Roll on Britannia!
A review of Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay by John Gimlette (Vintage Books, New York, 2005 – Originally published by Hutchington, London, 2003)

Review by Michael Berg

(G-18, Municipal Services Development, Paso Yobai)

Like most Peace Corps volunteers who were assigned to Paraguay, I decided to do a little research before coming. Although ten years ago, in college, I had studied the fascinating history of Paraguay under Francia and the two Lopez’, I knew next to nothing about modern Paraguay. When I looked for literature on modern Paraguay written in English, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay by John Gimlette was the only book I could find. The book had a lovely pink cover and laudatory reviews which compared Gimlette favorably to one of my favorite authors, Graham Greene. So I bought the book. I am sure my experience is not unique.

I began reading the book a couple days after moving into Villeta for training. The book immediately rubbed me the wrong way. I did not like its style, especially his continual use of the word “exotic” to describe things. The book’s introduction begins with sweeping generalizations about the Paraguayan people. Then Gimlette describes his experiences in Asunción in 1982. He compares the waitresses at the Lido bar to ducks, and projects his fantasies onto the customers (6). Then he describes terere as an “icy privet tea” (6). When I read this I thought, what kind of description is that?

I read a little farther, and decided that the book had little to do with my experiences in Villeta. I lent it out to a friend during training. When the time came, I brought it to my site in Paso Yobai. Then, on a rainy day, in a town where everything stops on a rainy day, I opened the book, looked at its map, and realized that I’ve been to a few of the places on the map. Four months after arriving in Paraguay, I decided read the book.

As the book progressed, I grew accustomed to its style and it became more readable and more interesting. But there was no point where I could say that I actually liked it. The rains continued, Paso Yobai’s streets turned into muddy rivers where only a fool would venture. So I read it again, this time taking careful notes. I realized that while my initial gut feeling about the book was right, its problems go far beyond Gimlette’s writing style. The Paraguay that Gimlette describes has more to do with the obsessions in his own head than with the actual, existing country of Paraguay.

This is not to say that the book doesn’t convey some insights, astute observations and many colorful stories.  It is not totally devoid of good travel writing (although in my mind nowhere near the quality of a Paul Theroux book). Unfortunately, despite a cover that tells us that the book is about travels through Paraguay, the book is not a straightforward account of someone’s travels through Paraguay.

In At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, John Gimlette presents a clear thesis, which he derives from his interests and worldview. These in turn shape his interpretation of Paraguayan history, who he spends his time with and where he travels. The result is an exceedingly misleading book that does a grave disserve to both the people of Paraguay and the book’s readers.

So what the author’s thesis? You can get a sense of it in the title of the book. At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay. What kind of country is this Paraguay, which would have people who mix what is usually a reverential site, a tomb, with something as silly as an inflatable pig? Gimlette lets us know his answer to this question in the introduction: Paraguay is “insular” (xvi), “isolated” (xvii) and “tirelessly exotic” (xix). As an isolated, insular, exotic land, Paraguay has been exempt from the currents of the outside world’s history. Thus its own people and their bad leaders bear full responsibility for the disasters that have befallen their land; those who want to place any significant blame on powerful foreign actors are revisionists. The majority of the Paraguayan people are poor mestizos who speak the bizarre, animal-like Guaraní language. They are “impenetrable” (xvi) folk. It’s not worth spending too much effort learning that much about them because you’ll never figure them out. That’s alright, because the most dynamic and interesting people in Paraguay are Europeans, Australians and Americans. These white people were the catalyst of Paraguayan history and their continued presence in Paraguay’s strange jungles, deserts and swamps is what makes the country so fascinating. While all of these white people add their own special flavor to the country, the British people are the most worthy of study and their writings are the most important documents we have to guide us through the difficult morass of Paraguayans history.

Am I exaggerating? Let’s look at the evidence.

We can start by examining how Gimlette deals with Paraguayan history. He realizes from the get go that his efforts as an historian are bound to bring him criticism. So he decides to blame the Paraguayan people and their culture for his own shoddy research skills. Gimlette writes in his Introduction: “A by-product of Paraguay’s strong kinship and oral traditions is that no one agrees on anything. History is largely a matter of opinion, which makes this book both harder and easier to write.” (xvii) Translation: because it’s Paraguay, and Paraguay is different, I can write whatever I want.

Having freed himself from the bounds of historical standards, Gimlette goes about the task of proving Paraguay’s isolation from the world and thus its complete responsibility for its own problems.

His first historical period of interest is the Stroessner era. In the Introduction, Gimlette writes that “(Paraguay) was left out of the Cold War; too self-contained for the communists and too unpredictable for the Americans” citing as his only evidence for this statement that “Nixon politely declined an offer of Paraguayan help in Vietnam.”(xix). The idea that Paraguay was left out of the Cold War is laughably false. Stroessner ruled Paraguay for almost the entirety of the cold war (1954-1989). Despite Paraguay’s “strong kinship and oral traditions” there is abundant evidence of all types that the Stroessner regime was firmly on the American side of the cold war. Stroessner was fanatically anti-Communist, killing and torturing many Communists and suspected Communists. In return, the American government strongly backed the regime monetarily, politically and militarily. It’s not an accident that the largest US Embassy in the Americas is located in Asunción. Paraguay was a key player in the American organized Operation Condor, where in the 1970s and 1980s the right-wing military dictatorships of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia) worked together to hunt down leftist dissidents who fled from one country to another. With American support, western financial institutions, such as the World Bank, also greatly helped Stroessner stay in power.

Gimlette knows that he lied. In the first chapter he briefly mentions that Stroessner was empowered by the United States’ “National Security Doctrine (‘Get tough, the Commies are under the bed’)”(10) and later points out that for General Rodriguez to enact his coup he needed to be “cleared . . . with the American Embassy” (29). These statements contradict his previous statement about Paraguay being left out of the Cold War. So Gimlette lets us know that he knows the truth but he doesn’t think that rules of logical consistency apply to Paraguayan history.  Despite these asides about the extent of American influence he continues to write as if his first statement was true and Paraguay really was excluded from the cold war. He conveys none of the details of America’s support for Stroessner. Instead he chooses to concentrate solely on Stroessner’s personal life and the regime’s inner workings, its methods of intimidation and torture. Putting the American backed dictatorship in Paraguay in the context of the American backed dictatorships of its neighbors, comparing the similarities, the differences, the connections between them; this might be good history but it wouldn’t help Gimlette prove that “(Paraguay’s) relationships with the outside world have always been distant” (xviii). Nor is it as titillating as writing about Stroessner’s “exotic sex” and his “litter of little priglets”. (12)

Going back a generation, Gimlette spends significant energy touring the Chaco and visiting the sites of the Chaco War (1932-1935). He gives riveting and detailed accounts of the battles fought in this war of thirst which killed 88,000 Bolivians and Paraguayan men. But when it comes time to assess why the war was fought, Gimlette chooses to enter a fantasy world. This time he can’t blame the Paraguayans’ inability to agree on anything. He writes “Among my friends, I found rare unanimity as to the causes of the war. ‘Black gold,’ they said, ‘Oil.’ ‘Standard Oil supported Bolivia. Royal Dutch supported us.’ (332) Strong evidence exists which backs the theory cited by all of Gimlette’s Paraguayan friends. Although no oil had been discovered in the Paraguayan Chaco, Standard Oil suspected there might be, and exploration wells were found by Paraguayan troops advancing through the Chaco. More importantly, Standard Oil was looking to build a pipeline to transport the petroleum from its Bolivian oil wells to the Paraguay River and out to the ocean. Louisiana Senator Huey Long presented evidence in a 1934 speech on the Senate floor that Standard Oil was bankrolling the Bolivian army and heavily encouraged the invasion. In the treaty ending the Chaco War, Standard Oil’s Spruille Braden adjudicated the proceedings. He forced Paraguay to give up the oil rich regions in the Bolivian lowlands which it had won in the war.[i]

This historical account means that powerful Western oil companies played an important role in this key part of Paraguayan history. This historical account contradicts Gimlette’s thesis of Paraguayan isolation. Thus Gimlette chooses to ignore it. He ignores all of his Paraguayan friends, ignores the accounts of Paraguayan soldiers, ignores Senator Long and ignores the details of the peace treaty that ended the war. He dismisses all of this evidence as not evidence at all, but instead “a convenient theory because it put the blame for this crazy, fatuous war beyond the boundaries of the continent.” (332)

