I am unsure of where to begin. I suppose, to start I should note that I am not as far along in the book as I perhaps should be, many hours of work and procrastination leave me minutes away from midnight not quite at page 200 yet... With that said, I think this may be my favourite book we have read this term, thus far anyways. The first three chapters really had me guessing where this novel was going, I was actually relieved that the fourth chapter didn't begin with a whole new set of characters, situation and year!  And by now, the flip back and forth from years and characters actually pulls me into the story and I am quite the addict now... I actually have already reccomended it to a couple people... (not that I didn't love Facundo and I the Supreme of course...)

Out of the three sets of chacters, I have to say I am most drawn to the situation with the daughter that has returned and gone to see her "invalid" father... also I am drawn to the events in the lives of the three best friends who plan to kill "The Cheif."  While I find parts of the book that focus of "The Benifactor" himself interesting, at the same time this is the fifth book of the  "dictator novel" genre we have read... and well he is another dictator who is slightly batty. 

By now I should maybe have learned no to obsess over history but not knowing too too much about the history of the Dominican Republic, aside from few pockets of infromation from the Trujillo era and some current events, I am rather in the dark... perhaps we will try in vain to get some "facts"  or dare I say "truths" about this era, about Trujillo and about now straightened up in class? My curiosity did lead me to the Wikipedia site, just to get some more background about the book... which i did find useful (thanks!) and I am considering renting the movie :)  ... and yet my perhaps futile desire to seperate fact and fiction remains....

Im interested to see what discussion surface in class, im not sure about the whole theme about writing and power.... but I suppose only time will tell.... I guess this entry is a little on the short side but I am not sure what else to add. I find the book to be very vivid, but not overly descriptive, which is nice. Many of the scenes are a vivd or real as photographs or a movie... and I think that is why the film adaptation intrigues me so much.... One scene that I found quite amusing acutally was in the first chapter that talked about Trujillo directly, describing his morning- I thought the mention of the bath salts to be quite funny, im not sure why but the image of this rather crude, vulgar dictator soaking in a bubble bath is quite an odd image. Also, I have to wonder, is insomnia a pre-req for becoming a dictator?

First of all, Happy Saint Patricks day!! I hope it was filled with all things green and some luck!

...On to Marquez,

Out of the novels we have read thus far, I did not find The General and His Labrynth as captivating as the The President overall but it has definetly gotten to me and I can safely designate it #2 in the list of enjoyment... 

I know the subject of history has been adressed in class and that history is as subjective as everything else but I cannot help but wonder if event such as the General collapsing against the stairs or having stuff ooze out of his tear ducts is something that was documented by doctors or people in the towns he stayed in or if it is all purely fictional. I realize that establishing what truely happened to the General on his last journey is pretty much impossible but reminices about women in his life, such as his first wife which he never spoke of, must in fact be true? be documented somewhere? Maybe it is all just wishful thinking to find "facts" given we live in a world of staged "reality" television shows, I know that most things are contrieved or at the very least subject to one's interpretation, to which details of an event one remembers and which details pass a person by but somewhere there must be nuetral ground which we can call history? or something along those lines... no??

As for the ending, the of last the fairly long unmarked chapters... I just want to give the General and Palacios a hug. Not because I pity them but because to have their lives end in the way they did seems rather harsh and unfair. I don't even really believe that he was a harsh a cruel dictator and so physical and mental torment might be a somewhat justified end. As for Palacios, to not want the 8,000 pesos and then to squander it and die a beggar in his 70s seems not right. All the man did was dedicate his life to making the General's bath's hot and looking after his every need.... to then die alone, unrecognized... but then again I cannot help but wonder if Jose Palacios even existed at all, is he a ficticious character that Marquez invented? 

After all the hints at the life the General did lead, all the reminices of women, of battles, of places... it makes Marquez's description of his current state that much worse. Though I did not think it was possible for the General to deteriorate for the state his was in at the beggning of the novel, appearing already dead, it was clearly possible. 

