The Marx Family Saga
In Juan Goytisolo's latest surreal fiction Karl and Jenny Marx sit on their sofa in Hampstead and watch a television documentary. Albanian refugees land on a private Italian beach flourishing photocopies of dollar bills in search of paradise Dallas. Find out how Karl reacts to the demise of the systems Josef Visionariovitch and Co. built on his word! Read all about the family life of the Marxes, moving upmarket from Dean Street to Highgate and beyond, yet never free of the hock shop! But the narrator's publisher, the urbane pipe-smoking Mr. Faulkner, wants a bestselling novel, a proper story with real facts and heart-rending descriptions of the Marx menage. Some hope! Goytisolo returns to the techniques of his youth, sticks in a photo of Helen Demuth, the family servant. Why bother with all that description? Leave that to Balzac. Now was Marx or Engels the father of her child?