21st Century Literature discussion
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I haven't read anything else--I happened to see this up for sale so I grabbed it, knowing we had a group read coming up. I've got it queued up, but I may not get started for a couple days.
This is my first time to read anything by Alarcon and am nearly down with the book. I enjoy the writing style and how he tells the story overall. Excited to finish and will share some more thoughts. I have not read any criticical reviews yet but will do soon and thanks for sharing.
Welcome Bryan and Scott.
This was my first time even hearing of Alarcon, but I'd be curious to read more by him! Just finished recently, so I'll look forward to the discussion!
I'm waiting for my e-copy from the library and hope to start reading along soon.
Mod
I finished reading it a few days ago and look forward to participating in the discussion.
I'm about 2/3 through already, and wishing it could go on longer. The setting is familiar, with echoes of Brasyl and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. The jungle town is not sentimentalized, while the capital persistently echos Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior: A Firsthand Account Of Atrocity, where Verbitsky interviews one of the government's soldiers about the Argentine dirty war of a decade before.
The blind destruction of war is the center of this story, something that people in the US have been spared, directly at least. The Words Without Borders review points out the specific applicability of this story to us in the US: "we've certainly propelled ourselves into various conflicts around the world, dipping into the infinite complexities and terrible redundancies that Alarcón so aptly realizes in his novel."
Great to see the interest. Mark, I'm not familiar with the books you mention but seem consistent with the Alarcon's comments in the interviews about hearing how much the civil war in his unnamed country matched what they experienced in their own countries. You note that "people in the US have been spared, directly at least, the blind destruction of war." That is certainly true in the 20th and 21st centuries but perhaps our own civil war in the 19th century had similarities?
Mark wrote: "The blind destruction of war is the center of this story, something that people in the US have been spared, directly at least. The Words Without Borders review points out the specific applicability..."I see the novel as being only partially about the destruction of war. I see it more as the fear and injustice that comes with living under an authoritarian government.
The conditions he describes don't just occur during a war. There are millions of people currently experiencing the tyranny he describes in countries that are not technically at war. It occurs when a government has instilled fear in a population. The people don't know who to trust, who is an informant. They are denied access to democratic institutions and legitimate means for addressing injustice. The fear of stepping out of line permeates all aspects of their lives.
An interesting observation, Tamara. The conditions seem to have even been present to a degree before civil war broke out in the unnamed country of Lost City Radio. Do you think this is easier to see in hindsight than when it is happening?
LindaJ^ wrote: "An interesting observation, Tamara. The conditions seem to have even been present to a degree before civil war broke out in the unnamed country of Lost City Radio. Do you think this is easier to se..."Yes, I think it is easier to see in hindsight than when it is happening.
Civil wars are fought because one side finds the situation intolerable and retains a hope that fighting the oppressive government will lead to a more just society. We see that happening in the novel.
During the civil war, the situation is still in flux. But after the war is officially over, if the "wrong" side has won as it does in the novel, the oppressive government strengthens its stranglehold on the population in order to retain control. One can better see how and why the situation developed in hindsight.
Mod
I posted a review a few days ago. But I don't know if I should put a link to the review here or wait for the whole book thread to go up.
Tamara wrote: "But after the war is officially over, if the "wrong" side has won as it does in the novel, the oppressive government strengthens its stranglehold on the population in order to retain control."I'm not sure Alarcon would agree that the "wrong" side won in the novel. I get this from his interview for CA Reads where it seemed to me he thought both sides were in the wrong. And what comes immediately to my mind is the Iranian Revolution.
I'll put up the whole book thread this evening, as it probably is the better place for links to reviews.
Am really enjoying the writing style and characters so far. Infused with the anxious atmosphere of daily life in an unnamed country gripped by an authoritarian postwar government. It is tempting to see parallels with the long wave of repression in Peru (Alarcon's birthplace) after the Shining Path insurrection of the 1980s. Phony elections, soldiers everywhere demanding IDs, routine torture and mass graves, censored news. The station’s survival depends on its own self-censorship of both content and style. “Read good news with indifference and make bad news sound hopeful. No one was more skilled than Norma; in her vocal caresses, unemployment figures read like bittersweet laments, declarations of war like love letters.”
LindaJ^ wrote: "I'm not sure Alarcon would agree that the "wrong" side won in the novel. I get this from his interview for CA Reads where it seemed to me he thought both sides were in the wrong..."Maybe so. The problem is we don't get to see that play out in the novel. We only see how repressive the winning side is.
I thought Alarcón was pretty explicit about the injustices inflicted by the IL: the execution of the priest, for example, and its aftermath. The government's continuing use of terror is also clear, even to the excision of village names!When I referred to Verbitsky, I was remembering how the memory of the horrors his informant had inflicted still haunted him long after Argentina's conflict died down.
Alarcón's vivid and delicate writing holds the reader even while the horrors unfold, however.
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Brasyl (other topics)At Play in the Fields of the Lord (other topics)
Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior: A Firsthand Account Of Atrocity (other topics)
The King Is Always Above the People: Stories (other topics)
I have 3 sets of background materials to share - Reviews, General Interviews, and, in connection with Lost City Radio being the "California Reads" book in 2012, a two-part interview with the author and the curriculum guide. If you do not like spoilers, it is probably best to avoid these materials until you finish the book.
Reviews:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/bo...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/b...
https://www.mostlyfiction.com/latin/a...
https://aux.avclub.com/daniel-alarcon...
https://www.popmatters.com/lost-city-...
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/w/index.p...
General Interviews:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innova...
https://bookpage.com/interviews/8388-...
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510315/r...
https://granta.com/interview-daniel-a...
https://ilas.libsyn.com/interview-dan...
CA Reads:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMyEb...
http://calhum.org/files/uploads/grant...
I read Alarcon's first book of short stories about shortly after he was chosen as one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 authors picked in 2010. The last book of Alarcon's to be published was The King Is Always Above the People: Stories, a book of short stories that was nominated for the 2017 National Book Award in fiction.
Has anyone one else read anything written by Alarcon? If so, what do you think about his writing style?