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Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter
A gripping, darkly comic first-hand account of a young underground revolutionary during the Pinochet dictatorship in 1980s Chile.
On September 11, 1973, a violent coup removed Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, from office. Thousands were arrested, tortured and killed under General Augusto Pinochet's repressive new regime. Soon after the coup, six-year-old Carmen Aguirre and her younger sister fled the country with their parents for Canada and a life in exile.
In 1978, the Chilean resistance issued a call for exiled activists to return to Latin America. Most women sent their children to live with relatives or with supporters in Cuba, but Carmen's mother kept her precious girls with her. As their mother and stepfather set up a safe house for resistance members in La Paz, Bolivia, the girls' own double lives began. At eighteen, Carmen herself joined the resistance. With conventional day jobs as a cover, she and her new husband moved to Argentina to begin a dangerous new life of their own.
This dramatic, darkly funny narrative, which covers the eventful decade from 1979 to 1989, takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile. Writing with passion and deep personal insight, Carmen captures her constant struggle to reconcile her commitment to the movement with the desires of her youth and her budding sexuality. 'Something Fierce' is a gripping story of love, war and resistance and a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life.
On September 11, 1973, a violent coup removed Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, from office. Thousands were arrested, tortured and killed under General Augusto Pinochet's repressive new regime. Soon after the coup, six-year-old Carmen Aguirre and her younger sister fled the country with their parents for Canada and a life in exile.
In 1978, the Chilean resistance issued a call for exiled activists to return to Latin America. Most women sent their children to live with relatives or with supporters in Cuba, but Carmen's mother kept her precious girls with her. As their mother and stepfather set up a safe house for resistance members in La Paz, Bolivia, the girls' own double lives began. At eighteen, Carmen herself joined the resistance. With conventional day jobs as a cover, she and her new husband moved to Argentina to begin a dangerous new life of their own.
This dramatic, darkly funny narrative, which covers the eventful decade from 1979 to 1989, takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile. Writing with passion and deep personal insight, Carmen captures her constant struggle to reconcile her commitment to the movement with the desires of her youth and her budding sexuality. 'Something Fierce' is a gripping story of love, war and resistance and a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published April 18, 2011
81 people are currently reading
3130 people want to read
About the author
Carmen Aguirre
17 books62 followersCarmen Aguirre is a Vancouver-based theatre artist who has worked extensively in North and South America. She has written and co-written twenty-one plays, including Chile Con Carne, The Trigger, The Refugee Hotel, and Blue Box. Her first non-fiction book, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, was published in 2011 by Douglas & McIntyre in Canada and Granta/Portobello in the United Kingdom and is now available in Finland and Holland, in translation. Something Fierce was nominated for British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the international Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, was a finalist for the 2012 BC Book Prize, was selected by the Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, and the National Post as one of the best books of 2011, was named Book of the Week by BBC Radio in the United Kingdom, won CBC Canada Reads 2012, and is a number-one national bestseller. Aguirre has more than sixty film, TV, and stage acting credits, is a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop facilitator, and an instructor in the acting department at Vancouver Film School. She received the Union of B.C. Performers 2011 Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, the 2012 Langara College Outstanding Alumnae Award, and has been nominated for the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, and the prestigious Siminovitch Prize. Aguirre is a graduate of Studio 58.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 307 reviews
May 6, 2015
The blurb says it all. I don't have anything much to add. Chile, Argentina and Peru. Mad times, mad people, an intensity of belief that expressed itself in action that I think the author, daughter of two revolutionaries, didn't 'catch' and never truly understood.
It was a consistently good read but mostly because the people were so incredibly interesting and lived what they believed. The rather neurasthenic presence of the narrator, the daughter, picks up somewhat when she too becomes a revolutionary, but one never gets the feeling that she does it because she is driven, more because she is 18 and it is expected. As it turns out, she is an actor, one who follows direction.
It was a consistently good read but mostly because the people were so incredibly interesting and lived what they believed. The rather neurasthenic presence of the narrator, the daughter, picks up somewhat when she too becomes a revolutionary, but one never gets the feeling that she does it because she is driven, more because she is 18 and it is expected. As it turns out, she is an actor, one who follows direction.
March 24, 2019
This is a book that had me thinking about it at night after I'd gone to bed. And also during the day when I had to stop the reading and occupy myself with other things. I'd wait patiently for the time when I could go back to it, unable to put the book out of my mind.
It covers a time skipped or not fully accounted for in other accounts of Pinochet's dictatorship I'm aware of. It is the time after Allende's assassination and the initial sway of repression that held the country in its grip. I'd both read and watched the film adaptation of Isabella Allende's House of Spirits and Costa-Gavras' film Missing. But this book starts later, six whole years after Pinochet's bloody coup, when the author's mother and stepfather decide to return to South America in response to the call of the Chilean resistance. Most other people who responded to the call left their children behind. Not so Carmen's mother, who believed that she shouldn't have to sacrifice motherhood for the sake of revolution or the other way round.
The story of that return is told from the point of view of young Carmen who, at eleven years of age, has to leave her life as an exile in Canada and, together with her Mami, stepfather and younger sister Ale, travel back to South America on instructions from "above", often not knowing which country they were headed to next. A life dedicated to the revolutionary cause unfolds with the children being thrust into a world of insecurity and danger not knowing whether their parents would come back home from their clandestine activities or disappear into the notorious cells of the secret police never to see the light of day again.
Carmen and Ale are surprisingly resilient and capable at dealing with the demands of life underground which was quite brutal for both the children and the adults. The dangers of being arrested meant that there had to be complete secrecy and no one was to be trusted as they could be a member of the secret police. Keeping pretences and not letting on about the adult's activities was a must at all times. This creates a stifling atmosphere thankfully broken, albeit briefly, by trips to the children's grandmother in Chile or to their father back in Canada.
As Carmen gets older and starts to have boyfriends, the two worlds collide: on the one hand, her emerging sexuality and longing for a 'normal' adolecence, on the other, her belief that her parents are doing the right thing endorsing the revolutionary cause; that she herself wants (or has) to dedicate her life to the resistance when she grows up a bit more. And that is precisely what she does when she turns twenty and joins the resistance herself, taking on the risky task of transporting documents over the border between Argentina and Chile.
Despite having an very different upbringing to Carmen's, I felt for her every time she was scared but couldn't admit to it because that might drag everybody down or because it's not the "done" thing. At times, I felt angry with her mother and stepfather for placing impossible demands on the children, piling them with guilt (as when stepfather Bob chides the girls for their "bourgeois tastes" when they display some displeasure at moving to a simpler house than they had previously occupied).
Some questions remain. In the last chapter (SPOILER ALERT - STOP reading now if you haven't read the book), just before the plebiscite that signalled Pinochet's defeat, young Carmen (who is involved in clandestine work in Argentina and Chile) is told by a senior resistance member that the resistance is over, it is defeated, it has dissolved. How did that happen? When? Was it disagreements over whether to participate in the approaching elections? Tactical fall-outs? Exhaustion? Just as we see light at the end of the tunnel, it appears that the work done has not brought the desired result. We are left with a bitter taste, and wishing we received a bit more feedback in a book that is understandably not a political analysis but a personal memoir. Still, the book revealed a lacuna and a need for the history of that movement, its defeats and victories, tactics and politics, to be told and explained.
It covers a time skipped or not fully accounted for in other accounts of Pinochet's dictatorship I'm aware of. It is the time after Allende's assassination and the initial sway of repression that held the country in its grip. I'd both read and watched the film adaptation of Isabella Allende's House of Spirits and Costa-Gavras' film Missing. But this book starts later, six whole years after Pinochet's bloody coup, when the author's mother and stepfather decide to return to South America in response to the call of the Chilean resistance. Most other people who responded to the call left their children behind. Not so Carmen's mother, who believed that she shouldn't have to sacrifice motherhood for the sake of revolution or the other way round.
The story of that return is told from the point of view of young Carmen who, at eleven years of age, has to leave her life as an exile in Canada and, together with her Mami, stepfather and younger sister Ale, travel back to South America on instructions from "above", often not knowing which country they were headed to next. A life dedicated to the revolutionary cause unfolds with the children being thrust into a world of insecurity and danger not knowing whether their parents would come back home from their clandestine activities or disappear into the notorious cells of the secret police never to see the light of day again.
Carmen and Ale are surprisingly resilient and capable at dealing with the demands of life underground which was quite brutal for both the children and the adults. The dangers of being arrested meant that there had to be complete secrecy and no one was to be trusted as they could be a member of the secret police. Keeping pretences and not letting on about the adult's activities was a must at all times. This creates a stifling atmosphere thankfully broken, albeit briefly, by trips to the children's grandmother in Chile or to their father back in Canada.
As Carmen gets older and starts to have boyfriends, the two worlds collide: on the one hand, her emerging sexuality and longing for a 'normal' adolecence, on the other, her belief that her parents are doing the right thing endorsing the revolutionary cause; that she herself wants (or has) to dedicate her life to the resistance when she grows up a bit more. And that is precisely what she does when she turns twenty and joins the resistance herself, taking on the risky task of transporting documents over the border between Argentina and Chile.
Despite having an very different upbringing to Carmen's, I felt for her every time she was scared but couldn't admit to it because that might drag everybody down or because it's not the "done" thing. At times, I felt angry with her mother and stepfather for placing impossible demands on the children, piling them with guilt (as when stepfather Bob chides the girls for their "bourgeois tastes" when they display some displeasure at moving to a simpler house than they had previously occupied).
Some questions remain. In the last chapter (SPOILER ALERT - STOP reading now if you haven't read the book), just before the plebiscite that signalled Pinochet's defeat, young Carmen (who is involved in clandestine work in Argentina and Chile) is told by a senior resistance member that the resistance is over, it is defeated, it has dissolved. How did that happen? When? Was it disagreements over whether to participate in the approaching elections? Tactical fall-outs? Exhaustion? Just as we see light at the end of the tunnel, it appears that the work done has not brought the desired result. We are left with a bitter taste, and wishing we received a bit more feedback in a book that is understandably not a political analysis but a personal memoir. Still, the book revealed a lacuna and a need for the history of that movement, its defeats and victories, tactics and politics, to be told and explained.
May 1, 2013
Not until close to the end of Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter does Carmen Aguirre seem to finally and tellingly encapsulate the profound trauma that the life forced on her by her Chilean revolutionary parents had wrought on her bodily, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. To that point, Something Fierce had intermittently captured my interest with its understandably uneven account of a girl growing to young womanhood living the double and triple life of a political refugee in Canada and undercover resistance operative in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. The story veers from a firsthand account of the upheaval, injustice and at times mortal danger of the brutal Pinochet regime - in essence, the disturbing and enraging facts and figures of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine brought to life - to the fancies, dreams, desires, fashion and pop culture whimsies, moods and petulance of a typical teenager perhaps anywhere in the world.
Read my complete review here: http://bookgagabooks.ca/2012/02/06/so...
Read my complete review here: http://bookgagabooks.ca/2012/02/06/so...
March 27, 2013
At last night’s book club, we had a lively discussion about Carmen Aguirre’s memoir, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter. While most of us were fascinated by the book and welcomed the opportunity to learn more about Chile, we had different opinions regarding the parenting of Carmen and her sister, Ale.
When Carmen was five years old, her family left Chile and began a new life in Vancouver. Six years later, her mother (Mami) decided to return and join the revolutionary movement against Pinochet’s dictatorship. Separated from her husband, Mami decided to take her two daughters with her.
What follows is Carmen’s coming of age story set against the frightening backdrop of Chile in the 1980s. Moving from city to city and country to country across South America, the children were left with a revolving door of babysitters as Mami and her partner, Bob, were on assignment. At one point in the story, Carmen is left alone too long and her money runs out. She hides in the apartment and morphs into an “agoraphobic 15-year-old skeleton with obsessive compulsive disorder.” Interestingly enough, Carmen thought life in the Resistance was normal and decided to become a revolutionary at age eighteen.
While some of the other club members made allowances for Mami, feeling that she authentically cared for her children and wanted them to experience her love and passion for Chile, I tend to agree with Ale’s comment: “Here’s a revolutionary thought: provide for your children and pay attention to them.”
In a CBC interview, Carmen spoke of her love and admiration for Mami. While Carmen would never put her own child through that experience, she did offer insight into her mother’s behavior. Born in an upper middle class home, Mami was not raised in the Resistance movement and had no clue about its effects on young children. Mami took to heart the words of her Resistance oath: “I am committed to giving my life to the cause. I will die for the cause if need be. From now on, my entire life is dedicated to the cause, which takes precedence over everything else.”
To date, very little has been written about the Chilean revolution in English literature. In writing Something Fierce, Carmen Aguirre has filled that void.
An excellent read that will evoke strong feelings.
