First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

In this extraordinary adventure by Brazil’s foremost novelist, the irrepressible Dona Flor is happy with her new husband, who is kind, considerate, a perfect gentleman. Yet, she has to admit she misses his roguish, passionate predecessor, who expired from his amorous exertions. So, in this land of many gods and occasional miracles, Flor approaches the divine Exu with her dilemma… and before she knows it, she has all any woman could possibly want: two husbands – one living, one dead – each consummately skilled in his own way in the infinite art of love.

Happy Friday everyone! Technically, it is already Saturday. Nevertheless, I am still glad we could all make it through yet another workweek, although some barely made it; props to everyone. I hope everyone ended the work week on a high note and is diving into the weekend without much worry. I hope you were able to accomplish all your tasks for the week. It is time to slow down, unwind, and dive into the weekend! Perhaps even a long sleep will recuperate those energies lost in working with work and workmates. Woah. Time is passing us by. We are closing on the last week of the year’s eleventh month. If only we can slow down time. This also means that 2024 is about to draw the curtains. A new year is just over the horizon. How time flies! I hope that the year has been kind and great for everyone. Before the year ends, I hope your hard work gets recognized and repaid. I hope the remainder of the year will be brimming with good news, blessings, and pleasant surprises. More importantly, I hope everyone will be healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

But before I can fully dive into the weekend, let me cap another blogging week with a fresh First Impression Friday update. Each (book) blogging week concludes with this bookish update. What was once an interlude, a quick pause to figure out my initial feelings about the book I was reading, has, over time, turned into springboards for my book reviews. The past few months have been chaotic, reading-wise. Ordinarily, my reading months are organized but the past few months have been whirlwinds. There are no common themes to tie them up; I have been mixing up the books I read. Last month, for instance, I finished all books shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize just before the literary award-giving body announced the winner last November 12. For November, I was reading whatever I felt like reading although the focus remains unchanged: read the books that are part of my ongoing reading challenges.

Thankfully, I completed all the books on my 2024 Top 24 reading list this past week. I just have my 2024 Beat the Backlist Challenge and 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list to complete. My current read, Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, however, is part of neither challenge. However, since I commenced a journey across Latin America through Nobel Laureate in Literature Gabriel García Márquez’s latest translated novel, Until August. I have followed it up with Adolfo Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel, the 24th book on my 2024 Top 24 Reading List. Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is the third work of a Latin American writer in a row I read; I might conclude this mini-foray with Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet and maybe even extend it with the work of another Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes.

Anyway, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is the third book by the prolific Brazilian writer that I read. Amado transports the readers again to the land of his birth, Bahia. The story commences ominously with the death of Waldomiro Guimarães, known by everyone as Vadinho, the husband of the titular Dona Flor. It was the first Sunday of Carnival in Bahia when he died while dancing the samba, dressed as a woman, with a large cassava tuber tied under his skirt. Quite a way to start a story. Over the ensuing chapters, we meet the heroine of the story, Dona Flor. She had to endure the death, wake, and burial. We read how she copes with the sudden demise of her husband. Vadinho was quite the figure and people from different places started pouring in to pay their respect. Various members of society such as politicians, exalted professionals, and even chronic gamblers had stories about Vadinho they had to share.

Their stories and interactions with Vadinho occupied part of the story. However, Dona Flor remains the focus of the story. From the present, the story flashes back to the past where we read about her childhood. She was raised by her widowed mother along with her siblings. Her mother was a dominatrix. Obnoxious and overbearing, Dona Flor’s mother was eager to climb up the social ladder. She wanted her children to enter into gainful marriages; it was no surprise they left her the moment they had the chance. Dona Flor’s mother pinned her hopes on her youngest daughter. Dona Flor abided by her mother’s wishes, except for one thing. She was adamant that she would marry the man she loved and not the man her mother pushed her to marry. Despite several men – among them were some of the richest and most sought-after bachelors in the area – paraded before her way by her mother, Dona Flor was nonchalant, wishing her suitors would find love somewhere else.

Dona Flor’s hardline nonchalance only infuriated her mother. While waiting for the man she loved, Dona Flor focused on her cooking school; Bahian food permeates the story which is riddled with some recipes. Dona Flor finally found the man she loved in Vadinho; her mother also approved of the pairing. This was even though Vadinho was the bastard son of a well-to-do family and the family maid. Their marriage was anything but uneventful. It was also not as idyllic as one would suspect. He was rarely there for her. He only shows up when he needs to ask for money. He had no scruples cheating on her. His amorality reminds me of Amado’s Showdown, the first of his books that I read. Nevertheless, she loved her and his death left a gaping hole in her heart; they were married for seven years before he collapsed dead.

Now, I am interested in the second husband. I have made it nearly midway through the over 500-page book; it is quite thick because it was proliferated with details. Further, I surmise that the death of Vadinho will haunt Dona Flor. Dona Flor also still feels like a cipher to me. I am trying to get a grasp on her and, hopefully, I get to know her better as I read into the book. How about you fellow reader? What book or books have you read over the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!