Thoughts on our travels through the Americas from Canada to Mexico

"House made of dawn" by N Scott Momaday of Canada (Score 7.0)

This book starts off with beautifully descriptive scenes. I can picture the land in all its grand magnificence as I have seen it in one hundred Westerns in the cinema. Everything is pictured vividly. The happenings in The Middle, in the pueblo, bring to life all the empty pueblos I have seen in travelogues. On page 51 we have an example of the native beliefs being turned into devil worship in the minds of the Christian fathers, eventually robbing the people of some of their culture. For example the kiva, according to the priest, is the haunt of Satan. Reading the rest of the old letter in which this point is raised, it seems clear to me that the priest who wrote the letter was a mean-spirited sort of person, possibly going insane from the isolation of his life, and certainly hallucinating. The letter dates from 1888. The sad thing is that Father Olguin, the priest at the time of the story thinks, because of this letter, that the 1888 priest was some kind of saint. From what we read on page 58 it is clear to me that Abel feels alienated from both his culture and his land. From page 79 to 81 there is an interesting example of the survival of the early native religion beneath the veneer of Catholicism. The Sacristan of the church who would, no doubt, think of himself as a good Catholic, is still a member of the kiva society. The survival, in some form, of earlier religions beneath the Christian surface seems to be widespread. Ancient gods become saints or devils in many areas, including Europe. For example, in Ireland St Bridget is a survival of the goddess Brighid, wife of the Dagda. I wonder if the bull is the sad remnant of a fertility rite like the minotaur in ancient Crete. On pages 82 to 83 Abel’s killing of the albino is like the sacrifice of a willing victim. In Europe some sacrificial victims seem to have been willing to die for the good of the people. The description of the peyote ceremony from page 110 is interesting. It seems to illustrate the sheer desperation of a broken people, and the broken individuals there. From page 154 there is a section in which the wonder of childhood is described. Everything is new to you, and you are shy when people talk to you. From page 197 we learn that the people remembered the seasons of the year from the location of the rising sun on the mesa, and knew from this when to plant, when to harvest, when to conduct their ceremonies to gain maximum effect, and when the rains would come. In this book we have again seen the universal story of a culture being degraded by the effect of a dominant, more powerful, incoming culture. This has probably happened throughout human history and prehistory.

"Fools Crow" by James Welch of the USA (Score 8.4)

This is not the most literary book I have read, but it is one of the most memorable, and most enjoyable. This book will stay with me for many years. It does exactly what it says on the box. The front cover endorsement by Dee Brown (Bury my heart at Wounded Knee) promises that it “may be the closest we will ever come in literature to an understanding of what life was like for a western Indian”. The important places in the book exist. Stunning photos of the land over which the action ranges can be found on Google, as can various Blackfoot websites which are worth a visit. The Pikuni (or Piegan) are part of the Blackfoot People). Edward S Curtis’ “The North American Indian, the Complete Portfolio” (published in a 768 page paperback edition by Taschen) has many photos of the Pikuni (identified as the Piegan, but the same people), and Blackfoot in general. These gave me images as I read the book, from Chiefs to warriors, women, old men and children. The photos must have been take after the events in the book since the story begins in 1870, after the American Civil War, and Curtis was born in 1868. I enjoyed this book very much, but on this occasion I feel I don’t want to give away too much detail of the story. We see the life of the Pikuni, hard as it may be, and we enter their tipis, hear their stories, witness their ceremonies, and join them in the hunt and on horse taking raids against the Crow (from which Fools Crow is given his new name). We visit the spirit world in which Fools Crow meets his medicine animal, he is given advice by birds, and he meets one of the beings from the beginning time of the Pikuni. He is given visions which, ironically, we know to be prophecies because we are aware of the history of the Wild West. Visions play an important part in the development of the story and the events we witness. From page 244 we begin to have intimations of the horrors to come for the Pikuni. The wild raiders have killed a rancher (who, it could be argued, deserved it – putting ourselves into the time), and raped his wife, who didn’t. Another white man, returning to his home through the snow with his son, has heard of this. He wants revenge. “I want to kill and Indian” he thought. It clearly did not matter which Indian – any Indian would do. After all, as we have heard in so many westerns, “The only good Indian id a dead Indian”. How stupid and vile this attitude is. He shoots Yellow Kidney with no warning – he murders him – an innocent man with no fingers. Compare this with the visions which Fools Crow has on the yellow skin. On page 250 Mik-Api has dreamed that the bluecoat cavalry are coming. Please read this book. It will make you a better person.

