Gabrielle's Reviews > The Feast of the Goat

Uh. Ok. Wow.

This is my first novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, and well, I am a little lost for words here. I cracked open “The Feast of the Goat” relatively ignorant about its subject matter. I knew that the Trujillo regime had been a brutal dictatorship that had kept the Dominican Republic in a state of terror for many years but that was about it, really. Consider my ignorance remedied now, as I constantly looked up events and people featured in Vargas Llosa’s novel.

“The Feast of the Goat” is a beautifully, intricately written work of historical fiction that explores these thirty years of Dominican history through the eyes of Urania Cabral, the daughter of one of Trujillo’s disgraced (and fictional) senators, and through the story of the conspirators who took part in the plot to assassinate the Generalissimo. After thirty years abroad, Uriana comes back to visit her now-incapacitated father, and her return to the Dominican Republic brings up memories of growing up in a strange time and place. Uriana struggles with reconciling what she perceives as contrasting facets of her father’s personality, knowing fully well that for many years, he sheltered her from the horrible things that happened to other women (wives or daughters) who were close to the Trujillo family, and yet worked to keep people he knew were capable of monstrous acts in power – often by being complicit to many atrocities himself. Intertwined with her recollections are the stories of a handful of men who made the decision to put an end to El Hefe’s rule in the only effective way they could think of, and what strange and often violent pasts brought them to this point. In a third story line, some events are seen from the perspective of Trujillo himself, as he looks back on some of the most infamous moments of his dictatorship while coming to grips with his failing health and the unavoidable end of his reign.

The non-linear narrative, which brings together the present moment and vivid memories is seamless, the prose both gorgeous and heartbreaking. As mentioned, I knew very little about the history of the Dominican Republic, and this eye-opening narrative brought that history to life in a deeply affective and personal way. The multiple points of view give a very rich and layered portrait of what it was like to live in what was then Ciudad Trujillo, and how the aftermath of the assassination upended the characters’ world. Vargas Llosa describes the brutal corruption and acts of great violence very graphically – but do not for a minute think that this is done gratuitously. He shows the horrible power of blackmail and manipulation, the way power itself is given and taken away in such a cruel and decadent setting to warn readers of the dangers of absolute power and misplaced loyalties.

Using Trujillo’s voice for one story line was also a clever move on Vargas Llosa’s part, because while the other two narrations serve as a testimonial that some things should never be forgotten lest history repeats itself, we also need to remember that despots and narrators often think of themselves as saviors and well-intentioned people. It’s not easy to summon empathy for Trujillo, but we see here a terrible dictator who is, also, a bitterly disappointed parent, an insecure old man who can feel his death hot on his heels and someone who let his thirst for power and control override his capacity to be empathic. I’m not sure I felt sad for Rafael Trujillo, but I felt sad for the pathetic old man on the page.

This novel is unusually gripping for historical fiction, as the events escalate into a shocking climax that brings all three narrative lines together. I saw that another reviewer was reminded of Roth’s “Human Stain” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) while reading this, because it is just as intimate, perhaps strangely, as the story of Coleman Silk, and similarly engineered into a beautiful clockwork that delivers a devastating bang at the end. Stunning is really the best word I can think of to describe this book. Everyone should read it.