Bogotá, Colombia, epicenter for Juan Gabriel Vásquez's sprawling masterpiece - The Shape of the Ruins.
Assassinations,
conspiracy theories, obsessions, friends, family, births, deaths,
memorials, literary references, they're all here, most especially books
and writers since the narrator of this multifaceted saga is none other
than Juan Gabriel Vásquez - that's right, the Colombian author has
written himself into his own novel.
Readers are in for a special
treat for three reasons: 1) translator Anne McLean renders the Spanish
into clear, fluid English; 2) many photos and documents mentioned in the
story are included; 3) appeal of the book itself - large trim size,
readable print, quality paper. Thank you, Riverhead Books.
Right
in the opening chapter, we're served a sumptuous feast of major
players, important themes and key ideas that will be expanded and
embellished upon as we move through the tale's 500 pages - among their
number:
Carlos Carballo - It's 2014 and Juan Gabriel watches the
TV screen flash a news headline: Carlos Carballo arrested at the former
home, now museum, of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán for attempting to steal the
serge suit the liberal politician wore the day of his assassination, a
suit on display in a glass case. Unlike thousands of TV viewers, Juan
Gabriel isn't at all surprised since the 41-year old author first met
Carballo face-to-face ten years ago and is well aware of Carballo's
obsession. Like a match set to a keg of dynamite, the arrest of Carballo
ignites Juan Gabriel's memory, enough explosive recollections to propel
the author to chronicle the story we're about to read.
Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán - Charismatic firebrand, political leader loved by the
people and the man likely to become Colombia's next president, Gaitán
was assassinated while walking down a busy sidewalk in Bogotá on April
9, 1948. This event proved monumental, resulting in not only riots, mass
killings and the burning of much of the city but for ten years
thereafter the political scene in the country spiraled down into a
bloodbath known as La Violencia, which, in turn, was one of the
factors that led to guerrilla insurrections, death squads and those
horrific Pablo Escobar years.
Fiery Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, 1903-1948. Assassin Juan Roa Sierra pictured in the upper right.
Juan
Roa Sierra - The assassin who shot and killed Gaitán was a young
Colombian by the name of Juan Roa Sierra. Ah, those demented loners who
strike out on their own! But wait - could things possibly be more
complex? We'll never know because Sierra was attacked and killed by a
mob within minutes. Why? Well, as reported by none other than Gabriel
Garcia Márquez who happened to be in vicinity on that fateful April
afternoon, a tall man "wearing an irreproachable gray suit as if he were
going to a wedding" incited the crowd to bloody violence and then was
picked up by a new car as soon as the assassin's corpse was dragged
away. And from then on, that tall, well dressed man appears to have been
erased from history forever. Garcia Márquez recollects many years later
that it occurred to him "the man had managed to have a false assassin
killed in order to protect the identity of the real one."
Does
the fate of Gaitán's assassin ring any bells? How about Lee Harvey
Oswald? Many Colombians, particularly a conspiracy fanatic like Carlos
Carballo, have not failed to make the connection, and that's
understatement.
Francisco Benevides - A friend of Juan Gabriel, a
physician whose father was the man who conducted the forensics on Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán's corpse, Francisco Benevides and Carlos Carballo go
back. Benevides isn't exactly as obsessed as Carballo when it comes to
conspiracy theories, but it's close. Benevides is also a lover of
literature and thus has many reasons to cultivate Juan Gabriel's
friendship.
Hospital Drama - In the opening pages of the novel,
Juan Gabriel recounts his time at a hospital with his dear wife who must
be cared for since she will be giving birth prematurely to twin baby
girls. True, Juan Gabriel loves his family, however, the swirl of
conversations and revelations in his home city of Bogotá acts like a
powerful magnet and Juan Gabriel quickly succumbs to its force. At one
point, some weeks after leaving the hospital, Juan Gabriel's wife
confronts him directly, "What's happening to us is important. You have
to pay attention. We still haven't come out the other side, there are
still lots of things that could go wrong, and the girls depend on us. I
need you to be with me, concentrated on this, and you seem more
interested in what a paranoid madman says."
Did I mention Juan
Gabriel's tale contains a layering of many dimensions back there? Oh,
yes, the following eight chapter detonate with a fiesta of themes and
threads - historical, political, social, cultural, literary, personal. Here's a pair I found especially captivating:
Novelist Narrator - In the course of his narrative, Juan Gabriel refers
directly to his past novels: about a woman from Germany (The Informers), his novel about Panama (The Secret History of Costaguana), about the Pablo Escobar years (The Sound of Things Falling), the novel he was working on (Reputations).
Juan
Gabriel also alludes to a string of other novelists and their books:
Georges Perec, Vladimir Nabokov, Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, Juan Carlos
Onetti, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Malcolm Lowry and frequent inclusion of
Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges - for example: "Then I
remembered "The Modesty of History," an essay by Borges that I'd always
liked and that there, in that man's apartment, seemed to acquire a
mysterious pertinence, for in it Borges sustains that the most important
dates in history might not be the ones that appear in books, but other,
hidden or private dates." This literary element adds real sparkle and
depth to the tale - not only to have a literary man as narrator but to
have Juan Gabriel himself - a zesty enhancement!
Rafael Humberto
Moreno-Durán - Juan Gabriel attends the memorial service for one of the
most notable novelists of his generation, a writer known to his
friends, Juan Gabriel among their number, as R.H.. Following the
service, still in the church, guess who pops up? Carlos Carballo collars
Juan Gabriel and insists on telling him how R.H. spoke in an interview
about Orson Wells' visit to Bogotá and how he, Carballo, proposed a book
to R.H., a book that could be written when he, Carballo, fed R.H.
tantalizing information revolving around the assassination of Gaitán.
Carballo goes on to say that R.H. agreed to write the book but couldn't
because of his illness. Carballo continues speaking, relating that R.H.
told him he knows the writer who could and should write the book - Juan
Garcia Vasquez. Now the plot really thickens, twists and begins dancing
the cumbia.
Colombian novelist Rafael Humberto Moreno-Durán, 1945-2005
So
the question poses itself: Did Juan Gabriel Vásquez finally agree to
write the book proposed by Carlos Carbillo, a fictional character of his
own creation? The answer is 'yes,' our narrator/author did write that
book, a book in the form of a novel, the very novel under review, a
novel entitled The Shape of the Ruins. Read all about it, the tale is spectacular, or in Spanish, espectacular.
Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez, born 1973
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