Last post… ever.

I’m not going to lie; after this class is over I’m never going to revisit this blog again.  Nothing against it, I’m just not a blogger kind of guy.  So I guess this is the end of my dictator novel.

At the beginning of the year, I definitely was not looking forward to this class. The only reason I took it was because I needed another literature credit to graduate this year. (By the way, I’m graduating this year). I had taken another literature course a couple of years ago and hated every single book I read (the course and books will remain nameless).  And most of the books that we did read in that class were quite popular, if not best-sellers, and even one Nobel Prize winner. Again, I will admit that I do not read leisurely.  Probably the only books that I have read “for fun” were a couple of Harry Potters–and that was just to impress a girl… (It was a long time ago…) However, now at the end of this course, as I get an opportunity to step back and evaluate the novels we have read, I must admit I am a fan of the dictator novel. As a whole I have enjoyed the books we have read. I think that the reason I did enjoy them was because of the clear theme that was presented to us during the first class: Writing and Power. In each book that we read it was interesting to have a look at the relationship between writing and power; obviously in some it was more prevalent and in others played more of a background role. I think that the most ironic thing is that pretty much every author wrote about his dictator (with perhaps the exception of Gabriel Garcia Marquez) in order to “de-power”  that particular dictator, while the author himself gains absolute power because he’s the one who decides what goes onto the page and what everyone will be reading for years to come. Moreover, the authors at the same time empower the dictators by writing about them–immortalizing their legacy in words; as we discussed in class before, this is a dream come true for most dictators. Who has more power or influence? A horrible, despised, power-hungry dictator who oppressed millions–which we find out by reading about him, or some nice guy who nobody has heard of? I guess it’s true what they say about “any publicity is good publicity”.

So in conclusion, power to the dictators and power the authors and power to everyone who reads about them.

The Feast of the Goat part II

Well, first of all I just want everyone to know that I think I’ve read enough dictator novels to last me the rest of my life… I’ve mentioned this before that I do not do very much leisure reading, and I don’t think that the dictator novel has convinced me otherwise. Basically what I’m saying is I’m glad that The Feast of the Goat was the last one. However, that being said, I want to make it clear that I actually enjoyed The Feast of the Goat; I’m just glad we don’t have to read any more books. I’m going to go ahead and say that this novel was probably my favorite one out of all of the novels we read this semester. It was by far the most exciting and captivating. I found myself hardly ever falling asleep (as opposed to some of the other books, which I will not mention names…) I actually saw a trailer for the movie adaptation of this book and it looks pretty exciting. Maybe we’ll get to watch it in class… I really liked how Vargas Llosa built up all the tension until Trujillo’s death, and after his death when all hell breaks loose. Now we’ve read about torture in the previous novels, but I think this one takes the cake for most disturbing. For example, the violence in Facundo was nearly comical, especially the ones that relate Facundo telling the stories himself. In contrast, the explanations and descriptions of torture in this book are absolutely horrible, such as the electric shocks or the torturing of innocent family members of the anti-trujillistas that were caught. And I totally got a feel for how horrible the situation was by the way the prisoners were treated. It seemed like Trujillo’s followers just wanted to torture people for the sake of torturing. But despite how disturbing this novel was, it was also absolutely captivating because I kept wondering what terrible thing was going to happen next. Maybe it’s true what they say about television desensitizing our youth. My final comment is that I think Mario Vargas Llosa has the worst potty-mouth out of all the other dictator novelists.

The Feast of the Goat part I

Well it seems like it’s been tradition for me to begin by talking about the aesthetics of book—since the length seems to correspond with how much I like a book.  I didn’t do this on purpose, but ranking the books so far, from my favorite to least of the bunch, would be The General and his Labyrinth, The President, Facundo, I The Supreme (sorry Jon. It still MIGHT be the greatest book of all time in Latin American literature, but not by my standards.)  I actually found all these books interesting, but as far as liking them, that’s the break-down.  So first glance at The Feast of the Goat, I’m guessing it’s going to fall in somewhere between The President and Facundo…

