Feast of the Goat

9780374154769

0374154767

"[W] THE FEAST OF THE GOAT, Vargas Llosa has written his most transparently political work of fiction....Readers who are troubled (as I am) by the tendency of contemporary culture to blur beyond distinction the line between fiction and fact will find much in THE FEAST OF THE GOAT to trouble them, for Vargas Llosa has taken rather extravagant liberties with known historical fact. Many if not most of the novel's principal characters were actual figures in the Trujillo government and the plot to overthrow it; they appear here not as mere background figures but as living, breathing people, endowed by Vargas Llosa with words, emotions and deeds. There is of course ample precedent for this, not in the tawdry 'docudramas' of Hollywood but--to cite the most obvious example--the historical plays of William Shakespeare. Historical fiction is an honorable genre in which much distinguished work has been done as well as a good deal of schlock. THE FEAST OF THE GOAT most decidedly belongs in the former category. Meticulously researched--so at least it certainly seems--and filled with telling detail, it portrays the inner workings of the Trujillo regime and its opposition with what gives every appearance of verisimilitude and authority.