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Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

Jorge Amado,

Harriet de Onís (Translator)

4.02 · Rating details · 7,025 ratings · 395 reviews

It surprises no one that the charming but wayward Vadinho dos Guimaraes–a gambler notorious for never winning—dies during Carnival. His long suffering widow Dona Flor devotes herself to her cooking school and her friends, who urge her to remarry. She is soon drawn to a kind pharmacist who is everything Vadinho was not, and is altogether happy to marry him. But after her we ...more

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Paperback, 576 pages

Published September 12th 2006 by Vintage (first published 1966)

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Jul 24, 2016 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

The strange and moving account of the experiences of Dona Flor,
professor emeritus of the culinary art, and her two husbands,
the first known as Vadinho;
the second, Dr. Teodoro Madureira by name, pharmacist by profession
or
The Fearsome Battle between Spirit and Matter

Narrated by Jorge Amado,
public scrivener located in the Rio Vermelho quarter
of the city of Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos,
in the neighborhood of Largo de Sant' Ana,
where Yemanja, Our Lady of the Waters, dwells.

This will ...more

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Nov 24, 2009 Sonia Gomes rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: People who love humour, the ribald variety, and who do not judge others

Shelves: brazil, portuguese, lost-in-translation

Jorge Amado happens to be one of my favourite authors, but I do have a confession to make, I have such a deep affection for Latin American authors, Spanish as well as Portuguese. Amado is humorous in a ribald sort of way but what is most important about him, is that he is completely non judgemental.

I read “Dona Flor e seus dois Maridos" as an English translation and found it beautiful. The original Portuguese, however, is pretty much different, it deals with many more aspects of Brazilian Cultur Jorge Amado happens to be one of my favourite authors, but I do have a confession to make, I have such a deep affection for Latin American authors, Spanish as well as Portuguese. Amado is humorous in a ribald sort of way but what is most important about him, is that he is completely non judgemental.

I read “Dona Flor e seus dois Maridos" as an English translation and found it beautiful. The original Portuguese, however, is pretty much different, it deals with many more aspects of Brazilian Culture that the English translation does not, but both are very good.

Coming back to the essence of the book, we all have two sides to our selves, and Dona Flor is no exception.
As a young girl she marries Vadinho, the love of her life. Vadinho proves to be a wastrel, a bom vivão, who loves to gamble, whores around. For him the most important event is Carnaval, and then, much as Vadinho would have desired, he just drops down dead in the midst of the Carnaval festivities.
Dona Flor is relieved, Dona Rozilda ecstatic - although everyone hated Dona Rozilda, Dona Flor’s mother, I loved her venomous tongue; her 'Brazilian Insults' had me in splits.
Slowly and steadely, Dona Flor builds her business; she cooks and gives cooking lessons.
Amado just loves Bahia, its food and most important the azeite-de-dendê.
Time moves on, Dona Flor is very secure financially, but something is missing, her students notice that she is not as 'alegre' as she used to be earlier.
What could be missing in her life, money? That she has.
Respect? No chance everyone respects the pretty young widow.
Just when she cannot bear this inner turmoil any longer she realises that the missing ingredient in her life is….Sex.
Oh! how she misses her sexual dalliances with Vadinho. She now realises that those happy, fulfilling romps in bed are a thing of the past. Then her despair turns to joy, when the very staid and correct Teodoro proposes marriage to her. It is a meeting of minds and souls. Teodoro is a man with his own business, a cultured gentleman who loves classical music, has his own quartet.
Could Dona Flor ask for more? Of course not, Teodoro is every woman’s dream; strong, reliable, dependable, any woman could entrust her future and her life in Teodoro’s capable hands, a far cry from Vadinho. Or is he?
Teodoro is a man of extremely regular habits; everything has its time and place and that includes sex. How can you have sex at prescribed, regular times sighs Dona Flor. Sex so regular and predictable that Dona Flor wants to scream and tear her hair in despair.
Vadinho, O meu Vadinho, how she yearns for the much maligned Vadinho.
We feel the turmoil in Dona Flor’s life. Here is Teodoro who loves her, treats her with respect, never deprives her of her hard earned money on the other hand we have Vadinho who only has his sexual expertise.
How Dona Flor pines for Vadinho, her body cries out to him and in that yearning Goddess Yemanja comes to her aid. Yemanja with her magical powers ‘brings back Vadinho” and well…..you can only imagine how happy Dona Flor is, the romps are back and they are just as good as before Vadinho died.
The book has many facets to it; the central one of course being Dona Flor’s physical needs, her sexual cravings. Ironically both Vadinho and Teodoro save her from depravity. We could take a look at our darker inner selves, if of course we would be willing to admit to having one!

