gwendolynstorey's review against another edition
4.0
Salvador is a short read that manages to cover a lot of differing perspectives (Salvadorian locals and ex-pats, State Dept., USAID, etc.), thus giving a powerful overview of what was happening in the country at the time. It's important to note that Didion only spent a few weeks there- this book is in no way indicative of El Salvador's history or the complexity of US involvement. But, written in Didion's beautiful prose, it does a good job encapsulating US involvement in a foreign crisis.
mollyot's review against another edition
i have no idea how to review this. she definitely went to el salvador, i can tell you that much!
since reading salvador, i've watched an interview where she talks about writing it.
"i didn't come to any overwhelming conclusion about it... i mean, it was just a simple you go down, you report, that's all i was doing there. it was a very straightforward book... it was produced very fast, almost like a pamphlet."
so now i feel better about not having a lot to say.
since reading salvador, i've watched an interview where she talks about writing it.
"i didn't come to any overwhelming conclusion about it... i mean, it was just a simple you go down, you report, that's all i was doing there. it was a very straightforward book... it was produced very fast, almost like a pamphlet."
so now i feel better about not having a lot to say.
sailor93's review against another edition
informative
3.25
It was fine, I learned some stuff I guess but I also feel like I missed half of the point. At least it was short because if it was longer I probably wouldn't have finished it.
affiknittyreads's review against another edition
3.0
I have never read any of Didion's books (I know, I know) and this was probably not the right place to start. I chose this book because (1) I have been to El Salvador, but very briefly, and (2) I am interested in Latin American literature, culture and history generally, having lived in Brazil in the 1980s. Unfortunately, reading this doesn't exactly make me eager to read anything else she has written.
If these essays were published in the New Yorker or the Atlantic, as a sort of "Letter from San Salvador", and her assignment was to give the editor 15,000 words on what the hell is going on in El Salvador in summer 1982, then she fulfilled that purpose. The genesis of the book was a two-week trip to a war zone with her husband and other North American journalists, and her exposure to the country and its people and culture was accordingly very circumscribed. She obviously followed the reporting on US involvement in the country. She definitely interviewed extensively at the US embassy and in the US State Department. But she doesn't really seem to have much background on, or personal knowledge or appreciation of the country and its culture. She does mention that she employs a Salvadoran woman (most of whose family was brutally murdered), which seems (at least from the vantage point of 2021) to say more about Didion's privilege than anything else.
Most of the book is endless description of dead bodies, political violence, casual indifference to suffering, and general squalor. I'm sure El Salvador in 1982 was utter chaos. But she is unable to find anything redeeming or worthy of empathy at all. For example, this is what she has to say about the country's culture:
"In fact, El Salvador had always been a frontier, even before the Spaniards arrived. The great Mesoamerican cultures penetrated this far south only shallowly. The great South American cultures thrust this far north only sporadically. There is a sense in which the place remains marked by the meanness and discontinuity of all frontier history, by a certain frontier proximity to the cultural zero."
This seems like an audacious statement from a North American whose entire experience of the country is a two-week stay at the Hotel Camino Real surrounded by other members of the foreign press. And while the sentences are well-written, the tone sounds like a coastal intellectual from another era's sniffing disdain for "flyover country."
And here, her description of a handcrafts exhibition and fair in a small town:
"I had begun before long to despise the day, the dirt, the blazing sun, the pervasive smell of rotting meat, the absence of even the most rudimentary skill in the handicrafts on exhibit (there were sewn items, for example, but they were sewn by machine of sleazy fabric, and the simplest seams were crooked), the brutalizing music from the sound truck, the tedium; had begun most of all to despise the fair itself, which seemed contrived, pernicious, a kind of official opiate, an attempt to recreate or perpetuate a way of life neither economically nor socially viable."
