Happy Thanksgiving!

Harsh Times by Mario Vargas Llosa

First published in Spain in 2019; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on November 23, 2021

Harsh Times is the story of Guatemala in the middle of the twentieth century. The book can’t quite decide whether it wants to a novelized history or a character study. The story is framed by the political actions and personal reactions of several characters, most notably a young woman named Marta Borrero Parra.

Guatemala has a history of “murdered politicians and presidents,” including Carlos Castillo Armas, who governed from 1954 to 1957 and, as Mario Vargas Llosa tells it, took Marta as a lover after she left the friend of her father who made her pregnant in her early teens. Marta weaves in and out of the narrative in the novel’s first half before she disappears for a long while, leaving the story to be framed by a succession of other characters, most of whom serve in government or the military. None of those characters are as compelling as Marta, whose vulnerability as an outsider gives her a unique role in a story about powerful men who abuse their power. Marta’s reappearance in an epilogue adds a few details about her life but does little to wrap up the story, given the conspiracy tale she spins about a character who (like Marta) left Guatemala and reinvented himself. Perhaps Llosa’s point is that separating truth from fiction is a daunting task when some conspiracies are real and others are imagined.

Instead of focusing the novel on central characters, Llosa chose to focus on historical events in Guatemala and other Central American or Caribbean countries. Armas took power in a military coup orchestrated by the CIA with a mandate to root out real and imagined communists, defined as anyone who believed workers should organize, elections should be fair, and power should not be concentrated in the hands of the corrupt.

Llosa spotlights the American anti-communist crusade of the 1950s as the instrumental force in Guatemala’s development. In Llosa’s version of history, the crusade was manipulated by a Machiavellian public relations consultant for United Fruit, a banana grower that oppressed workers and ruthlessly acquired land in Guatemala. United Fruit sought public relations assistance because it wanted to reform its cutthroat image without losing its power. Telling the blatant lies that the PR guru concocted, United Fruit claimed to be the victim of a communist government, although none of its productive land had been nationalized and it was the only grower in Guatemala that didn’t pay taxes. According to Llosa, the pro-democracy government that preceded Armas was simply trying to move away from a feudal society by using eminent domain to redistribute unproductive land to peasants who would put it to good use, a win-win for the peasants and for Guatemalan society. United Fruit thought it was only a matter of time before democracy would result in a government it couldn’t control; hence the deceptive PR campaign.

Nothing serves a public image better than championing anti-communism, even if United Fruit’s true aim (shared by the American government) was to undermine Guatemala’s emerging democracy and quash its efforts to distribute power and wealth more equitably. After the CIA orchestrated the government’s overthrow, Armas nullified deeds to small plots of land that pulled Guatemalans out of poverty and imprisoned or killed union organizers and dissenters. But America wants a democratic façade in its banana republics and Armas, having carried out the country’s shift to the far right with murderous zeal, didn’t even pretend to be interested in democracy. Thus the CIA’s support for the assassination of Guatemala’s president three years after it brought that president to power. A fickle agency, the CIA.

Whether the story’s political background is accurate in all of its particulars doesn’t matter. This is a work of fiction, after all, and while the political narrative is interesting, characters drive literary novels. The narrative weaves back and forth in time, focusing on various players at different times: Dr. Efrén García Ardiles, the friend of Marta’s father who raped Marta and made her pregnant while she was a young teen before marrying her at her father’s insistence (a marriage that allowed Marta’s father to disown her); Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, the alcoholic but well-intentioned defense minister who became the pro-democracy president of Guatemala until the CIA intervened; Enrique Trinidad Oliva, Armas’ director of security whose life rises and falls in ways that parallel Guatemalan governments; Mike Laporta, a CIA agent who “couldn’t look more gringo if he tried”; American Ambassador Peurifoy, a willing pawn of Allen Dulles and the CIA; Rafael Trujillo, the ruthless dictator of the Dominican Republic; and Johnny Abbes Garcia, the anti-democratic chief of Dominican intelligence under President Trujillo whose life took unexpected turns after Trujillo was killed.

