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Cargando... Heliopolispor James Scudamore
   Booker Prize (384) Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. 1   nosajeel | Jun 21, 2014 |    ) malrubius | Apr 2, 2013 | Yet it would be wrong to assume I didn't enjoy it. It was a fun and alluring holiday read and my appetite was whet after visiting Brazil and briefly touring some of Rio's favelas in 2009. (  ) DavidWylie | Dec 30, 2011 | Heliopolis didn't just fall short of Great Expectations, it also fell short of the rave review in the Washington Post that drew me to it in the first place. The novel is reasonably good but doesn't come close to great and can be flawed and clunky at times. It is a black comedy tinged with bits of melodrama and thriller that tells the story of Ludo dos Santos who was adopted into the family of a wealthy supermarket magnate who travels everywhere by helicopter. Ludo is having an affair with his adopted sister, working in an absurd advertising agency that is promoting his adopted father's new "budget" supermarket chain for the favelas, and going through a sometimes reckless exploration of these favelas. The novel alternates between a few compressed, eventful days in the present and extensive flashbacks to the past, as well as between comedy and tragedy. It is hard to say what was so disappointing, but the alternations never seemed to work and the disjointed jumble of genres and actions didn't make psychological sense and made the book a little less appealing. I would, however, read Scudamore's next novel... but in the meantime will re-read Great Expectations. (  ) jasonlf | Jun 7, 2011 | ) AramisSciant | May 17, 2011 |
 This may sound harsh, but the talent manifest in the descriptive writing, in the deft characterisations, in the cool-handed plotting, suggests an author capable of deploying his skills to a greater purpose. And there's a further question: however well it's portrayed, how reliable is this version of Brazil? Of course, there's no such thing as a reliable fictional (or non-fictional) version of anything; yet there is such a thing as a palpable depth of authenticity. Scudamore's international upbringing included time in Brazil, and the strongest passages of the book are those capturing the kind of sensory delights on the farm and in the city that would have impressed themselves on a child's mind. You can sense movies such as City of God, Central Station and Black Orpheus hovering in the background; yet, unlike them, the book in the end gives a sense of shuttling just above the city's surface like one of those glinting helicopters: not as weighty as it might be, but beautiful to watch.  Heliopolis – broadly, “City of the Sun” – is a brightly ironic title for a dark, gripping, often comic novel concerning appetite, urban poverty and identity. Heliopolis is a slum district in the mega-city of São Paulo. In James Scudamore’s vision, this mega-city is reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s 1926 film Metropolis: the rich live high above the ground in luxury skyscrapers, their aircraft buzzing around the skyline, while the poor are huddled in the filthy dark below. Premios
Man Booker Prize Nominee: A Latin American rags-to-riches story filled with "morbid humor and blistering social commentary" (Publishers Weekly). Born in a São Paulo shantytown, Ludo has followed a remarkable trajectory from one side of the city's impermeable social divide to the other. Rescued and raised by a plutocrat, Ludo is now entrenched in the gated, guarded community of the super-rich. At twenty-seven, Ludo works for a vacuous "communications company" that markets unwanted, unaffordable products aimed at the very underclass into which he was born and from which he escaped. To make matters more complicated, he has developed an obsessive, adulterous love for his adoptive sister, whose husband is his only friend. Now, Ludo's involvement in an ill-conceived supermarket launch aimed at the favela's desperately poor population risks embroiling him in a world of violence and brutality, in this incisive novel that is by turns darkly humorous and deeply poignant. "A triumph." --New Statesman No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
Debates activosNingunoCubiertas populares
 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (3.47)
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2
Heliopolis didn't just fall short of Great Expectations, it also fell short of the rave review in the Washington Post that drew me to it in the first place.
The novel is reasonably good but doesn't come close to great and can be flawed and clunky at times. It is a black comedy tinged with bits of melodrama and thriller that tells the story of Ludo dos Santos who was adopted into the family of a wealthy supermarket magnate who travels everywhere by helicopter. Ludo is having an affair with his adopted sister, working in an absurd advertising agency that is promoting his adopted father's new "budget" supermarket chain for the favelas, and going through a sometimes reckless exploration of these favelas.
The novel alternates between a few compressed, eventful days in the present and extensive flashbacks to the past, as well as between comedy and tragedy.
It is hard to say what was so disappointing, but the alternations never seemed to work and the disjointed jumble of genres and actions didn't make psychological sense and made the book a little less appealing.
I would, however, read Scudamore's next novel... but in the meantime will re-read Great Expectations. (