zlad13's review against another edition
this is authorial self insert fanfic and nobody can tell me otherwise
rachelann88's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
A lot of plot lines and they switch rapidly and with little context. Each story is interesting and well-written, but it moved slowly and zigzagged around a little too much for me to keep up with everything.
leavingsealevel's review against another edition
3.0
Oh I have lots of thoughts on this one.
First, it has come to my attention that I lack the ability to detect irony in literature. A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly despised [b:The Last September|195990|The Last September|Elizabeth Bowen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320390978s/195990.jpg|2054543], on account of its "weepy nostalgia for a dying colonial regime" or something along those lines. The other day my friend (and she's a lit professor, so she knows these things) clued me in to the fact that said weepy nostalgia is supposed to be *ironic* (like hipsters).
So I will approach Telex from Cuba with the understanding that perhaps its characters' nostalgia for la united fruit co (read the Neruda poem of that title, btw) in Batista's Cuba is ironic too. That writing a novel in which (neo) colonizers sit around sipping drinks and worrying about the rebels is not in fact always an act of nostalgia for colonialism on the part of the author. This is so interesting and so problematic. I mean, on one hand I believe that a potential role for the privileged storyteller is to show the ugliness of a system of oppression by telling stories of the privileged actors in that system. Show their absurdity, their ridiculous wealth, their contradictions, the way the system warps *them*, too! On the other hand, here and in [b:The Last September|195990|The Last September|Elizabeth Bowen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320390978s/195990.jpg|2054543] (and in plenty of other books I'm sure), it feels uncomfortably close to irony as a cover for a little bit of true nostalgia for that privileged world--that dying colonial regime.
My father was a little USian kid in Latin America in the 1950s (not Cuba, I'll point out. and not as colonial a life, I like to believe). Perhaps on account of that and on account of the fact that I also lived there as a child, the excesses portrayed in this book make me incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe they're supposed to...if Kushner is being all ironic and writing to expose those excesses. In an interview with Powells, she says:
..also, thanks to one of my wonderful students for loaning me her copy!
First, it has come to my attention that I lack the ability to detect irony in literature. A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly despised [b:The Last September|195990|The Last September|Elizabeth Bowen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320390978s/195990.jpg|2054543], on account of its "weepy nostalgia for a dying colonial regime" or something along those lines. The other day my friend (and she's a lit professor, so she knows these things) clued me in to the fact that said weepy nostalgia is supposed to be *ironic* (like hipsters).
So I will approach Telex from Cuba with the understanding that perhaps its characters' nostalgia for la united fruit co (read the Neruda poem of that title, btw) in Batista's Cuba is ironic too. That writing a novel in which (neo) colonizers sit around sipping drinks and worrying about the rebels is not in fact always an act of nostalgia for colonialism on the part of the author. This is so interesting and so problematic. I mean, on one hand I believe that a potential role for the privileged storyteller is to show the ugliness of a system of oppression by telling stories of the privileged actors in that system. Show their absurdity, their ridiculous wealth, their contradictions, the way the system warps *them*, too! On the other hand, here and in [b:The Last September|195990|The Last September|Elizabeth Bowen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320390978s/195990.jpg|2054543] (and in plenty of other books I'm sure), it feels uncomfortably close to irony as a cover for a little bit of true nostalgia for that privileged world--that dying colonial regime.
My father was a little USian kid in Latin America in the 1950s (not Cuba, I'll point out. and not as colonial a life, I like to believe). Perhaps on account of that and on account of the fact that I also lived there as a child, the excesses portrayed in this book make me incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe they're supposed to...if Kushner is being all ironic and writing to expose those excesses. In an interview with Powells, she says:
I suppose you could say the book is about a lost world. And depending upon who you are and what you're looking for, you could read it and say, "They had it coming." But not everyone has read it this way, particularly those who know and loved this lost world and are grateful to be able to revisit it in the pages of a book.I want no nostalgia for that world, not even nostalgia that is actually irony (and that quote doesn't sound particularly ironic, does it?). I don't want to love the lost world. I want to love Latin America TODAY, the world(s) where people have struggled for justice and sometimes won, and where those struggles are still going on. To his credit, I think my father feels the same way to some extent--a greater extent than any white character in Telex from Cuba, though probably not to the degree I do. I'm giving him a copy for Christmas...partly so I can ask him, "so did this book make you feel nostalgic or really pissed?"
..also, thanks to one of my wonderful students for loaning me her copy!
hollymaia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jefecarpenter's review against another edition
3.0
I so wanted to like this. And I did, at first. She invents a brilliant line of unpredictaable thoughts and actions that make insightful probes into a possibly predictable story. But then around halfway in, the detours aren't driving the story any more and the writer seems to be vamping, waiting for the drive to arrive.
It's an interesting finish, with several codas, and then the curtain call with Rachel K and Christian de la Maziére, but it would have been so much more if we had been driven to find out.
It's an interesting finish, with several codas, and then the curtain call with Rachel K and Christian de la Maziére, but it would have been so much more if we had been driven to find out.
andbarr_'s review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
grantsharpies's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
caroparr's review against another edition
3.0
Cuba in the fifties, when the sugar plantations and nickel mines were thriving, and Americans could make a lot of money and live higher on the hog than they ever could at home. Seen mostly through the eyes of the children, who notice the infidelities, the drinking, the racism, etc. Fierce but not bleak, this grew on me and by the end I was entirely caught up in the story and the characters.
jens_book_nook's review
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0