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Where the Bird Sings Best

Alejandro Jodorowsky,

Alfred J. Mac Adam (Translation)

3.75 · Rating details · 893 ratings · 94 reviews

There has never been an artist like the polymathic Chilean director, author, and mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky. For eight decades, he has blazed new trails across a dazzling variety of creative fields. While his psychedelic, visionary films have been celebrated by the likes of John Lennon, Marina Abramovic, and Kanye West, his novels—praised throughout Latin America in the s ...more

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Hardcover, 416 pages

Published March 31st 2015 by Restless Books (first published 1992)

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· 893 ratings · 94 reviews

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May 29, 2015 Andy rated it really liked it

There are two kinds of people in the world. People who want to read a book in which the following sentence makes perfect sense, and those who don't:

“The hunchback got drunk, burned the gorilla suit, and began to pelt him with hardboiled eggs dyed black.”

If you do - then this is the book for you. ...more

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Aug 29, 2014 Terry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Where the Bird Sings Best - by Alejandro Jodorowsky

Read - 29th August 2014.

I have just finished the most amazing autobiography given to me by netgalley. Well, I think it is an autobiography, but it’s really about the author’s origins and what fascinating and amazing origins!
The story begins in Russia and moves to Chile, but what a move! The story describes the life of the author’s Nineteenth Century Jewish ancestors searching for an escape from persecution and poverty in a graphic and brutal way ...more

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Jan 27, 2018 Stacia marked it as abandoned

I made it to the halfway mark. There are some genuinely creative & well-done snippets in this book.

However.

I am abandoning it at this point.

I have just read so many rape & other horrible scenes that I'm done. It's not literature. It's not magical realism. It's not mystical. It's just strange & gross & horrifying in too many ways. ...more

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Dec 03, 2014 Nathan Rostron rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

FULL DISCLOSURE: My publishing company is publishing this book in hardcover in March 2015, it is awesome, and you should read it. Here's why:

Huge, weird, joyous, raunchy, full of family legends and disturbingly compelling and surreal incest, Tarot and Jewish mysticism, lovers embalmed in honey and lion tamers more lion than tamer, this book is crazy and yet also completely engrossing and relatable. Even if you haven't seen Jodorowsky's films (but even better if you have—also, go see Jodorowsky's ...more

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Sep 08, 2014 Flami rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Jodorowsky is a storytelling master, and once again he shows it with a family saga that may read esoteric (what with all that Tarot imagery and Kabbalah) were it not for the way he somehow always manages to bend those abstruse concepts to his poetics, and not vice versa.

*I would like to thank Restless Books for letting me view an ARC of this work through NetGalley.

Jodorowsky does not tell a story. He tells The Story, whatever the media and the content.
A tub with two honey-included bodies floats ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Becca Tullman rated it liked it

I wish I could give it 3.5. It's not really a 3, but it's not a 4 either. I can't really decide how I feel about it. Weird book. Enthralling stories in parts of it, and contained interesting observations on life and human nature. Other parts felt over the top and forced. Told with the rhythms, tones, and vocabulary of Kabbalah and Jewish folktales, with a little Talmud for flavor. ...more

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May 19, 2015 Boris Feldman rated it did not like it

Shelves: unable-to-finish

To appreciate this book fully, you should drop acid first.
The author probably did before writing it.
How often can you combine pogroms, religious mysticism, and rape in one novel?
I'm proud that I quit at 50%, but ashamed that I made it to 50%. ...more

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Jan 08, 2021 Laura Santoski rated it really liked it

The conceit of this book is that the author (who is basically a jack-of-all-trades Chilean-French guy -- he was a clown, a filmmaker, an author, he translated the book from spanish to english, and the list goes on) is mythologizing his family's history.

It took me a while to get into the book because it's honestly crazy -- like a very long fever dream. It goes through multiple generations and across continents and it's funny and gross and beautiful. Ex.: There's a part where a beekeeper's long-l ...more

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Feb 15, 2017 Dan rated it liked it

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a weird dude.

I read this book because Vice magazine published the first chapter in it's fiction section. I was taken with that, and decided to read the whole book.

