Ernesto Sabato Died

Ernesto Sabato, a famous Argentinean writer, died at the age of 99 today. Sabato may not have been the most talented Latin American writer (which is not surprising since the amount of literary talent in Latin America is overwhelming), but if I had to recommend a single Latin American novel for somebody to read, I would recommend Sabato's short novel The Tunnel. 

I don't claim that the literary quality of this novel is higher than that of many other amazing Latin American writers. However, the importance of The Tunnel resides in the profound insight it offers into the nature of machismo. (The feminist in me will always defeat the literary critic, the academic, the educator, and every other facet of my personality, and I confess this freely.) The workings of the mind of a woman-hater, whose main goal in life is to perpetuate his passionate belief in female inferiority, are described in minute and terrifying detail. As you look into the diseased mind of Castel, the women-hating protagonist of the novel, you realize exactly where the horror of machismo comes from. 

As I have written on various occasions, I was initially going to dedicate my life to the study of Latin American literature. Soon, however, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to deal with how machista the entirety of Latin American literature is, so I switched to Peninsular Studies. So many extremely talented authors from Latin America celebrate and prettify male chauvinism that it just gets tiresome. Sabato, however, goes so deep into the mind of a woman-hater that all you can do as a reader is shrink away in horror. That, I believe, is extremely valuable because I cannot think of another Latin American writer of either gender who does anything even close to this.

On a personal level, The Tunnel was one of the first novels in Spanish I ever read. I was in my early twenties, and the novel really helped me to understand what informs and nourishes male chauvinism. Many things that I was seeing around me became very clear. Actions of some of the men I knew transformed from highly mysterious to crystal-clear in their machismo. I strongly believe that this novel should be required reading for all young women. There are aspects of machismo that, at a first glance, might even seem (and often do) attractive to many young women. Understanding how male chauvinism works would be an invaluable skill for the life of any woman.

El sueño del celta / The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa: A Review

In case you found Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and José Eustasio Rivera's La vorágine difficult to understand, here is Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel El sueño del celta to explain to you exactly what happened in those novels. Roger Casement, the novel's protagonist, was a British consul who traveled to Congo and the Amazon and wrote scandalous reports about the horrible treatment of the natives of Africa and South America by the colonial forces. Later on, he joined the Irish nationalist movement and militated for the cause of Ireland's independence.

This is not a novel that offers much - or any, I would say - space for the reader to analyze, interpret, imagine, or look for his or her own answers. Everything is spelled out with painstaking attention to detail. As a result, some parts of the novel sound like they were copy-pasted from an encyclopedia. Sources of historical data, short biographical sketches of real-life people who appear in the novel, dates and gigures populate the pages of El sueño del celta. Vargas Llosa seems to have lost his capacity to relinquish control over his text and allow the readers to interact with it on their own. For those who managed to remain unfamiliar with the civilization versus barbarity conflict, Vargas Llosa makes absolutely sure that you will be sick to death of both terms by the end of the novel. And for those who didn't get the message that imperialism is wrong, it will be hammered in on every other page.

Everything I have written so far has probably made you think that I hated the novel. This, however, is not true. El sueño del celta doesn't offer much for analysis but it is surely informative and very well-written. I now know everything I ever wanted to know (and a lot, lot more) about Roger Casement, his travels, struggles, ailments, friends, foes, hopes and dreams. This novel is anything but boring. Vargas Llosa is a great narrator who can turn anything into a great story. I have no doubt that this novel will be quite successful if only for the fact that it is very easy to read.

The enumeration of sufferings inflicted by the colonial forces on the natives of African Congo and the indigenous people of the Amazon becomes painful to read at a certain point. This, of course, is a story that needs to be told and repeated as many times as possible lest we forget that imperialism can never be excused. I have to warn you, however, that an honest piece of writing about colonialism (such as this one) will be so disturbing as to prevent you from sleeping at night.

There are people who insist that Vargas Llosa is a Libertarian. It is a statement that is as silly as claiming that Juan Goytisolo is a Communist. Writers have a tendency to try on political discourses without really knowing what those discourses are about. They don't, however, allow their political triflings influence what and how they write in any way. It's been a while since I have read an indictment of the horrors that free market and wild capitalism inevitably bring along that would be as passionate and convincing as El sueño del celta. Anybody who believes that it would be a good idea to let market forces act freely, without any restraints from the government, should read this novel and hopefully just shut up already. In El sueño del celta,Vargas Llosa condemns the horrifying greed of free market capitalists better than any writer I have read in a while.

Contemporary Latin American Literature: Reading Suggestions

By huge popular demand or, rather, by request of one intellectually curious reader, I will now try to offer suggestions on which contemporary Latin American writers might be worth reading. I don't study Latin American literature professionally, even though when I first started my career in Hispanic Studies that was what I was going to do. Then I realized that I was psychologically unprepared to deal with the kind of deep-seated hatred of women that informs contemporary Latin American literature. (If you have discovered Latin American novels that you think are not machista, leave their titles in the comments, and I will show you why you are mistaken.)

So these are the authors from Latin America who are writing right now and who are good enough for me to disregard their Stone Age attitudes towards women:

- Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru is the only writer of the Latin American Boom whose work I love to the point of following everything he writes. My favorite book ever by this writer is La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World in English.) As I wrote before, Latin American writers have been trying to create a great Latin American love story for a very long time now. They have failed miserably, in my opinion. Vargas Llosa's attempt at this goal, however, (titled The Bad Girl: A Novel) is better than most. It's also one of the most recent novels by this newly-minted Nobel Prize winner.

- Another Peruvian whose work I'm reading right now is Alfredo Bryce Echenique. When I finish his Un mundo para Julius (Spanish Edition) (or A World for Julius: A Novel (THE AMERICAS)), I will post a review on this blog.

- If you are interested in Cuban literature, I'd recommend Zoe Valdes. Her I Gave You All I Had is available in English translation, so it might make sense to check it out. 

- Alberto Fuguet is what I'd call a very typical Chilean writer. His male Bildungsroman Mala onda (in English translation Bad Vibes) has had a cult following, although I have no idea why. I find this author's writing to be infantile and boring. 

- Edmundo Paz Soldan is a Bolivian who teaches at Cornell. His novel La materia del deseo (Spanish Edition) (or The Matter of Desire: A Novel in English) is a story of a Bolivian professor who teaches at Cornell. The book would be really fantastic if it weren't for its profound machismo, but well, what else is new. If you want to read Latin American literature, you'll have to get used to it. 

- Roberto Bolaño from Chile died recently. He is a Latin American writer you need to read because his fame keeps growing. If you don't feel prepared to tackle his humongous 2666: A Novel, maybe you should start with The Savage Detectives: A Novel. 

As I go over this list, I'm seeing that I don't have any authors from Mexico and Argentina which upsets me. If anybody knows of anything good in terms of literature that happened in these countries since Juan Rulfo and Manuel Puig respectively, please let me know in the comment section. My familiarity with other Latin American countries in terms of literature has always been next to non-existent.

Remember that the best gift you could give me is a reading suggestion. So feel free to share your favorite contemporary Latin American writers in the comments. Please don't list Borges and Carpentier, though, because we are talking about people who are writing right now.