Jorge Amado, also shows us what it is to be a gambler, the hunger, the despair, the win are interwoven in this book, incidentally it is not pleasant to win all of the time, it takes away the edge of the game.
Amazing how this book leads us into so very many unexplored avenues, forcing us to think without prejudice.
Vadinho sums the book when he as a ghost says,
'Tambem do meu amor precisas para ser feliz, desse amor de impurezas, errado e torto, devasso ardente, que faz sofrer' ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing

Rating: five enchanted stars of five

So, as I've explained on my profile over at LibraryThing, I've been in a book circle in RL for 17 years, and I posted our group reading list with my one-line assessments of the books. Most of those books I read long long long before I knew about LT or GoodReads, and so I've either never reviewed them or reviewed them for the long-vanished book blog.

Whatthehell, I figured, I should go back and glance over the list, maybe write some reviews of those oldsters.

So Rating: five enchanted stars of five

So, as I've explained on my profile over at LibraryThing, I've been in a book circle in RL for 17 years, and I posted our group reading list with my one-line assessments of the books. Most of those books I read long long long before I knew about LT or GoodReads, and so I've either never reviewed them or reviewed them for the long-vanished book blog.

Whatthehell, I figured, I should go back and glance over the list, maybe write some reviews of those oldsters.

So that's what I'm a-gonna do.

BkC1) DONA FLOR AND HER TWO HUSBANDS by Jorge Amado: Adored it! Ghosts get horny, too, and why not?

I stand by the one-liner. It's a wonderful book, so it deserves a real appreciation.

The Book Report: Flor and Vadinho are as happy as two opposites can be in a marriage. Their relationship doesn't make sense to any of Flor's stuffy, social-climbing family (really, whose relationship makes sense to the family?), as Vadinho spends and cheats and generally makes a spectacle of himself in dreary 1940s Bahia (provincial Brazilian city, think Baltimore or Philadelphia). Especially the day he drops dead in a Carnival street dance.

Flor grieves for him, but life goes on, and the aforementioned stuffy family won't tolerate a single woman in her prime to be left in peace. So Flor marries Babbitt. Oh dear, I mean Teodoro (which is Brazilian for Babbitt). He's not a lot of fun, but he's thoughtful, and gentle, and considerate of her feelings, and a BIG FAT BORE especially in bed. Flor settles in for a life of having settled. So many people of both genders and all persuasions can relate to this.

Then...then...Vadinho's horny ghost shows up! Moral crisis: Is it cheating on your husband to sleep with your dead husband? Is this a serious question? To Flor it is, and to be frank, I was so bought in at that point that I took it seriously too.

My Review: Written in 1966, this novel felt as fresh as yesterday to me when I read it in the 1990s. It is subtle and grotesque and sly and, in the end, it's the way a real person is: Conflicted. Is the story in Flor's mind, a desperately bored woman's attempt to recapture some small sense of joy in life, or is Vadinho real?

I don't exactly know, even yet. But you know what? Don't matter one little speck. I believe Flor. She woould never lie to me.

Amado was that good. Recommended, ESPECIALLY for married people of all persuasions. ...more

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Aug 22, 2016 Lizzy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: brazil, latin-america, read-years-ago, classics-literay-fiction

One of the greatest Brazilian novels, read years ago.

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Nov 05, 2010 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it it was amazing

How many stories can you tell in thirteen pages? Jorge Amado (can we be friends? May I call you Jorge?) put five stories in thirteen pages, four of them untold. But even it these four stories were untold, the reader would know what these stories were. It is a demonstration of how to tell a story by not telling it.
The main story is that about Maria Batista, or "Maria of the Veil," narrated by Porciuncula, a mulatto. And despite the limited space, with the words crowding each other in thirteen pag ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Luís rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: n-brazil, classics, magical-realism, romance

Jorge Amado has found with this novel a very fun dough to mix in his expert hands. With a comical, funny, witty writing, he exploits parallel universes and controversial subjects.
He tackles these subjects with mastery, playing with the history, the customs of an era and the beliefs of a society in full political and cultural effervescence.
Tolerance as an art of living, good humour as a solution to daily worries, nonchalance as an escape from more serious problems, it is the portrait of a people ...more

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Nov 23, 2009 Harry Rutherford rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: south-america, around-the-world

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a novel about a cooking teacher whose first husband is a charming lowlife, who is always disappearing in search of wine, women, song and roulette, and her second marriage to an upright, responsible, devoted pharmacist who, for all his good qualities, is duller and more reserved. Especially in bed.

Having read the long and mildly tedious Island Boy, I picked it up in the hope it would be a bit more fun. It’s fiction, it’s Brazilian, all the blurbs on the cover go Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a novel about a cooking teacher whose first husband is a charming lowlife, who is always disappearing in search of wine, women, song and roulette, and her second marriage to an upright, responsible, devoted pharmacist who, for all his good qualities, is duller and more reserved. Especially in bed.

Having read the long and mildly tedious Island Boy, I picked it up in the hope it would be a bit more fun. It’s fiction, it’s Brazilian, all the blurbs on the cover go on about it being exotic, sexy, tropical, the work of a great story-teller… all the kind of joyous clichés you’d hope for from the country that gave us Elza Soares, Ronaldinho and the caipirinha. I don’t only want to read books reinforce national stereotypes, but in a wet London November, a bit of Brazil seems quite tempting.

And more importantly, it was recommended by a friend. So after some of the deeply obscure, hit and miss books I’ve read for the Read The World challenge, I was hoping for something juicy and enjoyable. Something that was not likely to feel like a chore.

Sadly it didn’t quite hit the spot. Not because it doesn’t have all those Brazilian clichés: it starts with a character dying unexpectedly during carnival while dancing in full drag, and the whole book is full of gamblers and whores and serenades, and sex and food, and humour and social satire, and a bundle of other things besides. Just reading my own description of it almost makes me want to read it again; but the actual experience of reading it wasn’t so great.

Not that it’s a bad book, but it didn’t ever quite grab me; and after 550 pages, any book that you’re not actively enjoying is going to seem like a bit of a chore. I’d be hard pressed to identify any very glaring problems with it. The characters seemed a trifle two-dimensional — particularly the two contrasting husbands, who might as well be called Id and Superego, or Apollonian and Dionysian — and the plot is perhaps stretched a bit thin; but it might just as well be that I wasn’t in the right mood for it and tried to read too much of it when I was half asleep. So while I’m not about to give it a glowing endorsement, I wouldn’t want to be too negative, either. Pathetically non-commital, I know. ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Victoria Olivo rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, latin-american

This book. Wow where to begin. It took me a couple minutes to realize how amazing this was. At first when it ended I was a little unsure if I liked it but as it started sink in I realized it has to be one of the finest book I have ever read. This enlighten me in the interworking minds of many people I know I feel refreshed and enlighten and ready to continue in my life with a new improved perspective.

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Apr 10, 2017 Anna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-aty-in-52-books, literary-fiction

I must admit that this is great literature, and would deserve 5 stars. But…it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Too slow, too much detail, too much rambling.

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Jul 13, 2019 Phrodrick rated it liked it

There is an old joke about a couple celebration their 50th anniversary.
After a wonderful party filled with close friends, family, fine wines and food, they see the last of their guests leave. Then she punches him in the arm.
Him: “What was that for?”
Her: “50 years of bad sex!”
He considers this for a moment and hits her in the arm.
Her: “What was that for?”
Him: “For knowing the difference!”

Any number of cases may be made that Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and her Two Husbands is a much better book than a There is an old joke about a couple celebration their 50th anniversary.
After a wonderful party filled with close friends, family, fine wines and food, they see the last of their guests leave. Then she punches him in the arm.
Him: “What was that for?”
Her: “50 years of bad sex!”
He considers this for a moment and hits her in the arm.
Her: “What was that for?”
Him: “For knowing the difference!”

Any number of cases may be made that Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and her Two Husbands is a much better book than a 3 star ratting implies. There is a lot of good things here. Altogether too much and too often repeated. I do not know what the expression is that makes a sensible version of ‘over egging the paella’, but that that is my conclusion having fought may way through all 550 pages. Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and her Two Husbands is a very good book buried in a lot of too much.

