Word: neruda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...novel's language mimics the magical realism and elaborate metaphors of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda and effectively conjures up images of a land and people still bound by magic and ancient gods. Her metaphors are imaginative and often poetic. And the characters are at times fantastical, ranging from professional embalmers who travel around in wheel-chairs to silent Indians who disappear into the jungle at the blink...
Still, the novel as a whole has neither the sweep nor the intensity of one by Marquez or Neruda. The plot cannot bear the burden of such complex language. While the best of Latin American fiction is often ambiguous, Allende's novel is too often simply confusing...
Curfew's plot centers on the wake and funeral of Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Laurate Pablo Neruda, who was also a well known communist and recipient of the Stalin Prize. During the course of the wake, a debate ensues as to whether the widow's last wishes should be granted...
...arguing becomes complicated upon the arrival of government official Freddy Fox, who holds the authorization for the Pablo Neruda Foundation, which is to be created upon Matilde's death. He tells the communists that if they deny the dead woman's wishes and allow all leftist groups to converge on the cemetery under no specific leadership and without the church, he will authorize the Foundation. Lisboa's group accepts, but Fox meanwhile calls hundreds of police troops to surround the cemetery and to take notes on the leftists in attendance. The communists achieve their foundation, but they compromise their secrecy...
...climax of the novel occurs at the actual funeral of Matilde Neruda. Thousands of communists, Leftists and friends converge on the local cemetery to protest and to show respect for the dead, including the perennial drunkard Juan Lopez, or Lopito, as he is known to his friends including Vera and Torre. Angered by a policeman's laughter at his incredibly ugly and clumsy daughter, Lopito picks a fight with the machine gun man and is put in jail without bail...