When Carmen was five years old, her family left Chile and began a new life in Vancouver. Six years later, her mother (Mami) decided to return and join the revolutionary movement against Pinochet’s dictatorship. Separated from her husband, Mami decided to take her two daughters with her.
What follows is Carmen’s coming of age story set against the frightening backdrop of Chile in the 1980s. Moving from city to city and country to country across South America, the children were left with a revolving door of babysitters as Mami and her partner, Bob, were on assignment. At one point in the story, Carmen is left alone too long and her money runs out. She hides in the apartment and morphs into an “agoraphobic 15-year-old skeleton with obsessive compulsive disorder.” Interestingly enough, Carmen thought life in the Resistance was normal and decided to become a revolutionary at age eighteen.
While some of the other club members made allowances for Mami, feeling that she authentically cared for her children and wanted them to experience her love and passion for Chile, I tend to agree with Ale’s comment: “Here’s a revolutionary thought: provide for your children and pay attention to them.”
In a CBC interview, Carmen spoke of her love and admiration for Mami. While Carmen would never put her own child through that experience, she did offer insight into her mother’s behavior. Born in an upper middle class home, Mami was not raised in the Resistance movement and had no clue about its effects on young children. Mami took to heart the words of her Resistance oath: “I am committed to giving my life to the cause. I will die for the cause if need be. From now on, my entire life is dedicated to the cause, which takes precedence over everything else.”
To date, very little has been written about the Chilean revolution in English literature. In writing Something Fierce, Carmen Aguirre has filled that void.
An excellent read that will evoke strong feelings.
August 22, 2017
This was a mad book. Mad in terms of the things Carmen and her sister Ale lived through as her exiled Chilean mother and her stepfather takes them from Canada back to Latin America to become underground revolutionary with the aim to take Chile back from Pinochet with force. They set up a safe house in La Paz, Bolivia and their travels takes them on through South America. Carmen has some crazy, terrifying experience, plus has to live with the fact that she cannot tell anyone about her life, her real purpose, she has to lie to everyone, live in constant fear of discovery, saying the wrong thing, causing suspicion in others, that one day her mother or her stepfather do not return. Carmen is 11, when they leave Canada.
What I thought she did brilliantly is that she focuses on her journey, there is little on the impact on her sister or her parents that has not to do with the impact that has on her. Whilst I respect that, it makes it seem at times a bit lacking in perspective. She does not go into great detail on certain aspects of South American events if those events only had impact on her in passing. I know many readers found that frustrating, yet, to me this is one of the strengths of this book for me. She focusses on her story alone, if she only passes through the civil war in Peru, she only mentions it in passing. She lives through the upheaval in Bolivia in the late 70ies: so more time is given to the details.
Ultimately, this is an interesting story and very easy to read, but as I so often find with autobiographies for me is that what I am most interested in hearing is the part of the story that is not told. Her choice, her story, I know.
What I thought she did brilliantly is that she focuses on her journey, there is little on the impact on her sister or her parents that has not to do with the impact that has on her. Whilst I respect that, it makes it seem at times a bit lacking in perspective. She does not go into great detail on certain aspects of South American events if those events only had impact on her in passing. I know many readers found that frustrating, yet, to me this is one of the strengths of this book for me. She focusses on her story alone, if she only passes through the civil war in Peru, she only mentions it in passing. She lives through the upheaval in Bolivia in the late 70ies: so more time is given to the details.
Ultimately, this is an interesting story and very easy to read, but as I so often find with autobiographies for me is that what I am most interested in hearing is the part of the story that is not told. Her choice, her story, I know.
August 26, 2016
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Born a week after the death of Che Guevara, Carmen Aguirre was always destined to become a revolutionary. After Pinochet's violent coup in Chile in 1973, her family is forced to flee to Canada. And when, a few years later, the Chilean resistance calls for exiled activists to return to fight the cause, Carmen's mother heeds the call. Determined to make mini revolutionaries of her two daughters, she takes them with her - and so Carmen's double life begins. Posing as a westernised teenager by day, at night she is drilled in surveillance techniques, cryptography and subterfuge, not to mention political theory and revolutionary history. It is a time of high excitement, but also one of fear and paranoia, of who to trust, and who to fear.
From Pinochet's repressive rule in Chile, to Shining Path Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia to post-Malvinas Argentina, this is a darkly comic coming-of-age memoir is a rare first-hand account of a life as teenage revolutionary. It is also the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her commitment to the cause with her very unrevolutionary new interests in boys, music and fashion.
1/5: dressed as an all-American teenager, Carmen returns to Latin America with her mother and sister to join the underground, and a new life of subterfuge and danger.
2/5: After a perilous visit to her beloved Chile, Carmen finds herself questioning her commitment to the cause.
3/5: when the situation in Bolivia becomes to dangerous, Carmen finds herself in rural Argentina in the depths of a harsh winter.
4/5: a mission across the Andes goes perilously wrong, and Carmen is forced to risk all.
5/5: secret police, paranoia and mistrust, as the resistance begins to falter...
Author: Carmen Aguirre is a playwright and actor, now living in Vancouver.
Reader: Mia Soteriou.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015yt3s
Born a week after the death of Che Guevara, Carmen Aguirre was always destined to become a revolutionary. After Pinochet's violent coup in Chile in 1973, her family is forced to flee to Canada. And when, a few years later, the Chilean resistance calls for exiled activists to return to fight the cause, Carmen's mother heeds the call. Determined to make mini revolutionaries of her two daughters, she takes them with her - and so Carmen's double life begins. Posing as a westernised teenager by day, at night she is drilled in surveillance techniques, cryptography and subterfuge, not to mention political theory and revolutionary history. It is a time of high excitement, but also one of fear and paranoia, of who to trust, and who to fear.
From Pinochet's repressive rule in Chile, to Shining Path Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia to post-Malvinas Argentina, this is a darkly comic coming-of-age memoir is a rare first-hand account of a life as teenage revolutionary. It is also the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her commitment to the cause with her very unrevolutionary new interests in boys, music and fashion.
1/5: dressed as an all-American teenager, Carmen returns to Latin America with her mother and sister to join the underground, and a new life of subterfuge and danger.
2/5: After a perilous visit to her beloved Chile, Carmen finds herself questioning her commitment to the cause.
3/5: when the situation in Bolivia becomes to dangerous, Carmen finds herself in rural Argentina in the depths of a harsh winter.
4/5: a mission across the Andes goes perilously wrong, and Carmen is forced to risk all.
