martes, 31 de julio de 2012

D.Q.

Rúben Darío

While I'm going to have to say adiós to Spanish Lit Month with about a half a dozen books and probably an equal number of poems and short stories in progress but all still unfinished, here's a final project style parting gift of sorts to all who have read along with us throughout July: a transcription of Rúben Darío's 1899 short story "D.Q." with an accompanying translation from yours truly.  Hope the "Englishization" of this tale makes up for my rather primitive translation skills and thanks again to Stu for inviting me to co-host the month-long fiesta with him in the first place.  I had a blast.  Cheers!

D.Q.
por Rúben Darío
Nicaragua, 1899

1

Estamos de guarnición cerca de Santiago de Cuba.  Había llovido esa noche; no obstante el calor era excesivo.  Aguardábamos la llegada de una compañía de la nueva fuerza venida de España, para abandonar aquel paraje en que nos moríamos de hambre, sin luchar, llenos de desesperación y de ira.  La compañía debía llegar esa misma noche, según el aviso recibido.  Como el calor arreciase y el sueño no quisiese darme reposo, salí a respirar fuera de la carpa.  Pasada la lluvia, el cielo había despejado un tanto y en el fondo oscuro brillaban algunas estrellas.  Di suelta a la nube de tristes ideas que se aglomeraban en mi cerebro.  Pensé en tantas cosas que estaban allá lejos; en la perra suerte que nos perseguía; en que quizá Dios podría dar un nuevo rumbo a su látigo y nosotros entrar en una nueva vía, en una rápida revancha.  En tantas cosas pensaba...

¿Cuánto tiempo pasó?  Las estrellas sé que poco a poco fueron palideciendo; un aire que refrescó el campo todo sopló del lado de la aurora y ésta inició su aparecimiento, entre tanto que una diana que no sé por qué llegaba a mis oídos como llena de tristeza, regó sus notas matinales.  Poco tiempo después se anunció que la compañía se acercaba.  En efecto, no tardó en llegar a nosotros.  Y los saludos de nuestros camaradas y los nuestros se mezclaron fraternizando en el nuevo sol.  Momentos después hablabámos con los compañeros.  Nos traían noticias de la patria.  Sabían los estragos de las últimas batallas.  Como nosotros, estaban desolados, pero con el deseo quemante de luchar, de agitarse en una furia de venganza, de hacer todo el daño posible al enemigo.  Todos éramos jóvenes y bizarros, menos uno; todos nos buscaban para comunicar con nosotros o para conversar, menos uno.  Nos traían provisiones que fueron repartidas.  A la hora del rancho, todos nos pusimos a devorar nuestra escasa pitanza, menos uno.  Tendría como cincuenta años, más también podía haber tenido trescientos.  Su mirada triste parecía penetrar hasta lo hondo de nuestras almas y decirnos cosas de siglos.  Alguna vez que se le dirigía la palabra, casi no contestaba; sonreía melancólicamente; se aislaba, buscaba la soledad; miraba hacia el fondo del horizonte, por el lado del mar.  Era el abanderado.  ¿Cómo se llamaba?  No oí su nombre nunca.

2

El capellán nos dijo dos días después:
-Creo que no nos darán la orden de partir todavía.  La gente se desespera de deseos de pelear.  Tenemos algunos enfermos.  Por fin, ¿cuándo veríamos llenarse de gloria nuestra pobre y santa bandera?  A propósito: ¿ha visto usted al abanderado?  Se desvive por socorrer a los enfermos.  Él no come; lleva lo suyo a los otros.  He hablado con él.  Es un hombre milagroso y extraño.  Parece bravo y nobilísimo de corazón.  Me ha hablado de sueños irrealizables.  Cree que dentro de poco estaremos en Washington y que se izará nuestra bandera en el Capitolio, como lo dijo el obispo en su brindis.  Le han apenado las últimas disgracias; pero confía en algo desconocido que nos ha de amparar; confía en Santiago; en la nobleza de nuestra raza; en la justicia de nuestra causa.  ¿Sabe usted?  Los otros seres le hacen burlas, se ríen de él.  Dicen que debajo del uniforme usa una coraza vieja.  Él no les hace caso.  Conversando conmigo, suspiraba profundamente, miraba el cielo y el mar.  Es un buen hombre en el fondo; paisano mío, manchego.  Cree en Dios y es religioso.  También algo poeta.  Dicen que por la noche rima redondillas, se las recita solo, en voz baja.  Tiene a su bandera un culto casi supersticioso.  Se asegura que pasa las noches en vela; por lo menos, nadie le ha visto dormir.  ¿Me confesará usted que el abanderado es un hombre original?

-Señor capellán -le dije-, he observado ciertamente algo muy original en ese sujeto, que creo, por otra parte, haber visto no sé dónde.  ¿Cómo se llama?

-No lo sé -contestóme el sacerdote-.  No se me ha ocurrido ver su nombre en la lista.  Pero en todas sus cosas hay marcados dos letras: D.Q.

3

A un paso del punto en donde acampábamos había un abismo.  Más allá de la boca rocallosa, sólo se veía sombra.  Una piedra arrojada rebotaba y no se sentía caer.  Era un bello día.  El sol caldeaba tropicalmente la atmósfera.  Habíamos recibido orden de alistarnos para marchar, y probablemente ese mismo día tendríamos el primer encuentro con las tropas yanquis.  En todos los rostros, dorados por el fuego curioso de aquel cielo candente, brillaba el deseo de la sangre y de la victoria.  Todo estaba lista para la partida, el clarín había trazado en el aire su signo de oro.  Íbamos a caminar, cuando un oficial, a todo galope, apareció por un recodo.  Llamó a nuestro jefe y habló con él misteriosamente.  ¿Cómo os diré que fue aquello?  ¿Jamás habéis sido aplastados por la cúpula de un templo que haya elevado vuestra esperanza?  ¿Jamás habéis padecido viendo que asesinaban delante de vosotros a vuestra madre?  Aquélla fue la más horrible desolación.  Era la noticia.  Estabámos perdidos, perdidos sin remedio.  No lucharíamos más.  Debíamos entregarnos como prisioneros, como vencidos.  Cervera estaba en poder del yanqui.  La escuadra se la había tragado el mar, la habían despedazado los cañones de Norteamérica.  No quedaba ya nada de España en el mundo que ella descubriera.  Debíamos dar al enemigo vencedor las armas, y todo; y el enemigo apareció, en la forma de un gran diablo rubio, de cabellos lacios, barba de chivo, oficial de los Estados Unidos, seguido de una escolta de cazadores de ojos azules.  Y la horrible escena comenzó.  Las espadas se entregaron; los fusiles también...  Unos soldados juraban; otros paledecían, con los ojos húmedos de lágrimas, estallando de indignación y de vergüenza.  Y la bandera...  Cuando llegó el momento de la bandera, se vio una cosa que puso en todos el espanto glorioso de una inesperada maravilla.  Aquel hombre extraño, que miraba profundamente con una mirada de siglos, con su bandera amarilla y roja, dándonos una mirada de la más amarga despedida, sin que nadie se atreviese tocarle, fuese paso a paso al abismo y se arrojó en él.  Todavía de lo negro del precipicio devolvieron las rocas un ruido metálico, como el de una armadura.

4

El señor capellán cavilaba tiempo después:

-"D.Q."...  De pronto, creí aclarar el enigma.  Aquella fisonomía, ciertamente, no me era desconocida. 

-D.Q. -le dije-  está retratado en este viejo libro.  Escuchad: "Frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta años; era de complexión recia, seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro, gran madrugador y amigo de la caza.  Quieren decir que tenía el sobrenombre de Quijada o Quesada -que en esto hay alguna diferencia en los autores que de este caso escriben-, aunque por conjeturas verosímiles se deja entender que se llamaba Quijano".

"D.Q."
by Rúben Darío
Nicaragua, 1899

1

We were on guard duty near Santiago de Cuba.  It had rained that night; however, the heat was excessive.  We were awaiting the arrival of a company of replacements sent from Spain so that we could abandon that spot where we were starving to death without fighting, full of desperation and rage.  The company was due to arrive that same night according to the dispatch that we'd received.  As the heat was intensifying and sleep didn't want to provide me any rest, I left the tent for some fresh air outside.  The rain over, the sky had cleared up a little and some stars were shining in the depths of the darkness.  I gave free reign to the cloud of melancholy ideas that were gathering in my brain.  I thought about so many things that were far away there, about the rotten luck that was dogging us, about how maybe God could give a crack of the whip and send us down a new road and permit a rapid retaliation.  I was thinking about so many things...

How much time went by?  I know that the stars were slowly growing dimmer.  An air that refreshed the entire countryside brought dawn with it, while a reveille which I'm not sure why arrived in my ears as if tinged with sadness scattered its morning notes.  A short time later, it was announced that the company was arriving.  Indeed, it didn't delay in reaching us.  And the greetings of our comrades and our own troops mixed freely, fraternizing in the morning sun.  Moments later we were speaking with our compañeros.  They brought us news from the homeland.  They knew of the havoc unleashed by the most recent battles.  Like us, they were devastated--but with the burning desire to fight, to stir things up in a fury of revenge, of inflicting all possible harm on the enemy.  We were all young and gallant, save one; we all looked for each other to communicate or to chat, save one.  They brought us provisions that were handed out.  At mess hour, we all set ourselves to devouring our meager rations, save one.  He was probably something like 50 years old, but he could have also passed for something like 300 years old.  His mournful glance seemed to penetrate to the bottom of our souls and tell us things of centuries gone by.  Once a word was directed to him, he hardly answered; he smiled melancholically, drew away, searched for solitude.  He looked into the depths of the horizon, by the seaside.  He was the standard-bearer.  What was he called?  I never heard his name.

2

The chaplain told us two days later: "I don't think that they'll give us the orders to leave just yet.  The people are dying to fight.  We have some sick and wounded.  Also, when would we see our poor and blessed flag win its share of glory?  Speaking of which: have you seen the standard-bearer?  He goes out of his way to help the invalids.  He doesn't eat; he takes his food to the others.  I've spoken with him.  He's a strange and miraculous man.  He seems brave and noble of heart.  He has spoken to me of unrealizable dreams.  He believes that before long we will be in Washington and that our flag will be flown on the Capitol--as the bishop said in his toast.  The most recent misfortunes have pained him, but he puts his faith in some unknown thing that's bound to help us.  He trusts in St. James, in the nobility of our race, in the justice of our cause.  You know something?  The other men make fun of him, they laugh at him.  They say that underneath his clothing he wears an old cuirass.  He doesn't pay them any attention.  Talking with me, he was sighing deeply, intently watching the heavens and the sea.  He's a good man at heart: a countryman of mine, from La Mancha.  He believes in God and is a religious man.  Also something of a poet.  They say that in the evenings, he rhymes quatrains, reciting them to himself in a low voice.  He has an almost superstitious reverence for his flag.  One would swear that he spends his nights on watch; at the very least, nobody has seen him sleep.  Will you confess to me that the standard-bearer is a true original?"

"Reverend Father," I told him, "I have certainly observed something very original in that subject, who, for that matter, I seem to have seen somewhere before.  What's his name?"

"I don't know," the priest replied.  "It hadn't occurred to me to look for his name on the list.  But there are two letters marked on all his things: D.Q."

3

One step away from where we were encamped was an abyss.  Beyond its stony mouth, only shadows could be seen.  A rock thrown would ricochet away and couldn't be heard hitting bottom.  It was a glorious day.  The sun heat up the atmosphere with tropical warmth.  We had received the order to get ready to march, and probably that same day we'd have our first encounter with the American troops.  A thirst for blood and victory shone in all the faces made golden by the curious fire of that burning sky.  Everything was in order for the departure, the bugle had traced its golden notes in the air.  We were ready to march when an official, at full gallop, appeared in a bend in the road.  He called our commander over and spoke with him mysteriously.  How can I tell you what that was like?  Have you ever been crushed by the dome of a temple which has elevated your spirits?  Have you ever suffered the misfortune of seeing your mother killed before your eyes?  That was the most distressing thing.  It was the news.  We were lost, lost without a hope.  We wouldn't be fighting any longer.  We needed to turn ourselves in as prisoners, as the vanquished.  Cervera was in the hands of the Yankees.  The sea had swallowed up the squadron, the North American cannons had torn it to pieces.  There no longer remained anything of Spain's in the world that she had discovered.  We were to turn in our arms and everything else to the enemy conquerors, and the enemy appeared in the form of a great blonde devil with straight hair and goat whiskers--an official, followed by a squad of blue-eyed hunters.  And the horrible scene commenced.  Swords were turned in and rifles, too...  Some soldiers were cursing.  Others were turning pale with their eyes moist with tears, breaking down in indignation and shame.  And the flag...  When the time for the flag arrived, something was observed that gave everybody who witnessed it the glorious fright of an unexpected marvel taking place.  That strange man with his red and yellow flag, who was staring with the gaze of centuries, giving us a look of the most bitter farewell, without anybody daring to touch him, went step by step to the abyss and threw himself down into it.  The rocks returned a metallic noise from the darkness of the pit like the sound of a suit of armor.

