What do you think?
Rate this book
His Own Man
From one of Brazil’s eminent authors comes a Machiavellian tale, set during South America’s dirty wars, where the machinations of a consummate diplomat and deceiver ring dangerously true.
A charismatic young diplomat in Brazil’s Foreign Ministry, Marcílio Andrade Xavier (Max to his friends and colleagues), renounces his past ideals and becomes an informer for the military regime after their coup in 1964. Max navigates a shadowy world of betrayal, torture, and assassination without blinking an eye and advances swiftly up the diplomatic ladder. Ironically, once democracy is restored after more than two decades, the enigmatic Max will still manage to thrive.
Set against the backdrop of ruthless political maneuvering and dubious business deals with dire consequences, His Own Man offers a chilling anatomy of ambition and power.
A charismatic young diplomat in Brazil’s Foreign Ministry, Marcílio Andrade Xavier (Max to his friends and colleagues), renounces his past ideals and becomes an informer for the military regime after their coup in 1964. Max navigates a shadowy world of betrayal, torture, and assassination without blinking an eye and advances swiftly up the diplomatic ladder. Ironically, once democracy is restored after more than two decades, the enigmatic Max will still manage to thrive.
Set against the backdrop of ruthless political maneuvering and dubious business deals with dire consequences, His Own Man offers a chilling anatomy of ambition and power.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
14 people are currently reading
323 people want to read
About the author
Edgard Telles Ribeiro
20 books12 followersEscritor e diplomata, Edgard Telles Ribeiro foi tambem jornalista, cineasta e professor de cinema. Seu romance de estreia, O criado-mudo, foi publicado nos Estados Unidos, Alemanha, Holanda e Espanha. Um de seus contos (do livro No coracao da floresta) foi incluido em antologia sobre literatura latino-americana contemporanea lancada nos EUA pela Plume/Penguin Books. O romance Olho de rei (Record, 2005) recebeu o Premio da Academia Brasileira de Letras para Melhor Obra de Ficcao 2006 (categoria romance, teatro e contos). Seu livro de contos, Historias mirabolantes de amores clandestinos (Record, 2004), ficou em segundo lugar no Premio Jabuti.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 4, 2016
Panamerican Politics
Edgard Telles Ribeiro's novel about South American politics from the Sixties to the present won the Brazilian Pen Prize for the best novel of 2011. I can see why. It is a well-written and sober account of the rise of a Brazilian diplomat in the last third of the Twentieth Century, and his involvement in some of the most reprehensible regional regimes. But I also wonder whether it will achieve equivalent success outside Brazil. There is a detachment to the narrative style that removes it totally from the genre of political thriller. It requires, I think, that its readers recognize references to events in their national past that carry their own charge of fascination or terror. It is a commentary on history, rather than history itself. One small example: there is frequent mention of "Itamaraty," apparently a term to conjure with. I had to Google it to discover that it refers to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, but I can only guess as to its associations to Brazilian ears: are we talking Langley or Foggy Bottom?
The diplomat is Marcílio Andrade Xavier, generally known as Max. Already an up-and-coming man in the early Sixties, he manages to shift allegiances with remarkable dexterity at the military coup of 1964, and his continued ascent is secured. Although there are a few setbacks to his rising career, he always manages to come out of them on top, including a further switch of sides in the return to democracy of the early Eighties. Stylish, cultured, and adept, he is the very model of the successful diplomat, but becomes increasingly a figure of fear to those who know, or guess, his true connections. I must admit to knowing next to nothing about Brazilian history, and still less that its own experience with right-wing dictatorship reinforced by torture became a commodity for export to other countries in South America: Uruguay, Chile, Argentina. I have read much about the Dirty Wars in those individual countries, and rather less about the fact that this was a coordinated clandestine effort of Panamerican scope—codenamed Operation Condor—and supported by the CIA. And I did not know anything about Brazil's part in this at all. In this respect, the novel was eye-opening. But it is not a history, and most of these events are referred to offstage in passing: tortures taking place in other basements, coups simmering in other countries.
Indeed, there is an oblique quality to the entire book that at first gave it an air of distinction, but ultimately alienated me. Max's story is told by a younger colleague, a close friend who gradually became disaffected. His narrative begins with a brief overview spanning four decades, then loops back to zero in on particular facts learned later from other sources. So there is a curious third-hand air to the whole, as though Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby were to withdraw himself almost entirely from the story (until the very end), and get most of his information from, say, the Buchanans. At first Telles Ribeiro's novel reminded me of Roberto Bolaño, or even more of Juan Gabriel Vásquez. But there is less action than either of those authors, and frankly less tension—at least that I could perceive from my viewpoint as a foreign reader.
Edgard Telles Ribeiro's novel about South American politics from the Sixties to the present won the Brazilian Pen Prize for the best novel of 2011. I can see why. It is a well-written and sober account of the rise of a Brazilian diplomat in the last third of the Twentieth Century, and his involvement in some of the most reprehensible regional regimes. But I also wonder whether it will achieve equivalent success outside Brazil. There is a detachment to the narrative style that removes it totally from the genre of political thriller. It requires, I think, that its readers recognize references to events in their national past that carry their own charge of fascination or terror. It is a commentary on history, rather than history itself. One small example: there is frequent mention of "Itamaraty," apparently a term to conjure with. I had to Google it to discover that it refers to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, but I can only guess as to its associations to Brazilian ears: are we talking Langley or Foggy Bottom?
The diplomat is Marcílio Andrade Xavier, generally known as Max. Already an up-and-coming man in the early Sixties, he manages to shift allegiances with remarkable dexterity at the military coup of 1964, and his continued ascent is secured. Although there are a few setbacks to his rising career, he always manages to come out of them on top, including a further switch of sides in the return to democracy of the early Eighties. Stylish, cultured, and adept, he is the very model of the successful diplomat, but becomes increasingly a figure of fear to those who know, or guess, his true connections. I must admit to knowing next to nothing about Brazilian history, and still less that its own experience with right-wing dictatorship reinforced by torture became a commodity for export to other countries in South America: Uruguay, Chile, Argentina. I have read much about the Dirty Wars in those individual countries, and rather less about the fact that this was a coordinated clandestine effort of Panamerican scope—codenamed Operation Condor—and supported by the CIA. And I did not know anything about Brazil's part in this at all. In this respect, the novel was eye-opening. But it is not a history, and most of these events are referred to offstage in passing: tortures taking place in other basements, coups simmering in other countries.
Indeed, there is an oblique quality to the entire book that at first gave it an air of distinction, but ultimately alienated me. Max's story is told by a younger colleague, a close friend who gradually became disaffected. His narrative begins with a brief overview spanning four decades, then loops back to zero in on particular facts learned later from other sources. So there is a curious third-hand air to the whole, as though Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby were to withdraw himself almost entirely from the story (until the very end), and get most of his information from, say, the Buchanans. At first Telles Ribeiro's novel reminded me of Roberto Bolaño, or even more of Juan Gabriel Vásquez. But there is less action than either of those authors, and frankly less tension—at least that I could perceive from my viewpoint as a foreign reader.
February 23, 2016
“There are deaths that snuff out a single life. And others that, like military coups, finish off an entire generation.” This is one theme that threads this brilliant, intriguing story of a Brazilian diplomat’s career through a dark period in Brazil’s – and South America’s – history. After Brazil’s 1964 military coup, Max – whose story this is – makes a choice as a young man just starting in the foreign ministry, a choice of sides, and begins a career that takes him through the embassies in Uruguay and then Chile as those countries, too, fall into military rule, and not by coincidence. Max never gets directly involved in the torture, disappearances and mass deaths that follow, gliding elegantly above all that, but is part of it.
We follow the story in third person, through the eyes of a younger diplomat who starts out as his friend, at least as far as Max has friends, but then reconstructs Max’s story through the coming years. The narrative sometimes jumps back and forth as the narrator picks up stories and documents of Max’s progress, but these jumps are never confusing. The reader gets a deeper sense of one career, in a period of history in which country after country falls into brutality, in which Brazil, and Max, may be actors of a greater US-directed part of a wider Cold War. The military overthrow of democratic (or potentially so) regimes in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina were real enough, as were the bloody events that followed. The book tells the story somewhat different than Le Carre or Follett or Alan Furst might tell it, but no less well-told as intrigue.
The prose, English translation from the Portuguese, is also intriguing, always interesting, even elegant, a pleasure to read. The settings, the events, seem true-to-life; this story does have a resemblance to actual persons, events and locales, the publisher’s demurrer notwithstanding. The conduct of business in the embassies, the Brazilian foreign ministry, and the various military and intelligence services seems real. The secondary characters scattered along Max’s career – his wife, his colleagues, the narrator – are people that will interest the reader, that the reader will care about.
Highest recommendation.
We follow the story in third person, through the eyes of a younger diplomat who starts out as his friend, at least as far as Max has friends, but then reconstructs Max’s story through the coming years. The narrative sometimes jumps back and forth as the narrator picks up stories and documents of Max’s progress, but these jumps are never confusing. The reader gets a deeper sense of one career, in a period of history in which country after country falls into brutality, in which Brazil, and Max, may be actors of a greater US-directed part of a wider Cold War. The military overthrow of democratic (or potentially so) regimes in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina were real enough, as were the bloody events that followed. The book tells the story somewhat different than Le Carre or Follett or Alan Furst might tell it, but no less well-told as intrigue.
