Read around the world: Peru

Merged review:

Read around the world: Peru

I was unable to get into this book. :/

Disturbing and massively important, the story, told in multiple narratives that defy chronology, deals with the Trujillo years, a difficult period in Dominican history. Insightful and penetrating, "The Feast of the Goat" reminds us how easily dignity and decency fail under a totalitarian regime and how difficult it becomes to recover them.

Mario Vargas Llosa's book "The Feast of the Goat" was a brutal read, but ultimately an interesting one. I probably wouldn't have read this if it hadn't been on the list of 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die, but it was certainly a worthwhile book.

The novel tells the story of Rafael Trujillo, a dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic for 30 years with an iron fist. He pitted his advisers and friends against each other and demanded adoration from the all in his country.

The novel is not an easy read-- there are torture scenes that a fairly disturbing, which I mostly skimmed over. However, I found the portrait of the Trujillo and his "friends" to be well done and very relevant to today's world.

Llosa's depiction of Trujillo's fall is deep, morally ambiguous, and structurally sophisticated. No good guys here, only degrees of complicity, carefully described. A clear influence on Junot Diaz, among others. I'm anxious to read more Llosa.

Merged review:

Llosa's depiction of Trujillo's fall is deep, morally ambiguous, and structurally sophisticated. No good guys here, only degrees of complicity, carefully described. A clear influence on Junot Diaz, among others. I'm anxious to read more Llosa.

Excelente libro, excelente narrcion es un libro que recomendaría tal vez no encaje en el tipo de libros que a muchos les gusta pero estoy seguro que si le dan una oportunidad no se van arrepentir

4.5 stars

This book has made me want to learn more from my parents about what it meant to be born and live through the Trujillo era. What it meant to my family and what was really going on during that time. I have heard some stories from my father, but now the context of understanding has broadened... this book has illustrated to me the pain of a nation and it's impact on individual lives.

It has also made me think of the depraved regimes that exist today and how complicit we are in our inactivity... why so many men of power choose their greedy and sadistic lives, and so many choose to do nothing.

The Feast of the Goat, highlights the story of the era of Trujillo in a way that makes you see history as real and not just text in a book. Although fictionalized, it brings home, the vast pain of a nation; but also, how blind and apathetic a people can be. It breaks my heart to see that so many innocent people are made to pay for the choices of the few.

I would like think my choices would be different given the same set of circumstances, but then, I was born a different person, in a different era.