Imagining Argentina

I was assigned Thornton's Imagining Argentina for my International Politics class last semester and dreaded the day that I would have to read the book.Much to my surprise, Imagining Argentina is a gripping novel about the tortures experienced in Argentina and throughout South America.Thornton's grasp of Magical Realism is astonishing, especially given his native tongue and land. Thornton shows an obvious study of Spanish and South American literature and manages to evoke the nature of Magical Realism in a book written in English for an American audience.Read Imagining Argentina. It is a fascinating novel that is impressive in both literary prowess and contemporary political importance.

In this masterfully spun and tragic tale, Lawrence Thronton captures the very essence of the genre of mystical Latin American literature. In an homage to the works of authors like Marques and Allende, the author blends the fantastic and the deadly real, giving the reader a heart wrenching view of Aregentina during the military junta. Thornton, himself not Latin, brings to life the pain and hopelessness of those whose relatives would disapear under the military's rule and who had no one to whom they could turn.In colorful language that seems to flow off the page and into your heart, he creates a world so real that you feel like you know the depth that these characters suffer. Magical realism can be extremely dificult to write as it often fails to hold the reader. Exactly the opposite is true of this wonderful novel.

A brilliant and inspiring novel, Lawrence Thornton's "Imagining Argentina" effectively portrays the turmoil and struggle in Argentina in the 1970's as people were taken from their loved ones by corrupt government officials and became members of "the disappeared". Using exceptional and eloquent writing techniques, Thornton is able to portray a story of love, imagination, despair and most provocatively, faith. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this novel, is its ability to establish a relationship between the reader and the protagonist, Carlos Rueda. So deeply intriguing and stimulating is this central character, that the reader cannot help but communicate with him, by sympathizing the losses of his wife and daughter, understanding his desperation and desperation and inhaling his words of wisdom and bold faith in humanity. The story emphasizes on the theme of faith and the power of the human spirit. Carlos' unbreakable belief in his wife's survival is never tarnished nor questioned, as he able to unite a lost community and bring hope that their loved ones will return someday. The only negative aspects of this novel is that sometimes the book is so plotted out that it feels like you are watching a movie rather than reading a book. The novel also starts off slow but picks up very quickly towards the middle. I highly recommend this novel, "Imagining Argentina" and hope that it moves you just as much as it has moved me.

Although not a historical account of the disappeards in Argentina in the late 70s/early 80s, Imaginging Argentina reaches deeper than any history book will. The terrible torture of those taken and their always sad fates are told through the "imagination" of Carlos, but it is through Carlos' actions that we see the terrible loss, guilt, and helplessness of those not taken. Wonderfully written, Thornton's writing flows easily drawing you to read on despite your dread of what may come next. An amazingly sad book that is full of hope. It teaches us, again, that the human spirit cannot be broken.

I read this book, Imagining Argentina, for a class on conscience and political struggle. Of the books we read (Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee, In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, and others), this book quickly emerged among my classmates as a favorite. This is in part due to the fact that it is an easy read. The language flows smoothly, unburdened with cumbersome wording. Also, the crafting of the story is quite artful. Imagining Argentina takes its material from historical events. Argentina's so-called "dirty war" was an internal conflict, waged by the military government on the people. Anyone who publicly decried the generals or their policies risked being disappeared. The main character of Thornton's novel, Carlos Rueda, is a playwright who discovers a gift for seeing both past and future events through the eyes of the disappeared after his own wife is taken away. People start coming to him to hear the stories of their disappeared loved ones. Though many of the characters are fictional, the stories Rueda tells are taken from actual experiences of victims of the dirty war. Thus, Thornton blends mysticism with factual information to create a novel that is both a compelling read and a moving account of Argentina's dark, not-so-distant past.