Hard Rain [Paperback]

Ariel Dorfman (Author), George Shivers (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Composed of fragments of narratives interspersed with reviews of other novels whose subject is the socialist revolution in Chile during the early '70s, this novel, written in 1972 and until now unavailable in English, tells the story of a country undergoing a radical "process of collective and personal self-examination." Dorfman segues, without explanation, from one well-crafted, piquant fragment to another, using the narratives and reviews to question, mostly indirectly, the role of politics, art, love, work and spirituality in an unstable Latin American society. According to an interview with Dorfman contained within the novel itself, the author has attempted to depict "a mosaic of Chile, a sample of what had remained outside the book," of the "insignificant fragments of reality." The reader is likely to resist Dorfman's ( Mascara ) unconventional, self-referential method, but by giving us several novels in one, he provides us with a rich contradictory work that feels alive with the promise of social and artistic change almost 20 years after the failure of Chile's socialist revolution.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Dorfman is a critic and poet, as well as a novelist ( Widows, LJ 6/1/83; The Last Song of Manuel Sendero, LJ 1/87). His highly political and experimental first novel was written in 1972, in the midst of the Chilean revolution, and was first published in Spanish in Argentina in 1973. Its intricately woven melange of voices--segments of novels, filmscripts, interviews, and criticism (of the novel itself)--creates an aura of the times centering on the literary circle of Chile's revolutionary writers and the revolution itself. Though full of humor, it is ultimately a plodding work that will be difficult going even for those accustomed to contemporary Spanish American fiction.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Readers International (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930523784
• ISBN-13: 978-0930523787
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,725,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A complex novel of a complex time, April 5, 2000

By 

S. A Mcclennen (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard Rain (Paperback)

Dorfman has had the misfortune of prefiguring history in a number of his literary works. His first novel Hard Rain (1973) was released as the warning signs of an impending coup were blaring over the Chilean people. The text is composed of a number of fragments - of literature dealing with the socialist revolution in Chile, of reviews of such literature, of film scripts, of criticism of the novel itself, and of extensive correspondence between authors, publishers and editors. The pieces are largely disconnected and comment in highly oblique ways on the relationship between aesthetics and politics. They are able to create a whirlwind of artistic and critical voices at the same time that they unite in a metacommentary on the historical moment Dorfman was narrating in Chile. The most disturbing aspect of the text is the fact that it highlights antagonisms and questions the strength of Chilean solidarity, before the coup and at a moment when Dorfman himself was highly committed to the success of Allende's government. Many of his colleagues would later chastise him for his seeming lack of support, while Dorfman would protest that the grim world of Hard Rain was a fictional exploration of disharmony. This novel manages to explain the complexity of Chile at the time while it also debates questions about literary aesthetics and the importance of art.

3.0 out of 5 stars The promise of a literary renaissance cut short, February 18, 2004

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard Rain (Hardcover)

Few readers would accuse this book of being a "novel" in any traditional sense of its literary meaning. Instead, it is a paragon of whatever might be meant by "experimental fiction": a collection of fabricated book reviews, encyclopedia entries, film proposals, term papers. There are no recurring characters, no plot, and no storyline. This smorgasbord of literary summaries, all without transition or explanation, signifies the debate over the limitless artistic opportunities presented by the potential--and the fragility--of the democratic revolution in Chile in the early 1970s.

Dorfman wants to convey the heady diversity that confronted authors under the Allende government: "They are a collective entity, a society of artists that will be able to drain every last drop of what the country is going through, every story, nothing will get away from them." Although he wrote this book before the Pinochet coup, Dorfman presciently hints at the frailty of the revolution: "a lot of good it'd do us to have a literary renaissance if we ended up without a country."

The result may be, as the author insists in a fictional interview embedded in the book, "a mosaic of Chile, a sample of what had remained outside the book," but, in fact, the postmodern deliberation eventually drowns out any "attempt" to tell a story. Initially, the reviews and summaries are fairly straightforward; some of the discussions (and the fictional books being discussed) are really quite fascinating, and the diligent reader will be rewarded by rich humor and keen insights. About halfway through, however, the segments and summaries begin interrupting each other and what's being said is entirely subsumed by how it's being said: the form of the debate itself crowds out both the message and the arguments. At a certain point, readers are bound to get "the point," and then the book begins to try one's patience.

A short yet laborious read, and often teetering on the edge of overkill, it all would have probably worked better without so many jump-cuts and with a little less self-indulgence. In the end, though, a sense of sadness pervades "Hard Rain," since the reader knows (and the author did not) what comes after the deluge.