Book Review: Genesis

This is the first book in a trilogy called Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano. It is a historical book covering pre-Columbian America and America from the end of the fifteenth century to the year 1700. But, it is not a history book. Here is what Galeano himself has to say:

I don't know to what literary form this voice of voices belongs. Memory of Fire is not an anthology, clearly not; but I don't know if it is a novel or essay or epic poem or testament or chronicle or ...

It is divided into the two parts (pre-Columbian) and 1492 onwards. Both are filled with short pieces (usually less than a page) about something specific. The main difference is that the second part thends to have a location and year associated with each piece. Rather than try to explain this further, I will include one of these pieces. While it is about New York, the stories cover virtually all of the Western Hemisphere.

1666: New Amsterdam

New York

With a few shots from their guns the English bring down the flag that waves over the fortress and sieze the island of Manhattan from the Dutch, who had bought it from the Deleware Indians for sixty florins.

Recalling the arrival of the Dutch over half a century ago, the Delewares say: The great man wanted only a little, little land, on which to raise greens for his soup, just as much as a bullock's hide would cover. Here we first might have observed their deceitful spirit.

New Ampsterdam, the most important slave market in North America, now becomes New York. and Wall Street is named after the wall built to stop blacks from escaping.

I very much enjoyed the book and will now move on to the next two volumes. It's history, it's satire and it is a great "bathroom book".