Dictatorship of Greed and Depravity: A Review of Mario Vargas Llosa’s “The Feast of the Goat”

The recent popular uprising against Egypt’s long time dictator Hosni Mubarak reminded me of Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel The Feast of the Goat, about The Dominican Republic’s long time dictator Rafael Trujillo. The similarities between the two dictatorships is crystal clear: Greed, an obsession with power and control, kleptomania of the dictator and his inner circle, brutal suppression of the people by the secret police and military, and the unwavering support of the U.S. government. In Trujillo’s case things got so bad that he was assassinated, ending a thirty-one year dictatorship that left the Dominican Republic in shambles.

Vargas Llosa’s novel begins with the return to the Dominican Republic of Urania Cabral, the daughter of a member of Trujillo’s inner circle. “Urania. Her parents had done her no favor; 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. Urania! What an idea for a name. Fortunately nobody called her that anymore; now it was Uri, Miss Cabral, Ms. Cabral, Dr. Cabral.”

Why has she returned to Santo Domingo when once she had said she would never in this life or the next return? To visit her father, whom she hasn’t seen, spoken with or written to since she left at age fourteen for a private school in Michigan.

“He awoke paralyzed by a sense of catastrophe… At last he managed to stretch his hand toward the bedside table where he kept the revolver and the loaded sub-machine gun. But instead of a weapon he grasped the alarm clock.” Thus we are introduced to the glorious dictator, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo as he awakens early one morning. His mind scrolls back through his life, examines in detail his wife, his ne’er do well sons Ramfis and Radhamés, his conquests, his wealth, the men of his inner circle (the ingrates), and his aged body that refuses to perform as before. Reading, my mind flashed on Kim Jong-Il, North Korea’s longtime self-obsessed ruler. The similarities between dictators are endless.

No one was secure in Trujillo’s sick world. Remaining a member of his inner circle was deliberately not easy; at any moment, on a whim, one could find oneself tossed aside like a used piece of toilet tissue. If you were an attractive young woman, or had a pretty daughter, you’d best keep her out of Trujillo’s sight, or he will pluck her for a night of “dancing” that will leave her in ruins and your position in no better shape. Sexually obsessed, he equated his virility with the nation’s health, he thrived on deflowering young maidens, considering it a blessing they had better thank him for.

When people finally had enough, they plotted his assassination, which occurred on May 30, 1961. The outcome, however, was not to be what they hoped for, as there was no swift recovery. “The Goat” might be dead, but his aura lingered on.

The Feast of the Goat is spellbinding. Simply stated, it is one of the best novels I have read in years.

An easy *****

A glass of sherry, pleasant evening kind of read

Margery Allingham's Mr. Albert Campion was her best-loved character. I remember watching him the PBS Mystery! series eons ago as one of my favorites. I have to admit that until my friend Paul Bauck sent me a box of mysteries with this one in it, I have never read one of her novels. Much the pity.

Mr. Campion's Quarry, co-authored by Youngman Carter and copyrighted in 1970 four years after her death, reminds me of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey -- refined, cultured upper class dabbling in sleuthing and darned good at it. The kind of book to be read after dinner with a fire going in the fireplace, a glass of sherry and a biscuit or two. A delightful British whodunit whether read or watched.

Delightfully, it's available at amazon.com from their resellers, from $0.01 for used copies (really, that's the price), $4.99 for hard cover, and $2.96 for mass market paperback, which is what I have.

I give this book *****

Revolution in a Rat Colony: A review of Brendan Gisby’s “The Island of Whispers”

Reminiscent of Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Brendan Gisby’s novel is a mesmerizing tale of conquest, enslavement and yearning for a life of freedom from oppression and want.

Set in Scotland in an ancient ruined monastery on the island of Inchgarvie that was abandoned during the Middle Ages, “The Island of Whispers” tells the story of the conquest and subjugation of the island’s indigenous black rat population by much larger (cat-size larger) brown rats that arrived from passing ships. Enslaved, despised and abused by the brown rats, the black rats yearn for freedom and dream of founding a just society somewhere else. The ruling leadership will do anything to snuff it out and exterminate it.

Looking out from his island prison, Twisted Foot sees another land. How could they get there? Could it be a place where he, his mate and his child could have a free life? What about Fat One, Small Face and Long Ears? Would they be interested? And Grey Eyes, Soft-Mover and Bone-Cruncher? They would have to be very, very careful to avoid the sharp eyes and ears of the Protectors and the Inner Circle. Eventually, taking Slayer, the Slave King who escapes during a slave revolt that the authorities brutally put down, they leave the island for their freedom.

What happens then? Does their last? Does it grow? Are Twisted Foot, Fat One and their friends able to establish the just society they were dreaming of? You’ll have to read the book to find that out, which – unless you hate rats – shouldn’t be a problem, as it’s a can’t-put-it-down kind of read.

This rat tale is a wonderfully told story of the yearning to be free that’s in every person’s heart. It’s a story that is as ancient as history, and as current as today’s news. Inchgarvie could be Egypt, Iran, Tunisia, North Korea, apartheid South Africa, Israel, the U.S., Argentina during the military junta, Chile during Pinochet’s rule, Myanmar, the company you work for … wherever people are kept down, marginalized, despised, and ignored. Reading it, I kept thinking about Israel’s treatment of both its Arab citizens and the Arabs in the Occupied Territories and Gaza, which has been under a near lock-down siege since June 2007.

Pick up a copy of The Island of Whispers in either paperback or Kindle. It’s available from amazon.com and amazon.uk. 

Will there be a sequel to this story? I certainly hope so.

I give it *****

"For the Ghosts Within", a ghostly, poignant jazz album that I can't stop listening to

I like jazz, and this is the best jazz I've listened to in a long time. Soft, sweet, very "unjazzy," it opens with violinist Ros Stephen's Sigamos String Quartet playing the old standard "Laura", sung by Robert Wyatt. They are soon joined by Gilad Atzmon's alto sax and Richard Pryce's double bass. The effect is hypnotic. I haven't stopped listening since. 

Other songs on the album are "Lullaby for Irena", written by Wyatt's wife Elfreda Benge and sung by Wyatt is hauntingly beautiful, as is "The Ghosts Within", a song about Palestine written by Benge and sung by Gilad's wife, Tali. "We're still here/ under the olive trees./ When will you see/ it's where we belong... We once lived on this land for ever/ in the scent of our lemon trees./ We once drank from our rolling River./ For our land you gave us just/ dust."

A rap "Where Are They Now", sung by Shadia Mansour and Abboud Hashemi, "Maryan", "Round Midnight", "Lush Life", "What's New?", "In A Sentimental Mood", "At Last I Am Free", and a hypnotic "What A Wonderful World" sung by Wyatt.

If you're not familiar with Atzmon, pick up a copy of the CD, download the album or songs from it, and get familiar with him. He's one of the best, and this is haunting, unforgettable jazz like you may not have heard before.

To listen to some of Atzmon's music, click on these links:

http://www.gilad.co.uk/
www.myspace.com/giladatzmon
http://www.jazzaproductions.squarespace.com/

Then sit back and enjoy one of today's greatest jazzmen and his sax and clarinet (plus the other instruments that he plays). Originally from Israel, Gilad Atzmon is based in London, England.I give this album an enthusiastic 5-stars.

The amazing adventures and misadventures of becoming Johnny Nova

If you were a teenager in the 80s, David Kupisiewicz's coming of age novelized memoir will probably bring back a lot of memories. As T. Hewston Le Roux says in his review, the author has “captured the life of a late teenager in a certain place (LA) at a certain moment in history, and you can smell the night, and the weed and probably David besides.” Kupisiewicz's writing style pulls you right into the story and keeps you there through the ups-and-downs, raw emotions, drugs, sex, music, parties, insanity and dreams that were so much a part of being a teenager in Los Angeles (and many other places) in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Even an old guy like me for whom “bong” is the sound a bell makes can enjoy the book. I did.

