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lanternatomika 's review for:
Harsh Times
by Mario Vargas Llosa
I'm a little conflicted on how to feel about Harsh Times. I'll explain my conundrum thusly:
It's clear that Harsh Times is unique, ambitious and just an all round Good Book™️. What's also clear is that it's driven by a clear sense of purpose. This book reflects on the sheer carnage that the United Fruit company, in cahoots with the CIA and the White House, inflicted on Guatemala. A single lie tore apart a nation, and the surrounding countries, for decades to come. All because a single corporation didn't wanna pay taxes on their banana blood money.
The scope of its subject matter is vast. Llosa boldly tries to trace the spiderweb that surrounds Guatemala, flying between El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, and even out of the Americas altogether at times. And yet he doesn't lose sight of the humans involved. A mixture of true historical figures and invented characters is the axle on which this plot stands and turns, and they're rendered relatively well by Llosa. I'm a bit of a Cold War nerd, but I'm no expert on the South and Central American 'theater' of the war. Llosa clearly is, though, and I'll take him at his word about how these events played out and the motivations behind them.
And yet...
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. I know that fiction writers make a lot of concessions in historical accuracy for the sake of narrative, but the best books of this genre can transport you into a time and place that feels almost alien compared to the present day. That's what I value in this genre. As for the true historical record, well, that's all available online, isn't it?
Harsh Times blends the line between history and fiction a bit too much. It feels more like a debriefing report more than a novel, a trim accounting of all the things that happened and all the people that were involved. It scurries along space and time to paint a picture of events, but it fails to capture the soul of the narrative. I don't feel transported to 1950s Guatemala, I feel like I'm on another one of my Wikipedia rabbit holes, reading accounts of everything that happened after the fact.
My favorite historical fiction novels are the Kingsbridge series by Ken Follett. They're quite a contrast from Harsh Times - the first book is about four times longer than this one! But maybe that's what it takes to tell a historical narrative that you can sink into and fall in love with. Kingsbridge is a fictional town, but here's a hot take: it feels more real than the South American countries covered in this book. Many of the characters in Harsh Times existed - some continue to exist! And yet I don't get a sense of their humanity the way I do for even secondary characters in Kingsbridge.
If I had to rate my enjoyment of Harsh Times, I'd rate it a 3/5. But it is an accomplishment, and the fact that I bounced off it a little bit (I didn't DNF it, after all) doesn't take away from its greatness. So I'll settle on a 4/5.
It's clear that Harsh Times is unique, ambitious and just an all round Good Book™️. What's also clear is that it's driven by a clear sense of purpose. This book reflects on the sheer carnage that the United Fruit company, in cahoots with the CIA and the White House, inflicted on Guatemala. A single lie tore apart a nation, and the surrounding countries, for decades to come. All because a single corporation didn't wanna pay taxes on their banana blood money.
The scope of its subject matter is vast. Llosa boldly tries to trace the spiderweb that surrounds Guatemala, flying between El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, and even out of the Americas altogether at times. And yet he doesn't lose sight of the humans involved. A mixture of true historical figures and invented characters is the axle on which this plot stands and turns, and they're rendered relatively well by Llosa. I'm a bit of a Cold War nerd, but I'm no expert on the South and Central American 'theater' of the war. Llosa clearly is, though, and I'll take him at his word about how these events played out and the motivations behind them.
And yet...
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. I know that fiction writers make a lot of concessions in historical accuracy for the sake of narrative, but the best books of this genre can transport you into a time and place that feels almost alien compared to the present day. That's what I value in this genre. As for the true historical record, well, that's all available online, isn't it?
Harsh Times blends the line between history and fiction a bit too much. It feels more like a debriefing report more than a novel, a trim accounting of all the things that happened and all the people that were involved. It scurries along space and time to paint a picture of events, but it fails to capture the soul of the narrative. I don't feel transported to 1950s Guatemala, I feel like I'm on another one of my Wikipedia rabbit holes, reading accounts of everything that happened after the fact.
My favorite historical fiction novels are the Kingsbridge series by Ken Follett. They're quite a contrast from Harsh Times - the first book is about four times longer than this one! But maybe that's what it takes to tell a historical narrative that you can sink into and fall in love with. Kingsbridge is a fictional town, but here's a hot take: it feels more real than the South American countries covered in this book. Many of the characters in Harsh Times existed - some continue to exist! And yet I don't get a sense of their humanity the way I do for even secondary characters in Kingsbridge.
If I had to rate my enjoyment of Harsh Times, I'd rate it a 3/5. But it is an accomplishment, and the fact that I bounced off it a little bit (I didn't DNF it, after all) doesn't take away from its greatness. So I'll settle on a 4/5.