I was very interested in this because the story is a sort of mythical telling of his Jewish ancestry as they came from Europe to the new world, specifically South America. My family is Jewish, and I have family that lives in Latin America, so while my family story is different, there are certain over lapping ele ...more

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Apr 01, 2015 Nick Cato rated it liked it

I read the first half and put it aside. Finally came back to it and while it is an enjoyable read, it's one that requires much contemplation. The prose forces you to digest everything in small nuggets, which are at times rewarding, at times, as head-scratching as some of Jodorowsky's films.

Slow going but interesting. The author's imagination continues to boggle the mind. I felt it was a bit too long though, and could easily have been cut almost in half. ...more

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Mar 28, 2017 Wendy Wagner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: magic-realism

A stew of wild ideas and over-the-top characters, all boiling over on the fierce burner of Jodorowksy's imagination. Does it make sense? Does it need to? It's all about inspiring the reader to live a more mythological life.
If you liked the Metabarons, you'll love this. ...more

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Jun 02, 2015 Matt rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: latin-america, net-galley-reviews

“Weird” might be my choice if I had to describe Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Where the Bird Sings Best” in one word. That was my biggest impression, but there are so many dimensions to this “autobiographical novel” that make it unique and at the same time another masterpiece of Latin American literature. I will warn readers that there are many disturbing scenes, but from what I gather, those familiar with Jodorowsky’s other work will find this to share many of his trademark elements. In fact, his fam “Weird” might be my choice if I had to describe Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Where the Bird Sings Best” in one word. That was my biggest impression, but there are so many dimensions to this “autobiographical novel” that make it unique and at the same time another masterpiece of Latin American literature. I will warn readers that there are many disturbing scenes, but from what I gather, those familiar with Jodorowsky’s other work will find this to share many of his trademark elements. In fact, his family history, through a curtain of fiction, helps explain where he comes from and why he is the way he is.

This book starts several generations back and ends just prior to his own birth. Four of the five parts (more than chapters) feature sections of his family tree – where the title of the book comes from. “My Father’s Roots” tells of how his paternal grandparents started his father’s generation. By the end of this first part, he explains how the Jewish family came not to the United States but to Chile. The family’s beekeeping is left behind, and they start from nothing in South America. They meet a monkey-like one-man-circus, as they find that Alejandro (the author's grandfather and namesake) can work as a cobbler, and his wife Teresa, under a different name, can join the circus along with her seven trained fleas. His grandfather had a double identity, as a Rabbi, who his fiery grandmother controlled at will – to the point of declaring the Rabbi a ‘fabrication’ (Teresa comes across as quite formidable, and confronts anyone, even God). This ghost stayed with him in the five years of military service that he spent away from his family, whose development he had to catch up on after returning. His is the first strange pilgrimage to be carried out in the book.

Jodorowsky’s maternal heritage is rooted in lion taming. His other grandfather, also named Alejandro, after early abuse found a devotion to dancing. In one of many inexplicable events, he ended his life in flames and in art, song and dance, leaving the family talents to his daughter. The maternal grandmother found a new husband, and with little promise from the Jewish Colonization Association, moved up north to farm with her sister. The author’s mother, now a child, hides her appearance for safety, and hides her singing for her mother's sake. They manage to get by, all the half-sisters and cousins, until the northern Patagonian landscape erupts, leaving them in darkness and changing their direction.

The third part tells how his paternal grandparents split apart only to reunite too late, after they both transformed and were used up to the point of almost no longer being human. The Rabbi reincarnates himself in Jaime, the author’s father. Jodorowsky narrates of his conscience well before he was born – but, not only him: his entire family is reincarnated into each other: they are all one.

National politics stirs up more violence, another unfortunate branch of suffering in these pages. These were the most challenging features for me to endure. Why so much rape and other forms of violence? And why, not just this book, but so many others, and in movies, etc.? What is the balance of horror and art? Add incest and bestiality: how much of all this is hallucinatory, how much is grounded in true memory? The craziest things happen, and are told in a quick, casual way. And yet, these events fit together in the line of the story. After the initial shock, there are consequences to deal with.

