196books's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Animal cruelty, Sexual content, and Homophobia
lauribooks's review against another edition
5.0
Es una biografía dura de leer por todo lo que pasó Reinaldo Arenas, hay muchos momentos desagradables, pero es una experiencia increíble poder conocer la vida de Arenas. El final del libro me ha dejado todos los pelos de punta con esa carta en la que se nota un amor tremendo por su país y un odio igual de importante por Fidel Castro.
Me ha encantado leer esta biografía y ya me he hecho con Otra vez el mar, la novela que más veces escribió el autor, y tengo mucha curiosidad por conocer cómo es su pluma cuando escribe narrativa.
Me ha encantado leer esta biografía y ya me he hecho con Otra vez el mar, la novela que más veces escribió el autor, y tengo mucha curiosidad por conocer cómo es su pluma cuando escribe narrativa.
mjhalberstadt's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.5
"The difference between the communist and capitalist system is that, although both give you a kick in the ass, in the communist system you have to applaud, while in the capitalist system you can scream. And I came here to scream."
This is a harrowing memoir about a truly terrifying experience that Arenas barely escaped to tell. He narrates traumas and tragedies with remarkable lucidity and straightforwardness. An important document about life in the Castro regime—about the persecution of queers (sometimes involving rape)—and the risks of being a writer under communism.
This is a harrowing memoir about a truly terrifying experience that Arenas barely escaped to tell. He narrates traumas and tragedies with remarkable lucidity and straightforwardness. An important document about life in the Castro regime—about the persecution of queers (sometimes involving rape)—and the risks of being a writer under communism.
readingjas's review against another edition
2.0
The oppression suffered during the years following the Cuban revolution is shocking and sad, and the hatred the author feels for the regime is palpable, but for me there were some elements that I found difficult to believe. His 'erotic adventures' in particular would lead one to believe that every man in Cuba is either openly gay or a repressed homosexual. If this is to be believed then I'm surprised that any women gave birth during these years, what with all the men screwing each other. These elements are so grossly exaggerated that it then puts doubts into your mind about everything else that is written. I was very disappointed by this highly acclaimed book.
scottflanary's review against another edition
1.0
Basically all men in Cuba have sex with each other. This memoir didn’t connect with me in the least. I can’t believe this was made into a movie.
lilmatt050's review against another edition
4.0
To check out my review: https://dancinginth3dark.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/before-night-falls/
True Rating: 3.5
I FINALLY finished reading this book after months of laziness and I am proud of myself that I actually read this entire book. I desperately want to give this book the full 5 stars because Reinaldo Arenas's writing is impeccable but unfortunately this book is not meant for public consumption. Ever since news has broken out about the United States negotiations with Cuba, I started getting curious over Cuba's history ever since the Cuban Revolution and wanted to know if anyone has ever writing and lived through this era. Technically I am 1st generation immigrant of Cuban parents since my mother was born and raised in Cuba until she left in 1968 with my grandmother, grandmother, and my uncle.
Throughout my childhood and leading to adulthood I have gotten new glimpses about my Cuban family's history and the horrors of living under Fidel Castro's dictatorship but for once I wanted brand new eyes teaching me the part of Cuba that I did not know existed which were the countless artists that tried to survive in the new communist regime. As I researched books about the revolution, I discovered Reinaldo Arenas who is a famous Cuban writer who was imprisoned for being a homosexual and a writer who spoke against the Cuban government. Plus they made the film version with Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp. (Who wouldn't want to read this after witnessing this?)
So in Before Night Falls, we are introduced to Reinaldo Arenas who was born in a very small village in Cuba (Which no longer exist) with a mother who lived with her parents since his father abandoned her when she got pregnant. She fell in love with this man who clearly deceived her and being totally oblivious she had one night of passionate sex and 9 months later gave birth to a child. His family life was very strange because he lived with his mother, grandmother, grandfather, and countless aunts who were desperate to marry a man. All the women in his family suffered a cruel fate when it came to love and I believe because they were so desperate to have a man, they would give up everything to be with him and let him used her until he found the next good looking lady to play around with.
Because he was living practically in nature, he got to see a different prospect of life and for a brief time he felt independent and free because being able to roam around in nature without anyone to bother him, swimming in the river, and overall connecting to the animals gave him this major spiritual and sexual awakening. Whats crazy is by the time he was almost 10 years old, he already had desires to have sex with men and even let his older cousin fool around him. Sadly after this period of enlightenment, everything went to garbage come 1959. Cuba before Fidel Castro was in a state of corruptness because they already had a dictator named Bautista who was making the country bankrupt to fill his greed. Then comes Fidel Castro who is an intellectual, praised the people and encourage those to fight against Bautista in order to bring a new system of government and then finally one day Bautista fled the country giving Fidel Castro total control of Cuba.