“Here if you need me” by Kate Braestrup

This book is an extra which does not fit in with our theme of visiting different countries around the world, one at a time, because it too is set in the USA, and is autobiographical rather than fiction. However it is, in fact, integral to our whole trip. This book was gifted to our group, by the author, with the dedication “For new friends in Scotland. I hope you like this.” It was brought to us by strangers from the USA, travelling in Scotland, who became our new friends in the course of the evening as we all discussed “Fools Crow” (see above), and enjoyed a meal together. Everyone in the group has now read this book, and all loved it. It is the very moving, and funny, story of Kate Braestrup who, after her husband died in a road accident, picked up the pieces of her life, gathering her children round her. She fulfilled her husband’s ambition to become a minister, and became chaplain to the Maine Warden Service, a group of dedicated men and women who, among other things, risk their lives to find and rescue people lost in the wilderness. Kate Braestrup brings this all to life for us as we share her, and their, joy when there is a good outcome, and grief when it is not so good. This is a most uplifting story, and I urge you all to read it. As the blurb on the copy which Kate gifted to us says “it’s not required that you share Braestrup’s faith to be moved by her struggle to maintain it.”

"Huasipungo (The Villagers)" by Jorge Icaza of Ecuador (Score 6.2)

The three introductory sections, the Foreword by the publisher, the preface by the author, and the introduction by the translator are very helpful for setting the scene and giving us an initial understanding of the situation in which we will find the “huasipungeros” in this book. It is not an enviable position for anyone to be in. Immediately we become privy to a plan, probably a long time in the making, for Gringo (presumably USA, though that is never said) big business to take control of the timber and oil resources of the land “owned” by Don Alfonso Pereira. His uncle, to whom he owes a large sum of money, is part of this plan. One of the obstacles to this development is the presence of native villagers who live along the river. As a Scot, this is immediately reminiscent of the Highland Clearances, the wholesale eviction, generally brutal, of people whose ancestors had lived on this land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This was to make room for sheep which the land “owners” found more profitable than people. On the trip to the hacienda the natives are mere beasts of burden, literally carrying the landlord and his family on their backs. There is dreadful brutality towards the huasipungeros, from forcing nursing mothers to wet nurse the padron’s grandchild at the expense of their own babies, to the beatings and whippings used nonchalantly to keep the work parties going. How can one human being treat others like that? On page 87 we see the abuse of religious belief by a corrupt priest promising the uneducated and gullible natives enormous reductions in their time in purgatory after death for anyone who works on the new road which has to be built to extract the timber to make a fortune for the Gringos and for Don Alfonso’s uncle, while destroying the land. Some of the imagery is good. On page 103 we read “In the same lazy, sad way that the dawn draped itself over the mountains, the workers aroused themselves. In places the tragedy is almost comic, and the comedy is tragic. You will need to read the book to get the full flavour, but that is worth doing. On page 132 there is another example of the priest, with his sly sugared tongue, extracting money from a native to pay for a mass (the subtext is that the priest pockets most of it). “Can you imagine that the Virgin will be pleased with a cheap, ordinary mass? The Virgin will be angry. Once she is angry she could easily punish you from above.” Icaza has little respect for corrupt religion. Where is the Ecuadorian Luther? On page 159, in the middle of a famine, Don Alfonso is quite prepared to bury a dead ox rather than leave it for the starving Indians. He gives his totally immoral reasons. Towards the end the Gringos instruct that the huasipungeros should be destroyed and the people driven out to make room for their proposals. At last the natives revolt, armed only with makeshift weapons. The inevitable result, of course, is that men, women and children are massacred because of the superior weapons of the landlords and their cronies. This book will open your eyes, though you may find them filled with tears.

"Conversation in the Cathedral" by Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru (Score 5.2)

This book opens in a busy, noisy street with heavy traffic queued at the traffic lights. It’s clear immediately that I will have to get used to new terms and turns of phrase since the translator is an American. I have already had to think about some points. It reminds me about the difference in our languages. If I say I have gas in my flat, the story goes that an American will wonder why (as translated) I have petrol in my puncture. Back to the book! We are only a few pages in when we discover that the Cathedral of the title is a bar, and not a church building as I had imagined. This has changed my first thoughts of what the book might be about. The conversation is between a 30 year old newspaper editor of Spanish descent (“pure” we don’t yet know), and an older man, descendant of slaves, who have not seen each other for fourteen years. Santiago and Aida have to answer questions on world history to get into the local university. Looking at the aspects they are rehearsing I doubt if may of that age in the UK would have heard of them, let alone know anything about them. Beautiful little snapshots are dropped in between the text of the conversation. For example, on page 111 there is a description of an iguana running quickly across the roasting desert sand before being caught and eaten by a buzzard plunging from the sky. The technique of telling the story is interesting. Several stories are being told at the same time, intermingling in past and present as if they were all happening at the time of the conversation. Frequently this happens line by line, or in the middle of a long sentence. It makes you concentrate. Peru, at that time, seems to have been a society obsessed with the distinction between natives (at the bottom of the heap), so called half-breeds in the middle, and the self-declared “pures” at the top of the pyramid. They seem to forget that without a strong and broad foundation layer, the pyramid will collapse. If you persevere you will find that the unusual way of writing comes to an end and things change to an everyday tale of politics, and corruption in high places, with some police brutality thrown in for good measure. There is a good scattering of “deniable” nasty work going on to favour the people in power. Where have we come across that in the real world recently? I feel that I learned a little about life in 1950s Peru, but I couldn’t relate to the characters no matter how much trouble they were in.

"Daughter of Fortune" by Isabel Allende of Chile (Score 6.7)

On page 33 we have a horrifying image of a religious procession, complete with Catholic saints (very possibly matched to an appropriate native god) carried by penitents, flagellants scourging themselves with multiple leather thongs fitted with steel spikes to draw blood on every stroke, and poor uneducated superstitious people, the whole throng believing that this incredible performance would have the effect of making their god stop the storms. This leads you into thinking that this book might be a powerful condemnation of the effects of corrupt religious practices on the poverty stricken locals. No such luck. It is simply the tale of an orphan (as we are led to believe) being lucky enough to be dumped on the doorstep of a relatively well off English brother and sister who then bring her up until she gets pregnant and runs off to California to find her lover who has headed for the goldfields. The book was saved for me, to an extent, by the sections set in China and California. In particular the descriptions of the gold rush 49ers struck a chord. When I was young my dad had many books about the American West about which he had a passionate interest, and there were photos of the townships and of the gold rush. Other than that, and the time in China bringing in the other main character, there is nothing much to say about the book. It is a reasonable story, plainly told, with no literary pretensions of any kind. I did think, though, that the ending seemed rather rushed, as if Allende had got tired of it and didn't really know how to bring it to a conclusion.

"The Matter of Desire" by Edmundo Paz Soldan of Bolivia (Score 5.8)

