April 2016: Heading South, Looking North (Dorfman)

Post date: Apr 14, 2016 3:21:6 AM

Thanks to Deebie for hosting our group of around 10 long-time book club members on Tuesday April 12 to discuss Heading South, Looking North, Ariel Dorfman's memoir of growing up in linguistic and cultural conflict. It's too bad Maggie wasn't at the meeting, since this book was her suggestion, and Dorfman could certainly have used a supporter. Nobody at the meeting loved the book, and we had a wide variety of complaints.

Nancy was distracted and put off by all the jumping back and forth in time. Many (all?) felt that he was repetitive. As Jane said, "He thanked so many people; too bad none of them told him to edit more heavily."

All of us found him too self-absorbed, and his whole obsession with English versus Spanish seemed forced. The events surrounding the rise and fall of the Allende government are interesting, but since this is about Dorfman's personal story, his discussion of that is quite limited in scope. My summary of the book: Ariel Dorfman lists things he feels guilty about, then tries to rationalize them.

Sandy was encouraged when Dorfman lands in Berkeley and meets various members of the counter-culture, thinking "finally something interesting" but was disappointed once again since after a promising beginning he offers only a superficial account of his sojourn at Cal.

Katherine was living in France during the coup and remembers well a flood of exiled Chilean poets, writers and other leftists arriving on scene. Dorfman's early experiences switching languages reminded her of her own time living in Paris, speaking academic French well but always somewhat on the outside--trying to use as much local slang as possible to be accepted as "in".

In spite of all this griping, we were not actually sorry to have read the book, just frustrated that it was not more engaging. None of us have read any of Dorfman's other writing, and it is entirely possible that were you a fan, this book would be more compelling.