4

A short time later, the Reverend Father was pondering the initials:  "D.Q."

Suddenly, I believed I'd solved the mystery.  Those features certainly weren't unknown to me.

"D.Q.," I told him, is portrayed in this old book.  Listen: "Our hidalgo was somewhere around 50 years old.  He was of a severe aspect, with dry skin, lean in the face, a great early riser, and a friend of the hunt.  They say that he bore the family name of Quijada or Quesada--although in this there is some debate among the authors who write on the subject--while other conjectures lead us to understand that it was most likely Quijano."

sábado, 28 de julio de 2012

Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/22-7/28


Crazy shit at work and--on a much more satisfying note--spending both ends of the week in the company of attractive out of state friends intent on plying me with alcohol while the Avengers, the Cramps, the Ramones, and the Stooges blared away in the background sort of took a toll on my Spanish Lit Month plans for the week.  Oh, well.  Fortunately for you virtual pals, it looks like the other Spanish Lit Month participants had much more "mellow" weeks than I did for a change...

Stu, Winstonsdad's Blog
The She-Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya
The Islands by Carlos Gamerro

Amanda, Simpler Pastimes
Ficciones (I) by Jorge Luis Borges

Amateur Reader (Tom), Wuthering Expectations
The Three-Cornered Hat by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
"El matadero"/"The Slaughterhouse" by Esteban Echeverría
  
lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
Recipes for Sad Women by Héctor Abad

Miguel, St. Orberose
A Personal Library by Jorge Luis Borges
The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
Memories of Altagracia by Salvador Garmendia

Sarah, A Rat in the Book Pile
The Book of Sand by Jorge Luis Borges

Scott, seraillon
The Conquest of the Kingdom of Maya by Ángel Ganivet

Séamus, Vapour Trails
Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Susanna, SusieBookworm
Tales from the Town of Widows by James Cañón (*written in English by a Colombia-born author)

Tara, BookSexy Review
An Interview with Margaret Carson

Tony, Tony's Reading List
Necropolis by Santiago Gamboa

Richard, Caravana de recuerdos
Los pichiciegos by Fogwill
Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/22-7/28

martes, 24 de julio de 2012

Los pichiciegos

Los pichiciegos (Mondadori, 1998)
by Fogwill
Argentina, 1983

-¿Ustedes son boludos?
-Sí, señor!
-¡No!  Ustedes no son boludos, ustedes son vivos.

["Are you all idiots?"
"Yes, sir!"
"No!  You're not idiots--you're alive."]
(Los pichiciegos, 243)

If I remember the story correctly, the then 41-year old Fogwill supposedly wrote all of Los pichiciegos [The Pichiciegos; available in English under the artificially fabricated and hence completely idiotic title of Malvinas Requiem] in Buenos Aires in 1982 during the two months of that year that la Guerra de las Malvinas a/k/a the Falklands War took place--a war that saw nearly 1,000 people lose their lives over land that could only be loved by sheep.  Legend has it that early manuscript copies of the work circulated by hand among the author's friends until the departure of the military government in the following year made it safe to publish the work without fear of reprisals.  In any event, you, the intrepid Spanish Lit Month reader, can now enjoy Los pichiciegos in the privacy of your own home and in one or both of the two bellicose languages to boot--great news since Fogwill somehow managed to turn this punch in the mouth of Argentine nationalism into one of my personal faves in all of recent Spanish-language literature.  How, exactly, did he do it?  To try and answer that, I should probably begin by noting that the titular pichiciegos, named after a rare breed of blind mini-armadillo found in Argentina's wine country whose most famous attribute is said to be its ability to burrow underground and live unseen by man, are a small band of deserters trying to ride out the remainder of the war while trapped in the dangerous no man's land between Argentinean and British lines.  Since survival is the only form of "victory" that matters to these human pichiciegos, they spend most of their time underground digging, expanding their storehouse of food, water, and cigarettes, fantasizing about what they'll do if they ever make it out alive, and occasionally trading information to the British troops in exchange for food, batteries, and other essential supplies while waiting for the war to hurry up and end.  I suspect that the speed with which Fogwill wrote Los pichiciegos may account for some of the 121-page novel's considerable energy.  However, he also makes it easy for the reader to identify with his none too heroic cast of characters both because of the conversational tone and the humor of the narrative but also on account of a rare knack he has for being able to shift from the horrors of war to the often comic camaraderie among the men without missing a beat.  You'd probably have to read this for yourself to understand why one scene of a pichiciego cheering on a British bombing run against non-pichiciego Argentine troops or another scene of a British Sea Harrier playing mind games with a lone pichiciego who has been caught out in the open and is too paralyzed to move remain indeliby etched on my mind, but in the meantime here's a good short example of Fogwill getting at the futility of this particular war with his typical sense of humor.  The set-up: a few pichiciegos have just gotten ahold of a British newspaper which, once translated, reveals the uncomfortable truth that the British are just as uncertain about how the war will end as the Argentineans are (282):

  -¡No saben lo que pasa ni lo qué va a pasar! -decía Viterbo.
-¿Y a vos qué te gustaría que pasara?
-Qué gane la Argentina.
-¡Y vas en cana!
-¡Yo qué sé!  ¿Vos?
-Yo quisiera que pacten y que se dejen de joder.
-¿Vos?
-Que pacten, que podamos volver.
-¿Vos?
-Que ganen ellos, que los fusilen a todos, y que a nosotros nos llevan de vuelta a Buenos Aires en avión.
Idea de porteño.

["They don't know what's happening nor what's going to happen!" Viterbo was saying.
"And what would you like to see happen?"
"That Argentina wins."
"And you're going to jail!"
"What do I know?  You?"
"I'd like them to make a peace treaty and stop fucking around."
"You?"
"That they make a peace treaty, so we can return."
"You?"
"That they win, that they execute everybody, and that they take us back to Buenos Aires by plane."
A Buenos Aires guy's idea.]

