The Feast of the Goat is a novel by Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa. The story takes place in The Dominican Republic and describes the assassination of the dictator Rafael Trujillo who had been in power for over thirty years and the gruesome repercussions which took place after the assassination. You read the book from several characters’ viewpoints. I will here concentrate on the most important ones.
A main character in the storyline of the book is Urania Cabral who had been away from her native island for 35 years. She escaped to the USA as a fourteen-year-old girl with the help of good-hearted nuns after having been sexually abused. Urania is the daughter of Agustin Cabral who used to have a high-ranking position in the hierarchy of the dictatorship until he suddenly fell from grace with the Benefactor as the dictator also was called.
Urania returns to The Dominican Republic on a sudden whim to confront her old and ailing father with the cruel fact that he purposely let his daughter be sexually abused by the Benefactor so that he could hold on to his position and status. An act from which Urania has never gotten over despite her now successful professional life as a lawyer in the US.
Other important viewpoints belong to the persons who were involved in the assassination of the dictator in 1961. Every person has his own story to tell as to why he had to kill Trujillo. Furthermore, we get the viewpoints from the key persons in the dictatorship who were seemingly avid supporters of the dictator and the role they each played.
The historic circumstances which took place before, during and after the assassination of the dictator are a third important perspective. We hear about the slaughtering of thousands of Haitians in 1937, the problematic role of the Catholic church and the unstable relationship with the USA particularly during the Cuban crisis.
These important circumstances are told as seen through Trujillo’s eyes while we concurrently witness his rage over the decay of his body. He suffers from impotence and incontinence. A rage which he lets out on innocent people with great consequences.
The book is written in such a way, so the viewpoints of the different characters constantly change throughout the book. This structure commands the reader to be extremely focused and concentrated. Mario Vargas Llosa’s language is incredibly detailed in his description of the horrors which dictator Rafael Trujillo let innocent men, women and young girls undergo.
The Feast of the Goat is one of Mario Vargas Llosas’ most important books and it gives you a vivid and detailed understanding of how it must be to live in a dictatorship.
I can strongly recommend that you read this book.
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