B. Traven Books

This is a classic story set in the mountains of Mexico during the goldrush era. This book speaks to all who covet 'riches' in life and give up pieces of themselves in their eternal quest for monetary gain--- never stopping to realize the true price of thier quest. Well written. After reading it, I suggest one rents the Humphrey Bogaert Movie of the same name for a wonderful adaptation to film.
Mary

I began reading "The Death Ship" after I had already read just about every biography about the author. I was prepared to dislike the book, because I didn't like the author. As I read the book I heard the rantings of the crazed author at the beginning when the protagonist Gales complains for several chapters at the treatment he receives because he doesn't have any papers. This is consistent with the sort of letters the author wrote to his editor about the hardships he endured when he first settled in Mexico. The author told many stories about who he was and I believe the Will Wyatt biography does a good job of uncovering the truth, but Gales echoes the author's refusal to give any kind of proof in his claims to be an American. Because he won't provide proof he cannot get papers. The author was imprisoned in England and was interrogated and Wyatt believes they eventually got the truth from him when he finally admits his real name is Otto Feige a small town that now belongs to Poland. For much of the authors existence he tried to portray himself as an American just like Gales, but like Gales he refuses to give anyone any proof of his claims. I read the book feeling impatient with the diatribes against government and employers. But then the author moves to the death ship. The writing style changes. He isn't trying to prove he is an American when he writes this. He doesn't pepper his prose with an over abundance of American colloquialisms and he begins to describe hell. The intensity and the passion make you forget the author and draws you into the deepest darkest scariest loneliest place that you can imagine. He talks about the lose of his soul as he works to feed the flames of hell. He contemplates Hamlets dilemma, and I am amazed at the intensity of his writing. Baughmann, one of several B. Traven scholars believes there are two writers, and indeed I can see his reasoning. There is a core and depth to the writing that is not initially present. It is like the author descends beneath all the surface silly fussiness and craziness that is part of his every day life and goes to the heart of darkness that is part and embedded in every man. He explores the nightmare of our loneliness. Perhaps he describes it so well because he is forever an outsider keenly aware of his own oddity.

What a surprisingly readable novel! I picked this one up, not knowing anything about the writer, or his work and was completely amazed. It has a very original style of writing, its very light, it sounds more like a conversation than anything else. Traven's got a wonderful sense of humor and slips jokes in on the sly here and there. I loved it.

As a real live "American Sailor" I really enjoyed this book. Traven must have sailed as amercahnt marine to have written a book so close to ship life. It was funny and sad at the same time. I take this book with me when I go to work and read once in my four month trip.

Manual labor. That's what I think of most of all when I think of B. Traven's The Death Ship. I actually read the majority of this book during break periods while working a manual labor job. Every time that my bones ached, I thought about the horrors of the Death Ship and the determinism in the face of certain doom; a real man is measured by his will and his strength.

B. Traven's prose is terrific, unpretensious, and profound. The Death ship tells the story of an American salior who becomes an outcast in a world indifferent to the circumstances of the little people. The crew of the ship, facing the possibility of death, starvation, and reside in squalid living conditions, show more humanity and honor than any pencil pusher behind a desk whose power and influences have condemned the honest man to a life of torture; they no longer fear hell, but at the same time, they embrace their situations with a fortitude that expresses a savage peotry. This novel is not to be missed by anyone that considers themselves serious about literature.

This novel begins as an almost-humorous tale of a man trapped in a bureaucratic web, then advances to an adventure on the high seas. A U.S. merchant sailor finds himself stranded in 1920's Europe without a passport or his seaman's card after his ship leaves without him (his documents are aboard the ship). Without his ID he finds himself an outcast, an unwelcome vagabond that ships won't hire, nations don't want, and whom U.S. Consuls brush off. Broke, stranded and desperate, he eventually finds work aboard the Yorikke. That vessel is called a death ship for its dangerous hard work, meager pay, and atrocious conditions. Our hero can only hope that the Yorikke will eventually set anchor in a U.S. port - but that could take months or years. There is a certain Franz Kafka/Twilight Zone quality to this story of a little man trapped by an unfair system. I felt the novel story got better in the second half, as our friend adjusts to his difficult situation only to find himself in great danger.

