Word: cabezons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...novel is narrated by Juan Cabezon, descendent of converted Jews. Orphaned as a child, witness to his mother's violent murder, the protagonist has survived in the Medieval town of Madrid by his wits, with the guidance of some of Castile's most suspicious characters. These include the blind and bumbling beggar Pero Menaque, an accidental prophet who reappears throughout the novel to inflect the protagonist's course. He leads Cabezon through the darkest, dirtiest quarters of Madrid, introducing him to the beggars, scoundrels, prostitutes and pariahs that constitute Madrid's other life...
...Cabezon spends much of the first half of his narrative recounting his daily excursions through the city, and plot development is spare. But Aridjis manages to keep-at times enthrall-his readers with a painstaking and prodigious recreation of everyday life. Aridjis' extraordinary research has provided us with lovingly detailed descriptions of everything from Castillian dress-down to the very weaves of the garments-to marriage rites, to the arcane systems of weights and measures...
...addition to his claims of high-level conspiracy, Casolaro did research that put him on the trail of some dangerous characters. A key part of his investigations, for example, centered on gambling and attempted arms deals at the Cabezon Indian reservation near Indio, Calif. One figure in Casolaro's proposed book would have been John Philip Nichols, a financial adviser to the Cabezons, who was sentenced to four years in prison in 1985 for attempting to hire a man to kill two people...