The reader wonders how the author's parents eventually meet. He narrates as a spirit waiting to be reincarnated under the perfect conditions. While his mother is hidden, his father undergoes several transformations of his own. He leaves his days in the circus and is healed by a Mapuche, for an unusual payment – a word that can describe much of this book. Before all that he was a fighter, a boxer, but he later takes on the appearance of a "holy penitent" carrying the cross, learning lessons in politics and religion. Eventually he crosses paths with Recabarren, the anarchist, or more accurately the communist party leader, who assisted the first generation of Jodorowskys when they arrived. The politicians from the two main parties buy the peoples’ votes in any case, and take advantage of them. But Recabarren was different, and when Jaime’s life takes another turn, he is back into the circus, performing “the master”’s theater interpretations, which if read literally make little sense, but are metaphors of the political climate. His role, as it turns out, was that of the lion tamer. These theatrical allegories are not hard to recognize, but the use of ambiguous, or at least very clever, metaphors are another characteristic of this Latin American style.

How he wrote in such detail of events that happened so long before he was even born is impressive. Were family stories passed down verbally, and he filled in the blanks with imagination? What is real, what is legend, embellishment, hallucination? The lines are blurred. I wondered more than a few times how he could write such things about his close relatives (in terms of generations, if not personal interactions), wondering if this can only come from someone who does not love their family, or felt extreme abandonment. The most intimate and graphic details surface, yet they're not embarrassed, nor afraid of hiding anything from each other. So much happens in one paragraph that by the end of a page, years might have gone by. Time is more circular than linear: cyclical, spiraling, revolving. Read this book with an open mind. If you can get through the weirdness and madness, this stands as a masterpiece.

Note: in exchange for an honest review, a copy of this title was generously provided by Restless Books. For more reviews, see my blog: http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/ ...more

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Mar 09, 2020 Michael Jay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Jodorowsky generates an architecture of ideas

Every chapter has a perspective or a description i never considered before. It is a delight to encounter new frames of mind in these interwoven stories. I wish to make my own version to tell my family's story, so magically. ...more

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May 06, 2015 Dan Gorman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I never much cared for Jodorowsky's movies. "El Topo" worked fairly well as a story, but I found the meaning behind its symbolism to be very obscure. Conversely, the themes of "The Holy Mountain" were powerful, yet I found the film worked poorly as a narrative. In prose, Jodorowsky's spiritual themes are conveyed in a more coherent way. Simply put, this is an astonishing, horrifying, unforgettable work of fiction. Jodorowsky blends mythology, Judaism, the tarot, esotericism, Kabbala, Christianit I never much cared for Jodorowsky's movies. "El Topo" worked fairly well as a story, but I found the meaning behind its symbolism to be very obscure. Conversely, the themes of "The Holy Mountain" were powerful, yet I found the film worked poorly as a narrative. In prose, Jodorowsky's spiritual themes are conveyed in a more coherent way. Simply put, this is an astonishing, horrifying, unforgettable work of fiction. Jodorowsky blends mythology, Judaism, the tarot, esotericism, Kabbala, Christianity, South American history, and leftist politics into a deeply weird story of immigration and generational change. It's a bit much that his narrator, a fictionalized version of himself, claims to be an immortal spirit, devoted to spreading the tarot's esoteric teachings throughout the ages. But hey, it's such an insane claim that I went with it. Besides, a number of immortal spirits whiz around this book, so I decided to go with its internal logic and buy into the claim. Maybe every one of us is an immortal spirit, in Alejandro Jodorowsky's eyes. At any rate, the book is a powerful story of Jewish immigrants finding their way to South America. My favorite characters were Alejandro the shoemaker grandfather, who slowly learns to stand up for himself and becomes his own mystic; Teresa, Alejandro's wife, whose rage at God over her son's death and eventual descent into madness is deeply moving; Jashe, the spunky young woman whose spirit is destroyed by life; Jaime, Alejandro and Teresa's son, who harmonizes the spiritual lessons of his parents while rising above their flaws; Recabarren, the real-life politician whose Marxist dreams become despair; Alejandro Prullansky, the dancer whose visions drive him to a suicidal final ballet; and Sara, the narrator's angelic mother, who like Jaime fuses the best of her parents and eschews the wrong. When the narrator is finally born at the end, he is the culmination of centuries of struggle, survival, loss, and magic. In its specificity on one life, the ending reminds the reader that it's a miracle any of us makes it into the world. And the book's deeply personal religious message – each of us, and not a Heaven-sent messiah, must provide our own salvation – is fascinating. Trust yourself; trust the teachings of your parents; forgive their wrongs; remember your history. ...more

