Review: The Feast of the Goat

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My inspiration for reading this came from 7 years ago when I was reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and realized I was having trouble following a lot of the names and historical references due to not knowing much about the history of the Dominican Republic, particularly on the reign of Rafael Trujillo (and I swear all magical realist books need a historical context disclaimer).

But rather than looking up a dry nonfiction book by an academic historian like I normally would, this book caught my eye. The Feast of the Goat blurs the line between history and fiction (technically historical fiction) but it does a great job in using its fictional side to really make you "relive" the experiences of the real historical figures involved in Trujillo's assassination with all of the anxiety and trauma involved. I can only imagine what other historical coup d'etats were like (and realizing how often this happened during the turbulent 60's).

Granted, I'll admit Vargas Llosa's present-day fictional insert storyline around Urania Cabral didn't captivate me as much as the flashbacks it served to frame. This is not to undercut the tragedy of Urania's backstory... it's just that the legacy of the real life historical individuals who figure throughout the 1960's storylines largely overshadow her (I kept trying to look up many of them only to realize many only turn up in older Spanish-speaking news articles... speaking of how much of the world I don't know). It ultimately made me wonder how necessary it was to write her into this, short of perhaps finding a different real-life victim of Trujillo... assuming one would be willing to be memorialized in this manner.

My other big discovery here is the author himself. Mario Vargas Llosa feels like one of those authors I've just been sleeping on due to lack of exposure; he has a prolific catalog of works dating back to the 60's, but most of them were published in Spanish first before being translated to English, and he actually even won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 for them. Definitely want to check out more of his works in the future now.

Review: The Sparrow

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I imagine some hard sci-fi enthusiasts will gawk at some of the blunders committed by the crew during the plot (we’ve seen enough First Contact stories to know better by now even in a non-scientific context) but if you read this as thought exercise on more anthropological/spiritual themes than just pure science fiction, I think the story carries its weight well (stay away if you have trouble suspending disbelief though lol).

I wish some of the ideas expounded on in the last 100 pages of this book had been built up in more detail over the first 2/3rds (definitely hinted at early on but some things are effectively name dropped in execution just to expedite the climax). I would put this at 5* just for the ending alone otherwise.

Review: Making Sense

Making Sense by Sam Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Transcripts of selected episodes from Sam Harris's podcast.

I've not read any of his actual books, but of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism," Harris is probably the main one who's stood out to me more for his interest in neuroscience/artificial intelligence and the kind of discourse he has with other thinkers on his podcast.

That said, of the episodes presented in this book, I tended to side more with the guests on the podcast more than Harris himself whenever they did get into debates. Something about the way Harris presents his thoughts tends to irk me, similar to how the New Atheists sometimes irk me with the kinds of declarations they make that I don't always agree with.

But ultimately I'm still impressed at the level of intellectual discourse Harris is able to maintain with each of his guests; you can tell he's clearly studied their works.