Rating: 
Summary: over-protective and somewhat one-dimensional
Review: I know that "Tattlin" felt descriptions of her life and friends in Cuba had to be obscured in Cuba Diaries so as not to rile the government or jeopardize anyone's position. But that doesn't explain why she fails to describe the beautiful countryside, why she and her children "will never forget the Cuban nights," the enchanting music on every corner, the crumbling but unique and exceptional Havana architecture, or the stunningly gorgeous citizens. More than just a combination of "cafe con una gota de leche" or various other permutations of their African/European roots, they are unlike people anywhere else."Isadora" is so over-protective of herself, her marriage, her position, and her feelings that what we are left with is little more than datebook entries. I read the book because I'm in love with Cuba, but I didn't recognize its spirit in this smug musing on a privileged life in what could be any third world country. I've been to Cuba, and spent most of my time in Havana. Every morning while walking even to get a cup of coffee (which Tattlin describes as nearly impossible -- if you believe her version the only place to get food is at her house or in a paladar), I met with beautiful music, beautiful voices, and cheerful conversations among Cubans on the sidewalks and streetcorners. Not that Habaneros are elated 24/7, but there is a wonderful outlook and wonderful talent among the people that I feel is completely overlooked by those who only go to the society-filled cultural events. Isadora should have skipped some of the Castro affairs and tried walking down the street and listening to the various impromptu performances going on. Yes, some of Cuba is depressing. Doctors, engineers, scientists are impoverished and many drive taxicabs or cater to tourists to make ends meet. There are too many government restrictions. The paladares Tattlin frequents were prohibitively expensive when I was there (early 2001) due to a crackdown and exorbitant taxation by the government. Tattlin's descriptions of the government, the difficulties Cubans face in getting provisions, and the vast disparity between the haves and have-nots were very good. I just expected, because this was supposedly a diary, a little more depth, feeling, and gut reaction. To see a city free of Starbucks, Orange Crush, Burger King, and new model Fords is a travel experience nearly impossible for any American, and well-worth the trip. Please don't believe Tattlin's description that it is squalor. Tattlin does border on more meaningful sentiments, as when she says she will remember her staff always as she's driving away for the last time. But it's too little too late. I wanted to know her personal reactions to her staff. Why she did forgive the few thefts that happened in her home on her watch? Why did she feel conflicted (and I think she was) by the way she lived there? You can be privileged, you can call your faithful staff "the help," you can travel back and forth to the U.S. and bring 400 lbs of provisions back to the food- and essentials-starved Cuba, but you cannot ignore the emotions, talent, beauty, and gifts this country has to offer.
Rating:
Summary: Lost potential
Review: I picked up this book because as a cuban-american i was interested to find out how an american travelling to cuba would see the island, its people, its culture ... In this the author is vere effective she reccounts everything that she sees with such detail that at many points early on in the book i found myself laughing out loud. The proble is that she never ventures past this she only briefly hints at how this oppresive political system is perceived by the people and only once our twice hints at how it makes her feel. this book claims to be a diary kept by an american woman while she was living in cuba but i find it hard to believe that anyone would refrain from either criticizing or praising things in their own personal diary. Isadora had an opportunity to write a wonderful book and unfortunately simply reported back on things she saw with little power behind it.
Rating:
Summary: Lost potential
Review: I picked up this book because as a cuban-american i was interested to find out how an american travelling to cuba would see the island, its people, its culture ... In this the author is vere effective she reccounts everything that she sees with such detail that at many points early on in the book i found myself laughing out loud. The proble is that she never ventures past this she only briefly hints at how this oppresive political system is perceived by the people and only once our twice hints at how it makes her feel. this book claims to be a diary kept by an american woman while she was living in cuba but i find it hard to believe that anyone would refrain from either criticizing or praising things in their own personal diary. Isadora had an opportunity to write a wonderful book and unfortunately simply reported back on things she saw with little power behind it.
Rating: 
Summary: More than any other book, 'Diaries' puts you in Havana
Review: I read 'Cuba Diaries' by "Isadora Tattlin" (pen name) a month ago and was compelled to write about it today as I look at various stories circulating on the Web about Fidel's broken kneecap (filed under the humorous title 'The Fall of Castro'). I loved Tattlin's book and so has everyone else who I've recommended it to. Others may criticize it as being the boring diary of a housewife with not much to say, but I think that misses the point. More than any other book I've read about Cuba, 'Diaries' seems to put you squarely in Havana by showing you the challenges of every day life. Granted, Tattlin and family are not every day Cubans - she's quite frank about her life of (comparative) privilege...but she does give you a true sense of how all Cubans must survive on guile and wit.
Additionally, I was fascinated by the way Tattlin chose to mask the identity of herself and husband 'Nick' described as being born in 'X' and then constantly referring to Nick's X-ian background, his X-ian associates, speaking X-ian to their children. I know you're thinking - boy, that must be annoying. It's not - I found myself intrigued and beguiled by the whole thing - trying to piece together what country it could possibly be (Eastern European is as close as I could come - and I'm not guaranteeing that's right).
Plus, as an added bonus there's a dinner at the Tattlin's house with Fidel as a guest. That chapter alone ought to make you buy the book - simply fascinating the details she imparts there...like Fidel arriving (in a phalanx of limos mind you) and immediately insisting on using the mirror as he enters the house. He stands there combing his hair (for over a minute!) while the hired help looks on raptorously (and the Tattlins think "what the...."?). There are tons of small observations like that one that make 'Diaries' a truly great read.
Rating:
Summary: Cuba, the Comedy and the Tragedy
Review: I've never been to Cuba. But now I feel like I have been -- and in very good company. Isadora Tatlin is the funniest, most observant, writer. Her accounts of scrounging for food to serve her family, exploring the architecture of old Havana, attending the art exhibitions of dissident artists, are all detailed and droll and, at times, very touching. I really loved this book. I've already passed it on to one Cuban-American friend who agrees with me wholeheartedly. Tatlin's account of what it's like to have Fidel Castro to dinner -- for my money -- is a comic masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A Tourist in Others' Misery
Review: Isadora Tattlin's Cuba Diaries is the journal of an American woman married to a European energy consultant who has been assigned to work in Havana. It begins with her husband's telling of their new assignment, and covers the family's activities during four or so years in the mid-nineties, towards the end of the so-called "Special Period" that began immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. The author arrives knowing very little about Cuba other than what filters through the evening news, and acquaints the reader with the many new situations to which she and her family must adapt. The ins and outs of procuring everyday necessities which we take for granted in our society--even in the privileged sphere which she and other non-Cubans in Havana inhabit--prove to be very educational. We learn the importance of "conseguir" (to procure) and "resolver" (to resolve), how to find the personal contacts who can manage to get things done in a society where basically nothing really works. The staff of seven provided to her by the Cuban government along with the spacious house is the main instrument for the education of this American. I found some of the incidents described most instructive: after the first of many dinner parties she hosts for Cuban officials the gardener informs her that the sprinkler attachment to the garden hose is missing. She cannot believe that one of the chauffeurs of an official would steal it but the servant advises her, "Señora, when Cubans come, you have to hide things." This sets the tone for the many discoveries in store. We learn about the Cuban system, where everyone skimming off their bit and taking advantage seems to be the bare essence of survival. Draconian laws force the ordinary Cuban to routinely break the law to obtain the smallest necessity from repairing one's house to buying a meal. Corruption permeates this culture at every level from top to bottom. Here we find the kind of solidarity and complicity shared misery breeds. A year or two later, the author relates an encounter with two young Cuban Americans returning from a trip. After staying with relatives during a week-long visit and buying them all kinds of things, they are outraged to discover upon their departure that most of their possessions had been taken from their bags. By this time, our author is so inured to the system she consoles them thus, "At least they were nice to you. It would have been much worse if they had been mean to you and then taken your things." We read of other dinner parties with the Cuban nomenklatura, of a number of trips to the interior, visits with a collection of quaint characters in Havana, artists, movie festivals and paladares. Despite the repression Cuba is still a people kind of place, as one would expect in a