On page 3 we are straight into the violence of Bolivian politics when the protagonist thinks back to the murder of his father in a military raid on the HQ of his party. We don’t yet know any background. We then find that the cousin of the military leader who planned the raid is a drug dealer who is to be extradited to the USA. The protagonist (whose name we don’t yet (page 7) know seems to feel alienated from his home when he returns to it from the USA, but also alienated from the USA when he goes back. He was brought up by his uncle after the murder of his father. His uncle lost an eye in the attack. The bodies of his father and his aunt (both killed in the raid) were never found. Did they die, or did they suffer more in some cell after being “disappeared”? On page 18 there is a statement by Carolina which makes little sense in the English translation, but in Spanish serves to indicate that the protagonist is losing touch with his roots – “You pronounce the “l” and the “r” worse all the time”. We learn on page 50 that he is called Pedro, after his father. There are a number of conversations throughout the book in which one or other of the speakers throws in a few words of Spanish. It would be interesting to read the Spanish original to see if this happens in reverse. On page 100 we learn that Pedro’s father read “Hopscotch”. That was one of our short-listed options for Argentina. “The matter of desire” is a book about one man’s search for himself, for his father, his city, his country, lust and love, and for the messages hidden in his uncle’s general knowledge crosswords which permeate the book.. There is a twist in the last three pages which I, at least, did not expect. I won’t reveal it in case you enjoy the book more than I did. Unfortunately, about half way through, I began to find the book very tedious, though I kept right on to the end of the road.

"I The Supreme" by Augusto Roa Bastos of Paraguay (Score 2.2)

Unfortunately I have little good to say about this book, other than that there are a very few short passages where the writing is very descriptive. Other than that I thought it was turgid. I gave it a fair go, slogging through 150 (out of 424) closely written pages of massive paragraphs before going into speed reading mode. This did not improve matters, and I gave up completely at page 275. This is the first time in my life that I have given up a book completely. The blurb states that Bernard Levin said “I read the book twice over a weekend, and marvelled even more the second time.” I am not a slow reader, and have read voraciously since childhood. I calculated that, to read this book twice, I would have had to read for 50 hours. Starting at 1830 on a Friday, reading continuously, it would have taken me until 2030 on the Sunday to finish the second reading. When did Bernard Levin eat or sleep? When did he go to the toilet? Why did he bother the second time? What did I miss in this book? The other members of the group thought exactly the same – one of the few occasions in which we have been absolutely unanimous in our opinion. I ask again, what did I miss? After all, someone thought it was worth while translating.

"The Winners" by Julio Cortazar of Argentina (Score 6.25)

At least “The Winners” starts as if it may be a fairly readable book, unlike “I The Supreme” which none of us finished, and some gave up about 10% of the way through. Here we meet people who have won a mystery cruise. They are as mystified as we are about the origins and the reasons for the prize draw. Then we meet Persio, one of the winners. Most of the test about him is in italics, and I quickly learned to skip those sections. For example, on page 37 we read “Every move is a battle at sea, every step a river of words or tears, every square on the chessboard a grain of sand, a sea of blood, a comedy of squirrels, or a farce given by buffoons who wander through fields of bells and applause “. This fills me with foreboding, especially coming immediately after a description of chess queens and bishops turning into dolphins and toy satyrs. The winners seem to be a microcosm of the population of Argentina, although mostly of the better off people. We get hints that they think that some of the other passengers are “not our sort of people”. Snobbery exists everywhere, clearly. Day One brings us the plotting of the revolution, thinly disguised as breaking down a locked door so that they can access the forbidden stern of the ship. Two pistols are found!!. Who put them there, and why? Day 2 gives us a dig at “high society” with its women who read celebrity magazines all day, attend fashion shows, always need the latest styles, and have the money to get them. On page 327 there is a potential homosexual episode which comes out of nowhere. This seems to me to be a piece of bad plotting. There has been no suggestion till now that the individual involved is interested in young boys. Up till now he has shown himself to be very partial to women. Perhaps Cortazar simply felt that he had to do something to revive the story. I have certainly been bored by it for about the last 100 pages. Felipe is subjected to a fearful male rape by one of the crew. On Day Three the pistols are brought out, ready for the confrontation. Medrano dies for nothing. The captain and the crew seem to consider the whole affair, including Medrano’s death, as a regrettable accident. The cover-up begins, but just what is being covered up? There is a threat that all of the passengers will be interned if the “revolutionaries” refuse to sign the declaration which is being prepared. Is the whole group going to become part of Argentina’s “disappeared”? No! All are released at the port, including those who have not signed. What was this all about? What have I missed in the story?

"The Book of Embraces" by Eduardo Galeano of Uruguay (Score 6.6)

This is a rather strange book. It is not a work of fiction, entirely, and yet there is much fiction in it. There are also parts which seem to be autobiographical. The text is divided into small sections, most of a page or less, with some even a short paragraph. Each section has small cartoon-like sketches, a la Alasdair Gray (Lanark, and other books). Some of the sections are comedy, some tragedy, some magical, some normal discussion, and some where I could see no meaning at all. I still haven’t decided whether I like the book or not, but I am glad that I read it.

"Gabriela: Clove and Cinnamon" by Jorge Amado of Brazil (Score 7.3)

Amado introduces us to the small town of Ilhéus, growing and changing from a rough frontier town just like the ones we have seen in the westerns. There is a light, almost comic, tone in the writing. It is clear that the cacao plantations which are bringing enormous wealth to the few, and some trickle-down to many others, were won at the expense of the destruction of large tracts of virgin jungle with their irreplaceable plants, animals and medicinal uses, to say nothing of the brutal murder of innumerable native people. We find out more about the history of Ilhéus, and meet many of the characters who seem likely to play a part in the story. They are well described. We learn that Colonel Ramiro Bastos, 82 years old and a former mayor of the town, is still the controlling force who approves everything, and that nothing he does not like gets done. He has spent his life manipulating things and people, in his younger days leading murderous expeditions against those in his way, and later hiring killers to get rid of his political opponents. Now he is finding that a newcomer to the town is doing things which the Colonel opposes, and is succeeding. On page 90 we finally meet the eponymous Gabriella, and economic migrant on her way to the promised land of Ilhéus. Women in this society are chattels, to be disposed of by men after they have tired of them, like changing cars. A wife caught with a lover can, it seems, be killed with impunity by her husband (who could, meantime, have a mistress, or even be the lover of another married woman). What hypocrisy in the name of “honour”. On page 198 there is a discussion of “The Crime of Father Amaro”, by Eça de Queiros. This book is on our options list for when we get to Portugal. This story grows in strength as you progress through it, with many threads intertwining: politics, corruption, murder. Gabriella is a constant presence, although at this stage she really seems to be no more important than any of the other characters. There is a powerful section in which a character (whom we believe to be good) helps an attempted killer to escape. The escapee is revealed to be a brutal killer with many murders to his “credit”, including torturing a man to death for information. The “good” character knows that he is a killer, is aware that it is wrong to kill, but shows that in this instance gratitude and friendship are overpowering. The killer had done hugely good things for the character. Despite this episode I finished this book with a warm feeling, all loose ends tied up, all problems resolved, and everyone happy for once. This is not great literature of world changing proportions, but it is a good, enjoyable, thought-provoking read.

Guyana – “Buxton Spice” by Oonya Kempadoo (Score 5.0)

The story starts in standard English as a young girl, Lula, sweeps dust out of the house, making us see the intense brightness of the day, dust floating in the light. She is clearly happy with what she is doing. The register begins to change as she begins to talk about others, and the behaviour of her and the other children. I can picture them laughing, doubling up “like we had hinges everywhere. What a simple concept, which describes it exactly. We see the innocence of childhood, jumping off trees, and their general play, even in the episodes with “safely mad Uncle Joe”. There is a beautiful concept on pages 30 and 31 of my edition. The family are at dinner, with a good going conversation. The words are described as physical objects, different sizes and shapes, bouncing, rolling, and flying backwards and forwards, along, across and above the table. Lula seems to be really scared of a large Buxton Spice mango tree growing beside the house. She has a conceit that it is sentient and can watch everything going on in the house through the various windows. But, all is not sweetness and light in this tropical paradise. Within a few pages we have the brutal beating of a suspected thief, petrol bombs, and race riots. The scene from page 86 to 88, in which Aunt Ruth deals with preparation of the dead baby Isabel’s funeral is extremely tender. Then there are several very funny scenes when the children begin to realise what it means to be growing up – no punches pulled, and very earthy. They go to the cinema which shows two films. I remember that from my childhood and youth. The book finishes abruptly after a horrendous episode in which a mother beats her daughter severely for breaking a table. The old devil, racism, comes into that episode too. In the final two pages Lula’s family are packing to go to Britain. It happens so suddenly that I got the feeling that the author had run out of story and didn’t quite know how to finish it.

Venezuela - "Doña Inés versus Oblivion" by Ana Teresa Torres (Score 6.80)

The opening chapter of this book is dense, and I had to wonder if the rest will be like this, and whether I will enjoy it. We read about constant and continuing exchange of legal documents between Doña Inés and Spain, and her nemesis who claims the same piece of land to his legal people in Spain and even to the king. Let’s face it – the land was stolen from the native peoples in the first place. We then begin to read about the wars, and the civil wars, ravaging Venezuela and other areas in the fight for independence from Spain. There is great brutality, murder, destruction of villages and cities. We read of Simon Bolivar leading a retreating army and hundreds of refugees away from a royalist army of escaped an former slaves. There is fighting and murder, predicated on race and racism. I had only read of Bolivar in connection with Bolivia up to now. Despite the conceit of the story being told over a period of 270 years, it isn’t magic realism to me. What it is is a very interesting novel telling the turbulent history of Venezuela over that period by following the lives of a range of protagonists through various time periods. It gave me some insight into a troubled land. Despite all the war and murder which goes on, I found the most shocking scene in the book to be when Dominguito, a captain in the army, panders the girl whom we have been led to believe that he loves, to his general in return for future favours. Dominguito wants nothing more to do with her after he has “given” her to the general as a birthday present. Later we have a good description of the man into whom Dominguito turns, re-inventing himself as he rises in society and wealth, hiding and forgetting the things in his past which we have read about. The book continues to illuminate us on the history of Venezuela in a very interesting way. Eventually the matter of the ownership of the land is resolved, and the spirit of Doña Inés readies itself to depart, and fade into eternity. This book is apparently based on an actual centuries long legal wrangle over a parcel of land.

Colombia - “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Score 7.8)

The story opens with the scent of bitter almonds, and we know immediately from that that someone is dead. Dr Urbino reads the long letter left to him by his dead friend, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, but we are given no clue as to the contents. Dr Urbino goes to the address given in the letter, and the woman who opens the door says “This is your house, Doctor”. However, as we find out a few pages later, the letter says that the house has been left to her. What is going on? Then it dawns on us that this is a false friend in translation. The Spanish term for “Welcome” is literally “This is your house” in English. On page 19 there is a wonderful image of the northern winds “tearing away roofs, and spending the night circling like hungry wolves looking for a crack where they can slip in. On page 34 an approaching storm gives us “… and the sky collapsed in a catastrophic downpour”. The second chapter steps back in time to deal with the developing love between Fermina Daza (who will eventually become the widow of Dr Urbino) and Florentino Ariza, until the unexpected moment, after a three year parting caused by her father taking her away, Fermina realises that she does not love Florentino Ariza after all. Is he not good enough for her? On page 111, the Italian inscription on the bridge to the poor people’s cemetery is from Dante’s “Inferno”, and means “Abandon all hope you who enter”. It is the inscription over the gate to Hell. On page 116 the young doctor Juvenal Urbino is called to visit an 18 year old girl who is suspected of having cholera. She is Fermina Daza whom he will later be married to for 54 years, until his death on page 42. We find throughout the book that Florentino Ariza has a really adolescent and immature approach to relationships, and that Fermina Daza seems to have made a very wise decision in breaking with him when they were young. On page 272 we come across the first instance I have seen in more than 40 years of reading, of “gr**ming”. This turns Florentino Ariza into a totally despicable person in my eyes. Even when I found out that the age of majority in Colombia was, and still is, fourteen, I can’t change my mind. She was his ward. This was a matter of trust, and he broke that trust. Interestingly, when the river boat service was restarted a few years ago after a 40 year gap, the boat was named “Florentino Ariza”. I wonder if the person who chose the name had read the book and knew what kind of a person he was. Later, when he is making up with Fermina Daza, the woman he has dreamed of, and pursued, for more than 50 years, he tells her that he has kept himself pure for her. We readers know better.

