Cape Verde is a little cluster of islands off the west coast of Africa:
Here's the summary:
Everyone in Cape Verde knows Senor da Silva. Successful entrepreneur, owner of the island's first automobile, a most serious, upright, and self-made businessman, Senor da Silva is the local success story. Born an orphan, he never married, he never splurged--one good suit was good enough for him--and he never wandered from the straight and narrow. Or so everyone thought. But when Senor da Silva's 387-page Last Will and Testament is read aloud--a marathon task on a hot afternoon which exhausts reader after reader--there's eye-opening news, and not just for the smug nephew so certain of inheriting all Senor da Silva's property. With his will, Senor da Silva leaves a memoir that is a touching web of elaborate self-deceptions. He desired so ardently to prosper, to be taken seriously, to join (perhaps, if they'll have him) the exclusive Gremio country club, and, most of all, to be a good man. And yet, shady deals, twists of fate, an illegitimate child: such is the lot of poor, self-critical Senor da Silva. A bit like Calvino's Mr. Palomar in his attention to protocol and in his terror of life's passions; a bit like Calvino's Mr. Palomar in his attention to protocol and in his terror of life's passions; a bit like Svevo's Zeno (a little pompous, a little old-fashioned, and often hapless), Senor da Silva moves along a deliciously blurry line between farce and tragedy: a self-important buffoon becomes a fully human, even tragic, figure in the arc of this hilarious and touching novel - translated into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and now, at last, English.
So this one was...eh. It was fine. One thing that kept getting me was I kept picturing this setting as South America. Because I keep picturing Portugal as mostly having colonized South America...instead of Africa which is a lot closer? I don't know. I also had no idea how to pronounce the name in my head so that distracted me a bit.
I did have some thoughts on this one---SPOILERS AHEAD.
So this illegitimate kid? He straight up raped his maid. Because she had on a green skirt and he was "powerless." OMFG. Shut the fuck up. But it gets worse because the second time he rapes her, he's nicer. So then they just start banging on the regular. Because WTF. And the maid-mom is just like, yeah, after that we wanted to bone, so we did. And I'm not going to say that something like that would never happen in real life, but I would think it wouldn't happen that often and it seems gross.
And I fucking hate how so many of these (mostly men) write about women in a lot of these books. If a woman has any interest in sex she's a disgusting whore, but of course the men can have sex with as many women as they want and it's cool. Women are just seen as these bothersome things that tempt men into doing bad things...heaven forbid men take responsibility for their actions and will power or lack there of. Why do men keep writing women this way? (Sorry, of course not all of them.) So, um, there's my little rant that lots of men need to stop being vile pigs.
Less tiradey, have you noticed that we really only use the word "eccentric" for rich people? Poor people are just weird or crazy. But this guy used 4 different toothbrushes a day (okay that's the only one I can remember but there were a lot of other odd things), and he was just *eccentric.*
Lastly, I don't want to get old. That sounds bad, but you just deteriorate as you get older. Your mind goes, your body goes (and I'm not doing so great in that department already), and there are all these things you can't do for yourself anymore. It's a depressing prospect.
That's also a depressing ending. Although I guess most of this has been depressing. I really hope I get back to books that I really enjoy, that don't just see women as disposable, one dimensional objects. Umm. Yes.
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