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The Return of Eva Peron

By: V.S. Naipaul
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 0140052593
ISBN-13: 9780140052596
Released: 24 Sep 1981
RRP: £7.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Distorted, insensitive, inaccurate, and yet interesting - By: Andrew Parodi, 24 Jul 2004
I find this book interesting because I am interested in the perception people had of Eva Peron before the musical based on her life was released. But I found that the author's description of Evita, Juan Peron, & Peronism, is distorted. It is well established by now that Juan Peron was not a dictator & was elected by overwhelming majority in three elections. And yet this book callled Peron a "dictator" & tells his story in terms of him being a dictator who imposed his will on the unsuspecting & naive Argentine population. I am not defending Juan Peron; what I'm saying is that Peron was much more complicated than the linear perception of him as a dictator, & Argentina is a far more complicated country, with a much more complex history, than this author can convey.

I must take into account that this book was written in the early 1970s; Juan Peron's third wife, Isabel, had been elected Vice President & upon Peron's death she had become the first female President of a nation in the Western Hemisphere. One of the most important things Isabel did in during her tragicallly short time as President was to return the embalmed body of Eva Peron to Argentina (Evita's body had been in Spain; for elaboration on the story of Evita's body, see SANTA EVITA). Hence the title of the book THE RETURN OF EVA PERON. The author, therefore, takes the "infamy" of such a seemingly bizarre situation - the returning of a corpse to its homeland - & recounts the story in the vein of something of a noir-ish soap opera. In doing so, he commits historical inaccuracies, indulges in cultural insensitivities (death in Hispanic culture is viewed in a different context than in Anglo Saxon nations; the author fails to take account of that fact), & fails to provide any significant insight into Argentine culture. I'm struggling to figure out how to say it, let's see: he reads the whole thing as "concept" & writes like a screenwriter. I'm struggling to avoid the words "racism," "bigotry," etc., but I think that in many instances such terms would be accurate. That's why I think the publication date of this book should be taken into account. The prose & tone is very dated.

Perhaps the most objectionable reference in the book is the author's reference to Evita's death being part of "the passion play of a dictatorship." If you are interested in gaining more accurate insight into the Peronist experience of Evita's death, & the response of the Argentine population (colored by its Hispanic view of, & attitude toward, death), I would recommend reading EVITA: THE REAL LIFE OF EVA PERON & PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA. Both books mention that there was no coercion by the Peronist government in terms of the importance of Evita's death. The Argentine population was truly devastated by her death, & the extent of their mourning even exceeded what Juan Peron himself had anticipated. "I never knew they loved her so much," Peron was heard to comment while walking in the funeral procession through downtown Buenos Aires.

Andrew Michael Parodi

Regimes From Hell - By: , 17 Nov 2003
If you are not from South America or knowledgeable about it, & want to understand Argentina, you need to read this book. The long essay on Peron, his wife & the fantasists who ruined Argentina is worth the price of the book alone. Within the title piece is the desperately sad folly that was Uruguay; “A national airline with one thousand employees & one working aeroplane.”

VS Naipaul, a Trinidadian of (Asian) Indian descent, has been criticised for his own criticism, mainly of poor parts of the world. Now he is a Nobel Prize winner, I hope more people will read Naipaul & stop accusing him of being something like “an agent of Western values.” He is the closest thing we have to a living Orwell.

Naipaul is from a minority within a minor “Third World” country. His voice is clear, direct & brave. In an interview he said,” The job of a writer is to look straight at things & say what he sees. If a writer does not abrade, in a way, he has failed.” [This quote is not verbatim]

“The Killings in Trinidad” is a long & gripping account of the murder of Sharon Tate by Manson & “The Family.” Combined with the devastating picking-apart of Zaire’s dictator, these brilliant analyses are as vivid & relevant today as they were when written, more than twenty years ago.

Apart from being true, elegant & as dramatic as any thriller, these considered pieces may reveal to a reader that VS Naipaul is one of the greatest writers of our age.