Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Blurb from Goodreads

Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic – and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo’s gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo’s grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own. In this ‘masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written’ (“Bookforum”), Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit

Why I Want To Read It

It is Monday again, everyone’s least favorite of the week. Nevertheless, I am hoping that all had a great start to the week. Otherwise, I hope things will look up for you in the coming days. I also hope you are all doing well, both physically and mentally, despite the pandemic and the lockdown impositions. It is still as present as ever and images coming from India is simply heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers are with them, and the rest of the world as we all come into grips with this dreaded contagion. I am one with the whole world in praying and hoping that this pandemic will end soon.

With each start of the week is a customary Goodreads Monday update. As stated last week, I am embarking into the world of Latin American and Caribbean literature, the third consecutive month that I am digging into the works of a particular region. Whilst I have previously done African and Asian Literature months previously, this is going to be my first full reading works of Latin American and Caribbean literature. To the international audience, Mario Vargas Llosa is amongst the most popular writers from the region. Famously named as the 2010 Nobel Laureate in Literature, he has a colorful and prolific literary.

I have previously read one of Vargas Llosa’s works, The War of the End of the World way back in 2018. It was a rollercoaster experience but it nevertheless made me want to read his other works, such as The Feast of the Goat. I bought the book from a fellow book lover about three or four years ago but I never got the time to read it. I guess it is about time to read it and to read my second Vargas Llosa work. The book reader who I bought the book from also sang praises for the book, further piquing my interest.

The demographic of Vargas Llosa’s prose also astound me. He was Peruvian but he wrote a book about Brazil ( The War of the End of the World) and now I learned that The Feast of the Goat involves Rafael Trujillo, the infamous dictator of Dominican Republic, who I first encountered through Junot Diaz’ Pulitzer Prize-winning work, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. On top of the exploration of history and dictatorship, I am interested to learn more about Vargas Llosa’s body of art through The Feast of the Goat. These are the reasons why I am finally bent on reading the book this month (plus I am kind of guilty having let it gather dust in my bookshelf, haha).

How about you fellow reader, what book do you want to read? I hope you can share it in the comment box. For now, happy reading! Have a great week ahead!

Advertisement