Telex from Cuba

<b>Privilege: A Theory Inspired by Rachel Kushner</b><br /><br />Rachel Kushner has done an outstanding job, presenting an informed, intriguing, concise but nuanced explanation for the Cuban Revolution in a highly accomplished work of fiction. Her story, although it references all of these, doesn’t focus on politics, or ideology, or personalities. The dominant theme is privilege and how it manifests itself in its practice and in its demise. And like most good literature, the importance of this theme and the implicit analysis of it goes far beyond the specifics of Cuba and the United Fruit Company’s involvement in the country. Her story speaks for itself; but I would like to pay it a tribute by suggesting a more general interpretation.<br /><br />Privilege is a form of power that requires a a particular kind of community in which to be exercised. Privilege exists in a world which is defined by explicit social and economic commitments among identifiable individuals. In turn, the privileged community must exist within a larger society which does not share its privileges. Although the privileged community may act benignly, even charitably, toward the rest of its surrounding society, its loyalty is always to itself. Thus, the meaning of privilege only becomes clear when there is a conflict between the interests of the privileged community and society. Community members will always act in the interests of fellow members. This is the operational definition of privilege.<br /><br />Employees of multinational corporations are members of a privileged community. The degree of privilege enjoyed depends largely upon the importance of the company involved, not to the society in which it operates but rather to the government of that society which acts effectively as a business partner. This relationship between the multinational and the government may be obscured by the complex technical details of regulatory and other legal arrangements, but these are the substance of the contract negotiated between the two parties. And implicit in this contract is the degree of privilege enjoyed by multinational employees.<br /><br />The existence of privileged corporate communities is universal. They exist in socialist as well as capitalist countries, in social democracies and dictatorships, in religious as well as secular societies. In this sense at least the world is corporate. It is organised and managed by privileged communities which are in more or less continuous negotiation with national governments. For a variety of reasons - continuity of leadership, commercial incentive, the availability of legal and technical skills, the reliability of personal progression, among others - the corporate privileged corporate community has a permanent advantage in all negotiations with government. <br /><br />The members of the privileged community rarely see themselves as privileged. They may perceive that their role in society is, say, one of increasing commercial efficiency or technological innovation (as in modern America) or of bringing the infrastructure of civilisation to less developed societies (as in the now-defunct British Empire), or one of promoting what is, to them, a manifestly superior culture (as with many current Chinese companies). Regardless of the diversity of self-image adopted by members of the privileged community, however, their common factor is the dedication to the interests of the community, to which they look for approval and reward.<br /><br />Given its inherent negotiating superiority and internal stability, the only external requirement for the success of the privileged community is the reciprocal stability of the governmental system with which it negotiates. It is the system, not the individuals or the ideological commitments of parties or factions, which is critical. Everything remains negotiable as long as the system remains intact. In this, the interests of the privileged community and the government are exactly coincident. Consequently they will join forces whenever necessary to ensure that the ‘rules of the game’ remain unchanged. This can easily degenerate into overt corruption but need not for the arrangement to work ‘profitably’ for both parties.<br /><br />This situation involving the interests of the government and the privileged community is both the primary obstacle to radical governmental action, and the primary stimulus to revolutionary upheaval. The American and French Revolutions, the various European civil conflicts of the mid-nineteenth century, indeed the American Civil War, among others are commonplace examples of the phenomenon. When the bond between privileged communities and governments is inadequate to any longer control the rest of society, revolution becomes inevitable. Governmental systems collapse and privileged communities disperse, to be replaced by a new system and a new privileged community. As one literary revolutionary, Kurt Vonnegut, was fond of saying: “And so it goes.”

