Customer Reviews

My Colombian War: A Journey Through the Country I Left Behind

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I worked in and out of Venezuela and Colombia off and on from 1957 to 1963. So after finishing "My Colombian War", I contrasted my experiences of decades earlier to those of Ms. Paternostro's more current memoirs. I n addition, from time to time I chat with friends still living in Colombia and it seems that conditions remain more or less the same and only the magnitude of corruption varies. Much like the stock market, it goes up and down in the short term, but over the long haul, unfortunately, trends ever upward.

Ms. Paternostro's unique motives for attempting this piece of journalism are her own and I cannot criticize them. However her methodology and the presentation of her story are ripe for examination. It seemed to me when she realized that her assignment was not going to be a lark, and when confronted with the cold reality of going to the streets and back roads to gather firsthand the stories of la gente, and possibly be endangered, she demurred and choose to watch the work of other journalists on television and sit in the clubs and construct her "Colombian War" over guava juice and old family photos.

Maybe I would have done the same as there is little motivation for me to feel obligated to inform the world concerning Colombia's tortured past and present. Consequently her ersatz story of her birthplace's anguish lacks the thoroughness of hard journalistic field research and therefore has little professional quality in my opinion. Her original intent was admirable yet amazingly naïve, as in refusing to wear her contact lens and thereby not having to look clearly and cleanly at her Colombia. Her story narrative constantly peaks out from behind the skirts of her family. At times this is charming, but mostly annoying as a theme too protracted. Yet it is her perspective and I believe there is value to the reader in being exposed to this cultural attitude. Nonetheless, for me, the final product was shallow, and finished like it began; all about Silvana.

In the early sixties my wife, a graduate of El Rosario University, practiced law and was a federal judge in an area south west of Bogotá called Usme, an area of great agrarian strife in those years. She was the only hope of the campesions for settling peacefully their disputes of agrarian reform. She left after a year, discouraged and fearful, but still in love "con su patria". She understood that the grinding poverty and fraudulent governments was an institutionalized culture from centuries earlier. A mere handful of cruel and psychopathic conquistadors, blessed by the church, designed and wove their implacable tapestry of violence over all the Latin Americas and maintained it by their greedy descendents who assured its continuity. In my opinion there is no value in attempting to salvage selected strands of that social drapery to explain and correct Colombia's contortions and so it might be better to bury the entire clothe and begin anew.

Fragmented, disjoined, selective and biased, in self-denial... reads like Colombia itself filtered through the ignorance and barbaric naiveté of the North American Press. One only sentence on the Patriotic Union... the victorious campaign of Uribe... Thanks but... no thanks...!

I really don't know how to start. I found the book to express the thoughts and feelings of a woman who was not comfortable with her latin identity and, through news reporting opportunities, gets a chance to try to bond with that identity in her American journalist comfort zone. I never got the feeling Ms. Paternostro came to accept her identity and it seemed more of a struggle with this identity rather than with the war being fought over there.

Still, I admire the work her tio Agustin made to bring an old-fashioned finca into the new era of empresas and how he was struggling as honestly as he could to find a middle ground between the two hardline ideologies. He seemed to be the one viewing things in realistic terms and listening honestly to all sides to understand the whole picture and how he could forge a new path. Perhaps he gave a pessimistic glint of hope ... or maybe not.

I wished the author would have discussed the fact so many people, esp. young women, prostitute themselves in that world of desperation. Yes, the ones that become your friend after a few minutes in a bar and become your girlfriend for regular doses of money. I saw a glimpse of that toward the end of the book, though it seems to have been overlooked by the author who wrote "In the Land of God and Man: A Latin's Woman's Journey."

As a case in point, I remember overhearing a female friend talking with her friend on the phone and mention that her American contractor lover had left a few weeks before and how she was relieved the STD results came back negative! I distanced myself quickly from this "friend," but wondered what kind of life that was she was living. I wonder if it was overlooked intentionally in this book.

I am new to Silvana Paternostro's writing and I didnt know what to expect. A friend had recommended this book and I read it in practically one sitting. The passages about her childhood are deeply beautiful and written with admirable restraint. Highly recommended.

A wonderful, insightful book about Colombia. What makes the book transcend the ordinary new-journalistic look at a country is the fact that Paternostro maps not only the contours of Colombia's current conflict and its historical and socio-economic roots, but also wonderfully charts her own conflicted relationship with the place and her efforts to come to terms with it. In the end, then, the book is fascinating for the view it provides on Colombia but it ends up being about so much more; the honest look at an expatriate's relationship to her homeland is compelling and enlightening.

