Comandante

Reviews / Votes

In cool, lucid prose, Rory Carroll unpicks the threads that weave together to form a modern-day dictatorship, no less sinister for its relative absence of bloodshed. The portrait of Venezuela that emerges is as nuanced as it is ultimately chilling -- MICHELA WRONG * * author of In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz * * Rory Carroll's brilliant portrait of Chavez reads like a fast-paced novel of ego run amok, an ego that happens to be attached to a masterful politician, a dynamo of energy and charisma, and a colossus of managerial ineptitude. The Comandante is by turns heartbreaking, maddening, absurd, and surreal, a truly epic story of promise squandered and opportunities lost -- BEN FOUNTAIN * * author of Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk * * Comandante provides an impressively well-researched and readable portrait... Carroll's book should serve as a useful reminder of what el Comandante did and didn't achieve * * The New York Times * * A fine, timely book * * The Economist * * This beautifully written and acutely perceptive book amounts to a lyrical meditation on the nature of power . . . [Comandante] will deserve to be the definitive work on Chavez in the English language -- David Blair * * The Daily Telegraph * * An English-language account to accompany the best of those by the region's writers . . . this book, by turns personal, wry and wise, is required reading -- Tom Hennigan * * Irish Times * * In good reporter fashion, he [Rory Carroll] diligently tracks down his sources, turning up a colourful cast of red-shirted Chavista loyalists, bitter political opponents, and the everyday Venezuelans in between. What emerges is a more intimate image of Chavez than his own propaganda allows... true drama lies not in a story's ending but in the twists and turns it takes to get there. On those terms, Comandante delivers -- Oliver Balch * * Independent on Sunday * * A well-considered and painfully fair epitaph for the Chavez regime -- John Sweeny * * Literary Review * * An excellent appraisal of the charismatic leader . . . Carroll gets as close as any outsider to life inside the palace. What emerges is a portrait of a politician with a magnetic people's touch but a woeful grasp of management -- Oliver Balch * * The Guardian * * [A] deeply informative, sprightly chronicle of Venezuela's dizzying journey under its Comandante...Here is a lively portrait of a new Latin American genus: the democratically elected caudillo * * Washington Post * * A compellingly written, keenly reported portrait of Venezuela -- Julia Seig * * Financial Times * * Carroll uses interviews and anecdotes effectively to describe Chavez's bizarre court -- Giles Milton * * Mail on Sunday * * Love Chavez or hate him, this is a brilliant portrait layered out in words -- Lou Pendergrast * * More2Read * * Carroll deftly retells the familiar narrative and then adds something new -- Dorothy Kronick * * The New Republic * * Rory Carroll was in prime position to observe the Chavez regime and that is what he gives readers of this book. The distant judgments can come later -- Douglas Osler * * The Scotsman * * Rory Carroll is an excellent journalist and gifted storyteller, and in this book, he tells the tale of Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez with admirable style and insight. A pleasurable read; highly recommended -- JON LEE ANDERSON, author of CHE GUEVARA: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE