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Good Offices (2011)

by Evelio Rosero(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0811219305 (ISBN13: 9780811219303)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

New Directions

review 1: Good Offices' greatest strength it the tightness of the narrative. It's short for a reason; this is exactly how long was needed to execute the plot and develop the themes. And the themes are what the book is all about. Repression and vice, and the interesting fact is that self-repression is its own sort of vice, and like any vice, if it is inflicted upon another, it becomes an insufferable burden. The players in the novel are the repressed/oppressed residents of a church and the one man, a visiting priest, who is free of spirit but crippled by his own traditional vice, drink. Despite the priest's flawed and unholy demeanor, the very fact that he does not force his vice upon others makes him the redeeming/corrupting influence (he offers redemption but the reaction of the o... morether characters, their worldview withered from a lifetime of blind obedience to "holiness," is certainly negative) that turns the whole church on its head.
review 2: By chance the second book in a row I've read that involves cat-strangling. Both fantastic books, but take it easy on the cats okay?A weird little book. There's a hunchback, and three witches, and a near-albino nympho-maniacal angel, and a priest with a hauntingly holy voice and a drinking problem. There's also some elderly people who will tell you they are already dead when they're obviously not. As the night grows darker all these characters get mixed into a bizarre anxiety dream. The witches will show you the veins on their legs. The cats will jump on the table and eat all the food. The angel is waiting under the altar for sex. What it's all about I don't really know, but it's well written and alluringly weird. Just my thing. Except, lay off the cats! less

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