The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War

I absolutely love this book ... Gioconda Belli is the type of woman I aspire to be (okay, maybe without the affairs): strong, intelligent, committed to the cause of making her world a better place, and still completely feminine. This is a great book to read if you want an insider's perspective of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.

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It happens to all of us. You meet someone - at a party, maybe, or a coffee shop - someone so beautiful you feel slightly blinded, and when you try to talk it just comes out all garbled and stupid. Your hands twist and your heart constricts, like you're trying to curl up into yourself for safety. I feel like that about this book. Rendered stupid and inarticulate, cut to the quick. Her story goes beyond the particulars of one time and place to say something profound about the universal experience of women - women as artists, women as citizens, women as members of families, women alone. I was expecting history, but what I got was revelation.
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I am going to try to be as balanced as possible in my review and restrain myself from making any criticism that is personal but it might be difficult.

I shall start with the positives of this book. Set in Nicaragua in Central America it chronicles the life of Gioconda Belli. I have never read anything about Nicaragua which is a country of nearly 6 million people, ruled by the Somoza family for around half a century. Nicaragua was and still is a poor country. The Somoza family were put in power with North American support and exploited their power. A group called the Sandinista Liberation Front was initially based upon the fight against American occupation lead by Augusto Sandino in the 1930s. The FLN deposed Somoza in 1979 and retained power until 1990.

Gioconda Belli was born in the capital city, Managua on the shores of Lake Managua to parents who she states were upper class, privileged, bourgeoise. Gioconda grew up in this privileged setting later noticing the poverty all around her. Gioconda married young, then decided she didn't love her husband, she became a journalist, had an affair, joined the Sandinistas, had another affair, but stayed with her husband and had another child. Then Gioconda split from her husband, divorced, had another affair with another man and havind pretty much simultaneously married again and had a son. About a year later, she met someone else, fell hopelessly in love, had some therapy and finally fell in love again and getting married. You get the jist. Gioconda was unable to control her need for attention or her emotions or her body.

Gioconda did some work for the Sandinistas, driving men around Managua, letting them sleep in her home, going on long trips and leaving her children with their grandparents or family friends. gioconda eventually went into exile in Costa Rica.

The book is described by several reviewers as "an adventure novel", "compelling" and by Salman Rushdie as "unforgettable".

I just don't get it. I agree that the book is readable but unfortunately the writer is irritating, self absorbed, vindictive....... I am holding back! I want to give examples to demonstrate this... When introducing the wife of a guerrilla called Dona Maria she says... "I felt her looking at me with hostility, as if she resented my long hair and my youth, aspects of herself that she had shed so many years before".

It is unclear whether Gioconda Belli is aware that she has drawn herself in such an unsympathetic light. She rationalises her many affairs, for example stating that her affair with Modesto was a gift to a man who would not be alive for long!

There are several times I wanted to throw this book out of the window, I was so frustrated on behalf of womankind for this writer's total lack of self respect, and of care for her children. I hope that Ms. Belli is now able to reflect and perhaps this book was some sort of catharsis. Perhaps I am being unfair, other reviewers on LT have called her courageous and love the journey that she goes on, and empathise greatly. Everyone makes mistakes, that is what makes us human, I do feel I am being a bit too tough. Anyhow, not recommended, one star. ( )

This is one of my favorite books. And I don't name very many books in that category. Belli writes entertainingly about her experience with the FSLN, her frustrations with the organization and even her personal relationships. I've read this book many times and will read it again! ( )

This is Belli's autobiography, charting her life from spoilt bourgoise child to Sandinista revolutionary, to international stateswoman. It focuses on her twin roles: as a mother and lover, and as an armed revolutionary, and exposes the conflicts that these roles brought into being. The Sandanista struggle in Nicaragua is a microcosm of 20th century politics, a battle between left and right, a pawn in cold war diplomacy, and Belli is well placed to describe this fascinating conflict from the inside.
Belli is an award winning poet, and her ease with language (she was also involved in the translation into English) made this an engaging read. However, I felt that there was a limit to how far into her head Belli was allowing the reader, and this was frequently frustrating. For instance, her transition from an upper middle class rich kid to left wing revolutionary is too quick, too easy, and never really explained satisfactorally. there was a brevity to each chapter that didn't really allow me to get a deep understanding of what Belli felt and thought at the time. Consequently, as a source of the events of the Sandanista uprising in Nicaragua, Belli's book was interesting, but as an autobiography I thought it left something to be desired.