Well I didn’t have to eat my words.  I know how awful this will sound, but I just couldn’t muster up the shock and horror that Llosa’s final revelation seemed to demand.  For those of you good students reading the correct book, don’t read any further because it’ll spoil all the suspense.  Thankfully, the novel takes a long break from Urania in the second half and focuses instead on the events leading up to and following from Trujillo’s assassination.  This was the most powerful part of the novel.  The stories of courage and solidarity in the face of the most fearsome brutality are enough to make anyone passionate about the people and history of the Dominican Republic, a country which for most of us is likely known only because of those lucky friends who went there for Spring Break.  

The Italian couple who selflessly risk their lives to harbour a fugitive they have never met, all in the name of freedom; the assassins who endure the most gruesome of tortures with dignity and composure; the puppet president who takes the reigns of a nation in crisis and turns it’s bucking head in a new direction; these are the heroes of The Feast of the Goat.  Urania bears the weight of a bitter betrayal by her own father and a sadistic violation by a vile old man, and as such she is a character worthy of sympathy and compassion.  Urania, however, fled the country before the chaos and violence that came in the wake of Trujillo’s death, and she manages to live a life of safety and privilege.  It is difficult as a reader to identify with the vindictive cruelty she shows to her family, and more difficult still to consider her a heroine of this story when seen in contrast with the countless valorous and noble individuals who take action against Trujillo and his cronies.  

This novel was extremely powerful, and some of the images will stay with me longer than I would like.  Llosa weaves fact and fiction together seamlessly, creating a complexity of character and depth of detail that belies the historical uncertainty surrounding this period.  His portrait of Rafael Trujillo as a man both fearsome and pathetic is the most interesting of any of the books we have read so far, and reminds me (in quality of portrayal if not style) of Louis de Bernières depiction of Benito Mussolini.