text"" than a novel. Which means that a) it's barely intelligible, and b) it at times achieves the unbothered freedom of imagination that only the most abstruse writings break through into. The narrator, a Brazilian named Abel, is the new Adam; his Eves, variously, are the busily modern European Anneliese Roes; a Brazilian hermaphrodite social worker named Cecilia; and, finally, the woman known only by the symbol --with whom Abel achieves sexual apotheosis inside an elegant, be-rugged room. These recreations of original carnality (in chapters titled, so the point will not wander off, ""Paradise"" and ""Before Paradise"") are often quite erotic. And perhaps these and the other chapters really add up to a mystical protocol along the lines of a palindrome. But, to be honest, we couldn't make head or tail of this--and it'll be up to literary gamesters and fanciers of the obscure to explore and debate the patterns and allusions here. For a small, patient audience.

Pub Date: Jan. 8, 1979

ISBN: 1564783200

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION