THREE TRAPPED TIGERS

by Guillermo Cabrera Infante ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 22, 1971

The tristes tigres of the tongue-twister have never seemed quite so sad as here around the prerevolutionary cabarets of Havana where they (ex)temporize in the (an)esthetic idiom of 'Shame's Choice' on the ""consolations of claustrosophy"" or vice versatile. Cue, the actor, and Sylvestre, the journalist, have learned their obsessive-allusive wordplay from their friend Bustrofedon, who got it originally from an undiagnosed brain disorder; and like it or not it's the whole show in Infante's trope-ical Tropicana Club. Now and again there's a break for authentic parody (Trotsky's assassination as written up by Jose Marti or Alejo Carpentier) or satire (an American couple's travel story collaboration) or occasionally even storytelling (the mountainous rise of La Estrella, a black white-giant singing star), but it's little relief from the general aimless assing around with models, whores, heiresses, etc., all dull enough to explain the verbal diversions. This jeu may have lost some esprit in translation -- not the translation from the Cuban but the one Cue refers to: ""Being is nothingness expressed in other terms.

Pub Date: Sept. 22, 1971

ISBN: 1564783790

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION