457. The Kingdom of this World

The Kingdom of this World
Alejo Carpentier
1949
Around 200 pages

NOTE: I noticed my comments haven't been working, but I believe I fixed the issue.  Sorry if you have been trying to comment, feel free to go extra hard on me as part of my repentance.

I love discovering novelists who clearly had a huge influence on other favorite authors. In this case, the author in question is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I would be shocked if he wasn't inspired by Carpentier's sentences, although I think Marquez outshone this guy by a significant amount.

In this novel, Carpentier introduces the idea of "lo real maravilloso" or "the marvelous real." As I understand it, this is different from magic realism, as it's more a magical interpretation of real historical events. In this case, Carpentier tackles the Haitian Revolution, as seen by Ti Noel. Ti Noel is a rapist, and I could do with a different tour guide. But I get it, there is no romanticization of the revolution here.

I didn't really enjoy this novel. The way human beings treat each other is brutal on both sides. It's hard to read, just because it all seems so inevitable. We want to believe a revolution led by slaves is a classic good vs. evil, but of course, reality is too sucky for that. The ending was the best part. 

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Carpentier was a great admirer of Cervantes, and cited him in a number of different texts throughout his career.

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