In that time period, Reinaldo was a teenager who volunteered for the revolution and clearly points out how they say thousands of soldiers died when in reality this big war was more a battle of intellects using propaganda to exaggerate more than the truth. Under Fidel Castro's regime, he offered free education, medical care, and a bunch of empty promises that later would become lies. Everyone feel in love with Fidel and sadly within a few years countless individuals were being persecuted in the name of the Revolution. If you were part of the government before Fidel, you lost your job, went to jail, or got killed. If you spoke against the government you were killed for being a counterrevolutionary. He changed the currency of the country making it difficult for the rich and other individuals escape the country. He also hated homosexuals and if you were caught for being one you were sent to jail or a concentration camp waiting to serve your sentence. He utterly brought the citizens of Cuba to its knees and beg for mercy.
As Reinaldo was growing up, he gets into military school to become an agricultural accountant but clearly has something else on his mind and pursues writing poetry. In Havana, he enters a contest at the national library for storytelling and wins which offers the opportunity to become a writer and work for the library. He becomes friends with other writers and get to live the artist lifestyle in Havana from having private literary gathers, watching live theater, ballet, and partying in the popular places in Havana. Everything seems paradise but as always the arts is the first thing to go in a communist government and it became illegal to attend the beach, theater, and have literary gatherings that spoke against the government. A bunch of Reinaldo's friends betrayed him by working for State Security or got other important jobs in the government. The sense of friendship became nonexistent because if you spoke against Fidel or mention plans of escaping you would get arrested by the secret police.
Once he was an adult by the early 1970s, he made the dumbest mistake of calling the cops over these two guys who he had sex on the beach who robbed his clothes and other items. When the police arrived and found the two individuals they were sent to the police station. The head of the police was the uncle of one of the individuals and quickly the two individuals said that Reinaldo and his friend tried molesting them and in return they beat him up and stole his stuff. They were immediately released and because Reinaldo Arenas was a famous writer who wrote books that were censored from the government, they arrested him and put in jail.
Luckily he escaped before heading to prison and now he is running for his life. He tried countless ways of escaping the island but to no avail he was caught and finally sent to El Morro which is one of the most horrifying and dangerous prisons in Havana. He was not charged for being a homosexual and he was lucky enough because of that he was not harassed in jail or put into the special section of the prison dedicated to drag queens, homosexuals, or transgender which were constantly abused, raped, or live in worst jail cells.
He was in prison for almost a decade, living in excruciating heat, freezing temperatures, barely any food to eat. He was constantly interrogated to make a confession that he was counterrevolutionary, a homosexual, and the names of his conspirators. If he wanted to used the bathroom he had a hole to use which always got feces stuck to his feet and constantly had to smell the foul odor of his other inmates and himself.
In the end he survives through all this horror and finally comes to America thanks to the Mariel boat lift but unfortunately he has been forever changed from the horrors of Fidel Castro. His friends were murdered, put into jail, committed suicide, escape to another country and for years he was not able to see his family. When he came to America he was shocked how the U.S. supports Fidel Castro and what he has done for the Cuban people. He was outraged and felt like a stranger which he practically was since he was an exile never finding a place called home. Sadly because he left Cuba to New York in the 1980s and him being a homosexual he got the AIDS virus and committed suicide in 1990.
The issues that I had with the book is as follows: 1.) THIS BOOK WAS TOO LONG. OMG this man writes beautiful and has an incredible flow with his storytelling especially since English is not his 1st native language but he could had cut out about 100 pages and be done with it. I disliked how I had to read 100 pages about his childhood in order for the story to become interesting and not put me to sleep. 2.) His sexual encounters became out of control. He practically had sex with any person who had a penis and I did not find any romance or intimacy with his sexual encounters. I felt like he was like a piece of meat while every man took a bite out of him and discarded him. I understand people who have constant promiscuous sex which is perfectly fine by me but this man supposedly had sex by the thousands. He would go to the beach one day, hid around in the bushes and then there would be a hundred men waiting to have their turn with him.
Finally the final reason that I did not enjoy as much as I did was because this book is not meant for public consumption. And what I mean by that is yes it was interesting learning about Cuba during the 1940s-1970s, but he mentions so many people that he encountered, people of no importance, or individuals that are either quickly forgotten or too much gossip about them that you lose sense of who is who. It is important for everyone to learn about his story, a story that thousands of Cubans have lived through but this book was dedicated more for his friends and family that knew him. Even though we learn of the horrors about Cuba, he plays homage to those who successfully escaped the island and to his friends and family who unfortunately died in Cuba in its disparity.
What this book taught me is how thankful I am for my grandmother to be able to have relatives in America who were able to claim her and her family in order to escape the craziness of what was happening in Cuba. If it weren't for her I would never have been born or I would have been born in Cuba in a country that countless people are starving every day, they lack any means of communication of the outside world, and a country that would have persecuted me already because of sexual identity. It is sad that millions of Cubans have been murdered in the hands of one man, one man only.
People praise Fidel which is perfectly fine because we live in a country where Freedom of Speech is allowed. But if you look at the island in itself, and take the time to witness how these people have become ignorant savages in their own island it makes you wonder who would let these people suffer with no food, clean water, barely any money, and no freedom of speech and equal rights. Then you ask yourself who is control of this government and thats when you put two and two together and realize that the country has had a dictator for 56 years who uses the Cuban revolution as the excuse for his actions. I will never understand how people worship Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. I pray that one day Cuba can finally be free and in peace. I wish no harm towards my enemies but I wish we can finally find peace and put everything to rest.
True Rating: 3.5
I FINALLY finished reading this book after months of laziness and I am proud of myself that I actually read this entire book. I desperately want to give this book the full 5 stars because Reinaldo Arenas's writing is impeccable but unfortunately this book is not meant for public consumption. Ever since news has broken out about the United States negotiations with Cuba, I started getting curious over Cuba's history ever since the Cuban Revolution and wanted to know if anyone has ever writing and lived through this era. Technically I am 1st generation immigrant of Cuban parents since my mother was born and raised in Cuba until she left in 1968 with my grandmother, grandmother, and my uncle.
Throughout my childhood and leading to adulthood I have gotten new glimpses about my Cuban family's history and the horrors of living under Fidel Castro's dictatorship but for once I wanted brand new eyes teaching me the part of Cuba that I did not know existed which were the countless artists that tried to survive in the new communist regime. As I researched books about the revolution, I discovered Reinaldo Arenas who is a famous Cuban writer who was imprisoned for being a homosexual and a writer who spoke against the Cuban government. Plus they made the film version with Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp. (Who wouldn't want to read this after witnessing this?)
So in Before Night Falls, we are introduced to Reinaldo Arenas who was born in a very small village in Cuba (Which no longer exist) with a mother who lived with her parents since his father abandoned her when she got pregnant. She fell in love with this man who clearly deceived her and being totally oblivious she had one night of passionate sex and 9 months later gave birth to a child. His family life was very strange because he lived with his mother, grandmother, grandfather, and countless aunts who were desperate to marry a man. All the women in his family suffered a cruel fate when it came to love and I believe because they were so desperate to have a man, they would give up everything to be with him and let him used her until he found the next good looking lady to play around with.
Because he was living practically in nature, he got to see a different prospect of life and for a brief time he felt independent and free because being able to roam around in nature without anyone to bother him, swimming in the river, and overall connecting to the animals gave him this major spiritual and sexual awakening. Whats crazy is by the time he was almost 10 years old, he already had desires to have sex with men and even let his older cousin fool around him. Sadly after this period of enlightenment, everything went to garbage come 1959. Cuba before Fidel Castro was in a state of corruptness because they already had a dictator named Bautista who was making the country bankrupt to fill his greed. Then comes Fidel Castro who is an intellectual, praised the people and encourage those to fight against Bautista in order to bring a new system of government and then finally one day Bautista fled the country giving Fidel Castro total control of Cuba.
In that time period, Reinaldo was a teenager who volunteered for the revolution and clearly points out how they say thousands of soldiers died when in reality this big war was more a battle of intellects using propaganda to exaggerate more than the truth. Under Fidel Castro's regime, he offered free education, medical care, and a bunch of empty promises that later would become lies. Everyone feel in love with Fidel and sadly within a few years countless individuals were being persecuted in the name of the Revolution. If you were part of the government before Fidel, you lost your job, went to jail, or got killed. If you spoke against the government you were killed for being a counterrevolutionary. He changed the currency of the country making it difficult for the rich and other individuals escape the country. He also hated homosexuals and if you were caught for being one you were sent to jail or a concentration camp waiting to serve your sentence. He utterly brought the citizens of Cuba to its knees and beg for mercy.
