This was really a very strange novel about not so much the life of Evita Peron but about her corpse after she died and what happened to it. For me, this was really hard to get through. Although this is a novel and fictional, it is hard to tell what is really true and what is not. The author injects himself into the novel and describes various interviews he had with key figures in the story so it makes it seem as this is more biographical than fiction. His writing style made it very tedious and I had a hard time finishing this.
Interwoven into the story are vignettes about Evita who was an actress who rose out of poverty and became both heroine and saint to the Argentine people. After her death, she is embalmed so that her body was preserved indefinitely. But there were also some copies of the body made using wax and vinyl which made it difficult for anyone to really identify the true body. The embalmed corpse ends up going back and forth across the ocean and in and out of the possession of the Peronists who wanted to preserve her legacy. But the representatives of the military junta that drove Juan Peron into exile want to demonstrate her mortality and corruptibility. The novel has some somewhat interesting characters including the Colonel who is tasked with finding and burying the body, Eva's hairdresser who tells first-hand experiences of Eva and her fixations, and the celebrated embalmer who tried to preserve her corpse.
Although this was a somewhat interesting take on Evita's story, as I've said, the style of the novel kept me wanting it to end. I found it to be overlong and really a chore to get through. But it did make me want to find out more about the Perons and the Argentinian government of the 40s and 50s. I may have to watch the musical "Evita"! The rioting in the streets by the poor and the fascist leanings of the men in power did remind me somewhat of America's current leadership and situation. We need to learn from the past!
Interwoven into the story are vignettes about Evita who was an actress who rose out of poverty and became both heroine and saint to the Argentine people. After her death, she is embalmed so that her body was preserved indefinitely. But there were also some copies of the body made using wax and vinyl which made it difficult for anyone to really identify the true body. The embalmed corpse ends up going back and forth across the ocean and in and out of the possession of the Peronists who wanted to preserve her legacy. But the representatives of the military junta that drove Juan Peron into exile want to demonstrate her mortality and corruptibility. The novel has some somewhat interesting characters including the Colonel who is tasked with finding and burying the body, Eva's hairdresser who tells first-hand experiences of Eva and her fixations, and the celebrated embalmer who tried to preserve her corpse.
Although this was a somewhat interesting take on Evita's story, as I've said, the style of the novel kept me wanting it to end. I found it to be overlong and really a chore to get through. But it did make me want to find out more about the Perons and the Argentinian government of the 40s and 50s. I may have to watch the musical "Evita"! The rioting in the streets by the poor and the fascist leanings of the men in power did remind me somewhat of America's current leadership and situation. We need to learn from the past!