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May 29, 2015 Sara rated it really liked it

This novel is both utterly depraved (as in, gallons of every single kind of bodily fluid gushing everywhere) and sublime as it reaches for the stars from the dankiest part of the gutter. The plot and characters move along more like a series of Jewish folktales or myths, and each scene could be something out of one of his films, shot through with every extreme of humor, beauty, and disgustingness. It can be a bit wearing at times to wade through all this, but also like his films, all of this madn ...more

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Feb 10, 2017 Erica rated it really liked it

Well, that's a strange one.
Magical realism meets LSD, or maybe ayahuasca, to tell of diaspora and communist revolution. ...more

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Mar 23, 2020 Chad Bearden rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, biography-memoirs-essays

Alejandro Jodorowsky's family history is a phantasmagorical romp that is far more interested in honoring the mythology of his grandparents and their epic migration (both physical and spiritual) from Europe, than he is in giving an accurate account of what actually took place.

The four threads of the story are his four grandparents, each a painfully stubborn human being, steeped in the myriad burdens of family, tradition, religion, poverty, anti-Semitism, and so on. Their lives are an explosion of ...more

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Apr 29, 2018 JabJo added it

Shelves: gave-up

Couldn't get through it. After awhile, I got tired of the magic and miracles and realized it was going to keep being more of the same. The violence isn't really what got to me (I managed James Ellroy's 'Perfidia' pretty well) it's what seems to me the author's constant effort to pile on yet one more amazing surrealistic fantastic thing. Another reviewer mentioned it being sometimes forced; I felt that most of the time. After awhile nothing seems especially more amazing than anything else and I j ...more

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Aug 29, 2018 Mitzi rated it it was ok

This was an magical realism retelling of the history of the authors geneology. I am a sucker for magical realism and I thought it was an interesting way to recall your history. So much of the stories that get passed down are fraught with a tinge of myth anyway, and this just goes over the top. Who will ever forget two lovers preserved in honey or a ghost that gets passed down through the generations? Still Jodorowsky comes from some disturbing lineages and there were times I almost stopped readi ...more

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Jul 18, 2017 SmokeyQuartz rated it really liked it

Where the Bird Sings Best is a wildly imaginative, complicated, genealogical epic of a novel. Jodorowsky sprinkles metaphysical and philosophical gems throughout the book in some very poetic and surreal passages. While I liked the book, I did find it hard to follow at times due to all the characters, quite a few with the same names. I had to stop trying to kept track of everyone (the family trees did help) and allow myself to get carried away into Jodorowsky's world, which was easily done.

While ...more

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Jun 12, 2017 Ashley rated it it was ok

I didn't finish it, which says it all. I have never not finished a book. I think it might be a poor translation? I am not up to speed on my Jewish religious knowledge or Jewish mysticism so it is quite possible I am entirely missing the point. It's confusing in plot (a book that needs multiple family trees should try to be extremely clear), at times vulgar (perhaps a translation problem?), and not gripping. ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Gurldoggie rated it it was amazing

A very beautiful and very insane book. Jodorowsky's imagination is prodigious. His creative energy is beyond belief. But he is so mad. A raving lunatic who repeatedly insists that he's telling the true version of events. Copious amounts of sex, violence, poetry, and lush descriptions of the phenomena behind our visible world. Very entertaining, but not easy to relate to. ...more

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Nov 14, 2019 Erica Pamson rated it it was amazing

Bizarre, beautiful, mystical. A spiritual journey through world and family history, time, and imagination. Jodorowsky conjures images so powerful, strange, and striking that they cannot be forgotten.

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Mar 06, 2021 Galen Strickland rated it liked it · review of another edition

There are certain sections that would rate a 5, but the extreme violence, including multiple instances of rape drop the rating down. I can't recommended it.

http://templetongate.net/where-bird-s... ...more

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Jun 20, 2018 Eric Lemons rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An absolute blast to read. Wonderful in all the Jodorowsky ways.