5/5: secret police, paranoia and mistrust, as the resistance begins to falter...
Author: Carmen Aguirre is a playwright and actor, now living in Vancouver.
Reader: Mia Soteriou.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015yt3s
March 17, 2019
I am thankful to the author for having written this book. I feel like I learned something about the world I wouldn't have otherwise ever known. I'm in awe of revolutionaries and people who dedicate their lives to what they fiercely believe in. This book made me laugh and cry and, overall, had a huge impact on me.
May 1, 2012
"Something Fierce" is the memoir that won the CBC Canada Reads Contest for 2012. It is a well-written and involving account of the growing up of a Chilean daughter, transferred to Vancouver after Allende's overthrow, who came to adulthood through years of working, first with her mother, then by herself, for the defeat of the illicit Pinochet regime that replaced democratic government in Chile.
This is a remarkable book on several levels. First, it recounts what it was like growing up in such unusual circumstances of deeply-defined political rebellion. Carmen Aguirre found herself moving rapidly from place to place. She was often lied to about what was to happen. She found herself left alone with her younger sister to cope with few sources of food, while her mother was trying to organize resistance in Chile. She could not contact her father in Vancouver. And not surprisingly, over time, this made her independent and rebellious -- rupturing her relations with her mother. The dynamics of this entire process are recounted honestly in this book, and make for an unusual and compelling story.
But there is also a second and even more interesting aspect of this book. Carmen came in her young life, despite her complicated relations with her mother, to commit herself to revolution in Chile (and Argentina.) And this book becomes a dramatic first-hand account of what living underground is all about -- a description of undercover work in Chile itself -- and a very human story of the difficult yet touching relationships that women and men try to build in such dangerous conditions. Somehow, Carmen survived this struggle, just as somehow Chile has survived Pinochet. But this book is a memorial to the very human courage that was required to stay so fierce for so long.
This is a remarkable book on several levels. First, it recounts what it was like growing up in such unusual circumstances of deeply-defined political rebellion. Carmen Aguirre found herself moving rapidly from place to place. She was often lied to about what was to happen. She found herself left alone with her younger sister to cope with few sources of food, while her mother was trying to organize resistance in Chile. She could not contact her father in Vancouver. And not surprisingly, over time, this made her independent and rebellious -- rupturing her relations with her mother. The dynamics of this entire process are recounted honestly in this book, and make for an unusual and compelling story.
But there is also a second and even more interesting aspect of this book. Carmen came in her young life, despite her complicated relations with her mother, to commit herself to revolution in Chile (and Argentina.) And this book becomes a dramatic first-hand account of what living underground is all about -- a description of undercover work in Chile itself -- and a very human story of the difficult yet touching relationships that women and men try to build in such dangerous conditions. Somehow, Carmen survived this struggle, just as somehow Chile has survived Pinochet. But this book is a memorial to the very human courage that was required to stay so fierce for so long.
March 26, 2013
I read very little non-fiction and am often disappointed when I do. Something Fierce, however, is well worth reading. Growing up as I have in middle class comfort in "socialist" Canada, I have been ignorant too long of the plight of so many of the people who live in South American countries. The struggle to achieve decent education and health care for all, regardless of class and colour, is ongoing in many of those countries, and in particular, the author's homeland of Chile.
Many years ago, I saw Costa Gravas's excellent film, Missing, about the injustices carried out during the Pinochet regime. I had no idea how long these injustices continued, however. In fact, Pinochet's rule still has repercussions today. I have Carmen Aguirre's book to thank for educating me about the man and his legacy. I also learned a great deal about Bolivia and Argentina during the same time, both countries with their own struggles against inequality.
Aguirre's youth as the child of rebels is, at times, completely "normal", and at others, shockingly deprived and difficult. The author is very open about her adolescent coming of age, under very trying circumstances. I appreciate her sharing these parts of her life with us. She is truly an inspiration!
Unlike many others, I do not fault Aguirre's mother for her choice of living the life of a rebel. Only those who make great personal sacrifices can affect change in the world.
Many years ago, I saw Costa Gravas's excellent film, Missing, about the injustices carried out during the Pinochet regime. I had no idea how long these injustices continued, however. In fact, Pinochet's rule still has repercussions today. I have Carmen Aguirre's book to thank for educating me about the man and his legacy. I also learned a great deal about Bolivia and Argentina during the same time, both countries with their own struggles against inequality.
Aguirre's youth as the child of rebels is, at times, completely "normal", and at others, shockingly deprived and difficult. The author is very open about her adolescent coming of age, under very trying circumstances. I appreciate her sharing these parts of her life with us. She is truly an inspiration!
Unlike many others, I do not fault Aguirre's mother for her choice of living the life of a rebel. Only those who make great personal sacrifices can affect change in the world.
March 25, 2017
"A story that must not die with the people who lived it."
In the wake of the 2016 US election I was looking for something to help me understand the path North America might be traveling over the next few or several years, through the experiences of people who had participated in political resistance at other times, in other places. I stumbled on this memoir through my library and it was the story I needed. The politics of the resistance working to effect change across the neo-liberal experiment of Central and South America in the '80s were at times painfully relevant to what's going on up here, with mounting wealth inequality following policies of deregulation and free capitalism. The personal story Aguirre told was vivid and intimate, at times difficult, but well leavened by humour and beauty and just plain truth in her representations of adolescent experience. This wasn't a book that was hard to put down; indeed it was sometimes difficult to pick up. But Aguirre's story will be with me for a long time.
In the wake of the 2016 US election I was looking for something to help me understand the path North America might be traveling over the next few or several years, through the experiences of people who had participated in political resistance at other times, in other places. I stumbled on this memoir through my library and it was the story I needed. The politics of the resistance working to effect change across the neo-liberal experiment of Central and South America in the '80s were at times painfully relevant to what's going on up here, with mounting wealth inequality following policies of deregulation and free capitalism. The personal story Aguirre told was vivid and intimate, at times difficult, but well leavened by humour and beauty and just plain truth in her representations of adolescent experience. This wasn't a book that was hard to put down; indeed it was sometimes difficult to pick up. But Aguirre's story will be with me for a long time.
April 19, 2012
As the 2012 winner of 'Canada Reads', I expected to like this one a bit more than I did. It was interesting to learn more about South American history and culture (I now have La Paz on my list of places to visit), but I found it hard to connect with 'Carmencita' for some reason. I kept waiting for something big to happen, but things and events seemed only to happen around her or to those close to her. Perhaps that's where the disconnect stems from: my expectations. I expected a book about revolutionary acts and consequences, but instead I got a story about small acts for the revolution and how a child/teenager coped with growing up in that life. I felt like there was no climax and the story just eventually petered out so it left me feeling a little disappointed.
