Feast of the Goat

Just listening to the Ricky Gervais Show podcast and thought id do a bit of blogging to try to catch up. I dont really feel like a bad person because ive been doing the whole Wiki thing, but it has been a while since ive been on here. 

This book is probably my favorite. Ive not finished it yet, but the normal plot-line is a welcome change. Also, as was mentioned in class, I feel the book has a very cinematic quality to it. I watched City of God last weekend (brilliant on a highdef TV- such amazing filming), and I could definitely see how this story could be a cool spanish-language movie with lots of violence and sex and crazy music. 

I wonder what is going to happen when Trujillo gets killed. Something terrible apparently, and im also starting to wonder if Urania is somehow involved... given her issues regarding men etc. Im not convinced, but it seems that a major part of Latin American dictatorships involves punished people who arent involved...

Im also interested in this Simon Gittelman character. I saw Charlie Wilson's War over the xmas break (and was a bit disappointed... it was a weird mix of seriousness, but lacked the violence and intensity of a compelling war movie...) and Gittelman really reminded me of those characters who were financing wars in oppressed countries, but were tightly connected with the US government as well. Now that i think about it, a brief aside. In Lord of War the character is an arms dealer and it says its based on a true story, which i figured was either not true or true in the loosest sense of the word. Not the case! a few weeks ago the real-life inspiration was arrested and "Merchant of Death" escapades were very much the same as in the movie. 

This is a very uninspired blog... Its odd because i have more to say when i don't like the book... this is just an entertaining read, although i find Urania to be a boring character. As are the conspirators... the Trujillo partition is very engaging though. I watch Judge Joe Brown and Cops religiously and i work at a rubbish removal company in the summer... i was told this week by my good friend that im fascinated with degeneracy... might be so. Maybe thats why im finding the dictators life the most interesting?

Part 2 (less animals)

I've just written a few sentences explaining why im writing this entry rather early in the night, but ive realized it really isn't very interesting, so i deleted them. And now i've explained all that, so all the worse. 

I had some music on, "Stick like Bolts" by The Perks (a local Vancouver band which i've just had the pleasure of discovering)... but as good as it is, its not very good for blogging to. Too... I dunno, just not Bolivarist enough i guess. Check it out if you get the chance though, its not too shabby at all for those (rare) times in your lives when you aren't blogging about SpanLit. 

Now to the book. In this second half, i must have a dozen pages earmarked for looking back on, and i also had the hiliter out to get the passages down.

I find parts of this book quite funny. Apparently Facundo was funny, but i didn't really see it. 

Earmark one: On page 99, Bolivar is inquiring about the girl he heard (he thinks) and upon being told theres no girls worthy of him, he asks "and how about any unworthy of my excellency." Its subtle, but i laughed, because it seems as though despite the failing body, he has a... playful?... (some sort of word that has more literary 'oomph' than 'Horny'?)? 

Earmark 2: On page 105 there is a bit about mothers being more afraid of exposing there children to the cure than to the contagion. The whole thing just reminded me of how last month i learned the origin on the terms "hair of the dog"... drinking to cure a hangover. Well, apparently in mid-evil (or medieval?- I was always under the impression it was the former until recently... not sure if i'm wrong or just being deceived by evil-apologists) times the supposed cure for a dog bite was to put some of the hair from that dog on the cut. But, of course, the dogs were only a bit cleaner than the people, and so the cuts got infected and a lot of people got sick and died... --- I believe this to be true with regards to the drinking while hungover, however, two things. One, beer mixed with orange juice is good any time of the day, but is best served in the morning. And two, any beers you do drink before coming to class should be "casuals" (you know, the type that don't count towards your total number.)

Earmark 3: page 110: There are actually a lot more earmarks, each with a complete thought i had while reading the book, but I don't have the space here really to delve too deep, or to include them all. A simple thought on the part where he eats all the oranges or guavas or whatever... It just follows my thoughts on his body letting him down. Here he is, so excited and into the eating that he gorges himself... and then he gets to spend the next few hours emitting "fragrant farts". No wonder he hardly eats. 