Fogwill (1941-2010)

Los pichiegos is available separately or as part of the Cantos de marineros en La Pampa anthology, which is where I read it (Barcelona: Mondadori, 1998, 229-350).  Fogwill's as yet untranslated "Muchacha punk" is one of the best short stories I've ever read, so the next thing I read by this famous wacko is sure to be a massive letdown.  I'm OK with that for now.

sábado, 21 de julio de 2012

Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/15-7/21


Thanks again to everybody who's been participating in Spanish Lit Month so far.  I can tell the group's been really active of late because it seems like I've only been around to visit about half of the new posts put up this week--one day, one day.  In any event, here's a list of the week's posts that I know about.  Hope you find some good reading and viewing recommendations among the works reviewed.

Stu, Winstonsdad's Blog
Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman
Nada by Carmen Laforet

Bettina, Liburuak
Bartleby y compañia by Enrique Vila-Matas

Dwight, A Common Reader
La ciudad de los prodigios/The City of Marvels directed by Mario Camus

lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
Open Door by Iosi Havilio

Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
Children of the Wind directed by Fernando Merinero

Rise, in lieu of a field guide
Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Scott, seraillon
Celestina by Fernando de Rojas

Séamus, Vapour Trails
A Brief Life by Juan Carlos Onetti
Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Susanna, SusieBookworm
The Celestina by Fernando de Rojas

Tara, BookSexy Review
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Tony, Tony's Reading List

viernes, 20 de julio de 2012

Bartlebymania 2012


While I'd intended to reread Bartleby y compañia [Bartleby & Co.] and possibly even write a new post about it for this weekend's Spanish Lit Month group read, I eventually decided to cast my lot in with the "artists of the no" and just link to my 2009 post on the work here instead.  No thanks, as ever, are necessary for my lack of effort or direction!  Since I am interested in rereading Vila-Matas' antinovel at some point, though, I look forward to reading your reactions to Bartleby and will link to your posts as I become aware of them.  Until then, let the "art is a stupidity" games begin!

Bartlebymania
Enrique Vila-Matas

Vila-Matasmania


miércoles, 18 de julio de 2012

Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico

Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico (New Directions, 2010)
by Javier Marías [translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen]
Spain, 1998

It prob. wouldn't have felt like a real Spanish Lit Month to me without a Javier Marías work or two to talk about, and although I eventually decided to pass on pre-tournament favorites Negra espalda del tiempo [Dark Back of Time] and Los enamoramientos for sheer lack of time, the 57-page Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico [original title: Mala índole] wasn't a bad consolation prize at all.  In fact, I laughed my way through most of this quick, amusing read even though I, uh, kind of felt like I was cheating on Marías by reading him in English.  In any event, the set-up of Bad Nature is as follows: contrary to the official story passed down by history to the effect that the King never actually set foot in Mexico while shooting all of Fun in Acapulco from a Hollywood soundstage, Elvis fan and Madrid native Ruibérriz de Torres (real first name unknown but presumably the very same ghostwriter Ruibérriz who figured in Marías' 1994 Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí) narrates a story dating back to the time he was in Mexico accompanying "EP" on the set of this very same movie.  Through a series of translation-based misunderstandings and a choice but maybe poorly-timed insult from Elvis himself, poor Ruibérriz--or Roy Berry as the Spanish-challenged gringos in Elvis' inner circle take to calling him--finds himself being hunted down by a pack of Mexican thugs who aren't particularly fond of the fast-talking Spaniard's "European accent" (43).  Marías, who probably isn't appreciated enough for his comedic chops, is in particularly fine form here: "'Oh, no, please, what will his father think,' Ruibérriz wonders as the man he calls Mr. Presley "perpetrated 'And the Bullfighter Was a Lady' wearing some approximation of a Mexican rancher's garb and swirling a bullfighter's cape over his carefully coiffed head or throwing it around his shoulders with the yellow side up as if it were a cloak."  And a moment later: "'Oh, no, that's going too far, that's regicide,' I thought when I read in the screenplay that in the final scene Presley was to sing 'Guadalajara,' in Spanish, at the edge of a cliff, cheered on insincerely by all the mariachis together.  But that's another story, and the linguistic disaster was no fault of mine" (19-20).  In other words, atypical Marías but--as far as I know--the best Elvis- or El Vez- or even "Mucho, Elvis"-related tale yet to make an appearance during Spanish Lit Month.  It's a hit! (New Directions

lunes, 16 de julio de 2012

José Miguel Oviedo's Spanish-American Short Story Anthology

José Miguel Oviedo

Whether there's any demand for it or not is another question, but I hope to post on a couple more Latin American short stories--including at least one from the list below--later in the week.  In the meantime, I'd like to send a shout-out to Peruvian literary critic and longtime U.S. professor José Miguel Oviedo, whose splendid three-volume Antología crítica del cuento hispanoamericano [Critical Anthology of the Spanish-American Short Story] is a great place to start sampling some of the best Latin American short stories ever published.  What follows is a list of the authors and stories selected for each volume.  I'll add the names of translated short story titles in brackets later when/if I become aware of them, but for now I'll just translate Oviedo's period and style descriptions for anybody who cares to use this as a supplement to either this list or that list from June.  Happy reading.

[Critical Anthology of the Spanish-American Short Story of the 19th Century]

I. Romanticismo; primer y segundo ciclos [Romanticism; first and second cycles]

Esteban Echevarría (1805-1851)
El matadero ["The Slaughterhouse"]

Pedro José Morillas (1803-1881)
El ranchador

Juan Montalvo (1832-1899)
Gaspar Blondin

Juana Manuela Gorriti (1818-1892)
Quien escucha su mal oye

José María Roa Bárcena (1827-1908)
Lanchitas

Ricardo Palma (1833-1919)
Traslado a Judas

Eduardo Wilde (1844-1913)
La lluvia
Novela corta y lastimosa

II.  Realismo/Naturalismo [Realism/Naturalism]

Eduardo Acevedo Díaz (1851-1924)
El combate de la tapera

Federico Gana (1867-1926)
Un carácter

Javier de Viana (1868-1926)
En las cuchillas

Baldomero Lillo (1867-1923)
La compuerta número 12

Augusto D'Halmar (1882-1950)
En provincia

Roberto J. Payró (1867-1928)
Metamorfosis

III.  Modernismo [Modernism]

Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (1859-1895)
La novela del tranvía

Rúben Darío (1867-1916)
El rey burgués
D.Q.