country where there is little else to do but talk endlessly while trying to conseguir and resolver. One notices a certain ironic amusement and discomfort on the part of the author in the face of the obvious hypocrisy displayed by the old party pols and their slogans, but perhaps it is the awareness at all times that she must not in any way jeopardize her husband's position and her family's that colors her vision to the point that even later, outside of Cuba, she dare not pass too harsh a judgement on anyone or anything. Even after ample proof that one of her employees (quite well-paid) has skimmed money off, she refuses to confront him or think about it much, much less to confront the monstrous reality of the Cuban tragedy face to face. Better to regard the whole mess as surreal and somehow vaguely amusing. The highlight of book is the dinner party for the Comandante Himself-- Castro-- that she hosts. One wishes that at some point on her many trips back to the U.S., the author had attempted to learn in-depth a bit more of the real history and past culture of Cuba, rather than accept at face value what she was told in Cuba, where history has been falsified and every fact distorted to reflect its rulers' prejudices. Unfortunately, the author seems to share the liberal media's prejudice against both Cuban Americans in Miami and the embargo, so apparently she didn't consult any of the texts available here in the U.S. As a foreign-born person, I understand well the impenetrability of certain cultural barriers, and this book clearly betrays the phenomenon. There are passages where Tattlin gets things so wrong, it's downright funny. During a stop at the town of Remedios (my mother's birthplace), to visit an 18th Century church in a guidebook, she writes: "We enter the church through a side door and come immediately upon a baroque, three-hundred-year old gilded wooden altarpiece. It fills the entire back wall of the sanctuary of the otherwise bare church. It is naive, overpowering." Overpowering perhaps, but naive? The adjective seems more appropriate for the author than for the ornate 18th Century altarpiece she is describing. Despite these lapses, there is an element of fun and inevitable fascination for any Cuban-born reader in this book, if only to try to catch a glimpse of a once familiar place so many years later. For me, it was in reading about the old soda counter at Woolworth in Havana, the "Ten Cent" where we used to order club sandwiches and chocolate sundaes as children. It was touching to know that even in its present sad state of dilapidation, one small section remained, kept in working order by a cuentapropista (non-state worker). And that the altar in the church of Remedios that was so lovingly restored in the 1940's under the direction of my father, who had been an architect in Cuba, endures when so much else has already fallen into ruin.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-balanced description of diplomatic life in 90s Havana
Review: Personally I find most interesting the author's continual refrain that the US embargo against Cuba is counter-productive, and serves only to maintain the positions of extremists [whether pro- or anti-Castro].
I found the book a moving description of life in an island caught between a typically inefficient and idiosyncratic Communist regime and the short-sighted policy of the USA which reinforces what inequalities there are. Well worth reading, anyway.
Rating:
Summary: not a hit, but not a miss
Review: Something about the title made me expect to get a special insight into a temporary life as an American in Cuba. But the title is misleading. "Diary" implies personal insights, disclosure, a sharing of intimate reflections. Tattlin gives us vignettes, snapshots entertainingly presented- but no depth of insight into what affected her and how. She is also not a "housewife" in the usual sense, but more a "mistress of the household" as she oversees a staff of nine. Her husband, an "energy consultant," has been assigned to Cuba for four years in the early nineties, and Tattlin and two young children move in as well. The book details the adventures of a privileged woman exploring Cuba with her family while trying to ignore or negate the reality of Cuban deprivation. While some colorful scenes, humorous and ironic moments, and veiled political commentary are instructive about life in Cuba, the book doesn't present what it seems to promise. This is really a guide for wealthy Americans stuck on this Communist island trying to make the best of it. The most emotion we witness from Tattlin is when visitors from the U.S fail to bring Ziploc bags of the exact size Tattlin requested. She retreats, angrily, to her bathroom and soothes herself by repeating, "I am a privileged foreigner and I will be out of here someday." And indeed, it is that reality which guides her. She is generous to her help, and compassionate, but she sees Cuba as a hardship assignment to survive. The book has its entertaining anecdotes and is sympathetic to the locals doing what they need to to get by, but Tattlin's story is ultimately superficial, unemotional, and a rarefied way of experiencing an island in severe poverty, political turmoil, and despair. A more representative title would have been "I.B. Tattlin: Adventures of a Wealthy American Woman in Cuba and How I Survived Four Years There." That is the story she shares.