The General and his Vicunas

Before i even begin i'll preface this entry with the fact that i've only read 11 pages so far. I sat down to read the first half of the book (which is small and has big words, instead of is big and has small words-that-are-sometimes-doubled-up-to-cram-twice-as-many-together), and was immediately drawn into this book. I really like it, all 11 pages of it. So i wanted to write a brief post, to by followed later by a more substantial one, still on the first half though. 

First of all, they mention the Vicuna poncho. In truth this was what made me want to blog so early... I like watching nature shows and i watched one about animals in Southern Chile and near the Atacama desert etc. One of the animals that was on the show was the Vicuna, which is like a llama. Also, the guanaco. There are also penguins... never thought you'd find penguins next to the driest place on earth, hmm? 

Also, in a more literary sense, the writing seems more modern and... peppy? I dunno, thats a weak word I suppose, but im liking how the characters are vividly described, as is what they do. The General's ablutions... the effort to keep his bath just the right temperature, etc. The description on the back of the book jacket seems almost like the journey down the river in Apocalypse Now... Im very much looking forward to it. 

Second "Half" of I The Supreme

In all honesty for the past week I hadn't touched the book, instead choosing to relish the thrill that is being one of the infamous "bad people out there." But, my inner law abiding self has triumphed, and so I will move to being a good person for at least a few days, since i suppose this means I will have to start reading yet another book and for Tuesday. Anyways, here goes...

IT IS WITH REGRET THAT I INFORM ALL WHO READ THIS POSTING THAT I HAVE FINISHED READING THIS BOOK... AND I DO NOT LIKE IT. 

Too bad the blogger program doesn't have handwriting font, I wanted a cheap shot at a similarity with the 

opening of this book... because, like the writing on the wall, THIS BOOK ALMOST KILLED ME. I would sit

and stare at it, knowing i had hundreds of pages to go and I was already behind and it wouldn't read itself...

and then i would crack a beer and watch Kitchen Nightmares instead. I had mentioned the enormity of my task to my

girlfriend's dad, who is an english teacher at UBC and is also named Jon, and he suggested that if worst came to worst i might

want to skip a section in the middle and read the ending and try to piece it together. Given the name-based credibility

he had, i figured i'd try. So i skipped a section and came upon the page where The Supreme, I believe (damn missing punctuation)

is telling of how Solomon used to sleep with concubines and torture them and hold their eyeballs etc. (which rather reminded me of Facundo, but i've said enough about that book as well)

So... I sense a theme amongst dictators...

I continued to read and came upon the section where the Supreme talks about Pilar the Black. He is a slave/servant from what i understand,

yet El Supremo speaks with a kind of respect for his abilities, and clearly this man is at least as intimately involved

in his life as is Patino. It also made me think of the bad treatment Patino would get near the very end... 

Then there is the relaying of the story where Pilar steals his uniform and goes crazy, and the guards

don't know who to listen to, because they seem to mistake the Supreme for Pilar (with his voice) and Pilar for the supreme.

This is interesting to me because it reminds me of something i spoke of in an earlier blog, or at least meant to. The fascination

of these tin-pot dictatorships with pomp and ceremony and elaborate shoulder-padded uniforms with gold braiding and brass buckles etc.

Its almost as though, without his uniform, The Supreme is nothing. The very title is revealed to be ridiculous as well..

It reminds one of a child who has climbed a hill and declares himself The King of the Castle...and he is certainly The King, regardless of his ability to do the Job compared to the others...

but as soon as he leaves that hill

He is exactly the same as the others...

I apologize for the bizarre formatting... it just happened. I feel doubly-bad because we've all just gone through reading a bizarrely formatter book... and here I am making you do it again. I actually have just here figured it out I think... but i cant seem to get the rest to re-format. Anyways, your patience is appreciated, and i promise a more punctual, and I HOPE I HOPE I HOPE more interesting entry next week.

ps. Sorry Jon, I really wanted to love this book... if only to ingratiate myself to you so that at the next "Men named Jon meeting" you might talk me up.

