Im going to just state what I liked about the novel instead of trying to critically extract an all-encompassing theme, which I hope doesn’t exist. I liked how Hagedorn treats her characters equally, by which I mean she develops even minor characters with care and detail. I was most invested in the relationship between Zamora and Lina, which at the end is not really resolved. The whole middle section, featuring the real life drama of the Apocalypse Now set, with Coppola (and wife), Duvall, Sheen, and Brando’s characters accounted for, took up much of the novel, although I felt that it didn’t have much bearing on my final assessment. All the energy devoted to the tiger section I felt was random – what exactly did Lina’s dreams of tigers signify?
I also liked the realistic portrayal of power relationships through the switching of narrator/point of view. Interesting that Zamora, even reduced to ash in an urn, had a powerful point of view and meaningful effect on the end of the novel. THis technique highlights the powerful moments when Lina is represented as the aggressor or instigator (as when she touches Zamora’s face). The drug/prostitution thing became tiring and overdone for me, but highlighted the absence of these things when the scene turned to the United States at the end, where the novel’s protagonists lead "different lives."
Although Hagedorn maps out a network of competing, collabrative, and conniving power relationships, her ultimate position on them is distanced, and moves towards calling them "fun." THe reality is the corruptive and oppressive Marcos regime, which led to constant death and destruction, but Hagedorn is able to look back and dismiss it all, laugh it off, as a weak performance by wealthy and bored men.