The Feast of the Goat 1.0

Ok...so it's been a while longer than I expected but I'm here and ready to baa.

As I mentioned in the first blurb on this novel, I like the fact that we get different points of view.

I want to briefly note that despite not being quite as experimental or abstract as I the Supreme or even The President, this novel retains the characteristics of the modernist texts. We talked about the slippages through time and shifts in narratorial voice. The voice addressing Urania is interesting. I just read it as the voice in her head (her conscience, so to speak), not necessarily another person. Vargas Llosa also manages to use some of the strategies of Joyce or Roa Bastos without getting too abstract. For example, he lists all the enterprises losing money due to the sanctions in one long sentence: "The music of names and figures lulled the Generalissimo, who was barely listening: Atlas Commercial, Caribbean Motors, Tobacco Products S. A., Dominican Cotton Consortium...Red Iron Works, El Marino Iron Works...El Caribe newspaper" (114).

In terms of writing, power and dictators I find it interesting that Trujillo is assassinated in the first part of the novel. I think by doing this Vargas Llosa is, in a sense, further depriving Trujillo of power...and consolidating his own. The novel is about his regime, yet Trujillo is denied the importance he would have had in real life.

In terms of the humour, I found these examples funny: "You're pickled in alcohol..." (112) and the description of Lupe (the wife of Johnny Abbes) "I know she's tough, and knows how to fight, and carries a pistol and goes to whorehouses like a man..."(71)...Maybe I just find this one funny because all the women we've met previously were pretty powerless...

Finally...some fun facts about goats (I chose the points most closely related to this book):

1st brought to America by Columbus;
mature healthy male can breed 20-40 does;
both male and female goats can have beards
castrated male goat called "wether"

(from: Angela McKenzie-Jakes. "Facts About Goats." Bulletin II. Vol. I Florida A&M University. College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture. http://www.famu.edu/goats/UserFiles/File/Facts_About_Goats.pdf)
*Sorry, residual effects of Wikipedia....

Oh and...Trujillo...vulgar, called the goat. Virginia Woolf called Ulysses vulgar and its author a "he-goat" (VW's Diary). Coincidence? I think not. Ok...ok...pushing it.