Around the World in Books discussion

Discussion of the July book starts here.

Rather interesting story because of Vargas Llosa's storytelling and because of my familiarity with the Canudos conflict from Errol Lincoln Uys's Brazil. Other accounts The Devil to Pay in the Backlands and Rebellion in the Backlands.

The northeastern, backlands Brazilian setting in the dry, scrub sertão of Bahia is the backdrop for several interwoven events. The major event is the attractive millenarian message of a self-proclaimed prophet. The Counselor's entourage of hundreds of dispossessed people build a settlement and temple on a decaying hacienda to herald in the future struggle against the Antichrist. Related to that zeal is the recent transformation of Brazil's monarchy to a Republic. The new government announces decrees such as census taking and taxation. The names but not the entrenched interests have changed. The Counselor regards those Progressive Libertarians as a portent of the last days. A third event develops the characters, such as Little Blessed One and Satan João whose eponymous names confirm their extraordinary deeds. Another character is Galileo Gall, a phrenologist, a French Communard revolutionary. Characters of every stripe from fanatical idealists to humble saints. All those events and characters lead up to the apocalyptic end.

I wonder whether the complete book is online at Scribd.

Finished Part One. That's not such an accomplishment at 21 per cent. The early part introduces much new material which slowed down the reading. The last chapters of Part One flowed more smoothly because of familiarity with the basic plot and characters. Good reading.

A raucous argument in the Bahian legislature between the opposition Progressivist Republican Party and the majority Bahia Autonomist Party begins Part Two. (view spoiler)[The opposition is double dealing and lying to win the election by creating a fictitious conspiracy between the British and the Brazilian former monarchist majority. In so doing, Galileo Gall, the Scotch phrenologist-anarchist-atheist who sees the revival of French revolutionary principles in the Canudos community's practices, becomes a key victim to tie infamously together the Bahian majority party and the British, who are accused of supplying arms against the Bahian militia. The rumor of the false conspiracy is further spread by a nearsighted, apolitical, hired journalist's newspaper article. (hide spoiler)]

Just starting - leaving again for business so lots of flight and hotel time to read! Yeh!!! One of the few benefits of my frequent travel.

Few benefits?? I can think of loads! But I guess the grass is always greener right? :)

Part Three (1-4)

A lot of surprises because the reader like the characters believes the rumors! Liked the Gypsy Circus and the other eccentric characters. At first, I thought that the book would be military engagements. But, the reading of it, so far, did not prove that imagined scenario. The book partly is about fanatical, idealist leadership, about characters' feelings of desperation, faith, and acceptance, about the wide economic disparity, and about the political subterfuge in the new post-slavery, post-colonial Republic of Brazil.

Laureen, how are you liking this book?

Chris, are you also reading it?

Sections 3.5-3.8 show Vargas Llosa's storytelling skills. Sounds of bugles on one side and whistles/church bells on the other visualize the story. Sometimes the wind takes the sounds elsewhere, so purely vision without sound interprets the story. A lot of changing characters, which befits politics and infinitely demanding events. A lot of surprises happen. Most interesting is who survives the second battle between the seventh regiment and the jagunços (residents of Canudos).

Leading up to and during that apocalyptic conflict, several threads move forward, flash back, showing how this group of characters than that group are being affected and are responding to the Bahian catastrophe and to their interpersonal conflicts. Some reports in the story are intentionally unreliable, i.e. matters of deliberate rumor, but their truth is finally revealed to the reader and to the story characters.

Sections 4.1-4.4: The fanatics at Canudos manage to rout three expeditions of the Brazilian army in the inhospitable sertão. Indirection is Vargas Llosa's style. There's hardly a grisly confrontation, but the reader hears, learns afterword, sees evidence, anticipates it. In fact, a theme is blindness in the nearsighted journalist, in cloudy smoke, and in trenches behind parapets. Even so, there is a lot going on. Now in the story, a fourth expedition larger than the rest readies its assault on the city of the Counselor.

It's taken me about 3 quarters of the book to actually start enjoying it. It all seemed a bit implausible and far fetched. Then I discovered that it's loosely based on real events; the Counsellor was a real person as was the settlement and battles at Canudos. The history is incredible really!

Somebody at work was saying that South America is well known for hosting idealist communities, such as Nietzche's sister who set up a commune in Paraguay which was intended to be a model town of German superiority - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nueva_...

Anybody know of (or lived in??) some interesting communes?

Chris wrote: "...Anybody know of (or lived in??) some interesting communes?.."

Canudos definitely was a commune. Everything was shared and their beliefs and actions rejected typical civic compliance, which the new Brazilian government instated--new coinage, census-taking, taxation, etc. Their basically Catholic religion attracted free-thinking, sympathetic priests who disobeyed the official church-government, anti-Canudos proclamation.

Sections 4.4-End: Amazing book though everyone might not like it. Euclides da Cunha's Rebellion in the Backlands, which I haven't read, is considered the first and "unsurpassed" version. I however thought Vargas Llosa's version amazingly good and better writing than his Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. That the same author wrote the two is astounding.

I just started this classic since I so, so enjoy the author's writing and the subject of this novel. Please let me know if anybody is still interested in exchanges about The War of the End of the World.

BTW - the whole dynamic of following a fanatical religious leader continues. Here's one instance:

July 2023 - NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The death toll in connection with Kenya’s doomsday cult has crossed the 400 mark as detectives exhumed 12 more bodies. The mass graves exhumed Monday are believed to a burial site for followers of a pastor who ordered them to fast to death in order to meet Jesus. Pastor Paul Mackenzie is in police custody. Police also have detained 36 other suspects and all are yet to be charged. Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha on Monday said the total number of those who died is now at 403 while those rescued stand at 95. Some 613 people have so far been reported as missing to Kenya Red Cross officers stationed in Malindi.