The prose, English translation from the Portuguese, is also intriguing, always interesting, even elegant, a pleasure to read. The settings, the events, seem true-to-life; this story does have a resemblance to actual persons, events and locales, the publisher’s demurrer notwithstanding. The conduct of business in the embassies, the Brazilian foreign ministry, and the various military and intelligence services seems real. The secondary characters scattered along Max’s career – his wife, his colleagues, the narrator – are people that will interest the reader, that the reader will care about.
Highest recommendation.
September 11, 2018
“Most people don’t know what their driving motive is, and most people have more than one,” the writer Mary Gaitskill has observed. “But some people have one that is so unconflicted and so overwhelming that they fairly drip with it.” To say that Marcilio Andrade Xavier, aka Max, in Edgard Telles Ribiero’s His Own Man drips with ambition is like saying there’s a little bit of rain in that jungle they call the Amazon. It’s Max’s thirty-year climb across the rot of Brazilian politics, as pieced together by a friend and fellow diplomat, that provides the backdrop for Ribiero’s novelistic treatment of what is essentially a diplomatic character study.
Within most Western bureaucracies of the contemporary sort, uncloaked ambition is quite naturally met with social consternation. This is due to both jealousy and a shared sense of the value of meritocratic fair play. Diplomatic bureaucracies, however, are unique in that they make cloaking easier and reduce the associated professional costs of bald ambition. This is because at any given time most diplomatic staff do their job at a significant physical and mental remove from the mothership, the foreign ministry itself, and, equally important, because a not-insignificant portion of diplomats transfer to new positions in new places every year. For the professionally ambitious, then, there are few better places to start than in the lower ranks of the diplomatic corps.
And that’s indeed where we first meet Max, scion of a once-prominent but fading Brazilian family, now a junior officer at Itamarty, headquarters of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry in Rio de Janiero. Max is keenly aware that his family name, in an institution filled with the offspring of the Brazilian elite, counts for little. So as to compensate, he sets about building a network of colleagues and socialite friends to facilitate his rise through the ranks. This is where our unnamed narrator, slightly junior in the Ministry’s hierarchy, but himself the son of a Brazilian diplomat, enters the picture. Though their careers never intersect professionally, it’s their early friendship that allows Max’s story to be told in piecemeal fashion, through Max himself, through the gossip and hearsay of their shared professional milieu, through Max’s wife, and finally through a retired American intelligence officer. The quilt that emerges is both handsome and uniformly disturbing.
Despite the misgivings it’s easy to feel for a long-memoried bureaucratic operator willing to sacrifice friends and family alike in his pursuit of bureaucratic power, there’s something oddly compelling about Max. A small share of our fascination owes to Ribiero’s storytelling abilities; he’s identified a professional ‘type’ and has subjected him to the narrative equivalent of enhanced interrogation. A bigger share, though, has to do with Ribiero’s creation himself, and how good Max is at what he does. It’s impossible not to appreciate the way in which he seizes opportunities at hand (literally); his seemingly innocent kiss of a bishop’s ring after escorting him out of a meeting with a higher-level official catalyzes what will soon be his upward trajectory within the ministry. We also appreciate his cultivated charm and learned erudition, both of which, he correctly recognizes, are among the most valuable of diplomatic currencies.
But in a contemporary political world that we are quick to describe as “hyper-polarized,” Max offers something else. He offers escape. Eric, the erstwhile CIA agent and narrative interlocutor that allows Ribiero to connect the dots in the book’s final chapters, quips that guys like Max are of the rarest vintage, while the rest of us with our strong assurities of what’s right and wrong in any given context are a dime a dozen. For this reader Max is a purely distilled spirit, colorless, odorless, uninterested in abstract ideology, divorced from the ordure of politics, cynically void of policy pretense. He does everything for a reason, understands his limits, and for the most part keep fate at bay. Max, though, exists at a remove from the government he serves; his bureaucracy is an end in itself. He gives face to both our fantasy of moving beyond politics and our horror at the Eichmannian void that lies beyond.
If Max himself is worthy of a 300-page character study, the same cannot necessarily be said of the context into which Ribiero has inserted him. South America’s dirty wars, the toppling of four democratic regimes in the span of less than a decade, the torture and disappearance of tens of thousands of individuals, and the always ever-present hand of the American government, ought to make for the kind of stained-glass backlight that would make the bishop of Augsburg jealous. Instead, in Ribiero’s telling, those “demonic wind[s] of brutality and inhumanity that scour the bodies and souls of innocent and guilty alike,” as Louis de Bernieres has called them, fall still. Part of the reason for this may have to do with the fact that he was writing his book, in its original Portuguese, for the children, the nephews, the nieces, and the grandchildren of those families whose lives were distorted by the political machinations of military men and their right-wing enablers. For most readers outside South America, there will naturally be less immediacy to the story. A second reason, though, is structural. Ribiero’s narrator, a liberal highly critical of the governments he has spent the better part of his career working for, is too far removed from the places and regimes that Max so impressively uses to his advantage. The result is a critique that is too subtle to be as damning as it should be.
Part of the reason for Ribiero’s subtlety surely has to do with the fact that he himself was a career diplomat in the Brazilian Foreign Service. Diplomacy, in the light of day, is polished charm and confident refinement. But the diplomat's more natural home is in the dim light of the ballroom where political intrigue casts shadows in a hundred subtle shades of gray. Stendhal, the greatest novelist who was also a diplomat, traded in such intrigues, his eye finely attuned to the possibilities inherent in the seemingly inconsequential gesture or the feigned pulse of rhetoric. Ribiero, in that sense, is an acolyte to the great 19th century French novelist. One of his great strengths, as evident in His Own Man, is his ability to parse a conversation, both for its verbal and non-verbal cues:
The pleasure of reading this exchange, with its hyper-attention to both the verbal and the non-verbal, is partly a result of how true to diplomatic form it feels. But it’s also the language itself, the way in which Ribiero gingerly inserts the sports metaphor, and then inflects its failure back upon itself through the use of the word “deflated” at the end of the sentence. (Here credit should also be given to the craft of his translator, Kim Hastings. Not once was I made aware that I was reading the book in translation, a rare occurrence in a novel so dependent on the nuance of language.) Yet as pleasurable as such conversational theatrics can be, I’d be unmindful to not also note that it dramatically impedes the pace of the novel. Just two extended conversations between the narrator and Eric fill most of the last quarter of the book’s pages.
The worlds of diplomacy and intelligence intersect often in popular fiction, but the emphasis generally falls to the latter. In His Own Man that’s not the case. In fact, if there’s any detail where Ribiero forces the reader to stretch his imagination, it’s when Eric freely admits to a relatively unknown official of a foreign government that he has— “for years as insurance” —been secreting away thousands of files that have yet to have been declassified by the U.S. government. It bears an incredible amount of incredulity to think that Eric is not self-aware enough to understand that those hundreds of boxes of files in his garage place him at great legal risk, and even more to believe that he would gift one of them to his newfound Brazilian acquaintance. Thus the plot device that allows for the loop of Max’s life to be tied together is an imperfect one, one that to this reader, in keeping with the rest of the book’s true-to-life accounting, could have very easily been woven in more convincing fashion.
If there’s a single image from the book that exemplifies both the diplomatic noir on offer and the character of Max himself, it’s this one, set in the immediate wake of the 1964 coup:
Stendhal, Ribiero is not, but neither has he written the kind of easy spy novel a la Le Carre. Instead, he’s worthily captured a small slice of diplomatic life, in all its subtle shades of gray, and illuminated it via a larger-than-life character whose bureaucratic ambition leaves us reaching for a towel. © Jeffrey L. Otto, September 11, 2018
Within most Western bureaucracies of the contemporary sort, uncloaked ambition is quite naturally met with social consternation. This is due to both jealousy and a shared sense of the value of meritocratic fair play. Diplomatic bureaucracies, however, are unique in that they make cloaking easier and reduce the associated professional costs of bald ambition. This is because at any given time most diplomatic staff do their job at a significant physical and mental remove from the mothership, the foreign ministry itself, and, equally important, because a not-insignificant portion of diplomats transfer to new positions in new places every year. For the professionally ambitious, then, there are few better places to start than in the lower ranks of the diplomatic corps.
And that’s indeed where we first meet Max, scion of a once-prominent but fading Brazilian family, now a junior officer at Itamarty, headquarters of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry in Rio de Janiero. Max is keenly aware that his family name, in an institution filled with the offspring of the Brazilian elite, counts for little. So as to compensate, he sets about building a network of colleagues and socialite friends to facilitate his rise through the ranks. This is where our unnamed narrator, slightly junior in the Ministry’s hierarchy, but himself the son of a Brazilian diplomat, enters the picture. Though their careers never intersect professionally, it’s their early friendship that allows Max’s story to be told in piecemeal fashion, through Max himself, through the gossip and hearsay of their shared professional milieu, through Max’s wife, and finally through a retired American intelligence officer. The quilt that emerges is both handsome and uniformly disturbing.
Despite the misgivings it’s easy to feel for a long-memoried bureaucratic operator willing to sacrifice friends and family alike in his pursuit of bureaucratic power, there’s something oddly compelling about Max. A small share of our fascination owes to Ribiero’s storytelling abilities; he’s identified a professional ‘type’ and has subjected him to the narrative equivalent of enhanced interrogation. A bigger share, though, has to do with Ribiero’s creation himself, and how good Max is at what he does. It’s impossible not to appreciate the way in which he seizes opportunities at hand (literally); his seemingly innocent kiss of a bishop’s ring after escorting him out of a meeting with a higher-level official catalyzes what will soon be his upward trajectory within the ministry. We also appreciate his cultivated charm and learned erudition, both of which, he correctly recognizes, are among the most valuable of diplomatic currencies.
But in a contemporary political world that we are quick to describe as “hyper-polarized,” Max offers something else. He offers escape. Eric, the erstwhile CIA agent and narrative interlocutor that allows Ribiero to connect the dots in the book’s final chapters, quips that guys like Max are of the rarest vintage, while the rest of us with our strong assurities of what’s right and wrong in any given context are a dime a dozen. For this reader Max is a purely distilled spirit, colorless, odorless, uninterested in abstract ideology, divorced from the ordure of politics, cynically void of policy pretense. He does everything for a reason, understands his limits, and for the most part keep fate at bay. Max, though, exists at a remove from the government he serves; his bureaucracy is an end in itself. He gives face to both our fantasy of moving beyond politics and our horror at the Eichmannian void that lies beyond.
If Max himself is worthy of a 300-page character study, the same cannot necessarily be said of the context into which Ribiero has inserted him. South America’s dirty wars, the toppling of four democratic regimes in the span of less than a decade, the torture and disappearance of tens of thousands of individuals, and the always ever-present hand of the American government, ought to make for the kind of stained-glass backlight that would make the bishop of Augsburg jealous. Instead, in Ribiero’s telling, those “demonic wind[s] of brutality and inhumanity that scour the bodies and souls of innocent and guilty alike,” as Louis de Bernieres has called them, fall still. Part of the reason for this may have to do with the fact that he was writing his book, in its original Portuguese, for the children, the nephews, the nieces, and the grandchildren of those families whose lives were distorted by the political machinations of military men and their right-wing enablers. For most readers outside South America, there will naturally be less immediacy to the story. A second reason, though, is structural. Ribiero’s narrator, a liberal highly critical of the governments he has spent the better part of his career working for, is too far removed from the places and regimes that Max so impressively uses to his advantage. The result is a critique that is too subtle to be as damning as it should be.
Part of the reason for Ribiero’s subtlety surely has to do with the fact that he himself was a career diplomat in the Brazilian Foreign Service. Diplomacy, in the light of day, is polished charm and confident refinement. But the diplomat's more natural home is in the dim light of the ballroom where political intrigue casts shadows in a hundred subtle shades of gray. Stendhal, the greatest novelist who was also a diplomat, traded in such intrigues, his eye finely attuned to the possibilities inherent in the seemingly inconsequential gesture or the feigned pulse of rhetoric. Ribiero, in that sense, is an acolyte to the great 19th century French novelist. One of his great strengths, as evident in His Own Man, is his ability to parse a conversation, both for its verbal and non-verbal cues:
I indicated that we’d gotten together since then and emphasized our recent dinner in Ipanema, trying to fill in the gaps with details about his recently deceased wife, his daughter and grandchildren. Especially—
“Ernestinho!” he cut in. “Ernestinho Vaz! In honor of one of Jaoa’s former bosses. Ernesto…”
He’d set up the ball so I could spike it. Since I said nothing, he himself returned with a deflated “…Geisel.”
In the meantime, I took a sip of my coffee, allowing the former military president to beat a hasty retreat so we could resume our pleasant conversation without his shadow looming over us. Eric didn’t blink but registered what had happened. I appreciated his tact. And began to pay closer attention to him.
The pleasure of reading this exchange, with its hyper-attention to both the verbal and the non-verbal, is partly a result of how true to diplomatic form it feels. But it’s also the language itself, the way in which Ribiero gingerly inserts the sports metaphor, and then inflects its failure back upon itself through the use of the word “deflated” at the end of the sentence. (Here credit should also be given to the craft of his translator, Kim Hastings. Not once was I made aware that I was reading the book in translation, a rare occurrence in a novel so dependent on the nuance of language.) Yet as pleasurable as such conversational theatrics can be, I’d be unmindful to not also note that it dramatically impedes the pace of the novel. Just two extended conversations between the narrator and Eric fill most of the last quarter of the book’s pages.
The worlds of diplomacy and intelligence intersect often in popular fiction, but the emphasis generally falls to the latter. In His Own Man that’s not the case. In fact, if there’s any detail where Ribiero forces the reader to stretch his imagination, it’s when Eric freely admits to a relatively unknown official of a foreign government that he has— “for years as insurance” —been secreting away thousands of files that have yet to have been declassified by the U.S. government. It bears an incredible amount of incredulity to think that Eric is not self-aware enough to understand that those hundreds of boxes of files in his garage place him at great legal risk, and even more to believe that he would gift one of them to his newfound Brazilian acquaintance. Thus the plot device that allows for the loop of Max’s life to be tied together is an imperfect one, one that to this reader, in keeping with the rest of the book’s true-to-life accounting, could have very easily been woven in more convincing fashion.
