cover image Timote

Timote

Jos%C3%A9 Pablo Feinmann. Texas Tech Univ., $21.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-89672-806-6

The historically decisive kidnapping and assassination by young leftist rebels of Argentina's former right-wing president, Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, vividly unfolds in this rich fictionalization from Ar-gentine author and intellectual Feinmann. In 1970, the Montoneros, a small group of idealistic dissi-dents, kidnapped the aging Aramburu and held him in the remote village of Timote where they subjected him to a mock trial for his past political killings and repression. Ironically, the guerrilla ring-leader, Fernando Medina, is reproducing the very acts for which they indict Aramburu: murder for the sake of ideology and political gain. Both sow the seeds of their own downfall through acts of political malfeasance; they play their roles in this bleak and tragic political theater naively believing in their own historical immunity and the just necessity of their action. This misguided and supercilious attitude yields to an inevitable cycle of violence, political theater, and a moral ambiguity that renders all participants equally guilty and sympathetic. Focusing on the underlying psychological and ideological tenets, Feinmann utilizes this dramatic premise to highlight the dark absurdity and hypocrisy of senseless political violence. Interweaving fact and conjecture, Feinmann interrogates the psyches of his characters, illuminating themes of justice, revenge, revolution, and ideology. (Nov.)