Marta is the most sympathetic of this large cast of characters, if only because she is so often used and condemned by men. Her shift to the far right when she becomes a radio commentator is an act of self-preservation, as was bedding Armas. Her decision to abandon her child to be raised by her rapist is understandable, as are the choices she makes to survive in a world where men see only a potential conquest when they gaze in her direction.

I’m not sure that the novel’s shifting time frame serves a purpose, other than to remind the reader that this is a novel and not a history text. Still, some chapters read like a lively history text, contributing little but a perspective on history to the story. Llosa introduces a central character to serve as a focal point for those chapters, but those characters tend to appear for a brief time and disappear after they have served their purpose, giving those chapters a disjointed feeling. A cadet named Crispin Carrasquilla, for example, is featured in a late chapter that tells of a clash between military cadets and invading forces. A diplomatic agreement (soon to be violated) resolves their conflict, a small episode that (Llosa assures us) “would hardly appear in the press or the history books.” Crispin’s chapter contributes little to the overall narrative.

The novel’s struggle between its focus on history and its attempt to be a character study causes Llosa to follow characters like Abbes Garcia after he eventually lands in Haiti. While the gruesome end of Garcia’s story would merit its own book, it seems disconnected in a novel that wants to tell a story of Guatemala.

As a broader history, although driven by a mix of invented and real characters, Llosa reminds the reader of important geopolitical realities. Every attempt the US has made to meddle in the internal affairs of governments it perceives as “leftist” has backfired. Llosa argues that Cuba moved in the direction of communism and dictatorship as a direct result of the CIA’s interference with democracy in Guatemala. “When all is said and done,” Llosa writes, “the North American invasion of Guatemala held up the country’s democratization for decades at the cost of thousands of lives, as it helped popularize the myth of armed struggle and socialism throughout Latin America.” Just as salient is Llosa’s illustration of how easily the American public is manipulated by corporate interests that invent fears of communism to conceal the harm their business practices inflict on ordinary people. While Harsh Times might be more effective as a history lesson than a character-driven novel, it is never less than engrossing.

RECOMMENDED

The Marriage Test by Suzanne Redfearn

Published digitally (Kindle) by ‎ Amazon Original Stories on November 23, 2021

If Amazon had labeled this short story as “cheesy romance” I wouldn’t have been suckered into reading it. I’m not familiar with Suzanne Redfearn, but she describes herself as a “bestselling author of captivating mainstream fiction.” I can’t speak to her other work, but “mainstream fiction” refers to fiction that is appealing across a wide audience. I can’t imagine this story appealing to anyone other than a devoted fan of trash.

After three months of dating, Ava Nicole Barnes accepts a massive engagement ring from her dream hunk, Justin. Ava loves him even more because Justin wants to get married before Ava’s beloved but cancer-ridden grandmother kicks the bucket. This whirlwind romance distresses Ava’s good friend Walton, who is steady and devoted and knows how to fix sinks but apparently lacks whatever Ava sees in Justin. Justin met Ava through Walton and instantly breached the man code by disregarding Justin’s request not to ask her out, which says something distasteful about Justin, not that Ava is equipped to understand it. Here are some examples of Ava’s description of her feelings about Justin:

• “Thick emotion wells in my throat, as it does every time I see him after we’ve been apart, like I’ve not drawn a full breath since we saw each other last.”

• “his touch sends a current down my spine that causes a blush”

• "Never before have I felt such attraction to someone, like there’s an electromagnetic connection between us that causes my skin to flame whenever he’s near.”

Trite prose like that causes my brain to flame whenever I read it, but not until a thick stew of stomach contents wells in my throat.

Paradise begins to unravel when Ava and Justin bake a cake together. Justin is a neat freak and Ava is messy. Oh the agony! The baking is a prelude to the “marriage-cake quest,” a tradition in Ava’s privileged family that, if successful, assures a lifetime of wedded bliss, or at least a marriage that doesn’t end in divorce. The tradition has something to with finding the nest of a frigate bird in a swamp, stealing an egg, and using it in the joint project of baking a marriage cake (not to be confused with a wedding cake, which can be made with  conventional eggs).

