A man seeks his father...Pedro Paramo....
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This novel is one of the most highly rated of the 20th c latin-american classics,Gabriel Garcia Marquez wished he had written it and this slim novel has become possibly the first of the great novels from the 1950's
Brevity is the key here,within 122 pages this novel is full of backgrounds and what ifs, as ghosts haunt the streets of Colama,where the despot Pedro Paramo cast his evil eye many years before.
The skill in Rulfo's style is where he manages to make the novel seem longer,small paragraphs follow mini-chapters where the meat of the story is laid.The dying despot sitting as his town starves is a great image, still causing distress even as he is dying.
The clipped style hints at so much more,the lives long faded and the intrigues,murders and deaths. Rulfo manages to bring southern mexico into the northern lands with the rain,the crops,the Villastas and many other small elements in this tale.
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Regrettably, Reading This Felt as If Time Had Turned Backward
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Those who like novels where it often doesn't become unclear until the third or fourth read what's happening, who's speaking, who's listening, who's doing what, how most of the characters are related to each other, and how the series of events described are related to each other in time, would enjoy this novel. Otherwise, like me, they might not be able to appreciate it.
Mainly what I could grasp was that a man was looking for his father in a village that was a purgatory for dead sinners, where time turned backward. The father was the local landowner and a tyrant who'd committed many crimes. Eventually the searcher faded from the story. The historical background supplied by some other readers is valuable and enlightening but is immeasurably clearer in their descriptions than in the novel itself.
The novel consisted mostly of dialogue, with the features described above. There were also descriptions of the village and its surroundings. The atmosphere of the hot, bleak land and death and of the hopelessness of the characters was powerful. But for this reader, the book didn't need to continue for 120 pages. I might've been able to appreciate this surrealist masterpiece if it had been something closer in form to a short story, like some of the works in the same author's The Burning Plain, such as "Tell Them Not to Kill Me!" or "The Man."
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Lost in translation
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In her introduction Susan Sontag says that Garcia Marquez memorised the whole of 'Pedro Paramo'. She claims the book as a classic of world literature. And she remarks how - before he died - the author had personally told her that he wanted an "accurate and uncut English translation". If true, then Juan Rulfo will even now be out of his grave and haunting the publishers in the time-honoured 'magical realist' style. For this is a poor translation with basic grammatical errors ("She must of thought I'd forsaken her" and "I wondered if she were crazy"). The undifferentiated dialogue, strained poetic effects and complete absence of humour combine to give the effect of a confused, drab, and amateur radio play. Some might discern the shadow of an intelligent and allusive story behind the clumsy text, but this edition is of use mainly for students on a 'magical realism' course who can't read Spanish.
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A Mexican masterpiece
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You may not have heard of Juan Rulfo, but you've more than likely heard of the writers for whom his novella Pedro Páramo was a revelation - Márquez in particular, but also Fuentes, Asturias, Paz. It is a story with a deceptively simple plot: a man promises his dying mother that he will return to Comala, the town where she once lived, to meet his father, Pedro Páramo. So begins a story built on the experiences and reflections of different characters - alive and dead - narrating at different periods of time, whether in the days of Pedro Páramo's melancholy childhood, his rise as a despot, or the subsequent decline of Comala into a literal ghost town. In some sense a dictator novel, in others a family saga, a ghost tale or even a love story, Pedro Páramo is compulsive because of Rulfo's skill at conveying atmosphere, scene and believable irreality - what was later to be known as magic realism. The book is alive; terrible as it is, Comala is brilliantly painted and its inhabitants gritty, fatalistic and haunting. An indisputable classic of huge influence.
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A Classic Novel, Haunting & Poignant. A Must Read!
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Author Juan Rulfo's extraordinarily powerful novel, "Pedro Paramo," captures the essence of life in rural Mexico during the last years of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th, like no other work of fiction. Here, in a mere 124 pages, the author vividly portrays the radical social and economic changes which spurred the dramatic migration of the campesinos from ranchos and villages to the urban slums, where they could no longer live off the land, nor find work. Ghost towns mark the places where many had once flourished. I first read this masterpiece in English while living in Guadalajara, Mexico, over 25 years ago. I was absolutely captivated by the haunting story and by the fascinating characters. I reread the book a few years later, in Spanish, and was able to appreciate, first-hand, the authors skillful, nuanced use of language. After a series of surrealistic dreams, which turned my thoughts southward, I picked up another copy and began to read once more of the dry, deserted streets of Comala and the man who doomed the town and its inhabitants. I am amazed that the novel remains as fresh, magical and poignant as it did the first time around. I think Juan Rulfo's masterpiece takes on depth and texture with each reading. And it certainly proves true the maxim, "Good/great things come in small packages." Pedro Paramo, the son of failing landowners, was consumed with love for Susana San Juan. This intense passion lasted a lifetime. Eventually, Pedro's aging father and family died, and Susana moved away. Alone and lonely, he assumed control of the estate and unscrupulously did whatever he had to, fair and foul, to amass a fortune and build his empire. He married the heiress Dolores Preciado, took possession of her land and wealth, and sent her to live an isolated existence with her sister. His ranch, in Comala, the Media Luna, expanded with great success at the expense of others. However, the manipulative, exploitive patriarch would pay dearly, in spades in fact, for his greed and for the sorrow he brought to Comala and her people. Dolores Preciado, on her deathbed, extracts a promise from her son, Juan, to return to Comala to find his father and claim what is theirs. Juan narrates and guides the reader on his journey to the dusty, desolate village, now populated by ghosts, lost souls who murmur to him, sighing and complaining in desperate voices, until he believes that he too is dead. The story of Juan's experience, his search for identity and his heritage, is interwoven with the tale of his father, Pedro Paramo, and that of sad, beautiful Susana San Juan. The novel was first published in 1955 and has become a classic, not only in Spanish speaking countries, but worldwide, for its themes are universal. Margaret Sayers Peden's translation is a good one. This is a literary class and a truly great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
JANA
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