Costa Rica - "Assault on Paradise" by Tatiana Lobo (Score 7.2)

We enter, immediately, the world of the people who were there before the Spanish invasion and the clearly foreseen (with our 20/20 hindsight) destruction of the people and their culture. Pa-Bru is on a spirit quest in the womb of the earth (a cave). Then we move to the story of Pedro who has come to Costa Rica to escape the clutches of the Inquisition in Spain, for a crime he may have committed, but doesn’t know what it is. Pedro has many adventures, eventually becoming a father. On page 152 we are given a glimpse of that future event in a most beautiful way – “That night, Catarina began to live without anyone realising it, not even herself or her mother. At page 173 we hear of the planned Native American uprising. There is an occasional good image – on page 210 “The month of September was shedding its days”. This book isn’t great literature to me, despite its having won a literary prize, but it’s OK as a story. I would have preferred to read more about the native people’s reaction to the Spanish. One possible group of insurgents was a tribe on the Island of Mosquitoes, called, in Spanish, the Zambo. According to Wiki, a Zambo was born from the union of one native American parent and one escaped slave. Zambo which, it seems, was not derogatory is, apparently, the origin of the obvious derogatory English word. What does that say about British and Americans?

Nicaragua - "The Lost Chronicles of Terra Firma" by Rosario Aguilar (Score 7.15)

This book is set mainly in Darien. As a Scot this resonates with me because an ill-fated attempt to found a trading colony in Darien bankrupted Scotland. The failure was caused by Spanish antagonism and by the English colonies in America and the Caribbean being forbidden by law to trade with their fellow members of the United Kingdom. The local chief has a plan to make the Spanish peaceful. He sends his daughter to their leader to become his wife. He, being married already, passes her on to his second in command. She performs her duty ardently to save her people. Ironically, none realise that these invaders from the sea are motivated, not just by greed for their bloodthirsty religion and their king, but by personal greed and a lust for conquest. The real irony of the situation is that the local religion held that their civilising god had lived among the tribes and had eventually left on a journey across the eastern ocean, promising to return. The Spanish ships arrived in the year that the local calendar forecast that their god, Quetzalcoatl – Tezcatlipoca would return. The people welcomed their god back. We read of a great massacre of the native peoples. We read of the betrayal of the woman by the man who would not marry her despite her having converted to catholicism and borne him two children. They are married by native custom, but not in the eyes of the new religion. We read of him arranging a marriage to an aristocratic woman in Spain. The use of the fictional author in the “interludes” to describe her research, and her travels in connection with her writing, makes everything more real.

Honduras - “Never Through Miami” by Roberto Quesada (Score 6.1)

Helena may be upset because Elias uses the familiar “tu” form when he calls her. Or she may be upset because he won’t tell her that he is using it because he loves her. Or she may be delighted that he is using it even though she has not told him that he can. Or I may be totally misunderstanding cultural differences among the Spanish speaking countries in South America with regard to personal relationships, and between them and Spain. This is a problem which we don’t have in relationships between English speakers. We’ll see what happens. Unfortunately there isn’t very much more to say. Elias goes to America. Helena is left behind. Will he won’t he send for her? Will he won’t he take up with another woman? Who cares? I found it a lightweight, episodic book, despite the occasional lapses into humour. The characters aren’t even wooden, they are paper thin. I have to say that a number of the other members of the Round the World Book Group found it to be a good picture of the problems faced by immigrants to the United States.

El Salvador - “One Day in Life” by Manlio Argueta (Score 7.4)

This book goes straight into the difficult lives of the poor people of El Salvador, the troubles caused by corrupt policemen, the brutal National Guard, and other problems. People are shot out of hand because they dared to protest, or because they just happened to be in the vicinity of a protest. Some of the dead were children. People have been “disappeared”. Sometimes they are never seen again, and on other occasions their bodies are found with clear evidence of horrendous torture. This is a real tyranny. We have sections in the voices of several women illustrating the harshness of their lives, and how things have got worse since that they are poor, and that there are better off people. Suddenly we have a chapter in which we read of the point of view of a member of the National Guard. We tend to think of people who join an organisation like that are thugs and the dregs of society. In this case, however, he is an ordinary young man from the people, no different from them. He has been made different by his foreign instructors. He has been taught to kill brutally, with and without weapons. He has been taught that his enemy is the people from which he came, and he maintains his position by brutalising them. It reminds me of the concentration camp guards who were recruited from the prisoners. He is taught to shout that the people are the enemies of democracy. What a perversion of the truth. That particular chapter was the most horrifying in a book of horrors. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book. It is not a book to be “enjoyed”, but it certainly makes you think. For that reason I recommend it to anyone.

