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El Hombre Que Amaba A Los Perros (2009)

by Leonardo Padura Fuentes(Favorite Author)

4.45 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8483831368 (ISBN13: 9788483831366)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Tusquets

review 1: I just finished the English version of this book. It is a lengthy fictional novel about three people who all share a love of dogs: Leon Trotsky, Ramon Mercader, his murderer, and Ivan, whom Ramon meets on a beach in Havana and to whom he relates his story over time. The book is factually intense - takes you in some detail through the Soviet era, the Spanish Civil War where Ramon cut his teeth, the politics among Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin, and events in Mexico City as the plot to dispatch Trotsky, ultimately directed by the "Great Helmsman" Stalin, unfolds. It is interesting that after Trotsky loses the power struggle with Stalin and is exiled from one country to the next, he is mystified at how heartless Stalin is to him - when after all Trotsky himself ruined many liv... morees and killed many people in the same heartless way. Mercader is just as heartless, having been recruited by NKVD in Spain and trained in USSR to do his job with blind hatred. At the same time, the book devotes considerable attention to how deeply and paradoxically Trotsky loved and took care of his own family and his two Borzoi, and how Mercader similarly loved his two Borzoi. Perhaps most remarkable is the way in which Ivan relates all of this history, having lived his life during the Castro regime with a dying wife and as a starving writer. Padura's writing is luminous in a way that novels translated from Spanish can be, which makes the tale even more poignant.
review 2: Un tema muy prometedor: la historia de Trotsky en exilio, de su asesino y del contador cubano que se encuentra con el asesino. Desafortunadamente el libro tiene bastantes faltas. Primero es demasiado largo (más de 700 páginas) y el estilo de Padura es un poco pesado. Además Padura, que obviamente todavía está tratando de aceptar la ideología comunista, nos ahoga con la dialéctica comunista y trotskista (que para mí no tiene sentido). Lo interesante es la descripción del follón que era el campo republicano durante la guerra civil española; pasaban más tiempo pelearse entre comunistas, trotskistas, anarquistas y socialistas que luchando contra Franco. También interesante la visión que nos da del paraíso cubano que era casi tan ideal como el mundo de Stalin. Lo que me extraña es que la ideología de Trotsky no era tan distinta de la de los comunistas tradicionales (pero más extremo en la necesidad de la revolución) pero tenía muchos seguidores aunque su lucha personal no era tanto por su ideología pero para ir contra Stalin. Ese libro te aprende mucho sobre el comunismo y te das cuenta que el comportamiento de los comunistas es muy similar al de los islamismos extremos. less

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