There is, however, an aspect of How to Read Donald Duck that might offer a contribution of another sort to the quest upon which so many patriots in the United States are now embarked. What stirs me as I reread that document of ours today is its tone -- the insolence, outrage, and humor that flow through every page. It's a book that makes fun of itself even as it mocks Donald, his nephews, and his pals. It pushes the envelope of language and, behind its language, I can still hear the chants of a pueblo on the march. It brings back to me the imaginative enormity that every true demand for radical change insists upon. It catches a missing feeling of our age: the belief that alternative worlds are possible, that they are within reach if we're courageous enough, and smart enough, and daring enough to take control of our own lives. Para Leer Al Pato Donald was and still is a celebration of such imaginative joy that was its own best reward and that could never be turned into ashes in Santiago or drowned in the bay of Valparaso or anywhere else.
It is that joy in liberation, that alegra, that spirit of resistance that I would love to share with Americans via the book Pinochet's soldiers could not liquidate or Disney's lawyers ban from this country. Now, it finally finds its way into the very land that invented both Donald Duck and Donald Trump. At a terrible moment, I hope it's a modest reminder that we really don't have to leave this world as it was when we were born. If I could, I might retitle it though. What about: How to Read Donald Trump?
Ariel Dorfman, an emeritus professor of literature at Duke, is the author of the play Death and the Maiden , the upcoming novel Darwin's Ghosts, and a new book of essays Homeland Security Ate My Speech: Messages From the End of the World. He lives with his wife in Durham, North Carolina, and in their native Chile.
[Note: How to Read Donald Duck has now been published in the United States for the first time in How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney's Latin America and Latin America's Disney, the catalogue accompanying an exhibition at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles mentioned in this piece.]
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Copyright 2017 Ariel Dorfman
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