Customer Reviews

Hacienda My Venezuelan Years

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It's a beautifully written book about the hacienda living in Venezuela. Being Venezuelan I was disapointed about many inacuracies that I found. 1) She says the Mayas Indians lived in the west part of Venezuela when the spaniards arrived. False. No Mayas in Venezuela. 2) The "Gaita" music she describes as coming from the plains (los llanos), has its origins in Zulia State. 3) The founder of the socialist party was Jose Vicente Rangel and not Rafael Rangel. 4) The head of the family, that she calls "padron", is the "patron" with a p. 5)Presidents are elected every five years, not every four years. And on and on. Is this bad editing? Probably so.

I do live a very few hours away from where the action of this book takes place. Since I read it I have not checked the place out but found some people that actually corroborated part of the story. This is why I reluctantly give it 5 stars. In spite of a certain inconsistency through the book, a few misplaced left leanings comment, a hard to believe naivete, the books stands firm as a good representation of Venezuelan rural mores, and a heartfelt memoir. Now, I do not want this to mean that Lisa Saint Aubin de Teran is an accurate reporter. She tries her best and only God knows how difficult it is to understand Venezuelan society. However she is very successful at conveying the spirit that moves things there, for good or bad. She is at her best when she shows how in spite of every hardship that falls on her, the country slowly gets into her and she cannot help but love it. I can relate with that, she is not making it up. And last but not least, in light of recent political turmoil in Venezuela, I can recommend this book highly: it will explain why a phenomenon like Chaves came upon Venezuela better than any long political analysis you might find around. Although Ms Saint Aubin kept her patrician acquired Teran she was unto something when she describes the "absentee landlord" mores of Venezuelan old elite families. Her comments on them are rather damming. But the reader needs not to worry, this is still a very strong personal memoir, that can also serve as a political memento.

I enjoyed this book while recognizing its quite obvious flaws in development. Teran takes an unimaginable scenario of a young girl completely isolated from the world in an unknown and, to her, backward cultural and shows her transformation into a strong and independent woman from the lonely ineffectual child she was. Yet gaping holes seemed apparent in the narrative. The impenetrable character of Jaime is never fully developed. The fact that he is a shadowy figure in the book as he appeared in her life, you never fully realize the terror and frustration she must have experienced at his hands. It would be a more complex and ultimately more rewarding book if the narrative did not hide the ugliness of this relationship (or rather describe superficially) the same way the character of Lisa did in her letters to her mother. The parentage of the child Iseult is never explored either but for one paragraph early in the book. While there may have been reasons for Teran to hide the truth of paternity from her community she hides it from herself too - a strange and articifical literary conceit. Nevertheless the book is full of vivid characters and a nice narrative framework of the letters to her mother glossing over the loneliness and pain of her young adulthood. I was engrossed and throroughly enjoyed Teran's journey through a metaphoric and literal foreign land. If you like stories of personal growth and change you'll enjoy her prose.

This was quite a unique book. It definitely had a surreal air to it. So many things happened so quickly in Lisaveta's life that it seemed that she was almost blindsided. As the reader, even, when she landed on the Hacienda, I thought to myself, "What just happened here?" I had trouble really understanding what made her fall in love with Jaime in the first place. That was never exactly clear to me.

I was shocked at how different life was on the Hacienda. I'm sure it seemed to Lisa that she had traveled back in time when she arrived. She did a good job of expressing what it was like to show up and have to learn to function in a completely different culture. Again, the days at the Hacienda felt decidedly surreal.

My only real complaint about the book is that it seemed somewhat choppy. The author was prone to tangents and did not really seem that concerned about the organization of her chapters or about a segue between topics. I would occasionally get to the middle of a paragraph and think, "What? Why are we talking about this now?"

I was surprised at how much free reign Lisa had over matters on the Hacienda. Even though she was the Don's (or whatever) wife, I would have expected that she'd really be more of a figurehead and the agricultural decisions left up to the foreman. But she was the one who made many decisions about what was grown and how things were done regardless of the fact that she had absolutely no training in the matters.

An interesting memoir about a woman forced to grow up quickly and face (a very foreign and strange) reality. It wasn't my favorite ever, but I don't regret reading it.

