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A review by captainjemima
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
2.0
Down the Rabbit Hole was an interesting novella, with only 70 pages. It was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2011. I can't quite decide whether I liked the story or not.
The novella shows the limited life of Tochtli, living in his father Yolcaut's palace in Mexico. Yolcaut is a drug lord and has many secret rooms filled with guns and all sorts. It is not clear how old Tochtli is, but he has a disturbing lifestyle, including a game he plays with his father where one of them has to name a number of bullets hitting a body part, and the other says whether a person would die, survive, or it wasn't clear either way. Tochtli is not allowed to leave the palace, except rarely, and comes into contact with dealers, servants, prostitutes, and hit men in his daily existence. To keep him quiet, his father buys him hundreds of hats, and Tochtli has his own little world going on inside.
I found the lifestyle of Tochtli to be quite disgusting, as he expressed such innocence and knew no better. He made the best out of what he was given, but it was redeeming that among his favourite things to do were studying Japanese history, and memorising the dictionary. When people got killed he hardly batted an eyelid and described glibly how the tigers ate the corpses. The worst part of the novella, for me, was when Tochtli travelled to Liberia with his father and teacher under assumed names. They went on a safari to find one or two of the endangered species, Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. The lack of respect for these almost extinct animals was horrible.
I wouldn't read another novella or novel by this author. Whilst the writing style was fine, and accurately portrayed the innocence of Tochtli against the brutality of his father, I did not enjoy the subject matter.
The novella shows the limited life of Tochtli, living in his father Yolcaut's palace in Mexico. Yolcaut is a drug lord and has many secret rooms filled with guns and all sorts. It is not clear how old Tochtli is, but he has a disturbing lifestyle, including a game he plays with his father where one of them has to name a number of bullets hitting a body part, and the other says whether a person would die, survive, or it wasn't clear either way. Tochtli is not allowed to leave the palace, except rarely, and comes into contact with dealers, servants, prostitutes, and hit men in his daily existence. To keep him quiet, his father buys him hundreds of hats, and Tochtli has his own little world going on inside.
I found the lifestyle of Tochtli to be quite disgusting, as he expressed such innocence and knew no better. He made the best out of what he was given, but it was redeeming that among his favourite things to do were studying Japanese history, and memorising the dictionary. When people got killed he hardly batted an eyelid and described glibly how the tigers ate the corpses. The worst part of the novella, for me, was when Tochtli travelled to Liberia with his father and teacher under assumed names. They went on a safari to find one or two of the endangered species, Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. The lack of respect for these almost extinct animals was horrible.
I wouldn't read another novella or novel by this author. Whilst the writing style was fine, and accurately portrayed the innocence of Tochtli against the brutality of his father, I did not enjoy the subject matter.