Well, perhaps in part because of a cold, I have finished Kingsolver's The Lacuna. There was no choice about having to rest quietly, and the novel took my mind off my aches and pains. It was rather like reading three novels though,because each section was so long. (Not that I am complaining. I like a long novel.) A young man's life, from his life with his mother, to his life working with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and then, his life in the Communism-phobic United States. This story was amazing, combining the story of Communist leader Leon Trotsky's exile in Mexico with the lives of Kahlo and Rivera, as seen through the eyes of a sensitive youth, who also happens to have the gift of writing.
After teaching Grade 8 Social Studies for the first time last year, I too am now fascinated by the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations of long ago. So it was good to find a character who took those societies from the past and wrote his own impressions of them. All civilizations change and sometimes fall apart, in no small measure due to the leadership of each. This is also true of the United States (Truman and Hoover, and a bit part by Nixon), and of Russia (Trotsky versus Stalin), as revealed in the novel.
The why of the Cold War is explained very well here. Ignorance is revealed to be the true evil that bedevils any society. Do all civilizations fail because of fear of the other? "Most of them do not know what communism is, could not pick it out of a lineup. They only know what anti-communism is. The two are practically unrelated." (Harrison's lawyer). I admit that I found the last part of the novel the most traumatic, the most painful section to read. Even the tragedy of Leon Trotsky's death must compete with our hero's disillusionment with United States society in those years of J. Edgar Hoover.
So thank you, Barbara Kingsolver, for reminding another idealist of the political way of the world.
self-portraits of Frida Kahlo
After teaching Grade 8 Social Studies for the first time last year, I too am now fascinated by the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations of long ago. So it was good to find a character who took those societies from the past and wrote his own impressions of them. All civilizations change and sometimes fall apart, in no small measure due to the leadership of each. This is also true of the United States (Truman and Hoover, and a bit part by Nixon), and of Russia (Trotsky versus Stalin), as revealed in the novel.
A mural of the Aztec civilization by Diego Rivera
The why of the Cold War is explained very well here. Ignorance is revealed to be the true evil that bedevils any society. Do all civilizations fail because of fear of the other? "Most of them do not know what communism is, could not pick it out of a lineup. They only know what anti-communism is. The two are practically unrelated." (Harrison's lawyer). I admit that I found the last part of the novel the most traumatic, the most painful section to read. Even the tragedy of Leon Trotsky's death must compete with our hero's disillusionment with United States society in those years of J. Edgar Hoover.
murals by Diego Rivera
Rivera's Man at the Crossroads
So thank you, Barbara Kingsolver, for reminding another idealist of the political way of the world.
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