Feels like a valediction to a career that, until now, has been varied in its instruments but consistent in its vision ... In a novel filled with real-life figures and events, Hortha gradually begins to read as a tragicomic avatar of Dorfman’s own late-in-life struggle to reconcile ideas that don’t fit together comfortably but that he cannot abandon: a ghost let loose in a memoir ... He insists that the myth of Allende retains its utility, even in a world the man himself wouldn’t recognize.
Dorfman often juxtaposes the profound and petty ... The author also frequently combines emotional intensity and absurdity, mainly in the person of Hortha ... Does not transgress against Allende’s memory, beyond a line or two about his tendency to cheat on his wife — but that’s because it isn’t actually a book about Allende. Dorfman is less interested in writing about his hero than creating a portrait of hero worship, which shades gradually into an intricate examination of guilt and grief ... Its prose is brainy and confident, building momentum through the intensity of its ideas. Discussions run long; Ariel’s monologues run longer. As often happens in Roth’s work, the narrator’s intellectual life effectively crowds out the plot, complicated and intense though the plot may be.
A novel that strains to draw a metaphorical connection between Allende’s death and climate change ... While listening to Hortha yammer, Dorfman, the character, finds himself 'suppressing a yawn.' As I trudged through these hundreds of pages, I was unable to do the same.
[An] engrossing work of autofiction ... ess a conventional thriller than an erudite riddle that gracefully melds history and fiction, this feels like the capstone to Dorfman’s literary career. It’s a brainy, dazzling treat.