<br />I really loved the sound of Kushner's <i>The Flamethrowers</i>, believing, after lots of hype, that it could just be one of those great novels of the 21st century, only for it to somewhat disappoint. But, for some of the ideas, and the sheer ambition put into it, along with the fact that as a person, from the few interviews I've seen, I do like Kushner, and thought I'd turn to her debut novel next time around. <br /><br />Telex from Cuba is equally ambitious - I believe six years in the making and various trips to Cuba along the way - and for me was the more engaging and better novel of the two.<br />I'd say, as debut novels go, It's probably one of the most impressive I've read. Certainly one of the most multi-layered. I can't recall reading anything - whether fiction or non-fiction - of Cuba around the time of the 50s, with the political turmoil, Castro, the Cuban sugar economy and more, with my overall knowledge of this period just being the basics. So, my interest was heightened, and I really did find much to like about this, and how Kushner put real life figures - even a drunken Hemingway gets a cameo in a bar, which I thought was nicely done - along side the many fictional ones. There is no singular central character here but rather many. Adults and children, all vivid and richly detailed and, more importantly, wholly believable, flaws and all. It's also worth mentioning the tropical landscape, which is very much a character itself. There were times when I could almost feel myself building up a sweat, especially when the fires were raging across the cane fields, and also - only scene of passion I can think of off the top of my head - the moment a couple of characters decide to hide behind a pool hall under the blistering mid-day sun and have sex on a bed of dried pine needles. Talk about building up a thirst!<br /><br />The narrative generally switches back and forth between various American families in the Oriente province working for the United Fruit Company and nickel mine, including the affluent Stites family, and the Lederers, whose young red-headed daughter Everly, along with the Stites' son KC give it in parts a sort of coming-of-age feel, along with chapters about the Castro brothers rebelling up in the hills, and also the strange relationship - if you could it that - between the Zazou dancer Rachel K and a mysterious Frenchman with a dark past, who we would learn joined the Waffen-SS years before.<br /><br />This is a very very busy novel, with lots to say and lots of big themes explored, including innocence, privilege, injustice, ignorance, love, and on the whole I felt it was all handled very astutely. The children get just as much of a voice as the adults, which I liked, so we get the lives from different viewpoints, classes, and age groups. My review is only really skimming stones on the surface, as there is so much to delve into, but I'll finish by just saying that I did consider giving it the five star treatment, but for fact that the Rachel K angle of the story just didn't have enough narrative for me. As it was her, and the French Nazi La Mazière, that intrigued me the most.<br /><br />Clearly written with a lot of passion - it's almost like a love letter to Cuba itself.

I wanted to read this one after enjoying <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/15803141.The_Flamethrowers" title="The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner" rel="noopener">The Flamethrowers</a> last year. This one is very different - an impressively detailed recreation of life in Cuba in the 1950s as the revolution was brewing. <br /><br />It tells the stories of an odd mixture of characters, mostly American colonists. The most compelling voices are the children. Inevitably the book is a little uneven, but is well worth reading and an intriguing choice of subject for a first novel.

It took me a very long time to get through this book. Normally, if I am struggling this much, I will move on; I'm not one to force myself through books, life is too short and there's too much to read. But I kept on with this, because I had a sense that Kushner had a particular vision for this -- something very different from what I, as a writer, would try to do; and I wanted to find out what it was, and how she was going to achieve it.<br /><br />Perhaps the most difficult thing about the novel's structure and form, for a reader, is that there is no protagonist. It seems to me that Kushner's main character is a certain time and place; a world, not a person. I've read many novels that shift in point of view and yet still provide the reader with a single voice that dominates, even just slightly, to guide the reader through. Delillo's Underworld, for example; or Toni Morrison's A Mercy. In those instances, the character who speaks in first-person is usually the central character.<br /><br />In the case of Telex, the first-person narrator, KC Stites, is not at all the most compelling or dominant character. His I think is the weakest and least convincing voice; and he is the least interesting character. This is probably a central reason for why I found it hard to connect with the story. This world of Cuba-on-the-verge-of-revolution that Kushner is rendering is so complex, textured, tentacled; I think she really needed an anchoring voice amidst the many many voices she portrays here. She seems to not have been able to decide between KC Stites and Everly Lederer, whose voice starts and ends the novel. I think the book would have worked better if she'd committed to Everly -- an odd young girl at the time of the revolution who has a quirky curiosity and an interesting way of seeing things -- as the central voice.<br /><br />But this world she gives us is indeed fascinating. And the novel is smarter than I am, which is another reason I kept with it. On the sentence level, Kushner is masterful. And the sheer ambition of the book is very, very impressive. I have a sense that this book is probably a must-read 5-star choice if Castro/20th Century Cuban history is of interest to begin with; but for the general reader, a rough entry.

I enjoyed reading about the 'drama' of the American families living in Cuba during the 1950's.<br />I especially enjoyed the children.<br />3.5 rating -- (the Political parts of the book did not 'flow' as much for me as the 'personal-relationships' parts of the book did).

