Fordlandia: A Novel - Hardcover

Sguiglia, Eduardo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312265921 ISBN 13: 9780312265922

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000

Synopsis

Fordlandia is a haunting, evocative novel, a mysterious, lyrical tale at whose core lies a tiny nugget of fact: In 1929, Henry Ford, presiding in flinty authority over his automobile empire, grew tired of the British monopoly on Brazilian rubber. So, with his signature hubris, Ford decided he would produce his own rubber, and set about colonizing the Amazon, ultimately investing millions and founding an entire city around his plantation. The name of the city was Fordlandia. Surrounding this granule of historical curiosity is a rich, captivating fable that explores the fundamental struggle between man and the natural world. Sguiglia's exquisitely imagined Fordlandia is a town of characters by turns engaging and enigmatic, who will draw the reader into their various worlds so effortlessly and ingenuously that their dreams, discoveries, and downfalls begin to seem as immediate and piercing as one's own.

About this title

About the Author

Eduardo Sguigla is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, and a noted Argentine writer and novelist. Two of his essays on Argentine society have become bestsellers, and his first novel, Fordlandia, was hugely acclaimed in his native country.

Reviews

"The ruins of Fordlandia still visible today are testimony enough to the folly of Ford's dream,...So too is this fine novel, which rescues Ford's folly from the most obscure pages of history and imbues it not merely with many new layers of meaning but also with its own mythology."

Horacio is one man among many who comes to Fordlandia, the Brazilian rubber plantation that Henry Ford established in 1929, in order to be rid of past mistakes in this brooding, imaginative first novel by Argentinian writer Sguiglia. In the immutable Amazon, where Horacio is employed as the chief of personnel, the protagonist's destiny begins to take shape as he and his fellow administrators battle vainly with the Brazilian jungle to establish civilization and capitalism. Horacio is an opportunist with morals, a solitary adventurer and traveler at heart who needs others in order to advance; he is above all a man on a quest for his destiny and identity. His misadventures and Sguiglia's ardent storytelling recall the works of Joseph Conrad, Alejo Carpentier and Alvaro Mutis. Challenging notions of civilization, most notably the intrusive and arrogant operations of capitalism against nature, the novel explores Fordlandia's effects on individual freedom and conformity as Horacio journeys into the jungle to recruit native workers, clashes with his misfit colleagues, battles a fungus that threatens the rubber trees and courts Caroline, the plantation's resident sociologist. In a momentous episode, Horacio suffers a near-death experience and is reborn a hero. Cleverly, Sguiglia has kept Horacio's name from the reader up until this point. As his identity is formed, his name is finally uttered by none other than Henry Ford himself. Horacio withholds vital information from the reader as easily as he withholds and manipulates information from Ford executives and jungle natives in order to serve his needs. His silences suit the narrative mood, but the mysteries of his character are so well guarded that the novel ends in deliberate opacity. Nevertheless, this is a darkly satisfying work, well served by Duncan's translation, that seamlessly mixes history with fiction.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Shades of King Lear, Heart of Darkness, and Fitzcarraldo hang over this exciting new work of fiction by Argentine Sguiglia. Horacio, who has a shadowy past and is also known as "El Argentino" and "Mi Blanco," takes a vaguely outlined job recruiting workers for Henry Ford's chimerical endeavor to create an empire in the Amazon that will supply tire-rubber for his car factories. Horacio must confront malaria, hostile indigenes, corrupt ministers, and self-interested colleagues in a despairing attempt to find personal and professional peace. The effort is doomed, the environment unforgiving, and Horacio often loses his way before a fungus destroys the multi-million-dollar investment. Meanwhile, Ford himself, first in Michigan and then on a visit to Fordlandia, begins to make unrealistic assumptions about his own power and influence, acting like a martinet as he slowly ages and loses control of his empire. Sguiglia's images of the jungle and the men and women in it are extraordinarily vivid, and this brilliant natural imagery is linked to colossal degradation, making for a taut, exciting read. Despite Duncan's fluid translation, Sguiglia is not quite up to Joseph Conrad's elegant style, yet he has fashioned a good yarn about men confronting both internal and external demons. Highly recommended.DHarold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib., New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The enigmatic narrator of Argentine writer Sguiglia's first novel, a bold combination of the historic and the imagined, leaves Buenos Aires to work for Henry Ford deep in the Amazon jungle. In need of rubber, the automotive mogul has acquired a vast amount of land, built a well-armed company town called Fordlandia, and embarked on a foolhardy plan to plant an enormous number of rubber trees. Sguiglia's wary protagonist spars with everyone, including his Amazonian assistants, Eneas and Roque; Jack, a hard-drinking American; and Theo, a pushy German priest. Struggling to suppress his fears, he journeys into the wild to recruit more workers, gives in to violent impulses that both earn him respect and put his life at risk, and drives himself to the brink of madness. As sharp and slashing as a machete, Sguiglia's seductively unnerving tale of imperialism, megalomania, and capitalist folly versus the great mystery of nature and the wisdom of indigenous cultures is Conradian in its perceptions, and, by implication, incisive in its indictment of the ravaged state of the Amazon. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312265921
• ISBN 13: 9780312265922
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272