Manuel Díaz Rodríguez (1871-1927)
Rojo pálido

Darío Herrera (1883-1914)
La zamacueca

Amado Nervo (1870-1919)
El diamante de la inquietud

IV. Del postmodernismo al criollismo [From Postmodernism to Criollismo]

Clemente Palma (1872-1946)
Los ojos de Lina

Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938)
La lluvia de fuego

Abraham Valdelomar (1888-1919)
Hebaristo el sauce que murió de amor

Rafael Arévalo Martínez (1884-1975)
Nuestra Señora de los locos

Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937)
La insolación  ["Sunstroke"]
El alambre de púa

[Critical Anthology of the Spanish-American Short Story of the 20th Century (1920-1980): 1.  Founders and Innovators]

I.  La tradición realista: criollistas, indigenistas y neorrealistas [The Realist Tradition: Criollistas, Indigenists and Neorealists]

César Vallejo (1892-1938)
Paco Yunque

Roberto Arlt (1900-1942)
Pequeños proprietarios

José María Arguedas (1911-1969)
Warma Kuyay

Enrique Amorim (1900-1960)
La fotografía

Manuel Rojas (1896-1973)
Pancho Rojas

José Luis González (1926-1996)
En el fondo del caño hay un negrito

Carlos Martínez Moreno (1917-1986)
Paloma

Mario Benedetti (1920)
La noche de los feos ["The Night of the Ugly Ones"]

Jorge Edwards (1931)
El orden de las familias

Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929-1994)
Silvio en El Rosedal

II.  La innovación: cuento fantástico, vanguardista, especulativo y humorístico [Innovation: Fantastic, Avant-Garde, Speculative, and Humorous Tales]

Macedonio Fernández (1874-1952)
El Zapallo que se hizo cosmos

Pablo Palacio (1906-1947)
Un hombre muerto a puntapiés

Felisberto Hernández (1902-1964)
El balcón ["The Balcony"]

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Funes el memorioso ["Funes, His Memory"]
El Aleph ["The Aleph"]

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914-1999)
En memoria de Paulina

"H. Bustos Domecq"
Una tarde con Ramón Bonavena

Virgilio Piñera (1912-1979)
La caída

Juan José Arreola (1918-2001)
El guardagujas

Augusto Monterroso (1921)
Mr. Taylor

Salvador Garmendia (1928-2001)
"Muñecas de placer"

[Critical Anthology of the Spanish-American Short Story of the 20th Century (1920): 2.  The Great Synthesis and Afterward]

III.  La gran síntesis: hacia el "boom" [The Great Synthesis: Toward the "Boom"]

Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974)
Leyenda de la Tatuana

Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980)
Viaje a la semilla

José Lezama Lima (1910-1976)
Cangrejos, golondrinas

Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-1994)
Bienvenido, Bob
El infierno tan temido ["Hell So Feared"]

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)
Casa tomada ["House Taken Over"]
La autopista del sur ["The Southern Thruway"]

Juan Rulfo (1918-1986)
No oyes ladrar los perros ["No Dogs Bark"]

José Donoso (1924-1997)
Dos cartas

Gabriel García Márquez (1928)
Un día de éstos ["One of These Days"]
Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes ["A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"]

Carlos Fuentes (1928)
La muñeca reina

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936)
Día domingo ["On Sunday"]

IV.  Otras direcciones: desde el "boom" [Other Directions: Since the "Boom"]

Elena Poniatowska (1933)
Cine Prado

José Emilio Pacheco (1939)
Cuando salí de La Habana, válgame Dios

Alfredo Bryce Echenique (1939)
Con Jimmy, en Paracas

Rosario Ferré (1942)
La muñeca menor

Álvaro Mutis (1923)
Cocora

domingo, 15 de julio de 2012

Los 30-30

"Los 30-30"
by Nellie Campobello
Mexico, 1931

Since July has been one annoyingly hot day after another and the computer is in the hottest room in the house and the margarita I had after work has been threatening to put me to sleep for hours now, I'm going to talk about a two-page short story tonight rather than anything more complicated.  However, what a fine, austere piece of writing I have to share with you.  "Los 30-30," like the rest of the works in Campobello's 1931 novella/short story collection Cartucho, is set in Chihuahua during the Mexican Revolution and is supposedly based on events Campobello (1900-1986) either heard of or witnessed in her childhood up north in Pancho Villa territory.  In this piece, Gerardo Ruiz, "elegante, nervioso, con sonrisa estudiada" ["elegant, nervous, with a studied smile"], finds out he's about to be executed for something he claims is a mere misunderstanding.  When he receives the news, Ruiz becomes infuriated and lashes out at his captors for what seems like a full two hours: "Yo soy un caballero y no puedo morir como un ladrón...  ¡Bestias salvajes, bandidos, bandidos!" ["I'm a gentleman, and I can't die like a thief...  Savages! Bandits!  Bandits!"].  The general in charge lets Ruiz rant on until he's spent and then reissues the execution command now that the prisoner "ha desahogado su cólera" ["has vented his anger"].  Ruiz eventually takes sixteen bullets from the firing squad but somehow manages to survive the initial volley.  The coup de grâce then comes from a 30-30 rifle, which takes an ear off of the gentleman and leaves a pool of blood on the ground.  Campobello describes the scene with a calm but knowing detachment that seems to suggest that these sort of impromptu wartime executions were all too common: "La sangre era negra, negra  --dijeron los soldados que porque había muerto muy enojado--.  Mucha gente vio este fusilamiento, era el mediodía.  Mamá presenció todo" ["'The blood was black, really black,' said the soldiers, 'because he had died so angry.'  Many people saw this shooting, it took place at noon.  Mom witnessed all of it"].

Source
Campobello, Nellie.  Mis libros (Mexico City: Compañia General de Ediciones, 1960, 83-84).

