Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
by Carlos Eire
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carlos EireEdition: Paperback
Published: 2006-10-30
ISBN: 1416544720
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Book Reviews of Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
Book Review: Not all its cracked up to be
Summary: 3 Stars
I forced myself to finish this book. I say that because I have no idea what all these people are talking about. I LOVE to read- honestly, i probably read 10 books a month. Finding good books that you can't put down is my hobby. Not to say this book isn't good, because it is, but the good parts are so intermixed with the author's worthless drivel thoughts about NOTHING that you can't focus on the good stuff. I found myself skimming through entire chapters and i NEVER do that!
It IS a moving memoir about the Cuban Revolution and I like that part, but aside from that, I did not enjoy it. After reading the book, I know a TINY bit more about the Cuban revolution and ALOT more about this guy's hatred of lizards and his fear of his grandmother's house.
Some people may like it, just like some people like Picasso. That is what I would equate it to- a newer style of writing where the author thinks that the average reader WANTS to know every single worthless thought that runs through his head- and some of that may be interesting. But after the book, you definitely wonder if someone would buy your own book if you wrote down everything you were thinking about and disguised it under an interesting time in history. Just like Picasso, you think "I could probably do this on my own if I wanted."
Skip it. Buy something you can't put down because this is definitely not one of those!
Summary of Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
"Have mercy on me, Lord, I am Cuban." In 1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba -- exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution. The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven years old, are at the heart of this stunning, evocative, and unforgettable memoir.Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. For the Cuba of Carlos's youth -- with its lizards and turquoise seas and sun-drenched siestas -- becomes an island of condemnation once a cigar-smoking guerrilla named Fidel Castro ousts President Batista on January 1, 1959. Suddenly the music in the streets sounds like gunfire. Christmas is made illegal, political dissent leads to imprisonment, and too many of Carlos's friends are leaving Cuba for a place as far away and unthinkable as the United States. Carlos will end up there, too, and fulfill his mother's dreams by becoming a modern American man -- even if his soul remains in the country he left behind.
Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is a eulogy for a native land and a loving testament to the collective spirit of Cubans everywhere.
"In 1962, at the age of eleven, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba, his parents left behind. His life until then is the subject of Waiting for Snow in Havana, a wry, heartbreaking, intoxicatingly beautiful memoir of growing up in a privileged Havana household -- and of being exiled from his own childhood by the Cuban revolution. That childhood, until his world changes, is as joyous and troubled as any other -- but with exotic differences. Lizards roam the house and grounds. Fights aren't waged with snowballs but with breadfruit. The rich are outlandishly rich, like the eight-year-old son of a sugar baron who has a real miniature race car, or the neighbor with a private animal garden, complete with tiger. All this is bathed in sunlight and shades of turquoise and tangerine: the island of Cuba, says one of the stern monks at Carlos's school, might have been the original Paradise -- and it is tempting to believe. His father is a municipal judge and an obsessive collector of art and antiques, convinced that in a past life he was Louis XVI and that his wife was Marie Antoinette. His mother looks to the future; conceived on a transatlantic liner bound for Cuba from Spain, she wants her children to be modern, which means embracing all things American. His older brother electrocutes lizards. Surrounded by eccentrics, in a home crammed with portraits of Jesus that speak to him in dreams and nightmares, Carlos searches for secret proofs of the existence of God. Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is an both an exorcism and an ode to a paradise lost. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in our lives when we are certain we have died -- and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn. "
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