Rebel with a cause

Hugo Chávez
By Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka
Translated, from the Spanish, by Kristina Cordero
Random House, 327 pp., illustrated, $27.95

¡Hugo!
By Bart Jones
Steerforth, 570 pp., illustrated, $30

Hugo Chávez is George W. Bush's chief of mischief, a rowdy, vociferous critic (with ample reason) without "pelos en la lengua," as the Spanish saying goes: with no modicum of embarrassment to control his attacks. He has aligned himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in an effort to undermine American foreign policy. Not since Fidel Castro stormed the international stage in the late '50s has a rascal-cum-visionary generated such polarizing opinions. When at the United Nations last year, after Bush had delivered a dumbfounding speech, Chávez said that standing in the same podium a day later allowed him to smell the scent of el diablo, he left no doubt about his status as the boldest, most daring, and potentially disestablishing politician in the world.

Unsurprisingly, a veritable deluge of biographies of the self-professed messiah of democratic socialism in the 21st century is taking place before our eyes. I've counted 12 in various languages, published or in preparation in the last couple of years. All seek to explain what Chávez means by "democratic" (surely not the Jeffersonian approach) and "socialism" (a dictatorial system for Venezuela closer to Uzbekistan's model than to Sweden's).

None of these biographies, I'm afraid, are particularly memorable, less because of a lack of juicy material (The Venezuelan leader's life has all the soap opera ingredients: from shanty town to the military, with seasoning coming from a failed coup d'etat, a failed presidential contest against a former Miss Universe, and anti-Semitic fireworks) than because of the dry, uninspiring language they are delivered in. Biographers today have all but rejected the James Boswell approach. It's better to disappear without a trace, they say, to leave no trace of one's own preferences, than to produce a book that has a self, one in which the biographer doesn't hide behind mountains of data. Ah objectivity, the pains you've left behind.

A couple of these books are becoming available in English. One is by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a husband-and-wife team of journalists associated with the Caracas daily El Nacional. In Spanish, "Hugo Chávez" was released under the title "Hugo Chávez sin uniforme" -- not quite "Chávez naked," but almost. Yet even if its fillers include an interview with his mistress for nine years, professor Herma Marksman (notice the echo of Karl Marx in the name), and excerpts from Chávez's diaries, it is actually a rather conventional piece of work, written in the free-flowing, unrigorous spirit of Latin American journalism (closer to what in Spanish is called "crónica" than to what English-language readers identify as nonfiction). The authors refuse to let their prejudices permeate the narrative, which is too bad because in the end it is difficult to trust their judgment. In a workmanlike translation by Kristina Cordero, it reads like a 90,000-word profile, not reaching deep enough into Chávez's motives. Its best asset is the opportunity it offers Americans for an insider's view: a Venezuelan myth, explained inside out.

In contrast, Bart Jones's "¡Hugo!" is excruciatingly detailed. Jones is a reporter for Newsday who spent years in Venezuela as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press. He knows his trade. He also doesn't have direct access to the dictator. It doesn't matter, for his quest is historical. He asks various hows and whats: How did Chávez orchestrate his Bolivarian revolution? What does he see in the 19th-century liberator, Simón Bolívar? How does he connect that century to ours? What are the ideological premises of his domestic agenda? Is his internationalist campaign to help the dispossessed driven by a Jesus Christ syndrome? Jones's book is thoughtful, comprehensive, and research-oriented. (Between notes and index, there are more than 80 pages of back matter.) It's among the best in the bunch.

There is something cartoonish in our fascination with the new political iconoclast on the block. It isn't only that Chávez is a mutineer. To a large extent, enjoying his electrifying performances on the global stage has to do with having someone stand up to a bully: Bush. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a Venezuelan leader, this or any other, reaching the same kind of momentum had the current American administration not behaved, in another Spanish saying, "como Pedro por su casa" (like a king in somebody else's palace), manipulating other people's destinies as if they were a game of Stratego, forcing them to choose between democracy and destruction.

Of course, every nation has the politicians it deserves. Now that Fidel is sick, Hugo is standing at his side. To millions of Latin Americans, the passing of the baton is a welcome change. Cuba is a poor island, whereas Venezuela is an oil-rich, agriculturally-fertile country with enormous possibilities. The two are equally driven to endless verbose fits. Castro sought inspiration in the poet and freedom-fighter José Martí. Chávez prefers Bolívar, with a twist of Noam Chomsky.

The rationale behind their actions, however, is one and the same: After all, doesn't someone have to stand up to the bad neighbor policy of the north while calling attention to inequality and injustice? Someone has to rewrite the constitution, to make it his personal wish-book, in order to make room for unlimited power, like Fidel has, even beyond death. And someone has to prompt an army of biographers to explain why the revolution is never finished in a region of 400 million people, a third of whom earn less than $10 a week.

No wonder the Spanish language makes use of inverted exclamation marks. ¡Viva la rebelión!

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His next book, "Love and Language" (with Verónica Albin), will be published by Yale University Press in October.