For about 200 plus pages we get exactly why Dona’s First husband, Vidanoha is a prize louse. Good in bed, in the opinion of a woman with no way to compare. He is a womanizer, gambler, no account, lying, cheating, stealing no-good nick. But every now and then Dona benefits from a good all-night naked romp and on rare occasions the kind of over done gestures that come out of his occasional good luck at gamboling.

Along the way we get an enthusiast’s tour of the underside of the city of Salvador in Bahai, Brazil. The best of Latin music, spicy cooking, ladies of purchasable virtue, gamblers, and the rest. What Amado was reaching for was the same kind of romanticized rascals that Damon Runyon did with his version of Broadway New York’s guys and dolls. All very lively, none to be taken too seriously. Then all replayed over and over. Added in a Chorus of nosy, interfering gossiping neighbors and a vile tongued mother/mother in law. And again, over and over.

Then we get a brief break of Dona the widow. More repetitions of the last paragraph, except from Dona’s point of view… The sex was good

And then she re-marries. Husband number two is everything a respectable person would want. That and Boring. A competent lover, but boring there too. So, what is a virtuous woman to do?

If Amado were writing a book for serious consideration. Dona Flor could be about a woman coming to terms with herself and her sexuality. How the society of her time and place kept even the men from thinking of what their wives might expect of their husbands. Certainly, these subjects get mentioned. In passing. Clearly what Amado wants of for us to experience Bahai as what he imagined it to be. Mostly a low place, but full blooded, alive, varied and never dull.
Jorge Amado can do this. I have read him do it in The Discovery of America by the Turks. He needed to get us there without circling the block so many times.

Given how much better the last quarter of the book was written and how overwhelming the first half… This is less than the book it could have been. ...more

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Jan 09, 2010 Benji rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-morocco, all-time-favorites, 2010, best-in-morocco

This is Middlemarch, written in modern times, that happens to be gloriously in Brazil and in some ways is even better. Add to that his censorship issues and exile, and its a compelling work of art. To contrast this with Middlemarch, I got more out of this because the social conventions and issues are not as dated, the conclusions are still scandalous and it feels like this could still happen now, while Middlemarch is stuck in its age . One of my new, top favorites. It's the same level of quality ...more

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Nov 08, 2015 Speranza rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: personal-library, my-gems

Any book that has me constantly thinking of food, sex and magic is amazing in my book.

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Dec 06, 2018 Yigal Zur rated it really liked it

i like Amado writing as he has a keen eye for his people and for this you have to travel in your own country. especially Brazil which is so diverse. it is a colorful picture of Brazil. still

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Apr 19, 2009 Marvin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

A book with everything; sly wit, erotic passion, voodoo, a ghost, rapturous meanderings over food, even a recipe or two. What do you serve at a funeral wake? Dona Flor can tell you. Dona Flor is in love with her husband but he is a womanizer, a gambler and a drunk and manages to die of a heart attack in the first chapter. Dona Flor is devastated but her friends thinks she should be lucky to be rid of such a loser. But he did have a certain something... Dona Flor finds a new husband and he is a f ...more

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Mar 06, 2011 B. Asma rated it it was amazing

The truth about human nature and human happiness is the message of this story. The middle-class inhabitants of a small neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia, have their traditional ideas about everyday life, behavior distinct from the practices of disreputable, immoral lowlifes, artists, and street-corner musicians elsewhere in the town. Their insularity is occasionally challenged by more progressive types among themselves, namely Dona Flor or Dona Norma. Do the deities influence them as well?... does ...more

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Feb 14, 2017 Yana Tretyakova rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brasil-literature, 2017

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 12, 2010 Katie Benedict rated it it was ok

This book will not end. I have disliked it from the very beginning, and it keeps getting worse! Flor (the main character) is an idiot! I just want to shake her. And why does it take 40 pages to say what should take one paragraph?