Justin, Ava, and Walton (who is present as a “witness”) go on a hike as part of the quest, giving Walton a chance to suggest that Justin (who is worried about an ill-defined merger of his business with some other business) might be more interested in Ava’s money than in Ava. Say it ain’t so, Justin! In any event, the quest produces misfortune.

Ava is too much of a ditz to gain any sympathy from a reader who isn’t sympathetic to ditzes, but not enough of a ditz to have comic appeal. She fancies herself to be an environmentalist who tries (without any particular plan that a reader can discern) to prevent the destruction of reefs, or at least a particular reef. Ava is clearly too frivolous to make any serious planet-saving effort. She’s more concerned with picturing the perfect life, complete with garden and dog, that she will soon have with beloved Justin.

Will the quest teach Ava a lesson? Of course. Will she learn that there is more to a marriage than romantic platitudes and childish expectations? Will she learn to grow up and stop being a ditz? Will she learn that she shouldn’t tell a whopping lie to her fiancé right before they intend to marry? The lesson she learns has something to do with developing twinned heartbeats like seahorses, a strained analogy at best. Sadly, it is the least important of the lessons she should have learned, making “The Marriage Test” the least important story about marriage I’ve ever read.

NOT RECOMMENDED

You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo

Published by Tor Books on November 16, 2021

You Sexy Thing might be imagined as a salad made from leftover plot elements that were tossed together in the hope that the combination would be pleasing. We have space pirates and a clone and a hive mind and a sentient ship and a mix of humans and aliens who have remained loyal to their former military leader. The novel purports to be a science fiction space opera, but it crosses over into fantasy with the addition of alien shape shifters who use magic to change themselves into lions and a mystic who is traveling on the Spiral of Destiny. Interstellar travel is powered in part by portals that were designed with magic. I guess that’s one way to get around physics. Fortunately, magic plays a relatively nonintrusive role in what is essentially an action novel with a bit of human interest, or alien interest, as characters bond while overcoming adversity.

Niko Larsen operates a restaurant on a remote space station. She has managed the difficult task of retiring from a military organization called the Holy Hive Mind, taking some of the company that she once commanded with her. As the name implies, Niko shared consciousness with her company before she pulled it from the Hive Mind. Notable members of the former company include Dabry, the restaurant’s extraordinary head chef; Skidoo, who resembles a squid; Thorn and Talon, twins who use magic to shift their shapes to those of lions; Gio, a former quartermaster assigned to food prep; and Lassite, a mystic who keeps a bag full of ghosts. Milly, the pastry chef, is a newcomer.

Fortunately, the novel doesn’t take itself too seriously, although the story isn’t played for laughs. Niko is trying to make enough money to buy a ship, the first step in her long-delayed and ill-defined plan to rescue a Florian named Petalia from space pirates who are holding her in captivity. Florians might be described as sentient, mobile plants who have some of the qualities of mystics.

Before joining the Holy Hive Mind, Niko escaped from the space pirates, making an enemy of the pirate leader named Tubal Last in the process. She also seems to have made an enemy of Petalia, given her stint with the Holy Hive Mind and the restaurant gig, neither of which involved any obvious effort to make good on her promise to rescue the Florian.

The plot shifts into gear when a food critic visits the restaurant just as a wealthy patron arrives. The patron owns a rare bioship called You Sexy Thing. One thing leads to another and Niko’s company, along with the critic, end up on the bioship as their space station is being destroyed in a reality-based version of a video game. Nico’s people are joined by a princess named Atlanta who was packed into a box and delivered to Nico by the future version of FedEx for reasons that never make much sense. A couple of adventures later, the ship (oh happy coincidence!) travels to the pirate habitat, where Nico will reunite with the unhappy Petalia. Action ensues, occasionally interrupted by hard feelings and gourmet meals.

The story makes a surprising amount of sense, given the odd mishmash of B-movie sf themes, including hive minds and plant people and sentient ships and space pirates, not to mention the fantasy themes of magic, mystics, and ghosts. Cat Rambo asks the reader to accept a number of underdeveloped plot elements, perhaps to avoid bogging down the story with contrived explanations. This isn’t the kind of story a reader will want to overthink. The best science fiction encourages readers to think, but there is room for slightly silly stories that are meant only to entertain. You Sexy Thing falls into the latter category. I assume a sequel will follow. I’m on the fence about reading another of these, but this one had sufficient entertainment value to mert a recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Published by ‎Tor.com on November 16, 2021

Apart from writing a couple of science fiction’s most memorable novels, Arthur C. Clarke is remembered for his observation that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Many sf writers have quoted Clarke in their fiction, but few have illustrated the point quite as deftly as Adrian Tchaikovsky does in Elder Race.

Lynesse Fourth Daughter is least respected daughter of the Royal Line of Lannesite. Her mother has dismissed her as a dreamer, a child who has not embraced trade and diplomacy but clings to old stories of sorcery and demons. It naturally falls to Lynesse, as her ancestor once did, to seek the help of a sorcerer when demons begin to plague the territory to which she has been relegated.

Lynesse sets off to see the sorcerer in the Tower of Nyrgoth Elder who, like the Wizard of Oz, is a creation of technology and imagination rather than magic. Nyr Illim Tevitch is actually an anthropologist second class who spends most of his time in cold storage. More than a thousand years earlier, Earth entered ecological bankruptcy after sending out generation ships to colonize other planets. One of those colonized worlds is Sophos 4. Lacking resources to support them, Earth abandoned the colonies to their own devices. Many centuries later, Earth revitalized itself and sent new, faster ships to the colonies, not to reacquaint them with Earth but to study their societies without interfering with their development.

The Tower is the outpost on Sophos 4 that Nyr occupies while he studies the feudal society into which the colonists devolved after being cut off from Earth. Nyr hasn’t heard anything from Earth in almost 300 years and is doubtful that anyone on Earth will ever visit his outpost again, much less read the reports he occasionally writes. Nyr is almost fine with that, given his suspicion that he isn’t much of an anthropologist. Having come to the rescue of Sophos 4 a couple of generations earlier at the request of Lynesse’s ancestor, he decides that he might as well do it again when Lynesse asks for his help.

One of the demons is a forgotten and malfunctioning piece of technology used by the original human colonists (the elder race). The more consequential demons are something else, something Nyr can’t quite understand, although he knows they aren’t demons. The story follows Nyr and Lynesse as they face the challenge in their own ways.

The story is filled with clever riffs on the theme that magic is simply misunderstood science. Nyr’s decision to break the rules and tell Lynesse the truth about her society’s origin gives rise to my favorite passage. Nyr’s story about the planet’s colonization is juxtaposed with Lynesse’s understanding of history as it has been passed down through the ages. The only difference between the two versions of the same story is that Nyr understands it to be a story of science while Lynesse regards it as a story of magic. The side-by-side recounting of the same story from two different perspectives is brief but brilliant.

Nyr is a sympathetic character. Apart from his understandable doubts that his occupation has value and his fear that he might never return home, he is ambivalent about the emotional suppressor that is wired into his biochemistry. He can turn off his emotions when he needs to make rational decisions, but he isn’t sure that his decisions are really any better when they are devoid of emotion. He eventually makes a self-sacrificing decision that would probably be the same whether or not it is influenced by emotion. Sometimes rationality and love of humanity lead to the same end, at least when people are decent.

Elder Race is a smart, thought provoking story that doesn't waste words. In the final pages, when Nyr faces a crossroads about the remainder of his life as a scientist/sorcerer, it seems clear that any choice he makes will be fine, simply because the choice is his to make.

RECOMMENDED