I liked Carpetbaggers a lot. That was what made me pick this book up from the library.
Let me start the review with a trial to summarize the novel. It is really difficult to do so as there is not much of a story. Its about a person called DAX. He’s from a small country called Corteguay from South America. His and his friends’ sexual adventures throughout the world form the crux of the book. Hence the name adventurers. (Atleast that’s what I think). :) It has polo, second world war, communists providing arms for wars, UN and 2 civil wars thrown in too.
Lots of violence in the beginning actually disgusted me. But this subsided into a sexual orgy after the first chapter. There are only a handful characters in the entire novel. No character was developed fully or told why it was doing, what it was doing, ever. All they keep doing is going around the entire world having affairs with each other and becoming famous for something or the other. and at some point needing DAX’s help as all the times the problem or the solution can be resolved using Corteguay’s reference. How convenient.
DAX though shown as very important to Corteguay in general, never does anything useful to himself or to his country. It doesnt help that even he feels the same.
I dont understand how can a person write a novel without doing any research into actual history of any Latin American country. By using a handful of spanish words, like calling the president ’el presidente’ or the bandits ’bandoleros’, it doesnt become authentic.
Its 700 odd pages and I’ve read longer books than that. BUT never before did I feel such a strong urge to put the book down before the ending. In fact I didnt even care what else would happen at the end as it is already mentioned in the beginning that the hero dies. A valiant being I suppose. But I felt otherwise.