As Reinaldo was growing up, he gets into military school to become an agricultural accountant but clearly has something else on his mind and pursues writing poetry. In Havana, he enters a contest at the national library for storytelling and wins which offers the opportunity to become a writer and work for the library. He becomes friends with other writers and get to live the artist lifestyle in Havana from having private literary gathers, watching live theater, ballet, and partying in the popular places in Havana. Everything seems paradise but as always the arts is the first thing to go in a communist government and it became illegal to attend the beach, theater, and have literary gatherings that spoke against the government. A bunch of Reinaldo's friends betrayed him by working for State Security or got other important jobs in the government. The sense of friendship became nonexistent because if you spoke against Fidel or mention plans of escaping you would get arrested by the secret police.
Once he was an adult by the early 1970s, he made the dumbest mistake of calling the cops over these two guys who he had sex on the beach who robbed his clothes and other items. When the police arrived and found the two individuals they were sent to the police station. The head of the police was the uncle of one of the individuals and quickly the two individuals said that Reinaldo and his friend tried molesting them and in return they beat him up and stole his stuff. They were immediately released and because Reinaldo Arenas was a famous writer who wrote books that were censored from the government, they arrested him and put in jail.
Luckily he escaped before heading to prison and now he is running for his life. He tried countless ways of escaping the island but to no avail he was caught and finally sent to El Morro which is one of the most horrifying and dangerous prisons in Havana. He was not charged for being a homosexual and he was lucky enough because of that he was not harassed in jail or put into the special section of the prison dedicated to drag queens, homosexuals, or transgender which were constantly abused, raped, or live in worst jail cells.
He was in prison for almost a decade, living in excruciating heat, freezing temperatures, barely any food to eat. He was constantly interrogated to make a confession that he was counterrevolutionary, a homosexual, and the names of his conspirators. If he wanted to used the bathroom he had a hole to use which always got feces stuck to his feet and constantly had to smell the foul odor of his other inmates and himself.
In the end he survives through all this horror and finally comes to America thanks to the Mariel boat lift but unfortunately he has been forever changed from the horrors of Fidel Castro. His friends were murdered, put into jail, committed suicide, escape to another country and for years he was not able to see his family. When he came to America he was shocked how the U.S. supports Fidel Castro and what he has done for the Cuban people. He was outraged and felt like a stranger which he practically was since he was an exile never finding a place called home. Sadly because he left Cuba to New York in the 1980s and him being a homosexual he got the AIDS virus and committed suicide in 1990.
The issues that I had with the book is as follows: 1.) THIS BOOK WAS TOO LONG. OMG this man writes beautiful and has an incredible flow with his storytelling especially since English is not his 1st native language but he could had cut out about 100 pages and be done with it. I disliked how I had to read 100 pages about his childhood in order for the story to become interesting and not put me to sleep. 2.) His sexual encounters became out of control. He practically had sex with any person who had a penis and I did not find any romance or intimacy with his sexual encounters. I felt like he was like a piece of meat while every man took a bite out of him and discarded him. I understand people who have constant promiscuous sex which is perfectly fine by me but this man supposedly had sex by the thousands. He would go to the beach one day, hid around in the bushes and then there would be a hundred men waiting to have their turn with him.
Finally the final reason that I did not enjoy as much as I did was because this book is not meant for public consumption. And what I mean by that is yes it was interesting learning about Cuba during the 1940s-1970s, but he mentions so many people that he encountered, people of no importance, or individuals that are either quickly forgotten or too much gossip about them that you lose sense of who is who. It is important for everyone to learn about his story, a story that thousands of Cubans have lived through but this book was dedicated more for his friends and family that knew him. Even though we learn of the horrors about Cuba, he plays homage to those who successfully escaped the island and to his friends and family who unfortunately died in Cuba in its disparity.
What this book taught me is how thankful I am for my grandmother to be able to have relatives in America who were able to claim her and her family in order to escape the craziness of what was happening in Cuba. If it weren't for her I would never have been born or I would have been born in Cuba in a country that countless people are starving every day, they lack any means of communication of the outside world, and a country that would have persecuted me already because of sexual identity. It is sad that millions of Cubans have been murdered in the hands of one man, one man only.
