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The Emperor of the Amazon
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Manufacturer: Avon Books
Author: Marcio Souza
Publisher: Avon Books
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price:
You Save: $ 2.95 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Author: Marcio Souza
Publisher: Avon Books
Average Customer Rating:
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The Emperor of the Amazon Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 869.3
EAN: 9780380762408
ISBN: 0380762404
Label: Avon Books
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 190
Publication Date: 1983-07
Publisher: Avon Books
Studio: Avon Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 869.3
EAN: 9780380762408
ISBN: 0380762404
Label: Avon Books
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 190
Publication Date: 1983-07
Publisher: Avon Books
Studio: Avon Books
Editorial Review of The Emperor of the Amazon
Customer Reviews of The Emperor of the Amazon
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: SATIRE BASED ON REAL STORY, SARCASTIC AND UNIQUE
Review: This was the first novel by Marcio Souza, a gifted Amazonian writer. The novel is based on the true story of Galvez, who briefly gained Acre (a remote state in the western Brazilian Amazon) from Bolivia in the late 1800s. At the time, the Amazon was bustling with the rubber trade, so the economic importance of the state, one of the main rubber producers in the country, was quite obvious.
Galvez is a migrant from Spain who meanders through the Amazon beginning in Belem, from where he is chased, ending up in Santarem then in Manaus. A bohemian, he is dragged into the plot to save Acre from a Bolivian-American coalition that would annex Acre to Bolivia, despite the majority of Brazilian rubber tappers living there.
Souza uses crude and sarcastic language in order to depict the decadent and complex society living in the Amazon, with prosptitutes from Europe, Northeastern Brazilians tapping rubber, American and European magnates, scientists with strange theories about the region and overall adventurers seeking a new life (as was the case with Galvez).
Souza pokes fun at that society as well as the military conception of the Amazon at the time the wrote the book (1970s), which drew some political trouble for him at the time. He has since written much, of which I have only read Mad Maria so far. His style is definitely reminiscent of Emile Zola in the crudeness of the language. If you are getting acquainted with Souza, I would recommend Mad Maria first, since it is more of a standard novel. In Emperor of the Amazon, he uses a different style of breaking up the chapters into little pieces, which can get distracting at times. Overall, however, it is a very interesting book, continuing the tradition of able Latin American writers using sarcasm and an artistic touch in a almost surreal environment.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Boozer, Broads & Buddies Win, Lose Amazon Fiefdom
Review: Texas is not the only place carved out of another country by more aggressive settlers far from any capital city. Marcio Souza's tale of the "Empire of Acre", created by Brazilian filibusters in a remote part of northern Bolivia in the Amazon basin, may or may not have much to do with Texan history, but the idea is at least similar. THE EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON relates the picaresque adventures of a Spanish vagabond in the literary style of the 19th century popular press, which was also sometimes the style of Brazilian author J.M. Machado de Assis, who was a much better writer. A crew of drunks, actors, nuns, diplomats, whores, and fantastic personalities---for example, a male-genitalia-collecting English gentleman who believes that the Manaus opera house was set down on Earth by aliens---careen about the vast jungles of the Amazon, using the rivers as highways, hoping to strike it rich by exploiting the rubber resources available there at the end of the 19th century. The land is only there to be exploited, workers only pawns in their ambition. After endless sexual and alcoholic escapades, they overthrow the Bolivian officials in Acre and establish a (short-lived) Empire.
Review Summary: SATIRE BASED ON REAL STORY, SARCASTIC AND UNIQUE
Review: This was the first novel by Marcio Souza, a gifted Amazonian writer. The novel is based on the true story of Galvez, who briefly gained Acre (a remote state in the western Brazilian Amazon) from Bolivia in the late 1800s. At the time, the Amazon was bustling with the rubber trade, so the economic importance of the state, one of the main rubber producers in the country, was quite obvious.
Galvez is a migrant from Spain who meanders through the Amazon beginning in Belem, from where he is chased, ending up in Santarem then in Manaus. A bohemian, he is dragged into the plot to save Acre from a Bolivian-American coalition that would annex Acre to Bolivia, despite the majority of Brazilian rubber tappers living there.
Souza uses crude and sarcastic language in order to depict the decadent and complex society living in the Amazon, with prosptitutes from Europe, Northeastern Brazilians tapping rubber, American and European magnates, scientists with strange theories about the region and overall adventurers seeking a new life (as was the case with Galvez).
Souza pokes fun at that society as well as the military conception of the Amazon at the time the wrote the book (1970s), which drew some political trouble for him at the time. He has since written much, of which I have only read Mad Maria so far. His style is definitely reminiscent of Emile Zola in the crudeness of the language. If you are getting acquainted with Souza, I would recommend Mad Maria first, since it is more of a standard novel. In Emperor of the Amazon, he uses a different style of breaking up the chapters into little pieces, which can get distracting at times. Overall, however, it is a very interesting book, continuing the tradition of able Latin American writers using sarcasm and an artistic touch in a almost surreal environment.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Boozer, Broads & Buddies Win, Lose Amazon Fiefdom
Review: Texas is not the only place carved out of another country by more aggressive settlers far from any capital city. Marcio Souza's tale of the "Empire of Acre", created by Brazilian filibusters in a remote part of northern Bolivia in the Amazon basin, may or may not have much to do with Texan history, but the idea is at least similar. THE EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON relates the picaresque adventures of a Spanish vagabond in the literary style of the 19th century popular press, which was also sometimes the style of Brazilian author J.M. Machado de Assis, who was a much better writer. A crew of drunks, actors, nuns, diplomats, whores, and fantastic personalities---for example, a male-genitalia-collecting English gentleman who believes that the Manaus opera house was set down on Earth by aliens---careen about the vast jungles of the Amazon, using the rivers as highways, hoping to strike it rich by exploiting the rubber resources available there at the end of the 19th century. The land is only there to be exploited, workers only pawns in their ambition. After endless sexual and alcoholic escapades, they overthrow the Bolivian officials in Acre and establish a (short-lived) Empire.
This was the first novel by Marcio Souza, who has subsequently published a number of others, none of which I've read. Though I may say that THE EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON is an extremely youthful novel, with a lot of sex and wry humor, it is certainly well-written, once you begin to see the point, which is to satirize the wastefully extravagant, parasitic society of the Amazon then, and the pretensions of Brazilian society in the 1970s when Souza wrote. I believe the author encountered some political difficulties after the book was published. At least, I bet he had a good time writing it. You will enjoy it, even if the messages are more or less drowned in hi-jinks.