The Armchair Traveler's Club discussion

What do you think of the book so far?

I read 3 chapters this morning. The book starts of with a bang and is hard to put down. I wonder how long they will take to tell us who the mysterious stranger is! Thought provoking with the question - How do children pay for the crimes of their parents?

The Madres de la Plaza De Mayo have been marching every Thursday for 37 years to protest the disappearance of their loved ones. 30,000 people disappeared and are assumed to have been tortured and murdered during the military dictatorship in the 70s-80s in Argentina. To this day the government has not assumed responsibility or told the families what happened to their loves ones. This September marked the 1,900th march of the mothers of the disappeared in the square in front of the presidential mansion in Buenos Aires. Some of the mothers who started the organization were disappeared themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUkRV...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_...

*SPOILER ALERT*

I finished Perla yesterday. Although the style of writing was not my favorite, the book did raise some interesting topics for discussion.

In my opinion there were too many passages in the book, where daily emotions or events were magnified into several paragraphs as the author attempted to push things into the metaphysical realm. It seems that the book could easily have been shortened without missing much in content.

The story follows Perla, a spoiled university student, through the earthquake of discovering that her biological parents were desaparecidos and that she was raised by their persecutor (military father) and his wife.

Throughout her life Perla struggles with guilt for crimes assumed to have been committed by her father since he is in the military.

Ten days after Gabriel suggests that her parents may have been desaparecidos, Perla is visited by the ghost of her father. The timing would make it seem as though the visit is all in her head, but DeRobertis takes pains to make the ghost very real.

The ghost has a physical impact on the environment with his constantly seeping water (metaphor for tears?). I struggle with the physical presence of the ghost. Would this be considered under the 'magical realist' genre? Perhaps DeRobertis wanted to give the victim a chance to get revenge on his persecutor - Perla does eventually destroy the living room with the water that has seeped from his skin. Perhaps it was DeRobertis saying 'you can't just make people disappear - they will literally come back to haunt you!'. Perhaps the ghost was physical representation of the real doubts in Perla's mind that she had spent years trying to keep pushed down into her subconsious out of love and loyalty to her father. Perhaps the ghost's physical presence was only real to Perla.

Why does the ghost chew the water? Is it to illustrate the severity of privation during his time in prison, or just a peculiarity of this presence?

The book, and I suspect society as a whole are unfairly harsh on Perla's father. Although he may have committed atrocities, he probably had to choose himself between fulfilling his duties as a soldier and death. When young men enter the armed forces they are generally hoping to protect their country and it's people, sadly when the government turns bad, they are not given the option of quitting their post! So is a person in a bad position who fulfills his duties as ordered a coward for not standing up to his superiors? Is he a murderous monster? Or should we consider him brave for surviving under terrible circumstances?

It was heartbreaking to hear his side of the story about how he rescued Perla and fell in love with her at first sight, only to have her desert him when she was grown. Although her parents may have not been perfect they still raised her to adulthood and it feels like they are given little credit for this feat. I doubt that her father would have had the authority to free her parents. If he had not taken Perla in, she probably just would have gone to some other military family.

Questions of identity are explored in the book. For myself, I've always thought I am who I am, and never spent a lot of time wondering who my ancestors were or what they did other than as a curiosity. I wonder how I would feel to suddenly discover that my parents were not who I thought they were. I suppose it's one of those things one can't imagine unless it has happened to them.

I liked Perla's discussion of having her identity 'restored' and what that would mean to her sense of self "However false my identity might be, it was the only one I had. Without it I was nothing."

This makes me wonder how important my identity is to me. How important is it to you?

This was not a typical book that I would read, but I found the topic interesting (now I need to read up on that particular history of Argentina) and the book an easy read.

For a good part of the book, I wasn't sure if the visitor was real, or a "ghost." In the end, I took him to be the part of Perla that had doubts about her true identity. As she recalled various conversations with her parents, and the odd comments they sometimes made, I think the "ghost" grew in her mind. The fight she had with her boyfriend, along with the continual reminders in books, on tv, from her friends, etc. of what happened to the disappeared, finally forced him out of her subconscious into something real that she had to deal with.

I can't imagine what it would be like to have a parent who committed the type of atrocities Perla's father participated in. I don't know that I'd abandon him/her like Perla did her father. He did save her; she may not have lived long after her birth if he hadn't taken her. I do think it's possible to hate the actions of an individual, but still love that person. Perla didn't seem to have a very loving relationship with her mother, so abandoning her didn't surprise me. She definitely didn't give them any credit for providing her with an education and material comforts throughout her life.

I guess I don't worry too much about my identity in the sense that it comes from my family. I feel that my actions are what ground me to myself and make me who I am. I don't think the book took that into consideration. It took the view that identity is derived only from your knowing your parents, and if your parents are a lie, you have no identity. Kind of a cop out on Perla's part. She could have used her history to make herself a better person. Knowing your biology doesn't give you an identity.

Hi Alison! I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Perla - thanks for posting!

I sometimes question why atrocities in some regions are publicized in our country while others are unheard of. Perhaps it is due to the current relative freedom of the press in Argentina that we hear more about their 'desaparecidos' than those in other countries. Argentina has a developed movie and publishing industry to get the word out better than other places who have also suffered forced disappearances like Sri Lanka or Guatemala.

This would not explain why it seems we hear more about Los Desaparecidos in Argentina, than those in Spain for example. According the wikipedia, 114.226 were disappeared during Franco's reign there ('39-'75).

Argentina experienced about 30,000 disappearances over a 7yr period ('76-'83). Perhaps having so many victims in such a short period helped the families of the disappeared to band together, forming groups such as the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo to call attention to the atrocities. When I was a tourist in Buenos Aires in 2000, it was common for tourists to go the the Plaza del Mayo to watch the Madres march. It may seem insensitive, but it certainly made me aware of their plight during a time in my life when I was distinctly uninterested in politics.

Sadly, this seems to be another area in which the US government has harmed far away people in our fervor to control the spread of communism. We supported the government with money and weapons while they persecuted their people who as opposition, were viewed as socialist or communist. Interestingly, according to wikipedia, Carter cut off support during his presidency.

According to Amnesty International, the US is currently using forced disappearances in the 'war on terror'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatio...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_d...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-i...

Excellent point about our government. Reading the book, it never occurred to me that the US government has been responsible for "disappearing" people. We're very lucky living here that we don't have to fear our government the way a large amount of the world's population fears theirs. However, we're also oblivious (or choose to be ignorant) to the actions of our government in foreign lands. We're told the people being detained in Gitmo are there for our own protection, but to their families, they have disappeared. Definitely something to think about.