Gimlette’s got an alternative explanation. He decides to present the theory created by British Chaco settler Sir Christopher Gibson. Here is Gimlette’s version of Sir Gibson’s theory:

“Sir Gibson saw the Chaco as a great void. On the Pacific side were the Children of the Sun, with their cities and social order, infallible priests and a history recorded in ‘stelas, ideographs and mnemonic quipus.’ On the Atlantic side were Arawaks, Caribs and Guaraní, ‘builders of the long house, botanists and herbalists, cannibals by ritual.’ In between them lay a vast no-man’s-land, which the Incas called the chacu, ‘the place of abundant game.’ It would only be a matter of time before the warring parties poured into the vacuum.” (332)

Silly, impenetrable Paraguayans! They are so exotic. They insist on seeing power in strange, mysterious entities known as Oil Companies, instead of recognizing that twentieth century warfare between two modern nation states usually comes about because of the inevitable clash inside a vacuum between the people of the mnemonic quipus and the people of the long house. Thank God there are members of the British royalty to set the world straight!

Going back another generation from the Chaco War, we reach the War of the Triple Alliance. In explaining this war, Gimlette blames Paraguay for its own genocide, and refuses to acknowledge the role played by his country, Great Britain.

In examining the build up to the War of the Triple Alliance, Gimlette fails to present to readers the extent of the economic miracle that Paraguay achieved during the period of Francia and the two Lopez. In economic terms, during the mid-nineteenth century Great Britain dominated every country in the Southern Cone except Paraguay. While other countries’ markets were flooded with British goods, Paraguay produced everything that it needed. While other countries owed large sums of money to British banks, Paraguay was debt free. While other countries cheaply sold raw materials to Britain, Paraguay refused to do so. While other countries had little to no modern industry, Paraguay was rapidly creating its own industrial revolution. Other countries were led by a tiny group of elites who owned most of the land and looked to Europe for trade and culture. Paraguay had no landed elite; almost all of the land was owned by the state and its trade and cultural heritage were largely internal.

In this context, it is not hard to see why Paraguay frightened the leadership of both its neighbors and Great Britain. Gimlette fails to present this context. He writes long stories about British engineers that come to Paraguay to manage the construction of the railroad and British architects who come to build the presidential palace. While stressing the personal affairs on the British ex-pats and their relationship with the Lopez family, he fails to point out how remarkable it is that they were not sent by the British government but instead individuals hired by the Paraguayan state, debt free, with Paraguayan money.

The war of the Triple Alliance is a complicated affair, with many causes, having to deal with the leadership and internal politics of all four countries, geography, and economics. Considering the close relationship between Britain and the war’s victors, it is not surprising that Britain was involved in the war as well. British were involved in two important ways.

The first and most important way in which the British were involved in the war concerns their support for Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. The British government wholeheartedly supported the Triple Alliance and did not hide its desire to destroy the country of Paraguay. In fact, British Ambassador to Argentina Edward Thornton was one of the prime architects of the Triple Alliance. He worked hand and hand with Argentinean president Bartolomé Mitre to arrange the temporary alliance with Brazilian Emperor Pedro II. British banks funded the Triple Alliance, and at the war’s end all three countries were heavily in debt to their British creditors.[ii]

So the historical record points to a large British role in the build-up, provocations, planning, diplomacy and funding of the war, all in support of the Triple Alliance. Still, Gimlette scoffs at a person who explained to him on a bus, “It was all started by the British. Paraguay refused to sell them cotton cheaply. They took revenge by destroying the country. That’s how it happened.” (167) The man on the bus is correct when he links Paraguay’s system of tariffs with British backing of the Triple Alliance. Ambassador Thornton explained in an 1864 letter what British’s main problem was with the government and economic system of Paraguay:

“The importation taxes on almost all merchandise are 20 or 25 percent ad valorem; but as this value is calculated over the usual price of the item, the tax that is based frequently reaches 40 to 45 percent of the price of the invoice. The exportation taxes are always at least 10 to 20 percent over the value of the merchandise.”[iii]

Still, Gimlette dismisses Paraguayan accounts of the war in which Britain is a significant actor. He calls such historically accurate accounts “trawling the improbable for explanations.”(167) He excludes all evidence of British involvement from his book.

For Gimlette the war was entirely the fault of one crazy man: Francisco Solano López. He writes:

“The immediate causes of the conflict were obscure, but once the four newly fledged nations had committed several hundred thousands men to the meat-grinder, they didn’t seem to matter much anyway. Some say that Francisco, still smarting at the Emperor’s refusal to hand over his daughter, was champing to blast away at Brazil, and that any excuse would do. Some saw it as a part of a wider demand by Lopez for “respect and attention,” the twin peaks of his majestic folly.”(167)

While it is true that Francisco Solano López did not always show the best judgement, to say the least, his decision to declare war against Brazil was not the insane decision of a madman, as Gimlette claims. Brazil was in the process of setting up a puppet state in Uruguay. Paraguay had an alliance with Uruguay to protect it from foreign interference. Paraguay then declared war on Brazil and set out to defend its Uruguayan from the Brazilians. Because the two regional powers Argentina and Brazil saw Paraguay and Uruguay as buffer states, López believed that if Brazil was able to dominate Uruguay, the balance of power would shift and Paraguay would not be safe. Perhaps López was wrong, but his decision was not crazy.

            This history doesn’t matter to Gimlette, who proceeds to blame the catastrophe of the Triple Alliance war completely on Lopez. The British, the Brazilians, the Argentineans, none of them bear responsibility. By the end of the war the Paraguayan people were destroyed, almost entirely. Only around 200,000 out of 1,300,000 people survived. Why did they die, according to Gimlette? They died because of Lopez’ insanity. In 1865 the London Times published a copy of the Triple Alliance treaty detailing the plan for the carving up and total destruction of Paraguay. This document proves that, regardless of Lopez’ massive defects, winning the war was a matter of national survival for the Paraguayan people. While Gimlette is right to point out that Lopez is not the idealized hero portrayed in Paraguayan schoolbooks, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Great Britain are the parties responsibility for the genocide of the Paraguayan people.

            Although their main role in the war was their support for the Triple Alliance, the British also had another role to play in the war. Some important planners, engineers and advisors to Lopez were British citizens. Gimlette uses a large part of the book writing about the British people who worked for Lopez. One of the people he describes in George Thompson. He details the ways in which Thompson was the hero the Battle of Humaitá, the brains behind this stunning initial victory for Paraguay at the beginning of the war. How does Gimlette know that Thompson was the hero of the Battle of Humaitá? Why, he read it in a book called The War in Paraguay, written by George Thompson.

            Perhaps Thompson was the hero of the battle, I don’t know, but I do know that Thompson is probably not the most objective source on the subject. Of course, Thompson isn’t Gimlette’s only source of information on the War of the Triple Alliance. If you look at his bibliography, you will see that he uses nine different books about the war, all of them British. Seven of them were published in the nineteenth century, during the height of British Imperial power. This is keeping to Gimlette’s theory that the best sources on all things Paraguayan are British. Most of his sources for the book are British, and almost all of his sources are English. Of the seventy-two sources he sites, only one was published in Latin America, a book about Nazism in Paraguay. This is the only book in Spanish that he refers to during his entire book about Paraguay.

            In fact, he spends far more effort discussing the fictionalized British accounts of Paraguay in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo and Charles Kingley’s Westward Ho! than he does discussing Paraguayan literature. His only mention of Paraguayan literature comes in the Introduction when he writes, “(Paraguay’s) writers, despite their clunky foreign names – Appleton, Appleyard and Thompson – have also given the Paraguayan arts a respectable acquittal (in 1996, Roa Bastos was short-listed for the Nobel Prize for literature).”(xvi) Paraguayan writers have “clunky foreign names”? Like novelist Gabriela Casaccia, poet Elviro Romero and playwright Mario Halley Mora? These Paraguayans with non-clunky names weren’t involved in Gimlette’s acquittal of Paraguayan literature. Of course not. Their work is in Spanish and has not been translated. Would you really expect Gimlette to do something as tedious as actually read in Spanish something other than Cronica before writing a book on Paraguay? No, of course not. For Gimlette, if it’s not in English, its not literature. So he must pretend that except for Roa Bastos (whose been translated) Paraguayan writers are British.

