Word: curfew
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...main industry. It is peaceful by the Mekong. The water provides relief from the scorching heat of the day. Electric power is available only between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., when a few lights come on and residents gather to watch a video in a public hall. Then a curfew clamps down, and like a jungle mist, stillness descends again...
...Curfew's plot centers on the wake and funeral of Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Laurate Pablo Neruda, who was also a well known communist and recipient of the Stalin Prize. During the course of the wake, a debate ensues as to whether the widow's last wishes should be granted...
...Curfew's action also revolves around the character of Manungo Vera, an ex-patriate hippi rock star who has returned from France in time for the widow's funeral. Once a member of that Leftist clique that so desperately wants to stage the funeral as if it were a communist demonstration, Vera has spent time in France enjoying fame, fortune, and a respite from the horrors of current Chilean life. Accompanied by his thoroughly French son, Jean-Paul, Manungo revives his ambiguities concerning Chilean politics and the Left, becoming ensnared in the political longings that, according to Donoso, inevitably catch...
Together they set out to find the perpetrator of her rape, staying out past curfew, midnight, in hopes of shooting the military official. Vera and Torre must hide in bushes from the armored patrol cars that roam the streets with a license to kill anything that moves, and in the process they revive their relationship of years before. They also discuss the inner conflicts--Torre torn between her aristocratic heritage and her love for her people, and Vera confused between his distance from Chile and his desire to help...
...Curfew's plot skips around, it seems intentional. By making events take on an almost haphazard quality, Donoso shows that to live under a military dictatorship is to learn that death, imprisonment and torture are unregulated and arbitrary things. Though the action is somewhat difficult to follow, the novel itself is intriguing, and one can only hope that Donoso's words will inspire a new generation of Chileans to fight for the freedom and love they deserve...