Government

Jungle Novels #1

by B. Traven

In the 1930s B. Traven wrote an epic of the birth of the Mexican revolution in what have become known as the "Jungle Novels." Government is the first of the six novels that comprise the series.

Depicting the political corruption that infected even the smallest villages in Mexico, the novel tells the story of Don Gabriel, a minor government functionary who has a virtual license to steal from the Indian village where he is secretary—except that the Indians have nothing to steal. By chance he finds an opportunity in the labor agent business, shanghaiing luckless Indians into debt-slavery so that he can ship them off to work in the great mahogany plantations owned by foreign capital. The novel reaches a moving climax in a clash of cultures between the simple dignity of the illiterate Indians and the cynicism and corruption of the politicians and petty bureaucrats.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature

229 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

B. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B. Traven lived much of his life in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including his best-known work, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), which was adapted as the Academy Award nominated film of the same name in 1948.
Virtually every detail of Traven's life has been disputed and hotly debated. There were many hypotheses on the true identity of B. Traven, some of them wildly fantastic. Most agree, that Traven was Ret Marut, a German stage actor and anarchist, who supposedly left Europe for Mexico around 1924. There are also reasons to believe that Marut/Traven's real name was Otto Feige and that he was born in Schwiebus in Brandenburg, modern day Świebodzin in Poland. B. Traven in Mexico is also connected with Berick Traven Torsvan and Hal Croves, both of whom appeared and acted in different periods of the writer's life. Both, however, denied being Traven and claimed that they were his literary agents only, representing him in contacts with his publishers.
B. Traven is the author of twelve novels, one book of reportage and several short stories, in which the sensational and adventure subjects combine with a critical attitude towards capitalism, betraying the socialist and even anarchist sympathies of the writer. B. Traven's best known works include the novels The Death Ship from 1926 and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre from 1927, in 1948 filmed by John Huston, and the so-called Jungle Novels, also known as the Caoba cyclus (from the Spanish word caoba, meaning mahogany), a group of six novels (including The Carreta, Government), published in the years 1930-1939, set among Mexican Indians just before and during the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. B. Traven's novels and short stories became very popular as early as the interwar period and retained this popularity after the war; they were also translated into many languages. Most of B. Traven's books were published in German first and their English editions appeared later; nevertheless the author always claimed that the English versions were the original ones and that the German versions were only their translations. This claim is not taken seriously.

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a string of fantastic books lately. This is another.

You may have heard of B. Traven 1) because of his amazing and mysterious life story, of which no one knows much of anything, 2) his book The Treasures of the Sierra Madre which was made into a great movie by John Huston, or 3) that the author is the model for Benno von Archimboldi, the mysterious writer from Roberto Bolaño's 2666 (no one knows who B. Traven is, he has committed scholars dedicated to his work, he is most likely German, he contacts the world through his publisher, etc).

You might not have heard of B. Traven's "Jungle novels," six books which document the oppression of a people and their eventual uprising. Government is the first book of the series. And it is a fine book. B. Traven uses a simple and direct style, punctuated by violence and an ironic cynicism towards the ways of modern men. He is especially good at laying out individual self-interest and how individuals self-justify, and he is great at showing how a corrupt regime can spread corruption throughout every area it touches.

This novel is set in the jungle of Mexico (Chiapas, according to Wikipedia) and it follows Don Gabriel, a boring, weak man who has lost everything, but who slowly rises to power. First, he becomes a secretario to a small and fiercely independent "Indian" village. He ekes out a living immorally fining and taxing the locals, and eventually gets into slave trading. Of course, slave trading and slavery is illegal, so this system is based on penury and debt. Not honoring your debt, of course, is punishable by death.

It's a brutal story and it reminds me of the first season of The Wire in that it seems to be setting up the groundwork for an entire world, and it seems to be setting up awfulness to come. I think Traven is sketching characters that we will see again. Like The Wire, this is a piece of art about the complications of evil. It is about mundane decisions and bureaucracy and systems, and how all of those things can have pernicious effects on the lives of people. It is about power and exploitation that comes with power by necessity. Lastly, it is about how regular people ignore their responsibility and culpability in the systems and evils around them, and worse, partake in actions that make things worse.

(I can also see why Bolaño loves Traven.)

[Meltem Sağlam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yazarın Türkçe’ye çevrilen dokuz romanının dördü, “jungle books” olarak tanımlanan altı kitaplık bir serinin parçası. Ne yazık ki bu serinin son kitabı da dahil olmak üzere iki kitabı Türkçe olarak basılmamış. Bu seri, 1876-1910 arasında Meksika'yı yöneten Porfirio Díaz’ın diktatörlüğünü devirmek amacıyla 1911 yılında başlayan Meksika Devriminden önceki sömürü dönemini ayrıntılı olarak anlatan, kahramanlarında da devamlılığı olan, edebi olarak değilse bile, içerik olarak inanılmaz etkileyicilikte bir eser.

Bu serinin ilk kitabı olan ‘Hükümet’, otokratik bir düzende, diktatoryal bir yönetimin ne olduğunu ve sonuçlarını tüm ayrıntıları ile anlatan eksiksiz bir metin. Devrim öncesi Meksika’sında, ‘Ladino’ların (melez) siyasi, ekonomik ve kültürel düzeni ile eğitimsiz kalmış/ bırakılmış yerli halkın siyasi, ekonomik ve kültürel düzeni arasındaki çarpıcı farklılıkları konu ediniyor. Ütopik bir toplumsal düzen için en önemli gerekliliğin ne olduğunu, cahil ve vahşi, eğitimli ve uygar terimlerinin aslında ne ifade ettiğini düşünmemizi sağlıyor.

“... İşçi sınıfı, kapitalistlerin partileri ve küçük burjuva siyasal örgütleriyle birlik ve beraberlik kompozisyonuna katılırsa, bu iyi ilişkilerin, işbirliğinin bedelini yüzyıllar boyu ödeyecek demektir. Yerliler için de durum aynıdır. Memurlarla iyi ilişkiler kurarlarsa, karşılığında derileri yüzülür…“, sf; 232. 

[Andrew]

This is my 3rd Traven, the first of his monumental “Jungle Novels.” It's also by far the weakest, when compared to the very good Treasure of the Sierra Madre and the truly excellent The Death Ship. Now in those two, Traven very much placed his political viewpoint front and center, but unlike Government, he didn't make it the only thing (after all, it's an anarchist novel called Government, draw your own conclusions). It all just felt like the didactic parts of The Grapes of Wrath without any of the heartfelt parts – or at least without as many – and I have to conclude that this was regrettably common in the 1930s. Ruben Ostlund was able to brilliantly satirize the rich in The Square, but then he made the eternally shitty Triangle of Sadness. This is Traven's Triangle of Sadness in every sense.

[Marcel Buijs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na het lezen van de volgende recensie in De Groene Amsterdammer heb ik gelijk alle zes delen van deze romancyclus besteld, voor een schijntje op Marktplaats. En dit eerste deel De Ossekar vind ik geweldig. Smaakt naar comecita.

De grote Roberto Bolaño is trouwens bewonderaar van B. Traven en heeft de mysterieuze schrijver Archimboldi naar hem gemodelleerd.

Met encyclopedische wijdsheid wordt hier het Mexico van de vroege twintigste eeuw gepresenteerd. Met smalend sarcasme nemen we kennis van de exploitatie van de arme inheemse bevolking door de kerk en landbezitters. Voltaire is niet ver weg.

Natuurlijk is er ook ruimte voor ontluikende liefde. In dit eerste deel nog weinig actie. B. Traven is duidelijk het speelveld aan het inrichten voor een epische strijd.

Kees ‘t Hart in De Groene Amsterdammer (19-10-23):

Traven is op de hand van de “Indianen”, dat staat vast, de grootgrondbezitters zet hij altijd neer als oplichters, graaiers en meedogenloze onderdrukkers, maar de opstandelingen zijn bij hem niet de edele helden die wij linkse lezers er graag van zouden maken. Opstandelingenleiders gaan altijd onder in goede bedoelingen, naïef idealisme en onderlinge machtsstrijd. Traven is een ironicus die balanceert op de rand van het cynisme, hij is geen meeprater en gladstrijker, juist dat maakt zijn romans bittermooi, aangrijpend, soms gruwelijk en vaak geestig en doortrapt. Literatuur dus, geen propaganda, daarom stijgt hij ver uit boven het ook nu nog gebruikelijke goede-bedoelingen-idealisme van de geëngageerde roman. Geen pamflettenproza dus.

Maar nogmaals, laat daarover geen twijfel bestaan: zijn hart ligt bij de opstandelingen. In veel van zijn romans laat hij gedetailleerd zien hoe kleine boeren gedwongen worden in dienst te treden bij grootgrondbezitters, hoe dat hun arbeidskracht en levenslust ondermijnt en wat het betekent voor hun levensgevoel. Hij maakt via overtuigende personages zichtbaar hoe dat in z’n werk gaat en hoe uiteindelijk de kleine boeren daartegen (altijd tevergeefs) in opstand komen. Zijn romans zijn te lezen als toelichtingen bij marxistische opvattingen over bezit en kapitaal, het zijn uitbeeldingen. Maar nooit traktaten. Travens bittere pen, zijn gevoel voor historische groeiprocessen, voor woede die in machteloosheid omslaat, maakt er grote literatuur van.

[draxtor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this right after Volker Weidermann's "Dreamers: When the Writers took Power" about the short pre Nazi regime experiments in democratic rule, including the 7 days of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919.
Weidermann's historical novel includes in his list of protagonists n anarchist/pacifist by the name of Ret Marut escaped just in time when Berlin sent (right-wingish to say the least) troops down to Munich to clean up them socialists.
He changed his name to B.Traven upon arriving in Mexico and he became a bestselling novelist.
This one is from 1931 and it depicts the brutal reality of Indio life in an ultra-corrupt system of Spanish rule with a good dose of sarcasm but also beautiful prose and expansive storytelling (the ending will make you weep like a baby!).
Fascinating: I have a 1964 edition printed in the former East Germany (GDR) and the blurb in the back says something like (I am paraphrasing): "Yeah, Traven is a master of illuminating and destroying the horror that capitalism inflicts on the proletariat but his shots in this novel are not very precise coz maybe he is a bit TOO angry.."
Now why would GDR officials feel a blurb like this is necessary? Pretty clearly because they saw a LOT of the critique Traven levels at the Porfirio dictatorship in Mexico applies 100% to their brand of restrictive and corrupt state socialism as well.
Very cool and satisfying read!

[Micah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Since they were a people of governors with plenty of men who had learned by short periods of office to give good advice and to judge the advice given by others, they could not be stampeded by a horde of fanatics until all fell into the same pit. They acted like barbarian Indians; but they acted rightly, successfully, and inexorably. And punctually."

Failed businessman don Gabriel uses his connections to get appointed secretary of a remote indigenous village, where he sets about abusing and exploiting the population for all they're worth. Soon enough he realizes he can make more money by forcing indebted indigenous into laboring at the mahogany plantations. He and every official in the land are constantly on the make and playing games with the lives of indigenous peasants. A small taste of the indigenous rage that is building up is revealed in the last chapters.

This is so dark, funny, and well-written, a real masterpiece. I love the scene when the indigenous nation literally puts their elected leader on a hot seat, until his ass is blistering, and he's expected to take it with pleasure because the people are really in charge and have no time for worshipping arrogant rulers.

[Sheri Lutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the 20's, Traven describes the peonage and debt slavery that were common under the rule of Porfirio Diaz. The first of 6 "Jungle Novels" shows Indians of Mexico being enslaved to advance commerce. This description could have been written a century later: "You cannot have cheap mahogany and at the same time...respect for the humanity of the Indian. The civilization of the present day cannot run to both, because competition, the idol of our civilization, cannot tolerate it.". A bit pedantic, but spot on.

[Raghuveer Parthasarathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very blunt novel about the mistreatment and de facto enslavement of Indians in Mexico, some time in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The first half is almost unbearably earnest, didactic, and plot-free – one feels that one should continue reading solely to be educated about the horrible injustices it reports, but it’s really not good as a novel. The second half is better, as some characters and a bit of a plot emerge.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sort of book that shouldn't work, but does. The main character, Don Gabriel, is a corrupt official in an isolated government outpost and has few, if any, redeeming features. At one point, Traven abandons him entirely before bringing him back in after a lengthy diversion. The many methods used by Don Gabriel and his colleagues to exploit the Indians for commercial gain are portrayed with a level of detail which is entirely convincing and an extraordinary feat for a non-native writer. Traven writes from a very left-wing perspective but is too clever to hector the reader and is never a bore. I can't think of a single negative thing to say about this book and I can't think of another writer who could have pulled it off. A work of misanthropic genius.

[Marco Subias · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant, biting look at Mexico before La Revolucion, as told through the actions of local government. Traven distrusted all rulers, and the way he depicts corrupt administrators exploiting the natives is, at once, darkly funny, heartbreaking, and sure to inspire anger.

Traven was an old school anarchist, hostile to all governments except for small, local ones, and even those he saw as institutions that could be corrupted. Reading his work gives one a much better understanding of why the Revolucion took place.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a masterclass in kleptocracy.

A fascinating look at the political corruption in Mexico leading up to the Mexican Revolution, Traven is all the more effective and affecting because his style is so spare and matter of fact, presenting the corruption in large part through the perspective of a corrupt official, with occasional forays into the experience and views of the oppressed native population.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

paraphrasing the conclusion: you cannot have cheap wood for snobbish furniture in your city apartment and at the same time respect for the humanity of the indians who perished by the thousands in the jungle to get it for you.

[Rallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, B. Traven's wry wit doesn't fail to deliver. I highly recommend this book, and to follow it up with Rebellion of the Hanged.

[Yaseen Hashim · Rating 5 out of 5]

B.Traven books once opened you can't stop until you are in the last page

[Sonny Dyon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that’s! the true true

[Micebyliz]

I've decided to reread this series. It's been many years and I think considering the times a n d certainly how I've changed that It's a good idea.

[Tom Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Traven's knowledge of the period is almost unparalleled, but his story needs work.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grim and very straightforward, my introduction to the darkness of the Porfiriato,

...in fact, every tenth man in every nation is capable of governing. There is nothing mysterious about it. It is much more difficult to construct a machine which will work than to rule a people where the machinery is already there and in going order. The art of government is only made out to be mysterious in order to frighten revolutionaries and to prevent the simple subject from knowing how little capacity and knowledge is needed for government. How many half-wits and idiots have governing their peoples for half a century in peace and glory.

"dictatorships and military regimes don't hold with complaints and the right to complaints even if they had had a receipt to show. Dictatorships and military regimes don't hold with complaints and the right to complain; and those who open their mouths get shown as disturbers of the peace and resistors of authority. "

"Statistics and reports assume great importance under a dictatorship or a despotism. They are the facade of the structure and there must not be so much a scratch on the gilding. And nowhere are people, whether in an official or private capacity, so clever at running up facades as under a dictatorship, where ever one who wishes to live unmolested, or even to live at all, had to at all costs, and whatever else he may say or do, to plaster up a stucco front in case he incurs the suspicion of not seeing eye to eye with the political regime.

There's also commentary regarding the Indios

"With Indians, as with other peoples, the character of a husband or a wife only beings to show itself in its true colors when there is no further need to keep up a high standard or to pretend to one; whether this happens in two weeks or two years after marriage depends on the durability and vigor of the pretense. Many married persons are so gifted at pretense that they can keep up the mutual imposture for twenty years, without either's suspecting what the other's true character is; and it sometimes occurs that the simulated character becomes in course of time and by force of habit almost the real one. That is why it so often happens that marriages of twenty-five years' standing reveal cracks, on one side or the other or on both sides at once, which no one would ever have thought possible in so harmonious a union."

"The relation of an Indian to his wife and of an Indian woman to her husband is as close as any love can be. Yet its expression is crude -- so crude that a European is profoundly affected by its crudity, because, since the inexpressible feelings of the heart are the same in all human beings and are field in the same way , this very crudity only deepens the impression made by the strength of their feelings. The strength of their feelings is so deep, so genuine -- because it is so primitive -- so violent and so true that they lack all power to dissemble them. it is because they cannot endure that the least trace of dissembling should creep into the expression of their feeling s that they give them this outward appearance of crudity. It is not a mask to hide their true feelings; it is merely a spontaneous protection against the outbreak of overwhelming and violent emotion. If they did not put a strong curb on their feelings they might be led to an exposure of their deepest emotions; their neighbors would laugh at them, their innermost feelings would be cheapened, and they would never get over the pang of shame at having lost the modestly which is like a bloom on their feelings, however old they may be. "

"Human Kindness and mutual understanding dwell far outside the limits of the world, and the all-wise and all-just creator of all things remain invisible and inscrutable, so that His priests may not lose the profits of the vineyard"

"There was nothing to show whether the man to whom is armament firm belonged was really an armorer. He might just as well have been a tanner or a furrier. But nobody asked him for his credentials. A crow can pass for a peacock or a nightingale when there is no rivalry and nobody knows the difference"

"to deal in cattle was mere self-seeking. To recruit Indian labor in order to put projection on a competitive level was, on the other hand, a patriotic activity. As long as there is an unshakable conviction such as this, it is impossible to commit injustice or practice cruelty, to break up family life, to rob a man of all that life means to him. If you find the right formula, any crime can be justified and even sanctified in your own eyes and before the world"

[* · Rating 4 out of 5]

No longer using this website, but I'm leaving up old reviews. Fuck Jeff Bezos. Find me on LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/profile/...

Don Gabriel is a politician, one among many of the same.

He does as much as he can to make as much money as he can in as little time as he can, with no regard for literally any other principle. There is nothing he does for anyone else at any point that doesn't make their lives worse and make him richer. Every despicable person he meets, he marvels at their ruthlessness and their ability to grift, and shortly afterwards absorbs their misanthropy and greed and finds new ways to wring money out of human misery of his own creation.

The book chronicles his ascent into full-on slave trader (though he justifies his monstrousness as not *slavery* slavery because that would be immoral! and more importantly illegal!). The humor in the book is so dry as to cause despair: his callous disregard for anyone or anything other than his own enrichment and his rationalization of the really awful things he is doing. Unfortunately, I think it is a pretty accurate allegory: the final ranted blood-soaked justification summarized in the last pages, the convoluted excuses for the brutality and human misery so that some can have luxury goods and others can claim their nation is important in world affairs.

It's unsettling stuff, and I'm glad I started the Jungle Books series at #2 (The Carreta) because this initial offering is a little too bleak. I'm not sure I would have picked up another in the series if I had started with this one.

[Thomas Wüstemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Government" is a strange beast. I understand everyone who lays it down after a few pages and who just doesn't get it. It took me about 50 pages to really get into it, but I'm glad I stayed.

It's not really a novel. It doesn't have characters or a plot. More like people acting and things happening in chronological order. But that's not what interests Traven.

In the style of a narrative-packaged essay, he tells us of the construction and practice of such appalling injustices that the modern reader of a democratic society can't really grasp it, but at the same time can find so many similarities to how our states and economy still function that it's frightening.

Traven does this in such an exaggerated manner that it never loses its appeal or humor.
Yes, it gets repetitive at times. It even got on my nerves from time to time. But the mastery with which Traven slips into the perspective of the corrupt state people, telling us their atrocities with a smile in passing, always got me back in.

It just gets short of being a masterpiece, just a little lagging in comprehensive structure to also get the emotions across.

But I also understand that this is the first novel of the Caoba cycle I read, and in it being the second part, whose ending, so I read, is a note to the first novel, maybe I just didn't get it. So I'm excited to read the first part now. Perhaps that will change my view.

[Ron Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read the mysterious B Traven, best known as the author of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, back in the early 70s when someone exchanged a copy of his Death Ship for some book I had just finished, while I was backpacking through Europe and North Africa. What a strange and wonderful book. While planning an upcoming trip to Mexico, I came across his name again in relation to his "jungle novels," a six-book series set in pre-revolutionary southern Mexico. A perfect precursor to visiting Chiapas, I reckon.
Now that I've finished...
The first two-thirds seems to move very slowly, not unlike the pace of rural village life at the time, no doubt. But the final third contains the narrative threads that the first part sets the stage for, although the reader gets no clue what's to come. The politics of Government also come into focus in the final third. Masterful.
On to the second book in the series, The Carreta.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading 'Treasure on the Sierra Madre', 'The White Rose', and 'The Death Ship', I naturally had to dig in to B. Traven's acclaimed jungle novels, and per usual, I was very pleased.

'Government' chronicles the roots of the Mexican revolution at the turn of the 20th century. It's a very quick, cut and dry story that almost feels like a civics book, but with very interesting, nuanced characters set in the rural villages of Chiapas. Like 'The White Rose', Traven uses the Native Indians of Mexico as the protagonists, pushed and provoked by ruthless Capitalists who have no choice but to start a revolution against the corrupt Don Porfirio Diaz.

Compared to his other works, 'Government' is a far less eventful read. Given there are five more books in the saga, however, it seems to serve as more of a setup of the things to come, and it's a damn good set up. Though I wasn't blown away by it like I have his other novels, I'm certainly excited to plow through the rest of the series.

[James Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel continues the caoba (mahogany) cycle of novels that began with The Carreta. It presents an attack on a "Utopian" system of government that feeds on the poor and presents an indictment of a world that allows--and calls for--slavery. The realistic, almost pedantic, description of the governmental system impedes the appreciation of Traven's aim in this critical novel of ideas. The contradiction of the system is best expressed by the statement: "Either we have cheap mahogany, or we have respect for the human dignity of the Indian. Both together are impossible . . . free enterprise competition . . . could not stand it" (p 274).
The searing irony of the story as the Indians are exploited by their landlords is muted by the forced prose of the narrative. This was not the best of B. Traven that I've read.

[Aron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read in a great long while. I feel that life (or our public education system) has cheated me considering I hadn't heard of this book until the age of 38. The thanks goes to my father who recommend I start reading B. Traven. Can't wait to read the second book in this series called The Jungle Novels.

[Ofelia Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Government is the perfect novel. Funny and depressing. I like Government. I like that B. Traven's name is B. This book is sarcastic and illustrates people and goverments and systems and other things but it is also a novel with characters.

Thank you.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first of B. Traven's incredibly ambitious Jungle novels really gets things off with a bang. Highly recommended if you're willing to invest the time.

[Bimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čistih in popolnih 5 zvezdic. Kaj naj rečem, to knjigo je preprosto treba prebrati. Še zlasti v teh časih in v teh krajih. Kar je Vladar za oblastiželjne, je Oblast za obvladovane.

[Talya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iluminador.

[David Mcelroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reveals the dangers of a central government with no rule of law and the enduring nature of a limited government with citizen leaders that serve a limited term.

[RA · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great Jungle Novel series!!