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Friday, January 28th, 2011
I am working on understanding the trajectory Hernán Rivera Letelier followed from being unknown to being, as Dorfman says, "one of the very few writers in Chile who can make a living writing books." His first novel was wildly successful, La reina Isabel cantaba rancheras, and made of him an overnight literary sensation. That was in 1996, only 8 years before Dorfman is talking with him, but you get a very firm sense of Rivera Letelier as an established literary presence. A lot can happen in eight years -- he has by this time published several novels.
posted evening of January 28th, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, February 26th, 2011
 At the beginning of chapter 10 of Our Lady of the Dark Flowers, Idilio Montaño is passed out in a corner of the schoolroom where the friends are staying, sleeping off his drunken fight of the previous night. As he comes to, he hears an old pampino telling a group of young men the history of John Thomas North's acquisition of the majority of the nitrate fields in northern Chile. This expository technique seems like it should be extremely heavy-handed but I think Rivera Letelier pulls it off. Anyway, I found the history lesson quite useful.
"...This English upstart is the best example of what I'm talking about. His name was John Thomas North and they called him 'The Saltpetre King." It was this proud commoner who instigated, who provided arms and pounds sterling to secure the downfall of Balmaceda, the last rightful president of Chile..."
According to the speaker, Balmaceda intended to nationalize Chile's nitrate resources; North owned vast amounts of the Atacama as a result of having purchased Chile's worthless bonds during the War of the Pacific. North is only dead about ten years at the time of the strike, and the speaker claims to have met him in person. He says the pampinos would joke about "Our Father who art in London..."
Interesting to think about how close to their country's history these characters are. This scene makes me think (in a US context) of an elderly Civil War veteran telling some young compatriots about a famous general he had met... Or to put it in the labor context, a grizzled old Teamster or Longshoresman telling about... My familiarity with labor history in the US (and indeed with US history in general) is far too limited to build a satisfactory scenario for either of these examples, alas.
posted afternoon of February 26th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, February 27th, 2011
 Olegario Santana (the calichero with the pet buzzards) smokes Yolandas; he has a two or three pack-a-day habit, and he thinks of the woman on the front of the pack as his feminine ideal. Rivera Letelier returns to this several times; taking a cigarette and looking at the pack and thinking about women is by now (halfway through) sort of a master gesture for Santana. I'm torn about this -- it strikes me at first glance as a bit clichéed, a bit simplistic; OTOH Santana is a pretty alien figure to me. This could well be an accurate representation of his character.
I'm thinking of Santana as the physical presence of Rivera Letelier in the story, for a few reasons. He was the first character introduced; he is a loner, quiet and reserved in his relations with the others, which strikes me as the proper deportment for the author; he is older than the others (Rivera Letelier was in his early 50's when he wrote this book, which I believe is roughly Santana's age -- quite old for someone in his extremely hazardous profession) and is the most skeptical about the odds of their strike having a positive outcome, the first to express worries about the military presence building up in Iquique. There has been almost remarkably little narrative foreboding vis-a-vis the impending massacre. The book's first half has been about the workers and their friendships, about the blossoming love between Idilio and Liria MarÃa, and about the pampino community's high hopes for a proletarian victory and a new order. The only overt foreshadowings I have noticed that were not explicitly in Santana's voice were in Chapter 7, where it is mentioned that the provincial governor has asked Santiago for military reinforcements "without hope that the unrest will be resolved", and now in Chapter 10, where new reinforcements are arriving from Arica and the situation is "turning ugly."
posted afternoon of February 27th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, March 6th, 2011
The events of Chapter 19 of Our Lady of the Dark Flowers are unfolding like a malevolent clockwork, like a bad dream in which events cannot progress any way except toward their preordained, tragic outcome -- in short like history. "They are turning this place into a mousetrap," Olegario Santana thinks as he returns to the school of Our Lady of Iquique, perhaps for the last time -- he tries to persuade Gregoria Becerra to leave the school but she is steadfast in her commitment to the strike. This impending sense of doom requires that Rivera Letelier move his narration to the past tense. Throughout the book the narrative present tense has been dominant, and the stories being told have focused on individuals, makers of free decisions within the context of the history which is the framework of the book. Here the story is the history, the concrete events of the past, where free choice is no longer relevant, and the events are related in the past tense. (And still there is a quick switch to the present tense when Olegario Santana is pleading with Gregoria Becerra to leave, when she is deciding freely to stand by the union; and somehow this is not confusing to the reader, somehow it flows perfectly.) The last words of the chapter have General Silva Renard making his fateful decision: At this point, the general was convinced that the situation was no longer maintainable -- «in order not to compromise the prestige and honor of the authorities, of the security forces, I was faced with the necessity of checking the rebellion before the end of the day» is how he put it in his journal. Finally, he made the decision. Rising up on his steed, the sun's rays shining off his military harness, he crossed himself lightly. He raised his hand to give the order to fire.
(It is extremely disconcerting to be reading this story while the unions in Madison are occupying the state capitol and threatening a general strike. Not that I expect governor Walker to call out the state militia and fire on the protestors, although such things have happened in our history as well as in Chile's -- but this book is a sad reminder of the lengths to which those in power will go, have gone, to maintain their power.)
 This chapter also features the blind poet, Rosario Calderón, who has made occasional appearances throughout the book reciting popular poetry to the strikers. He is here declaiming what I take to be another verse of his namesake's poem commemorating the massacre:
Hoy por hambre acosado
esta región abandono,
me voy sin fuerza, ni abono,
viejo, pobre y explotado,
dejo el trabajo pesado
del combo, chuzo y la lampa
y esa maldita rampa
donde caà deshojada,
soy la flor negra y callada
que nace y muere en la pampa
Pursued by hunger
I leave this place,
powerless, penniless,
an old man, broken down and poor,
I leave this oppressive work,
this heavy pair, my shovel and my bucket,
this damned mine shaft
I fell down, broken;
I am the dark and silent flower
which grows and dies in the pampa.
Chilean blogger Walterio2 has posted Calderón's verses and a lot of other pampino poetry: La pampa es silente.
↻...done
posted morning of March 6th, 2011: Respond
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Monday, July 18th, 2011
 My copy of the forthcoming issue of Two Lines -- journal of the Center for the Art of Translation -- arrived in today's mail. A nice feeling to see my name there; my translation of the first chapter of The Art of Resurrection is my first contribution to Two Lines, hopefully there will be more to come.
And -- well, this seems like some kind of sign to me, to me who is always looking for portents: The editor's note from Luc Sante mentions in its second sentence "the late Kenneth Koch, one of my greatest teachers" -- so soon after I'd been thinking about Koch in the context of translation...
posted evening of July 18th, 2011: 4 responses
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Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
(from Chapter 3 of Our lady of the dark flowers)
From the four points of the compass they came, the strikers on their way to Alto de San Antonio in their long, dusty caravans. The village was boiling over with excitement. As you looked into the chaos of the crowds streaming through the village's streets, you could see signs bearing the names of salitreras, La Gloria, San Pedro, Palmira, Argentina, San Pablo, Cataluña, Santa Clara, La Perla, Santa Ana, Esmeralda, San AgustÃn, Santa LucÃa, Hanssa, San Lorenzo, others that we hadn't even heard of. And that's not all -- covered with dirt from their heads to their feet,the strikers came singing, shouting, not only the oficinas in San Antonio's district, but from every district in the Pampa del Tamarugal. The influx of people showed no signs of letting up. The strike had spread across the pampa like a duststorm -- "Good dust, the dust of righteousness, my brothers" crowed Domingo Dominguez, walking among the crowd. To the bird's eye, there were more than five thousand of us, pushing together into the streets of the village, bringing our power to the strike. Men of every race and nationality, groups which had clashed in bitter fratricidal wars, were coming together now under the sun, under a single standard -- that of the proletariate.
posted afternoon of October 23rd, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, February 11th, 2012
(Continuing in this year's theme of re-readings:) A correspondent has gotten me back interested in Domingo Zárate Vega and The Art of Resurrection. This is the frontspiece to the book,  a pastoral letter written on the 25th of February, 1931, by the bishop of La Serena, José MarÃa Caro; in my own rough/not-fully-coherent translation (original at Casa del Libro):
Dear children of Our Lord:
What has been transpiring among you has filled with grief your bishop's heart.
A poor demented man presents himself among you -- one like those who fill our madhouses; and the faithful (I include in this adjective all those who go to church and who comply with their religion, fulfill their sacred duties) have received him as God's messenger, as the Messiah himself, no less, and have made themselves his apostles, his flock.
And meanwhile the faithful -- the judicious, the educated faithful -- have been tolerating this scandal, this blasphemy, tolerating mockery from these faithless maniacs; whose meanness of consciousness seizes any occasion to display its own lack of taste, lack of discretion, of appreciation for the things and people most worthy of universal respect and veneration... How can such a thing have happened -- how can such a hallucination be contagious? Our Lord has permitted it as a punishment for some one and as a humiliation for many.
We are all sensible enough to tell when someone else is in his right mind and when he has lost it. If among you, some poor campesino stood up and claimed in all seriousness, to be the King of England, if he surrounded himself with ministers (like such a king), and wore a special gown to show his office... Is there anyone among you, even a single one, who would not see the madness such a poor man was suffering from? Wouldn't it be the same if he claimed to be Our Holy Father?
And yet there are those among you who do not recognize his madness, because he claims to be not a person of this world, but nothing less than King of Kings and Lord of Lords himself. I repeat myself, our madhouses are full of just such things... Will any one among you let himself be led by the hallucinations of such a madman?
I pray that you, you who have suffered before this spectacle, will assist with your charity, with your prayers and with your counsels in ridding us of this contagious madness.
I ask, for the love of God and of one's brother, the love that we all must bear, I ask that you do everything, with your parish in mind, devote every force to keeping from this danger those who might fall into it, and to bringing back those who have been lost to this madness.
I hope, besides this, that when the authorities come to understand this evil, as I have demonstrated it to you, they will bring some remedy, will separate this danger from us all.
I wish you peace and felicity in Our Lord.
José MarÃa Caro
Caro RodrÃguez would later be named (by Pius â…«) Archbishop of Santiago and a Cardinal of the Catholic church, the first Chilean Cardinal. I could swear I saw a better translation of this letter somewhere, when I was first reading The Art of Resurrection. But am forgetting where now, or by whom.
posted evening of February 11th, 2012: 1 response
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Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Thanks to Damir Galaz-Mandakovic Fernández of Tocopilla y su historia for running this report on Domingo Zárate Vega's visit to Tocopilla in 1932. The photo is from a local newspaper.
In 1932, in a time of chaos, misery and crisis in the country and likewise at the local level, there appeared in Tocopilla a figure both picturesque and controversial, of national fame, named Domingo Zárate, alias ‘The Christ of Elqui.’ He was a preacher who had taken up travelling throughout Chile and the neighboring countries, Bolivia and Peru, after he learned of his mother's death in 1922. Ever since then, as a form of penitence, he had devoted his life to evangelical sermons, had given up his clothing for a simple sackcloth and sandals, had let his hair and his beard grow unchecked. Hundreds of people came to hear his preachings; children were scared by his strange appearance, which provoked jeers and catcalls from the unfaithful -- he would reply in his own defense, ‘...better to be serious than to jest, especially when we are dealing with the Gospel. They will laugh at me, perfect, it is not the first time, not for Our Lord Jesus Christ; the public will have its say...’ (Revista Sucesos 1932 p. 7: Universidad de Tarapacá archive)
posted evening of February 16th, 2012: Respond
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Sunday, March 18th, 2012
In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. ... I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment. For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time.
In the NY Times Sunday Review*, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri reflects on the "urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in a grammatical relation to one another" -- I empathize with her as far as this being a primary motivation. I love her description of reading Italian, which captures perfectly how I enjoy reading Spanish.
I sometimes underline sentences too, though I don't remember having done so in college -- it's a habit come by recently, until only a few years ago I could not hilight a book without its feeling forced and unproductive. Just last night I started a reread of The Art of Resurrection, which happily contains lots of underlining and margin notes from 2010. I believe a part of blogging my reread is going to be quoting from these, seeing if I am still finding these artfully arranged bunches of words to hold the same beauty and enchantment, how my reactions have evolved over the time since I first read it -- which time of course includes my translation of and revising of the first chapter , and reading Santa Maria de las flores negras... I'm thinking I'll try to keep fairly good bloggy notes about this reread. (As for Chapter 1 though, I am going to let my translation stand without discussing it.)
The second chapter (which I call "In Transit" in my notes) is slightly tedious compared to the opening (although, well, what would not be) -- there is a shift of tense from the imperfect narrative to a remembered preterite, the camera zooms out for a little setting up of the plot of the book. Here Magalena Mercado is introduced (again not in person, but via a story told by a traveling salesman) and we get some of Zárate Vega's back story. My only hilight in this chapter is the last line -- ¡Aleluya, Padre Santo! -- where I note a transition into Zárate Vega's voice. Switches between tenses and between voices are a very, very important part of this novel I think -- based on the two books I've read of Rivera Letelier's it seems to me like these switches are almost the key feature of his prose style. In this regard, the Christ of Elqui makes an ideal character for Rivera Letelier to draw.
 * and/or in the online "opinionator" section of the Times website? I am no longer sure with this newspaper what is the print organ and what is the digital presence. This piece is certainly printed on the front page of the "Review" section of the hardcopy Times delivered to my stoop this morning. However its url identifies it as part of the site's blog section -- perhaps there is no longer any distinction to be made between these venues.
posted afternoon of March 18th, 2012: Respond
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Monday, March 19th, 2012
Chapter 3 of The Art of Resurrection is more setting-up of the story, as Zárate Vega makes his way from Los Dones to Sierra Gorda, the closest railway stop to Providencia. There is a lot to like about the writing and the scenery here, but I am aching for the real story to start in Chapter 4.
posted evening of March 19th, 2012: Respond
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