Ana Teresa Torres

One of those books which is a terribly clever idea, and competently executed but just unutterably tedious.
Torres takes us through the history of her native Venezuela, from the slave-owning elite of the 17th century through to the present day. The narrator is the ghost of Dona Ines, an embittered aristocrat from the early days, as her spirit prowls through her ancestral home seeking the long-lost documents that will recover her property. She harangues her husband - beloved but faithless; his illegitimate son by a slave woman, who went on to rise to prominence...
And we follow their lineages through the natural disasters and political upheavals that marked the country's history. The conflict between black and white, and different factions; but, too, the coming together of those races.

Because quite a lot of characters are introduced in a relatively short (250p) book, it's hard to recall who's who. The wars, the disputes at law, go on interminably, and while Torres succeeds in the more human stories (the slave woman fleeing through the jungle with her mistress's infant; the love affair), much of it just drones on.
Now to read something for light relief!… (mehr)