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Felipe Alfau
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Locos Hardcover – January 1, 1936

by Felipe Alfau (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 12 ratings
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The interconnected stones that form Felipe Alfau's novel LOCOS take place in a Madrid as exotic as the Baghdad of the 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS and feature unforgettable characters in revolt against their young 'author' "For them," he complains, "reality is what fiction is to real people; they simply love it and make for it against ray almost heroic opposition" Alfau's "comedy of gestures" -- a mercurial dreamscape of the eccentric, sometimes criminal, habitues of Toledo's Cafe of the Crazy -- was written in English and first published in 1936, favorably reviewed for The Nation by Mary McCarthy, as she recounts here in her Afterword, then long neglected.
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  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Farrar & Rinehart
  3. Publication date
    January 1, 1936
  4. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00086E5WA
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar & Rinehart (January 1, 1936)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

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Felipe Alfau

Felipe Alfau

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
12 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dale Tegtman
4.0 out of 5 stars Neglected Modernist masterwork
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2005
This is a beautiful, witty series of interconnected stories that pre-sages John Barth and other ironic contemporaries. The characters auditioning for the novelists who will immoralize them at the Locos Cafe enchant, misbehave, and appear to fail Alfau. In an age where most prominent writers honestly believed authorship could change the world, Alfau is a refreshing antidote, suggesting that the act of writing merely troubles the writer.
3 people found this helpful
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David Alston
5.0 out of 5 stars The birth of speculative fiction
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2006
Felipe Alfau's phenomenal LOCOS: A COMEDY OF GESTURES anticipates a number of other movements and writers - Nabokov, Borges, Calvino and Cortazar could all be said to owe this novel a huge debt, whether they realize it or not.

In 9 interlocking stories which all coalesce around a cafe (and cafe culture) in pre-Franco Madrid, Alfau (who only wrote one other novel, before taking up a working-class life in New York) creates a series of characters who step in and out of each others' dreams and stories, interacting with the author, who in turn is pulled into the novel as a character.

I'm afraid that my synopsis doesn't really do this mind-bending piece of fiction approriate credit. I would however recommend this to anyone with a love of literature, or anyone impressed by the vast accomplishment the human imagination can occasionally be capable of. A magnificent book.

-David Alston
5 people found this helpful
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Libri Mundi
5.0 out of 5 stars work of a genius
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2002
This may sound absurd - but "Locos-...." is truly the work of a genius. Some books surpass the boundaries of time and this is one such book. To summarize the book in one sentence will be like this "non-characters are characters, fiction is reality and solutions are problems".
Felipe Alfau was a strange character and so are his books - very very different, they remind us of the writings of Vargas Llosa with a taste of Cortazar. This is not a translation rather Alfau has written the book in English so all the spices of the Spanish culture are visible. This is extremely rare even with the best of the translators. You get a taste of Spain and a vivid picture of the vibrant society which was so different from the rest of Europe. The people are full of life and passion. Love and passion are the means for making life flow and may be we all need to follow that some day.
You can look at this book either as a short story book or a novel - since it has nine short stories which can either be individually read but they are also connected to each other.
I am long time fan of Marquez and I can promise that this book is equally impressive as any book from Marquez. It is a must buy.
8 people found this helpful
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Cucufate Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Borges seems stupid
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2005
What a surprise! Felipe Alfau, an spanish exile author, writing in english in the spanish civil war period (more or less) and with no political objectives in mind. If you are spanish you have to read him now! Enjoy an incredible style (sounds like spanish tranlated to english) with no paralels, and also discover little stories that relates to one another and builds a unic masterpiece about what literature is. Meta literature, laberinths, narrator within narrators, mirror games and sperpentic world. You really have to give it a try
2 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars He echoes Gogol whilst anticipating Borges & co.
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2000
I can't understand why this is not regarded as one of the greatest works of modern fiction. It anticipates many of the great writers of the latter half of the century, while being every bit as good as those who came later. The first two chapters are a bit hard and left this reader thinking Very clever, but.....
However the next three stories are excellent and I was quickly drawn into the surreal world of Alfau. Each chapter works well as a short story, but the further the reader digs, the more the stories link into a single novel rich in characters and ideas. Borges, Calvino, Kundera and the Boom-time Latin Americans were great writers, but after reading Alfau I realise they were not as original as I'd long thought. A book waiting to be rediscovered (again!).
14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Laura L
5.0 out of 5 stars The book I wish I could have written.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2014
Verified Purchase
I would love to write a book, and this is the book I want to write.
This is one of my favourite books ever, it does thing you couldn't do in any other form of media. So horribly clever but also funny and interesting. So well written I imagine I know the places.
I will never write a book, as it would never be as good as this one so it would only disappoint me.
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