Scan barcode
liberrydude's review against another edition
1.0
The title cried to be read. It said it would be humorous. I didn't find it so. I made it past 20 pages or so. I got this from the library as a discard since noone read it. I can see why now.
barkylee15's review against another edition
3.0
2.5. I was pretty disappointed in this one. I really liked his book on the Guianas, but this was mostly boring and slow. It seems this was Gimlette's first travelogue/history though so I may give him another shot, but I won't be rushing to read it!
juliavivalo's review against another edition
3.0
I never knew there was so much i didn't know about Paraguay. What a crazy place! Good luck Jacqui!
melbsreads's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.5
Trigger warnings: animal death, war, death, graphic descriptions of murder, racism, cannibalism, child death, Holocaust.
Look, I literally only picked this up because it's set in Paraguay. I would NEVER have picked it up otherwise, because the title is bizarre, the cover is awful, and it's perhaps unnecessary long. But I did pick this up, and I'm glad I did because this was informative and often funny. It was a mixture of history and travel, of dark stories and lighthearted nonsense.
I did often have a tricky time keeping track of all the different players throughout the course of Paraguay's history, but I definitely learnt a lot about the different waves of immigration and the settlements that even decades later claim to be British, German, Australian, whatever. The discussion of, uh, post-war migration by various key figures in the Nazi Party was also utterly fascinating, if not mindblowing in terms of the sheer AUDACITY to just...list yourself in the phone book under your real name?!?!?!?!
Anyway. This was interesting. But also LONG. But also intriguing. But also SO LONG.
Look, I literally only picked this up because it's set in Paraguay. I would NEVER have picked it up otherwise, because the title is bizarre, the cover is awful, and it's perhaps unnecessary long. But I did pick this up, and I'm glad I did because this was informative and often funny. It was a mixture of history and travel, of dark stories and lighthearted nonsense.
I did often have a tricky time keeping track of all the different players throughout the course of Paraguay's history, but I definitely learnt a lot about the different waves of immigration and the settlements that even decades later claim to be British, German, Australian, whatever. The discussion of, uh, post-war migration by various key figures in the Nazi Party was also utterly fascinating, if not mindblowing in terms of the sheer AUDACITY to just...list yourself in the phone book under your real name?!?!?!?!
Anyway. This was interesting. But also LONG. But also intriguing. But also SO LONG.
left_coast_justin's review against another edition
5.0
The one takeaway from this review should be: This book is FUNNY. If being funny were easy, more people would do it. Mr. Gimlette has the sort of self-deprecating willingness to go over the top in service of the story that I love. I can remember three simple drives across town, each of which is hilarious in its own way: A lady who drank way too much, a creamy-skinned beauty who likes to drive really fast, and a friend who is blind in one eye and none too attentive with the other. A bullfight, in Gimlette's hands, left me shaking with laughter. (No bulls were killed, though at least one was "bemused.")
The people of Paraguay have endured some horrible history, and Gimlette doesn't gloss over this, but he does make a real effort to describe the monsters in sufficient detail to make them believable, if not sympathetic. But it's his immersion in the present that makes this book such a treat.
The people of Paraguay have endured some horrible history, and Gimlette doesn't gloss over this, but he does make a real effort to describe the monsters in sufficient detail to make them believable, if not sympathetic. But it's his immersion in the present that makes this book such a treat.
joyfilledwander's review against another edition
2.0
Paraguay. What to say about Paraguay. According to John Gimlette's part-history, part-travelogue, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, I learned that Paraguay, like America, is a melting pot. A melting pot of expats, Nazis, Mennonites, and cannibals, however. Paraguay is a country with a colorful, and confusing history, that I'm pretty sure not many Paraguayans actually know. I liked this book because I've never read a single thing about Paraguay before. But I didn't like this book for many more reasons. First of all, why did John Gimlette write this book? Was it really just to talk about Paraguay? Or was a deeper theme that I completely missed? He spent SO much of his time with the expats and the foreigners, so much so, that I finally skipped about 50 pages of his journey in Eastern Paraguay, just so I could get to the parts with the Chaco Indians. Other reviewers described this book as hilarious, or wildly entertaining, and I feel like I missed the jokes as well. Paraguay's history was bizarre and colorful, but humorous….well, that's a bit of a stretch. I'm glad to be done with this one, as I have much better books awaiting me on my nightstand. Thanks for the memories, John Gimlette. And by the way, WHAT IS THE TOMB OF THE INFLATABLE PIG??
lenni's review against another edition
4.0
Although I didn't "really like it" I give the author an extra star for his commitment to metaphor, allegory, and circumlocution. A fascinating yet somewhat libelous history of Paraguay it read something like a nightmare: scattered yet vivid and horrifying.