Religion & Beliefs - Fiction, Christian Fiction & Literature, Literary Styles & Movements - Fiction, European Fiction - General
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Overview
Qué diablo de Dios es éste que, para enaltecer a Abel, desprecia a Caín. Si en El Evangelio según Jesucristo José Saramago nos dio su visión del Nuevo Testamento, en Caín regresa a los primeros libros de la Biblia. En un itinerario heterodoxo, recorre ciudades decadentes y establos, palacios de tiranos y campos de batalla de la mano de los principales protagonistas del Antiguo Testamento, imprimiéndole la música y el humor refinado que caracterizan su obra. Caín pone de manifiesto lo que hay de moderno y sorprendente en la prosa de Saramago: la capacidad de hacer nueva una historia que se conoce de principio a fin. Un irónico y mordaz recorrido en el que el lector asiste a una guerra secular, y en cierto modo, involuntaria, entre el creador y su criatura.Editorials
Library Journal
Nobel Prize winner Saramago's final book (he died last year) reimagines the Old Testament story of Cain. This Cain moves through time from the story of Abraham and Isaac to Noah's Flood, forever encountering an unjust God. For all literati.Publishers Weekly
With breathtaking imagination, acclaimed Portuguese author Saramago (1922-2010), winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998, revels in biblical themes for his final novel. When Cain, the first-born son of Adam and Eve, murders his brother in rebellion against God, God shares in the guilt ("you gods should...take the blame for all the crimes committed in your name," Cain argues) and makes Cain "a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth." Cain's travels across a barren landscape lead him to a lusty tryst with Lilith and the witnessing, or altering, of many key events of the Old Testament (the building of the Tower of Babel; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah). God appears often and is defined less by his perfection than his faults; He is morally ambiguous, "can't bear to see anyone happy," and doesn't understand his powerlessness in preventing Cain's meddling. Rounding out the narrative are angels who circumvent God's will, visions of the urban modernity that the future holds, an ironic description of Darwinian evolution, and God himself touting the heliocentric theory that will cause something of a ruckus five centuries on. Cain's vagabond journey builds to a stunning climax that, like the book itself, is a fitting capstone to a remarkable career. (Oct. 6)Book Details
Published
May 30, 2011
Publisher
Santillana USA Publishing Company
Pages
192
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9788466324595