First Half of "I, The Supreme" aka. "The coffee stain"

Two brief administration points. First, i feel bad because i was a big hypocrite after getting annoyed at the lack of blogs by a late hour the night before they were due. Im about a week overdue here. I barely even started the book before this weekend. Which brings me to my second little anecdote. In class on thurs. i spilled coffee on my book, right along the bottom edge, and it left a stain on pretty much exactly the first half of the book. So, all weekend, as i was figuratively trudging through the viscous words that are "Yo el supremo", i kept checking back to see how much of the stain i'd worked through. Finally, just now, i looked down and realized i was a good 40 pages past the end of it! Well done me! Which leads me to my first substantive observation about this book...

It took me about 175 pages before i even began to be interested in continuing to try to discover what makes this book "The best book in latin american literature." And I am in no way convinced. So far i would say i've enjoyed this book far less than the president... or Facundo for that matter. I dont feel ive given authors enough credit up til this point for including basic punctuation. And for omitting the constant use of made-up words. And for changing settings. And for using punctuation. Ive said this twice because its at least twice as annoying as any other problem im having with this book. Or have had until p. 175 or thereabouts. 

Now, im torn because part of me feels like I should qualify my issues with the first bit of the book by saying "I didnt see the merits, BUT..." More learned people than I have stated quite forcefully that this is, after all, The Greatest Book in Latin American Literature... But im just not seeing it so far. It is certainly an impressive feat of writing, if for no other reason than im having trouble READING it... I can't imagine writing 433 pages in this style- everytime you would get up to take a break or get a drink you would come back and look at an endless stream of discussion... how do you get back into the flow? Maybe this is the greatest book because great things are difficult to make? 

Despite my not having been bowled over by this novel so far, i did dog-ear a few pages that i wanted to talk about, so ill mention a few. On page 70 The Supreme describes being put to sleep by the French-Catalan prisoner's stories. But the story of the "he-goat... attack[ing] the sex (which, ive learned, is a euphemism) of the universe." And talk of "the din of his battering-ram (another euphemism), the clamor of his orgasm..." Such is the bedtime story fit for a dictator. Bizarre. 

The Supreme returns again and again to sexual imagery, but (so far) has no contact with women that i can tell. I was under the impression that an integral part of being a dictator was, well, dictating your way into your poor subjects pants-(or punching them in the face, a la Facundo). Maybe he asked his herbalist and was told he was not fit for sexual activity? 

One last thing... when Patino and El Supremo... F*** the page together... I didn't really know they used that particular phrase back then. Although in cowboy movies I guess they do, like Deadwood... but I wondered then same thing about that... such a bizarre mix of shakespeare and cursing. 

Now im off to pour a G&T down the other side of the book and then try to read past it. 

Having just clicked on 7 random peoples blogs and found not one response on the last half of The President (and i thought i was leaving it a bit late)... Ive given up for tonite.... and i SHANT be getting up early to respond tomorrow morning either. Have to try again tomorrow evening. 

Last half of The President

Just finished the book. It really started to draw me in for the second half. I wrote last time about being frustrated by the intricacies and use of 'poetic' language, which did persist throughout the book, but i read the second half essentially without putting it down. Several things really struck me:

First: I don't find myself easily offended by material i read or watch- ive never met a show with nudity, violence, and adult material that I felt glad to have been warned about. But... this book at times made me feel like I shouldn't be reading it. I had been slightly lagging during my last post, and hadn't read the whorehouse chapter yet. Nor, obviously, had i read the latter accounts of the people in prison... most notably the imprisonment of Angel Face himself... or rather "prisoner no.17". I found myself, when reading the accounts of the torture visited upon the various people... moved? scared? disgusted? disturbed? Maybe all of the above, to a greater or lesser extent. While it undoubtedly adds to the book... aiding it to its Nobel-Prize place in literature... i found it at times to be plainly unpleasant. Given a choice i wouldn't have continued reading, because why would i knowingly subject myself to material that i find unpleasant? --- When i started this paragraph that was all i intended to say on the matter, but just now something has struck me that seems worth putting in: I wanted to put down the book... to escape from the reality this book put forward. I could do that. And im just READING about this stuff. For the people who lived, and live today in regimes like this... I guess i can see why this book is thought to be so powerful. 

Second: A continuation on the theme of escape for the people. Something that began in the first chapters and certainly continued was the rampant alcoholism throughout the population... and especially those charged with doing the dirty deeds. The jury was drunk at Carvajal's trial, and gave him the death penalty. The executioners and guards were drunk at the time... The President gets raving-drunk when he meet with Angel Face... I believe people can be evil. There are some people who aren't victims of circumstance or influence... they are simply, inexcusably evil. But these people are few. And certainly the number of people doing bad things to each other in this "fictional" city/state is too great for them to all be evil. I would guess there is a part in most of them that knows what they are doing is wrong, but is done to keep them as secure as they can be... at least for the moment. The booze must be the only way they can live with themselves... 

In closing, I've revised my initial assessment... I do like this book better then Facundo, perhaps for the same reason that disturbing accounts on the news, unpleasant as they may be, do more to stimulate thought than a 4 hour documentary on Argentine geography. If it bleeds it leads, to borrow a phrase. This book was unpleasant at times, but now i'm sitting here thinking about a group of people who i never would have bothered with before, even if they are "fictional."

First Part of The President

I'm torn about this book so far. On the one hand, its different from Facundo, and that certainly can't be a bad thing, right? On the other hand, the bizarre language (the repetition of made-up syllables) and the theatrical quality to the dialogue makes it seem, well, a bit like a play, at points anyways. And to be honest ive never been one for plays, watching or reading. Which is why, strangely, i actually wish id spent the last few hours reading a more factual book like Facundo, which, while drier and more technical, always left me feeling as though id learned something. For whatever reason thats always been my issue with fiction: it didn't happen. My dad used to avidly read the Ann Rule true crime novels, and when i asked him why, he basically told me that its so much more involving and, well, upsetting, given that it actually happened. Might be why i tend to prefer non-fiction historical type books. Nevertheless, after i got into it a bit more, The President started to get better.

At the beginning, and possibly due to the mood i was in when i started, i found it hard to keep track of exactly what was going on... I imagine the author intended for the scheme to reveal itself as the book went on, and to his credit, after about 100-120 pages it started to become clearer to me, which has since made reading this book much more enjoyable. 

I found the description of the street people at the beginning to be interesting, since for some reason i imagined Latin American dictatorships to have immaculate cities, with the destitute forced out. Im not sure why i made this assumption, knowing as i do little to nothing about the topic, but I suppose it might have something to do with the pomp and circumstance of the military displays that always feature prominently in any (fictional) movie on the subject. 

Once again, Ill digress and just mention a favorite quote... 

I've just spent 15 minutes looking for it and i can't seem to remember where is was. It was something along the lines of someone being "full of wind from the drink"... I need to use my time more wisely i feel... and yes, i have the sense of humor of a 10 year old. 

Second Half of Facundo

Again I ran into a minor hiccup when i tried to read the second half of the book. I'd left it til today for a number of football-playoff related reasons, and i wanted to get through the last 150pages or so at a decent pace. But i just couldn't do it. Personally i have a great interest in history, especially of the military variety, and Sarmiento's style of writing the "Society at War" chapters was just too detailed and involving to gloss over. I found myself reading every word carefully, and trying to keep track of the different generals and names, even re-reading some passages and flipping back at times to remember what had gone on. The only real downside i can see of this style is that these chapters lack, at times, the clear message that Facundo is a brutal Gaucho. That element is certainly there, but the discussion of the firing squads and the ransoming of civilians for war-chest funds exists in the framework of a long story about a convoluted civil war. Which brings me to the next thing I noticed...

Facundo is a coward! We discussed in class the fact that he had needed his friends to overpower the tiger that had him up a tree, and only then could he delight in taking his vengeance. I thought this might come up later in the book and it has. Facundo doesn't kill his own enemies, at least not in the majority of cases. When he suffers some affront, he usually calls for a firing squad... which makes no sense in the case of most of these issues. I would have expected the Gaucho to continue to delight in settling his difference mano a mano with his knife, but it seems that he's moved to a more... efficient type of violence. Similarly, whereas earlier in the story Facundo cuts off a woman's ear for some minor offense, as he gains power it seems he uses his aides to assault women. The part where he has them try to hold her down just doesn't ring true, this guy is a true force to be reckoned with... but needs his buddies to overpower a princess? Finally, even on the battlefield he is described on page. 131 as absent when his men win the big victory (in fact, things weren't going well when Facundo was there... and the tide turned after he ran away... only to return to kill some defenseless enemy and claim the victory (the tiger story:redux, anyone?)). 

In another way, Facundo can be seen as brutal, but not noble or brave. He repeatedly disregards the European, gentlemanly way that wars should be fought. Or more specifically, he doesnt adhere to the rules of war, for example when he kills someone under the flag of truce. 

Ive taken a whole page of various snippets i found interesting in this second half, including some about Facundo's manufacture of support through a sort of domino effect started by fear; his focus on monetary gain that never came from out-and-out theft; and when Sarmiento says that it isnt really Facundo's fault... he's just a gaucho who cant control himself and doesnt know any better (p.175 at the bottom). Given the need for brevity, Ill just mention two small items that stuck with me. The first was on p. 164 when Sarmiento describes how Rosas, Pavon, and Lopez would "[get] on their horses every morning and [ride] out to be gauchos on the pampas." I thought this was a great contrast in that it made brutal men sound like children again, playing at being cowboys. And finally, on a less serious note i loved the quote about the nature of some women on page 156: "A beautiful woman will often trade a bit of her own dishonor for a bit of the glory surrounding a celebrated man." - brilliant, and still true today, i feel.

First 5 of Facundo

Not being entirely sure of how to write this i made the mistake of trying to remember details from the very beginning. Big mistake! The geography information, while interesting, makes the first chapter read much more like a non-fiction history book than what is, I suppose, a fictional (but based on real life...?) story. One thing that did really strike me was the romanticism that went along with Sarmiento's description of the life of the gauchos. Although it isnt obvious at first, the repeated discussion about gauchos, and their flaws, turns out to be important in trying to understand Facundo. Also, the fact that he (the author) describes in great detail a number of different types of gaucho serves to explain Facundo better. The Rastreador (the tracker) is especially impressive. Of all the sorts of gaucho, he seems to be the only purely "good", or at least "neutral", type. The Baqueano seems more warlike, although the fact that Sarmiento discusses a particular Baqueano fighting Rosas leads me to believe that Baqueanos cant be all bad. Back to the romanticism though... 

In the first chapter the author mentions the life of the wagoneers "traversing the Pampas." He writes of the constant state of privation that they, and all the rural people, live in. I suppose romanticism is the wrong word. My mind drifted at times to images of cowboys in the American (North- interesting that the author uses "America" to describe South America") West. Although, i suppose also the images I came up with are considerably more romanticized than was actually the case. And, that even the reality of the American West was...nicer?... than what Sarmiento describes as the state of the Argentine lands. 

That i kept drifting mentally thousands of miles North can be blamed on a few things. First, the writing is elaborate and flowery. This could be the result of translation from Spanish to English. I know that if you type in something like "I like to eat bread" into a translator from english to spanish, and then you do the result back to english... you get "i have taste to eat the bread." Now im in no way suggesting that professional translators don't have the sense to translate meanings as best they can, but obviously anytime you go from one language to another there is going to be interpretational decisions made. The more likely culprit, however, is the writer. When the class brainstormed the image of the writer, I wasn't the only one who thought he seemed a bit self-important. He wasnt forced to leave by the government... he was "pitifully exiled", and in his exile he wasn't going to write about what he thought, but rather intended "to make the rays of light of [Chile's] press project over to the other side of the Andes." 

The last thing i'll mention was the description of the violent life of Facundo. Now, i cant help but feel the stories are embellished. Surely he didnt cut off his lovers ears over a wedding gift? Or kill a judge because he lost a bet? For some reason a book i read called "Killing Pablo"by Mark Bowden came to mind, which is basically about the attempts to capture, and finally kill, Pablo Escobar. The descriptions of the killings done by Escobar's men over seemingly tiny disagreements or infractions strike me as similar to the life of the bad gaucho (Facundo.) 

Test Post

Just a test post. Thoughts on the first 5 to follow.