Mariachi

"Mariachi"
by Juan Villoro
Mexico, 2009

Villoro, whose 2004 Premio Herralde winner El testigo, while not quite a mindblower, was still jugoso enough to leave me wanting to read much more by the guy, here returns with a comic riff on machismo and Mexican identity in this ribald tale about a burned out mariachi star whose career-changing stint with a prosthetic penis in an Almodóvaresque arthouse porn film brings the singer new fans but leads to unexpected complications in his personal life.  I know, I know, I should probably just stop there, but I feel I owe it to you hardcore readers to share a few things that stood out in this amusing little work.  For starters, I loved the narrator's laconic description of himself: "Yo sólo podría haber sido mariachi.  Tengo voz, cara de ranchero abandonado, ojos del valiente que sabe llorar" ["In my case, I could only have been a mariachi.  I have a good voice, the face of a forsaken peasant, and the eyes of a brave man who knows how to cry"].  I also enjoyed the continuation of the description and, in particular, the playful irony with which the mariachi singer's comments work to subvert national stereotypes: "Además soy de aquí.  Una vez soñé que me preguntaban: '¿Es usted mexicano?'  'Sí, pero no lo vuelvo a ser'.  Esta respuesta, que me hubiera aniquilado en la realidad, entusiasmaba a todo en mi sueño" ["Furthermore, I'm from here.  Once, I dreamed that I was asked: 'Are you Mexican?'  'Yes,' I said, 'but I wouldn't want to be again.'  This response, which in reality would have had me killed, thrilled everyone in my dream"] (294-295).  Mostly, I admit, I got a kick out of Villoro's absurdly racy humor and the sheer novelty of his premise.  I mean, c'mon, whatever other short stories are destined to come your way during Spanish Lit Month, I'm quite confident that "Mariachi" is the only one that will dare to ask the burning question: "¿Qué puede hacer una persona que de la noche a la mañana se convierte en un fenómeno genital?" ["What can a person who turns into a genital phenomenon overnight do?"] (305-307).

Source

Juan Villoro's "Mariachi," with the original text in Spanish and a facing English translation by Harry Morales (as with all translated passages above), appears on pp. 288-317 of the Álvaro Uribe-edited Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction short story anthology (Champaign and London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2009).

Full list of authors and stories included in the dual language volume:

Vivian Abenshushan, La cama de Lukin/Lukin's Bed

Álvaro Enrigue, Sobre la muerte del autor/On the Death of the Author

Eduardo Antonio Parra, Cuerpo presente/Requiem

Cristina Rivera-Garza, Nostalgia/Nostalgia

Guillermo Fadanelli, Interroguen a Samantha/Questioning Samantha

Jorge F. Hernández, True Friendship/True Friendship

Ana García Bergua, Los conservadores/The Preservers

Rosa Beltrán, Shere-Sade/Sheri-Sade

Enrique Serna, Tesoroviviente/Living Treasure

Juan Villoro, Mariachi/Mariachi

Fabio Morábito, Los crucigramas/Crosswords

Francisco Hinojosa, La muda boca/The Muted Mouth

Daniel Sada, El fenómeno ominoso/The Ominous Phenomenon

Guillermo Samperio, La mujer de la gabardina roja/The Woman in the Red Coat

Hernán Lara Zavala, A golpe de martillo/Hammering Away

Héctor Manjarrez, Fin del mundo/The End of the World