On another note, the title of this book always puzzled me before I ever picked it up."The General in His Labrynth"- what is that supposed to mean? Even though it is clear now, when my eyes used to scan over this Marquez titles in a book store (kind of how the Autum of the Patriarch still puzzles me), I didn't quite get it. Also, after watching Pan's Labrynth this summer, my mind has associated this book with it ever since (Even though this book by Marquez and the movie Pan's Labrynth hold little association to one another save the word 'labrynth' ). What sticks out in my mind after reading this book, is the image of a labrynth and the garden which leads to the labrynth in "Pan's Labyrinth". I find labyrinth's to be a very awful and frightening place to be- a place with only twists and turns and no exit. A dark place of no turning back and no moving forward... where thinks fail to make sense anymore. I think this is why I want to give the General a hug, because I just want to lift him out of his personal labrynth, of the mysery of something he fought body and soul for fall apart. (though I dont think he would ever let me if I ever had the chance). I think it is an awful, cruel and unfair way to die- he didn't even have a proper send off from the Capital city, and what's more, writing on the walls of buildings slandering his name couldnt even be concealed from him on the way out. Instead, there is no escaping his labyrinth ever, instead it just swallows him whole and he dies consumed by it... and it was so consuming that his closest advisor ended up falling into it with him. 

Well, that's about all I have to say as I really do feel awful about the way this General's life deteriorated and how he had to see the life he built crumble down around him before his death.  

Has anyone yet read feast of the Goat? Can anyone assure me that this last novel won't end in a) misery, b)despair and c)death??

After finishing The President, I can say that I enjoyed the book but am hesitent to reccomend it as it is quite unsettling. I enjoyed reading the novel but at the same time found it very disturbing. On the one hand I sometimes had the urge to intervene, argue against the injustice of the President's Regime, of the Indian being cheated of his land from signing something he could read, of Genero de Rodas also signing something he did not read, and allowing for injustice to continue. For Carvajal's wife not being able to know where her husband is buried just so that this woman who is in despair and rejected by anyone she knows for fear of being associated with the enemy will learn the lesson that the Judge Advocate wishes to teach- that is not to hope. This seems ridiculous seeing as all hope has already been lost for so many characters. And then of course there is the final state of Miguel Angel Face. I suppose it would be unrealistic for the reader to hope that Camilia and him would escape, perhaps I never quite learned the lesson that the Judge Advocate was preaching but still, after finishing the novel I sort of wish I hadn't and that I could take some solace in the fact that maybe it worked out for just one character in the book. While all of the other personal accounts are disturbing and upsetting in their own way- the death of Fedina de Roda's baby or the execution of Carvajal, it seems that the outcome of Camilia and Miguel Angel Face is in way much worse because Miguel Angel Face was not always a good person/character. It is all the more devastating that even though he changed, even though he is no longer 'as wicked as Satan' he could not escape but I suppose that is part of Asturias' point- whether one is a good person or not, whether as innocent as Fedina de Rodas or basically bad like Vasquez, no one can control or escape the whims and wishes of the President and those who thrive off that evil power. 
One chapter however, that I am confused by and would like more discussion of is Chapter 26 when Miguel Angel Face is in another one of his dream-like states...
I would like to say that I enjoyed the book but it seems wrong to say that I enjoyed something that was at times so revolting and upsetting to read. I think it would be better to say that I found The President to be a gripping read and that I can understand the univeralism of the novel. In referring to the nameless President, Student, Priest, Widower, General... and yet describing their personal thoughts and stories, I can easily believe that this type of opression and terror is real and the effects are universal- whether being tortured in Guatemala, Argentina, Germany or Guantanamo Bay- I can believe that the residing feeling of injustice prevails and that treating people the way this book describe is much more than inhumane, it is far worse that cruel and that people living under fear and opression feel many of the same emotions, share many similar stories of injustice and this is what give The President its rather universal meaning and sentiment that appeals to people not just from Guatemala during the early Twentieth Century but all over the world and to this day. 

Where to begin? For the most part, I found Saramiento's descriptions and explanations of the landscape and nature of Argentine people to be interesting and engaging, especially when these explanations included anecdotes of different generals or situations- mainly the opening chapters concerning Facundo where Saramiento describes his gambling addictions and Facundo's loss of 70 pesos. These anecdotes to find there way into later chapters of the book but I found were often buried amongst a somewhat confusing history lesson. At these points, when the complex natures of places, provinces, people and relationships (19th Century Argentine history) mixed with Saramiento's narrative of Facundo and Rosas, I found myself lost and questioning the relevence of naming so many places and the specifics of people involved. I suppose this demonstrates his detailed knowladge on the subject but at points he lost me. Also, as in earlier chapters, I fail to see how constant comparisons to Rome, the Greeks or Napoleon enhanced the reader's understanding of the events in Argentina. If anytihng, these references seemed to me more a demonstration of Saramiento's knowladge than comparions intended to aid the reader. In the end, I also am not sure what to make of Facundo. Saramiento seems quick to explain and rationalize Facundo's 'savage' nature, as if to make excuses for it. I have a hard time accepting excuses Facundo's actions on the basis that his character is a product of the barbaric Agentine provinces.