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Oct 17, 2020 Jim rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shit be weird!

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Feb 27, 2021 Riley rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2021-bookclub

Ugh

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Sep 12, 2020 steven tulipana rated it it was amazing

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

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Feb 18, 2015 Biswanath Banerjee rated it it was amazing

This is a classic work of autobiography.
Autobiography that deals with three generation of the family of the writer-presenting a rare glimpses of the contemporary times from the social and historical viewpoint, capturing the history of a nation in transition all the way through. the work captures from the viewpoint of the author, apiece of Latin American history and culture. The volume under review is the wondrous story of the journey of a Jewish family from Ukraine to Chile- in search of a bette This is a classic work of autobiography.
Autobiography that deals with three generation of the family of the writer-presenting a rare glimpses of the contemporary times from the social and historical viewpoint, capturing the history of a nation in transition all the way through. the work captures from the viewpoint of the author, apiece of Latin American history and culture. The volume under review is the wondrous story of the journey of a Jewish family from Ukraine to Chile- in search of a better life.
The autobiography is enriched with rare sense of humour- a sense of humour that will propel the reader all the way through in reading the book.
We are discussing the epic autobiographical work of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, who has been regarded highly by cult cinema enthusiastic for his surrealistic films coupled with mysticism -‘Where the bird sings best’. the original Spanish work is translated in English by Alfred MacAdam.
The youth of the filmmaker is not a past of happy memories. His parents did not have a very pleasant married life. The local people viewed them as descendant of the immigrants and the American industrialists and miners treated Chileans badly. The past memory leads him to the condemnation of imperialism and neo colonialism in many of his productions. Like his movies, his writings are also filled, with symbolism and surrealistic images.
From the beginning the story is first paced and immediately put up the readers at ease with Jewish culture and devoted Jewish family. The lure to quote the scene of proposing of his grandmother to his husband is irritable
“One day, at the first sight of dawn, Teresa approached him. She was small but with robust legs, imposing breasts, and a character of iron. She fixed her dark eyes, two glacial coals swimming in feverishly sunken sockets, on him and said;
‘I’ve been observing you for a while. I’m of age to have children. I want you to be the father. I’m an orphan like you, but not as poor……..they will tell the problem to you and have to come back later to hear the answer. They will no longer see you in a trance speaking with someone who’s invisible. I’ll set the prices and we will not accept invitations to dinners where they try to take advantage of you. The Rabbi will stay home. He will never go out to the street with you, and if he doesn’t like that, he can leave-if he can. But as soon as he levees you, he’ll dissolve into nothingness.’
And without awaiting an answer from Alejandro, she kissed him full on the mouth, stretched out with him under the adders of the cows, and took permanent possession of his sex.”

Read the full review at
https://eokhardahreview.wordpress.com...

I got this book as part of goodread's first read initiative. ...more

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Mar 30, 2015 Stephanie Jane rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley-find, biography, fiction-americas

I received a copy of Where The Bird Sings Best from its publishers, Restless Books, via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I had not previously heard of Chilean born film director and writer Alejandro Jodorowsky so this translated edition of one of his most popular Spanish language novels is my introduction to his work. The book is a truly fantastical journey back through several generations of the Jodorowsky family, each more bizarre than each other, as they make their way from Russia, ...more

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About Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky

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Also credited as Alexandro Jodorowsky

Better known for his surreal films El Topo and The Holy Mountain filmed in the early 1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky is also an accomplished writer of graphic novels and a psychotherapist. He developed Psychomagic, a combination of psychotherapy and shamanic magic. His fans have included John Lennon and Marilyn Manson. ...more

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“If you want to draw some advantage from your history, you must accept not only this miracle but also many others. In memory, everything can become miraculous. All you have to do is wish it, and freezing winter turns into spring, miserable rooms fill up with golden tapestries, murderers turn good, and children who cry out of loneliness receive caring teachers who are really the children themselves moved back from adulthood to their early years. Yes, my daughter, the past is not fixed and unalterable. With faith and will we can change it, not erasing its darkness but adding lights to it to make it more and more beautiful, the way a diamond is cut.” — 27 likes

“God does not exist, God is not good. All that awaits us is the cat who will urinate on our grave.” — 19 likes

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