October 1, 2023
Prior to reading this book I had only seen movies/read literature about the state of politics in Chile under Allende and the events leading up to the coupe and Pinochet’s dictatorship. I had to read in doses because of how paralyzed I felt by Carmen’s descriptions of life as a child of resistance members and then eventually feeling so strongly about her country that she decided to join the resistance herself. The feelings that she had to hide in order to avoid being snatched off the street and tortured brought me to tears.
I felt that she very strongly conveyed the South American struggle. The idea that socialism could present many fixes to national problems only to be trampled by dictators backed by super powers like the United States government. Carmen also shared how countries were torn apart by their own people, with racism strongly prevalent in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru between upper class eurolatinos and lower class indigenas.
Sometimes it was difficult to follow with time jumps, but overall the story was conveyed quite well. The ending leaves you heartbroken, as the pain and suffering of millions of Chileans lead to no change. Pinochet was never convicted of his crimes, he remained in a senate position, and military dictatorships still ran rampant in South America. Carmen beautifully explains how she feels to this day in the books epilogue and afterword, capping the narrative with the outcomes of decades of struggle in Chile and South America as a whole.
I felt that she very strongly conveyed the South American struggle. The idea that socialism could present many fixes to national problems only to be trampled by dictators backed by super powers like the United States government. Carmen also shared how countries were torn apart by their own people, with racism strongly prevalent in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru between upper class eurolatinos and lower class indigenas.
Sometimes it was difficult to follow with time jumps, but overall the story was conveyed quite well. The ending leaves you heartbroken, as the pain and suffering of millions of Chileans lead to no change. Pinochet was never convicted of his crimes, he remained in a senate position, and military dictatorships still ran rampant in South America. Carmen beautifully explains how she feels to this day in the books epilogue and afterword, capping the narrative with the outcomes of decades of struggle in Chile and South America as a whole.
February 3, 2019
3.5 stars
Carmen was raised in Canada, where her parents had arrived as refugees after being exiled from their native Chile because they were revolutionaries. When Carmen was 11, she, her mother, her stepfather, and her sister all moved to Bolivia (beside Chile) so they could help with the revolution from there. The book follows Carmen’s life as she grows up to help in the revolution herself, until it comes to an end in 1989 when she’s in her early 20s.
It was shorter and there wasn’t as much politics in it as I was expecting (which, for me, was a good thing!). There was still some; of course, more when Carmen was older. I was surprised that her parents brought Carmen and her sister with them, as it was very dangerous, though Carmen seemed quite happy to be there, so close to her grandparents, as she and her sister were able to travel across the border to visit (though her mother and stepfather were unable to). Certainly, when Carmen was younger, there is not as much mention of the danger, as Carmen herself was not thinking about it at the time.
Carmen was raised in Canada, where her parents had arrived as refugees after being exiled from their native Chile because they were revolutionaries. When Carmen was 11, she, her mother, her stepfather, and her sister all moved to Bolivia (beside Chile) so they could help with the revolution from there. The book follows Carmen’s life as she grows up to help in the revolution herself, until it comes to an end in 1989 when she’s in her early 20s.
It was shorter and there wasn’t as much politics in it as I was expecting (which, for me, was a good thing!). There was still some; of course, more when Carmen was older. I was surprised that her parents brought Carmen and her sister with them, as it was very dangerous, though Carmen seemed quite happy to be there, so close to her grandparents, as she and her sister were able to travel across the border to visit (though her mother and stepfather were unable to). Certainly, when Carmen was younger, there is not as much mention of the danger, as Carmen herself was not thinking about it at the time.
July 21, 2022
3.5 stars. This took me a while to read due to its density, but my goodness what an account. Initially I was a little surprised to see such a reserved level of sentimentality in a memoir (a form often used as a vehicle for such), but as I came to understand the sheer level of surveillance and secrecy Aguirre had lived with from such a young age, I realised it would not be fitting for it to be told any other way. Incredibly informative!
May 20, 2013
SOMETHING FIERCE: MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONARY DAUGHTER
by Carmen Aguirre
Review by Kathleen Schmitt
Darkly comic? That's the description of the book given by, I think, the publisher. Yes, there are some funny parts. Life without humor is sort of like life without breathing, and the more extreme the conditions, the more likely some humor will erupt. But humor is not the main point of Something Fierce. This is a book of passionate anger against violent crimes and the will to give everything to stop them. What makes the book so compelling is that our protagonist is so young and so vulnerable.
Carmen Aguirre, along with her mother, step-father, and sister, led a double life, first as a child of revolutionaries, and later as a revolutionary herself, from the time she was eleven years old. The story she reveals in this memoir is one that every thoughtful person should read, because we know so little of what the resistance and the sacrifice of Latin Americans has been in their quest over the last century to gain independence from a succession of imperial forces, the latest and longest being the United States of America with its commercial dominance.
Curiously, we see that the blatant inhumanity of Latin American leaders trained by the School of the Americas (USA) in techniques of ruthless oppression, destruction and torture has persuaded many citizens of those countries to turn against extreme capitalism, especially in its newest form, “The New Economic Order,” or neo-liberalism. Of great importance to the story is that the local dictators in these countries never could have succeeded in creating such nightmarish conditions for the people without the military and financial aid of the USA.
This memoir has the suspense and terror of a thriller and yet the wonderful human intensity of a young girl with normal longings and aspirations that she somehow has to eke out of the life she has taken on. Few young people have the ability or the desire to make the kind of total commitment that was necessary for exiled Chileans in their effort to reclaim their country from one of recent history's most evil men, Augusto Pinochet. But Ms. Aguirre did it. Not infallibly but at great cost and with great courage.
Read this book. Ponder what this tale means to us in our own lives wherever we are. We live in a time where dissent and human rights are being eroded in the interest of “national securities.” No society or nation or civilization is exempt from the possibility that an oppression similar to what happened in Latin American countries can be imposed through mass hysteria and the manipulation of fear. When that happens, the story will be more than a thriller. It will be a horror story that at the least rivals those of the Holocaust.
by Carmen Aguirre
Review by Kathleen Schmitt
Darkly comic? That's the description of the book given by, I think, the publisher. Yes, there are some funny parts. Life without humor is sort of like life without breathing, and the more extreme the conditions, the more likely some humor will erupt. But humor is not the main point of Something Fierce. This is a book of passionate anger against violent crimes and the will to give everything to stop them. What makes the book so compelling is that our protagonist is so young and so vulnerable.
Carmen Aguirre, along with her mother, step-father, and sister, led a double life, first as a child of revolutionaries, and later as a revolutionary herself, from the time she was eleven years old. The story she reveals in this memoir is one that every thoughtful person should read, because we know so little of what the resistance and the sacrifice of Latin Americans has been in their quest over the last century to gain independence from a succession of imperial forces, the latest and longest being the United States of America with its commercial dominance.
Curiously, we see that the blatant inhumanity of Latin American leaders trained by the School of the Americas (USA) in techniques of ruthless oppression, destruction and torture has persuaded many citizens of those countries to turn against extreme capitalism, especially in its newest form, “The New Economic Order,” or neo-liberalism. Of great importance to the story is that the local dictators in these countries never could have succeeded in creating such nightmarish conditions for the people without the military and financial aid of the USA.
This memoir has the suspense and terror of a thriller and yet the wonderful human intensity of a young girl with normal longings and aspirations that she somehow has to eke out of the life she has taken on. Few young people have the ability or the desire to make the kind of total commitment that was necessary for exiled Chileans in their effort to reclaim their country from one of recent history's most evil men, Augusto Pinochet. But Ms. Aguirre did it. Not infallibly but at great cost and with great courage.
Read this book. Ponder what this tale means to us in our own lives wherever we are. We live in a time where dissent and human rights are being eroded in the interest of “national securities.” No society or nation or civilization is exempt from the possibility that an oppression similar to what happened in Latin American countries can be imposed through mass hysteria and the manipulation of fear. When that happens, the story will be more than a thriller. It will be a horror story that at the least rivals those of the Holocaust.
January 16, 2012
Think about your childhood. Was it anything close to this?
At age eleven, Carmen Aguirre was in the food court of LAX with her mother who is dressed like one of Charlie’s Angels and biting into a Big Mac in order to look like a middle class tourist. Originally from Chile, Carmen and her family had taken refuge in Canada when Pinochet staged a coup and cracked down on dissent. The reality was that her mother had joined the underground Chilean resistance movement and was bringing Carmen and her sister along for The Return Plan. Aguirre spent the next ten years moving between revolutionary Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Canada, constantly on the move, with her parents disappearing for weeks at a time.
Carmen at first embraced the adventure, but as she became a rebellious teen, she started to act out and became the Kissing Queen of her Bolivian neighbourhood. Several moves later, in Argentina, she stopped coming home because she could not face the uncertainty and the terror.
At one point, I wondered what Aguirre’s mother actually did in the resistance. Carmen as a child did not know and, since we are witnessing the story from a child’s point of view, the facts are not revealed to us. What is more important is how Carmen spent her childhood. Eventually, we do find out what is expected of a resistance fighter when Carmen, herself, joins the group. Truly, it is surprising that she joins the cause since she suffers from The Terror: the pervasive fear that keeps her consistently twenty pounds underweight and paranoid, causes the separation of body and soul, and creates the necessity to develop deadly cool nerves.
I loved this book. I’m debating right now which book is my favourite for Canada Reads: The Tiger or Something Fierce. Carmen Aguirre’s book is an education on a lifestyle that you would only see in a movie. She has exposed what life was like in the underground – and that it was real. Something Fierce is a fascinating look at living your politics, to truly fight for what you believe in. The book’s epigraph, “Courage” is a perfect introduction to the book.
The true test is that Something Fierce has activated my interest in South America. Perhaps a trip to this continent is in my future.
It is also a great book for Canada Reads because, like Marina Nemat’s Prisoner of Tehran, we learn more about the complex lives of our citizens.
Now, as I reflect on Something Fierce and think about my ESL classes, I wonder: Who is in my classroom?
At age eleven, Carmen Aguirre was in the food court of LAX with her mother who is dressed like one of Charlie’s Angels and biting into a Big Mac in order to look like a middle class tourist. Originally from Chile, Carmen and her family had taken refuge in Canada when Pinochet staged a coup and cracked down on dissent. The reality was that her mother had joined the underground Chilean resistance movement and was bringing Carmen and her sister along for The Return Plan. Aguirre spent the next ten years moving between revolutionary Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Canada, constantly on the move, with her parents disappearing for weeks at a time.
Carmen at first embraced the adventure, but as she became a rebellious teen, she started to act out and became the Kissing Queen of her Bolivian neighbourhood. Several moves later, in Argentina, she stopped coming home because she could not face the uncertainty and the terror.
At one point, I wondered what Aguirre’s mother actually did in the resistance. Carmen as a child did not know and, since we are witnessing the story from a child’s point of view, the facts are not revealed to us. What is more important is how Carmen spent her childhood. Eventually, we do find out what is expected of a resistance fighter when Carmen, herself, joins the group. Truly, it is surprising that she joins the cause since she suffers from The Terror: the pervasive fear that keeps her consistently twenty pounds underweight and paranoid, causes the separation of body and soul, and creates the necessity to develop deadly cool nerves.
I loved this book. I’m debating right now which book is my favourite for Canada Reads: The Tiger or Something Fierce. Carmen Aguirre’s book is an education on a lifestyle that you would only see in a movie. She has exposed what life was like in the underground – and that it was real. Something Fierce is a fascinating look at living your politics, to truly fight for what you believe in. The book’s epigraph, “Courage” is a perfect introduction to the book.
The true test is that Something Fierce has activated my interest in South America. Perhaps a trip to this continent is in my future.
It is also a great book for Canada Reads because, like Marina Nemat’s Prisoner of Tehran, we learn more about the complex lives of our citizens.
Now, as I reflect on Something Fierce and think about my ESL classes, I wonder: Who is in my classroom?
January 10, 2015
when starting a book like this I expect one of two things .... either to learn a lot about how the politics of the time coloured life ...or .... to be deeply moved by one individual's personal account. in this case, my expectations were too high. it has a really good rating here on Goodreads AND was a winner of the annual Canada Reads competition a few years ago. so having high expectations of Something Fierce did not seem all that unreasonable to me.
a few scenes engaged me; drew me in and gave me a glimpse of what her life was like. ie the day at the grocery store when she first spots the man with the blue eyes who begins following her and her husband .... French surveillance?? that might not be right. It might have been Japanese surveillance. they had a name anyway for the blatant, overt, in-your-face method ... but for the most part i read this book with a dispassionate interest. it did not engage me on the level i would have liked. I finished it but I can't say there was any real satisfaction in doing so, and I really don't feel I learnt anything new. the vague understanding I had of Pinochet's reign, of the U.S. involvement in the economic development of South American countries,and The Shining Path revolution remains as vague as when I started it.
i've been wondering how someone like Carmen Aguirre who literally spend her whole life keeping secrets and -in keeping with the cell formation of anti-government movements- only ever knew her 'bit' in a mission; never the whole story .... how does someone like that ever really open up and 'tell all' even if she wanted to? it would go against everything she had ever been taught.
if anyone is interested there is a very fine movie called NO which stars the wonderful actor Gael Garcia Bernal which tells the story of the campaign to win the No vote that would precipitate a free election in Chile.
a few scenes engaged me; drew me in and gave me a glimpse of what her life was like. ie the day at the grocery store when she first spots the man with the blue eyes who begins following her and her husband .... French surveillance?? that might not be right. It might have been Japanese surveillance. they had a name anyway for the blatant, overt, in-your-face method ... but for the most part i read this book with a dispassionate interest. it did not engage me on the level i would have liked. I finished it but I can't say there was any real satisfaction in doing so, and I really don't feel I learnt anything new. the vague understanding I had of Pinochet's reign, of the U.S. involvement in the economic development of South American countries,and The Shining Path revolution remains as vague as when I started it.
i've been wondering how someone like Carmen Aguirre who literally spend her whole life keeping secrets and -in keeping with the cell formation of anti-government movements- only ever knew her 'bit' in a mission; never the whole story .... how does someone like that ever really open up and 'tell all' even if she wanted to? it would go against everything she had ever been taught.
if anyone is interested there is a very fine movie called NO which stars the wonderful actor Gael Garcia Bernal which tells the story of the campaign to win the No vote that would precipitate a free election in Chile.
August 28, 2018
Devrimci bir evladın anıları, gerçek bir yaşam öyküsü. Türkçeye çevrilip Dağdan Kopan Ateş ve Dizginsiz Bir Sabırla anı kitaplarının yanına eklenmeli.
Şili'deki Pinochet darbesinden sonra Carmen'in ailesi onu ve kardeşini alıp Kanada'ya iltica etmiş. Ancak Carmen'in devrimci duyguları ağır basan annesi birkaç yıl sonra "bu emperyalistlerin ülkesinde daha fazla kalmak istemiyorum" diyerek iki kızını yanına alıp Latin Amerika'ya geçiyor ve Şili'deki devrimcilerle bağlantı kuruyor. Böylece yazar da kendisini çekirdekten yetişme bir devrimci olarak Şili'deki mücadelenin içinde buluyor.
Aynı dönemde Latin Amerika'nın diktatörlükleri ABD'nin yönetiminde Operation Condor adı verilmiş bir devrimci avını yönetiyorlar. Güneyde tüm ülkelerde faşist diktatörlüklerin ajanları, sivil polisleri devrimci mücadele içinde olduklarından şüphelendikleri insanları önce teknik takibe alıyor, ardından da gün ortasında kaçırıp kaybediyorlar. Carmen ve ailesi bu yüzden bir yandan Latin Amerika'ya gezmeye gelmiş züppe burjuva rolünü oynuyor, diğer yandan da illegal faaliyet yürütüyorlar. Carmen bu devrimci hücrenin içinde, haberleşme, teorik eğitim, uluslararası ilişkiler, Şili'ye illegal yollardan insan ve silah sokma uğraşı içinde büyüyüp 16'sına bastığında mücadeleye katılıyor.
Kitapta 80'ler Güney Amerika'sının devrimci coşkusunu, karamsarlığını, bugünkü insanlara hiç benzemeyen feda ruhunu, faşist diktatörlüklerin devrimcilerin üzerine saldığı korkuyu ürpererek, duygulanarak, gülerek okuyorsunuz.
"Bak sana söyleyeyim: Korku zehrinden daha tehlikeli bir şey yok. Korkunun insanları ihbarcıya, canavara dönüştürdüğünü, onlara kendi dostlarını ve komşularını ele verdirdiğini gördüm. Korku hastalığına tutulmuş bir ülkeyle uğraşıyorsun" diyor Carmen'in babannesi bir gün ona. Korku her yerde faşist diktatörlüklerin büyük silahı.
Kitap umarım Türkçeye çevrilir.
Şili'deki Pinochet darbesinden sonra Carmen'in ailesi onu ve kardeşini alıp Kanada'ya iltica etmiş. Ancak Carmen'in devrimci duyguları ağır basan annesi birkaç yıl sonra "bu emperyalistlerin ülkesinde daha fazla kalmak istemiyorum" diyerek iki kızını yanına alıp Latin Amerika'ya geçiyor ve Şili'deki devrimcilerle bağlantı kuruyor. Böylece yazar da kendisini çekirdekten yetişme bir devrimci olarak Şili'deki mücadelenin içinde buluyor.
Aynı dönemde Latin Amerika'nın diktatörlükleri ABD'nin yönetiminde Operation Condor adı verilmiş bir devrimci avını yönetiyorlar. Güneyde tüm ülkelerde faşist diktatörlüklerin ajanları, sivil polisleri devrimci mücadele içinde olduklarından şüphelendikleri insanları önce teknik takibe alıyor, ardından da gün ortasında kaçırıp kaybediyorlar. Carmen ve ailesi bu yüzden bir yandan Latin Amerika'ya gezmeye gelmiş züppe burjuva rolünü oynuyor, diğer yandan da illegal faaliyet yürütüyorlar. Carmen bu devrimci hücrenin içinde, haberleşme, teorik eğitim, uluslararası ilişkiler, Şili'ye illegal yollardan insan ve silah sokma uğraşı içinde büyüyüp 16'sına bastığında mücadeleye katılıyor.
Kitapta 80'ler Güney Amerika'sının devrimci coşkusunu, karamsarlığını, bugünkü insanlara hiç benzemeyen feda ruhunu, faşist diktatörlüklerin devrimcilerin üzerine saldığı korkuyu ürpererek, duygulanarak, gülerek okuyorsunuz.
"Bak sana söyleyeyim: Korku zehrinden daha tehlikeli bir şey yok. Korkunun insanları ihbarcıya, canavara dönüştürdüğünü, onlara kendi dostlarını ve komşularını ele verdirdiğini gördüm. Korku hastalığına tutulmuş bir ülkeyle uğraşıyorsun" diyor Carmen'in babannesi bir gün ona. Korku her yerde faşist diktatörlüklerin büyük silahı.