Anyway, I open this book and read the first line: “Urania. Her parents had done her no favour; her name suggested a planet, a mineral, anything but the slender, fine-featured woman with burnished skin and large, dark, rather sad eyes who looked back at her from the mirror.” The first thing I notice is that they’re talking about a girl. And it seems like an attractive girl. Not just some girl that we write-off into the background of the story. Hmmm… I wonder if it was a coincidence that we talked about gender during Thursday’s class… What I thought was cool (and reminiscent of The President) was the different point of views. I like this writing technique because if gives different perspectives of the story. Also, since I’m such a Mario Vargas Llosa expert, (my wikipedia article) with his writing style as well as the techniques he uses.  What I do like are all the different flashbacks (a technique that Vargas Llosa uses throughout many of his novels) that Urania has of her time when she was growing up in the Dominican Republic.  It’s a useful technique because it allows us to have a sneak peak into what really happened. First impressions are good. It is kind of long though… Question: Why do they call Trujillo “The Goat”? I mean, I know that’s kind of his title as dictator, but why goat? Why not monkey? Or chicken? Or hippopotamus? That was something I couldn’t figure out.

late late late!

oops i just got home. the post will be coming soon…

The General and his Labyrinth part II

I think our old friend Simon Bolivar sure could’ve used some of that leprechaun charm…

 

Well I’m going to go ahead and say that this was my favourite book so far.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you’ve done it again! Okay, I actually wouldn’t know, I’ve never read any of his other works. Maybe I liked this one better than the others because it wasn’t your traditional dictator novel. I thought it was really interesting the perspective Garcia Marquez took for this novel. An interesting theme that I noticed is this book explored how the General was losing power over time. The other novels I think in general focused on how the dictators gained power over time. Yet the all die, which just makes you think how much power they really have. However, with this novel, it’s quite intriguing to follow the life of the General because it does not show his constant quest or thirst for power. I’m not going to lie, after a while that sickly, dying, pathetic little General really grew on me. I totally felt sorry for him not only for his physical ailments, but also his mental labyrinth that he couldn’t get out of. WE find no happy-endings in this book. At the end of the novel, it seems he’s given up, realizing he won’t be leaving South America and he’s also still stuck in all of his mental anguish. “Damn it,” he sighed. “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” (p. 267) When I say “damn it” I usually exclaim it, not sigh it. It sounds like the General has totally given up at this point.  What was interesting about the end is how Garcia Marquez has the General examine his room right before his death. The description of the mirror, washbasin, and water reminded me of the opening scene of the General lying there in the bathtub. It helped remind me what we discussed in class: oh right, the General has pretty much been dead all novel. Something that’s also interesting is the number of times he dodged assassination attempts on his life. He’s so close to death, yet no one can kill him. I thought it was rather ironic, or paradoxical, or something. I’m not sure if I missed this in the story, or Garcia Marquez left it out, but why does everyone hate him? Well not everyone, we still see his entourage who follow and protect him, as well as hospital community-folk who still revere him as a the great liberator, but why do the majority of people want to take his life?

The General and his Labyrinth part I

Oops I’m a little late. Uhhh… I’m going to blame daylight savings…

“Let’s go,” he said. “There are no roosters here,” said Jose Palacios. “There’s nothing here,” said the General. Look guys! Quotation marks! We know who’s talking! How excited am I?! Well I can totally see what Roa Bastos was doing now, when Jon mentioned he wanted us to revert back to “pure writing” because we take the conventionalities of writing for granted. So I realized just how much I love punctuation. So first glance at this novel, I like it. I think it MIGHT have to do with the small fact that it’s merely a fraction of what was I The Supreme. The words on the page are also pretty to look at—not frustrating. But enough about aesthetics…

 

