A continuance of Goytisolo's relentless assault on his native Spain (or a revision since I am reading the trilogy backwards), this time centering on the historical figure Count Julian who "allegedly opened the gates of Spain to an invasion of Moors and the consequent eight hundred years of Islamic influence." To quote the blurb, "Nothing short of the total destruction of Spain and all things Spanish will be an acceptable punishment for [Goytisolo's] exile."

The book is seething with Goytisolo's familiar anger, but without the relief of the ultimate combustion of language as inevitably culminated at Juan the Landless. It is relentless abuse, reminiscent of the tyranny of Guyotat's Eden, Eden, Eden in certain ways; a machine-gun volley of language, its fire belt-fed and unceasing until death (in Eden's case) or exhaustion (in Count Julian's).

Goytisolo's is a literature of abuse. One must accept exhaustion and fatigue as a condition of exposure to Goytisolo's language. The mind must be steeled and prepared for relentless lashing. While the violence is targeted toward his native Spain, the reader finds themselves targeted in the haphazard spread of gunfire or caught in the explosions from the indiscriminate linguistic carpet bombing.

I cannot recommend Goytisolo enough, but only to those readers who are formidable or foolhardy enough to endure his hatred, the erratic onslaught of his language, his absolute disdain and disposal of grammatical convention; for those who would invite the serpent's dripping fangs to penetrate the flesh merely to test the limits of their endurance.