Rating:
Summary: A distinctive, admittedly privileged perspective
Review: Tattlin's "Cuba Diaries" are a distinctive insight into the effects of the Cuban revolution that pervade Cuban society from the top down. Despite the unfortunate choice in title, I found this memoir of Tattlin and her family's Cuban sojourn fascinating. The fact that Tattlin was allowed the opportunity to enjoy a distinctly privileged existence mingling at the highest levels of Cuban government and society is what is so illustrative about her recollections. While her struggles and frustrations are insignificant in light of the plight of the average Cuban, they illustrate (as the author recognizes) how pervasive and severe the deterioration of the Cuban infrastructure has been to the point where no one, at any level, is insulated from it. "Cuba Diaries" is also noteworthy for the hypocrisy that it documents of the Socialist Revolutionary veterans who run the nation -- such as Castro's request for (and significant disappointment over the lack of) French wine at a dinner party, as well as the other specific, top shelf requirements his functionaries outline before he can be invited to dinner. Such expectations in the midst of the deprivations of the society as a whole are echoed in the author's experience with other government officials and reminiscent of Orwell's "Animal Farm". Tattlin clearly develops a respect and appreciation for the Cuban people and their culture, and the beauty of the island. She recognizes the nation's decades long shortages have resulted in a parallel economy to circumvent a system that doesn't work,and has reduced many Cubans to seize occasional dishonest opportunities. This is illustrated when she becomes angry with Americans exploited by Cubans who she feels are not in a position to pass judgement lacking the experience of the daily frustrations and struggles of Cuban society. An engrossing, and informative book. While it has an important message, it makes it with humor, understatement and irony -- it is not preachy or pedantic.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous, poignant view of country frozen in time
Review: The American wife of a European energy consultant, Tattlin (a pseudonym) has lived all over the world, and her four-year sojourn in Cuba is an eye opener. There's the poverty, of course, but she knew about that. The average salary is $10 a month and Tattlin's packing list covers two pages and includes such things as 216 bars of soap and 48 liters of olive oil. Partly Tattlin's fascination with Cuba is the feeling of being frozen in time; an industrial society stuck in the 1950s where cars and appliances slowly grind to a halt through rust and lack of parts and buildings crumble for want of maintenance. Partly it's the ingenuity of the Cuban people, bartering, scrounging, repairing and, of course, making the most of foreign tourists and residents. Workers in the tourist industry can earn two to three times the fixed government salaries of doctors, lawyers and professors. Partly it's the surreal feel of Castro's regime, liberalized during the mid-to-late '90s, but rife with uncertainty. A private, home-based restaurant, legal today, might be closed up tomorrow. Tattlin lives in relative splendor, in a big house with plenty of servants. Her book takes its shape from the notes she took - short, often funny, often poignant, vignettes of daily living, from obtaining decent food (not at the state-run market), to Spanish lessons for the family and dancing lessons for her daughter and the servants' unwillingness to discipline her son or even tell her of infractions, like urinating in the library wastebasket. She describes the pleasures and hazards of travel in Cuba, hosting dinner parties for generals who know where the bodies are buried and, once, for Fidel - a frenzy of paranoid government prep with a curiously flat finale. Most absorbing are Tattlin's connections with local people. She becomes involved in the lives of her servants, though she's near the end of her stay before she sees where several of them live. Slowly bits of their lives emerge - a stint as political prisoner or government spy, a sick wife, a knack for practical solutions. Tattlin befriends her children's teachers, area artists and intellectuals; ex-revolutionaries. She describes film festivals, spontaneous generation of long lines for rare items, back alley purchases, Santeria rites Over the years, some of the people she befriends disappear to America. Her family appears only in glimpses, though Tattlin is free with her own feelings about things, from the complex categorization of skin color to a request for visa sponsorship to the discovery of a minor theft. Tattlin is funny, frank and warm. She doesn't want to be taken advantage of, though she quite understands why it's inevitable. Her anecdotal view of Cuba shows a witty and canny observer and her book should interest anyone curious about that shuttered island.
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