Laith
Pedro Páramo is exactly the type of book I love to stumble across, it's a trip and a half with some serious literary chops to boot. It begins with the story of Juan Preciado's visit to Comala in search of Pedro Paramo, his father, a trip he promised his mother he would make on her death bed. Things start to dissolve from there as Comala is a literal ghost town, Juan finds it occupied by the spirits of the former townspeople. Juan and his story are swallowed up by Pedro and Comala's story as Juan searches amid the ghosts for anything still living. All the while the stories of the townspeople are delivered in non-linear hallucinatory segments, these stories are told by ghosts and seemingly the stones of the town itself, the dialogue purposely disintegrating along with Juan's mental state. The details of what's happened/happening resolve towards the midway point as enough of the story is told, but it definitely required backtracking to make sense of the whole.
The story of Pedro Páramo is really about the town of Comala- Juan, Pedro, the town, their stories wrap around each other in a dreamy vortex. There is an overwhelming sensation that life and death are interconnected in Comala, that time doesn't move quite as it should. That's largely thanks to the prose- in the middle when you realize that much of the first half of the book is delivering flashbacks you realize that Rulfos disintegrating prose is emulating this subversion of time. You cannot help but to admire how Rulfo's use of voice is used to communicate Juan Preciados devolving grasp on reality, you even begin to appreciate those confusing moments where a speaker cannot be identified as it reminds us that the story is told from Juan's perspective despite the narrative's increasing distance from him.
I'll be honest, I didn't love this book on my first read, it took a lot of back and forth to get a handle on the story, and as much as I adore the craft of the book now, I was put out with it taking like 60 pages to realize I was in a flashback. A lot of my appreciation of this book came in hindsight, particularly when I started to do research for this review. For a novel published in 1955 is it astoundingly modern in its fragmentary structure and mimetic style, it's a stylistic precursor to so much of postmodernist lit, not to mention its place in the genesis of the magical realism sub-genre. This book was so far ahead of its time and I think that's part of why it was received so poorly upon its release, there's a direct line from Kafka and Surrealism to Borges to this work and on and it was very much not in keeping with the literary trends of the 50s- only beginning to gain ground in the 60s (largely thanks to Gabriel Marquez).
The other reason for its cool reception had to be the early Kemp translation, which made significant cuts to the narrative and disregarded localized or linguistically complex details (which interestingly enough was done at the behest of the CIA and their the Congress for Cultural Freedom- a front which aimed to push western ideals and the American plain style on South America). I read the Peden translation, and I am sure the newer Weatherford is also a marked improvement to that 60's Kemp edition- that said- all translations seem to struggle with Rulfo's unconventional and hard to make sense of writing style. No matter which translation you opt to read just know you will have to backtrack and reread this book a few times before you get a complete sense of what's happening (but it's not too much of a chore at just 144 pages).
Overall this is a masterpiece, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge- but I will admit that it is nearly incomprehensible the first time through, if you're a native Spanish speaker that still may be the case.
Pedro Páramo is exactly the type of book I love to stumble across, it's a trip and a half with some serious literary chops to boot. It begins with the story of Juan Preciado's visit to Comala in search of Pedro Paramo, his father, a trip he promised his mother he would make on her death bed. Things start to dissolve from there as Comala is a literal ghost town, Juan finds it occupied by the spirits of the former townspeople. Juan and his story are swallowed up by Pedro and Comala's story as Juan searches amid the ghosts for anything still living. All the while the stories of the townspeople are delivered in non-linear hallucinatory segments, these stories are told by ghosts and seemingly the stones of the town itself, the dialogue purposely disintegrating along with Juan's mental state. The details of what's happened/happening resolve towards the midway point as enough of the story is told, but it definitely required backtracking to make sense of the whole.
The story of Pedro Páramo is really about the town of Comala- Juan, Pedro, the town, their stories wrap around each other in a dreamy vortex. There is an overwhelming sensation that life and death are interconnected in Comala, that time doesn't move quite as it should. That's largely thanks to the prose- in the middle when you realize that much of the first half of the book is delivering flashbacks you realize that Rulfos disintegrating prose is emulating this subversion of time. You cannot help but to admire how Rulfo's use of voice is used to communicate Juan Preciados devolving grasp on reality, you even begin to appreciate those confusing moments where a speaker cannot be identified as it reminds us that the story is told from Juan's perspective despite the narrative's increasing distance from him.
I'll be honest, I didn't love this book on my first read, it took a lot of back and forth to get a handle on the story, and as much as I adore the craft of the book now, I was put out with it taking like 60 pages to realize I was in a flashback. A lot of my appreciation of this book came in hindsight, particularly when I started to do research for this review. For a novel published in 1955 is it astoundingly modern in its fragmentary structure and mimetic style, it's a stylistic precursor to so much of postmodernist lit, not to mention its place in the genesis of the magical realism sub-genre. This book was so far ahead of its time and I think that's part of why it was received so poorly upon its release, there's a direct line from Kafka and Surrealism to Borges to this work and on and it was very much not in keeping with the literary trends of the 50s- only beginning to gain ground in the 60s (largely thanks to Gabriel Marquez).
The other reason for its cool reception had to be the early Kemp translation, which made significant cuts to the narrative and disregarded localized or linguistically complex details (which interestingly enough was done at the behest of the CIA and their the Congress for Cultural Freedom- a front which aimed to push western ideals and the American plain style on South America). I read the Peden translation, and I am sure the newer Weatherford is also a marked improvement to that 60's Kemp edition- that said- all translations seem to struggle with Rulfo's unconventional and hard to make sense of writing style. No matter which translation you opt to read just know you will have to backtrack and reread this book a few times before you get a complete sense of what's happening (but it's not too much of a chore at just 144 pages).
Overall this is a masterpiece, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge- but I will admit that it is nearly incomprehensible the first time through, if you're a native Spanish speaker that still may be the case.
