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Title: The Feast of the Goat: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Edith Grossman ISBN: 0-312-42027-7 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 09 November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (42 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The last Vargas Llosa's novel
Comment: This is one of the best books of Mario Vargas Llosa. It relates the life of the Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, one of the most cruel and ruthless Latin American tyrants of the last century. Vargas Llosa did a good research job for the novel. In fact, one does not know what is fiction and what is history. That mix is precisely what makes the novel a masterpiece!
Rating: 5
Summary: A Contemporary Classic
Comment: Mario Varlgas Llosa is easily on my personal list of all-time Great Latin American Authors. I have been an avid fan for quite some time and have read several of his masterpieces: La ciudad y los perros (1960), the novel that launched his literary career and caused a sensation in the literary world when it was published ... and initiated the second phase of the "boom" in Latin American literature; la casa verde (1964); Conversacion en la Catedral (1964); and La verdad de las mentiras (1990). The current THE FEAST OF THE GOAT (La Fiesta del Chivo) is written with an insurmountable rhythm and precision that is classic Vargas Llosa. Those of us who lived during the unbelievably nightmarish Tujillo Era and in the ghoulish shadow of the Dictador under Balaguer (especially the infamous "12 Years") recall all too well the ruthlessness of this beast. The author handles ingeniously the characterizations and events of the period. And therein lies the mastery of this political-socially astute and innovative writer: his expanded concept of reality and his precepts about literature being born of a reality that is actually lived. This story is powerful. In honestly, however, I take serious issue with Vargas Llosa in that he does not give appropriate credit to a few present-day Dominican literary giants like Frank Moya Pons, Bernardo Vega, Roberto Cassa, and Jose Michel Cordero ... for their already published, widely respected historical research [upon which most every writer draws for accurate historical perspective] on the subject. Only a Vargas Llosa, I suppose, has the literary supremacy to pull it off so cleverly. Nevertheless, this is a novel that will enlighten the reader about the last days of the Trujillo Era and the psyche of "el Chivo"...goat. Pay very close attention to the quite, unassuming poet-president. Vargas Llosa is a priceless literary treasure.
Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)
Rating: 4
Summary: Hell in a tropical paradise
Comment: Mario Vargas Llosa's latest work takes us to the Dominican Republic under the 31 year reign of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, the canny and ruthless dictator who, in the belief that he was in partnership with God, subjected his country to a reign of terror like none ever seen in this hemisphere, aided by acoterie of thugs and sycophants whom he controlled with an infernal combination of violence, fear and blackmail. The central figure of the book, Urania Cabral, is the child of one of Trujillo's most loyal supporters, Senator Agustin Cabral, who has been losing favor with the mercurial dictator; and who, in a desperate attempt to win back both position and prestige, arranges what can only be called a deal with the devil; an act so horrendous that it will forever cost him the love and respect of his daughter. Interspersed with Urania's history is the narrative of the plot that resulted in Trujillo's assassination in May of 1961 and its subsequent denouement. The account of the arrest and torture of the assassins is not for the squeamish; Vargas Llosa presents it in sickening detail. Along with the story line of Urania's flight to the United States and her subsequent self-imposed exile, and the killing of Trujillo which liberated the Dominican Republic from one of the most odious dictators on the planet, Vargas Llosa provides us with a stark portrait of Trujillo himself: diabolically clever, devious, cruel, unable to deal with advancing old age that no more spares him than anyone else; pathetically trying to prove his masculinity by raping virgins; repelled by the Haitian blood that darkened his skin and attempting to purge his self-loathing in the cold-blooded massacre of thousands of Haitian settlers. A fascinating and repulsive offshoot of Trujillo is his son Ramfis, named by his father as a general of the Dominican army at the age of seven, fit for nothing but dissipation, and so stuck on himself that he feels he is bestowing an honor on young girls by raping and humiliating them. One of the most enigmatic and intriguing, albeit loathesome, characters of the book is the self-serving, double-dealing figurehead president Joaquin Balaguer, playing both ends against the middle while he cravenly submits to the dictatorship's cruelty and tyranny. "The Feast of the Goat" is not a great book; it's confusing at times, rambles at intervals; but it provides a powerful look at one of the most revolting figures of the 20th century and the repressive society he built almost single-handedly, and makes us feel what it must have been like to live in such a country. Vargas Llosa is an enormously gifted author and this book gives abundant evidence of his great talent as a writer.
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Title: The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Vargas Llosa ISBN: 0140262601 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Way to Paradise : A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Natasha Wimmer ISBN: 0374228035 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 19 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: La fiesta del chivo by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Vargas Llosa ISBN: 8466303316 Publisher: Punto de Lectura Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Vargas Llosa, Edith Grossman ISBN: 0140262156 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Storyteller : A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Helen Lane ISBN: 0312420285 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 03 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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