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The Virtues of the Solitary Bird
The narrator, who, while confined to a hospital bed, is persecuted by the medical profession, identifies with St. John of the Cross, who, 400 years earlier, fused Christian, Jewish, and Muslim beliefs together in his writings
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
3 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
About the author
Juan Goytisolo
179 books167 followersDesde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008).
No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.
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Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.
In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.
In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.
He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...
No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.
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Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.
In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.
In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.
He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 8, 2012
"I come from a people who, when they love, die". (p.140)
There appears to be a duality at the center of The Virtues of the Solitary Bird, if indeed there is a core. A patient is dying from AIDS. St John of the Cross composes his Canticle. Perhaps one is influenced by the other, or maybe not. The novel explore quarantine, a segregation to maintain purity, security and survival. A neutron bomb in detonated to rid a city of the plague. A monastery is razed in the name of Orthodoxy. Dogma reigns and the disparate are vanquished. Castro's leper colonies for homosexuals rank alongside Reagan's CDC and freethinkers and subversives are tossed into the cleaning flames. Boccaccio to Birkenau: to classify, to collect, to relate and endure.
There is a lyrical push in the novel. The narrative is jerky and abrupt. There are no real transitions. The birds remain elusive. The steel of the aviary a necessity. This was an amazing achievement.
There appears to be a duality at the center of The Virtues of the Solitary Bird, if indeed there is a core. A patient is dying from AIDS. St John of the Cross composes his Canticle. Perhaps one is influenced by the other, or maybe not. The novel explore quarantine, a segregation to maintain purity, security and survival. A neutron bomb in detonated to rid a city of the plague. A monastery is razed in the name of Orthodoxy. Dogma reigns and the disparate are vanquished. Castro's leper colonies for homosexuals rank alongside Reagan's CDC and freethinkers and subversives are tossed into the cleaning flames. Boccaccio to Birkenau: to classify, to collect, to relate and endure.
There is a lyrical push in the novel. The narrative is jerky and abrupt. There are no real transitions. The birds remain elusive. The steel of the aviary a necessity. This was an amazing achievement.
March 14, 2024
M. y L. están hartos de oírme hablar de Juan Goytisolo (y en lugar de hacer la reseña podría hacer el trabajo), pero la devoción es la devoción y este libro me hace muy feliz. La cara buena de Adorno (¡¿eso existe?!) es una novela experimental vertebrada por la obra de San Juan de la Cruz y su relación con los místicos sufíes: “en la interior bodega de mi amado bebí un vino que nos embriagó antes de la creación de la viña” (pausa para respirar). Si tuviera que presentarla, diría que es una reflexión sobre el poder y la palabra, en la que la alegoría y la ambivalencia del lenguaje buscan trascender los límites del pensamiento. Aunque lo realmente importante es que el protagonista está, a todas luces, drogado, pero G. escribe tan bien que agradeces a ese monje-místico-congresista-extranjero (todo lo que quiere una chica) su escasísima coherencia. Nadie nunca leyó tan bonico a San Juan. En fin, besos. Cómprenla.
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«si no hay posible amor contigo, prométela al menos a mi esperanza y prolóngala por mí aunque no te propongas realizarla, una tardanza tuya en lo incumplido me resulta infinitamente más dulce que el sí de un amante solícito!»
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«si no hay posible amor contigo, prométela al menos a mi esperanza y prolóngala por mí aunque no te propongas realizarla, una tardanza tuya en lo incumplido me resulta infinitamente más dulce que el sí de un amante solícito!»
June 22, 2022
this one was less immediate and appealing to me than some of his other short books but it did have some cool things in it such as: nightmarish plague imagery, allusions to sufi mysticism, a character named Ben Aïds and the translations on the rosetta stone being deliberately wrong as a joke.
May 6, 2022
Uno de los mejores libros que he leído este año.
November 15, 2012
Yo no entiendo cómo alguien puede escribir esto y no cortarse los huevos con un cuchillo de untar mantequilla.
December 12, 2018
The last of Goytisolo's anarchonistic, disjointed and surreal writings for me (for now). The book opens with a tale describing the enormous, thin-legged witch on the book's cover stomping about the city causing widespread destruction and casting curses of AIDS and plagues (I believe that this witch-hatted figure is the personification of a nuclear bomb that is detonated later in the novel).
The narrative shifts from churches and cities and shelters where those covered in buboes and dying from the plague suffer their slow demise. The solitary bird, infected with its grievous diseases, is sealed away so that it does not contaminate others. This is the solitary bird, stricken by dangerous and toxic ideas, exiled and sealed away to avoid contaminating the minds of others who might suffer the plague of ideas possessed by the independent thinker.
The novel weaves through disjointed perspectives from a number of unnamed figures, and the tone shifts between them, from the somber to the ecstatic; from the miserable to the joyous, all in Goytisolo's familiar serpentine style, and in an indistinguishable pastiche of visions, dreams, and dreams within dreams.
The narrative shifts from churches and cities and shelters where those covered in buboes and dying from the plague suffer their slow demise. The solitary bird, infected with its grievous diseases, is sealed away so that it does not contaminate others. This is the solitary bird, stricken by dangerous and toxic ideas, exiled and sealed away to avoid contaminating the minds of others who might suffer the plague of ideas possessed by the independent thinker.
The novel weaves through disjointed perspectives from a number of unnamed figures, and the tone shifts between them, from the somber to the ecstatic; from the miserable to the joyous, all in Goytisolo's familiar serpentine style, and in an indistinguishable pastiche of visions, dreams, and dreams within dreams.
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October 9, 2010a very kinetic style of writing
January 6, 2025
Este libro es una JOYA de la literatura en nuestro idioma. Todo lo que podría decir se queda corto. Un compromiso sin igual.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews