Bad Vibes [Hardcover]

Alberto Fuguet (Author), Kristina Cordero (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

A privileged teenager in Santiago, Chile, Matias seems oblivious to the benefits of being a member of the wealthy class, but underneath Matias's apathy lies an emotional turmoil that comes out as he grows up and becomes father to a child.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alberto Fuguet's newly translated novel Bad Vibes introduces this popular young Chilean writer to English-language readers. Written in the engaging and intelligent voice of Matias, an alienated, rich, teenage kid, Bad Vibes is frequently described as a South American Catcher in the Rye. Fuguet's story is set in 1980, a politically-charged era of Chilean history, when many in the country struggled against the country's dictatorship, including 17-year-old Matias. Meanwhile, Matias is also breaking up under the strain of an adolescence in a collapsing family, of cutting classes and snorting cocaine, and of the pursuit of love, sex, and meaning.

From Library Journal

Bad Vibes (Malo Onda) is Chilean author Fuguet's first work to appear in English. It is narrated by 17-year-old Matias, who returns from a class holiday in Rio with a massive identity crisis. Caught between childhood and adulthood with no positive role models except for the "Great Alejandro Paz of Chile," an intellectual bartender at the local disco, Matias is worried about life under a dictatorship, a father on his second adolescence, anomie, acne, sex, drugs, alcohol, and the secret of his Jewish ancestry in an anti-Semitic culture. At once a self-indulged, spoiled teenager and a seriously reflective youth seeking some moral and ethical basis from which to begin his adult years, Matias seems destined for self-destruction but miraculously dredges up enough optimism to face the future. This bleakly humorous novel, set to an American top-40 soundtrack from the 1970s and 1980s, is highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.?Rebecca A. Stuhr-Rommereim, Grinnell Coll. Libs., Ia.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312150598
• ISBN-13: 978-0312150594
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cool, contemporary and realistic view of South America, January 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Vibes (Hardcover)

I lived in Chile two years ago and the book everybody was reading was Alberto Fuguet's MALA ONDA or Bad Vibes. I'm so excited i's finally coming out in English. It's a very cool, contemporary politcal story told by this rich kid who hates disco music, dances during the curfew, hangs out with surfers, snorts his dad's coke and reads american books and magazines. Bad Vibes is a fresh hurrican to come out of the typical magical realistic Southamerican landscape. This book is hip, real, funny and emotionally compelling. It's quite american and, on the other hand, it's so chilean. It's wierd how a dictatorship can affect a teenager's view. Matías Vicuña (the narrator) is still a teenage though, no matter what he sees. He just has to cope. I really recommend it. Ralph Anderson, Tucson, AZ

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh., March 17, 2002

By 

Lisa Pozzi "Mama, Wife, Biz Owner" (Carlsbad, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bad Vibes (Hardcover)

I read this book years ago and recently saw the film "Y tu mama tambien", which made me come back to Bad Vibes. I recommend them both. Mala Onda represents the new voice of Chilean writers, and of kids all over the world growing up amidst drugs, malls, boredom, etc. This book certainly tells a different story of Pinochet than all the history books I've read on the seventies and eighties in Chile.

When will more of Fuguet's novels be translated into English?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Matias reveals the complexity of himself and of Santiago., October 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Vibes (Hardcover)

Matias Vicuna's last name is no accident. He lives in Santiago, Chile, not far from the habitat of the animal whose fur caused a scandal for the Nixons because it was not simple cloth. This is a story that is more than the whole whole cloth - it has the feeling of direct connection from experience through the keyboard and into prose. The story covers the week before the 1980 plebiscite endorsing a new Constitution for Chile, one that to some extent made Pinochet the legitimate ruler. The plebiscite appeared to change nothing, but in the life of young Matias, everything changes that week. The story is more than it seems, and so is Matias. He has been compared in other revues to Holden Caulfield, but to this reader, Matias surpasses J.D. Salinger's character. He is better read, and less sheltered, despite his privileged existence in the economic stratosphere of his country. The challenges he confronts as a young man in a changing country are analogous to Holden's, but more complex. The sex, drugs, and rock and roll add an extreme diminsion to his detailed ruminations about teen-aged obsessions, so that Matias confronts his family and its history in a context of greater personal risk than did Holden Caulfield and at a time of greater political risk as well. This novel could be a harbinger of coming of age in 21st century North America, and if so, its author would probably not be surprised. His character looks to the Village Voice and the US music scene for inspiration, but Fuguet is very clever. His inspiration is to be found in the last name of his character, in the Andes, and in a way of life, or a way to make sense of life, that is as warm, soft, and beautiful as the skin of the animal for whom his character is named. As for the nature of the animal itself, the novel makes no demands,no pretensions, but the inward journey of Matias Vicuna is a metaphor for getting the reader inside the skin of the beast. It is a fast-moving, intense story told as a kind of diary, but its meanings linger and transform after the race through the pages, the parties, the girls, the songs, the drugs, the drinks, the relatives, and the politics. "Bad Vibes" is a book to remember.