So I start reading this novel, and I notice a trend over all the books we’ve been reading. First in Facundo, we have this rock ‘em sock ‘em cowboy who cuts off ears and doesn’t take names. Then we have the President, who seems like a nice guy in the beginning, but later on shows how powerfully involved he is in everyone’s lives. Next is the Supreme who’s getting old but still is highly influential. Now we have the General who seems kind of pathetic. He’s sick and dying, thinks no one likes him (“Let’s go,” he said, “as fast as we can. No one loves us here.) His life is constantly being threatened, but he doesn’t seem to care. He needs to exile himself because of the very people he liberated from the Spain want him dead. I’m seriously feeling pretty sorry for this guy. Now I don’t know too much about Latin-American history, but I’ve heard of Simon Bolivar before. I have no idea what he did though. From what I remember hearing about him, he was a pretty decent guy? I’m not sure though. Oh, to go back to my previous thought, it seems like the Dictators are getting nicer? I’m not sure, but that’s kind of the feeling I’m getting so far. Something that I again am not a fan of is the name-dropping. Once again there are a lot of names (maybe not as many as Facundo, but still lots). We have the General, then Colonel Belford Wilson, then General Silva, and later on Field Marshall what’s his name… and the list goes on. I’m guessing that might be a characteristic of the Dictator Novel in order to give the book a more realistic/valid feel. But overall, I really like this book so far. It’s almost as good as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Asteroth…

I The Supreme part II

I think it is necessary that I first declare that I ended up liking this book. Now I don’t pretend to be a great literary specialist; in fact, I would confess that I do little to no leisure reading. Therefore, I don’t claim to be an expert on what makes a great book. Out of the three books we have read so far, I would say I liked The President the most, I The Supreme second, and Facundo least of all. This ranking is completely subjective and arbitrary. So with regards to people claiming that I The Supreme is the greatest book in Latin American literature, I say, I don’t know. I haven’t read all the other ones so I can’t say.

What I did find while reading this book is that I took note of the relationship between writing and power more so than any previous book. With Facundo and The President, I would read the books, then only after, while reading blogs or discussing in class, I would notice themes of writing and power and remember that that’s the theme of this course. With I The Supreme, I was constantly noticing and thinking about how writing and power are related. For example, throughout the entire novel, The Supreme emphasizes to his secretary Patino the importance of writing, the power of writing, the power of words, etc. However, at the very end of the book, even the very sentence, the last part is missing, illegible, because it has been eaten by worms. So writing is this extremely powerful tool that can describe ideas, convince others, create legends, decree orders and usurp power, however, at the end of the day, it’s still perishable—by something as insignificant as worms or a flame. However, at the same time, Roa Bastos constantly reminds us of the eternity of writing. The best example is the novel itself. He published it and now millions of copies are distributed throughout the world. (I’m guessing millions if it’s the greatest book of all time). So the story of Dr. Francia, Supreme dictator of Paraguay lives on. What’s even more interesting is the Supreme wanted so much for himself to be immortalized in his papers, yet we find out at the end from the compiler that some parts are destroyed. Yet it’s Roa Bastos who ends up immortalizing this character by writing a novel about him. And I’m guessing he does it to articulate the problems with writing as well as the problems with power. It somewhat reminds me of Facundo where Sarmiento tries to show how much of a barbarian Facundo is, but then he’s like, “oh yah but he united and brought civilization to the country…” So my final thought on I The Supreme is that it’s an interesting novel—maybe the greatest; I don’t know.

First half of I The Supreme

Well, I hope it’s not too late to still become a good person…

So I definitely have to agree with Jon in regards to I The Supreme. It’s long. It’s difficult. It’s long. I think that’s all he said, right? To be honest I have mixed feelings towards Augusto Roa Bastos’ writing style. I think it’s interesting that he doesn’t use quotation marks, especially since the great majority of the book is speech. I’m guessing maybe that’s why—since everything is speech he didn’t want to muddle it up with quotation marks. Also, it’s like we’re there, in a real life situation. When you’re having or watching a conversation with your friends there’s no narrator, no one who says who said what. So I guess it allows us to be able really immerse ourselves in the life of The Supreme. Now with that being said, like most everyone else, I too get extremely confused at who is talking and what’s going on. We know most of the time The Supreme is talking to Patino, but then every now and then it jumps to a couple of other characters. For example, I got totally lost when they started talking about Don Mateo, who I think was the Supreme’s scribe or something before Patino, and Don Poli, and about bat hair and blankets and whatever. And then there are the times when The Supreme or Patino or someone else is telling a story about something that happened in the past between other characters that have little or no introduction/explanation. And then there’s where The Supreme just starts going off about history or writing or whatever. And then there’s the secret, private, mystery notebook that pops up every now and then. And finally we have the compiler who throws his notes in the whole mix. I actually think that this would be a pretty sweet movie, because then we’d be able to know who is talking. What I have found that is nice about this book, compared to the previous ones we have read, is that so far there’s not much of a plot. Well, if there is, I haven’t really picked up on it. Other than the note on the first page, and The Supreme flipping out every now and then about that note, I don’t see a whole lot of anything else going on. The reason this is nice, is that this lack of plot doesn’t make me feel guilty about not understanding every single detail, which means I don’t have to go back and re-read a lot, like I was doing for Facundo and The President. Or maybe I’ve completely missed the entire plot and point of this book, to which my defense is IT’S LONG.

