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Title: Real Life in Castro's Cuba (Latin American Silhouettes (Paper)) by Catherine Moses ISBN: 0-8420-2837-4 Publisher: Scholarly Resources Pub. Date: January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.7 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: More Than a Passing Glance
Comment: Catherine Moses has written a very readable synopsis of her experiences in Cuba and her impressions of Cuban life based on the people she met. The chapter divisons on health care, migrations, news and information, education, etc. are helpfully organized. I found the chapters on religions and the Cuban spirit particularly interesting.
Having lived in East Berlin before the wall came down, it was easy for me to note parallels between the totalitarian societies. No where does she claim to be an expert, and I know I certainly wasn't. So I would have liked to have read more about her own personal experiences, seeing Cuba through her eyes, as it were. Of course that would have been subjective, incomplete, and unscientific, but ever so fascinating in the glimpses and questions raised.
I'm looking forward to her next book!
Rating: 5
Summary: A well rounded look at Cuba
Comment: All those whose interest in Cuba has been caught by the plight of little Elian Gonzales would do well to read Catherine Moses' evenhanded and compassionate take on Cuba. Ms. Moses, a diplomat assigned to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana for 20 months, writes with the painterly eye of a fiction writer yet also with the precision of a scholar, which she is. With no exploitative interests in Cuba, hers is a unique position from which to view this society. Her book is rich in details about the daily life and work of the people, the history of the revolution and the American relationship to Cuba in recent years. Those who need a refresher course on the Migration Accords or the Fifth Party Pelenum can learn the details here. What is most powerful about the book however, is not its delineation of politics and policy, but its deep appreciation of the spiritual vibrancy and love of life of the Cuban people. If you are interested in Cuba, I can't think of a better place to start.
Rating: 2
Summary: What's the Message?
Comment: Dry and poorly organized, this book is little more than a series of disjointed ramblings loosely divided into chapters. Ms. Moses apparently wrote down her remembrances as they randomly popped into her head, but she never went back and edited them to put them into any semblance of order. Back and forth she goes, in one sentence telling how the Cubans are oppressed, in the next telling how they are resourceful and able to make do with the very little they have, how they see no hope, then that they see the light at the end of the tunnel. What she relates is so generalized that one could easily substitute the name of any oppressed group of people for "Cuba" and be telling their story with equal (in)articulation.
Especially irritating is the fact that she mentions numerous individuals, and whether a revered patriot or her kindly next-door neighbor, she describes each in terms as mundane and pointless as skin tone and intelligence level, attributes some blasé word or phrase to him or her meant to be clever or all-knowing, then rarely mentions that person again. Worse, her final statement about that person is often something to the effect of, "I'm not sure whatever became of him."
Referring again to the book's generalities, most readers will already know that the Cubans are an oppressed people; that they live in a police state that (like every police state) follows their every move and metes out punishment to those who do not toe the line; that they (like all oppressed peoples) are conflicted by a love for their homeland and the idea of chucking it all for another place and a better existence. Again, in my estimation these are commonsensical, everyday notions. It is not necessary to have lived in Cuba to understand them. And although there has to be a wealth of knowledge available from someone who has lived there, it is to be found in some other book. This one does nothing to impart the Cubans' unique plight, and after reading it, the reader will know little more about Cuba than he or she probably already does.
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Title: This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives by Ben Corbett ISBN: 0813338263 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Cuban Way: Capitalism, Communism and Confrontation by Ana Julia Jatar-Hausmann ISBN: 1565490886 Publisher: Kumarian Press Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Cuba Diaries : An American Housewife in Havana by Isadora Tattlin ISBN: 0767914848 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba by Tom Miller ISBN: 0465086780 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: June, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Reader's Companion to Cuba by Alan Ryan, Christa Malone ISBN: 0156003678 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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