Span 312 "I the Supreme"

Reading “I the Supreme” has been unlike any other book I have encountered. The levels of narration I find to be hard to follow and I frequently forget who is speaking. The Supreme has struck me as quite the opposite of the dictator Facundo. The Supreme is highly intelligent and I get the sense that he can read people very well. He is civilized and he knows his subjects. When he speaks to Patino he knows exactly what to say to get his attention and make him understand himself. One passage that I found to my most interesting on the character of the Supreme was when he recounts his past. Specifically he recalls a story to Patino about his childhood and how he came across a skull in an excavation site. The reader can see traces of his dictatorial style at a young age. He is fascinated by the skull and what it once held and keeps it, “Impossible for there to have been room for it in the earth. A world within the world!” (81). He recalls that the skull spoke to him and that they both had a conversation about the skull’s past and fate. The skull advises him to stay in his homeland and not to follow foolish material ambitions. The reader can get a sense that the child of the Supreme is ambitious for power over men. The skull tells him “The sad thing about it is that in this world the powerful have the ability to hang or be hanged as they choose” (81). The Supreme is intelligent to know what power means. It is not just riches but influence over people. Unlike Facundo he creates boundaries in society and a hyper-structure of rigid rules. The strange story he tells to Patino gave the impression that he was proud of his past. Earlier in the novel he boasts to having an impeccable memory. The Supreme is not only boastful of his current position but he is proud of his journey to power and to create his “mad vision” of an ordered society.