The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love (1990) - Plot & Excerpts
Looking at her, Nestor felt faint-hearted: she was more beautiful than the sea, than the morning light, than a wildflower field, and her whole body, agitated and sweaty from her struggles, gave off an aromatic female scent, somewhere between meat and perfume and ocean air, that assailed Nestor's nostrils, sank down into his body like mercury, and twisted in his gut like Cupid's naughty arrow. He was so shy that he couldn't look at her anymore, and she liked this, because men were always looking at her."My name is Maria," she told him He is Nestor Castillo, a young man born on a farm and coming to Havana to become a musician, like his big brother Cesar. In the big city, he meets a beautiful woman, has a torid love affair with her, and then he loses her. While Cesar is a libertine who changes his women more often than his shirts, Nestor cannot recover from this first love affair, not even when he goes to New York, like many of his fellow Cuban artists, in the 1950'a at the height of the Mambo Craze in the American nightclubs, not even when he meets another beautiful Cuban immigrant and marries her, not even when, at the height of his succes, he sings with his brother in a Hollywood television programme about the pain of lost love in a melancholic bolero "Bella Maria de Mi Alma"Nestor remains distant, taciturn, tormented by absences, missing not only Maria, but also the land of his birth and childhood. He is transformed into a symbol of the exiled soul: His continuing grief was a monument to gallego melancholy.. Like Nestor are most of his compatriots who work on poorly paid day jobs, struggle to raise families and to maintain the spirit of the homeland in an alien land: Many of his friends were that way, troubled souls. They would always seem happy - especially when they'd talk about women and music - but when they had finished floating through the euphoric layer of their sufferings, they opened their eyes in a world of pure sadness and pain. This sadness is in stark contrast with the carnival atmosphere of the dancing halls, but maybe it explains the wild abandon of these people to the rhythms of the mambo, their sentimentality and their readiness to come together in moments of need. And in explains why their lives are best expressed trough the music they compose, sing at all hours of the day, dance and even make love to. It may also explain the attraction exercised by the African drumbeats, the raw emotions and the joy for life on the more restrained and self-conscious American audience in the 1950's. ... songs written to take the listeners back to the plazas of small towns in Cuba, to Havana, to past moments of courtship and love, passion, and a way of life that was fading from existence. His (and Nestor's) songs were more or less typical of the songwriting of that day: ballads, boleros, and an infinite variety of fast dance numbers (son montunos, guarachas, merengues, guaracha mambos, son pregones). The compositions capturing the moments of youthful cockiness ("A thousand women have I continually satisfied, because I am an amorous man!"). Songs about flirtation, magic, blushing brides, cheating husbands, cuckolds and the cuckolded, flirtatious beauties, humiliation. Happy, sad, fast, and slow.And there were songs about torment beyond all sorrows. From a structural perspective, the history of the two brother, first in Cuba and later in New York, is told through the songs they composed and sung together with their band The Mambo Kings . An elderly Cesar reminisces alone and drunk in a cheap hotel room, listening to old 78's self printed records, thinking back to the glory days of white silken suits, Panama hats and endless nights of revelry, spicy food, loud music, voluptuous women and companionship. What did he have? A few pictures from Cuba, a wall filled with autographed pictures, a headful of memories, sometimes scrambled like eggs.Again, he remembers back to long ago and his Papi in Cuba saying, "You become a musician, and you'll be a poor man all your life." The story is non-linear, following Cesar's "scrambled" train of thought, jumping forward and backward in time, yet the individual snapshots are painstakingly and lovingly expanded, added upon and filled with extravagant minute details by Oscar Hijuelos until they become a panoramic and comprehensive big canvas memorial to the times and the people of Little Havana, to the legacy of a Cuban lifestyle that was disappearing fast under the pressure of revolutionary changes and modern values. This generation has lost its sense of elegance. exclaims Cesar in 1970, looking at the picture of the dapper young men with immaculate suits and pencil-thin moustaches, remembering huge ballrooms with sparkling chandeliers and ladies in evening gowns, sighing over past memories of dainty underwear and high heeled shapely legs. Most of all Cesar is missing his brother and his music, the energy and the resilience that he took for granted in his youth. He's paying the price now for all those fat cigars and glasses of rum, for the sleepless nights and casual amorous encounters. ... he'd lied so often to women over the years, had mistreated and misunderstood so many women, that he had resigned himself to forgetting about love and romance, those very things he used to put in songs. I was already a 'Cubanophile', as one of the followers of the Mambo Kings is described in the book, long before I read the present novel. It started, as with many of my contemporaries, courtesy of the Buena Vista Social Club and the likes of Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo and Ruben Gonzales. I was thus already predisposed to enjoy Oscar Hijuelo's history and to look forward to the many tidbits of information and cameo appearances of popular artists from the island and from the American scene. The music already spoke to me of the people and of their passion, of their laughter and of their sadness walking hand in hand. Hijuelos didn't disappoint, but I think I can understand how another reader may view the baroque extravagance of the descriptive passages, the almost academic essays on the origins, inspiration and style of the songs, the pervasive melancholy of the whole presentation as a drag and as self-indulgence on the part of a writer who is unable to get detached enough from his subject. I confess that even for me it was not a smooth ride, and the density of the text often put me to sleep after a day at work. The chronic depression of the two brothers started to get annoying, especially in the second half of the novel, the one that focuses not on the 1950's dance craze, but on the later decadence of a once macho man. The mistreatment of women may be consistent with the period described, but it weights uncomfortably on the modern reader. There are numerous explicit sexual passages, necessary in my opinion to underline the character types, but liable to put stress on the more susceptible readers. Finally, for a book that claims to be apolitical, Hijuelos, through the mouthpiece of Cesar Castillo, unleashes quite vicious attacks on Castro and his revolutionaries, going so far as to mourn for Batista and to reproduce verbatim several of the most egregious pieces of propaganda circulated by the CIA. There are though enough highlights to make me glad I was patient and read through to the end of the book. The novel weaves together fact and fiction so well that I had no way to tell which are the real musicians of the era and which are the fictional ones. All of them feel alive, ready to stand up and start blowing a trumpet or strumming a guitar, take a turn around the dance floor in the arms of a sultry Latino beauty. The very aboundance of the minute details of day to day life that slow down the pacing are the ones that make the experience authentic and memorable. The cheap sentimentality and readiness for tears are proof that their hearts are not hardened, cynical and closed to the possibility of love: The night of the dance, Delores was thinking about what her sister Ana Maria had told her: "Love is the sunlight of the soul, water for the flowers of the heart, and the sweet-scented wind of the morning of life" - sentiments taken from corny boleros on the radio, but maybe they were true, no matter how cruel and stupid men can be. Perhaps there'll be a man who'll be different and good to me. I don't know if the famous bolero sung by Nestor and Cesar Castillo exists or not in one of the old mambo recordings, but it echoes still in my mind, almost two months after I finished the book, and I know that I will listen more carefully to the lyrics next time I put in one of my own Cuban CD's, thinking of my own youthful disregard for the passage of time and my spendthrift atitude to friends and lovers. Oh, love's sadness,Why did you come to me?I was happy before youentered my heart.How can I hate youif I love you so?I can't explain my torment,for I don't know how to livewithout your love ...What delicious painlove has brought to mein the form of a woman.My torment and ecstasy,Maria, my life,Beautiful Maria of my soul ...P.S. : I know there is a movie version of the novel, and I plan to find it. I'm glad I got to read the book first, since I don't think you can condense all the rich material here in only a couple of hours of screen time. Yet, I also know of another Cuban movie that is constructed around the music and the 1950's dance scene that did an excellent job with the subject, and I heartily recommend it: Fernando Trueba's animation feature "Chico and Rita"
One reviewer writes, "This book is nostalgic, exotic, erotic and narcotic. It is a beautiful book and I have returned to it several times and each time I am completely swept up emotionally by it. With mere words on a page, the author creates the melodies of the Mambo era, the smells of rural Cuban cane fields, the sweat of a dance hall, the swelter of a New York City summer. The two main characters, Cesar and Nestor love in completely different, but totally compelling, ways. For Nestor, love is an ideal, out of reach and cause for nothing but pain. Cesar loves all of womankind with an unquenchable thirst. If Nestor is a Keats poem, Cesar is a Marvin Gaye album. I did not find the book sexist (as some have claimed), I did find the book unabashedly sensual, as sensual as the music and culture and era in which it celebrates. If your greatest erogenous zone is your mind, read The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. If living a life that is drenched in passion and pleasure to it`s fullest capacity is a belief you subscribe to, read this book. If you enjoy rich storytelling, you will like this book."I would add that Hijuelos succeeds in sharing a life drenched in latin passion- so much charanga and lovemaking and feasting and cono! - so that the protagonist is eventually smothered by sensation, and for the second half of the book, you ache as much as he to return to the former exhilarating glory of his golden years. Reading this book seems to be almost as painful as being this bloated lothario, with his bright conquests and shimmery dreams streaming through until he slips into his final cancion.
What do You think about The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love (1990)?
Here is what life was like for two young Cuban musicians who came from Havana to play the mambo in hot and humid dance halls in 1950s NYC. Here is what life was like in the streets, the nightclubs & for Latino immigrant families. This is a book to delight the senses, that allows you to see the colorful outfits, hear the music in your heart, & almost taste the food & enjoy the rum! Cesar is a far from perfect man, but he's a man you'll remember for a long time, and a man who's determined to live life on his terms. His passion, his losses, memories & desires make this book a moving portrait of a man who's had a full and interesting life, & what happens to him as he grows older. You also learn a lot about his friends, family members and lovers. There's a great deal of sadness, violence & substance abuse - but guess what, that's part of life. This book has not been sanitized! (And ya know, that's what makes it great!) I learned a little history, a little culture, a little music, & a lot about the human heart.
—Marigold
Hijuelos infuses color, fragrance, rhythm, melody, and flavor into this story, creating a tortured, romantic, immigrant's tale. The story is told against the backdrop of the New York clubs of the era, when Spanish music and dancing was all the rage. The novel takes place predominantly in the 50's and 60's. The immigrants are colorful, passionate Cubans. They leave their homeland before Castro comes to power and travel to New York City for a chance to follow their own interpretations of the American Dream.Hijuelos gives us two brothers, Nestor and Cesar, musicians whose only similarities are their love of music and shared DNA. In all other ways, they're opposites. Nestor, the younger brother, marries a lovely woman and fathers two children, yet forever mourns the loss of his first love, a woman named Maria. His demeanor is sad, soulful and tormented. Cesar, on the other hand, is a handsome, macho, cocksure ladies' man. For Cesar, everything in his life is indulgence; playing music, dancing, eating, drinking, and copulating. Cesar measures his life by his many sexual escapades. His machismo defines him. Together, the talented brothers attain a small level of notoriety.Hijuelos escorts us through the brothers' lives and deaths. He does it with zeal and compassion, both. At about 300 pages into the book, I did find one specific admission from Cesar to be repulsive. However, for the story to ring true and to bare all, I suppose this was necessary. For the rest of the book, I was treated to an endearing, compelling story, told as lyrically and melodiously as I imagined the brothers' music to be. I finished the book with empathy and love for these beautifully created, fictional characters.
—Doreen
THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE is Oscar Hijuelos' homage to the Cuban music club scene on New York City during the early to middle years of the Twentieth Century as told through the lives of Cesar and Nestor Castillo, the Mambo Kings in the band of the same name. But, in addition to music, this Pulitzer Prize winner is also rich with machismo appetites and melancholy. The brothers leave Cuba for NYC to pursue musical careers and in the process compose a hit song and appear on I LOVE LUCY after having met Dezi Arnaz during one of their club shows. Cesar, the frontman who delights in the emotive freedoms traditional to the singing of boleros, is a lifelong lot hairdo while his younger brother is given to brooding and reminiscing about the beautiful Maria who deserted him for another. Following a tragedy, one brother mourns, spending the rest of his life ignoring his mortality while working as an apartment super. However, the music is never completely out of his life. This is an earthy story about men and women who enjoy sex, eating, dancing and playing the cha cha cha, the rumba and the mambo. Muy bueno.
—Michael Brockley
