What do You think about The Feast Of The Goat (2015)?
ما أجملها.. رواية عظيمة ومؤلمة وعبقرية.. ❤❤لو كنت علمت أنها بهذه الروعة لما ترددت بقراءتها منذ زمن.. بدون مبالغة.. أرى لو أن هناك نموذج يوضح الطريقة الصحيحة لكتابة رواية فهذه تصلح كمثال للرواية النموذجية.. ورغم أن الكثير من الأحداث حقيقية لكن كان عظيم مجهود الكاتب بالخيال والربط والتعمق بالأحداث والشخصيات..التنقل بين عدة أزمان والتنقل بين ذكريات الشخصيات وموقفهم الحاضر بطريقة سلسة وجداً مناسبة قلما نجدها بهذا الاتقان.. وقلما نجد أيضاً هذا الدمج والتنقل البارع من صيغة الراوي إلى لسان الشخصيات..لا يوجد خمود طويل في وتيرة الأحداث على عكس أغلب الروايات الضخمة.. كل فصول الرواية على نفس المستوى من الجمال والقيمة والأهمية وهذا تحدي كبير بما أنه يحاول أن يسير خلال الفصول والأزمان بشكل متوازي حتى يصل إلى نقطة الالتقاء.. مسار يركز على صورة مقربة مجهرية ومسار شامل على الصورة الكبيرة.. يغوص بعمق في عقلية الديكتاتور وكيف يستغل ذكاءه وشجاعته.. كيف يحتقر الأتباع ثم ينتظر ولاءهم.. كيف يقهر الشعب ثم يستغرب جحودهم.. يقول عن القائد المحتقر لشعبه وحتى عائلته: ومع ذلك، فإنه حين يرى في ملعب سباق الخيل أو في الكانتري كلوب أو في مسرح الفنون الجميلة كل الأسر الارستقراطية الدومينيكانية تقدم له ولاءها؛ يفكر ساخراً: "إنهم يلحسون الأرض أمام متحدر من عبيد"..حين تقرأ الروايات التي تحكي ظلم الحاكم وحكومته تتمنى أن ينتهي به الحال إلى الذل والهوان ويداس على كرامته ويذوق اهانة بحجم جميع الحقارات التي وجهها إلى كل بريء.. لكنك تستغرب كيف يطيع الشعب الطاغية طاعة عمياء وبعضهم يحبه حباً أعمى!! والأتباع أتباع حكومته أين عقولهم??يتحدث عن نفسية هؤلاء الأتباع ونفسية الشعب.. لا أريد أن أتكلم بوضوح لكن باختصار الرواية غنية بالمغزى والتفاصيل الذكية حتى ما بين السطور والاشارات البسيطة.. كل فصل وكل شخصية لها مغزى..أكثر شيء محزن من خلال سير الشخصيات أنها تبين كيف أن طبيعة البشر الأنانية تجعلهم لا يشعرون بالظلم ولا يعترفون بديكتاتورية الرئيس إلا حينما يطالهم هم شخصياً الضرر ويطال أحبتهم أو انتماءاتهم!! أما قبل ذلك كانوا عميان عن الآخرين!!
—Bushra
They had forgotten the abuses, the murders, the corruption, the spying, the isolation, the fear: horror had become myth. "Everybody had jobs and there wasn't so much crime.I keep remembering those summer nights, many years ago, when the air was heavy with the tension of passionate discussions about Ceausescu and the political changes after his death and the communism specter that continued to haunt our country. We were young and hopeful and we mockingly called all those regretting the past “old” and “nostalgic”.During one of these conversations a friend of mine forecast that in the long run Ceausescu would become legend, his evil forgotten, his few achievements overstated. That statement seemed to me so inconceivable that I started a fight even though I knew very well he was on my side, that is, he was not at all a fan of the former Romanian president.After more than twenty years, though, my friend’s prediction doesn’t seem so fanciful anymore. We are still too close to historical events to get a good perspective, bur how it will look in half a millennium since more and more evoke the good times with jobs and houses for all? Will the horror become indeed myth?There is no much difference between one tyrant and another. Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu, Trujillo, whatever their names, stirred incredible reactions in people’s souls, were loved and feared and sincerely regretted not only by so-easy-to-manipulate masses but also by many intelligent personalities who seemed unable to see the evil behind the mask: On the way, they could see through the windows the huge, growing crowd, swelling with the arrival of groups of men and women from the outskirts of Ciudad Trujillo and nearby towns. The line, in rows of four or five, was several kilometers long, and the armed guards could scarcely control it. They had been waiting for hours. There were heartrending scenes, outbursts of weeping, hysterical displays among those who had already reached the steps of the Palace and felt themselves close to the Generalissimo's funeral chamberIt is true that a good story, as David Lodge reminds us, does not need history to back it up. That is, it will remain good regardless inventions, facts distortion, and other literary lies – usually called poetic licenses ☺. However novels with such subjects could truly fulfill Sartre’s dream of a littérature engagée, by opposing the popular myth an equally forceful one, the literary character.And The Feast of the Goat is this good, being one of those novels that superpose and finally replace the historical figure with its own, for it manages to sound credible even though it doesn’t use the usual tricks of the non-fiction novel. In a simple, almost classic structure, it blends history and fiction by using three narrative layers: Urania’s story, the innocent victim, the conspirators’ story, the martyrized heroes and “the Chief, the Generalissimo, the Benefactor, the Father of the New Nation, His Excellency Dr. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina”’s story, the abject manipulator whose image is in the end debunked not by revealing his crimes and injustices and greed and excesses, but by a merciless reduction to ridicule:He seemed half crazed with despair. Now I know why. Because the prick that had broken so many cherries wouldn't stand up anymore. That's what made the titan cry.It is only fair to break the idols’ clay feet. And much, much better to mock them than to forget they existed. The ridicule always killed more efficiently than any other weapon. And more indefeasibly.
—Stela
Before I've read this one, the only thing I know about the Dominican Republic is that it is somewhere in South America and, of course, that it consistently has gorgeous representatives in international beauty contests. This well-written historical novel (my second of Llosa's: the first one--The War at the End of the World--likewise a historical novel) made me look it up in a world map and there I saw the small country in a big island it shares with Haiti and which is flanked by Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.This novel is so alive and real that during some of its really tense moments I really had the impulse of going back to those years before I was born and strangle to death this Marcos-like Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.If you go more for stories than style, history than sci fi or magic, exciting actual events of the past than imagined ones, go for Llosa and get yourself educated, so when you see another knockout Dominican Republic contestant during a Miss World pageant, you'll remember Trujillo, his crazy, equally-sadistic son Ramfis, their dreaded henchmen, the novelties in their means of torturing people, and think, as you contemplate the country's newest beauty in a swimsuit, that had Trujillo been alive now, she would have been included in the thousands upon thousands of women and young girls this tyrant had fucked.
—Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly
