[NYTr] Rebel with a Cause: Rvws of New Chavez Biogs Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:23:34 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Aug 27, 2007 [A review of two new biographies of President Chavez appears in the Boston Globe. Hugo!, by Bart Jones, former Associated Press reporter in Caracas, is thoughtful, comprehensive, and research-oriented.... among the best of the bunch." The review states that Jones did not have access to Chavez, when in fact, the book includes information gathered during two lengthy interviews Jones conducted with Chavez in April of this year. A second biography is the English language translation of a book written by opposition-affiliated journalists from the Caracas-based newspaper El Nacional, which "reads like a 90,000-word profile, not reaching deep enough into ChC!vez's motives." The Financial Times also reviews the latter book.-VIO] Boston Globe - August 26, 2007 http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/08/26/rebel_with_a_cause/ Rebel with a cause By Ilan Stavans Book Review Hugo ChC!vez By Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka Translated, from the Spanish, by Kristina Cordero Random House, 327 pp., illustrated, $27.95 B!Hugo! By Bart Jones Steerforth, 570 pp., illustrated, $30 Hugo ChC!vez is George W. Bush's chief of mischief, a rowdy, vociferous critic (with ample reason) without "pelos en la lengua," as the Spanish saying goes: with no modicum of embarrassment to control his attacks. He has aligned himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in an effort to undermine American foreign policy. Not since Fidel Castro stormed the international stage in the late '50s has a rascal-cum-visionary generated such polarizing opinions. When at the United Nations last year, after Bush had delivered a dumbfounding speech, ChC!vez said that standing in the same podium a day later allowed him to smell the scent of el diablo, he left no doubt about his status as the boldest, most daring, and potentially disestablishing politician in the world. Unsurprisingly, a veritable deluge of biographies of the self-professed messiah of democratic socialism in the 21st century is taking place before our eyes. I've counted 12 in various languages, published or in preparation in the last couple of years. All seek to explain what ChC!vez means by "democratic" (surely not the Jeffersonian approach) and "socialism" (a dictatorial system for Venezuela closer to Uzbekistan's model than to Sweden's). None of these biographies, I'm afraid, are particularly memorable, less because of a lack of juicy material (The Venezuelan leader's life has all the soap opera ingredients: from shanty town to the military, with seasoning coming from a failed coup d'etat, a failed presidential contest against a former Miss Universe, and anti-Semitic fireworks) than because of the dry, uninspiring language they are delivered in. Biographers today have all but rejected the James Boswell approach. It's better to disappear without a trace, they say, to leave no trace of one's own preferences, than to produce a book that has a self, one in which the biographer doesn't hide behind mountains of data. Ah objectivity, the pains you've left behind. A couple of these books are becoming available in English. One is by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a husband-and-wife team of journalists associated with the Caracas daily El Nacional. In Spanish, "Hugo ChC!vez" was released under the title "Hugo ChC!vez sin uniforme" -- not quite "ChC!vez naked," but almost. Yet even if its fillers include an interview with his mistress for nine years, professor Herma Marksman (notice the echo of Karl Marx in the name), and excerpts from ChC!vez's diaries, it is actually a rather conventional piece of work, written in the free-flowing, unrigorous spirit of Latin American journalism (closer to what in Spanish is called "crC3nica" than to what English-language readers identify as nonfiction). The authors refuse to let their prejudices permeate the narrative, which is too bad because in the end it is difficult to trust their judgment. In a workmanlike translation by Kristina Cordero, it reads like a 90,000-word profile, not reaching deep enough into ChC!vez's motives. Its best asset is the opportunity it offers Americans for an insider's view: a Venezuelan myth, explained inside out. In contrast, Bart Jones's "B!Hugo!" is excruciatingly detailed. Jones is a reporter for Newsday who spent years in Venezuela as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press. He knows his trade. He also doesn't have direct access to the dictator. It doesn't matter, for his quest is historical. He asks various hows and whats: How did ChC!vez orchestrate his Bolivarian revolution? What does he see in the 19th-century liberator, SimC3n BolC-var? How does he connect that century to ours? What are the ideological premises of his domestic agenda? Is his internationalist campaign to help the dispossessed driven by a Jesus Christ syndrome? Jones's book is thoughtful, comprehensive, and research-oriented. (Between notes and index, there are more than 80 pages of back matter.) It's among the best in the bunch. There is something cartoonish in our fascination with the new political iconoclast on the block. It isn't only that ChC!vez is a mutineer. To a large extent, enjoying his electrifying performances on the global stage has to do with having someone stand up to a bully: Bush. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a Venezuelan leader, this or any other, reaching the same kind of momentum had the current American administration not behaved, in another Spanish saying, "como Pedro por su casa" (like a king in somebody else's palace), manipulating other people's destinies as if they were a game of Stratego, forcing them to choose between democracy and destruction. Of course, every nation has the politicians it deserves. Now that Fidel is sick, Hugo is standing at his side. To millions of Latin Americans, the passing of the baton is a welcome change. Cuba is a poor island, whereas Venezuela is an oil-rich, agriculturally-fertile country with enormous possibilities. The two are equally driven to endless verbose fits. Castro sought inspiration in the poet and freedom-fighter JosC) MartC-. ChC!vez prefers BolC-var, with a twist of Noam Chomsky. The rationale behind their actions, however, is one and the same: After all, doesn't someone have to stand up to the bad neighbor policy of the north while calling attention to inequality and injustice? Someone has to rewrite the constitution, to make it his personal wish-book, in order to make room for unlimited power, like Fidel has, even beyond death. And someone has to prompt an army of biographers to explain why the revolution is never finished in a region of 400 million people, a third of whom earn less than $10 a week. No wonder the Spanish language makes use of inverted exclamation marks. B!Viva la rebeliC3n! [Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His next book, "Love and Language" (with VerC3nica Albin), will be published by Yale University Press in October. ] *** The Financial Times - August 26, 2007 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3242f324-5405-11dc-9a6e-0000779fd2ac.html The rock-star revolutionary of Caracas By Richard Lapper The Financial Times BOOK REVIEW: Hugo ChC!vez by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Random House, $27.95 From Belarus to Iran and from New York to London, Venezuela?s iconoclastic president, Hugo ChC!vez, has become something of a household name of late. His strident opposition to US president George W. Bush and unremitting attacks on what he calls ?neo-liberalism? has importance in a world increasingly concerned about energy shortages. After all, Venezuela sits astride some of the largest reserves of oil and gas in the world. As MoisC)s NaC-m, the Venezuelan intellectual, points out in his perceptive introduction to this new biography, not since Che Guevara or Fidel Castro has a Latin American politician touched the international nerve quite so much. The publication in English of what has arguably been the best Spanish language biography of the Venezuelan leader is to be welcomed, even though the book is flawed in some ways. Its authors, Cristina Marcano, a journalist, and Alberto Barrera, a novelist, have enjoyed no direct access to the Venezuelan leader. Much of their account is based on secondary sources, and its alleged errors prompted one angry local critic to write a rejoinder. Moreover, the bulk of the book was written in 2004, since when Mr ChC!vez has stepped up the pace of radicalisation, and it has not been properly updated. There is little on a string of new nationalisations or the recent constitutional proposal that would allow the Venezuelan leader to stay in office for decades. The authors should also have given more attention to the development of the misiones, the network of social programmes financed by oil money but often staffed by Cubans. This network has been an important element in ChC!vez?s political success. Nevertheless, the book is well written and accessible ? unlike some of the ideological accounts that Mr ChC!vez tends to inspire. Marcano and Barrera are best when describing the first 45 years of Mr ChC!vez?s life: the bizarre sequence of events that took him from the tiny and remote village of Sabaneta to the presidency in 1998. The interviews ? original or not ? are a crucial and attractive fea- ture of this account. Childhood friends and teachers talk about the Venezuelan leader?s gawkiness, love of baseball and growing interest in the myths and ?derring-do? of his country?s history. Military conspirators describe how Mr ChC!vez built up support among fellow officers for the attempt to overthrow the democratically elected but unpopular government of Carlos AndrC)s PC)rez. They also recount how he managed to transform defeat into the ?advertising coup of the decade?. Appealing to plotters to lay down their arms, Mr ChC!vez declared on national television that the ?objectives we established...were not achieved?. But by casually slipping in the two words ?for now?, he added a note of dramatic suspense, as if to say: ?To be continued?. The coup cemented his image as a charismatic leader determined to finish with corruption, economic inequality and social exclusion. In its aftermath, Venezuelans queued up to meet their imprisoned hero. Herma Marksman, a history professor and Mr ChC!vez?s former mistress, said that the dizzying popularity transformed him. ?Hugo thinks he?s Rock Hudson signing autographs,? she said. ?A messianic fire had begun to burn inside him.? The account provides some other important insights into Mr ChC!vez?s personality and motivation. Always prone to ?novelise? his life, his conviction that he embodies a kind of natural spiritual mission seems to have become stronger over the years. Nedo Paniz, an architect with whom Mr ChC!vez stayed after his release from prison in the 1990s, says his devotion to SimC3n BolC-var, the 19th-century father of the nation, ?bordered on delirium?. Mr ChC!vez?s ability to inspire sympathy in a way that works as well in small groups as it does on the media is also strongly in evidence. It is a facility that means he is seen by many poor Venezuelans as a mixture of rock star, preacher and talk-show host. ?He speaks with simplicity, explaining things with anecdotes and a masterful command of popular codes of speech,? say Marcano and Barrera. ?He always sabotages the official solemnity, disdaining all that is formal.? For all the rhetoric of 21st-century socialism, Venezuela?s growing relationship with Cuba and talk of revolutionary parties, Mr ChC!vez is first and foremost a soldier. He is leftwing but is strongly loyal to the military comrades who have played an important role in his administrations. This is a man obsessed with power. As Francisco Arias, a co-conspirator in the 1992 coup and now Venezuela?s ambassador to the United Nations, puts it: ?I think he lives in the clutches of a paranoia to preserve his power. [This] is his own personal hell, and that is why he is constantly at battle.? * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . 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