Chicago-born author B. Traven (1890-1969) lived secretly, wrote readable prose, and didn't hide his contempt for the effects of government rules and unregulated capitalism on ordinary people. This story doesn't match his TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, but it makes for a solid read.

Traven continues to strike a balance between despair and hope with this story set in rural Mexico.

Amazing fact: in Government, published 1931, Traven has the rebels in Chiapas commandeer an army post while the troops are drunk on New Years Eve. This is exactly what happened on Jan. 1, 1994 when the Zapatista rebels seized the army base near San Cristobal de las Casas and procured their weapons. I don't know if the rebels took their cue from Traven, or if it was coincidence, but this is a case of reality imitating fiction.

B. Traven uses his prose to clearly illuminate the fallacies foisted upon people by those in power, who clearly believe that they belong in power. This is a story in the "The Jungle Stories" series of Traven, which describe the horrible abuses that the indigenous indians of southern Mexico (mainly around Chiapas, which is still an area of unrest today) by Mexican government officials who conspired with foreign capitalists to use the indians as cheap, throw-away labor all in the name of promoting Mexico as a great nation under the dictator Porfirio Díaz. Great for some, but a disaster for the poor.

GOVERNMENT should be required reading in every High School civics class. Beyond its relevance to actual Mexican history, and its introduction to Traven's amazing Jungle series, it does an expert and entertaining job of describing the prevelant corruption that most, if not all, modern goverments eventually (often rapidly) employ. Also a must read also for all voters and elected officials.

Government by B. Traven felt more like an introduction into an epic rather than a stand alone product. Treasure of the Sierra Madre by Traven earns 5 stars, but Government seemed to be setting the stage for a larger landscape of characters and events. Yet, he carefully lays down a description of the parallel cultures and values of the Mexican central government under the dictatorship of Diaz, and the culture of the native indigenous population. Sometimes Traven gets too preachy with his anti-capitalism and anti-Catholicism. The native folks are pictured as too innocent and ideal, much like the philosophy of Rousseau. The two brothers Don Gabriel and Don Mateo are contrasted well, showing that true theft and deception must be slowly and carefully developed as shown by Don Gabriel, as compared to the over reaching, over greedy actions of Don Mateo.

I confess at the outset that I have not seen this particular edition, as I bought it as a gift. I imagine the translation to be quite useful. (I bought it in Mexico w/o any notes or translation.) The author (famous for Treasure of the Sierra Madre) was a German or American expat who immersed himself in Mexican culture, and the book was translated into Spanish from German. It was recommended to me as an excellent choice for Americans with moderate language skills, and I found that to be true.

The story is brilliant and evocative and gives a wonderful and rich sense of life in colonial Mexico while retaining a structure that is accessible to English speakers. This book and others by B. Traven are beloved of the Mexican people, even though the author himself did not write in Spanish, and, of course, I wonder how much of its magic is also due to the skills of translation.

If you have an opportunity to read it, don't miss it. And read it in Spanish for the full appreciation of its beauty.

A very interesting story with a puzzling ending, I especially liked the understanding that Traven has of the meaning of death in the mexican culture.
A man goes into the woods and meets the Death, they make a pact, a series of events follow until Macario dies many years later, or did he die the same day he met the Death?, you find out.
I really recomend this book for everyone, combine it with Canasta de Cuentos Mexicanos, these two books really make for some of Traven's best.

While somewhat mechanical in structure, the novella nevertheless gains in its simplicity what it might have lost attempting to philosophize too deeply about fate and the death figure's task of complying with it. Lujan's translation is to be commended. This is an ideal book for advanced High School Spanish students, especially if it's read before "el día de los muertos" and is accompanied by the classic film (black-and-white), although the latter strays slightly in content from Traven's original. The movie was used in the 1970's as part of the University of Arizona's curriculum for 4th semester Spanish, and may be still available either through them or through Tulane's Latin American Studies Rescource Center. Students are at times troubled by Macario's "power" being subject to fate, and therefore void of real meaning, and not dependent on the "agua curativa" he must use to free the "moribundos" from death's grasp.

Great for intermediate students or adults. Goes through a lot of Mexican culture in a very accessible Mexican Spanish. Poor woodcutter Macario meets the devil, Jesus, and Death on the day his wife cooks him the first filling meal of his life. They all want a bite of his turkey. He makes a deal with Death, that makes him wealthy, but later puts him in hot water with the Inquisition. Humor, irony, adventure, and philosophy. It can be compared with a wonderful B&W movie.

macario is a very poor man who lives in a mexican forest (woods), he is the father of 8 or 9 kids. his wife loves him so much; he works hard but any way the are miserables....he only has a dream before he dies...eat on his own a complete turkey, without share it with NOBODY, even his family....he always said this dream to his wife, so during a lot of years, and saving as much as possible, one day she cook the turkey and send him to the woods early in the morning, before kids smell the turkey...macario runs inside the woods to hide and made possible the big dream...and suddenly apears just in front of him GOD,who's starving,and HE asks for food... read the book to know Macario's answer...)then comes the devil, (great answer too...) and then comes the dead...(here is were the really story begins)

Trozas is the fourth in the Jungle Series, written by B. Traven around the economic class structure of Mexico during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.

The book is short on plot and short on character development, but it gives almost a case study version of the inhumane conditions that peons endured on the debt slavery mahogany plantation.

Andre again plays a role, as he did in The Carreta and March to the Monteria. He wishes to return to his common law wife but must toil under unbelieveable conditions to work off his father's debts.

Celso also plays a role, as he did in March to the Monteria where he was the primary heroic figure. He is strong, heroic, dignified, and yet caught in the web of jungle, insects, disease, and violence along with all the other Indian men slaveing for the Spaniards.

Whereas man's injustice to man is certainly the major theme of this book, the theme of survival under incredible conditions also runs throughout the book.

In March to the Monteria, Cleso is a strong young Indian male, working nude in the jungle, hacking down tons of mahogany a day. He tries to escape once his debt is paid and due to his skill, the owners always find a hidden charge and bring him back. In Trozas he tries to maintain his dignity and raise the consciousness of the other men.

In The Carreta, Andre is an oxen cart drive with a young common-law wife. InTrozas these skills are put to use as the drags mahoganylogs through muddy swamps to the the river where they can be floated to the lumber mills. He also is trapped.

The reason I did not give this book a 5 star rating however is that it really had little plot or character development. It was best described as a study in the economic injustices that allowed much of Mexico's dark Indians to be suppressed and exploited by the white Spainards. Victor Hugo always had a tendency to engage in social studies in his work, but he always returned to the plot. I wish Traven had been more of a novelist and less of an anthropologist.

Yet another good story of hardship and triumph of the human spirit in old Mexico.

I trully enjoyed the book, once I picked it up I could not put it down. I never realized the hard work and effort taken to bring us the mahogony. And the life of the indians under the rule of the "Patrones", conquistadores. Slavery was not legal in Mexico, instead a life long debt was incurred to keep the peasants supressed and deprived of their freedom.

I don't think I could add more than the Julian Barham review except to say, I love this book! This is the fourth book of the jungle series. I would recommend that one read the jungle series in order (i.e., Government, Carreta, March to the Monteria, Trozas, Rebellion of the Hanged, General from the Jungle). It is not absolutely necessary to read them in order but some characters show up in the later books (e.g., Don Gabriel from "Goverment" is referred to quite often, and Andres from "the Carreta" is present in the March to the Monteria and Trozas, amongst others). The characters from previous books are not necessarily covered in detail, so having this background of info about them sort of solidifies the story. The path of the characters is intertwined throughout the series.

I usually don't assign myself to such reading, like it's some sort of required reading for a class but in my opinion this is some of the most insightful and compelling writing I have ever read. Go Traven!

