The unrelenting turmoil of life in Cuba

The Cuban Revolution—now in its 45th year—is that mouthful of hot coffee American politicians have neither been able to swallow nor spit out. Since a triumphant Fidel Castro rode into Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, it has been one clash after another—from the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Russian missile showdown of the early 1960s to the Mariel Boat Lift of 1980 to the 1999 tug-of-war over young Elian Gonzales. Recently, as some members of Congress were arguing for a loosening of America's long-time trade embargo against Cuba, President Bush tightened travel privileges to the island. Castro is now 77 years old, ruling without any officially designated successor and presiding over a nation that's in economic shambles. These three books, none of which is overtly partisan, attempt to see Cuba as it was, is and might be.

Music matters

Eugene Robinson, an editor and former reporter for the Washington Post, views Cuba's history and post-Revolutionary politics through its many kinds of music in Last Dance In Havana. While this approach may not satisfy scholars, it does have a lot to recommend it. After all, the arts are a barometer of what a society values, subsidizes, permits and turns to in times of crisis. Thanks to the international success of 1997's The Buena Vista Social Club CD, a project that resurrected a group of old and once-neglected native performers, Cuban music was suddenly all the rage. This fascination brought yet another tentacle of capitalism to the country and widened the general interest in other varieties of popular music. Robinson is at pains to trace them all: he visits nightclubs and musician's homes, inspects Cuba's world-class music academies and demonstrates how Castro's seemingly capricious rules affect the ebb and flow of music. Robinson, who is black, also describes the racism that still afflicts this supposedly egalitarian society.

Still, he is not cynical about Castro's motives. "He saw a Cuba of heroic sacrifice and complete selflessness, a state that came as close as possible to attaining the communist ideal, a land where 'bourgeois comforts' were rightly scorned and 'private ownership' was a concept consigned to history's dustbin and 'constant struggle' was the happiest condition of all. . . . I think that when Fidel looks at the glorious shambles that is Cuba, he sees success, not failure."


Face of the revolution

Volker Skierka's Fidel Castro: A Biography was first published in Germany in 2000 but has been updated for the American edition. It is a meticulous accounting of Castro's rise to power, his frequent run-ins with his more cautious Russian supporters and his close but ambivalent relationship with Che Guevara, who, as the author demonstrates, was the political purist Fidel could never afford to be. Skierka provides a valuable sketch of what Cuba was like under Castro's predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, and his allies in the American Mafia. It may surprise some to learn that Castro was a childhood admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, even going so far as to write him a "fan letter," a copy of which is reproduced in the book. Skierka includes a detailed bibliography, 16 pages of photos and a list of relevant CD-ROMs and websites. While he has no illusions about Castro's flaws or Cuba's unrelenting turmoil, Skierka concludes that, "Identification with the revolution is still high among ordinary people, including many young people, and it will outlive [Castro]. One thing Cubans certainly don't want is to return to the old dependence on the great neighbor to the north."


Lasting impressions

Cuba In Mind, edited by Maria Finn Dominguez, is a collection of essays, short fiction, reports and poems by such luminaries as Anthony Trollope, Steven Crane, Graham Greene, Langston Hughes, Elmore Leonard, Oscar Hijuelos and Andrei Codrescu. It is essentially a catchall of impressions by those who have found something to admire in the island and its people. Ernest Hemingway liked the fact that one could raise and fight cocks legally there and shoot live pigeons as a club sport. Allen Ginsberg, who was booted out of the country in 1965, was sympathetic to the Revolution's basic goals but enraged by its abuse of homosexuals. Reflecting years later on his ill-fated visit, he told a reporter, "Well, the worst thing I said was that I'd heard, by rumor, that Raul Castro [Fidel's younger brother] was gay. And the second worst thing I said was that Che Guevara was cute."


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