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Lädt ... Our House in the Last Worldvon Oscar Hijuelos
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Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. A Cuban-family move to the US, but aren't able to leave their homeland behind. Mercedes, after thinking she's missed her chance to marry, meets Alejo at the cinema where she works. Mercedes settles into her life as a wife and mother, though finds it hard to reconcile herself with her family's former standing on the island. The young couple decide to move to New York, but life there isn't what they expected. An absorbing read about an immigrant family, with all the problems that immigration comes with - missing home, fitting in, language barriers, children trying to come to terms with being caught between a country they live in and the one they are originally from. Zeige 2 von 2 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
This debut novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, bears all the hallmarks of Hijuelos's later work-exuberance, passion, honesty, and humor. Filled with the sights and sounds of Cuba's Oriente province and New York City, the music and films of the fifties, lusty fantasies and the toughest of life's realities, it is the unforgettable story of Hector Santinio, the American-born son of Cuban immigrants, who is haunted by tales of "home" (a Cuba he has never seen) and by the excesses and then the death of his loving father. This edition includes a new autobiographical introduction by the author, reflecting on how he came to write Our House in the Last World, and a new afterword in which he comments on the story. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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Hijuelos’ debut novel spans five decades, telling the story of the Santinio family from 1929 in Cuba to 1975 in New York. Alejo and Mercedes emigrate to New York City from Cuba in 1943, where he finds work as a cook in a fancy hotel and she tries to make a life in an apartment so far from her childhood estate. They have two sons, Horacio and Hector, who struggle with their own identities; are they Americans or Cubans? It is a love story, a family saga, a coming-of-age story, and a novel of the immigrant experience.
Alejo is a man who has never met a stranger. He is exuberant and generous, always the life of the party, a loyal friend and a ladies’ man. But he is consumed by want. His life is not what he envisioned and he cannot understand how things went so wrong. He drinks to drown his sorrows and descends into melancholy. He doesn’t recognize how his actions push his children away, when all he wants is to be recognized as THE MAN and a FATHER to be respected.
Mercedes is a woman who lives in the past. She cannot let go of past glories of life with her father when she was a young girl. She loves Alejo, but the man he has become is a stranger to her. She is alone because of her lack of English and her reliance on saints and signs and dreams and mysticism. Fiercely protective of her children she doesn’t recognize that her smothering is harming them rather than helping them.
Horacio grows as a nearly feral child. Clearly his parents’ violent arguments affect him and he turns to his friends and to the streets, finally escaping into the U.S. Air Force.
And baby Hector is trapped in his own skin and desperately seeking an escape. He is neither Cuban nor American. Neither a man nor a son. His father dotes on him, but he cannot return the affection of this man who is so unreliable and prone to drunken violence.
Hijuelos’s writing is vivid and passionate, with scenes that are ethereal and full of mysticism contrasted with scenes of brutal reality. People yell in anger, whoop in celebration, cry in despair and wallow in silence. ( )