Trozas, Spanish for logs, is the fourth of six "Jungle Novels" by B. Traven, about the birth of the Mexican Revolution. The story centers around the exploitation of slave-laborers on a mahogany plantation, known as a monteria. There is little in the way of a conventional plot. Traven assumes the role of anthropologist as he explains the layout of a monteria, its power structure, the brutal methods used to exploit the Mexican Indians, and details of the daily grind they suffer as they cut down the trees, haul them with the aid of oxen through dense humid jungle which is infested with mosquitoes and biting flies, poisonous snakes, scorpions, panthers, and the cutting whips of the overseers. Though Traven's focus is on the corruption of the Diaz regime (1876-1910), the events that brought about his downfall, the social structure which places the illiterate dark-skinned Indians at the mercy of exploitive light-skinned Spaniards, the scheming-as-matter-of-policy among the local officials - from the police chiefs, judges, and tax assessors to the doctors, priests, monteria contractors and fincerias (the powerful landowners)- ultimately the book powerfully illustrates man's inhumanity to man. I was shocked and outraged - as I turned the pages - at the social structure which allowed this injustice to exist. (It is clear if one watches Mexican television programs - with light-skinned European looking men and women holding political office and on the soap operas and news, as well as the vast numbers of dark-skinned Indians migrating north to the U.S. in search of opportunity, that sadly little has changed since the Mexican Revolution). Trozas is also about human dignity in the face overwhelming suffering. Trozas is a grim book in a grim series of books, but an important one that needs to be read, for it enlightens the reader not only about Mexican history and the rise of the Mexican Revolution, but about the politics of evil and one aspect of the human condition. Traven has an easy, flowing style. He creates vivid characters and memorable scenes. He has an excellent ear for dialogue. Long after reading the book one can see and feel and hear the jungle and the pitiless human struggle for existence within it. This is a truly classic series of books which are gaining in popularity, especially on college campuses in Latino and ethnic studies classes. Traven for years languished in semi-obscurity, though he was once nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. As the wave of class, race, ethnic, and gender studies has grown over the past two decades, Traven is being re-evaluated by critics and readers and is justly gaining in popularity and prestige.

Sixty years ago, Traven wrote books that taught you everything you needed to know about what Mexico and, indirectly, America were doing to Mexico's indigenous populations. Though often translated awkwardly from his original German into English, Traven's prose sings. As a leftist who fled a death sentence issued by the post-World War freikorps of Bavaria, he sympathized with the Indians of Mexico, learned their language, and told their story in such a compelling way that it will change the way you see the world. Traven is best known for writing "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," but his so-called jungle books, like "The Carreta," are perhaps his real masterpieces.

The Carreta, the second of B Traven's Jungle Series,is the tale of a young Indian peon, Andres. The story shows the way the Indian people of Mexico became serfs or peons to the wealthy Hispanic landowners. The corrrupt government of Porfirio Dias allowed for over half of the Mexican population to live as virtual debt slaves, always toiling for the landowners. Andres's family, like all peon families, must work in the fields for the rich and get further and further in debt. Eventually he is traded in a poker game by his master. He then leaves his family and becomes a carreta driver. These folks drove simple oxen carts across the Mexican frontier, carrying goods from village to village. During one of the trips, he meets a homeless displaced Indian girl of around 15 and they become man and wife.

Traven paints a picture of economic and social oppression, fueled by racism and illiteracy, and ripe for socialist revolution. He tells us of a nation that is rotten from the President on down, living like parasites on the toil and sweat of the poor. A simple story in many ways, the focus of Traven is frequently in the details and explanations of the economic conditions rather than on character to character interactions. These interactions interest him most when there is injustice.

This book was not as oriented toward teaching the reader the economic system of oppression that Traven's first book, Government, exemplifies. However, it is a good read.

La Carreta is a great read, second in the jungle series. The first five books set the stage and the book, "General from the Jungle" is the climax. Each book stands alone well enough, however, by reading the entire series, preferrebly in order, a greater understanding of what created the conditions for revolution can be garnered. Characters from previous books have cameo appearances in later books, so some previous knowledge of them makes it more interesting. Tierra y Libertad!

B. Traven, a German leftist who fled the chaos of post World War I Bavaria for the New World, wrote many novels of Mexico, including the movie immortalized by Bogart, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". This is the first one I've read, so don't put me on your list of Traven experts. I have learned that this novel, THE CARRETA, is part of a series. I hope that the characters continue from novel to novel, but have no idea if this is true. If they do not, then this book is a very slight effort, in terms of a story and sequence of events. A young Indian man, a peon on a hacienda, is traded off by his patrón during a card game. His new boss runs a cartage company---the workers are on the road all their lives, and due to an extreme system of debt slavery, can never escape their hard existence. Andrés, the young man, finds a young woman at a fiesta and makes her his wife. They love, but must part when Andrés learns that his father, back on the plantation, has been sold to a timber cutting firm deep in the jungles, a fate that nearly nobody can survive. This is the entire plot of the book. What makes the book interesting is the great amount of detail the author gives on Mexican life in the time of Porfirio Dias, the dictator who was overthrown in 1910. The land, the lives of the simple people, Indian legends, the details of work are all depicted in beautiful prose interspersed with considerable irony on the cruelties and injustices of the whole system. Some people might find the political slant not to their taste, but how could you ignore or accept a system that kept more than half of the Mexican people in virtual slavery all their lives ? If you read this book, which is set in the southern state of Chiapas, and wonder how the Revolution changed everything, think about what has been taking place in that very state during the 1990s. The Indians are still in a state of armed revolt against the landlords, who still think that the native peoples are theirs to use and discard. If you link the times described by Traven and the news of today, you will find that his novel remains entirely relevant to our times.

This work was originally published in 1972 and thus does not reflect the most recent archeological information available regarding the Christianizing of the Anglo-Saxon peoples.

It is still a very enjoyable read. The author has a lively style which flows well over the entire subject. Events and people both great and small are considered in this comprehensive story of the conversions of the Anglo-Saxon peoples to Christianity. Gregory the Great, Augustine, Theodore, Bede, and finally Boniface all loom large in the narrative. The author is more charitable to Wilfrid than most.

I am hard pressed to find fault with this work. However, while the Irish influence on Anglo-Saxon Christianity is thoroughly explored, the dealings of the Anglo-Saxon Church with the remaining British Christians in only lightly discussed. The author, perhaps due to the times in which he wrote, is less-than-critical of his sources and takes the workman-like "they're all we've got, so let's make the most of them" attitude. This makes for good narrative but for poor source analysis.

On the whole, I enjoyed the book and can recommend it.

This is easily one of my favorite works of English Ecclesiastical History. Mayr-Harting's writing is clear, readable, and often witty, and the book becomes an enjoyable reading experience for it.

Despite the title, Mayr-Harting's main focus is not on the conversion of England as the development of Christianity and English Christian Society. He divides the work into two sections, the shorter covering the initial post-Roman conversion, and the importance of Bede and his Ecclesiastical History. The second part is longer, and covers development from the Synod of Whitby up through St. Boniface.

This is easily the best single overview of early English church history I've read. Mayr-Harting handles major subjects like liturgy and Celtic vs. Roman Christianity as easily as he does the characters of some of the period's major ecclesiastical players: Bede, Wilfrid, Boniface. The result is a brilliant piece of historical scholarship.

Primarily written for scholars, but an excellent all-around book, written with style and erudition. If you have an interest and some background in early England or early Christian history, you'll find the book worthwhile, even fun to read.

Reading the Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England is like going to a dim-sum restaurant. Mayr-Harting brings out cart after cart delectable goodies, almost all of them enjoyable. However, there is no menu to provide organization for the cuisine, and you're left wondering just what it was that you ate.

What I mean is this. The book lacks any overall narrative, and the lack leaves those with little familiarity with Anglo-Saxon England feeling a little lost. Even a timeline as an appendix would have been helpful, showing us when St. Augustine arrived, when the King of East Anglia was converted, etc.

In fact, the lack of chronological narrative means that the book is *not* the story of the coming of Christianity to England. Rather, it is simply about organized Christianity in early England and some of the major ecclesiastical figures involved. Nevertheless, we are given highly enlightening vignettes of Anglo-Saxon England and the early Church, with brief forays into Ireland, Gaul, Spain, and elsewhere. We learn of a time when Rome was not the all-powerful center of Catholicism, when the Irish were at the forefront, and British (Roman and Celtic) Christians were fading into the sunset. Every page, and nearly ever paragraph, provides an interesting tidbit about worship, monasticism, folklore, and almost any subject one would care to think of.

Perhaps most satisfying of all is to read about Church figures who truly were "Christian", genuinely concerned about spreading the Gospel as opposed to accumulating power or triumphing in doctrinal disputes. A refreshing perspective that those more used to following events in Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria all too seldom see.

This is not a book for those who solely wish to have an overview of the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England. It is, however, full of delights for the discerning reader.

I am half way through the six "Jungle Novels" and I find that Traven is a bit of a mixture of Hemmingway and Steinbeck, with a James Michner approach to historical narrative. This is the best way I have found yet to see inside prerevolution Mexico; to understand why it happened and why Mexico is the way it is, in many ways, today still the same.

Land and Liberty is all they wanted. It was something that most had prior to colonialism. Most of us today were lucky enough to have already been born with these rights having been fought for and defended against by previous generations. [Of course some could argue that we have only a facsimile of land and liberty even today as most never own their land (e.g., mortgage) and liberty is a relative term.] Anyhow, this book is the last in the 6 part series. The culmination of all previous books ends here. This is the guts and glory and revenge of the indians on the landowners and government. Tierra y Libertad!

This book is the sixth of Ben Traven's Jungle Novels. If you read all six, you would have completed around 1500 pages. Is it worth it? I would like to answer that question by reflecting on "General from the Jungle" and then reflecting on the entire series as a whole.

General From the Jungle is about revolution. It is about the strategy of warfare and the strategy of reaching the hearts and minds of peasants. It tells the tale of 600 debt slave Indians who emerge from totally inhumane work conditions on mahogany plantations to take over farms and villages until they hear that the dictator of Mexico, Diaz, has escaped to England.

Many of the characters from previous stories are here again. Cleso, Modesta, Andreas are all here. However a new character, Juan Mendez arrives, a young Indian chieftan with military training, who leads this rag tag band to victory after victory against the federales and rurales.

But remember that Traven's idology drives the story and many of our old friends from the previous novels only play bit parts, since the general and the revolution are actually the main characters. As General Mendez wins small victory after small victory, ever increasing military forces are sent against him. It is the psychology of the defeated Mexican military officers that offers fascinating reading in this final novel. As Traven brings the book to an end, he must bring nasty disgrace, complete misery, and painful torture to the Mexican military officers that are defeated by the revolution. The final chapters of the book are fascinating and painful to read since Traven must establish a sense of justice by balancing the evil done ot the Indians with the violence of disgrace against the Mexican military officers. Men have the ability to paln and implement the most disgraceful and demeaning tortures for each other which wring the last drops of human dignity from the victims. The book is fascinating and the final third is so engrossing that you can't put the book down.

Once you have finished the 6 books however you can look back at the strengths and weaknesses of this massive literary work. There are real strengths to this series. Traven's writing is spare and to the point. Yet he spends time telling the reader about the culture and psychology of the oppressor and the oppressed. You will understand debt slavery and the minds of the masters and slaves thoroughly when you finish the series. Traven was driven however to illustrate his world view and ideology and thus his characters are somewhat like puppets to illustrate his views about dictatorship, and racism, and man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

The 6 novels shine brightest when he allows himself to fully explore man's inhumanity to man. Here Traven knows the depth of sadism and the depths of depersonalization for those who are victims of abuse and torture. Traven recognizes that those in power become just as miserable as their victims when power corrupts them and enhances their sadism.

Thus in the end, it is when Traven wishes to make an ideological point that he ignores character and his writing is at the weakest (despite the fact that his message is extremely valid). It is when he has man face man in psychologial confrontation of oppressor and oppressed, victim and torturer, master and slave, that he reveals his exceptional insight into the depths of human cruelty.

This final novel deserves 5 stars and the entire series deserves five stars also. These books are underestimated masterpieces.

This is a gripping story of mistreatment of Indians in Mexico just prior to the Revolution of 1910. The principal character is Candido, a poor Indian whose debts lead him to become a contact laborer cutting wood in the jungles of Southern Mexico. Life in these labor camps is cruel and oppressive, and one has little chance of escaping. The Anglo-Mexicans that run the plantation (Don Felix, Don Severo, Don Acacio) demand an impossible level of work from their Indian laborers; those that fail are beaten or hanged by their wrists as punishment. Having endured their employers' unfathomable cruelty, an unintended rebellion springs up when the opportunity arises. The workers realize that in the corrupt Mexican society such a rebellion is unlikely to succeed, but they feel a level of freedom just in trying.

