Triste's History

Triste's History | Horacio V�zquez Rial

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#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Argentina 🇦🇷
Whoa! That was a brutal ride! A novel charting the life & death of Cristóbal Artola, set against the ultra-violent political events of mid 20th century Argentina.
Recruited by a Catholic priest into a death squad, Artola accepts this route out of poverty with little political conscience, as successive coups change governments but not their methods of disposing of the opposition. That Vásquez-Rial manages ⬇️

Bookwomble ... to evoke any pity for his protagonist is a remarkable authorial feat.
Incredibly informative, though critiqued as skewed by VR's disenchantment with the Leftist revolutionary groups he was formerly a part of, and his drift to the Right resulting in a belief in political conspiracy theories. Clearly, though, this historical morass left no-one clean. I'll be reflecting on this one for a while.
CW for graphic murder and torture scenes. 2y

Bookwomble @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB 2y

BarbaraBB You found another special one! 2y

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Bookwomble @BarbaraBB I think so 😊 But not for the faint-hearted, and it definitely pushed my limits, but as a testament to the atrocities perpetrated it needed to go where it went. 2y

BarbaraBB Some stories should be told and Argentina has known some brutal years 2y

Bookwomble @BarbaraBB Sadly so, and the ancillary reading I did to understand the events and issues was illuminating, if scary. 2y

Librarybelle Excellent review! 2y

johncadams This looks interesting. Think I might give it a go. 2y

Bookwomble @johncadams I was going to say I hope you enjoy it, but that's not the right word, I think, so - I hope you find it interesting 😊 2y

Bookwomble @Librarybelle Thanks 😊 2y

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Bookwomble

Triste's History | Horacio V�zquez Rial

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Argentina ?? #FirstLine
"on its northern, eastern and every flank except for the one that trails off into the pampa like a grubby, ragged strip of lace spattered with settlements and hamlets, the city looks out on the mighty, open river with its one discernable shore and its ominous yellow waters beyond which may lie the world or nothing; solitary, vast amid the vastness, Buenos Aires is the south, the meeting point ...

Bookwomble ... of certain unmemorable destinies, of certain irrevocable encounters, where murderous and other devious assignments are hatched and sometimes dispatched under the shady auspices of smalltime political bosses, born of the murky grey of the concrete and the pigeons"
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB 2y

Bookwomble One of the longest First Lines? This is the story of the struggle of Cristóbal Artola, "El Triste" (the Sad One) to rise out of poverty. In his Prologue, Vásquez Rial says that Triste's right-wing values held nothing in common with his own, but that in writing the character he came to realise how much of himself was defined by his opposition to men like Triste, and that there was more humanity in him and his like than he had given credit for. 2y

Librarybelle Wow! That is a very long first line! 2y

Bookwomble @Librarybelle It's a doozy, and turns out much of the rest of the book is written in a similar vein, which, luckily, I like 😁 2y

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