If there’s a single image from the book that exemplifies both the diplomatic noir on offer and the character of Max himself, it’s this one, set in the immediate wake of the 1964 coup:
[Max] was lying on his bed in the old apartment he shared with his mother in Humaita, thinking of the possibilities that had suddenly and unexpectedly opened before him. Minutes earlier he had received a phone call from the secretary to the Cardinal Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro concerning his future. What had given the scene its added dimension had been the Coca-Cola sign blinking on and off at the bakery shop across the way. The red light had lit up his face every two to three seconds, leaving him alternately immersed in shadows, which, as a good reader of Stendhal, he had deemed “appropriate to the historical moment.”
Stendhal, Ribiero is not, but neither has he written the kind of easy spy novel a la Le Carre. Instead, he’s worthily captured a small slice of diplomatic life, in all its subtle shades of gray, and illuminated it via a larger-than-life character whose bureaucratic ambition leaves us reaching for a towel. © Jeffrey L. Otto, September 11, 2018
October 27, 2014
Brazil is currently in the news because of its presidential election, featuring three major candidates representing various points on the political spectrum. But, as novelist Edgard Telles Ribeiro reminds us in this mesmerizing tale of unbridled ambition and of idealism and friendship betrayed, Brazilian politics looked very different half a century ago. In 1964, a military coup deposed the left-leaning government and received immediate recognition and support from the United States. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. was nervous about other countries in the Americas following Cuba's path to communism, and the military looked like the best option for preventing this. After a few relatively benign years, the generals in charge cracked down on dissenters and became much more repressive and totalitarian. Many people lost their homes and possessions, went into exile, or simply "disappeared". In addition,, Brazil, with covert assistance from the CIA and Britain's MI6, served as a base for toppling leftist governments in Uruguay and Chile in the early 1970s.
This dark period of South American history is portrayed by Ribeiro through the life of a fictional Brazilian diplomat, Marcilio Andrade Xavier, who uses the acronymic nickname Max. His story is told by a onetime friend and fellow diplomat who tells us almost nothing about his own life or even his name (in the book's final chapter he does sign a letter as "N"). N. meets Max in that fateful year 1968, when both are still in their 20s and working at the Foreign Ministry in Rio de Janeiro. They find that they share an interest in literature and philosophy, and N. becomes part of Max's circle of friends, looking up to his slightly older coworker as a mentor of sorts.
As the years pass and both move on to other assignments, N. becomes increasingly convinced that Max has advanced in his diplomatic career by abetting the repressive government in its agenda of terror and assassination, both at home and in Uruguay and Chile, where he held increasingly important positions. By the mid-1980s, the Brazilian government is in its death throes after twenty years of terror, and N. no longer considers Max a friend. After they have a long, uncomfortable talk at a party where they've met by chance, N. becomes obsessed with learning as much as possible about Max's activities during the late 1960s and 1970s. The story unfolds a la "Citizen Kane" through a series of conversations N. has with people who were around Max at the time, including a Brazilian colonel; Max's ex-wife Marina; and, in 2006, a retired CIA agent living in La Jolla, California, who pulls his "Max" file out of a voluminous collection of documents in his garage.
The picture that emerges is of a man who has one goal in life--personal power and wealth--and is willing to betray friends, family, and governments in order to attain it. He is also extremely adept at deducing who and what (the Catholic church, a wife from a wealthy, powerful family) will assist him in this quest but quickly loses interest when they are no longer useful to him. The CIA and MI6 are well aware of both the advantages and dangers of dealing with a contact like Max, and they give him the very appropriate code name "Samuel Beckett".
Unlike Charles Foster Kane, Max is very much alive and well at the time his life is being examined by N. Thirty-five years after their first meeting, Max has a top diplomatic post and has become a champion of human rights, winning adoration and pride from his two children (their mother never had the heart to tell them about the very different Max of their early childhood).
Edgard Telles Ribeiro has published seven novels and numerous short stories, but, not surprisingly, he was also a career diplomat. Is Max based on someone he knew or perhaps a composite of several people? In any case, this beautifully written story of an era most people outside South America have forgotten certainly transcends any particular time and place.
Reviewed by Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction Department
This dark period of South American history is portrayed by Ribeiro through the life of a fictional Brazilian diplomat, Marcilio Andrade Xavier, who uses the acronymic nickname Max. His story is told by a onetime friend and fellow diplomat who tells us almost nothing about his own life or even his name (in the book's final chapter he does sign a letter as "N"). N. meets Max in that fateful year 1968, when both are still in their 20s and working at the Foreign Ministry in Rio de Janeiro. They find that they share an interest in literature and philosophy, and N. becomes part of Max's circle of friends, looking up to his slightly older coworker as a mentor of sorts.
As the years pass and both move on to other assignments, N. becomes increasingly convinced that Max has advanced in his diplomatic career by abetting the repressive government in its agenda of terror and assassination, both at home and in Uruguay and Chile, where he held increasingly important positions. By the mid-1980s, the Brazilian government is in its death throes after twenty years of terror, and N. no longer considers Max a friend. After they have a long, uncomfortable talk at a party where they've met by chance, N. becomes obsessed with learning as much as possible about Max's activities during the late 1960s and 1970s. The story unfolds a la "Citizen Kane" through a series of conversations N. has with people who were around Max at the time, including a Brazilian colonel; Max's ex-wife Marina; and, in 2006, a retired CIA agent living in La Jolla, California, who pulls his "Max" file out of a voluminous collection of documents in his garage.
The picture that emerges is of a man who has one goal in life--personal power and wealth--and is willing to betray friends, family, and governments in order to attain it. He is also extremely adept at deducing who and what (the Catholic church, a wife from a wealthy, powerful family) will assist him in this quest but quickly loses interest when they are no longer useful to him. The CIA and MI6 are well aware of both the advantages and dangers of dealing with a contact like Max, and they give him the very appropriate code name "Samuel Beckett".
Unlike Charles Foster Kane, Max is very much alive and well at the time his life is being examined by N. Thirty-five years after their first meeting, Max has a top diplomatic post and has become a champion of human rights, winning adoration and pride from his two children (their mother never had the heart to tell them about the very different Max of their early childhood).
Edgard Telles Ribeiro has published seven novels and numerous short stories, but, not surprisingly, he was also a career diplomat. Is Max based on someone he knew or perhaps a composite of several people? In any case, this beautifully written story of an era most people outside South America have forgotten certainly transcends any particular time and place.
Reviewed by Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction Department
March 19, 2015
Sophisticated, nuanced, sad and at times traces of humor. Could end up being the best work of translated fiction I read this year.
February 4, 2024
Very well written.
October 6, 2014
I was hesitant to read His Own Man, having been burnt too many times with bad translation. I was happily surprised, delighted really, to find that the novel read really well in English; it is superbly translated, which indicates that a congratulations is in order for the translator (Kim Hastings), the publisher (Other Press) and the author (Edgard T. Ribeiro).
His Own Man is a political saga of Max (rather, M.A.X.) told from the point of view of one of his closest friends. With that said, it becomes clear very early on that Max is not the kind of man who has close friends. Very early on, the narrator tells us how he met Max and how, over the forty odd years of knowing Max, he has tried to put together the "puzzle" of Max, to understand Max's motives, his involvement in the political (and military) events that shaped generations in Latin America, his alliances, and most importantly, his feelings. When all of this is revealed or rather foreshadowed in the first 50 pages of the book, I wondered what else was there to know about Max. Yet, Ribeiro somehow weaves a story that is recounted by many who had business and personal dealings with Max, slowly revealing details and connections that make the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The narrator runs an internal commentary of his perception of the conversations he has with Max and everyone else, trying to decipher the hidden meaning of every spoken word, every gesture, and even every drink consumed. As the narrator gets closer to the actual nature of Max's involvement in the events that led to the establishment of the dictatorships in Chile and Uruguay, and the bigger implications this had for the role Brazil had in shaping Latin American politics and history, and the even bigger political games at play by the Americans and the British, the tone of the book turns darker and tense, creating an atmosphere of anxious energy. What's perhaps surprising is that nothing comes as a huge surprise, yet what the narrator manages to uncover about these dark years in his own countries history is still shocking.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in American and British politics, and in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Cuba, and world history in general. This should be recommended reading for all high school kids in the power-wielding countries, so they do not naively ask "But why don't they like us?" when they grow up. A suggested fiction accompaniment to Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men.
Thanks to Other Press and Goodreads First Reads for a copy of the book for review.
His Own Man is a political saga of Max (rather, M.A.X.) told from the point of view of one of his closest friends. With that said, it becomes clear very early on that Max is not the kind of man who has close friends. Very early on, the narrator tells us how he met Max and how, over the forty odd years of knowing Max, he has tried to put together the "puzzle" of Max, to understand Max's motives, his involvement in the political (and military) events that shaped generations in Latin America, his alliances, and most importantly, his feelings. When all of this is revealed or rather foreshadowed in the first 50 pages of the book, I wondered what else was there to know about Max. Yet, Ribeiro somehow weaves a story that is recounted by many who had business and personal dealings with Max, slowly revealing details and connections that make the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The narrator runs an internal commentary of his perception of the conversations he has with Max and everyone else, trying to decipher the hidden meaning of every spoken word, every gesture, and even every drink consumed. As the narrator gets closer to the actual nature of Max's involvement in the events that led to the establishment of the dictatorships in Chile and Uruguay, and the bigger implications this had for the role Brazil had in shaping Latin American politics and history, and the even bigger political games at play by the Americans and the British, the tone of the book turns darker and tense, creating an atmosphere of anxious energy. What's perhaps surprising is that nothing comes as a huge surprise, yet what the narrator manages to uncover about these dark years in his own countries history is still shocking.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in American and British politics, and in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Cuba, and world history in general. This should be recommended reading for all high school kids in the power-wielding countries, so they do not naively ask "But why don't they like us?" when they grow up. A suggested fiction accompaniment to Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men.
Thanks to Other Press and Goodreads First Reads for a copy of the book for review.
October 24, 2014
“There are deaths that snuff out a single life. And others that, like military coups, finish off an entire generation.”
I received a copy of this book through the First Reads Program. My rating is closer to 3.75 stars than a full-fledged four.
His Own Man is one character’s investigation of the history and mind of his former friend and fellow diplomat: Marcílio Andrade Xavier, nicknamed Max, later codenamed “Sam Beckett.” The fascinating manipulations and maneuvering begin around Brazil’s military coup of 1964; (somewhat conveniently) winding through South America, the United States, and Europe for decades onward. Both the narration and the dialogue can be quite verbose with context and discussion, which can some times get in the way of appreciating the characters and story. However, the translation seems smooth, and a clear questioning voice carries the novel.
Ribeiro is strongest when describing behavior; particularly of those shaping and shaped by power, and those thrashing through or forever changed by fear. Max may joke that “Horror lives next door,” but even a relatively privileged diplomat like himself can’t completely escape the violence of that era. The narrator’s own culpability is briefly mentioned here and there, but is likely set in deliberate relief to the flagrant machinations of Max. This narrator should have heeded his own criticism and omitted the postscript of the final chapter, but otherwise it’s a graceful end for a novel about personal examination.
I received a copy of this book through the First Reads Program. My rating is closer to 3.75 stars than a full-fledged four.
His Own Man is one character’s investigation of the history and mind of his former friend and fellow diplomat: Marcílio Andrade Xavier, nicknamed Max, later codenamed “Sam Beckett.” The fascinating manipulations and maneuvering begin around Brazil’s military coup of 1964; (somewhat conveniently) winding through South America, the United States, and Europe for decades onward. Both the narration and the dialogue can be quite verbose with context and discussion, which can some times get in the way of appreciating the characters and story. However, the translation seems smooth, and a clear questioning voice carries the novel.
Ribeiro is strongest when describing behavior; particularly of those shaping and shaped by power, and those thrashing through or forever changed by fear. Max may joke that “Horror lives next door,” but even a relatively privileged diplomat like himself can’t completely escape the violence of that era. The narrator’s own culpability is briefly mentioned here and there, but is likely set in deliberate relief to the flagrant machinations of Max. This narrator should have heeded his own criticism and omitted the postscript of the final chapter, but otherwise it’s a graceful end for a novel about personal examination.
January 31, 2015
His Own Man by Edgard Telles Ribeiro appealed to me as a political science major because it depicted a highly plausible rapid rise of a mysterious man named Max who is seemingly able to wrap powerful men around his finger whether they belong to the military or civilian political class. For anyone to survive for 30-40 years as the fictional Max does, one needs to have the dexterity to change his views and ideas with the time. It is more than possible that political and personal ambition will outweigh anything else including familial relationships.
Overall, I thought Ribeiro was able to create an accurate representation of the political world or at least the seedy one that most of the world population believes exists. It is also told using a very beautiful and elegant prose that makes the reader feel as though they are a fly on the wall of the room where these events have taken place. Beyond the central intrigue of Max, there is also a significant question of whether or not we can rely on the account the narrator is giving us. We are being told a story, but is it THE story. That double intrigue is a nice literary touch and drags the reader further into the world he creates.
A masterful political thriller.
Overall, I thought Ribeiro was able to create an accurate representation of the political world or at least the seedy one that most of the world population believes exists. It is also told using a very beautiful and elegant prose that makes the reader feel as though they are a fly on the wall of the room where these events have taken place. Beyond the central intrigue of Max, there is also a significant question of whether or not we can rely on the account the narrator is giving us. We are being told a story, but is it THE story. That double intrigue is a nice literary touch and drags the reader further into the world he creates.
A masterful political thriller.
Want to read
August 11, 2016KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed by The Independent (5 Jun 2014)
Reviewed by The Independent (5 Jun 2014)
April 24, 2016
Some people will find this story very engaging, but I found the subject of realigning one's ideals for the sake of ambition to be unappealing. Got over half way through and decided life is too short to keep reading about a character I don't care enough about to decide if I want him to succeed or fail.
October 10, 2014
Very good book about a young diplomat who becomes a spy in Brazil during the 1964 coup. The book takes place over two decades. A great spy novel with the interesting twist of being set in Brazil.
January 5, 2016
3.5 stars
October 17, 2020
LeCarre style story about a civil servant who succumbed to moral corruption to make his way in the new Brazil after the 1964 military coup. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews