The Feast of the Goat - Part I

I’ve been trying to go into these dictator novels with a generally open mind, however, I do go into them with some expectations. For example, I expect them to require a lot of concentration and a great deal of resolve and determination to get to the end. That said, I’m finding Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat to be much more laid back then any of the previous novels that we’ve read so far in class. And I’m finding myself actually drawn into the book; I actually care about the characters in a different way than I did about the ones in the other books. When I was at work the other day, I even found myself wondering, for instance, “What’s going to happen to Amadito in the end?”

I really enjoy the way the author tells his story. Maybe I’ve just been watching too much Lost, but I like his use of flashbacks to explore the personalities and motivations of the characters. All the characters, however, seem to be trapped in the past always looking there for their answers. The conspirators were all former diehard Trujillistas, whom at some point in their lives ceased to be because they and/or their families were brutalized by Trujillo and his regime. Urania returns to the Dominican Republic from a thirty-five year, self-imposed exile in the United States where she has obsessed over information and writing from the Trujillo era, and once there, she ruminates over memories of her father, and through her memories, we are introduced to Cabral’s own flashbacks. Trujillo himself, who occupies the centre of everyone’s memories in some form or another, dwells just as much if not more on the past; although, more than any other character, he looks toward the future, ironically enough.

All in all, I’m enjoying this book very much, it definitely is the Clive Cussler novel of the bunch, and I can’t wait to see how it ends.