Guatemala - “Rattlesnake” by Arturo Arias (Score 4.25)

This is a spy story, with a CIA agent being the spy. At the beginning he comes across as being singularly inept. I thought at that stage that this was a result of either the writing or the translation but, by the end of the story I had decided that the writing was to blame. The book is full of purple prose, and is seriously overwritten. There are descriptions, in minute detail of characters whom we never meet again. One character apparently looks much taller than she is because she is thin. A few paragraphs away another looks smaller than his neighbour for exactly the same reason. There are odd turns of phrase which may or may not be the result of mistranslation. The misuse of the word “operative” for “operation” grates immediately on each of the myriad times it comes up. This meaningless sentence on page 111 is fairly typical; “Like moving black crosses, the rambling wings of birds flapping to get to countless roosts to rest at nightfall hovered around them …..” So far, so fairly acceptable. However, it continues “… submerging the restless environment in a deadly darkness that felt like a quick burning sensation on tender skin, lightly coated by the cinnamon sweetness”. Is this rubbish bad writing, sloppy editing, or poor translation? On page 135 we read “Everything always has its reason for being, in life as in sewing patterns, and Sandra almost ran in the direction of the small office full of papers and trinkets. But they weren’t trinkets”. Come on. That’s enough of this kind of stuff. This is supposed to be a thriller. There is a sentence on page 207 which describes this book perfectly, in an act of self parody; “The sudden rupture of the stifling atmosphere froze them momentarily, as if the screeching sound could paralyse the thick entangled currents of this overacted drama staging their unpredictable serpentine passions”. The sentence before that had told us that the phone had rung again, while two people were arguing. There is a horrifying brutal scene near the end. It is a pointless intrusion, and could well have been left to our imagination, especially bearing in mind the information we are given in the last two pages.

Mexico - “The Day of the Moon” by Graciela Limón (Score 8.4)

This is the powerful story of a man who cannot accept his mixed race ancestry, and the evil he does in trying to hide the truth from himself and his family. The story is told by following the lives of a number of people through the years, We meet Don Flavio Betancourt in Los Angeles, in the throes of growing ancient, with all the physical troubles which now afflict him. Perhaps he is suffering some mental strain too since he seems to be having hallucinations about a Rarámuri tribesman running fast, but not moving. As we progress through the book we learn that Don Flavio, very much a self-made man, is of mixed Spanish and Native Mexican descent who turns his back on his native half even though he, in his turn, married a Native Mexican woman. His daughter is Isadora. Don Flavio forces Isadora into marriage with a man who abandons her. At this she returns to Jeronimo, the Rarámuri she grew up with and came to love. We see the effects of the toxic mix of racism and “Victorian” so-called family values, The opposition of the Rarámuri tribe to Jeronimo’s having a relationship (and ultimately a child) with a woman from the outside could, perhaps, be considered as racism too. However, I wonder about that. We understand that this is a small tribe, driven to the margins and living in caves. We have also seen, all over the world in our reading, that a small vulnerable cultural group is generally destroyed by contact with a massively more numerous, and technically developed surrounding group, even without intermarriage. I think they are simply trying to defend and maintain their culture by isolationism. Don Flavio ultimately exacts a horrendous revenge on his daughter for defying him. There is an upbeat note near the end when Don Flavio’s granddaughter, who had thought she was a servant girl (and was treated so by Don Flavio) learns the truth and, after twenty years, seeks out her heritage among the Rarámuri.

We now jump onto a large yacht and sail off to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.