The entirety of Cartucho is included in the 1960 Campobello collection Mis libros and, amazingly enough, is also available in English as Cartucho and My Mother's Hands as translated by Irene Matthews and Doris Meyer for the Texas Pan American Series.  To prove what a small world it is, the 1931 edition of Cartucho was edited with the assistance of ex-Stridentist Germán List Arzubide, last mentioned on the blog here in connection with a post about an interview he did with the young Roberto Bolaño in 1976.

sábado, 14 de julio de 2012

Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/8-7/14


This week's Spanish Lit Month links can be found below.  Thanks again to everybody who's chosen to read along with Stu and me for the event, and please don't hesitate to let me know if I've missed any of your posts--I'll update the list accordingly.  In the meantime, I have a bonus at the bottom of the page for all you short story fans out there: an original short story from Honduras-born Guatemalan Augusto Monterroso (1921-2003), a man famous for his minicuentos [mini-short stories], microrelatos [micro-tales] or whatever you want to call them.  Your humble scribe/translator can only hope that the sharing of this work with the worldwide Spanish Lit Month community will bring readers enough joy and solace to justify the potential damages he might incur should his liberal interpretation of "fair use" laws not meet international copyright standards.  In any case, enjoy!

Stu, Winstonsdad's Blog
Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño

Caroline, Beauty Is a Sleeping Cat
A Brief Life by Juan Carlos Onetti

Dwight, A Common Reader
Spanish Language Lit Month: From the Archives
The City of Marvels by Eduardo Mendoza

Emma, Book Around the Corner
The Shadow of What We Were by Luis Sepúlveda

Jeremy, READIN
Spanish Lit Month

lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
The Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists: Granta 113

Neer, a hot cup of pleasure
The Paris Enigma by Pablo De Santis

Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
The Witness by Juan José Saer

Rise, in lieu of a field guide
Masterworks of Latin American Short Fiction: Eight Novellas edited by Cass Canfield, Jr.

Séamus, Vapour Trails
Cría cuervos directed by Carlos Saura

Susanna, SusieBookworm
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Tony, Tony's Reading List
The Frost on His Shoulders by Lorenzo Mediano

Richard, Caravana de recuerdos
El arte de la fuga #1 by Sergio Pitol
La vida breve by Juan Carlos Onetti
Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/8-7/14

Augusto Monterroso and friend

El dinosaurio
por Augusto Monterroso
Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.
*
"The Dinosaur"
by Augusto Monterroso
When he/she/it woke up, the dinosaur was still there.

viernes, 13 de julio de 2012

La vida breve

La vida breve (Punto de Lectura, 2009)
por Juan Carlos Onetti
Uruguay, 1950

Tendría que leerlo de nuevo para entender cómo él lo hizo, pero mientras tanto puedo asegurarles que Onetti me dejó K.O. con su asombrosa La vida breve.  En un triste departamento bonaerense que se parece a su estado de ánimo vencido, el abatido y encerrado en sí mismo Juan María Brausen trata de contender con la disolución de su casamiento y ser despedido de su trabajo en una agencia de publicidad por huir de la realidad y sumergirse en un mundo ficticio de su propia creación.  Al principio, el aspirante a guionista se limita a imaginar lo que hace y cómo es la mujerzuela al otro lado de su pared.  Más tarde, él empieza acostarse con ella y, bajo el nombre falso de Arce, hace vivir sus fantasías como un macró abusivo.  Una pelea con el macró de verdad de la mujer, un asesinato brutal, y una inesperada fuga de la justicia lleva al lector a un final alucinate en el pueblo ficticio de Santa María: una ciudad fantasmal sobre el río entre Argentina y Uruguay inventada por Brausen antes en la novela y poblada por ya otro doble de Brausen, el doctor Díaz Grey, vendedor de morfina, y una variedad de personajes con rasgos de los conocidos de la "gente real" en la vida doble de Brausen/Arce.  Aparte del final abierto de La vida breve, que anticipa la película Solaris de Tarkovsky, ¿cómo explicar por qué esta historia, por lo demás tan sórdida, es a la vez tan irresistible?  Para mí, una de las cosas es que Onetti lo hace facíl identificar con la angustia de sus personajes aun cuando no es facíl identificar con la falta de conexibilidad social de los personajes: "Lo malo no está en que la vida promete cosas que nunca nos dará", dice alguien en algún momento, "lo malo es que siempre las da y deja de darlas" (130).  Una observación poco importante en un sentido y, en otro, una declaración conmovedora sobre el sentido de la pérdida que aflige al protagonista.  En segundo lugar, la novela es totalmente fascinadora en cuanto a su descripción del proceso creativo y a su retrato de un personaje antisocial que, posiblemente, se está volviendo loco antes de los ojos de los lectores.  Se nota, por ejemplo, que nunca está claro si Brausen esté sumergiéndose en un acto de creación artística o si esté fragmentándose en tantos Brausen, Arce, y Díaz Grey.  En todo caso, es difícil ignorar el hecho de que este personaje, a quién Mario Vargas Llosa ha llamado "un dios patético" en su libro El viaje a la ficción.  El mundo de Juan Carlos Onetti (Lima: Alfaguara, 2008, 90), es la principal figura de un narrador de una obra en cual el protagonista ha elegido la irrealidad en vez de la realidad atroz de su vida cotidiana.  Esto tiene que ser significativo, ¿no?  Al fin, a pesar del pesimismo y la sordidez de la obra, la novela no es sin sus momentos de elegancia.  De hecho, con respecto a esto, me gustó particularmente la escena donde Brausen habla del "hombre que me había alquilado la mitad de la oficina  --se llamaba Onetti, no sonreía, usaba anteojos, dejaba adivinar que sólo podía ser simpático a mujeres fantasiosas o amigos íntimos-- se abandonara alguna vez, en el hambre del mediodía o de la tarde, a la estupidez que yo le imaginaba y aceptara el deber de interesarse por ellos....  No hubo preguntas, ningún síntoma del deso de intimar; Onetti me saludaba con monosílabos a los que infundía una imprecisa vibración de cariño, una burla impersonal" (265-266).  En resumen, uno de los dos o tres mejores libros que he leído en este año.  (Punto de Lectura)

A Brief Life (Serpent's Tail, 2008)
by Juan Carlos Onetti [translated from the Spanish by Hortense Carpentier]
Uruguay, 1950

I'd have to read this again to understand just how he managed to pull it off, but in the meantime I can assure you that Juan Carlos Onetti's A Brief Life was nothing short of a knockout.  In a drab Buenos Aires apartment that seems to mirror his defeated state of mind, withdrawn, downcast Juan María Brausen attempts to cope with the impending break-up of his marriage and the subsequent loss of his advertising agency job by fleeing reality for a fictional world of his own creation.  At first, the would-be screenwriter limits himself to imagining what the prostitute on the other side of his apartment wall is doing and what she must be like in person.  Later, he begins sleeping with her and, under the assumed name of Arce, takes on a violent new identity in which he all too convincingly passes himself off as an abusive pimp.  A confrontation with the woman's real pimp, a vicious murder, and an improbable flight from justice lead to a hallucinatory ending in the fictional town of Santa María--a phantasmal port city somewhere between Argentina and Uruguay which Brausen has dreamed up earlier in the novel and populated with yet another Brausen double, the morphine-dealing Doctor Díaz Grey, as well as a host of thinly disguised characters from his "real world" double life as Brausen/Arce.  Apart from A Brief Life's pre-Solaris open ending, what is it about this otherwise rather sordid story that's so damn compelling?  For me, Onetti makes it all too easy to identify with his characters' anguish even if you don't necessarily identify with their anomie:  "What's wrong with life isn't that it promises things it never gives us," somebody says at one point, "but that it always gives them and then stops giving them" (87).  A throwaway line in one light.  A devastating statement on the sense of powerlessness and loss afflicting the protagonist in another.  Secondly, the novel's absolutely fascinating in the way it pairs its descriptions of the creative process with the presentation of an antisocial character who may be cracking up in front of our eyes.  For while it's never really clear whether Brausen is submerging himself in the act of creation or is fragmenting psychologically into so many different Brausens, Arces, and Díaz Greys, etc., it's hard to ignore the fact that this character whom Mario Vargas Llosa has referred to as "un dios patético" ["a pathetic god"] in his book El viaje a la ficción: El mundo de Juan Carlos Onetti (Lima: Alfaguara, 2008, 90) is the main narrator figure in a work in which the protagonist has chosen the altered reality of fiction over the unaltered reality of his daily life.  There's something telling about that.  Finally, for all its pessimism and sordidness, the novel isn't without its storytelling moments of grace.  In fact, I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about "the man who had rented me half the office" in Brausen's telling of the story: "His name was Onetti, he didn't smile, wore glasses, and let it be divined that he had time only for vague scatterbrained women or intimate friends--might succumb at any time, in the hunger of noon or late afternoon, to the stupidity I thought him capable of and accept the duty of taking an interest in them....  There were no questions, no symptoms of any desire for intimacy; Onetti greeted me with monosyllables that he infused with an imprecise vibration of affability, an impersonal disdain" (187).  In short, one of the two or three most rewarding novels I've read all year.  (Serpent's Tail)

Onetti en los 1940

La vida breve fue leído como una lectura compartida para Spanish Lit Month y como el libro del mes de julio para el Latin-American Readalong de Obooki.//A Brief Life was read for a Spanish Lit Month group read and as the July book of the month for Obooki's Latin-American Readalong.

Más sobre La vida breve/A Brief Life

Más sobre Onetti
Los adioses [Farewells], 1954 (Caravana de recuerdos)
El astillero [The Shipyard], 1961 (Caravana de recuerdos)
Santa Maria on Celluloid (Obooki's Obloquy)

domingo, 8 de julio de 2012

El arte de la fuga

El arte de la fuga (Anagrama, 2007)
by Sergio Pitol
Mexico, 1996

As we head bleary-eyed, energized, or maybe even a little bit of both into the second week of our pub and tapas crawl through Spanish-language literarature in July, I'm delighted to propose a toast in honor of Mexican raconteur Sergio Pitol's 1996 nonfiction nugget El arte de la fuga [The Art of Flight, criminally unavailable in English as of now).  Pitol, a 2005 Premio Cervantes winner who has since declared himself officially retired, was either a late bloomer or just a guy who flew under the radar until relatively late in his writing life depending on whom you ask.  However, you can get a good sense of how all that transpired in this erudite but refreshingly giddy autobio-in-letters of his.  Reading him talk about the intersections between his life and literature, about his passion for Italian art, Gombrowicz, Thomas Mann, travel, various Siglo de Oro playwrights, any number of Mexican writers, The Good Soldier Svejk, and Antonio Tabucchi among hundreds of other artists and periods and titles I could name, there's no doubt about why novelists as radically different in style as Bolaño and Vila-Matas were/are such big fans of his.  But why take my word for it when you can hear it directly from Pitol himself?  "Uno, me aventuro, es los libros que ha leído, la pintura que ha visto, la música escuchada y olvidada, las calles recorridas.  Uno es su niñez, su familia, unos cuantos amigos, algunos amores, bastantes fastidios" ["One is, I dare say, the books that one has read, the paintings that one has seen, the music heard and forgotten, the streets traveled.  One is one's childhood, one's family, a few friends, some love affairs, more than enough nuisances"], he notes in a pensive moment from the first third of the book collecting writings on memory ["Memoria"] (42).  In the middle section of the work dealing with writing ["Escritura"], one of my favorite anecdotes has to do with the young Pitol's stay in Warsaw where he would spend his days translating Polish works into Spanish and trying to write his own fiction in his spare time.  The problem?  Cooped up in an attic room carefully set up for reading, writing, and his translation work, he would look outside his window and see life taking place outside.  How could he possibly write about life if he spent all day locked inside?  So Pitol would go out and "live life" only to have new doubts neurotically assail him in a bar, on a walk, or at party because he wasn't at home where he could take notes on a new translation of Shakespeare which had dazzled him or systematically study the romantic poets, "decisivos en la literatura polaca, y saltar luego a Witkiewicz, Gombrowicz y Bruno Schultz, y, además, leer a Borges, a Cortázar, a Neruda y a Vallejo, a Cervantes, a Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a Paz y Fuentes, y escribir cartas que adeudo, y, sobre todo, escribir relatos, inventar historias, escribir, escribir, escribir en vez de beber como un polaco y pasar la vida de juerga en juerga, de arruinar mi salud, alterar mi sistema nervioso, desperdiciar facultades, tiempo y energía para convertirme de lleno en la nulidad a la que en esos momentos me siento predestinado" ["of such overriding importance in Polish literature, and then jump to Witkiewicz, Gombrowicz and Bruno Schultz, plus, in addition, read Borges, Cortázar, Neruda and Vallejo, Cervantes, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Paz and Fuentes, and write letters that I owe, and above all, write tales, make up stories, write, write, write instead of drinking like a Pole and wasting my life going on one binge after another, ruining my health, altering my nervous system, squandering my brain cells, my time and my energy in turning myself into the complete zero which in those moments I felt I was predestined to become"] (175).  Ah, the writing life!  Given Pitol's modern day humanism as a scholar and his readily apparent warm, self-effacing qualities as a human, it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that the concluding section on readings ["Lecturas"] feels as enthusiastic, learned, and genuine as the preceding parts in the work.  However, I'd like to hold off talk on that until later in the week because as exciting as it would be to spend some time singing the praises of "Dos semanas con Thomas Mann" ["Two Weeks with Thomas Mann," on Mann's diaries] or "Sostiene Pereira" ["Pereira Declares," on the Tabucchi novel], I'm well aware that this post on a book that hasn't even been translated into English yet has already moved from tapa to plato principal size before our very eyes.  (Anagrama)

