At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette

How much do you know about Paraguay? How much do most people in the US know about Paraguay? How much do I know? Let's see. I watched them in the World Cup, and I know that Roque Santa Cruz hails from there, and that's about it. I couldn't have even told you it was landlocked. Embarrassing, maybe, but best to be honest with myself.

In the Head of the Inflatable Pig is a combination travelogue and basic history guide to Paraguay - the author intersperses his experiences visiting historical places in Paraguay, his experiences with the people he comes across while visiting those places, and bits of history - both important political moments and interesting tidbits of history he comes across that may not be important in the largest sense but provide insight into the Paraguayan way of life, which is really what runs through all the sections of the book.

I get a taste of the history of Paraguay which is absolutely fascinating (which is helped by Gimlette's writing style and the general organization of the book) - a series of dictators each with their own eccentricities - one who drove the country into an unbelievably debilitating war in the late 19th century (the War of the Triple Alliance (which I knew the name of, but just about nothing else) killing over 80% of the population and leaving a 10-1 female to male ratio which is hard to digest even as I type it now), a period of instability, and a 35-year long brutal dictatorship which lasted up until almost the end of the 20th century. In addition, I get a flavor of the culture and the Paraguayans attitude towards their series of dictators. It left me, while reading it, thinking about how inconceivable it is, as an American, even with all my frustrations with our political process, to imagine what it would be like to be living under constant dictatorship and the weight of such a brutal history and to appreciate how the Paraguayans carry on.

More than just straight history, though (not that straight history is not enough for an excellent book) Gimlette lends some insight into Paraguayan culture. I don't mean culture so much in the particular art, or music, or literature, but more in the sense of the general attitudes and

Recently, I read another book about South America, The Lost City of Z, and it made me read more about South American, and in that case the Amazon. This book is very different but makes me feel the same way, not just about South America but about any country. Every country has its own story - its own unique history - before reading this book, Paraguay was just a country next to and with a similar name than Uruguay, who probably had some dictatorial issues, sure, but that's about it.

And yes, sure, that sounds obvious, as if it's coming from an ignorant person who should have known more about the country in the first place, and yes, that's at least partly true. But even so it speaks to a broader point (yes I'm not I'm going a bit far here) about the simplicity with which people view the world all too often (and why history is so valuable even today) - people are quick to group people and make snap judgments, to look no deeper than the surface, because they don't have enough information and because they don't care enough but there's almost always a nuanced reason for everything that you'll miss if you don't look a little harder. To give the most broad example, many people within Paraguay kept voting for people who were related to their old brutal dictatorship, which seems crazy, until you realize that in a country with so much instability economically and politically, that time represented the only stability they ever knew.

Anyway, even if you don't get that much, it's a good book for the anecdotes alone, so read it.