The President

Rating:
Summary: HUH?!?
Review: Although the storyline is great, I found the novel to be hard to follow as it jumped from here to there. I never did find out- Why did the President hate Abel Carvajal and General Canales so much?????

Rating:
Summary: HUH?!?
Review: Although the storyline is great, I found the novel to be hard to follow as it jumped from here to there. I never did find out- Why did the President hate Abel Carvajal and General Canales so much?????

Rating:
Summary: The best novel about dictators ever written in Latin America
Review: Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) began this Nobel Prize-winning novel while still a law student. Originally appearing as EL SENOR PRESIDENTE, it was the story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala. Translated as THE PRESIDENT by Frances Partridge, EL SENOR PRESIDENTE was acclaimed for portraying both totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Asturias employed such literary devices as satire to convey the government's transgressions and used surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state's impact on the individual psyche. Asturias's stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. "My work," Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, "will continue to reflect the voice of the peoples, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems." "Asturias leaves no doubt about what it is like to be tortured, or what it is like to work for a man who is both omnipotent and depraved." -- TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT "[Asturias] has achieved in a splendid manner a grotesque and almost asphyxiating conception of the total state. When the reader puts down the novel, he does so with a feeling of compassion and, at the same time, relief, that he has not had to live through similar circumstances." -- INTER-AMERICAN REVIEW OF BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rating:
Summary: The Effectiveness of Surrealist Nightmares
Review: I read this book in Spanish, so I cannot comment on the translation, but the story itself is well worth reading. Nobel Prize winner Asturias tells us the story of the fear that people suffer during the times of a despotic dictatorship. Although the main character is the Presidente himself, the story revolves around Miguel Cara de Angel (Angel face). He is quite possibly the most interesting character I have ever encountered in a literary work. The whole book is a surrealist masterpeace. We are to dive into a fantastic nightmare world whenever we read it. Almost everything happens at night, and the shadows play a very important role in the lifes of the townspeople..., mostly beggars. This is a painfully hard book to read, because Asturia's use of language and imagery are purposely confusing to amphasize the horrors and the nightmares. But overall, I don't think human kind can do without readind this different proposals by one of literature's most under-rated authors. Definetly a must read.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT A BOOK, A Difficult but Rewarding Book!
Review: Is this a difficult read? yes, and especially if you're not used to latinamerican literature or of 'magical realism'. Is it fascinating, entrancing and a rewarding experince? YES, and then more. After reading a lot of books you come to appreciate it when an author tries a lot of different styles and plays around with time and space and creates fascinating multi-layered characters, characters which are not clean-drawn from the beginning and you never really know their true intentions of their true nature (until the very end of course). This adds a lot of suspense to the novel. Although it is far from being just a suspense novel, it has romance in it, social commentary, statements on human-nature and politics, bits of comedy, lots of dreamlike surrealistic sequences and quirky characters. It is a hard and heavy read though, I found myself rereading complete chapters to fully digest the story and tone, it is all well worth it though. The story is excellent and very involving, so are the characters, but if you relish literature and how far it can reach an audience as an art form, than you will be fascinated by Asturias's prose, it is so dense and thick that when you finish you feel like you read twice as many pages and 'experienced' a lot of varied emotions. The ending could come as a surpise to many, I'm not going to give it away, only to say that you dont notice how much you are fond of the characters themselves till you feel their pain in the last chapters. Beautiful novel and one of the best examples of why the BOOM of latinamerican writers in that period. This is one of the best of that period and it has aged well. If you liked this I would recommend anything from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who uses a lighter more fun prose) or Juan Rulfo (genius, short novels that pack a punch). Be warned though, take your time with this one, it is well worth your efforts. A solid 9.5 out of 10!

Rating:
Summary: The story of a typical latin american tyrant before Viet Nam
Review: One of the best books I have ever read.

Before Viet Nam, U.S. supported oppresive regimes like the one depicted in this book, were common in Latin America and in other countries around the world like South Viet Nam.

Then the Vietnamese beat the living cr*p out of the United States in the Viet Nam War and the U.S. Goverment came to the conclusion that it was not a good idea after all to support highly unpopular tyrants, like Somoza in Nicaragua, Marcos in the Philippines, or the Shah in Iran.

Those tyrants are history now. The U.S. noriegized them out of office.

But if you want to have an idea of how bad it was 20 years ago, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Favorite...
Review: Poetic. Artful. Devastating. The best aspect of this book lies in the author's ability to so deftly articulate the psychological, nightmare-ish, indeed, surreal aspects of living under a dictatorship. To an outsider such as myself, it was deeply moving to see inside and realize how everyone's actions can be justified under such an extreme system. That's terrifying.

Rating:
Summary: A Favorite...
Review: Poetic. Artful. Devastating. The best aspect of this book lies in the author's ability to so deftly articulate the psychological, nightmare-ish, indeed, surreal aspects of living under a dictatorship. To an outsider such as myself, it was deeply moving to see inside and realize how everyone's actions can be justified under such an extreme system. That's terrifying.

Rating:
Summary: Dizzying, mystifying, fascinating
Review: This work is a classic of modern Latin American fiction and the defining example of magical realism. For all those who have read and enjoyed Marquez and Borges, this book is a must!