People praise Fidel which is perfectly fine because we live in a country where Freedom of Speech is allowed. But if you look at the island in itself, and take the time to witness how these people have become ignorant savages in their own island it makes you wonder who would let these people suffer with no food, clean water, barely any money, and no freedom of speech and equal rights. Then you ask yourself who is control of this government and thats when you put two and two together and realize that the country has had a dictator for 56 years who uses the Cuban revolution as the excuse for his actions. I will never understand how people worship Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. I pray that one day Cuba can finally be free and in peace. I wish no harm towards my enemies but I wish we can finally find peace and put everything to rest.
gengray47's review against another edition
5.0
Now, needless to say, after ten years, I have realized that an exile has no place anywhere, because there is no place, because the place where we started to dream, where we discovered the natural world around us, read our first book, loved for the first time, is always the world of our dreams.
Wow. This book was incredible. I was instantly hooked from the start, which I wasn't really expecting from a memoir, but it was so well written and interesting I had to keep going. While the beginning is certainly questionable at times (the animals!), it was also hilarious and again, intriguing. Books are meant to teach you something new, right? The depictions of life in El Morro (and Cuba, in general) were so horrific but realistic, it was at times difficult to read and yet so crucial for understanding the sufferings of those in Castro's Cuba. I am so glad that I didn't stop reading and I made it to the end because.. wow. Am definitely going to get myself a copy of this book (the Penguin Vitae edition I read was MARVELLOUS!). Another book to remind you to never take any form of freedom as granted; during a simple road trip Arenas is aware that 'for the first time we were able to enjoy the sense of freedom and the thrill of adventure without feeling persecuted; in short, the pleasure of being alive.'
I especially loved Arenas' thoughts on dreams: I always went to bed like someone getting ready for a long trip: books, pills, glasses of water, clocks, a light, pencils, notebooks. To go to bed and switch off the light has been for me to submit to a totally unknown world, full of delicious as well as sinister promises.
Wow. This book was incredible. I was instantly hooked from the start, which I wasn't really expecting from a memoir, but it was so well written and interesting I had to keep going. While the beginning is certainly questionable at times (the animals!), it was also hilarious and again, intriguing. Books are meant to teach you something new, right? The depictions of life in El Morro (and Cuba, in general) were so horrific but realistic, it was at times difficult to read and yet so crucial for understanding the sufferings of those in Castro's Cuba. I am so glad that I didn't stop reading and I made it to the end because.. wow. Am definitely going to get myself a copy of this book (the Penguin Vitae edition I read was MARVELLOUS!). Another book to remind you to never take any form of freedom as granted; during a simple road trip Arenas is aware that 'for the first time we were able to enjoy the sense of freedom and the thrill of adventure without feeling persecuted; in short, the pleasure of being alive.'
I especially loved Arenas' thoughts on dreams: I always went to bed like someone getting ready for a long trip: books, pills, glasses of water, clocks, a light, pencils, notebooks. To go to bed and switch off the light has been for me to submit to a totally unknown world, full of delicious as well as sinister promises.
psalva's review against another edition
3.0
First of all, I'm glad to have read this. However, it was a very challenging book for me to get through. Arenas, who was a gay writer in Cuba during the Batista and then Castro regimes and a survivor of an impoverished youth, writes about his experiences very candidly. His descriptions of his childhood were often disturbing. The numerous anecdotes of his sexual encounters bored me to death. In addition, these descriptions were sometimes peppered with braggadocio, and an almost machismo tone, which didn't help.
However, it's important to remember that this was someone who grew up in impoverished conditions and was continually oppressed. In his own words, "I had never been allowed to be a real human being in the fullest sense of the word." With that in mind, it becomes understandable that he would focus on what brought him the most joy in life, his sexual encounters, as well as relationship with literature and the sea. In fact, when you look closer at this book, you become aware of the lyrical and melancholic tones that Arenas is evoking, and those moments become quite poignant. Overall, he seems to have had an unfulfilled and tragic life.
I would recommend this book to those who want to learn more about Arenas as a writer and to those who would like to know more about gay culture in Cuba during this time, especially in the literary world. Just know going in that his was not a happy life, nor a full one, and be mindful of the context of his situation as you read.
However, it's important to remember that this was someone who grew up in impoverished conditions and was continually oppressed. In his own words, "I had never been allowed to be a real human being in the fullest sense of the word." With that in mind, it becomes understandable that he would focus on what brought him the most joy in life, his sexual encounters, as well as relationship with literature and the sea. In fact, when you look closer at this book, you become aware of the lyrical and melancholic tones that Arenas is evoking, and those moments become quite poignant. Overall, he seems to have had an unfulfilled and tragic life.
I would recommend this book to those who want to learn more about Arenas as a writer and to those who would like to know more about gay culture in Cuba during this time, especially in the literary world. Just know going in that his was not a happy life, nor a full one, and be mindful of the context of his situation as you read.