A flawed attempt to illuminate an extraordinary historical moment; the fumbling translation is no help.
The Chilean author (The Dancer and the Thief, 2008, etc.) uses two perspectives for this skimpy take on the twilight of the Pinochet dictatorship.
In 1973, Gen. Pinochet seized power in Chile and began a reign of terror. Fifteen years later, the population is cowed and apathetic; there are still 3,000 missing detainees. Make that 3,001, for the novel begins with the arrest of professor Santos, philosophy teacher at Santiago’s most prestigious high school. His son Nico and his classmates watch helplessly as he’s taken from the classroom. Meanwhile, Adrián Bettini, father of Nico’s girlfriend, Patricia, is summoned by Fernández, the Interior minister. Bettini has reason to be fearful; he has been blacklisted, jailed and tortured. Today will be different. Pinochet has decided to hold an above-board referendum with a simple question: Do you want him to stay in office? A “no” vote will lead to a multiparty election. (All this is historically accurate.) Fernández invites Bettini, once Chile’s best ad man, to head the “yes” ad campaign. Bettini declines; he will work for the “no” campaign that’s been granted 15 minutes on state-run television. Fifteen minutes against 15 years; it’s a challenge, just as it’s a challenge for Nico to find his father. Skármeta flips between the two stories as he struggles to decide whether to emphasize the continuing horrors of Pinochet’s rule or the glimmer of light of the “no” campaign. After Nico is shown the dead body of his beloved English teacher, a leftist, his throat cut, the author switches to the zany antics of the “no” campaign. Whether it’s the catchy jingle or the rainbow logo, the “no” campaign prevails, the citizenry rejoices, and Santos is freed after strings are pulled. For Nico and Patricia, it’s a triple: the end of virginity, of high school and of the dictatorship.
A flawed attempt to illuminate an extraordinary historical moment; the fumbling translation is no help.Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59051-627-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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