Singing from the WellHis mother talks piously of the heaven that awaits the good, and disciplines him with an ox prod. His grandmother burns his precious crosses for kindling. His cousins meet to plot their grandfather's death. Yet in the hills surrounding his home, another reality exists, a place where his mother wears flowers in her hair, and his cousin Celestino, a poet who inscribes verse on the trunks of trees, understands his visions. The first novel in Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a quintet he called the Pentagonia, Singing from the Well is by turns explosively crude and breathtakingly lyrical. In the end, it is a stunning depiction of a childhood besieged by horror--and a moving defense of liberty and the imagination in a world of barbarity, persecution, and ignorance. |
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Adolfina anymore Arthur Rimbaud bawling bird bottles buckets buzzard castle catch ceiba tree Celestino CHORUS OF AUNTS CHORUS OF DEAD CHORUS OF WITCHES Christmas climb cockroaches comes cookstove crazy crepe myrtle crying dancing DEAD COUSINS disappear Eulogia everything eyes face feel finally gotten grabbed grandfather GRANDMOTHER Grandpa hands hanging hatchets hatchets hatchets head hear Indian laurel tree jackass Jorge Luis Borges jump keep kicking kill laughing leave lestino lightning lizards look Mama mother mountain mouth never night pick plants Poor pretty pull rain rain gutters REINALDO ARENAS river Rockaby rocks roof scared scream singing sleep standing started stick stop sweetsops talk tell there's thing Three Wise Men throat throw told tree trunks Uh-huh voice offstage waiting walk whack whole lot wild pineapple woman writing yelling