Waiting for Snow in Havana

For my first memoir, I read Carlos Eire's excellent Waiting for Snow in Havana. Were I to rename the memoir, I would call it Carlos' Gods. The overall, commanding theme of the book seems to be identifying the "gods" of Eire's Cuban upbringing.

It's a good theme, but it could easily feel like something of a cop-out: to explore one's primary influences is hardly a new or bold concept. Where Eire succeeds, however, is developing and enunciating the love-hate (but primarily hate) relationship with his "gods.". 

First and most obvious is the constant refrain and exploration of young Carlos' present-tense connection to God. He dwells seriously on sin and repentance, but generally in the context of his childhood fears and schooling. Whether it is his experience getting his head stuck in a pew during mass (94-97) or his reflections on hell and repentance (172), this is a vulnerable Carlos, one who is unsure of the god he is asked to worship. It's also a god subject to the changes and whims of his adolescence: his suggestion that Jesus should have X-Ray vision to see through women's clothes (170) is different from the man who finds his seventh proof of god (358). He curses this god and calls on god and thinks about god and ponders god. For all his ponderings and searches for proofs, he still, near the book's conclusion, doubts whether the events towards the end of his time in Cuba were orchestrated by god. For all his insistence of faith, we are left to wonder whether his belief and faith are more than his attempts to cling to his Cuban upbringing. 

Interestingly, this god seems more similar to what I would call Carlos' second god: pop culture. Whether it's his buying American trading cards or watching Batman, James Bond and Marilyn Monroe films and TV shows, pop culture becomes a central aspect of Eire's life. Instead of thinking, "What would Jesus do," Eire finds himself considering what James T. Kirk would do in situations. Yet this kind of American envy has its problems and shortcomings. It clashes with his upbringing and eventually is renounced by his wife. 

Yet unsurprisingly, the most important and everpresent of Carlos' gods is Cuba. Whether it is the poignant depiction of Castro's rise to fame or his memories of childhood on Havana streets, Cuba is as memorable, ingrained, wanted and unwanted as god himself to Carlos. The rationale and explanation of Fidel is as real in Eire's eyes as his quest to understand hell and repentance.

This was an impassioned eulogy of a Cuba lost, of a childhood spent in regret and confusion, and an explanation of who he is now. I felt as though it was an honest, unashamed portrayal of childhood and Cuba, but beyond that, I enjoyed that it was also payed due homage to the gods that created him and made him who he is today.