Paradiso

"To be blunt, this is a very hard book to get through because it is so literary. I attempted to read the Spanish very carefully. Lima was the kind of writer whom Spanish scholars study for his language and syntax. One of the descriptions he uses is “yawning grass”, which is really wonderful. He has constructions that are amazing. But what really spoke to me is one of the characters in his narrative, Jose Cemi. He is a very sick, tubercular child whom I could really relate to on a personal level, because I was sick as a child. There is also a hallucinogenic quality to the prose, which I think has to do with Lima’s use of drugs for much of his childhood. I also think this book is the first really true magical realist novel. He has a chapter where the character is out at lunch and he suddenly starts describing a centurion’s battle with a Roman army – and you are thinking, what is going on? So it is a very complicated and yet rewarding narrative. It is wonderful in its portraiture. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter When I was growing up, I would hear people talking about family stories from Cuba and they always stayed in my mind. There is something about those kinds of stories which permeates your mind. There is this sense of authority when people say, listen to me. Well, this book has a similar quality. It is a really amazing novel that most people don’t seem to have heard of. And that’s a good reason to put it on my list."