            Gimlette’s obsession with white people, and more specifically British people, greatly affects whom he chooses to write about and whom he chooses to spend his time with. Almost every person in the book that Gimlette describes in detail is either a European or of European origin. He tracks down German communities, fleeing Nazis, Australian utopians, Mennonites and French antropologists. He does spend one page talking to people in a Japanese-Paraguayan community, who he calls “(Paraguay’s) most exotic colonists” (223) But his greatest interest is in the British: their balls, their engineers, their settlers, their cultural influence on Paraguay. He even strains a British connection when describing one of Paraguay’s most important historical figures: Colorado Party founder General Bernadino Caballero. Gimlette cites an unnamed, unsourced English travel who reputedly said about Caballero, in 1881, “He is a fine looking man with no Indian blood in his veins, indeed more like a fine specimen of the English squire than a Paraguayan.” (99)

            This unnamed racist 19^th century Britton implies the identity of the majority of Paraguayans: they are mestizos. Culturally, racially, and linguistically they are a mixture of their Spanish and Guaraní heritage. After making a list of all the people whom Gimlette decides to describe in detail, I came to the startling conclusion that the list was devoid of members of the Paraguayan mestizo majority, with the possible exception of Gimlette’s wealthy friends in the Yegros family. While the minority communities are important to Paraguay, the majority deserve at least as much attention. Looking at the minorities that he does write about, except for the Japanese they are all of European origin. No Afro-Paraguayans, no Brazilian-Paraguayans, a brief mention but no actual interviewing of Arab-Paraguayans.

            This is not to say that Gimlette ignores Paraguay’s mestizo majority. He generally describes them in mass, or else describes short interactions that he has with them, which he tries to make seem as bizarre as possible. He has trouble connecting to the Guaraní speaking majority, whom he describes as “impenetrable”. One of the reasons that Paraguayan people seem so impenetrable to Gimlette is that he speaks no Guaraní. His Guaraní isn’t bad: it’s non-existent.  He sums up for us the extent of this problem when he talks about his attempts to communicate with guests of the The Gran Hotel: “Each morning at breakfast, I tried a different one – Spanish, German, English, French – and I even looked up the Guaraní (“mba’eichapa ne ko’e, karai).” (55)

            So here is Gimlette, in Paraguay, and Guaraní is the fifth language that he uses to try to communicate. For someone who has spent so much time in Paraguay and writes a book full of his opinions about the Paraguayan people, he should be embarrassed that he had to look up the phrase for ‘good morning’. He admits both complete ignorance and an almost complete lack of attempt to learn Guaraní, when he writes “I tried to learn a little and even bought a skinny phrasebook. It only had 80 phrases.” (127) He made no serious attempt to learn this language that he says resembles “birdlike chirps, tweets and growls.” (126) For the price of all the prostitutes in Uruguay Plaza whom he lets us know he does not hire, he could have bought himself hours with a Guaraní tutor. Think about how much better he would have gotten along with people, how many of those stone faces he refers to on the buses would have melted away with a little “M’baetekopio! Che cherera Juan. M’baeichapa nderera?” Maybe then the Paraguay people wouldn’t be so impenetrable.

            But his purpose in the book is not to understand the Paraguayan people, but rather to exoticize them. For this, he must make sweeping statements, like

“Perhaps the Paraguayan character had always been vulnerable to an over enthusiasm for buried gold.” (217) What gives this non-Guaraní speaking, non-Spanish reading Victorian England obsessesed vagabond the authority to comment on the “Paraguayan character”. I live in a town with three gold mines, with multiple places where one could possibly find gold. Except for the small number of miners, very few people I’ve encountered look for gold. Nor do they talk very much about the gold. The most sought after and common buried treasure in Paso Yobai is the same buried treasure that is most common throughout Paraguay: mandioca.

            I would never claim to be much of an authority on the “Paraguayan character”, but I know that it can be better described in terms of mandioca, yerba mate, and terere, than in terms of gold. In my experience in Paso Yobai, the most striking thing about how people live is their intense connection to their land. This country is profoundly agricultural. Almost all families here have a chacra, where they grow their mandicoa, maiz, yerba, poroto and other crops. This includes storekeepers, doctors, mayors, soccer coaches, auto repairmen, teachers – almost everybody. Whatever their primary work, there is always a field to tend to also.

            Gimlette spends no significant time with ordinary people in the interior, following them around, talking to them and learning about their daily lives. There are no descriptions of a sugar harvest, planting mandioca, or caring for livestock. Nor does he describe the preparation of foods, the Paraguayan food-sharing method, the intricacies of terere, or a whole host of essential elements of the “Paraguayan character.” Perhaps this information about modern Paraguay can’t be found in the pages of his favorite Victorian authors, but I am sure that those who read his book wishing to learn about Paraguay would find it useful.

            Gimlette’s lack of interest in ordinary people in the interior is coupled by his lack of interest in ordinary people in Asunción. He claims, “I detested the clubs,” (70) referring to the social clubs of the richest Asunceños. But for someone who hates the clubs, he sure seems to spend a lot of time in them. He especially is fond of any event concerning British Paraguayans and the British embassy, but attends many other club events and describes their guests in detail. He also spends an inordinate amount of time in Paraguay’s richest neighborhoods, with his wealthy friends in the Martin and Yegros family. He never goes into and never describes a bañado. If you were to rely on Gimlette’s account of a shopping experience in Asunción, there are two types: going to a shopping mall and going to a supermarket. He never sets foot in Mercado Cuatro – a reader of his book wouldn’t even know it exists. Gimlette’s idea of slumming it is to leave the Gran Hotel and stay in a nice hotel in the center – he lets us know how brave, or foolish, his rich friends think he is for doing so.

            Not knowing very much about ordinary Paraguayans, Gimlette must describe them according to his own fantasies. Gimlette writes of his experience on a bus to Pilar:

I decided I liked what I’d seen of rural Paraguayans, despite their determined suspicion. Perhaps it was this that attracted me most of all. Their intense privacy, their quaint military costumes, their inexplicable emotions – it all made them so amenable to make-believe. Deep down, I was appalled by my reaction – it seemed so superficial – but I couldn’t help inventing lives for my fellow-passengers. There was of course the heroic bombardier and the lady with the migrating knickers. Then behind me were two cowboys in sombreros and whiskers and gun-belts bobbled with shiny bullets. I placed them in the outer limits of lawfulness. Right at the back was an old woman with brilliant blue Slavic eyes. She wore a head-scarf and had a large home-made cigar clamped in her gums. I decided that every male in her ancestry had met an early and unjust death wherever their migrations had ended.

Examples of these types of projections abound in the book. One other example involves his experience in Humaitá, where he ate every day at the shop of an old lady and old man. Although he describes several isolated conversations with this family, and lets us know his first impression of them, he never learns there name. He refers to the couple as the Micawbers, because of their “Micawberish, quite unjustified optimism” (176). All the European settlers he searches for have names. All of his Victorian heroes have names. All the Nazis whose path he tracks down have names. But these two ordinary Paraguayans do not. They are referred to through a fantasy in Gimlette’s head; some sort of literary allusion that he never explains to readers (such as myself) who may not know was a Micawber is.

Gimlette’s unwillingness to learn about and adapt to Paraguayan culture also explains much of the conflict and chilly reaction he seems to receive places. A striking example of this takes place in Yaguarón, at the museum of Dr. Francia. Gimlette’s “beating on the middle door aroused a ferocious curator. ‘It’s lunchtime,’ he snarled. ‘When am I supposed to eat?’ He never got over his resentment, but agreed to show me the house.” (161) His insistence on seeing the museum during lunchtime is the height of disrespect for Paraguayan culture, where, as we all know, lunch time is sacrosanct.

            Perhaps Gimlette’s best writing is about the native peoples of Paraguay, both in the south and in the Chaco. He presented a decently well researched, sympathetic account of these people. Still, his account is always mediated by outsiders, be it Pierre Clastes, Leon Cadogan or the hard working British nurse Beryl Baker. The natives are people to sympathize with but they are not worthy of having their individual stories told in detail, like the white people in the book. Like the mestizo majority, they remain the exotic outsiders. Chamaki is the only individual native person whom Gimlette writes about in the book, and his story was told as part of the stories of British adventurers Graham Kerr and William Stewart.

