The Adventurers is a sprawling epic filled with sex, violence, political intrigue, more sex, more violence, and, amazingly after 800 pages, detestable one-dimensional characters.I loved every page. The Adventurers is excelencia.If I've done my math correctly a reader should be able to enjoy an erotic or violent episode on every fourth page. The epic is told in grand and sweeping Books. For example, Book 1: Violence and Power, Book 2: Power and Money, and the final, Book 6, Politics and Violence. The novel is also mixed with basic Spanish which becomes comical and adds nothing, much in the way McCarthy uses language in Blood Meridian.The Adventurers tells the story of Dax, a Latin playboy from Corteguay, a fictional backwater South American banana republic. Dax is known for his suave personality and savage ways in and outside of the bedroom. His reputation, prowess, and business take him around the world and back.The book begins with Dax witnessing the rape and murder of his mother and sister during a revolution. The General, that later would become El Presidente, holds the machine gun as young Dax cuts down those that brutalized his family. Dax becomes El Presidente’s surrogate son and is sent to the finest European boarding schools and universities to make contacts with the rich and influential, those that may be able to help little Corteguay. Dax discovers women. Lots of them. World War II breaks out. World War II ends. The Cold War begins. Dax is named Ambassador to the United Nations and then Vice President of Corteguay. All the while Dax is controlled by the more and more corrupt puppet master, El Presidente. Dax finally realizes that he must become his own man, but El Presidente is a sly old fox:El Presidente came over to the window and stood beside me. “It’s never simple.”I turned to look at him.“When I was a young man I thought I knew all the answers. Then I came to the palacia and found there is no quick and easy answer for anything. The smallest matters have a way of growing into insurmountable problems. And all the time there are people pushing you. Do this. Do that. First one way, then another, until there are times you wish you could take back the words you once said out of ignorance. No man ever knows anything until he is the lonely and precarious seat of power and realizes how little he actually knows.”That is as deep as The Adventurers gets.As I read I continually had to redefine the realm of what might be possible, which became increasingly difficult as the novel came to a conclusion. One of the final scenes (spoiler alert) caused me to laugh uncontrollably. Dax and El Presidente are finally at ends as they crush a new revolution. Note: Amaparo is El Presidente’s daughter and one of Dax’s many ex-wives. Enjoy:I knocked softly on the sitting-room door.There was no answer.I knocked again, this time a little louder.Still no answer.I turned the knob and walked in. Only one dim lamp lit the corner. I reached out and switched on the lights, and it was then I heard sounds coming from the bedroom. I crossed the room. The sounds grew louder now, and I recognized them. I had been married to Amparo long enough.The servant must have been mistaken. That or he had lied deliberately. El Presidente was not there. I had turned to leave when a scream of pain shattered the room. Then there was another. It contained so much agony and terror that I involuntarily threw myself against the door and burst into the bedroom.I was almost to the center before I could stop myself. I stood there staring, a nausea churning my stomach. They were naked on the bed, Amaparo’s legs wide, el Presidente on his knees between them, a huge black _____ (rhymes with hildo) strapped around his waist. In his hand a riding crop.He turned to stare at me over his shoulder. “Dax, you’ve come just in time to help me punish her!”The sound of his voice helped break my paralysis. I moved over to the bed and pulled him away from her. “Are you crazy?” I shouted. “Do you want to kill her?”He got off the bed and stood glaring at me, the __________ (rhymes with bildo) hanging down obscenely. I turned and bent over the bed. Amparo raised her head. “Dax,” she whispered softly, “why did you do that? Now he’ll be angry with you, too.”Then I noticed her eyes. They were wide and dilated and hazy with heroin. Slowly I pulled the sheet up to cover her. When I turned back, el Presidente had already unstrapped the ________ (rhymes with gildo). It was lying on the floor. He picked up his trousers. “Dax,” he said in a normal voice, as if nothing had happened, “have you signed the orders?”“No, there are no orders to sign. A court-martial has acquitted them.”“A court-martial?” El Presidente turned, his trousers still dangling in front of him.