La fiesta del chivo by Mario Vargas Llosa Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of La fiesta del chivo
Book Review: The last days of the Trujillo regime in Santo Domingo
Summary: 4 Stars
A fascinating combination of fact and fiction focusing on the effects of the Trujillo regime on various individuals, an attempt on the dictator's life and the repercussions of this attempted assassination.Book Review: higly reccomended
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best book i've ever read. Its background is Trujillo's dictatorship goverment (Santo Domingo) with several stories linking each other in some way. It pictures, exactly as it was, an important part of Latin American history (may never come back again)during the military's dictatorship.Book Review: THE HORROR OF A FASCIST DESPOT AT FIRST HAND!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a shocking tapestry of the kind of perversity epitomising a Latin dictator, in this case, the archetypal, long reigning "banana republic" ogre, TRUJILLO (Dominican Republic). Ingeniously, the story unfolds from the ogre's viewpoint, as well as that of his victims and putative assassins. With clever characterisation, Vargas bewitches us, making this hair-raising novel an action-based good v. evil thriller. 'The Feast of the Goat will stand out as the great emblematic novel of Latin America's twentieth century and removes One Hundred Years of Solitude of that title': said The Times Literary Supplement I AGREE. This is a true classic, and will remain an eternal "hit" in the Latin American reader lists. Everyone must read this. It is undoubtedly the best novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, and the BEST I've read of many dozens of Latin American novels!
Gerry Coldham (UK)
coldhams@yahoo.com
Book Review: not quite 100 anos
Summary: 4 Stars
a great combination of fiction/truth behind the documentation of the Trujillo dictatorship - the understanding and survival of it through various characters and situations. A historical documentation from below just as much as a work of fiction. However, as often with Vargas Llosa it cannot gain the merits of a Garcia Marquez for language and ingenuity in expression, which is often bland and overdrawn. True, fitting to the subject matter if close documentation is what he wished to achieve, but the masterpiece of Latin American fiction it isn't.Book Review: Brutal and savage
Summary: 5 Stars
Although far more brutal and savage than Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood', Vargas Llosa's Fiesta del Chivo must rank as one of the best factual novels of all time.
La Fiesta del Chivo is a harrowing collection of memories and personal histories, whose focal point is the life and ultimate demise of Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The beauty of this maccabre book is that Vargas Llosa not only relates the facts and history of Trujillo's era, but he also takes great care to study the man behind the dark glasses, examinging him minutely from a human perspective. To bring home the barbarity of the tyrant's rule, Vargas Llosa also takes a wider perspective, based on the experiences of several people who suffered under Trujillo's rule.
Although never having actually experienced a dictatorship, La Fiesta del Chivo brought me far closer than comfort to its horrors and injustices.