With two chapters to go, I feel confident recommending this to anyone who wants to know what life in South America is really like - or was really like in the 1970's. The author was just a teenager when she found herself as a new bride on a sugar plantation, trying to survive the family, the farmworkers, and the forces of nature. The anecdotes recounted truly communicate the flavor of rural Venezuelan life and the privations that went with it. Read it for the cultural exposure, more than for outstanding writing. The author maintains a certain distance from her subject, even as she immerses herself in the hacienda's daily life. She alludes to her marital woes, and her husband's probable insanity; she begins by saying she is sterile but bears a child early on, then hardly mentions her (except for hospital emergencies). "La gente" provide the most interesting reading, with their superstitions and simple wisdom. The author's self-education in the ways of life on the farm, her gardening and growing menagerie, and her resilience despite setbacks kept me turning pages. My favorite characters were the twins who become her protectors! The areas that could use more detail perhaps were intentionally vague to protect Don Jaime's privacy and not make the author seem too pathetic as she endures the seven years of silence that he seemed to give her. Any fans of Garcia Marquez or Allende's House of the Spirits will enjoy this non-fiction foray into Latino living!

This is a book which warrants reading twice. This is because the first time you find yourself so anxious to learn the outcome of its human drama that you don't thoughtfully absorb the vivid descriptions of rural Venezuela.

"The Hacienda" is a memoir that reads more like fiction than the actual experiences of a young woman. The author's naivete and the reality of her husband, and the other central characters both seem implausible and from another era; one could imagine this story being written by Emily Bronte. It is hard to believe that a contemporary from London could have gotten herself into such a situation, and I found myself checking several times to verify that what transpired actually occurred in the '70's. Additionally, it was hard to imagine that any part of Venezuela would remain this feudal, much less an affluent, "aristocratic" family largely anchored in Caracas.

This is a tale of ongoing abuse, brutality, resilience, and survival. One gets the impression that the author must be made of granite; however, the reader also feels incredible frustration that she could have allowed herself to remain mired for so long in such an oppressive, primitive, and menacing environment. The author depicts her daily plight through oblique correspondence to her mother in England, and reveals a stoic, pragmatic approach of day to day coping, while ignoring and indirectly enabling the ugly brutality of her schizophrenic husband. Perhaps this is primarily a memoir of how victims sustain the conditions which subject them.

Her descriptions of "el gente" at Hacienda Santa Rita are a fascinating glimpse of feudal rural Latin America. This is an interesting book, but a tense read. It is interesting and rivetting, but not a relaxing experience.

I absolutely fell in love with this book, despite the fact the reasons behind Teran's actions were sometimes hidden...so why did she marry this guy anyway? As a young woman, I was inspired by her strength, tenacity, kindness, and creativity. Not only did she strive to make daily life on the hacienda better for herself and Iseult, but also for the workers, their children, and of course her beloved pets. A few incorrect historical facts may be the result of bad editing, but they do not detract from the true heart and spirit of this charming, magical novel.

When naďve, 16 year old Londoner Lisa St-Aubin married Don Jaime Teran, a charming yet enigmatic Latin twice her age, a descendent of the conquistadors & heir to an Andean sugar plantation, it appeared she had entered the pages of a Harlequin Romance.

What she got was Gothic Horror with Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde at the House of Usher.

Upon arrival at The Hacienda, an overgrown feudal estate in the vertiginous back country of Venezuela, Lisa was virtually abandoned by her husband, left to fend for herself for weeks at a time in a ramshackle, vermin-infested shack. As she struggled to manage the affairs of the antiquated cane plantation which was the sole income for herself, its illiterate peasant workers and their destitute families, all the while she was determined to keep up appearances and hide the appalling reality from her family back in England.

As Lisa coped with hunger, storms, snakes, poverty, pregnancy and childbirth, it became increasingly obvious to her that her husband was mentally unbalanced and possibly homicidal; that rather than her relying on the assistance of family retainers, they looked to her, as the wife of The Patron, to solve their problems; and that Don Jaime, his family and the estate workers would rather see them dead than allow Lisa and her daughter to escape this jungle prison.

The Hacienda is the all-too-true story of Lisa's survival. Not only does it read like a novel, but it is better than "The Keepers of the House", her earlier roman-a-clef, a story of an enigmatic Venezuelan heir to a crumbling sugar plantation who brings home an English teen-aged bride...

A smooth, rich mixture of magical surrealism and Andean earthiness. Not one for the psychologists - so go pick yourself something from psychology. This one is definitely for St Aubin de Teran fans who have travelled with her on the slow train to Milan and love her relaxed dreaminess and tolerance of extraordinary people and places. This transports you right to the Hacienda with its harsh beauty. Would have liked to know la gente a little better but love the weave of sumptuous and simple language. Was enthralled by my stay on the hacienda!

This book was of the utmost enjoyment to me. The book draws you into the world of the hacienda and the beautiful people who lived there. Not to be missed. I give it six stars.