Book Review: The Tragedy of Fidel Castro
The Tragedy of Fidel Castro. Joa͂o Cerqueira. Translated by Karen Bennett and Chris Mingay. Austin, TX: River Grove Books, 2013, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 168 pages.
Reviewed by Caryl Barnes.
The Tragedy of Fidel Castro is the antic and deeply wise story of an imminent war between Fidel Castro and JFK with God, Jesus, Fatima, J. Edgar Hoover, and unnamed powerful advisers trying to prevent it. The story is at once alternative history, magical realism, and satire. The author tackles the biggest topics there are – religion, politics, economics, history, mythology, even ecology and, at the end, astronomy.
The author, born in Portugal in 1964, has a Ph.D. in art history. He has written seven books, three of them novels, the other four on different topics. The Tragedy of Fidel Castro is his most recent and well-known book and has received strongly favorable, if sometimes perplexed, reader reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.
From the outset this book baffled, intrigued, amused, bored, irritated, and awed me. Having such a mix of strong reactions made me respect the writer and keep reading even though sometimes I would have liked to quit. By the end, however, I was laughing aloud at the topsy-turvy way Cerqueira sees religion and politics.
An example of the author’s views on religion: God asks Jesus to return to earth to diffuse the looming war, reminding his Son that times had changed. “[H]e didn’t need to be born, reducing confusion about dogmas of virginity and metaphysical intercourse.” Cerqueira lists other differences: “[T]he Romans no longer ruled the world; …crucifixions had been abolished; prostitutes were no longer stoned in public; miracles had been considerably reduced; the price of treason was below thirty coins; ...plastic surgery had replaced transfiguration.”
Some things, however, are the same. “[T]he majority had identical resentment against men who wanted to change the established order; women continued to have more faith than men despite being excluded from religious functions; …using God’s name to wage wars continued to be highly effective; …prodigal sons returned home when their money ran out…”
With so much to admire I had to think about why The Tragedy of Fidel Castro didn’t affect me more deeply. The plot is ingenious, the ideas powerful, the writing style too ornate for my tastes but nonetheless well-wrought. What the book lacks is heart. With novels, I look for fascinating, complex, emotional characters that change over the course of the book. Cerqueira’s characters may have names like Jesus and JFK, but the characters are personifications, not people. If stuck, they wouldn’t bleed.
My own take is personal and does not diminish the razzle-dazzle, the mirth, the insights, and the intellectual meatiness of Cerqueira’s book. He is a gutsy satirist with talent to burn.
See his website for more information: www.joaocerqueira.com