Just finished Ms. Paternostro's book last night (January 2008) and felt that this book really filled a void, at least for me, bridging the distance between historical characterizations of Colombia and what that history actually looks like within the lives of real Colombians. For the most part, this book is filled with fascinating stories - such as the author's description of Simon Trinidad, the businessman and landed elite turned FARC rebel, and how history itself interfered with his interest in moving Colombia ahead - he couldn't possibly create an avenue for peace if the people he was scheduled to meet were murdered the day before his meeting. Or the author's storytelling of Barranquilla's transformation by gringos and Guajiros, who all seemed to persuade these coastal people that living large, richly and dangerously was a more important obligation than improving the future for a larger percentage of the Colombian people. Ms. Paternostro brings to life these unfortunate tradeoffs - of building great plantations and epic lives - funded by efforts, land, or drugs - without building more stable lives for the Colombians that worked on those plantations - are the kinds of decisions that infuriate her. As a criticism, sometimes Ms. Paternostro repeats or reintroduces elements in her book that appear elsewhere in the book, but even those reintroductions serve a larger purpose of developing a more layered, deeper description of what Colombian war and history look like within her own life and family. This is a living history, and it is certainly a worthy one. Ms. Paternostro's attitude towards the subject could be best described as conflicted, but even here I think it's impressive that she finally makes peace with her Colombian war.

Ms. Paternostro is a great voice on Colombia and Latin America. I hope she keeps bringing color to a region that deserves the deeper look that she continues to give in her thoughtful writing.

Silvana Paternostro claims to have the "journalist gene" and to be a "story addict." Contrast this with the interview that she has with a former Colombian rebel. "I wonder what made her, not me, and not Imelda, take the steps she took. I want to ask her if she would do it again. I don't ask her, but I know she joined the rebel group in 1974, so I will assume she will respond by saying it was a sign of the times." Well, Silvana, someone with the "journalist gene" actually asks the question.

This happens over and over. She says she wants to ask questions and then doesn't. It will drive you crazy.

There is almost no information about Colombia and almost no information about the war in Colombia. This book is badly written and worthless.

After experiencing Colombia for myself over the course of a few summers I really fell in love with the place. Although I get berated for it, I am fascinated with Colombia's violent past and present, from La Violencia to the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar and his drug cartel, to the FARC and the corruption that plagues the country; I find all of it intriguing. It's not just the bad side of Colombia that catches my attention though. It is a beautiful country. The mountains are breathtaking. The food and the coffee are delicious. And most importantly, the people are truly wonderful. I don't know of any other place quite like it.

Being such a fan, I am eager to read about Colombia any time I get the chance. When I saw My Colombian War on a friend's book shelf I immediately asked to borrow the book and couldn't wait to get home to read it. Unfortunately, My Colombian War was probably the least enjoyable book that I've read about Colombia thus far.

The title is vague but it promises a lot. I never really got a sense of what the author's goal was with the book. As other posters have pointed out, the book was disjointed and fragmented. I don't know if I could even tell you what the plot was. If I had to pick one of the many themes as the focal point it would probably be the trip to her family's farm in a dangerous part of the country. Unfortunately, no vital information or discovery really came as a result of that event.

At the end of the book I felt like I was much more of an expert in the privileged life of Silvana Paternostro than the country of Colombia. She talked a lot about the schools she went to, her liberal atheistic world view, and her failure in romantic relationships. But when it came to Colombia I didn't really learn anything new. If you have never traveled to Colombia (or anywhere in Latin America) or want to learn about day to day life there and some of the problems that the country faces this book might be useful for you. But I wouldn't open it up hoping to find an in depth assessment of any topic in particular. The book just kind of floats along from one thing to the next without really ever arriving at any firm conclusions. As one other poster has mentioned, in the end it was "all about Silvana."

If you want to really learn about the Colombia and the country faces, "Out of Captivity", and "Killing Pablo" are both very well written and insightful reads.

A Great Book!!! My husband is Colombian and I love learning more about his country and culture. Great Book

I grew up at the same time, in the same city, in the same circles. Feeling the same distance, having left at the same time to the same country...I thought I'd find some interest, to say the least, in this work. Unfortunately,all I found was a meandering, tedious, ill-paced book, written in a subtle vainglorious-ness, and broken up continously by the shifting of snippets personal stories followed by facts, and more of the same, over and over to the end.

Clearly she cares, but if you don't have GREAT personal or professional interest in this issue, I'd skip it.