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The News From Paraguay
The News From Paraguay
The News From Paraguay
Audiobook10 hours

The News From Paraguay

Written by Lily Tuck

Narrated by Lisette Lecat

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

The year is l854. In Paris, Francisco Solano -- the future dictator of Paraguay -- begins his courtship of the young, beautiful Irish courtesan Ella Lynch with a poncho, a Paraguayan band, and ahorse named Mathilde. Ella follows Franco to AsunciOn and reigns there as his mistress. Isolated and estranged in this new world, she embraces her lover's ill-fated imperial dream -- one fueled by a heedless arrogance that will devastate all of Paraguay. With the urgency of the narrative, rich and intimate detail, and a wealth of skillfully layered characters, The News from Paraguay recalls the epic novels of Gabriel GarcIa MArquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 25, 2011
ISBN9781456124250
The News From Paraguay
Author

Lily Tuck

Born in Paris, LILY TUCK is the author of four previous novels: Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up; The Woman Who Walked on Water; Siam, or the Woman Who Shot a Man, which was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and The News from Paraguay, winner of theNational Book Award. She is also the author of the biography Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and are collected in Limbo and Other Places I Have Lived. Lily Tuck divides her time between Maine and New York City.

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Reviews for The News From Paraguay

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I agree that the novel seemed more about Paraguay and less about exploring the characters. It seemed to skim over the characters' lives. It was a bit of a dirty book, and I felt sometimes as if I had to look over my should to make sure no one was catching me reading it. :) I read it a couple times and then gave it away.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Reviewers have compared this to novels by garcia marquez and vargas llosa, but i don't think the writers have much in common besides their subject matter - central and south america. depicting imperial ambition and human tragedy, the prose is sparse yet powerful when addressing the numerous atrocities committed by the paraguayan dictator in his misguided and disastrous war against his neighbors. kind of dragged on while i was reading it, but now that it's finnished, it's definitely something that stays with you. very realistic in the way it moves in and out of the lives of so many people, providing vivid vignettes that coalesce into paraguay itself, which in turn is connected to a broader, global picture through epistolary and ideological links to distant paris.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Just finished this book a few minutes ago, so these are the off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts. This book won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2004, and I can see why. It's very well written with short but vivid chapters; very action-packed, and evocative of a time and place most people know nothing about. It was fascinating. But, heavens, it was horrifying. As JMT mentioned, it's about a Paraguayan dictator who declared war on Brazil and other neighboring countries. War is never pretty, and Tuck certainly doesn't try to glorify it in any way. She shows just how awful it was, and in the Paraguayans' case, it was horrendous; before the war, the country had over a million citizens. After the war, less than 200,000. But it wasn't the large scale annihilation that got to me, it was the small acts of cruelty. The unnecessary evil. The baseness to which humans descend. I like to think that people, on the whole, are good and kind by nature. Stories like this one make me question that basic philosophy.All said, I think this was a very good book and one I'm glad I read. Even if I did find it troubling.