I don’t know how Three Trapped Tigers by G. Cabrera Infante got on my books to read list. It’s not a new book having been published in 1965 in the original Spanish and in 1972 in its English translation. Maybe it was mentioned in the old Book Review section of the L.A. Times in the review of a different, more recent book as a comparison. It’s about Cuba and I’ve read a few books that partially or entirely took place in Cuba, most recently Monkey Hunting by Cristina Garcia. In any case, Three Trapped Tigers had been on my list for several years and I figured I better get it off either by reading it or attempting to read it. It wasn’t available at the Covina Public Library but it was at the Cal State L.A. library in the original 1971 English translation edition.
I started reading it and the first page just before the prologue appears to be a map of the major streets of Havana, Cuba. I believe most of the book takes place there during the time just before Castro’s revolution. But in the first 50 pages it’s hard to get a sense of where the story takes place and what it’s about. I had read that the book had been compared favorably to the book Ulysses by James Joyce and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. The prologue and the first seven chapters, all unlabeled and lacking even numbers, seem to each be written from a different point of view.
The prologue is a long monologue intro by an emcee at a nightclub. The monologue goes on for one long paragraph introducing dignitaries in the audience, making jokes, and switching between English and Spanish. Sometimes the Spanish is translated in the next sentence and sometimes it isn’t. It seems to be more of a random rant than a prepared speech that reacts to the famous people as they are spotted. It doesn’t reveal much about the emcee. I’m not sure if he’s a man or she’s a woman and I can only guess he’s a man from the time period and his compliments of the ladies.
The first section is called “Beginners” and the first chapter is a monologue of childhood memories. The next is a letter from a woman in Havana to a friend in another town whose daughter is in Havana leading a “scandalous” life as a model. Then there’s another slang-filled rant and then another monologue about sneaking into movie theaters that also touches on the unrest in the street (that eventually leads to the revolution?). The next chapter is one side of a phone conversation that seems to include a lot of nonsense. Maybe that’s more realistic. At one point the caller mentions the name Hermenegildo. This chapter is followed by the first person account of a man trying to procure a raise. The account is heavy on reflection. The next chapter is about a man trying to start a new life but things get strange and dark very quickly. In fact, the chapter is followed by two pages of black. By this point I had reached the rule of 50 (page 54 actually) and I just wasn’t getting into the book. I guess it consists of different voices in Havana during the time period but they all seem dark and disjointed. There is a lot of cursing and possibly lots of pretentious symbolism and unreliable narrator angles. I’ll leave this book for the literary scholars and the readers of Joyce and I can now remove it from my booklist.
I started reading it and the first page just before the prologue appears to be a map of the major streets of Havana, Cuba. I believe most of the book takes place there during the time just before Castro’s revolution. But in the first 50 pages it’s hard to get a sense of where the story takes place and what it’s about. I had read that the book had been compared favorably to the book Ulysses by James Joyce and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. The prologue and the first seven chapters, all unlabeled and lacking even numbers, seem to each be written from a different point of view.
The prologue is a long monologue intro by an emcee at a nightclub. The monologue goes on for one long paragraph introducing dignitaries in the audience, making jokes, and switching between English and Spanish. Sometimes the Spanish is translated in the next sentence and sometimes it isn’t. It seems to be more of a random rant than a prepared speech that reacts to the famous people as they are spotted. It doesn’t reveal much about the emcee. I’m not sure if he’s a man or she’s a woman and I can only guess he’s a man from the time period and his compliments of the ladies.
The first section is called “Beginners” and the first chapter is a monologue of childhood memories. The next is a letter from a woman in Havana to a friend in another town whose daughter is in Havana leading a “scandalous” life as a model. Then there’s another slang-filled rant and then another monologue about sneaking into movie theaters that also touches on the unrest in the street (that eventually leads to the revolution?). The next chapter is one side of a phone conversation that seems to include a lot of nonsense. Maybe that’s more realistic. At one point the caller mentions the name Hermenegildo. This chapter is followed by the first person account of a man trying to procure a raise. The account is heavy on reflection. The next chapter is about a man trying to start a new life but things get strange and dark very quickly. In fact, the chapter is followed by two pages of black. By this point I had reached the rule of 50 (page 54 actually) and I just wasn’t getting into the book. I guess it consists of different voices in Havana during the time period but they all seem dark and disjointed. There is a lot of cursing and possibly lots of pretentious symbolism and unreliable narrator angles. I’ll leave this book for the literary scholars and the readers of Joyce and I can now remove it from my booklist.
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