OUR DAILY BREAD

I liked this better than any other of the Latin-American novels I have read. The interest in the story is secondary to the fascination of the feeling he conveys of the rice plantation in the coastal region of Ecuador. One can almost see and hear and small and touch -- so graphic are his descriptions, so overwhelmingly is nature a character in his plot, One gets -- through flashbacks and interludes and the rather slow plot development, the story of a new frontier, of the opening up of low lands to rice cultivation, by man power, of the coming of the women folk and the building of homes -- and then of the disintegration as the machine makes its way. And always -- the shadow of fear last the crop fail, the ""daily bread"" disappear.