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.