Next pick

Thought this might be a good autumn read. It's a collection of four novellas, so it's kind of cheating, like four picks instead of one, but it's not scandalously long. I cold have picked a single Stephen King book that was much longer! I could not find an image of this book that had the title in a larger font than the author's name! This is the best I could do. I hate that. I think Stephen King is a truly fine (and very fun) writer. But come on. Not even Jane Austen gets that kind of billing, and I have never seen a copy of "Moby Dick" where the words "Herman Melville" hover in huge type over the book title! Modern folks are so irritating.

Father figures

I found it interesting how Trujillo was a kind of father figure, how his images were required everywhere and how people were indoctrinated to think of him as the almighty. Not surprising in a brutal dictatorship, I guess, but I found it very poignant how even people who thoroughly despised him, like Patria, still seemed to have a kind of warped faith that he could do good in the end, like there was some kernel of humanity in him that if you said the right prayer or whatever that he could be appealed to like a beneficent deity. It was so sad. He was like an angry father/abusive husband ruling the household with an iron fist and everyone hated him, but he was the only power in the household, the one who, if properly appeased, might change the course of events. Such a terrible, twisted psychology. The Mirabal sisters' example proved to the people that they too had some power, that the almighty's absolute hold on it was illusory, a mirage that could be shattered with a bit of solidarity among the oppressed. What did you think about this? Did you think Trujillo was sufficiently fleshed out to make the people's hatred and fear of him believable? Did you want more background? And, not sure if this is specifically related, but what did you think of the girls' real father as a father figure? Did their relationship to him have any bearing on their relationship to Trujillo as father figure?