The entire story is way too wordy - not poetic, just repetitive and slow. We get it. You don't have to go on about it. I don't like any of the characters - they are all either "good" or "bad" or somehow moralistic. The book seems to preach that poverty and disregard for ...more

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May 05, 2008 Cheryl rated it really liked it

Shelves: brazilian

This is a beautifully and imaginatively written story about an everyday woman who has to come to terms with different facets of her own personality and what that means about the men she falls in love with and how she loves them in return. She has trouble reconciling her emotions, which seem so contrary to her: her passionate, steamy, violent, up-and-down young romance with her first husband, who dies an untimely death, and her sedate, kind, gentle, secure, and structured but still caring and ten ...more

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Sep 02, 2015 Cecilia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This is one of my all time favorite books. It is so "latin" in the sense that it supposes that passion and stability cannot co-exist except in an utterly unexpected way. I can't believe I am old enough to say I read it over twenty-something years ago. It was one my first forays into "latin american literature" and I must say it did not disappoint. A must read if you like passion and ghosts. ...more

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Oct 20, 2017 Jackson Cyril rated it really liked it

Early on in the novel Amado throws out a phrase which might as well encapsulate the whole novel, "callipygian exuberance"-- this is a hilariously raunchy Brazilian novel largely featuring the lower classes who live with such ferocity that we are forced to ask if Carnival ever ends in Latin America. ...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Zoe Brooks rated it really liked it

Shelves: magic-realism

This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Blog http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com

If I told you that Dona Flor's first husband Vadinho dies on page 3 and doesn't turn up as a ghost until 425, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that the description does not really cover what this book is about. It is a long book - my version amounted to 550 pages - and offers the reader a rich tapestry, filled with the colour, tastes (Dona Flor teaches Bahian cookery), smells and sounds of the Brazilian This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Blog http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com

If I told you that Dona Flor's first husband Vadinho dies on page 3 and doesn't turn up as a ghost until 425, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that the description does not really cover what this book is about. It is a long book - my version amounted to 550 pages - and offers the reader a rich tapestry, filled with the colour, tastes (Dona Flor teaches Bahian cookery), smells and sounds of the Brazilian city of Bahia. In particular Amado draws the twilight world of gambling dens, casinos, whores, crooks and conmen that Vadinho lived in. The first half of the book is filled with tales about how Vadinho courted Dona Flor and their married life, and not only their lives but the lives of the many characters that inhabit Vadinho's and Dona Flor's lives.

Vadinho is the ultimate loveable rogue; indeed Dona Flor's passion and love for him survives his death. He is a gambler and womanizer. He is constantly on the lookout for people he can scrounge money off. He wins Dona Flor under false pretensions (claiming to be someone he is not in order to get into a party), and continues to deceive and play false with her, stealing money, disappearing for days and nights on end, having affairs with her pupils and the local prostitutes. Nevertheless this larger than life character is able to sustain Flor's interest and affection, as he does ours. One thing in his favour is that he is very good in bed, which is the reason Dona Flor finds herself overwhelmed by feelings of lust after his death.

In contrast, her second husband, Teodoro, is an upright, hard-working and loyal husband, whose orderly behaviour verges on the obsessive compulsive, e.g. sex takes place on Wednesdays and Saturdays with an encore on Saturdays, optional on Wednesdays. But he is not enough for Dona Flor and with the arrival of the lusty ghost of Vadinho she is faced with a dilemma: neither man is perfect. Vadinho is no more reliable dead than alive and Dona Flor is reminded of the nights spent waiting fruitlessly for his return from some casino or harlot's boudoir.

What Amado has done with this book is explore the dilemma many women face: a choice between the exciting bad boy and the reliable but boring good man. As Vadinho explains: I came back from the beyond and here you have me. To bring you joy, suffering and pleasure…to stir up your longing and provoke your desire, hidden in the depths of your being, your modesty. He [Teodoro] is the husband of Madame Dona Flor, who protects your virtue, your honor, your respect among people….To be happy you need both of us.
In Amado's hands the theme is treated with humour and a sense of fun. In others' the heroine is destroyed by the problem.

The book, having been very realist for four hundred pages, explodes with magic with the arrival of the ghost and the resolution of the story. The book draws on Afro-Brazilian candomblé beliefs, which are similar to Haitian voodoo. Interestingly Amado published this book in 1966, before Marquez published One Hundred Years of Solitude and yet here is a book which combines magic, realism and a sense of humour in one book.

