Act Of The Damned
I promised myself not to read another Faulkner until I’m ready. It’s not because I don’t like Faulkner; on the contrary, I liked As I Lay Dying, the first and only work by him that I’ve read, so far. Note the emphasis on “so far.”
The multiple narratives style, for me, is okay. I’ve had experienced reading several books which used that style. However, combining that style with the stream of consciousness thing will present a convoluted storytelling or writing style that, when adopted by the writer, as Faulkner had done in his books, may give the not-so-adept readers, I included, some hard time banging into the dark room of ideas that will develop the exact image the author wants the reader to see. Partly, I succeeded making it inside that dark room. Partly, I saw some images develop. Some of these images, however, only developed partially. I could think of a jigsaw puzzle, majority of the pieces already in place so that I could already extrapolate what the picture wouldbe like, but still a few pieces were still missing. And it was dark in the dark room.
So, why did I even pick "Act Of The Damned" by Portugal’s Antonio Lobo Antunes as my reading after Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying? I didn’t know at start that the style Lobo Antunes used was Faulknerian until I got into the second chapter narrated by another voice. I read the synopsis at the back cover of the book: …resembles a William Faulkner cast of characters .… Each chapter was indeed a different point of view that contributed to telling the story of what was happening “as I lay dying.” The “I” refers to the dying patriarch of the once wealthy family during the last days of Salazar’s dictatorship. Was this the Faulknerian thing in the book or was it the multiple narratives style? It was a good thing that there were only some rare moments that the stream of consciousness thing was infused into the narrative. But, even without the latter style the book was a damned good read. Antonio Lobo Antunes, whose name had floated some years back as a Nobel Prize contender, has written, in this book, the characters and their "desperate acts” very well in a controlled way using some amazingly inventive descriptions.
So, what’s the novel about? I lifted the following synopsis from http://www.
bn.com/:
The multiple narratives style, for me, is okay. I’ve had experienced reading several books which used that style. However, combining that style with the stream of consciousness thing will present a convoluted storytelling or writing style that, when adopted by the writer, as Faulkner had done in his books, may give the not-so-adept readers, I included, some hard time banging into the dark room of ideas that will develop the exact image the author wants the reader to see. Partly, I succeeded making it inside that dark room. Partly, I saw some images develop. Some of these images, however, only developed partially. I could think of a jigsaw puzzle, majority of the pieces already in place so that I could already extrapolate what the picture wouldbe like, but still a few pieces were still missing. And it was dark in the dark room.
So, why did I even pick "Act Of The Damned" by Portugal’s Antonio Lobo Antunes as my reading after Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying? I didn’t know at start that the style Lobo Antunes used was Faulknerian until I got into the second chapter narrated by another voice. I read the synopsis at the back cover of the book: …resembles a William Faulkner cast of characters .… Each chapter was indeed a different point of view that contributed to telling the story of what was happening “as I lay dying.” The “I” refers to the dying patriarch of the once wealthy family during the last days of Salazar’s dictatorship. Was this the Faulknerian thing in the book or was it the multiple narratives style? It was a good thing that there were only some rare moments that the stream of consciousness thing was infused into the narrative. But, even without the latter style the book was a damned good read. Antonio Lobo Antunes, whose name had floated some years back as a Nobel Prize contender, has written, in this book, the characters and their "desperate acts” very well in a controlled way using some amazingly inventive descriptions.
So, what’s the novel about? I lifted the following synopsis from http://www.
bn.com/:As the socialist revolution closes in, a once-wealthy Portuguese family is accused of economic sabotage." They must escape across the border to Spain, then on to Brazil -- but the family is bankrupt, financially and spiritually. The patriarch, Diogo, lies dying, while his rapacious offspring rifle through his belongings, searching for his will. He remembers with bitterness and resignation his foolish marriage to his brother's beautiful mistress, who left him with a mongoloid daughter and a simpleminded son, who at sixty is running toy trains past his father's deathbed with the solemn self-importance of a five-year-old. Told through a rippling overlay of voices, Act of the Damned circles closer and closer to the revelation of the diabolical immorality of Diogo's greedy son-in-law Rodrigo . . . who has fathered a child of his own bastard daughter and who is closing in on Diogo's crumbling estate. In the oppressive autumn heat, the characters' schemes ebb and flow in an atmosphere of decrepit elegance, tarnished silver, and rotting brocade. When the moment of departure finally arrives, the scene shifts from chaos to vacuum and Rodrigo finds he is no longer at the center of the group but firmly, terrifyingly, outside and alone.
{May 12, 2009}
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