- Hardcover: 1408 pages
- Publisher: Constable; First English edition (8 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1845291719
- ISBN-13: 978-1845291716
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 18.6 x 6.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,312,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Daily Telegraph
Seek it out. We must ask how this extraordinary masterpiece came to be left off the Booker shortlist last year.
Product Description
In the dead of a frigid winter night, a man escapes from an apartment in which a young woman lies bleeding. In his hands he clutches a box he has found there. He is Donald Gregory, a once-respected college professor and serial adulterer, whose last affair has left his career in ruins. She is Beulah Limosneros, one of his students and for a brief time his lover. Brilliant, erratic and driven, she had disappeared into Mexico two years earlier, following her growing obsession with Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who was born in 1648, entered a convent at nineteen, and became the greatest poet of her time, only to die of plague in 1695. As a police investigation closes in around Gregory, he examines the box's contents, fearful of evidence Beulah may have compiled against him -- translated poems of Sor Juana, a travel journal, research notes on the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the Inquisition, diary entries concerning him, and a strange manuscript, part biography and part fiction, about Sor Juana. Based on the life of one of literature's most seductive and compelling figures, Paul Anderson's astonishing debut unveils a great poet's withdrawal from the world who at the height of her creative powers signs a vow of contrition in her own blood.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book For A Long Winter's Read (at 1,376 pages), 24 Aug 2005
By C. Hutton "book maven" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque (Hardcover)
Paul Anderson has created an encyclopedia of an epic read about a Mexican nun/poetess of the late 1600's and her obsessive contemporary researcher. Weighing in at nearly 5 pounds, this novel is more reminiscent of the old social conscience potboilers of the 1800's by Victor Hugo (like "Les Miserables") and Leo Tolstoy (like "War and Peace") who would add informative lengthy observations on topics which did not advance the plot.
"Hunger's Bride" is a debut novel for Mr. Anderson who shows off his considerable writing skills with various points of view and literary devices. The cultural times and history of the female characters are drawn extensively. Though the book could have been edited downward to 1,000 pages easily, his publishers evidently are making a virtue of its length for marketing purposes.
Still, the revolving stories between the cultural oppression facing Sor Juana de la Cruz in her frontier society and that facing Beulah Limosneros in our society keeps the story moving. The reader should be aware that this is not a beach book but a tale that demands the full attention of the reader. Having said that, this novel is one to be savored over several weeks -- think of it as a literary mini-series.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful writing, brilliant heroine, 9 Sep 2005
By A. Prentice - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque (Hardcover)
Perhaps Anderson should have followed Proust's example and published this many-layered novel filled with history and poetry in several volumes. Paul Scott's Ray Quartet is another example. Actually, it's somewhat reminiscent of A.S. Byatt's Possession; I think if you loved that book you will like Hunger's Brides. Anyway, the writing in this book will take your breath away, and the heroine is wonderful and her voices true. A book to curl up with - maybe throught the winter!
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much, 17 Oct 2005
By Candace "thepageturner" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque (Hardcover)
This book is beautifully written, recounts the life of one of the most fascinating people in the history of the western hemisphere, and contains fine translations of her gloriously sensual poetry-so why is it so hard to get through? Comparisons are being made to Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" which runs a similar length, but heft is all the novels have in common. Where everything in Seth's book moved the story ahead or planted seeds that would later be reaped, "Hunger's Brides" spends a lot of time on everything. There's a parallel modern story line that could have been deleted altogether, and in fact, Sor Juana's story could have been told with half the length and twice the power if Paul Anderson had had a tough editor who made him cut, cut, cut.
But I suspect that both Anderson and the editor fell under Sor Juana's spell and could not bear to pare much from her extraordinary life. The illegitimate daughter of a 17th century Mexican rancher, she was a genius with a mind that today still defies explanation. Her wit, intelligence, and writings lead the Viceroy to demand the teenage Juana's presence at court in Mexico City. After only a few years at court, she left to enter one of the most restrictive convents in the city where she felt she would not be distracted from writing. Her beauty and brilliance made her convent cell a popular meeting place for the intelligencia (these things were allowed in those days), but between visits she wrote quite unchaste poetry that took the world by storm. Then, suddenly, she stopped, never to write again.
I like another reviewer's suggestion that the novel be broken up into volumes. Volume one could have been her childhood in the country, her discovery of the life of the mind, the invitation to court. The next, court life, her burgeoning celebrity, and her decision to enter the convent. The last, the full flowering of her genius and the Inquisition. Anderson has enough rich material for three satisfying novels in this one book. But putting them all together and adding that subplot make what could have been a remarkable achievement just too much to plow through.
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