Sergio Pitol

El arte de la fuga is available as a standalone work or as part of the Trilogía de la Memoria volume I own which also includes El viaje (2001) and El mago de Viena (2005).  I hope that by the end of my next Pitol post, one or two you will understand why I'm so excited about reading the other titles in his "Memory Trilogy" at some point.

sábado, 7 de julio de 2012

Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/1-7/7


¡Hola!  Just wanted to let you know that I have some good news for anybody tired of the one-dimensional language content of the blog this week: I'm going to take a break from blabbing about Spanish-language books tonight...to share a post about other people blabbing about Spanish-language books.  Psyche!  Although Stu and I still plan on presenting some sort of an end of the month link round-up/wrap-up thing for all of the Spanish Lit Month posts at the end of July, I thought I'd get things started early in order to make it easier for everybody to find out about the many other event posts already out there.  Please note that this list is a work in progress: I'll be updating it off and on over the next couple of days.  ¡Saludos!

Stu, Winstonsdad's Blog
View of Dawn in the Tropics by G. Cabrera Infante
The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto
The Shadow of What We Were by Luis Sepúlveda

Amanda, Simpler Pastimes
Libros españoles - un proyecto nuevo
Cría cuervos directed by Carlos Saura

Caroline, Beauty Is a Sleeping Cat
Amirbar by Álvaro Mutis

Emma, Book Around the Corner
Mafalda and Me

Jenny, Shelf Love
Don Quixote Part I: The Words and the Stories by Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote Part I: The Madness and the Cruelty
Don Quixote Part I: Cherchez La Femme
Don Quixote Part II: Madness, Folly, Lies, and Dreaming
Don Quixote Part II: Metafictional Monkeyshines
Don Quixote Part II: "You shall find me a grave man."

Jeremy, READIN
Cría cuervos directed by Carlos Saura

lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
Five from the Archive: Spanish Literature

Neer, a hot cup of pleasure
Spanish Literature Month: July 2012

Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
Spring and Summer Sonatas by Ramón del Valle-Inclán

Séamus, Vapour Trails
Spanish Lit Month - Plans and "Five from the Archive"
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Susanna, SusieBookworm
Spanish Lit Month: Kick-Off!
The Planets by Sergio Chejfec

Tara, BookSexy Review
Cría cuervos directed by Carlos Saura

Tony, Tony's Reading List
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Richard, Caravana de recuerdos
¡Bienvenidos a Spanish Lit Month!
El piano by Carmen Laforet
"Mariachi" by Juan Villoro
The Song of the Cid: Canto One Anonymous
"Ester Primavera" by Roberto Arlt
Cría cuervos directed by Carlos Saura
Spanish Lit Month Links: 7/1-7/7

viernes, 6 de julio de 2012

Cría cuervos

Cría Cuervos... [Cría cuervos] (The Criterion Collection DVD, 2007)
Directed by Carlos Saura
Spain, 1976
In Spanish with optional English subtitles

I wish I could find the interview with Carlos Saura that I came across years and years ago in which he talked about narrating Cría cuervos in such a way that it would reflect the admiration he felt for some of the storytelling innovations of the Latin American writers who were coming into vogue in his native Spain in the 1960s.  Until that time, I'll just note that one of the many, many things I love about this movie--culturally one of the most Spanish of all Spanish films of the era because of its veiled but ultimately scathing critique of the upper echelons of Franco's Spain in a work shot just a couple of months prior to the dictator's death and the beginning of the eventual transition to democracy for the country--is its blend of an intense, almost claustrophobic interiority with some conceptually showy Boom-like narrative devices that play with the concepts of time, memory, and reality in an unusually sophisticated manner for a motion picture.  Ironically, in terms of its plot the film would seem to be a rather simple affair at heart: three young girls at home on vacation from school find themselves suddenly orphaned after their father, a military man, dies of an apparent heart attack while in bed with his best friend's wife.  What complicates matters is that the middle of the three daughters, the eight year old Ana (Ana Torrent, in an unbelievably riveting performance), believes that she's responsible for her father's death for reasons that I won't go into here.  Fascinatingly, what haunts Ana isn't guilt for the imagined patricide but the painful memory of the loss of her mother to an incurable illness some time previously.  I say "fascinatingly" because the angelic-looking creature not only "sees" her mother frequently despite her older sister's reminder that their mother is dead, but she thinks that she can bring her back on demand with just a blinking of her eyes.  Saura takes this somber premise and, with the help of a terrific cast, a deliberate pace that allows events to unfold naturally, and a sublime score that never fails to wow me, masterfully turns it into a wrenching meditation on abandonment and loss.  While almost all of the action takes place in a grand but inordinately funereal old house in Madrid's embassy district, the story shifts back and forth in time in that it's told from the perspectives of the eight-year old Ana and the adult Ana (a wonderful Geraldine Chaplin, who also plays the deceased mother María in one of many Borgesian mirror image homages evident throughout the work) some twenty years later.  At the same time, it also shifts back and forth in space because the troubled Ana, who comes to believe that she holds the keys to life and death over other members of her family just as she thinks she did with her father, increasingly finds it difficult to differentiate between what's real and what's only memory in the eerie inner world where her dead parents walk in and out of her waking hours like something straight out of Pedro Páramo.  Superb.  (The Criterion Collection)

Ana

Cría cuervos, whose title comes from the Spanish proverb "Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos" ["Raise ravens, and they'll pluck your eyes out"], is being dissected on many blogs this week as part of the Spanish Lit Month activities.  I'll link other posts to the movie below as soon as I find out about them, but please feel free to join in on the discussions at the various blogs whether you've reviewed the movie yourself or not.

Other Cría cuervos posts