oops, wrong book:

“This hardly makes him the second coming of Simón Bolívar. Nonetheless, there are unavoidable similarities between the two—including some that Chávez might not care to acknowledge. Chávez claims that his favorite book is García Márquez’s historical novel about Bolívar’s last days, The General in His Labyrinth. If this is true, he must know that Bolívar ended his life distraught and depressed.” (franklin foer in the atlantic monthly, may 2006)

for context, here’s the same article’s obligatory mr. danger paragraph:

“His theatrics distinguish him as perhaps the world’s most anti-American head of state. Chávez has described Condoleezza Rice as an illiterate, and has suggested that she suffers from sexual frustration (though he has declined to offer to help her with this problem, saying, “I don’t make that sacrifice for my nation”). Bush he calls “Mr. Danger,” or simply “asshole.” Last year, Venezuela withdrew all of the assets that it had held in U.S. banks and transferred them to the Bank for International Settlements, in Switzerland.”