Customer Reviews

Cuba Libre

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I believe that at the end of the day, Elmore Leonard will be considered by many as one of the best novelists of this generation. His prose is tight; his characters are multi dimensional and speak in compressed, vivid dialogue. When Charley Burke asks Ben Tyler, having just been released from the Arizona State Prison at Rosemary, Arizona in 1898, if he learned anything following his incarceration for bank robbery and the ensuing, relentless pursuit of the posse, Ben tells him "Yes. Next time I need more fresh horses."

Charley, Ben, the lovely Amelia, her evil keeper, the Spanish captors and the homeric insurrectionists (ocassionally they swap moralities), all coalesce on the island of Cuba a few days after the USS Maine is blown up in the harbor.

This is Leanord at his best: Colorfully, flawed characters, women who love hard, oftentimes for the wrong man, evildoers with streaks of decency, downtrodden individuals with streaks of evil, fabulous booty that's chased, followed, captured, lost, gained, lost again, regained, and the type of dialogue that from time to time makes you put the book down, repeat the line to yourself, and smile.

Just like Hammet, Chandler, DeMille, and Parker, you have to first like Leonard. If you do, this is a master at the heighth of his craft. Enjoy.

Fans of Elmore Leonard will find "Cuba Libre" to be an interesting and utterly worthwhile departure for this author. Unlike his more famous novels, this is not a contemporary exploration of people making their way in a society which punishes them for the choices they made so long ago.

The place is Havana, Cuba. The time is 1898. Set against the backdrop of the Spanish-American War, a group of Americans are trying to survive the soldiers of Cuba's Spanish regime and pull off a heist against a wealthy Cuban landowner.

The themes of Leonard's novel are the same- a heist to part a fool with his money, Americans dealing with the legacy of poor choices, the system against the heros. But the change here is the time of the story, and Leonard really shines in giving the readers a vision of what Cuba was like at the end of the 19th Century. The reader can almost feel the humidity of Havana, the sound of music from the city, the sights and sounds of 1898 Cuba pulsating through Leonard's prose.

The characters are dependably interesting, if a little familiar at the same time. Leonard's prose is excellent as usual, and the story never flags or fails to hold the reader's interest. Very good work.

This was my first Elmore Leonard novel, and I have to say, I thought it was just okay. The historical setting was interesting, the protagonists (Ben and Amelia) were quite likeable, and the villains were suitably vile, and for a while there the plot looked like it was really going somewhere, albeit slowly. However, the climactic train heist, with a good half dozen separate parties after the loot (one hell of a set-up), basically fizzled, and after that not much of interest occurred.

I wouldn't say Cuba Libre was a waste of time to read, and I might try another Elmore Leonard novel again sometime, but if I'd had a bit more advance warning about this one I probably would have skipped it.

I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Leonard's work, but I like a good historical novel and a good crime novel, so I gave this a whirl. While many of the supporting characters are fairly interesting, the main characters don't quite escpae from their penny dreadful roots. The middle of the book, where the plot solidifies and the history and politics are stripped away to reveal a more larcenous heart, is very good, but it leads to a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion where the Spanish-American War oddly becomes only a footnote after many pages of build-up. If you're expecting any real people to show up, try elsewhere.

This makes perfectly acceptable beach reading, but if you want a crime novel with bite, I'd recommend something by Donald Westlake/Richard Stark instead.

I have read quite a few Elmore Leonard novels and short stories and always find them fast paced, easy reads. Cuba Libre, however, was harder than most to relate to. It is set in Cuba around the time of the Spanish American War and I think it was an odd setting to choose. That doesn't necessarily hamper the novel, but I think it makes it not so representative of Leonard's work. If you are an Elmore Leonard fan, by all means read it and enjoy it. If you haven't read his work before, I would start with something more representative, like Get Shorty or Tishomingo Blues. Then come back to this.

Elmore Leonard's "Cuba Libre" bears an inapt title. "Cuba Libre" implies that Leonard has created some of his trademark cowboys and thieves getting caught up in a political revolution. To a certain extent that's true, as the book indeed has some classic Leonardesque characters, and there is a revolution in the wake of the U.S.S. Maine being blown up, but the war that racks the Cuban countryside rarely rises above an inconvenience (or an opportunity) for Leonard's cast of ne'er-do-wells.

Fortunately, a possibly inapt title is a forgivable sin. We read Mr. Leonard's novels for their wicked dialogue and hard-edged yet open-hearted heroes (along with the hard-edged and hard-hearted villains). "Cuba Libre" has these traits in spades.

Ostensibly the "hero" of the tale, Ben Tyler runs both horses and guns to Cuba on the eve of the Maine's destruction. The imminent war sets devious wheels a-turning, as does Tyler's instant infatuation with Amelia, a spoiled rich girl from New Orleans. Problem is, Amelia's beau is Rollie Boudreaux, an amoral business tycoon from America who uses ruthlessness to advance both his business and romantic interests.

Leonard's characters hop-scotch through a byzantine plot that involves robbery, murder, kidnapping, extortion, torture, false imprisonment, jailbreaks, political revolution, and more than a wee bit of plain old thievery. Along the way, our heroes and villains meet other characters of unknown morals but a well-demonstrated ability to kill at the drop of a hat. For Tyler, it is easy to come to Cuba having never killed a man only to discover that he has quite the talent for it.

Perhaps not one of Leonard's great novels (I have not read enough of him to judge), "Cuba Libre" offers a hardboiled plot that feels surprisingly truncated. The possibilities revolutionary Cuba offers for an author of Leonard's capabilities seem endless, and yet "Cuba Libre" really does not go very far with them. This book, for example, completely lacks the scope of James Ellroy's "American Tabloid" or "The Cold Ten Thousand," even though the locale offers such a potentially broad canvas.

An easy book to like, "Cuba Libre" offers a fun read, as far as it goes, although you will be a bit disappointed that it doesn't try to go further.

My motivation for picking up my first Elmore Leonard novel lies with my love for the movies "Out of Sight" and "Get Shorty." Although this novel takes a genre detour, I was pleased with my choice. Leonard did a great job of bringing late 19th century Cuba to life by painting a wonderful contrast between the beauty of the land and the ugliness of politics and human motivation. Ben Tyler isn't the hero I would have hoped for but he was the best that he could be. Pick it up, it won't take long to read, and you'll be glad you did.

I really wanted to give this book the entire five stars. It has so much going for it: the physical setting of Cuba, one of the most vibrant and complex cultures on earth, the historical setting of the late 1890's, a time of tremendous impact and upheavals throughout the western hemisphere, and finally, unforgettable characters. The flawed but fundamentally decent cowboy hero, the amoral but fearless heroine, the engaging young Marine sharpshooter from the Indian Territory, and the heroic and devious mulatto plantation foreman are some of the most vivid, well-written characters one could wish for in a swashbuckling adventure novel. Unfortunately, the underlying plot device - the pursuit of ill-gotten loot - is not worthy of the setting, the period, or the characters. It's definitely a worthwhile read, but you can't help but wish that Mr. Leonard had done just a bit better with it. Still, for a long plane flight (or, as in my case, a two week jaunt through back-country Honduras) this book would be great company.

CUBA LIBRE was my first foray of reading Mr. Elmore Leonard. I had been reading the classics, and gave them a rest and picked up this best-seller. It's light reading, an entertaining story, but I feel I heard that old song before. He borrows very heavily from Hemingway's FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. Leonard's Ben Tyler, the cowboy, is so close to Hemingway's Robert Jordan, you have to laugh. The same with Ben Tyler's girlfriend, Amelia. She is the double of Robert Jordan's Maria. Did Leonard think that he could escape these comparisons, that no one reads Hemingway any more? Having said that, I was entertained. But don't confuse this novel with originality. - Kevin Farrell

I have been an Elmore Leonard fan since even before he became so famous, and love nearly everthing he writes. Freaky Deaky, Glitz, Cat Chaser, 52 Pick-Up, and The Switch are among my favorite books as they contain the classic Leonard elements of life-like dialog, droll humor, subtle, amusing plot twists, and great momentum and suspense. I eagerly bought Cuba Libre in the airport at the start of my vacation and soon found that I could not get interested in it. I plodded away until I got about 75% through it and then gave up. The characters were bland, superficial, and boring. I didn't like any of them, and I couldn't even figure out why some of them inhabited the book. One of the pleasures of an Elmore Leonard novel is that you root for the hero/anti-hero character. In this book, the hero, aside from his mildly amusing philosophy of bank robbery, was completely unmemorable. The female love interest, if that's what she was, was annoying and unlikable. The plot seemed to go nowhere and completely lacked the zingy little plot set-ups and payoffs that I expect from Elmore Leonard. I really, really wanted to like this book. Please, if you think this book is typical Elmore Leonard, you are mistaken. Give another one of his books a try.