海角大神

Venezuela is a decidedly challenging place: to live, to describe, to wholly understand. And in the 14 years of Hugo Ch谩vez鈥檚 presidency, the contours of the oil-rich Andean nation have become ever more gray and blurred.

There was the good under Ch谩vez: poverty fell, literacy improved, and the poor and long-ignored were given a voice. And then, of course, there was the bad: violence more than doubled from 1998 to 2012, infrastructure crumbled, inflation rose to become the highest in the Western Hemisphere, and democratic institutions were weakened and in some cases trampled.

In one of the more revealing scenes in Rory Carroll鈥檚 engaging, highly readable Comandante: Hugo Ch谩vez鈥檚 Venezuela, Carroll takes the readers to a ranch in the plains region, where he introduces C茅sar Garc铆a, a landowner who initially voted for Ch谩vez 鈥渢o shake things up.鈥�

Mr. Garc铆a鈥檚 employees voted for Ch谩vez, too, and during his first year in office there was a shared optimism. But slowly the rancher started to feel edged out of the conversation. 鈥淐h谩vez spoke of the nation being reborn 鈥榩ara nosotros,鈥� for us, and the revolution being 鈥榩ara todos,鈥� for everybody.... [But] there was a shift in the president鈥檚 tone, a creeping defensive bellicosity.鈥� Suddenly, Garc铆a, as a landowner, had become 鈥渢hem.鈥�

鈥淕arc铆a looked with alarm at his laborers, his childhood playmates who never had his privileges and now craned their necks toward the radio to better hear the president. Did they see him that way? An exploiter? How dare Ch谩vez do this!... C茅sar Garc铆a became what Ch谩vez said he was: an enemy of the revolution.鈥�
Scenes like this convey the small, tectonic shifts beneath Ch谩vez鈥檚 revolution.

Carroll鈥檚 access, garnered over seven years reporting in Caracas for The Guardian, is showcased through the characters readers meet. From a fashion designer who works with newly elite 鈥淏oligarchs鈥� (Bolivarian revolutionaries plus oligarchs) and sees the same issues of corruption and elitism as in administrations past, to the president鈥檚 personal librarian who could rattle off quotes from Ch谩vez鈥檚 revolutionary hero Sim贸n Bolivar, to the drug trafficker whose fate illustrates the speed with which one could rise and fall in grace in today鈥檚 Venezuela, readers are helped to see just how challenging it is to bundle Ch谩vez and his revolution into a nutshell. He was this close to being a dictator, but not quite.

Even though opponents 鈥渟houted 鈥榯yrant鈥� and willed Ch谩vez to act accordingly, he remained a stubborn, unique, indefatigable hybrid: an autocrat and democrat,鈥� says Carroll. 鈥淭hat Ch谩vez dominated and abused state institutions and resources did not change the fact people could still vote against him.鈥�

In another memorable scene, Carroll is invited onto the president鈥檚 flagship television show, 鈥淎lo Presidente.鈥� He asks (on live television) why the president should have the exclusive right to indefinite reelection. (A failed 2007 constitutional referendum vote would have lifted term limits for the president, but not local governors or mayors).

In response, Ch谩vez railed on Europe (Carroll鈥檚 home continent) and the United States, celebrated African heritage in Venezuela, and demanded the British government hand over the Falkland Islands to the Argentine people. Hours later (yes, hours!) Ch谩vez returned to Carroll鈥檚 question, comparing himself to an artist trying to design a more beautiful Venezuela.

鈥淚 have to finish this picture.... If I give the brush to someone else, they would start to change the colors because they have another vision, start to alter the contours.鈥�

Carroll鈥檚 book went to press shortly before Ch谩vez鈥檚 death. The world must now wait to see what will happen to the landscape Ch谩vez spent 14 years designing.

Whitney Eulich is the Monitor鈥檚 Latin America editor.