While Dorfman rightly sings the praises of various writers inking their thoughts on the fascinating madness of Chilean history, I'd like to add a different angle.

Chile is the Last Great Place. While other countries tumble in the Third World sinkhole of mega-cities and devastating environmental pollution, Chile, with some faults, stands out. It is California, Oregon, Washington State, BC, and Alaska upside-down. It has lakes like the Finger Lakes, with little development. Hard-pressed to see actual hardwood forests stretch into the horizon? Chile's still got 'em. Wild rivers aplenty-- I know, because I ran them. Clean water, and friendly people. Their own personal version of redwoods. A Fjord District. And an endless desert, if that's what you need for your own solitude.

We were driving back from a run down a river in the Lake District, to our generously defined 'hotel' (in reality a series of migrant worker-quality shacks), when we passed a farmer scything grain about an hour before sunset. Golden light spun through the dust, an classic pastoral scene-- except what was different was what followed in his tracks, across his plot that couldn't have been more than 4 acres across. Pink ibises and caracaras, a crested falcon, walked in a line across the acres, behind the farmer, like a marching band behind a conductor, gleaning insects and snails from the newly-cut wheat.

It seems from peering over the foreign-policy press that we have left Chile alone since our Pinochet days. There's not much oil down there, and the Central Valley of Chile has assumed the role of supplying us with produce in the off-season of our own Central Valley in California. Let's keep it that way. We can only hope that since that, under the current defective leadership in Washington, D.C., the nation's eye stays focused on the Middle East. South America in general, and Chile in particular, with our self-indulgent interference removed, finally seems on the mend.

...is full of wonderful places to see, but boy do they ever have a long way to come for women. Domestic abuse is rampant, access to birth control information is limited at best, and in Santiago, women cannot cross the street without fifteen guys yelling disgusting things at her. I lived there for a while as a journalist, and while traveling in the countryside was definitely a cool experience, Santiago and the country's politics -- despite the recent election of Bachelet -- leave a lot to be desired.

While I've never been to Chile, I remain fascinated with its association and inspiration to the masterworks of Latin American fiction and poetry ever since my academic studies at UT Austin.

I commend Dorfman's analysis of perhaps Chile's greatest export, literature. But he forgets to mention one of the greatest, yet obscure poetic movements central to Chile, La Antipoesia. The antipoets (of which Neruda is included,) wrote deconstructive poetry that defied all structural, literary elements of poetic movements of the past. Clearly influenced by the surrealists and the existentialists, the antipoets often reduced language to its uptmost simplicity by employing the vernacular. The Chilean antipoets -- Nicanor Parra, Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro -- all exuded an incredible adoration for the geographic enigma that is Chile and the impending solitude that reverberates through the countryside.

Chile, we shall meet in the near future.

By Rafael Gumucio. Just a splendid memoir of growing up in the middle-class neighborhood of Santiago, Providencia (in those days the *only* middle-class neighborhood), and then having one's life torn apart by the Pinochet coup.

An absolutely charming book,though never translated into English -- still, Gumucio is a journalist, so his Spanish is accessible to anyone who learned the language in high school -- kind of like Phillipe Labro is in French.

Gumucio basically grew up knowing everyone who mattered among the leftists/liberals in Chile,in the 1960's. It really is worth reading even if you have to grab a Spanish-English dictionary to understand it.

Though Ellabean was correct in many of her observations, one must never forget that Chilean women are STRONG. They have to be. With out us, Chile would crumble.

Sincerely,

A Chilean Woman

This little-known and hard-to-find book of short and short-short stories is perhaps the most disturbing and insightful look into the culture of terror and infamy ever written.

As Chilean as it is universal, as ignored (intentionally in many cases) as it is important, "Las malas juntas" was the first Chilean fiction written after Pinochet's 1973 military coup. And it is by far the best. Borges' "Historia universal de la infamia" is doddering mediocrity in comparison, and I do not say that lightly.

I spent several years teaching literature at a university in Santiago, mostly to students who came into the class not remembering the last book they had read and often openly declaring their dislike of reading. Students who had only the vaguest idea of who Pinochet was or what he did. Students drugged into submission and mindlessness by liberal doses of apathy, cynicism and consumption lust gone mad.

And this was at a university famed for its supposed ultra-leftist philosophy.

In light of this, it would be easy to imagine that these students had no hope of ever enjoying the printed word, let alone thinking critically or beginning to care about the world outside their circle of friends. And much less something as drab and irrelevant as history.

But after handing them "Las malas juntas" all of that changed. Deeply and profoundly.

After reading this short volume, many of my students came to class in something akin to a stupor. Others were seething -- at their parents, their former teachers, and society at large -- for having put blinders on them their entire lives. Others were simply emotionally stunned.

But all of them, many for the first time in their lives, began to give a shit about something besides themselves... something beyond partying and money... something beyond the mindless evening soap operas and soccer games that are fed to the masses to insure they use their freedom wisely.

The students had begun to wake up. As citizens, as Chileans, and as human beings.

This book had such an impact on many of them that it often caused explosive fights at home, and in a few cases even led to family rifts. Many of my students not only read "Las malas juntas", but passed it around to their friends, their brothers and sisters, even their parents and grandparents.

The transformation in these students was so great that over the course of a year we ended up collectively writing a textbook of critical literature. The book has been used everywhere from high school language classes (clandestinely, of course) to prison workshops to "homemakers organizations". It's freely available (as in freedom) and free of charge (as in free beer) here:

http://ingles.universidadarcis.cl/academicos/sadowsky/antologia/index.html

I'm damned proud of these students. Damned proud.

And best of all, they're almost all working as teachers now.

To end this long posting, let me include one of Urbina's shortest and most powerful stories... not even 100 words.

PADRE NUESTRO QUE ESTÁS EN LOS CIELOS

Mientras el sargento interrogaba a su madre y su hermana, el capitán se llevó al niño, de una mano, a la otra pieza...

-¿Dónde está tu padre? – preguntó.

- Está en el cielo - susurró él.

-¿Cómo? ¿Ha muerto? - preguntó asombrado el capitán.

- No -dijo el niño-. Todas las noches baja del cielo a comer con nosotros.

El capitán alzó la vista y descubrió la puertecilla que daba al entretecho.

The book hasn't been translated into English as far as I know, so let me give the English-speaking crowd a taste of what they're missing.

The key to this story is the word "cielo", which means 1. Heaven, 2. Sky, and 3. Ceiling (and the crawlspace above it). English forces us to choose between these meanings, eliminating the central ambiguity the story hinges on. So I'll simply use "el cielo" in the translation.

OUR FATHER WHO ART IN "EL CIELO"

While the sargeant was interrogating the boy's mother and sister, the captain took him by the hand and led him into the next room.

"Where's your father?" he asked.

"He's in 'el cielo'," the boy whispered.

"Huh? Is he dead?" asked the captain, stunned.

"No," said the boy. "Every night he comes down from 'el cielo' and has dinner with us."

The captain looked up and discovered the hatch that led to the crawlspace above the ceiling.

How's that for a kick in the stomach?