Jessica
Well, what you see is really what you get with this book. It's a fictionalised retelling of the life of Uruguayan ex-president José Mujica, from his youth through his revolutionary guerrilla days and his time imprisoned (and tortured) by the dictatorial regime to his life in retirement as an old man. And it imagines that during his years in solitary confinement he engaged in conversation with an annoying talking frog, because why not, I guess.
Where this book really loses me is with the political argument that it makes, which is basically, "Just vote, for liberal candidates, and everything will be fine." It conflates the very idea of revolution with an armed struggle by a self-appointed minority, and thus dismisses it as an impractical dream and tells us, as I said, to Just Vote. Like those are the only two options. Politically it's crap, which makes me pretty unforgiving of it as a work of literature. This is a shame, because I've liked all of de Robertis' previous novels. I would recommend any of them ahead of this, but I guess particularly "Perla", if you were interested in the "South American dictatorships" theme.
Well, what you see is really what you get with this book. It's a fictionalised retelling of the life of Uruguayan ex-president José Mujica, from his youth through his revolutionary guerrilla days and his time imprisoned (and tortured) by the dictatorial regime to his life in retirement as an old man. And it imagines that during his years in solitary confinement he engaged in conversation with an annoying talking frog, because why not, I guess.
Where this book really loses me is with the political argument that it makes, which is basically, "Just vote, for liberal candidates, and everything will be fine." It conflates the very idea of revolution with an armed struggle by a self-appointed minority, and thus dismisses it as an impractical dream and tells us, as I said, to Just Vote. Like those are the only two options. Politically it's crap, which makes me pretty unforgiving of it as a work of literature. This is a shame, because I've liked all of de Robertis' previous novels. I would recommend any of them ahead of this, but I guess particularly "Perla", if you were interested in the "South American dictatorships" theme.