Her fervent lover from Playboylandia baptized Hugh in the holy land of Hibernia though never did he let her hibernate but had to fornicate when it was almost time for the bullfight.

This novel dazzles in places, see chapters L, M and Q, while simmering for most of the rest. Simple synopsis: a jilted lover wanders nocturnal London, and to steady his esteem after being dumped, recalls 26 past lovers -- all of which correspond to literary characters. An added erotic sense is simply bonus content, for those thus inclined.

No one need neither replicate nor resolve Ríos' riddles. Appreciation is afforded to all the early 20C heavyweights: Musil, Proust, Joyce, Nabokov and Faulkner. The effort does otherwise lack a certain rigor, the parodies are self-evident: anything further is the requirement of the reverent reader. My bullshit threashold is taking a weathering as of late.
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In this bit of fiction concieved by the Spanish writer Julian Rios we have a literary work that borrows the heroines from many of the masterworks of literature and erotic literature of the 20th century retelling their tales and some further escapades as seen through the eyes and memory(ies) of the mysterious Emil--a somewhat down and out aristocratic rogue created by Rios to narrate or re-narrate these tales and sometimes even new adventures. It's also somewhat of a literay guessing game for the reader as Rios is not always that obvious in the clues he leaves about the characters and the books he has appropriated. The work unfolds one chapter at a time--one heroine each per letter A being for Proust's Albertine, B for Musil's Bonadea up to and finally ending with Z for Queneau's Zazie. For those interested I will name several of the other writers he borrows heroines from--Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence and Louis Ferdinand Celine--(As it happens though I have not been able to figure out three of the heroines even with a lot of googling though I'm sure they're out there). FWIW these renderings not only borrow characters and some of their adventures and mis-adventures but often times imitate the particular writers prose. He is a bit hit and miss on that and the more critical reviews I've seen have critiqued him mainly on that point. Even so the tone is always playful and his writing is witty and sharply focused. Emil narrating from a more contemporary vantage point--in present day London juxtaposes these narrations with current events--catastrophes of one sort or another--bombings in Northern Ireland or Spain--military coups in Greece and earthquakes in India and also with the ups and downs of his landlady's cat Guay (or Why or ?; while she's away on vacation he's doing a somewhat sloppy job of taking care of it). In any case it's a fun book and a challenge (recommended reading) for anyone out there who thinks they know a lot about modern or post-modern literature. ( )