3.5/5

"নিকারাগুয়ায়" তিনি বলেন,"প্রত্যেককেই কবি বলে বিবেচনা করা হয়, উল্টোটি প্রমাণিত না হওয়া পর্যন্ত।"
এই কবিদের দেশে সালমান রুশদি ভ্রমণ করেছিলেন ১৯৮৬ সালে, সমাজতন্ত্রী সান্দিনিস্তা বিপ্লবীদের চূড়ান্ত বিজয়ের সপ্তম বর্ষপূর্তিতে। যে দেশটির জীবিতদের বোঝার জন্য, লেখকের মনে হয়েছিলো, মৃতদের দিয়ে শুরু করা উচিত। কারণ "দেশটি প্রেতে পরিপূর্ণ ছিলো।" দীর্ঘ স্বৈরাচারী শাসনের ফলে দেশটিতে জমে উঠেছিলো লাশ আর কান্না। ছিলো অর্থনৈতিক, রাজনৈতিক আর মনস্তাত্ত্বিক নানান সমস্যা। রুশদি তার তিন সপ্তাহের সফরের অভিজ্ঞতা ও পর্যবেক্ষণ বর্ণনা করেছেন বইতে। খুব গভীর কোনো বই না। কিন্তু পড়তে পড়তে পাঠকের মনে হতেই পারে, পৃথিবীর সব বিপ্লব আর বিপ্লববিধ্বস্ত জনপদের গল্প কোনো এক অদৃশ্য জাদুবলে একই রকম হয়ে যায়, একই রকম নিয়তি বয়ে বেড়াতে হয় সবাইকে।

(১৬ মার্চ,২০২২)

I really liked this book. More review to come.

A magnificent short piece of travel writing and political reportage, with the celebrated writer visiting Nicaragua on little more than a whim to see what the reality of the situation was. Brilliant stuff.

I bought The Jaguar Smile a few years ago after having spent a bit more than a week in Nicaragua visiting a friend. I was a little surprised to see Salman Rushdie writing about Central America, and I think at first I thought it was a collection of fiction stories. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually a nonfiction look at his stay in Nicaragua during the time the Sandinistas were in power in the late 80s. Apparently the book got a lot of flak for being too kind to Ortega and the new government, and he does see many of the improvements that the communists brought to the country over the previous horrible dictatorship. He did spend some time talking about censorship, but it was always in a larger context. His summary of the situation:

"The argument usually ended in the same place. Nicaragua was an imperfect state. But it was also engaged in a true revolution: in an attempt, that is, to change the structures of society in order to improve the lives of its citizens. And imprefection, even the deep flaw of censorship, did not constitute a justification for being crushed by a super-power's military and economic force."

He also spoke to the privileged vantage point he occupied as a visiting observer of the conflict:

"We parted in Madrid, and returned to our separate lives, two migrants making our way in this West stuffed with money, power and things, this North that taught us how to see from its privileged point of view. But maybe we were the lucky ones; we knew that other perspectives existed. We had seen the view from elsewhere."

All in all, I was impressed by this little time capsule that opened a small window to the history of Nicaragua.

In 1986 maakte de Indiase schrijver Salman Rushdie een reis naar Nicaragua. In dit boek doet hij daar verslag van. Hij heeft met veel mensen gesproken, zowel met boeren en andere burgers als met leidende figuren. Dit is mijn eerste kennismaking met het land. Mijn indruk is dat het een land van tegenstrijdigheden is, dat vanuit revolutionaire achtergrond op zoek is naar democratisering – er is een hoofdstuk gewijd aan de totstandkoming van de grondwet – en afstand probeert te nemen van de vs. Aan het eind is een hoofdstuk, waarin de nadruk valt op het thema censuur; het blijkt dat je ook daarover genuanceerd kunt denken. Rushdie geeft een redelijk veelzijdig beeld, zij het niet vanuit het gezichtspunt van de zogeheten contra’s, die in 1986 nog steeds in een guerillastrijd verwikkeld waren met de Sandinisten. Zeer veel namen passeren de revue, zo, dat het mij duizelt.
Dit is reisliteratuur die, anders dan de meeste reisboeken die ik heb gelezen, niet zozeer een toeristische en/of landschappelijke benadering heeft, maar een politiek-sociale invalshoek kent. Waardevol om aan de hand van een geïnformeerde buitenlander op de hoogte raken of eigenlijk een introductie te krijgen van Nicaragua. JM

Mike's review on 06/18 is right on the mark. Rushdie, obviously has written this book after having very little exposure to the Sandinista government of the 1980's. Taking into consideration the red carpet treatment he got for the 3 weeks he was in Nicaragua, it's understandable why he may have come to the ill-informed illusions regarding the Sandinista that he puts forth in this novel.

Disregarding Rushdie's bias, this book is a well written behind the scenes look at the country of Nicaragua during the Sandinista regime. Considering most Americans could not even pick Nicaragua off a map of Central America (that number becomes significantly smaller if you produce an entire globe), and the only information they posses is what they see on the nightly news, this book is a welcomed counter view point to what occurred in Nicaragua during the Contra war.