            Don’t get me wrong about my criticisms of this book. First of all, I want to make it clear that I make no claim that Francia, Carlos Antonio Lopez and Francisco Solano Lopez are great heroes that could do no wrong. I am not a person who thinks that Paraguay, its leadership, it’ culture, and its people are beyond reproach. Nor do I think that it’s necessarily bad to use generalizations and stereotypes. I don’t believe in cultural relativism. I don’t believe in the idea that entire languages, cultures, peoples, histories cannot and should not be judged. Judge away, as far as I’m concerned. Be positive, be negative, say what you think.

            But do it from a point of knowledge. Present real evidence, have real expertise. Know and present the complexities of a situation. If you’re going to write a book about Paraguayan history, you should at least read Paraguayan accounts of their own history, instead of only using British sources. If you’re going to write about the Paraguayan character, you should spend significant time getting to know and understand the lifestyle of different types of Paraguayans.

            What Gimlette did was write a book about his own fantasies, using Paraguay as a backdrop.

            You might be asking, so what? Why would you take all this trouble to attack this book? If John Gimlette wants to play out his Victorian fantasies on the pages of his own book, fine.

            Yes, fine, Gimlette can write whatever he wants. But like I wrote at the beginning, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig is literally the only book in English on modern Paraguay that one can easily find when they look in bookstores or on-line. Thus the English speaking world’s perception of Paraguay is bound to be heavily influenced by the book. And the book does an absolutely atrocious job at describing Paraguay.

For the most part it is a book about white people in Paraguay, which means that readers will relate to Paraguay through the eyes of the white people whom Gimlette presents. And it is a book that intentionally searches for ways to make Paraguay seem as bizarre as possible.

            When Gimlette presents the Paraguayans people as exotic and impenetrable, this means that they are far different from you and me. Their motivations are mysterious, and it is difficult if not impossible to relate to them on a normal human level. This account creates distance, not understanding, between the reader and Paraguay. If Paraguayan people really were exotic and impenetrable, then it would be fair for Gimlette to present them as such. My experience has shown me a Paraguay that is in no way exotic nor impenetrable. Just look at the simple fact that more Peace Corps volunteers, both male and female, marry host country nationals in Paraguay than anywhere else in the world. Such a record would be hard to achieve in a culture that truly is impenetrable to outsiders. Gimlette’s Paraguay is impenetrable because he makes little effort to penetrate it.

            In addition to his exoticization, Gimlette’s historical description of an isolated Paraguay lets readers remain even more detached from their subject matter. I would guess that most of the readers of his book are either American or British. When Gimlette wrongly presents a Paraguay during Stroessner that was left out of the Cold War, and wrongly presents a Chaco War uninfluenced by American oil companies, he allows American readers to not have to confront the reality that their country had a role to play in these two disasters. When he dismisses the reality that the British government and British banks encouraged and funded the Triple Alliance, he allows British readers not to have to confront the role that their country played in a genocide.

            Perhaps this expulsion of Anglo-American guilt helps explain the rave reviews this book received in the Anglo-American world. It received the highest praises from the most respected periodicals: The New York Times Book Review, The London Sunday Times, Foreign Affairs, The Daily Telegraph, The Mail, and The London Times Literary Supplement. The San Francisco Chronicle writes that “Gimlette knows his subject cold.” The Seattle Times writes about Gimlette’s “mastery of history.” The Washington Times writes that, “At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig should be ranked among the very best explorations of its kind: at once a history and a guide to one of the least hospitable nations on earth.”

            Gimlette does not know his subject cold. He does not show mastery of Paraguayan history. And Paraguay is not one of the least hospitable nations on earth. Without these rave reviews, Gimlette’s book would not have made it into the bookshelves of stores all over the English speaking world. These journals should be ashamed to have promoted such a work. For all of the comparisons to Graham Greene, I find the style of the book resembles more that of a modern day, low quality Rudyard Kipling, extolling the White Man’s Burden and projecting fantastic tales of strange occurrences in remote jungles.

            And where’s all the inflatable pigs? I’m sure he saw them somewhere, but if they were really all over just a couple years ago, there should still be some somewhere. I’ve looked for them all over and I can’t find them. Not even one. I would love a big, pink inflatable pig. I want my pig.

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