One of the problems of trying to reach a definition of magic realism, which is one purpose of this blog, is the issue of how we deal with subject matter that is a sub-genre in itself, in this case the reappearance of Vadinho after his death. Is this book a ghost story? It has a ghost. But then that ghost is not treated as unusual: Dona Flor seems to be half-expecting him. And the ghost offers the writer and the reader the way to explore then bad boy/ good man theme. Is that what makes this magic realism and not just a ghost story?

I enjoyed this book, although on occasions I found myself wanting the book to get back to the main plotline, rather than be diverted down admittedly colourful sidestreets. Give yourself time to read and enjoy it. It is a book to be read with a large box of chocolates and a bottle of wine near at hand. ...more

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Feb 21, 2014 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: latin-american-lit, español, portuguese-lit, brazilian

"Yo soy el Maestro del Absurdo" says one of the priests putting the spell on Vadinho, Dona Flor's first husband, to return him back to the land of the dead. The Master of the Absurd could be said about Jorge Amado as well. This book is very funny and even absurd at times but more importantly, well worth the read.

I vaguely remember liking the movie, made in 1976 with Sonia Braga (or maybe I just remember Sonia Braga?) but this book was a complete enjoyable read. From the start when her gambling, "Yo soy el Maestro del Absurdo" says one of the priests putting the spell on Vadinho, Dona Flor's first husband, to return him back to the land of the dead. The Master of the Absurd could be said about Jorge Amado as well. This book is very funny and even absurd at times but more importantly, well worth the read.

I vaguely remember liking the movie, made in 1976 with Sonia Braga (or maybe I just remember Sonia Braga?) but this book was a complete enjoyable read. From the start when her gambling, womanizing husband Vadinho drops dead I laughed (trust me - it is very funny) and then, the book took a more serious turn when she married the very staid pharmacist husband Dr. Teodoro and I enjoyed Amado's reflections on life and marriage. Then, when Doña Flor celebrates her first year marriage to Teodoro, in walks a very naked Vadinho, coming back to get into bed with Doña Flor one more time (who loves you, baby?). The ending becomes absurd (check out the Martians) and the tale is done.

The characters are just so... absorbing. Doña Flor's mom is a real shark. When Doña Flor and Vadinho get married, she leaves her daughter because she married a "low-life" and when Vadinho dies, good old mom returns to say "I told you so" (in much more colourful language). Yep, a real witch. Vadinho, even as a ghost, can't keep his hands off Doña Flor's students and even scares one of his gambling buddies even to stop his gambling obsession. Teodoro is rather dull but loves his wife as best as he can but he loves playing his bassoon in the orchestra even more. Doña Flor wants to succeed as the owner of her Cooking School and wants to be a good wife. Written in 1966, there is a mix of feminism, class and old fashioned views mixed into one person. She is definitely not one dimensional. After Vadinho dies, Doña Flor begins having erotic dreams that at first are funny, but then Amado shows us how tormented she is becoming. Enter Teodoro to cure that (or not).

The movie cuts to the chase; the book brings it out so much more. It surprised me that as much as it is funny and absurd, it is moving and reflective. Amado doesn't really explain everything - leaving the magic realism to do its work unfolding as it does (I like this). If you are interested in Latin American literature, this book is not to be missed. Although it took me so long to read, blame it on the movie. However I did read the book in Spanish (sorry not the original Portuguese but close enough).

One minor complaint, this book was published in 9 pt font which really was a tad small.

Doña Flor ...more

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Jul 11, 2015 Ferris rated it it was amazing

Undoubtedly one of the best novels I have ever read about the duality of the human spirit. This novel reached into my heart and mind and drew me into its mystical, magical, superstitious Brazilian tale. Jorge Amado starts by tickling the reader's fancy with a romance between a good girl, Flor, and a lovable, sensual gambler, Vadinho. He is the classic villain we hate to love. That is the skeleton of the story.

Amado proceeds to people the Bahian city with fantastic and fantastical characters. Th Undoubtedly one of the best novels I have ever read about the duality of the human spirit. This novel reached into my heart and mind and drew me into its mystical, magical, superstitious Brazilian tale. Jorge Amado starts by tickling the reader's fancy with a romance between a good girl, Flor, and a lovable, sensual gambler, Vadinho. He is the classic villain we hate to love. That is the skeleton of the story.

Amado proceeds to people the Bahian city with fantastic and fantastical characters. The reader meets the literati, the illiterate, the pagan and the prudish, the rich and the poor,the gossips, the whores, the matriarchs and more. Eventually, the reader finds it harder and harder to surface for air. All the while, Amado, while weaving a marvelous, prototypical Brazilian melodrama, is laying the complex groundwork for what I consider to be the primary theme of the novel. Just when I thought I was in the groove of the story of duality within our protagonist, Flor, Amado's tale erupts in primordial chaos of mind, body, and spirit. Mystical upheaval ensues as the gods become transparent in their own duplicity. Social class inequity, personal destiny, loyalty and love.....no topic remains off limits in this sweeping psychological story. Amado is an absolute master in his ability to create a culture and to reel in the reader using hooks baited with marvelous plot, engaging prose, absolutely wonderful character development and more.

In the end, what can one believe in? Peace comes with acceptance of duality? Or, as the final sentences purports, "And with this we come to the end of the tale of Dona Flor and her two husbands, set forth in all its details ad mysteries, as clear and dark as life itself. All this took place in Bahia, where these and other acts of magic occur without startling anybody. If anyone has his doubts, let him ask Cardoso e Sa., and he will tell him whether or no it is the truth. He can be found on the planet Mars or on any poor corner of the city. ...more

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Feb 15, 2018 Sana Abdulla rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

I read about half the book and although Donna Flor is a widow, she still hasn't set on her second husband. The book is too long with flat over blown single trait characters, meant to be colourful but are not. the meanie is all mean, the charmer is all charm and so on and so forth.
we are meant to fall in love with some and loathe others but sadly it left me flat and uninterested with the characters, not reading anymore. ...more

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Nov 13, 2018 Jim Leckband rated it liked it · review of another edition

A telenovela with doses of magic realism and Brazilian brio.

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Jul 27, 2015 Christine rated it it was amazing

Wonderful story! The characters are so well developed, and there are stories within stories. I got so involved with the story - I talked about it to anyone who would listen! I recommended it to others and urged them to experience what I had!
I laughed out loud! I cheered and shouted!! I got cross! I disliked some of the characters!
Fabulous!!

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Feb 22, 2013 Andreea RD rated it did not like it

Couldn't pass 200 pages. One of the most boring books ever :( ...more

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Jan 12, 2020 Leila rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Interesting and colourful narrative of a young woman's struggle to come to terms with her sexuality in the midst of a very conservative, religious (and hypocritical) Bahian society.
In my view, the book is made of three parts: first part is husband Vadinho, which represents Eros love but also a life of poverty, neglect and betrayal; the second part relates to husband Teodoro, which stands for cast love and integrity, but also monotony and boredom; and finally the third part - Dona Flor's inner st ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Jennifer Pletcher rated it liked it

This is the story of Dona Flor. Her husband, Vadinho, has just died. According to everyone around him - he was a gambling, good for nothing, and no one was surprised to see him go. After his death, Dona throws herself into her work and her life around her. Soon - she is being encouraged to remarry. She meets a pharmacist who is everyting Vadinho wasn't and soon they are married. However - after their marrige, she finds herself dreaming of Vadinho. Her new husband doesn't have Vadinho's passions, ...more

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Feb 28, 2020 Thomas rated it really liked it

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is the definition of a slow-burner. This ponderous novel takes its time, waits for its moments and pounces hard to deliver intentions - the moral, sexual and social enlightenment/liberation/definition of a young Brazilian woman from Salvador, Dona Flor. It is an expert character study, not just of the sympathetic Dona Flor, but also of her two differing husbands, Cassonova-type Vadinho and straight laced Teodoro. It is encased in a social and human portrait of urba Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is the definition of a slow-burner. This ponderous novel takes its time, waits for its moments and pounces hard to deliver intentions - the moral, sexual and social enlightenment/liberation/definition of a young Brazilian woman from Salvador, Dona Flor. It is an expert character study, not just of the sympathetic Dona Flor, but also of her two differing husbands, Cassonova-type Vadinho and straight laced Teodoro. It is encased in a social and human portrait of urban Salvador, painted in meticulous and often dull detail by the strong journalistic narrator with a particularly love of gossip. The social tapestry of Dona Flor's life is woven together by hundreds of characters, most of them superfluous to the plot, from her family to the gambling crews of Vadinho, her lady neighbours and friends, from the mystics, priests and soothsayers of the church and candomble rituals that inform the neighbourhood's lives to the students of Dona Flor's cookery school, from the artists and musicians of the street to the seriously toned members of Teodoro's amateur orchestra. No words are spared in this expansive and relentless description of Salvadorian society in the 1960s.

