Reviews for The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey

The average rating for The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-16 00:00:00 Alan Walton I loved the breadth and brilliance of Rushdie's Midnight's Children, admired his clever, biting and sly portrait of Benazir Bhutto (the 'Virgin Ironpants') in Shame, was confused with the immature ramblings of Grimus, bored with the Satanic Verses, but to some extent sympathised with the author's viewpoint in The Jaguar Smile. One of many anti-American, or at least pro-socialist, books that seeks to cast doubt on US involvement on foreign soil in the name of political freedom and the expansion of market, this one is also somewhat of a travelogue and occasionally entertaining. As in almost all Rushdie books, the reader is assumed to be well-read and to be able to catch all the literary allusions which so amuse the author himself, just as they did his hero James Joyce. If you are a Rushdie afficianado then you will love this book, otherwise you might find its greatest virtue is its brevity.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-09-02 00:00:00 Karla Schools This was an interesting book by Rushdie about his travels to Sandinista-run Nicaragua in 1986 shortly after finishing Satanic Verses. It is an insiders look at this short-lived period of history that eventually led to the Noriega dictatorship and bloodshed. Not an essential part of his canon, it is nonetheless an interesting non-fiction book from Rushdie trying to see behind the propaganda of this particular world spotlight at the time with Reagan preparing to overthrow this socialist regime in the background.