This is the fifth and perhaps best of the jungle books by Chicago-born author B. Traven (1890-1969). Traven had great sympathy for the oppressed Indians, leftist views, and a very engaging style. Readers should also see Traven's other novels about Mexico and oppression, the most famous of which is TRESURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

In Traven's fifth jungle book, The Rebellion of the Hanged, the tensions and oppression finally build up to the breaking point. We have many characters in this fifth book that were introduced to us in the earlier books. Andreas, the oxen driver from The Carretta, longs to escape from the mahogony plantation and return to his young wife. Celso, the heroic Indian man of action, again plays a central role as he did in March to the Monteria. Candido, the dirt farmer, loses his wife Marcelina to appendecitis because the drunken doctor refuses to operate without outlandish payment. Candido, his two sons and his younger sister Modesta, go to the plantation to pay back the price of Marcelina's medical and funeral expenses. Don Gabriel is back, tricking young Indian men to sell themselves into debt slavery from which there is little chance of escape. The three money hungry sadistic plantation owners, Don Felix, Don Severo, and Don Acacio are back with a vengence. Their cruelty to the Indians is hard to imagine.

Traven however is very wise in that he brings into this situation three components of successful revolution: the chance event that signals vulnerability of the oppressors, the thinker who brings reflective consciousness to the oppressed so that they begin to understand their conditions, and the catalyst event that drives the revolutionaries forward.

The chance event that signals vulnerability is when Don Acacio unjustly tries to beat and hang two Indian men for a transgression they did not commit. He lets down his guard and the two men fight back, blinding Don Acacio.

A new group of characters, revolutionists on the run, join the plantation work crews to hide. One of them, Martin Trinidad, raises the consciousness of Celso, the natural leader of the debt slaves.

Finally, Don Felix's cruel cutting off of the ears of Candido's young child, stimulates his aunt Modesta to fight back which becomes a snowball of death for the plantation owners and their foremen.

This is the fifth novel in the series. In the first novel, Government, we see the corruption at all levels of society and government in Mexico that leads to the suppression of the native Mexican Indians. In the other three novels we are introduced to the characters Andreas, Celso, and learn the terrible business of the jungle mahogony production. Finally in this fifth novel, the tide is turned and the revolution begins. The novel ends as the revolutionists emerge from the jungles and begin to march across the corrupt fincas, encouraging the peons to rebel.

this book started off intense and full of political emotion and it never backed down. if you would like a real and emotional story of who workers are, the opression they face, and the breaking point for them, then i suggest this book. i remember being outraged, shocked, disgusted throughout the book.....and then the ending...well it's full of sweet vengenace. real people, real life, real solutions....that's what this book is about.

This is an interesting story about poverty and worker exploitation in Mexico during the late 1920's. The story is narrated by Gales, an offbeat American living as a nomad in Mexico and bouncing from one crummy job to another. He picks cotton, works in a bakery, drives cattle, etc. The only jobs available to him, Indians, and other transients offer low pay, long hours, and demeaning conditions. Many jobs also feature crooked employers that cheat their workers. Despite these difficulties, Gales has a sense of freedom, which he greatly values. Also, there are a couple decent employers and some successful strikes by workers.

Author B. Traven (1890-1969) had a nicely readable style, a soft heart for underpaid workers, and disdain for the seamier side of capitalism. This isn't his best work, but it's an entertaining story of transient poverty and exploitation in Mexico. Readers should be sure not to miss his TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

Well, what's there to say? It was written by the same talented writer who wrote Treasure of the Sierra Madre. You won't be disappointed. Traven delivers. Easy read. I read it in a day. The man is always for the underdog--who can't relate to that? The only thing that bothers me at times is Traven's political [views]. Man obviously had an ax to grind--well, ok, I suppose, everyone has an ax to grind about something. But when it comes to poltics and religion--well, two subjects that just sicken me--because you can never get anywhere with that stuff. You can talk about that b.s. until you're blue in the face and still end up nowhere.

Other than that--yes, I highly recommend the book.

This novel, like "The Death Ship," does not have atraditional narrative structure. And like "The Death Ship" this story is narrated by Gales, a crazy American who goes through life doing one lousy job after the other. From cotton picker to cowboy, from baker to wanderer, Traven once again takes Gales through a trial-by-toil world.

Of course the book is entertaining and it's even insightful (especially if you've ever had a job in Mexico); but what worked so well for "The Death Ship" doesn't seem to be as effective here. It lacks the tough satire that his first novels has.

Also, if you've read "The Night Vistor and other stories" you'll feel a little ripped off, since about 40 pages overlap between these two volumes. But if you haven't, then you're in for a pretty good treat.

I mean, nobody sweats like Traven.