#chilean lit

[andrumedus]

To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, like a stone in my sling. But the hour of vengeance strikes, and I love you.

Pablo Neruda, tr. & ed. by Mark Eisner, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems; from Twenty Love Poems: 1, "Body of woman"

[soracities]

The narrator writes to understand, although he knows there will be no revelations, that at most he will be able to shine a little light on the past. The initial image persistently accompanies the reading: a destroyed face, a lipless smile, a gaze without eyelids, suspended in semi-vigilance. To write is to record, with naturalistic precision, the light falling on that face. But this is not the story of the face: it is the story of the eye that looks at it.

Alejandro Zambra, on Jorge Baron Biza’s The Desert and Its Seed, from “Literature of the Children”, Not to Read (trans. Megan McDowell)

[whilereadingandwalking]

My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel, translated by Katherine Silver, was a big surprise. In this book, the Queen of the Corner, an old “flaming” homosexual who lives life as a woman, harbors a young intellectual and radical, Carlos, and his plotting friends. As she nurses her crush on the much younger man, we get a 2nd narrative: Pinochet himself going about his daily life, usually being annoyed by the relentless chatter of his wife. 

This is a fantastic book that at first just seems like it’s capturing an old queen in love with a strapping young boy and reminiscing on her old days of cruising and finding her way. But the novel quickly grows from there. The machismo of a despotic government clashes and foils delightfully against our Queen’s uncontainable queerness, saying something both ironic and poignant about the cult of masculinity and the structure of the patriarchy. The Queen doesn’t want to know anything about politics, but the narrative shows quite clearly how much politics forces its way into everyone’s lives, every day, every hour, as state violence and surveillance continue to grow. 

Meanwhile, the book is an age gap romantic story done quite well. It has all the right moods of longing, nostalgia, hope, and sadness, and left me with a heart full of feelings. And it’s funny! The Queen is ridiculous—but is never reduced to caricature—and her story was hard to put down. 

Content warnings for homophobia, homophobic slurs, sexual assault and harassment, racism, misgendering.

[thebluesthour]

from ÜL: Four Mapuche Poets (ed. Cecilia Vicuña, trans. John Bierhorst)  

[andrumedus]

I was invaded by the power of the night.

Pablo Neruda, tr. & ed. by Mark Eisner, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems; from Twenty Love Poems: 1, "Body of woman"

[andrumedus]

you look like the world in your attitude of surrender.

Pablo Neruda, tr. & ed. by Mark Eisner, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems; from Twenty Love Poems: 1, "Body of woman"

[soracities]

Although I write books, it always astonishes me that people write books. It's strange to imagine the people one loves laboriously gathering words together, absent from the world for such a long time.

Alejandro Zambra, from ‘Travelling With Books’, Not to Read (trans. Megan McDowell)

[soracities]

In his book 'A History of Reading' Alberto Manguel reminds us that silent reading only became the norm in the tenth century--before that, it was understood that reading meant reading aloud, so that in antiquity, libraries were noisy places. It was believed that reading involved the eyes and the ears, so that the image of the isolated reader was unthinkable, and even communicated a mysterious selfishness. For us, on the other hand, there is beauty in the image of the solitary reader [...] To me, what is [most beautiful] is the sudden moment when someone spells something out or repeats a passage in a quiet voice, as though discovering the sounds that sleep on the page, as though wanting to memorize, once and for all, their favourite verses or scenes.

Alejandro Zambra, from ‘Out Loud’, Not to Read (trans. Megan McDowell)