Kitap umarım Türkçeye çevrilir.
March 29, 2012
When Carmen Aguirre was six years old, her family became political refugees and fled to Vancouver, Canada. The family was fleeing from Chile where General Augusto Pinochet had just ousted the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, in a violent coup. It was September 11, 1973 and thousands were being rounded up, tortured and killed. Five years later, the Chilean resistance called for all exiled activists to return and continue their activism. Carmen's mother wanted to keep her two daughters, Carmen and Ale, with her, so they all travelled to La Paz, Bolivia where her mother and stepfather set up a safehouse for resistance members. That's when living a 'double life' began as the family pretended they were other than they really were so they could carry out their work without too much fear of being discovered. Carmen talks extensively about how she is torn between wanting to be a normal teenager and wanting to be part of this cause that her parents are part of. Carmen's descriptions of what was going on at the time in Latin America seem unreal to someone who has lived in the safety of Canada all their life. She does not fail to rebuke the United States for their part in many of the troubled governments of Latin America. At eighteen, she decided to commit her own life to the cause and hence the 'revolutionary daughter'. Hers is a story well worth reading.
March 6, 2014
blurbs - Born a week after the death of Che Guevara, Carmen Aguirre was always destined to become a revolutionary. After Pinochet's violent coup in Chile in 1973, her family is forced to flee to Canada. And when, a few years later, the Chilean resistance calls for exiled activists to return to fight the cause, Carmen's mother heeds the call. Determined to make mini revolutionaries of her two daughters, she takes them with her - and so Carmen's double life begins. Posing as a westernised teenager by day, at night she is drilled in surveillance techniques, cryptography and subterfuge, not to mention political theory and revolutionary history. It is a time of high excitement, but also one of fear and paranoia, of who to trust, and who to fear.
From Pinochet's repressive rule in Chile, to Shining Path Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia to post-Malvinas Argentina, this is a darkly comic coming-of-age memoir is a rare first-hand account of a life as teenage revolutionary. It is also the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her commitment to the cause with her very unrevolutionary new interests in boys, music and fashion.
Author: Carmen Aguirre is a playwright and actor, now living in Vancouver. Reader: Mia Soteriou. Abridger: Richard Hamilton Producer: Justine Willett.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2012
Perhaps a two-star rating is a little harsh for this book but it's impossible to give half stars and so I went with the 'it was okay' rating rather than I liked it. I think my expectations were too high for this book knowing that it was the 2012 Canada Reads (True Stories) winner. I enjoyed reading Carmen's account of her day to day life and the implications of being a resistance fighter's daughter but found I didn't have an attachment to 'the cause' or to Chile. The names of the various dictators were all very familiar but I think my general unfamiliarity with the South American situation/context detracted from my reading experience. I could also not escape my 'mother' perspective while reading and can't comprehend how Carmen's mother could put her political beliefs ahead of the well-being and safety and of her children.
February 5, 2012
Think The Glass Castle, but political. Fierce, indeed–Aguirre delivers a no-holds-barred portrait of what it is to give everything to what you believe in. I was torn though between thinking her courageous for choosing the revolutionary life despite everything she went through as a child, and wondering if she'd been brainwashed. I did identify with her mother's struggle–desiring to have a family while still remaining political and engaged. And I learned so much more about South American late-20th century politics than I might have otherwise. This is a solid three stars for me. Clearly, Aguirre's extreme-left leaning politics are perhaps problematic, but as a book, it's an evocative page-turner that delivers again and again.
November 13, 2016
My daughter gave me this book last year. I was reluctant to read it - not sure that I would like it, but like other here have said, I found I couldn't put it down. At first I was dumbfounded that her mother would take her young daughters with her to live underground. But, they had no idea how long they would be gone. Is it any less traumatizing to have your parents abandon you to join the resistance? At the end, I was stunned by the valor of all the people involved in trying to reclaim their homeland. I had to wonder how deep is my love, allegiance, to my country that I would give up every thing, invite torture and death, for it?
Read
August 17, 2023This is a book I should have read a long time ago. Most of the way through the book I would have given it 4 stars but the end the explanation of why this book was written and the cost pushed it up to five. Aguierre describes this book as 'political commitment clashing with person desire.' With an almost constant state of terror this book manages to throw in comedy. It shows the true cost of pursuing ones beliefs but in this case the cost to their children. It is very interesting as Aguierre is only 11 at the beginning of the book, her early life transformed by her parents beliefs, raising ethical questions about the impacts of one's beliefs on their children.
January 8, 2012
I found this book very interesting. It synthesized and expanded my knowledge of South American politics, while also telling a memorable coming-of-age story. I found the writing style a little naive in places, but the cumulative effect of Aguirre's over-the-top physical descriptions ended up charming me in the end--lending authenticity to the voice of a teenage girl searching to describe her experience.
February 13, 2012
I think this will be top 2 in one of the books for CBC Canada Reads - I loved it!
Carmen writes very well and describes her involvement in the chilean resistance movement with great detail!
I think her mother is a huge whackjob though for getting her children involved in that life instead of raising them in Canada where they could have had some wonderful opportunities!
Carmen writes very well and describes her involvement in the chilean resistance movement with great detail!
I think her mother is a huge whackjob though for getting her children involved in that life instead of raising them in Canada where they could have had some wonderful opportunities!
August 13, 2012
I'm not actually reading this - I'm listening to the podcasts of an abridged version read by the author that is airing on CBC.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2...
I don't know if I'll end up seeking out the full length book someday or not but I'm enjoying listening to the episodes.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2...
I don't know if I'll end up seeking out the full length book someday or not but I'm enjoying listening to the episodes.
February 28, 2017
I actually did not finish this book. It seemed to go on and on about being dragged about South America by her revolutionary mother and step father and then being abandoned while the parents went off somewhere. So the narrative was a coming of age story. Other people in my book club said the book got better in the last pages when Carmen told about her own revolutionary activity in Chile.
December 13, 2011
Gripping. Not normally a fan of non-fiction, I selected this one because it's being featured on CBC's Canada Reads 2011. I could not put it down. I need to read more about the people and the history of South and Central America.
August 23, 2012
This was one of the most absorbing books I have read this year. Carmen Aguirre is a very good storyteller. This book has caused me to now have an interest in all things Chilean. I have also found a new respect for South America. I recommend this book to all my friends.
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