What do you think?
Rate this book
608 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
The voice, the body are his, but he looks thirty years older. The same thin lips, the same flat nose, the same kinky hair. But now, in addition, there are purple bags on his eyelids, wrinkles on his neck, a greenish-yellow crust on his horse teeth. He thinks: they used to be so white. What a change, what a ruin of a man. He’s thinner, dirtier, so much older, but that’s his big, slow walk, those are his spider legs. His big hands have a knotty bark on them now and there’s a rim of saliva around his mouth.
Amalia went to her room, took a quick shower, she hoped she wouldn’t ask her any questions, and when she went up to the bedroom with the breakfast, from the stairs she heard the ticking and the voice of the announcer on Clock Radio. The mistress was sitting up in bed smoking and didn’t answer her good morning. The government had had a lot of patience with the people who were sowing unrest and subversion in Arequipa, the radio was saying, workers should return to work, students to their studies, and she saw the eyes of the mistress which were looking at her as if they’d just discovered her: what about the newspapers, fool? Run out and get them. Yes, right now, she ran out of the room, happy, she hadn’t even noticed. She asked Símula for money and went to the newsstand on the corner. Something very serious must have happened, the mistress was so pale.
Îmi amintesc că un iscusit practicant al lecturii rapide (speed reading) a citit în două zile Război și pace. Cînd a fost întrebat despre ce e romanul, a răspuns foarte sigur pe el: „Despre Rusia”...
„Nu șovăia, avea credință - zise Santiago. Și eu de pe-atunci îi invidiam pe cei ce puteau crede orbește-n ceva... Ce n-aș fi dat să se fi inventat o pilulă, un supozitor contra îndoielilor. Dă-ți seama ce drăguț, ți-l vîri în fund și gata: crezi...”.
"¿En qué momento se había jodido el Perú?"Esta es la cita más famosa de la novela, una pregunta a la que el autor responde negando la existencia de un momento concreto y apuntando a una concatenación de circunstancias. No es una buena respuesta, pienso yo. La verdadera respuesta, aplicable al Perú y a cualquier otro país pasado, presente y futuro, es que nada se jodió, nacimos jodidos.
“Él era como el Perú, Zavalita, se había jodido en algún momento.”También la novela es la búsqueda de ese momento, y tentado estoy de negar la mayor también en el caso personal del personaje, pero he de reconocer que en lo individual también juegan, y mucho, las circunstancias, y, aun así, es necesario más, porque en el Perú de aquellos años como en cualquier otro lugar y época “el que no se jode, jode a los demás” y la elección de ser uno u otro está muy limitada.
“Doctor, doctor, tengo algo que se me sube y se me baja y no sé lo que es… Es un pedito loco, señora, usted tiene carita de poto y el pobre pedito no sabe por dónde salir. Lo que te friega la vida es un pedito loco, Zavalita.”Zavalita tiene metida la duda en el cuerpo, una enfermedad para la que no existen supositorios y por la que se pasaba “la vida haciendo cosas sin creer, toda la vida disimulando… Y toda la vida queriendo creer en algo… Y toda la vida mentira, no creo”, siempre en un ni de aquí ni de allí incómodo, ni proletario ni burgués, “solo una pobre mierdecita entre los dos”.
“Años que se confunden, Zavalita, mediocridad diurna y monotonía nocturna, cervezas, bulines. Reportajes, crónicas: papel suficiente para limpiarse toda la vida, piensa. Conversaciones en el "Negro Negro", domingos con chupe de camarones, vales en la cantina de "La Crónica", un puñado de libros que recordar. Borracheras sin convicción, Zavalita, polvos sin convicción, periodismo sin convicción. Deudas a fines de mes, una purgación, lenta, inexorable inmersión en la mugre invisible.”
"I'm not being nosy, but why did you run away from home that time, son?" Ambrosio asks. "Weren't you well off at home with your folks?"
Don Emilio Arévalo was sweating; he was shaking the hands that converged on him from all sides, he wiped his forehead, smiled, waved, embraced the people on the platform, and the wooden frame swayed as Don Emilio approached the steps. Now it was your turn, Trifulcio.
"Too well off, that's why I left," Santiago says. "I was so pure and thick-headed that it bothered me having such an easy life and being a nice young boy.
"The funny thing is that the idea of putting him in jail didn't come from the Uplander," Don Fermín said. "Or from Arbeláez or Ferro. The one who convinced them, the one who insisted was Bermúdez."
"So pure and thick-headed that I thought that by fucking myself up a little I would make myself a real little man, Ambrosio," Santiago says.
"That all of it was the work of an insignificant Director of Public Order, an underling, I can't swallow either," Senator Landa said. "Uplander Espina invented it so he could toss the ball to someone else if things turned out badly."
Trifulcio was there, at the foot of the stairs, defending his place with his elbows, spitting on his hands, his gaze fanatically fastened on Don Emilio's feet, which were approaching, mixed in with others, his body tense, his feet firmly planted on the ground: his turn, it was his turn.
"You have to believe it because it's the truth," Don Fermín said. "And don't tar him so much. Whether you like it or not, that underling is becoming the man the General trusts the most."
"There he is, Hipólito, I'm making a present of him to you," Ludovico said. "Get those ideas of being headman out of his brain once and for all."
"Then it wasn't because you had different political ideas from your papa?" Ambrosio asks.
"He believes him implicitly, he thinks he's infallible," Don Fermín said. "When Bermúdez has an opinion, Ferro, Arbeláez, Espina and even I can go to the devil, we don't exist. That was evident in the Montagne affair."
"My poor old man didn't have any political ideas," Santiago says. "Only political interests, Ambrosio."