Second Half of the President

Wow. This book is crazy. I actually really enjoyed reading The President. First of all, I am not sure if Miguel Angel Asturias even should have called this novel The President. I would suggest The Adventures of Miguel Angel Face might be more appropriate. On the other hand, it was interesting to see the influence of the President in pretty much all the characters—from the beggars in the first chapter to the lonely Miguel Angel Face in cell No. 17. After reading both Facundo and The President, I am beginning to understand why these Latin-American writers felt so passionate at challenging dictator power; it looks like these guys were real jerks (a complete understatement). For example, I thought what the President did to Miguel Angel Face to be completely horrible and brilliant. Not only does he strip him of his power, his money, his health, but then he goes and rips his heart out as well. I could not help but fell sorry for Miguel Angel Face, especially since he was described as such a suave character at the beginning of the story. I can’t wait to see what the other dictators are going to be like…

I think that my favorite part about The President was the imagery that Miguel Angel Asturias was able to conjure up through his literary devices. After last weeks class, while reading, I was able to pick up a lot more on some of the beautiful and vivid pictures that Asturias paints for the reader. One of my favorite parts that had a lot of this was Chapter XXXVI: The Revolution. Just the way that Asturias describes the scene almost allowed me to feel like I was actually there as a part of it. His descriptions really helped me enjoy the book.

Overall I really liked reading The President. I can see why it won the Nobel Prize. I guess they don’t just hand those things out like tic-tacs.

First half of The President

Well first thing that I realized is that I enjoy reading novels much more than whatever you want to classify Facundo as. I’m really enjoying the first half of The President. One of the neat things about the novel is how it jumps from scene to scene of different the characters, which tie together, almost like a movie. For example, the opening chapter describes the death of Colonel Jose Parrales Sonriente at the hands of the Zany. The next chapter jumps to the interrogation of the other beggars who were present in the Cathedral Porch. We don’t join Zany again until the next chapter. I just liked how Asturias shows various points of views of the different characters. However, I do have to admit that at times the story was a bit confusing and difficult to follow (nothing like Facundo, though). For example, I was really confused about the introduction of Angel Face. At first I thought he actually was an angel, (maybe I missed some clarifying sentence in that chapter) which was confusing to being with. Even when he first meets with the President I was confused to whether he’s real or not because Asturias compares him to Satan. It’s not until later during that part that I finally realized he’s a real person. I find the character of Angel Face really interesting. On one hand he’s the “confidential advisor” of this horrible, ruthless President who has no regard for human life and rules with an iron fist. However, Angel Face seems civil and polite, as well as showing genuine kindness especially when he helps the Zany and Camila. It’s also interesting that Asturias describes him “as wicked as Satan,” which I’m guessing is pretty darn wicked. All and all though, Angel Face is a fun character to read about.

I also noticed a couple of interesting similarities that The President has to Facundo. Something that stood out to me was on page 38 where Angel Face is kissing up to the President, saying he should be the leader of one of a country like France or Belgium. He speaks of these European countries in a very positive light—as “free Switzerland, or industrious Belgium, or wonderful Denmark.” I’m assuming that many of these literary revolutionaries saw that Europe was the epitome of civilization and the complete opposite of oppressive dictatorships that were found in much of South America.