Bad Vibes

Rating:
Summary: Cool, contemporary and realistic view of South America
Review: I lived in Chile two years ago and the book everybody was reading was Alberto Fuguet's MALA ONDA or Bad Vibes. I'm so excited i's finally coming out in English. It's a very cool, contemporary politcal story told by this rich kid who hates disco music, dances during the curfew, hangs out with surfers, snorts his dad's coke and reads american books and magazines. Bad Vibes is a fresh hurrican to come out of the typical magical realistic Southamerican landscape. This book is hip, real, funny and emotionally compelling. It's quite american and, on the other hand, it's so chilean. It's wierd how a dictatorship can affect a teenager's view. Matías Vicuña (the narrator) is still a teenage though, no matter what he sees. He just has to cope. I really recommend it. Ralph Anderson, Tucson, AZ

Rating:
Summary: Fresh.
Review: I read this book years ago and recently saw the film "Y tu mama tambien", which made me come back to Bad Vibes. I recommend them both. Mala Onda represents the new voice of Chilean writers, and of kids all over the world growing up amidst drugs, malls, boredom, etc. This book certainly tells a different story of Pinochet than all the history books I've read on the seventies and eighties in Chile.

When will more of Fuguet's novels be translated into English?

Rating:
Summary: great
Review: I think that Alberto Fuguet has so much to say. He is the only who tell all the trut about Chile. Maybe he is a "bad copy of Sallinger" but we are in Chile and he try to make a different type of writing and he definitly is making that. Chile is so "cartucho" that Fuguet is the better writer in Chile.

Rating:
Summary: fuguet
Review: i think that fuguet is a great writer, but bad vibes is so bad, is a kind of bad mixing of sallinger, bukowski and the chilean politic. but read it is a help to undesrtand one of the reallitys un chile

Rating:
Summary: Matìas was def. XMEL
Review: OK. first than anything, i got to say that Alberto (the author), have an exelent style on his writing and you can see it on Bad vibes, and if you know spanish, you also can read Bad vibes on this idiom. The name of the book?... MALA ONDA.

When i say that Alberto Fuguet have an exelent narrative, if you want to, i mean that he writes as he wants, not following any rules of the chilean literature, and that is something cool for the young people of this country, and my opinion is based on my own experience as a chilean teenager reading somebody that speaks as any person of my age, making the book easy to understand. I also think that the idea to edit the book for the "gringos" was cool 'cause it deserves it, i mean that the message in the book, as i see it, is an x-ray of the damn culture of those years here, in chile, and gives you an idea of somebody like Matìas Vicuña, trying to live a complicated life, doing it in the wrong way sometimes but giving that perfect example for the people that read Bad vives to make a meditation of his own life. that is my vision, that is the main idea of my comment, not forgeting to tell'ya that this book is very fun too. Read it, if you are not chilean, it will be a lot better, if you look to expand your vision of the world, the life, the people...i don`t know. Bye.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Choice
Review: Whenever I travel to other countries I like to take a novel that helps acquaint me with the people and culture of the country. Although my voyage to Chile was motivated by Isabel Allende's "My Invented Country, A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile" I was determine to find another Chilean writer to take on the trip with me. I searched the internet for a few days trying to finalize my selection. I was excited to find a copy of "Bad Vibes" at my local library. The reviews that I read seemed promising. "Like Catcher and the Rye", some reviews touted. "A contemporary Chilean coming of age story", was touted by other reviews. I found the characters dull and the story slow. After one hundred pages, I couldn't invest any more time with Matias and his group of drugged up self absorbed friends. Perhaps this is exactly what life was like for the privileged class of Chile during the 1980s but the real challenge for Fuguet is how to reveal that story to the reader (i.e. non-Chilean reader) in a manner that is engaging and enjoyable - neither came through in the novel.

In contrast, my visit to Chile was wonderful. The country is rich in history and culture. Thanks to very knowledgeable tour guides and local people, I was able to get a feel for the country that I wasn't able to obtain through the novel. While Allende is still my favorite Chilean author, I remain open to new experiences with literature from this country. Unfortunately for me, "Bad Vibes" was a bad choice.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Choice
Review: Whenever I travel to other countries I like to take a novel that helps acquaint me with the people and culture of the country. Although my voyage to Chile was motivated by Isabel Allende's "My Invented Country, A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile" I was determine to find another Chilean writer to take on the trip with me. I searched the internet for a few days trying to finalize my selection. I was excited to find a copy of "Bad Vibes" at my local library. The reviews that I read seemed promising. "Like Catcher and the Rye", some reviews touted. "A contemporary Chilean coming of age story", was touted by other reviews. I found the characters dull and the story slow. After one hundred pages, I couldn't invest any more time with Matias and his group of drugged up self absorbed friends. Perhaps this is exactly what life was like for the privileged class of Chile during the 1980s but the real challenge for Fuguet is how to reveal that story to the reader (i.e. non-Chilean reader) in a manner that is engaging and enjoyable - neither came through in the novel.

In contrast, my visit to Chile was wonderful. The country is rich in history and culture. Thanks to very knowledgeable tour guides and local people, I was able to get a feel for the country that I wasn't able to obtain through the novel. While Allende is still my favorite Chilean author, I remain open to new experiences with literature from this country. Unfortunately for me, "Bad Vibes" was a bad choice.