Robert Polidori: Havana

But then, what is it all about? No travel book, this.

There was a grand city, with grand, refined living, there was a sense of the visual, even in the simplest laying of stone upon a stone. The photographs attest to that. The grace, like the decay, is real. The rich, varied hues are real, if from fraying, unretouched paint, destined to change and pale with each passing day. Polidori's colors are not meant to be restored nor will ever there be a patina to be cleaned. Their destiny is to fade. One would like to think of this Havana as a grand opera set for a Nozze or an Ariadne where protagonists move like ghosts among the ruins, talking of betrayals, regrets and happy loves that are now merely wise. For some of us, that it is. For some of us it is the stones that are real, the peeling paint and the broken down chandeliers. People are the interlopers, people are like things, being where they do not belong. Yet in a grander sense those of us may be self-deceived. For in these pictures there is no real tension between flesh and wall. The grandiloquent decay, like an ever swelling musty velvet cape, gathers crumbling stone to unweeded garden to limpid sky to people ...... all into a deeply bundled melancholic recessional that will swallow everything and leave only moonless night behind. There is no future in this past, perhaps the most melancholy conjecture of all. It seems to me most photographs are lit by the late afternoon sun. The beauty makes one cry, we see our lives in the peeling paint and broken balustrades, the broken window frames, cracked marble, the rusted iron gates ....perhaps nowhere more than in the curious compromises of antiquated artifacts for everyday living pragmatically juxtaposed to broken down rococo splendor or dismembered bourgeois grandeur, trying to make do but never quite. This is brutally the passage of time with no attempt at cosmetic dissimulation or philosophical delay. We are all beyond reflection. Each picture seems to say unequivocally: all this has passed and all this will pass. Perhaps Havana has come to an old preordained denouement, arrived at a culmination old and forgotten, in the event, a summit, an end: Havana as a place never meant to truly be, a creature of our dreams, an incantation..... Wallace Stevens who only visited the Havana of the mind, wrote in "Academic Discourse in Havana" (1936):

"This may be benediction, sepulcher, and epitaph......
An infinite incantation of our selves
In the grand decadence of the perished swans."


A spanish colonial beauty   January 31, 2002
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Even in decay, the colorful bells of Havana still shine. The richness of the color and history and architecture is astounding. I purchased two copies of this book one for myself and one for a friend.


Havana's soul   January 27, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

There are so many Havanas - the city of enduring propagandists, the city of opportunistic tourist hawks, the city of irrepressible enthusiasts, and the city of melancholy preeners. Polidori takes on the last of these and does a beautiful job of showing splendor glimpsed through weary eyes - dilapidated buildings that beg to be honored again after many years of noble, yet thankless service; vintage autos standing like senile guards before crumbling facades; paint deprived, yet elegant interiors that suggest any number of richly layered stories. It's all here. And it makes you both nostalgic and hopeful. How often can you stand on a seam of history, seeing the past, the present and a possible future all at once? Then why not five stars? Polidori spends a bit too much time in each location. I don't really need to see every room in someone's house to get a feel for it....especially if that means there will be other locations that I don't get to see at all. Public places are presented on the sidelines (by design), but I don't believe that that was the best strategy. Public places are more than mere architecuture - they too have stories to tell, moods to convey, dreams to share. I wish Mr Polidori would offer a website to owners of his book who wish to see the other photos that did not make the cut for publication. Then, the journey would feel more complete.


The several "times" of Havana   November 26, 2001
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Looking straight into this book, the author give us a remarquable view of old houses that are still fabulous under the architectural point of view. But if you are an inteligent reader, you will discover that this book is also about how time interacts with the other times, the historical, the political, the cultural and the social. Through the photos of Polidori you can understand more about Havana than through all the literature.
The best book on Havana that I own, among more than two dozens, and the one with the more interesting angle about the history of cuban people. I know the city quite well, and I can assure you that you will be delighted with the "perfume" you get from it.