A review by _fallinglight_
Viento Fuerte by Miguel Ángel Asturias

2.0

This rating reflects more of a “me problem” than anything else. After reading Prisión Verde by Ramón Amaya Amador I had some expectations about this banana republic call out book and was thoroughly disappointed bc I wasn't expecting the magical realism here and it was a little jarring and hard to take in. Unlike Prisión Verde, which is almost a chronicle of the daily green prison and told through the eyes of all the levels of plantation workers and their families, and chronicles their misery and painful lives with vibrant realism, Viento Fuerte is like experiencing a high fevered, malarial dream. There are time jumps, drifting, incoherent moments but beautiful, and repetitive for effect, language and phrases. I'll be honest and say that most of the points and key instances in this book were lost to me bc it was too florid. I wish we had learned more about the plantation natives bc as descriptive and dreamy as the writing is here it lacks humanity, which may have been the point, or not, idk. Maybe on a second read I'll appreciate it more but for now, I'm annoyingly befuddled.