Rate this book

Dance With Snakes (1996)

by Horacio Castellanos Moya(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

189723161X (ISBN13: 9781897231616)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Biblioasis

review 1: Strange, how a book can defy categorization, and slip between genres like a hungry ghost. The first few pages seem rather straight forward, but then this book diverges into unmapped territory. Bizarre, transitory, unapologetically violent, all of these are true. A political allegory? A statement about violence and the media? Who knows, but ultimately, who cares. It's sparse prose is quite enjoyable, and its plot is weird enough to keep one reading.
review 2: This slim novel is brutal but hilarious in tone, mixing extreme and graphic violence with absurd humor and a satiric take on various elements of society, including police, the military, politicians, the press, and the paranoia and mass hysteria of everyday people. It's like Tarantino crossed with Kafka... more.A down-and-out, unemployed sociologist meets a homeless weirdo that lives in a car with 4 snakes. He ends up taking the guy's place, befriending the serpents, and going on a murderous rampage with them, who are so deadly that they can pretty much defeat any foe and kill dozens in seconds, and so they throw the whole city into a panic. Journalists and cops rush around trying to figure out some method to the madness, but the drifter is really just acting randomly and having a good time.I have a feeling that if I knew more about the background history and politics that this book would be more obvious as a some sort of allegory for El Salvador's current situation and civil war past. I think Moya seems to be saying something about the inherent instability and fragility of life in a place so recently subject to the hell of death squads and corruption and repression, but I have only a tenuous grasp on exactly what his message is. Still, I enjoyed the book a lot. less

Download links for: Dance with Snakes

Advertising