“Yes,” I answered. “There will be no more executions, no more extermination of people. An hour ago I sent word to the field ordering a cease-fire. The Army will fight now if only attacked.”He stared at me with unbelieving eyes. “Traitor!” he screamed suddenly, dropping his trousers. He held a revolver, which must have been in one of his pockets. “Traitor!” he screamed again and pulled the trigger.I froze, expecting a bullet, but the firing pin stuck an empty chamber. I was on him before he could try a second time, and knocked the revolver from his hand. He leaped at me, screaming obscenities, his skinny arms flailing, his fingers gouging at my face and eyes. I tried to hold him but he pushed me and I stumbled over a chair. He dove after the revolver, and we thrashed around on the floor.Suddenly I was aware of Amparo, dancing nakedly around us. “Kill him, Dax!” she screamed excitedly, “kill him!” El Presidente’s fingers reached for the gun, and on his face was an expression I remembered from my childhood. It was the same look of concentration that had been on his face as he held the machine gun for me (as I killed the soldiers that raped and murdered my mother and sister). But I had been a child then (7) and had not understood about killing. I thought I was bringing my mother and sister back to life.Angrily, and for the first time, I struck out at that leering face. El Presidente fell away from me, his head striking the floor. I got to my feet slowly, and picked up the revolver from the floor.Dax does not kill El Presidente but forces the old man to resign as dictator-president and go into exile. Dax, finally, has become his own man and is now president of Corteguay. He promises free elections, change, puppy dogs and ice cream - and then is assassinated by the son of a man El Presidente had murdered. Dax’s namesake is carried on by an illegitimate child of one of his lovers, possibly his true love. Vaya con dios, Dax.If you know a person by the name of Dax, he was probably named after this Robbins character, which may or may not be embarrassing depending your thoughts on the above passage.This book and others like it may be the magic bullet for the reading gap in America’s schools. Kids that couldn't read an article longer than three pages would devour this almost 800-page novel much like the latest edition of HALO. Adios Steinbeck and Hemmingway and Shakespeare. Hola Harold Robbins. Imagine the town hall and school board meetings. The Adventurers was adapted for the big screen in 1970. It must be terrible and I want to see it in the worst way. Is this not what Netflix was made for?
I read this book back when my taste was not so discriminatory, but remember liking it very much. I will need to read it again to see if I still like it as much. A few things stood out for me. One was DAX is such a unique character. You get to know him as he grows up into a very smooth international and sometimes dangerous man. You get to know his personality, like how quiet and thoughtful he is. You see the goodness in him dispite his very difficult upbringing. And his loyalty to the general says alot about him also.Another thing that stands out is his life-long buddy Fat-Cat. Mr. Robbins did a wonderful job bringing this secondary character to life. I think his earlier life stands out more because you get to see the life that shaped him. It is intriguing because it is so different from the world I know. Mr. Robbins definitely brings you along with him to the jungles of South America. I remember being so wrapped up in this book. I really must move this up on my "To Read Again" List....
What do You think about The Adventurers (1995)?
The Adventurers by Harold Robbins 4/5To call The Adventurers great literature would be a misstatement, on the other hand to dismiss it as trash would be inaccurate and unfair. Published in 1966 it captures the "jetsetters" lifestyle with a political and revolutionary twist. The story follows the life and death of Diogenes Alejandro Xenos, and what a life it is. The reader follows "Dax" from the jungles of his native Corteguay (a fictional amalgamation of Latin American countries), to the Executive Boardrooms of Paris, London and New York. Not to mention the bedrooms of various and sundry extremely willing women. But while it would be easy to dismiss this story as light reading, there is an undertone, and possibly a warning. The political machinations, the obtaining and losing of power, whether it be political, corporate or personal is intricately told in a plausible manner. Upon my first reading of this book, shortly after it's publication it seemed more a tale of the coming and going of power in a small South American country, not much more. Now, all this time later, I see more in it. After all we've lived through Contragate, Watergate, and the various siblings of same. Robbins has an easy to read style of writing, and while there is not a huge amount of character description, what is there is sufficient for the reader to understand what we must of each character.
—Cateline
Robbins must have been in somewhat of a reflective mood when he wrote this book. The 'Epilogue as a Prologue' chapter sets a kind of tone for the rest of the story: all Dax's jet-setting, sexual adventures, polo playing and mixing with the rich and famous is, ultimately, worthless. The folk that tend to just focus on the sex in Harold Robbins's stories are more shallow than the characters they accuse him of portraying. The characters in The Adventurers are complex human beings. Sue Ann, especially, is well-drawn with an explanation of the guilt she feels about having a handicapped child. As usual with Robbins's books The Adventurers is a rattling good read but with a shadow of doom and futility hanging over every scene.
—Pat Anderson
เรื่องแรกของ Harold Robbins ที่ได้อ่าน อย่างน่าประทับใจ ก่อนที่จะติดตามอ่านเล่มอื่นๆ ของนักเขียนท่านนี้
—Natt Cham