<b>Pearl Ruled</b> (p8)<br /><br /><blockquote>Daddy swore out loud and rushed to the garage where Hilton kept the company limousine, a shiny black Buick. We had two of them—Dynaflows, with the chromed, oval-shaped ventiports along the front fenders.</blockquote><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynaflow" rel="nofollow noopener">Dynaflow</a> is a brand of transmission that Buick developed. The car itself was a Buick Roadmaster. If you don't get details such as this right, I lose my sense that you're getting things important to the story, things invisible to me, correct; that means I get the sense that your novel's world is built on misunderstandings and faulty assumptions.<br /><br />Fiction is made up. It's not history. A detail, a grace note like a thirteen-year-old boy telling the reader that his dad was getting out the Buick, is the world-building that deepens the experience of reading a novel. Unlike speculative fiction, authors can not wave their hands and say "it's my world, so that's how it is." This is January 1958, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala,_Cuba" rel="nofollow noopener">Preston (now Guatemala)</a>, Cuba; a real place, in a time many now alive remember. Take care to research details or please don't deploy them. Getting something that your point-of-view character is absolutely sure to know *cold*—he's being set up as a bog-standard teen boy and, in 1958 in the US imperial zone, that meant he knew about cars or was...funny—wrong is a signal to my overbooked eyes that this isn't the read for me.

<i> <blockquote>I told him that I hated caviar, and Daddy said it wasn't about taste, it was about having things that other people couldn't have, and there was a certain burden in that.<br /><br />Violeta Casal announced that Fidel had ordered his own family's cane burned first because they, too, were exploitative landowners. I guess you couldn't call him a hypocrite.</blockquote> </i><br /><br />Well, that was disappointing from Kushner: this was her first novel, set amongst mostly American businessmen running massive US fruit/sugar and mining corporations in Cuba with their bored and alcoholic wives doing the social circuit. On the margins are Fidel and Raul Castro set to overturn the Batista regime, with a side-plot of the enigmatic Rachel K., a showgirl, and the arms dealer who desires her. <br /><br />It could have been so good supported by detailed research - but this kind of traditional historical novel doesn't seem a good match for Kushner's skills as a writer and the whole thing feels dry and wandering. It's a far distance from the evocations of speed which open her <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/18460081.The_Flamethrowers" title="The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner" rel="noopener">The Flamethrowers</a> or the intimacy and intention behind her breakout <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/35610823.The_Mars_Room" title="The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner" rel="noopener">The Mars Room</a>.<br /><br />Too many characters, too much distance, all the exciting stuff happens off-stage or is told to us via 'messenger speeches' - the way Kushner regroups from this to bring off her second novel is probably the thing that impressed me most.

Rarely do I hate a book. I do admit that there are books that simply do not capture my interest, such as the previous book I have read. But this one is a little different.<br /><br />I checked this book out of the library a few months ago. It has been sitting on my drawer for quite a while now, and so I finally picked it up and started on it. It started quite ok, but it stayed flat. In short, it was quite painful to finish, although I didn't skip the chapters, and faithfully read until the end. When I finished, I was more than happy to return it to the library.<br /><br />Now what could be wrong with this novel? Well, to start with, there was no character that seemed to be the protagonist. Everyone had a chapter or two of their own. None of the characters were likable. It seemed that everyone was an enemy: the Americans were enemies because they were sucking the life off Cuban land and living like they were having their own fiefdoms, or the Cuban rebels for torching the sugar plantations and planning and executing the revolution. Everyone seemed to be the enemy in this case.<br /><br />The narration also shifted constantly from an omniscient point of view, to the point of view of K.C. Stites, which is a character, not really major, but not really minor either. It was quite dizzying when the shifts occurred. There were so many characters, so many American families and other characters that I wished there was a genealogy chart in the beginning of the book, instead of a map of Cuba. It could have been a good historical novel, but the spotlight was shown on multiple people that it was quite hard to keep track. The book lacked a cohesive element, except that everything was just set in Cuba.<br /><br />If you like Cuban historical fiction, go ahead and read this. Otherwise, I say pick up something else.

This was well written book. It was a page turner for the first half, but then came to a screeching halt by the second half. I felt it was boring and anti-climactic.<br /><br />However, it was neat to read about this time period, and I have never read ANYTHING about the Cuban revolution. Although it is none of my business, I wonder if the insinuations about Raul and Fidel's sexuality are true.

This book was mesmerizing- beautifully written and truly evocative of the time and place of the story. Kushner paints an indelible picture of life in the United Fruit company's outpost in Cuba, her words creating a vivid portrait of a way of life in collapse. The characters are wonderfully drawn and Cuba itself acts as a character in the novel. <br /><br />Knowing that Kushner's mother lived through this tumultuous time in Cuba lends even greater reality to the narrative. I picked this book up and could barely stand to put it down. The book highlights the inequalities that helped lead to the revolution, and the sadness of people on both sides when it didn't all work out as planned. I highly recommend this book.