Wars Of Our Ancestors

Wars of Our Ancestors

From Library Journal Through the apocryphal transcript of seven nights of dialog between a sanatorium psychologist and his criminal patient, one of Spain's great contemporary writers explores the themes of hereditary intergenerational violence and progress that is "messing up the world." If thematically it resembles the five Delibes novels already translated into English (most recently The Stuff of Heroes , LJ 9/1/90), stylistically its closest kin are Five Hours with Mario (Columbia Univ. Pr., 1988) and even the experimental The Hedge ( LJ 12/1/83). Moncy, translator of Benito Perez Galdos's Fortunata and Jacinta ( LJ 11/1/86), capably conveys the doctor's analytical inquisition but is less convincing with the peasant's colloquial phrases. Still, the book remains powerful reading. Highly recommended for literary fiction collections.-Law rence Olszewski, OCLC, Dublin, OhioCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. In a series of interviews with the prison psychiatrist, Pacifico Perez, a Spanish peasant charged with murder, describes his world and the circumstances that led to his imprisonment From Publishers Weekly This accomplished novel by a distinguished Spanish writer purports to be the transcript of a week's conversations between psychiatrist Burgueno Lopez and Pacifico Perez, a peasant serving a prison sentence for murder. Guided by the doctor's gentle inquiries, Pacifico relates the unfortunate developments that led to his incarceration. Pacifico recalls his father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's constant exhortations to be a man, and remembers their relish in describing their successful participation in military campaigns. Yet the aptly named Pacifico is more like his brooding, thoughtful grandmother. Rejected by the army, he becomes a beekeeper and is seduced by a girl from a nearby village. When her brother finds out about their affair and appears to challenge them, Pacifico kills him. Although he is relieved to be imprisoned, freed of responsibility, he becomes involved in a botched escape plan in which a guard is killed. Will he be executed for this new crime? Delibes ( Five Hours with Mario ) explores the social dynamics of the Perez family and, by extrapolation, modern society, producing in Pacifico a natural storyteller through whom the tragicomic antics of the villagers quicken and pulse. A heightened sensitivity to nature informs both his breathtaking descriptions and his resolutely unromantic view of peasant life. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Spanish novelist Delibes (The Hedge, Five Hours with Mario--a monologue) here uses a series of psychiatric interviews to make a spare, dialogical novel. A tubercular Castilian peasant, Pacifico Perez, is interviewed by a prison psychiatrist, Dr. Lopez. Perez is in prison for killing (though in half-defense) the brother of his lover, the wild-and-crazy Candi, who had discovered them in flagrante one afternoon. Perez's life has been one of casual social violence and macho posture, all mixed up with Spanish rustic charm- -giving his little village a perfectly congruent side against which rested such general catastrophes as the Spanish Civil War. Explains Perez: ``Killing men was like killing wild boar: you have to do it when the time's right. 'Cause if you kill a boar in January, you get rewarded; but if you kill him in July, you're sorry, see. Well, the same for men. You kill 'em in wartime and you get a medal, but you kill 'em when there's peace and off you go for a while.'' A jail break will provide some secondhand drama here, but mostly this is a book focused on its own techniques and its Message (see above). Still, English-speaking readers of Delibes, and of contemporary Spanish writing, will want to keep abreast. -- Copyright