Overall, The Jaguar Smile is an easy and enjoyable read. As I'm reading, I can feel myself back immersed in the Nicaraguan culture again. While I might not agree with many of Rushdie's opinions/assertions, I do appreciate that he shares them in this book. That by writing this book he has shared with us an experience that few people outside of a world renowned author could have garnered during this tumultuous time in Nicaraguan history. This is where the value of this book lies.

Some Interesting Thoughts, but Can't Take it Seriously Based on Only Three Weeks In-Country

I started this book because I wanted to learn about Nicaragua, but I despaired when the author mentioned in the first page that it was entirely composed of his experiences from visiting the country for only three weeks in 1986. I find it rather insulting to think that someone would think they had enough to write about a country and its moment in history with that minimal exposure to the place and its people (I feel the same way about Joan Didion's "Salvador.") I finished it because it was short, but didn't consider it all that valuable beyond an admittedly well-written travel log with cameos from several important Nicaraguan historical figures, including Daniel Ortega. Because of the author's apparent and admitted lack of familiarity with the subject matter, I don't feel I can rely on his assessment too much and thus can't give more than 2 stars.

A few observations I found interesting:
-"One didn't have to like people to believe in their right not to be squashed by the United States. But it helped. It certainly helped."
-"Conservative estimates of the CIA's planned 1986-87 budget against Nicaragua suggested a figure somewhere in the near vicinity of $400 million, four times the aid allocated to the Contra forces. Add to that the $300 being spent by the Reagan Administration to try and 'buy off' Nicaragua's neighbors, and you had a grand total of $800 million being spent on dirty tricks and destabilization to bring to heel a country of under 3 million people."
-When referring to the Sandanista censorship and press attacks, one government official said, "'If a mother has a sick child, very sick, she takes it to the hospital without first putting on makeup.' 'So, are such matters as the freedom of the press just cosmetic?' 'Cosmetic! That's the word, yes!"
-"You've got to understand that for Americans Nicaragua has no reality. To them, it's just another TV show."
-"The divisions in the (Catholic) Church in Latin America had now gone so deep, that the Vatican must be getting nervous. There was a very real possibility of a second reformation. A second breach with Rome."
-"If the opposition were correct and the Sandanistas were so unpopular, how was it that the government could hand out all these guns to the people and be confident that the weapons wouldn't be turned against them? There wasn't another regime in Central America that would dare to do the same; not Salvador, not Guatemala, not Honduras, not Costa Rica. While, in tyrannical 'Stalinist' Nicaragua, the government armed the peasantry and they, in turn, pointed the guns, every one of them, against the counter-revolutionary forces. Could this mean something?"
-Rushdie also commented on the constitutional challenges arising from a communist leadership in a Catholic country wrestling what to do with "abortion, adulthood (e.g., military service almost always began at age 16), and God."

3.45/5 stars rounding down. I read this book twice, about ten years apart. I remembered liking it and decided to pick it up again. I found parts of it interesting, but Rushdie's skilled fiction prose rarely rears its head in this nonfiction book. His politics here make sense and are mostly reasonable, but there's little scenery other than him hobnobbing with politicians and poets (many of whom are also politicians in revolutionary Nicaragua). Still, the book is worth reading if you would like to read a great novelist's takes on a 1980s conflict in which an embattled country tries to carve out a space free from American interference. And there are a few interesting scenes, scarce though they are.

I read this on a flight to Nicaragua for a class trip, and I found that it provided much useful background on Nicaraguan history. Rushdie, who visited Nicaragua in 1986, doesn't hide the fact that he was merely an outsider looking in on the country and has no pretensions of being a complete expert on the situation, but nonetheless shows himself to be quite an astute observer during his visit. While Rushdie expresses largely supportive sentiments towards the FSLN government, he doesn't fail to criticize what he sees to be its shortcomings, such as press censorship. I really appreciated his perspective as more or less an outside observer, from neither the US or Nicaragua, reporting on what he heard and saw there. Well-written and a very quick read.

Short read that’s pretty interesting if you (like me) don’t know anything about the Nicaraguan Revolution. But the limit of Rushdie’s commentary is “one side is worse, but they’re both hypocrites” which is not particularly insightful. Don’t feel like I gained much beyond a surface level understanding of the conflict.

The Jaguar Smile is a non-fiction about his Nicaraguan journey and travel and the experiences he got in meeting people, visiting places, coming to know their politics and history. The book is important as because it sheds light on the power-politics and the use of the people for political purposes. It also focuses on the American interests and policies bringing El Salvador and Honduras too in discussion. The inner conflicts and the tussle for power with the ongoing war between the Sandinistas and the Contras are the matters of it with America and Russia and Cuba on their back. Though a non-fictional, the things are as such those used by Lawrence in his novel Kangaroo during the Australian visit and The Plumed Serpent under the Mexican visit. We do not know if The Jaguar Smile is a non-fictional work of travels or politics.

A nice, easy choice for a short read.