Feast of the Goat post 1 and 2 combo?

I really hate being a bad person, and wish that I could just blame it on simple procrastination, but I cannot. I’ve been buried under so much schoolwork these last few weeks that I can hardly see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes we are all really busy, but I’ve really over extended myself this term. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned this year is that sleep debt gets compounded like interest on your credit card. Way too much of my course work this term has been internet based, and I’m beginning to feel like a distance education student that doesn’t get the benefit of living in some exotic local. I get frustrated with being forced to chain myself to a freaking computer, then when I finally close the lid of my laptop in frustration, the guilt of being behind on my long distance correspondence sets in… I’ve just had an overdose of The Internet...

I’ll bitching/venting aside though, I’ve read the Feast of the Goat in the last few days, and have to say that it’s indeed my favorite of the whole lot. The prose is a breath of the fresh air. The broken up plot line is exciting, making for a real page-turner. The plight of the daughter is definitely the easiest part to empathize with.

I know so little about the Dominican Republic and once again feel that I could get a little more out of a book like this if my knowledge of the history in this area were a little more honed. The graphic violence towards the end of the book certainly gives one an in-depth understanding of both the brutality of the Trujillo regime and also the resentment and vengeance that his opponents so deeply feel.

Someone had mentioned in class that this book reads like a movie. Many contemporary works of fiction follow the same type of pattern that we see in this novel. This is just seems like Llosa is a very trendy author, was writes in style that is extremely contemporary. This is certainly the most contemporary work we have read so far. Movies like Pulp Fiction also copy this kind of popular contemporary story telling style...

The Dark Labyrinth... post dos...

Like so many Latin dictators I seem to be alternating between stages of good and bad behaviour... I'm attempting to be good for the final stretch though...

After finishing the General and his labyrinth I still have a soft spot for Bolivar. As he continues on his journey he becomes a shell of what he used to be. The General is an idealist, but not necessarily a bad man. In this respect he is very different than the other dictators in the other books we have read. Of course in most of the other stories, the “dictator” is currently in a position of power, where as here he has been disposed and humiliated. Mentally strong, but emotionally and physical weak and broken, the General soldiers on. As his health continues to deteriorate one can’t help but feel for the guy. He seems so sad and lonely. Dreams, and ego shattered, he tries to escape but fails. The “General’s labyrinth” refers to his winding journey.


Growing up with hippies in ludicrously small Northern Californian village my interpretation of a labyrinth is a maze either flat on the ground, painted or tiled, or made out of plants or hedges. One might walk such a labyrinth as a spiritual exercise in self-reflection and meditation. The metaphorical labyrinth that the General follows here is also a journey of self-reflection, but poor Bolivar dies in the centre. The labyrinth here seems dark, as if he is walking in toward his impending death. This dark labyrinth seems somewhat the antithesis of the kind of labyrinths the hippies I grew up with used to walk. Instead of building spiritual strength and enhancing life, this “dark” or “reverse” labyrinth is a metaphorical spiral to the end – one last walk of self-reflection, as one’s life flashes before their eyes… The poor old General...


This is so far my favorite of the book out of the four… one more to go…

The General in His Labyrinth... Post one...

So I’m already enjoying this one more than the others. I was waiting for a book that takes place in countries that I have spent time in. It might be a little self-centered, but it’s easier to get into a story when one can directly relate with the landscapes and geography. Plus I’ve been using a Veinte Boliviano bill as a bookmark throughout this course. I love Bolivia.

I have to say that after I The Supreme I really appreciated seeing the small margins, large font, and overall shortness. Quotation marks, hallelujah! I feel like writing an Ode to the Quotation Mark instead of this… “Oh quotation mark, quotation mark, how I…” Well enough of that… I digress…. This novel really does read like one would expect of a typical novel; the prose is a nice change of pace.

The general is described as being very weak physically but still strong willed. He doesn’t not appear, on the surface (thus far) to be necessarily evil. My image of the typical Über-macho egotistical dictator does not have him frequently meditating in bathtubs. There’s something about the General so far that seems sort of warm and fuzzy. Although I may regret saying this later…

When the long narrow precipice from Chuquisa to La Paz was mentioned I couldn’t help but to think of the still very scary roads out of La Paz. Take a look for yourself… Although these pictures were heading down into the Amazon side of the Andes, where as the General was traveling from “Chuquisa.”















I couldn’t figure out where Chuquisa was so I plugged it into trusty wikipedia and found out (well if you can trust any information on that site... hehe…) that it’s an old name for Sucre, the modern capital of Bolivia (still fairly high in elevation). The road there is still bad but nothing compared to the one heading into the Amazon basin.

When the General arrives in the warmer climate I loved the "'eternal cliché:' “It’s so hot here the hens lay fried eggs.” The heat down there can be truly oppressing. The General shows great bravery and mental strength by not using a mosquitero when he sleeps. I do speak from experience here… let’s just say that it’s not that great an idea to fall asleep out in a hammock deep in the Amazon. I wondered at first why so many locals wore long pants so fashion consciously tucked inside their socks in such stifling heat… then I figured it out… there are stinging insects a big as birds down there and bats that catch fish (granted they do you no harm – it’s just freaky)… but again I digress…

The one major thing I am picking up from this book is my severe lack of knowledge of Latin American history in general. I have such a basic understanding of what happened down there, mostly from what I picked up traveling. I knew that Bolivia at one point had a coastline which they lost to Chile (hence the still prevalent animosity between some Chilean’s and Bolivians) but this was more recent event. As I was reading this book I found myself looking up brief some brief information about the founding of Bolivia and several other countries in the region. Eventually I think I need to read more Latin American history then come back and reexamine all of these books again…

Here's a picture of modern La Paz for good measure… I love the juxtaposition between the old and the new. La Paz is a great town… I recommend it to all…
Oh and about the General’s plan for supersized Latin American country? Somehow throw California in the mix and that would have been something truly amazing. I’d immigrate… (but then that wouldn’t be the first time… lol)…

I The Supremely Difficult Book… Post dos…

I actually finished "I The Supreme" over the weekend but just couldn’t think of something to say that would add anything more to my last post. Just making it through that book seems like a major accomplishment. It was confusing, and way too long. I think I get it… the Supreme was another narcissistic madman obsessed with power, yet at the same had some strange, almost endearing qualities. It seems that this concept could have been expressed in slightly fewer pages, but then maybe I still don’t understand entirely.

Like I discussed in my last post this book requires one read in an entirely new way. I made it through but feel as though I could not devote the time needed to truly understand. I guess I still don’t see why it’s such an important book. I won’t lie and say that I would ever have read a book like this if I were not forced to. That said, I’m not returning it, so I’m hoping sometime I’ll leisurely pick it up again and give it some more attention, when I don’t have a reading load that averages around 100 pages a night...

On another note... I hereby pledge to become a “good” person once again…

First post - I The Supreme

I’ve been very bad, but now I’m attempting to become good again... It’s taken me absolutely forever to get through this book, and I didn’t want to fake a blog entry without having completed the reading. I’m more than half way through the book now, and will finish it tomorrow and then make my final entry.

This book actually makes me miss the prose of The President, and puts Facundo in a whole new light. Out of the three books so far Facundo is my favorite. It’s not that I haven’t tried to read this book... It even came with me to Whistler during reading week, where it sat on the coffee table at the condo. Periodically I would try to read for a bit, but would quickly get bored. I blamed this at first on the environment at Whistler that is undoubtedly distracting, but now I realize the true reason and I feel the need to explain exactly why I have had and continue to have such a difficult time with this book. It is directly linked with its unusual prose.

I’ve always had a difficult time reading phonetically, and I learned to read by simple memorizing words as images. This makes it more difficult when coming across new words, but in the long run I have developed some quite effective speed reading techniques. I read to myself a lot differently then when I read aloud. I do not hear a voice in my head reading each word like a narration, as recognize and understand content much faster than this. The idea is to train the eye to look at text on diagonals instead of left to right, and understanding content in blocks of information, instead of word by word. This works well for me with one exception. I’ve always found it extremely difficult to read dialogue using this method, so when I see lines of dialogue I must slow my reading down to “hear” each individual voice in my head. These strategies become almost impossible to implement when there are no quotation marks or any other form of demarcation that identifies who is speaking. This is the long explanation for why I am finding this book so incredibly difficult, as I’m having a really hard time understanding what the heck is going on half the time, and I find myself reading pages over and over.

The unusual writing style also has the effect of eliminating any real development of sympathy for any of the characters, as I find it difficult to get to know any of the characters in my near constant state of confusion. It’s usually either the Supreme himself talking or his faithful servant Patriño who I can’t stand. His constant groveling is simply annoying. Calling the Supreme an egomaniac would really be the under estimate of the century. He’s clearly obsessed with himself and his power.

The Supreme is a paranoid madman constantly thinking that everyone everywhere is out get him. Foreign states are “rapacious governments, insatiable grabbers of what belongs to others” (76). Even his prisoners are plotting against him, training rats to elude his authority. I can’t tell if the Supreme’s story about finding the talking skull on page 81 was supposed to be some form of allegory or if it was just the ravings of a mad man, I did like this section though at least once I figured out which voice was Patriño’s and which one was the Supreme’s. The people the Supreme rules are meek, and only he is strong.

Natives are mentioned as becoming “a perfectly domesticated species” after a hundred years, thus showing the pervasive racism towards natives that has repeated itself through all the books we have read thus far.

I’m still not sure why there are no chapter demarcations either, and what does the “(Perpetual circular)” thing mean exactly?

Asturias Post Two

Not to make light of Carnaval’s predicament or anything, but when I read “again and again he counted the pages he had not read, by touch alone,” I couldn’t help but laugh, as I had just done this several times with nearly that many pages to go. Well maybe I used my eyes just a bit too... I finished the book, but am still not keen on it.

            I get lost in metaphoric language, and jumbling of characters. Now I’m really not sure why it is called the president, and not Miguel Angel Face and Camila. I just don’t find Asturias’ writing to be that effective. For me the brutality would be better conveyed if I had been more invested in the plight of the characters. I just feel that the over use of metaphors and similes and focusing on what I consider to be superfluous description distracts from the progression of the story.

            This said, I found myself for some reason wanting to know more about the Indian man that Canales met on his journey into exile. I thought his painful story was effectively conveyed, and I felt very sympathetic for his plight.

The biggest message I got from this story is the absolute pervasiveness authority, and the feeling of helplessness that comes with living under such a regime. It’s very big brotherish – everyone is being watched by everyone. Carnaval’s wife is asking an important question on 219 essentially when she wonders how fellow human beings can treat each other in such a way. Where is their humanity? Time and time again people have been put into similar predicaments. We can ask the same question about the holocaust. How can so many people be party to such brutality and inequity? Why aren’t there more people who resist? This is clearly a true testament to just how powerful the authority is that it can create that kind of peon groupthink that suppresses any natural moral sense in countless individuals.

I was also confused by the “conversation in the Darkness,” as I didn’t understand really why the speakers are only numbered at first then named later.

Oh and how long is a “league” exactly? Just curious...

Asturias Post One

I’ve decided that from now on I will attempt to stick to the original intention of the blog assignment by trying to write for around 30 minutes in more of stream of conscious style...

Asturias descriptive language is most certainly detailed. I can appreciate this in places, but in others it drives me absolutely crazy. I enjoy how Asturias skillfully weaves violent imagery into placid scenes very early on, setting a dark ominous tone. “The Blood-red juice of dawn was staining the edges of the funnel of mountains encircling the town...” (18).

Though I must have set the book down in boredom a dozen times while trying to get through the first fifty pages or so, but this could be because of the my own tastes in literature. A lot of Asturias' descriptive language, although often times quite poetic, seems to go a bit overboard. As a reader I not sure why need to know for example, all the items that were on a darkened table, or exactly what the shelves looked like. I can imagine these things myself, and get quickly bored when given an overload of infinitesimal details, sometimes losing focus of the main story. There’s something about Asturias style that reminds me (as crazy as it may sound) of John Steinbeck (for whom I have a profound emotional allergy). This however is just my personal “bias” (not sure if I’m allowed to use this “banned” word in my blog).