After a obscure and jolting beginning that focusses on the events surrounding Vadinho's funeral, the book falls into the tone and patterns of an English society romance - Middlemarch transformed with a Brazilian carnival feel and oozing sexuality. Amado recalls the events leading up to Vadinho's marriage, their elopement, Flor's sexual awakening, her mother's hatred of her new, charming husband, and then the roller coaster of passion and pain that is her seven year relationship with compulsive gambler, drinker and romancer Vadinho. Amada repeats himself almost to the point of being painful - with Vadinho it's his scar from a knife fight, for example, with Teodoro it's the timetable of sexual intercourse on Wednesday and Saturdays (with an encore). It serves to give the book a light tone of mockery and humour but also reforces the fact that this is Flor's novel and it is her emotions and thoughts we are analysing. Amado expresses her stream of consciousness, the repetitive arguments she uses to justify her love for Vadinho, despite the fact he hits her and gambles away her money, and later to justify her sadness as a widow and her frustration with Teodoro's orderly, dull existence.

This continues during the second third - the description of her second marriage to the druggist, Dr Teodoro, an upstanding citizen and a "perfect" husband. There is a clear comparison. Teodoro and Vadinho are deliberately opposite, almost ridiculously so. Yet they both restrict her with their own form of tyranny. Vadinho leaves her lonely and jealous, as well as financially precarious. Teodoro offers her security yet wishes to take away her autonomy by asking her to give us her cooking school. The battle Flor undergoes is one of freedom and identity. She defines herself by her marriages and yet they also hold her back. The most important comparions is that of her sex life with these too drastically different men. The sex scenes are brilliantly and vividly described by Amado - here is repetitions drill home the sexual personalities of the two men, their confidences and their insecurities. Flor is the one who develops, who yearns, who grows. The differing sexuality of the two husbands is wrapped up in their musical identities. Vadinho serenades her in the street like Romeo, Teodoro's amateur orchestra dedicates bassoon solos to her like an awfully staid scene of romance in a movie like the Sound of Music. Money is the other clash - Vadinho's throw away life (and death), Teodoro's need for security and safety built by his career, his property and his savings.

After 400 pages carefully building these three character with patient realism (if sometimes a little comic and exaggerated) the final third of the books offers a much needed change of pace and tone. The dead Vadinho's return hints at magic realism but Dona Flor's story is more like a moral fairy tale by Oscar Wilde than a companion of South American realism. The repetitions and the descriptions of society are not abandonned; Amado's novel certainly takes a lot of patience and trust that the time investment will pay off. But it does pay off. In the end it is Flor that stands centre stage. The final pages are intense, sensual and very surprising. In the end it is not about who Flor will choose; the passion of Vadinho or the security of Teodoro. It's about defining herself apart from these two huge influences, from their repressive male personalities. Dona Flor is a fantastic creation, a colourful and complicated picture of female liberation and repression set in a buzzing social world of music, money, damaging gossips, African Gods, fortune telling, aspiring careers and ambitious musicians, gamblers and prostitutes, politicians and societies of dry pharmacists.

And in the centre Flor, flavoured with the ingredients and aromas of Salvador that flow from her kitchen, where she is a teacher, independent of her husbands, blending into the urban environment that owns her and is informed by her. Not for those with a short attention span, Dona Flor is a long, patient, intelligent, funny and sensual novel that rewards readers with a brilliantly querky and inventive finale. 7 ...more

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About Jorge Amado

Jorge Amado

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Jorge Amado de Faria was a Brazilian writer of the Modernist school. He was the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, his extensive work having been translated into some 30 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and her Two Husbands, (in Portuguese, Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) in 1978. His work dealt largely with the poor urban black and mulatto communities of Bahia.
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“Ai, nunca mais seus lábios, sua língua, nunca mais sua ardida boca de cebola crua!” — 8 likes

“The whole street took part in the serenade to Flor, Flor leaning against her high window, all ruffles and lace, drenched in moonlight. Down below Vadinho, her gallant knight, with the red rose in his hand, so red it was almost black, the rose of her love.” — 3 likes

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