Eloquent it is, but what it largely articulates to me is her own crankiness and general lack of compassion. Here she is, in a place filled with people who are experiencing this war in a daily, intimate, and tragic way--in a way wholly unlike the diplomats and journalists and Salvadoran elites she cites at length--and what she does is complain that she is hot and bored.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe she had a heart. But the only thing I know for sure after reading this book is that she was smart, well-connected, and condescending. She clearly was opposed to US involvement in the country, but you get the feeling it was more because she thought the place wasn't worth it, than it was borne of a desire to alleviate the considerable suffering of Salvadorans. And that is not the point of view I was hoping for from this book.
If these essays were published in the New Yorker or the Atlantic, as a sort of "Letter from San Salvador", and her assignment was to give the editor 15,000 words on what the hell is going on in El Salvador in summer 1982, then she fulfilled that purpose. The genesis of the book was a two-week trip to a war zone with her husband and other North American journalists, and her exposure to the country and its people and culture was accordingly very circumscribed. She obviously followed the reporting on US involvement in the country. She definitely interviewed extensively at the US embassy and in the US State Department. But she doesn't really seem to have much background on, or personal knowledge or appreciation of the country and its culture. She does mention that she employs a Salvadoran woman (most of whose family was brutally murdered), which seems (at least from the vantage point of 2021) to say more about Didion's privilege than anything else.
Most of the book is endless description of dead bodies, political violence, casual indifference to suffering, and general squalor. I'm sure El Salvador in 1982 was utter chaos. But she is unable to find anything redeeming or worthy of empathy at all. For example, this is what she has to say about the country's culture:
"In fact, El Salvador had always been a frontier, even before the Spaniards arrived. The great Mesoamerican cultures penetrated this far south only shallowly. The great South American cultures thrust this far north only sporadically. There is a sense in which the place remains marked by the meanness and discontinuity of all frontier history, by a certain frontier proximity to the cultural zero."
This seems like an audacious statement from a North American whose entire experience of the country is a two-week stay at the Hotel Camino Real surrounded by other members of the foreign press. And while the sentences are well-written, the tone sounds like a coastal intellectual from another era's sniffing disdain for "flyover country."
And here, her description of a handcrafts exhibition and fair in a small town:
"I had begun before long to despise the day, the dirt, the blazing sun, the pervasive smell of rotting meat, the absence of even the most rudimentary skill in the handicrafts on exhibit (there were sewn items, for example, but they were sewn by machine of sleazy fabric, and the simplest seams were crooked), the brutalizing music from the sound truck, the tedium; had begun most of all to despise the fair itself, which seemed contrived, pernicious, a kind of official opiate, an attempt to recreate or perpetuate a way of life neither economically nor socially viable."
Eloquent it is, but what it largely articulates to me is her own crankiness and general lack of compassion. Here she is, in a place filled with people who are experiencing this war in a daily, intimate, and tragic way--in a way wholly unlike the diplomats and journalists and Salvadoran elites she cites at length--and what she does is complain that she is hot and bored.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe she had a heart. But the only thing I know for sure after reading this book is that she was smart, well-connected, and condescending. She clearly was opposed to US involvement in the country, but you get the feeling it was more because she thought the place wasn't worth it, than it was borne of a desire to alleviate the considerable suffering of Salvadorans. And that is not the point of view I was hoping for from this book.
molllllusk's review against another edition
3.0
pretty cursory introduction to the political turmoil of early 80s El Salvador, and I’m sure, as that of a white American woman visiting for a mere two weeks, Didion’s insight is lacking somewhat. That being said I knew nothing at all about El Salvador so I found even the basic facts really interesting (and grim), and Didion’s prose is perfect as always.
pratt_kat23's review against another edition
2.0
Thought it would be better since the subject is fascinating, but it was terribly written.
terereads's review against another edition
5.0
A first-hand view of a country at the brink of tearing itself apart.
ashponders's review against another edition
2.0
Trips over the line of veracity into racist pastiche more than once. But I'm a brown guy, what do I know?