3.57 AVERAGE

dark informative sad slow-paced
dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Een mooi boek over Roger Casement (een Ier) die , oorspronkelijk geïnspireerd erdoor, de leugen van het imperialisme aan de kaak stelt (rond 1900). Hij komt op voor de tot slaafgemaakte en mishandelde inheemse volkeren van Congo en Peru en zet aan tot verandering. Gedurende zijn reizen begint hij ook tot inzichten te komen over de toestand van Ierland t.0.v. het Britse rijk. Hij wordt nationalist en begint te strijden voor de onafhankelijkheid van Ierland, tot steeds extremere hoogtes.

Heel interessant maar ook treurig boek over Roger Casement, waarvan ik er pas later achter kwam dat hij echt heeft bestaan. Door de manier waarop het boek is opgesteld wist je al wel vrij goed wat er allemaal gebeurde in de laatste 100 pagina's dus dat was een beetje een slog.
challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

(Peru)

Un mes me tomó terminar este libro. No porque fuera malo ni por falta de tiempo, más bien, no quería que se terminara. El personaje de Roger Casement es interesante, por decir menos, además que la pluma de Vargas Llosa sabe agregarle un tono mítico, casi celestial, que siempre ha sido mi debilidad a la hora de la lectura.

Es un libro que me ha despertado muchos sentimientos y reflexionar. Fue un buen viaje.
adventurous challenging informative medium-paced

El sueño del celta (Dream of the Celt) is the story of Roger Casement who exposed the atrocities committed by King Leopold II in Congo and by Julio Arana's rubber company in the Peruvian Amazon, and was executed for treason in 1916 after his involvement with the Irish independence movement.
Vargas Llosa chose to tell this story in the format of a historical novel. At the opening of the novel, we find Casement in his prison cell, longing for a bath and musing over the events of his life. What follows is an overview of his experiences in Congo, where he met with Henry M. Stanley and with Joseph Conrad and slowly became aware of the awful reality of slavery and exploitation of the Congolese; in the Amazon where indigenous workers were forced to collect rubber under horrible circumstances, and finally his activities for the Irish independence movement. The novel doesn't shy away from the issues around his homosexuality that were revealed through his "Black Diaries" with cryptic entries such as "Public bathroom. Enormous, very hard, at least nine inches" which were considered scandalous at that time and (unfairly, I think) used against him at his trial.
Vargas Llosa was a journalist before he became a writer, and it shows. He certainly did his research well, but that is where the problem lies with the book. The historical facts are summed up as if it were a collage of encyclopaedia entries and newspaper clippings, full of facts, dates and more facts. After pages and pages of historical facts, it becomes tedious and one feels tempted to skim through the information rather than reading it all line by line.
Which is a pity, because the history of Roger Casement is the story of an extraordinary man whose courage and battle for human rights should never be forgotten.

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This feels like it probably should/would have been a nonfiction piece save for the dialogue. It comes across as a mass of information, and any story takes a hard backseat because things bounce around so much. I applaud Vargas Llosa's clearly exhaustive research, but this is not what I was hoping for.

Popsugar 2022: Latinx author
adventurous dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes