I The Supreme

I The Supreme

Though this is a “brilliant” book, as it claims on the front cover, I had a very hard time getting into it. Not only because the sheer size intimidated me, but because after reading about 5 pages...I still wasn’t sure who was talking! I find it extremely frustrating that most of the text is dialogue but does not use quotation marks to demonstrate who the speaker is. Every couple of pages the author throws in paradoxes: “even the truth appears to be a lie” (p. 5), “no story can be told” (p. 11), “there’s nothing that hasn’t already happened” (p. 13), “it’s awkward being alive and dead at the same time” (p. 14), “the dead man was coming back alive with us” (p. 21), etc, which are somewhat depressing and confusing. The quote “even the truth appears to be a lie” (p. 5) reminds me of The President because in many cases the truth did appear to be a lie. I also find it incredible that the Supreme Dictator is 84 years old (p. 12)! I find the descriptions at times to be puzzling, for example did Don Tiku really shrink that much that he was buried in a child’s coffin? I am also reminded of The President because it seems that written word can either be powerful or meek. It can cause people to burst into “wild sobs of lamentation” or it can be destroyed and forgotten as the Supreme does when he receives writing that is “badly made” (p. 22). I can only hope that Patino’s fate is not the same as Angel Face because he is so close to the Supreme. I predict that the psychological realism will be similar to that of The President, and can only hope that whoever is speaking becomes more clear.

The President

The President (Part II)

Oddly enough I’m quite sad to have finished this book because I really enjoyed it. I find it blatantly obvious why Asturias won the Nobel Prize for literature as this novel is dripping with excess detail. The novel always kept me on my toes because the stories were interconnected. After our class discussion I became much more aware of the figurative language and importance of word meaning. I must admit I felt a little disappointed by Angel Face’s character. I was convinced that he would lead the revolution. Unlike other characters in the novel, the Judge Advocate for instance who did not want to encourage people to hope, Angel Face showed compassion to others that I believed would encourage the people to hope and be freed them from their oppressive lives. Instead, he took on the role of loving husband to his wife.

Although there was foreshadowing of the plot revealed in class, I was hoping that somehow Angel Face would overcome his adversities. In chapter XXXI, I interpreted Angel Face to represent a Jesus figure and the President to represent Caesar. Jesus “bowed under the weight of the wooden cross, but it was to Caesar that men and women turned their admiring gaze.” (p. 217); hoping that Angel Face would rise again and bring hope to his people even though at the time the people were “admiring” the President out of fear. Basically, I wanted the people to realize that Caesar wasn’t their salvation. This interpretation had contradicted my earlier interpretation that Angel Face was the “devil” who had fallen from grace with God. In the latter case the President is like God because if one “[thinks] with the President’s mind therefore [they exist]” (p. 262). No one wanted to contradict the word or “mind” of “God” and admit that perhaps the “devil” wasn’t so bad. Towards the end of the book I returned to this metaphor of God and the devil because the “devil”, Angel Face, was eternally punished losing his body and health and later his sanity with the breaking of his heart. Not that I wanted a “devil” figure to prevail, but perhaps I felt that it would have been more inspirational if a fallen angel had regained favour with “God” ; this is most likely because a happy ending would have been more inspiring...