If you Google Johnny Nova, you’ll find him everywhere, including his own website, at http://becomingjohnnynova.com/

To order your own copy of Becoming Johnny Nova, go to Amazon.com

My rating for the book: *****

Brendan Gisby: "The Bookie's Runner", a mesmerizing story about an ordinary man

What his publisher says about The Bookie’s Runner: it is “thoroughly mesmerising.” 

I agree. It is also a gem, the kind of story that once you pick it up, resists being put down until the last syllable of the last word of the last sentence has been read.

Written from the perspective of a fifteen year old boy thinking through his father’s life and death, this book of 100 pages tells the story of the author’s father, “an ordinary, working-class man; a gentle soul, who loved his family and toiled day and night for them,” “a downtrodden man, one of life’s losers”, a man of many dreams who wanted so much more from life, but ended achieving nothing but the respect and love of those who knew him which, in my experience, is worth more than money can possibly buy.

One might think that such a description is enough to cause people to turn away from this book and its story … yet it is what makes the story so compelling. We all know people like Derry McKay, common, ordinary blokes who may be of little account in the grand scheme of things, but whose lives are the foundation on which our countries and our civilizations stand.

The story of Derry McKay hauntingly lingers, appearing in the memories and associations from the years of my living, as it will in yours. Pick up a copy of this captivating story, sit down, get a cup of coffee or tea, put your feet up and enjoy The Bookie’s Runner. It’s one of my favorites in this New Year.

I give it a five star rating: *****

Published for Night Publishing (UK) by CreateSpace.

Empty Chairs: Much more than a story about child abuse

 

If you’re the victim of child abuse, know someone who is, or work with victims of child abuse, Stacy Danson’s autobiographical account of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her mother from age three until she ran away at eleven is the book for you.

Empty Chairs is, as the subtitle says, “much more than a story about child abuse.” It is about the resilience and triumph of a girl whose street name was “Sassy”, who not only survived the horror of sexual abuse and her mother’s sadism, but survived life on the streets of her native Sydney, Australia as a tough-as-nails, don’t-take-no-crap runaway. At age of eleven, she made a mature decision about her life: “No one was ever going to force me to do anything again. Such are the thoughts of a child whose experience of the world started in hell.”

Living on the streets at any age is no walk in the park; living on the streets as a young girl can be fatal. Stacy Danson learned its lessons quickly: Trust no one, stay out of the way of the pimps and other predators that prey on attractive girls, make yourself invisible. In spite of all the precautions, it doesn’t always work, and didn’t for Stacy. Key to her survival was running into a tightly-knit group of fourteen street kids who took her in, provided her a home, and protected her.

Why does she tell her story some forty years after her life on Sidney’s streets ended? Simply put, it was time. “Recent events in my small world have caused me to think deeply about the responsibility I have, that we all have, to make people aware of what can and does happen in a home that may well be right next door to you.”

In her case, the neighborhood was an upper middle class one where  her abusers were respected members of the community. One of her steady abusers was a family physician. Another was a sadistic cop. If she cried, her mother beat her, sometimes viciously. Did anyone hear her screams? If they did, no one said a word. It ended at age eleven when she beat her mother up, stole her money, and left.

The central tragedy of childhood sexual abuse is the damage it does, physically and emotionally, to the victim. Here is what Ms. Danson says about it: “Physically and emotionally, everything that made me who and what I was was destroyed. But,” she continues, “they never got my soul. They didn't break me. Something in me refuses to be broken. I don’t know what the hell you call it, but it’s strong. It burns inside me with a life force of its own.”

“I firmly believe that everything that happened has helped to make me who I am, and I am kind of fond of who I am these days. It has taken half a century to get here, but here I am.” Indeed, here she is: from an abused kid who trusted no one and wouldn’t let anyone touch her, Stacy Danson has grown into a compassionate woman, loving mother and fine writer. I look forward to reading more from her.

Empty Chairs is available from amazon.com in Kindle and paperback editions. Buy your copy, read it and recommend it.

I give it a five star rating *****