 I will admit, as stereotypical male as it may sound, that as soon as some “action” picked up a bit with the bribing of officials, plotting and kidnapping, the book ceased to me to be as dreadfully boring. When Angel Face gets past an officer by slipping him a 100 peso note I was reminded about traveling around South America two summers ago. Carrying $40 USD on your person somewhere other than in your wallet is always a good idea. I have had personal experience bribing South American officials, and my brother has similar stories from Guatemala. Police corruption is clearly something with a long tradition in Latin America. It makes me think back to Sarmiento a bit. Wondering whether these time transcending traits originated from a just an unlucky series of events or whether there is something deeper; why exactly is Latin America predisposed to corruption and despotism? Is this even a fair statement? Sarmiento pointed to the possibility that there was something about the vastness of the landscape in Argentina helping create the animalist bad guacho, but in a different local such as Guatemala what creates similar traits? Are there universal qualities that create despotic characters throughout Latin America? We may be better equipped to answer this question as we continue through this book, and the others in the course.

 

Post dos...

Finally finished the last half of Facundo. I still wish my Spanish was good enough to read the original text as undoubtedly a lot is lost in the translation, no matter how good of one it is. I wonder if the language was as stiff in the original Spanish?

 I can’t say that I was too sorry when the old tyrant Facundo was killed, as calling him a pretty brutal character would be a serious understatement. Brutality and violence are definitely recurring themes in the book. Facundo seems driven by power, fear, and violence for their own sakes, perhaps with a little money thrown in for good measure. In modern terms we might call him a sociopath; someone with an inability to feel normal human emotions such as pity, guilt, and remorse; we tend to think of these people as rarities, exceptions to the rule, but Sarmiento seems to advocate an extreme determinist stance regarding Facundo’s brutality, claiming that there is something inherent within the landscape of Argentina itself that breeds these animalistic individuals by the handful.

I am confounded by on the one hand Sarmiento’s optimism touting that he will bring the light of freedom over the Andes, and on the other, his view that the very landscape makes Argentina ripe for exploitation by these despots. How can Sarmiento succeed in bringing freedom if the very nature of Argentina stands in his way?

On another note I found the constant barrage of briefly mentioned characters, battles, etc. to be a little distracting. I find that disjointedness of the book distracts one from focusing on Sarmiento’s true intentions or goals. I am still not entirely sure what these are exactly. He does however do a very good job of showing the pervasiveness of the fear instilled masterfully by Facundo. In one vivid example, an officer after winning a fight for his life returns his lance “respectfully” to Facundo, only to later be killed anyway. The extent of Facundo’s power shown here is truly unbelievable.

The way other governments had to be involved with Funcundo’s “removal” parallels a more contemporary Latin America experience seems quite uncanny, or perhaps it is just proving Sarmiento’s original hypothesis regarding the nature of Argentina itself.

Post one...

            Seeing as the “blog” format here allows for a certain level of honesty I will approach this project with this in mind. I will admit to being severely bored with the beginning of the book, finding myself at times skimming ahead, or even throwing the it down in frustration; it did however, after a while, begin to grow on me, at least once I was able to get into the swing of its stiff prose (albeit most likely caused by the translation from what is likely more poetic and fluid sounding Spanish). From the very beginning I see the author clearly drawing a line between us and them, civilization and barbarism, the cultured vs. the animalistic savage. Sarmiento describes the savages as descending from the night like hyenas on defenseless populations, denoting, in his mind, their less than human status. As apposed to the refinement and culture of the “Spanish race,” Sarmiento describes the peoples of the Americas as being inherently lazy with incapacity for industry, unless put into their place by Europeans.

In this world brute force rules, individuals most survive on their own cleverness and abilities to avoid danger. This near lawless that Sarmiento describes seems almost a Hobbesian “state of nature,” where one can do as they please but live their life in constant state of fear. In this sense the situation is ripe for someone to assert complete control with the promise of some protection from harm.

Sarmiento displays a kind of love-hate relationship with the gauchos, criticizing and passing judgment on them while at the same time romanticizing. Sarmiento seems to look down on the guacho for his lack of culture, intelligence, and his implanting of barbarism into society, while at the same time expressing a kind of admiration for what the guacho is able to accomplish. The guacho’s animal like survival, without the need intelligence and refinement seems both criticism and complement. Sarmiento calls the traditions of the guacho as crude, while romanticizing them with his language, even deifying the guacho himself.

            Sarmiento describes the pre-revolution Argentina as a world split between two incompatible societies: the civilized and the barbarous. Post revolution these worlds are combined as to break down any semblance of “civilization,” descending the country into chaos. It is in this chaotic changing environment that Sarmiento places his protagonist – an individual who’s personality is born of this tenuous clash of “civilizations.”

 

 

            

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