Pentagonia
Encyclopedia
The Pentagonia or the "five agonies' is the collective title of a series of five novels by Reinaldo Arenas
, the Cuban writer. It was subtitled by its author "the secret history of Cuba." The novels were written from the mid 1960s through the late 1980s, and indeed, as was recounted in Arenas' autobiography Before Night Falls
, were rewritten many times as manuscripts were lost, destroyed and/or confiscated by Cuban authorities. Each of the novels is semi-autobiographical and indeed has Arenas as one, if not more than one, of the major characters.
. Celestino was a child that was ostracized by his family because of his literary talents (he would write on trees and in retaliation his grandfather denuded the forest).
focuses on an adolescent, Fortunato, who was raised in a house of frustrated aunts, a primal grandmother and an emasculated grandfather. The novel is set during the 1959 Cuban Revolution and follows the main character as he clumsily joins the rebels. The acclaimed editor, Thomas Colchie, has written, that in this work, “Arenas has created a haunting family portrait, combining the lyrical empathy of a Tennessee Williams toward his characters’ troubled lives with a radically fractured narrative that pays dark tribute less to Faulkner than to the schizophrenia of life under any dictatorial extreme.” (Colchie 2001)
is a divided novel, telling the story of a married couple on a six-day vacation on the Cuban coast. The first half is a prosaic stream of consciousness narrative of the troubled wife demonstrating her love and inability to understand her husband, Hector. The last half of the novel, is composed of six poetic cantos sung in silence to the sea by Hector, a poet who is no longer allowed to write and who has been compelled to enter into a sham marriage to avoid the charge of homosexuality. It is a story of a marriage of two people who, while sharing genuine affection, are so different and incompatible that they not only cannot communicate, they fail to speak in the same terms, one in prose and the other in poetry.
Cuba, where homosexuality is punishable by death, told by a repressed homosexual turned government agent for the “Bureau of Counterwhispering” as he searches to destroy all whispers, homosexuals, dissidents and most particularly his own mother.
Reinaldo Arenas
Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright who despite his early sympathy for the 1959 revolution, grew critical of and then rebelled against the Cuban government.- Life :...
, the Cuban writer. It was subtitled by its author "the secret history of Cuba." The novels were written from the mid 1960s through the late 1980s, and indeed, as was recounted in Arenas' autobiography Before Night Falls
Before Night Falls
Before Night Falls is the 1992 autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, describing his life in Cuba, his time in prison, and his ultimate escape to the United States. It was on The New York Times list of the ten best books of the year 1993...
, were rewritten many times as manuscripts were lost, destroyed and/or confiscated by Cuban authorities. Each of the novels is semi-autobiographical and indeed has Arenas as one, if not more than one, of the major characters.
Book One
The first volume Singing from the Well was originally published as Celestino antes del alba in 1967. It was the only Arenas novel to be published in Cuba http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9000529 The novel recounts the history of a young child, Celestino, growing up in Province of Oriente, CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. Celestino was a child that was ostracized by his family because of his literary talents (he would write on trees and in retaliation his grandfather denuded the forest).
Book Two
The second volume, Palace of the White SkunksPalace of the White Skunks
Published in 1982, Palace of the White Skunks is the second book of Reinaldo Arenas' Pentagonia.-Plot summary:The main character, Fortunato, wants to escape the throes of his sisters and parents by joining the revolutionaries vying to overthrow Batista's regime.Arenas seamlessly weaves in and out...
focuses on an adolescent, Fortunato, who was raised in a house of frustrated aunts, a primal grandmother and an emasculated grandfather. The novel is set during the 1959 Cuban Revolution and follows the main character as he clumsily joins the rebels. The acclaimed editor, Thomas Colchie, has written, that in this work, “Arenas has created a haunting family portrait, combining the lyrical empathy of a Tennessee Williams toward his characters’ troubled lives with a radically fractured narrative that pays dark tribute less to Faulkner than to the schizophrenia of life under any dictatorial extreme.” (Colchie 2001)
Book Three
The Third volume, Farewell to the SeaFarewell to the Sea
Published in 1987, Farewell to the Sea is the third book in Reinaldo Arenas' Pentagonia which critics have often argued as his best. Set on a Cuban beach immediately following the revolution, a disenchanted poet mourns for the new suppression while his wife longs for the connectivity that she can...
is a divided novel, telling the story of a married couple on a six-day vacation on the Cuban coast. The first half is a prosaic stream of consciousness narrative of the troubled wife demonstrating her love and inability to understand her husband, Hector. The last half of the novel, is composed of six poetic cantos sung in silence to the sea by Hector, a poet who is no longer allowed to write and who has been compelled to enter into a sham marriage to avoid the charge of homosexuality. It is a story of a marriage of two people who, while sharing genuine affection, are so different and incompatible that they not only cannot communicate, they fail to speak in the same terms, one in prose and the other in poetry.
Book Four
In the fourth volume, The Color of Summer, Arenas appears as three characters, Gabriel – the dutiful ‘straight’ son, Reinaldo the expatriate author, and Skunk in a Funk, the ‘’picaro’’- faggot- who seeks merely to live and work as an artist in Castro’s Cuba while engaging anonymous sex. The novel is set in a Carnival celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and breaks many, if not all of the norms of narrative story telling (the ‘Foreword’ appears on page 252). In that foreword, Arenas states that the novel is a: "grotesque and satirical (and therefore realistic) portrait of an aging tyranny and the tyrant himself . . ..” He adds that the novel “is not a linear work, but circular, and therefore cyclonic, with a vortex or eye – the Carnival- towards which all vectors whirl."Book Five
The fifth and final volume, The Assault is a dark and Kafkaesque vision of a futureCuba, where homosexuality is punishable by death, told by a repressed homosexual turned government agent for the “Bureau of Counterwhispering” as he searches to destroy all whispers, homosexuals, dissidents and most particularly his own mother.
Overview
Writing about the entire Pentagonia, Arenas wrote, in the foreword to The Color of Summer:In all of these novels, the central character is an author, a witness, who dies but in the next novel is reborn under a different name yet with the same angry rebellious goal: to chant or recount the horror and the life of the people, including his own. There thus remains, in the midst of a terrible, tempestuous time, a life raft, a ship of hope, the intransigence of man the creator, the poet, the rebel –standing firm before all those repressive principals which, if they could, would destroy him utterly – one of those principals being the horror that he himself exudes.