In the chapter entitled "Unitarist Government," Saramiento directly adresses terror, telling his audiences that when Rosas took power "Terror was already in the atmosthpere... everyone saw the grim black cloud that had been covering the sky for two years" (207) and then later acknowladges that Rosas was also "a poet, a Plato who would realize his ideal republic" (209) . To me, these juxtaposed images of terror and poetry, of terrifying, horrific poetry is at the center of Saramiento's work. Perhaps civilization and barbarism are not juxtaposed but one in the same. Facundo is barbaric but also intelligent,. Facundo "was a gaucho, had no ties to any one place... [and yet] [h]e knew the Republic; his gaze extended over a large horizon." (128)  Facundo and conquers cities, and maybe, in a sense, the 'civilization' in Argentina. Is the point maybe that civilization itself is barbaric in nature? That these two words or ideas or notions are not dichotomies at all but in fact part of each other?

I found the opening chapters of Saramiento's Facundo  to be quite engaging and yet troublesome. In trying to decipher Saramiento's intended audience I am left indecisive. On the one hand, his novel was written as Saramiento noted, "hastily" in installments in Chile, hoping that his words would reach over the Andes. This initially gave me the impression that he was writing for the many 'men of the country' and 'men of the city' living in the Argentine provinces when he was writing this work. On the other hand, Saramineto begins chapters with foreign language quotes and throughout the five opening chapters makes constant comparisons to the Arabic, Tartar life, to Ancient Rome and to Europe. This, to me, does not elucidate the realities of life in rural or urban Argentinain provinces. To the contrary, I find it to be more of a show of knowladge, as if Saramiento is trying to provide his credentials in his discussion of the material. More than that, it has led me to surmise that Saramiento's audience is restricted to either a Spanish Europen audience or to very elite and educated, or 'civilized' people in Chile and Argentina.
Interestingly, the 'civilized' men of the city, pehaps the intented audience for Saramiento's writing, are the very men of power that were portrayed in the Author's note to be confused by Saramiento's French writing, writing they saw to be a hieroglyph, symbols that needed deciphering. This is contrasted with Sarmeinto's praises for the "triumph of European civilization, its institutions and the wealth and liberty that come from it" (59).  Despite the civilized and educated nature of cities,  the men of the city in Saramiento's author's note are protrayed as brutal -they were responsible for the battering that Saramiento recieved before escaping to Chile.  

Another aspect of Facundo that I find troubling is the relentless assetion and emphasis on the barabric nature of the countryside. This, propelled by the description of the Revolution of 1810 and the need to "reclaim" the Argentine cities from the apparent barbarism of the countryside that has "even come to penetrate the streets of Buenos Aires" (89) is bothersome in many respects. I find his reference to the native people of the Americas as savages and the emphasis on the barbaric nature of the people of the Argentine countryside demeaning. Yes, Saramiento gives a somewhat detailed account of the various types of gauchos, such as the Banqueo who cannot get lost on a 20,000 sqaure leagues of plains or others but I find that his description of the men lacks complexity. Saramiento gives a basic explanation of the duties and abilites of the different types of gauchos and perhaps adds an acidote about a certain gaucho of that rank but these breif explanations live me with a rather simplictic notion of the argentine countryside in that the men of the countryside lack depth of character and intelligence- Saramiento is overly suscessful in portraying the men of the Argantine countryside as barbaric. While this descrtiption aids the reader of their understanding of Juan Facundo Quiroga and the reasons behind his developement and character, I feel as though Saramiento's description of the Argentine landscape and peoples goes too far to emphasize the barbaric nature of the countryside. In doing so, Saramiento undermines the complexity and intracacies present in the rural Argentine provinces. As such, Facundo and its entrance in to popular literature, in my readings thus far, may have led to some increased understanding between the rural and urbal but paints rural argentine provinces as so barbaric that I cannot help but wonder if Facundo also deepend the divide and solidified those insurmountable divides between the urban and rural argentines.