Impunidad?

La prensa Estado Unidense parece estar completamente enamorada con las historias de narcotráfico.

¿Cuando se escucha algo de los femicidios en Ciudad Juárez?

Aún cuando este crimen atroz sucede debajo de las narices de Estados Unidos (literalmente, porque es a una corta distancia de la frontera), a los Estado Unidenses parece interesarles más construir muros para que los mexicanos no se pasen la frontera, intensificar las redadas de inmigración e informarles a los gringos de la travesía que pasan las drogas que se consumen antes de llegar a Estados Unidos.

Según el articulo de prensa mexicana publicado en La Jornada el 28 de Octubre del 2009:

De 1993 a 2007 se documentaron 468 casos. La cifra más alta de muertes violentas de mujeres en ese periodo ocurrió en 2002, cuando hubo 42 muertas. Pero en los últimos dos años la cifra aumentó a 675. Casi 350 casos de años anteriores siguen impunes, entre ellos los 96 de 2008 y los registrados en 2009.

Estos asesinatos están documentados en un libro que les recomiendo a todos.

“2666″ de Roberto Bolaños.

Este libro es una Biblia. Te lo tienes que saborear. Son cuatro libros en uno y hay que leerlo con mucho detenimiento para no perderte los detalles, a veces grotescos, que incluye Bolaños.

Voy en la parte de los crímenes. A la que ansiaba llegar. Les contaré que pasa cuando acabe.

Missing the freedom

In the spirit that I just got into, I am going to tell everyone a little bit about the system that just trapped me.

I miss college.

I miss it more than what I missed Colombia when I moved to the United States.

I miss it more than what I miss eating luscious fruits every day with exotic names that stick to your tongue.

I miss it more than what I miss my father.

It is impossible to convey the feeling that just grabbed me. I miss college.

Maybe it was the freedom I felt this weekend in Gainesville, the town where my Alma Mater is located.

The freedom of not feeling guilty while enjoying an afternoon of leisure in the balcony, staring out… Thinking, making plans.

The freedom to drink and not worrying about my mother.

The freedom to sleep in the same bed with my boyfriend.

The freedom to take my car and just drive…

The freedom to stare vacantly into the crowd of a punk/rock show.

Well, now that I am back to reality and the lack of time to make plans, I feel more trapped than ever and had a spark of creativity. Here is my outburst!

Corporate America sucks.

It promises high-paying jobs for those who go to college. Jobs that will award you the freedom to travel once a year to an exotic destination, move to a trendy loft, go out to drink cosmopolitans with your friends and do whatever you want. Because you did the right thing. You went to college. You graduated cum laude from a great school.

It is a lie. And I am living it.

La loca de la casa

“Sabiamente, Henry James siempre les advertía a los escritores que no debían poner a un loco como personaje central de una narración, sobre la base de que al no ser loco moralmente responsable, no habría verdadera historia que contar.” Gore Vidal– De Delirio por Laura Restrepo.

Es curioso que Laura Restrepo escoja esta cita para abrir un libro acerca de un personaje que ha perdido la cabeza.

¿Será que lo que quiere decir es que Agustina, su personaje principal, está pretendiendo estar loca?

Pués yo pienso que la locura es un estado muy comodo para los seres humanos. No solo las personas que están deprimidas o locas se escapan de sus responsabilidades, si no que también tienen toda la atención que sus personalidades demandantes exige.

En el caso de Agustina, este estado le permite mantenerse al margen de las estrictas reglas de la sociedad Bogotana y encerrarse en su propio mundo a explorar los miedos que una niñez traumática le trajo.

En verdad, no la culpo.

Como si no fuera suficiente seguir con las absurdas reglas de la sociedad Bogotana, a la pobre Agustina le tocó tener un padre abusivo y ver como el maltrataba a su hermanito.

Para mi que Agustina tiene todo el derecho a refugiarse en si misma y escaparse en un manto de locura.

La loca de la casa, como dice mi madre que es terapeuta, me persigue siempre. Yo siempre le digo a mi madre que las personas con depresión o locura son gente rica. Al menos Agustina lo es. Después de todo la gente sin dinero tiene que trabajar y no tiene tiempo de pensar en sus traumas o de explorar el pasado.

Por eso digo que una enfermedad como la demencia es muy comoda.

Del vinculo que pongo, quiero que noten los síntomas.

Estos tres llamaron mi atención:

• sólo preocupado por sí mismo (egocentrismo)
• control deficiente del temperamento
• incapacidad para desenvolverse o interactuar en situaciones personales o sociales
• incapacidad para conservar el empleo

The true meaning of local color

I tasted Gabriela, the sweet and salty snacks, the progress of Ilhéus, the bitter flavor of machines coming and the cachaça.

I sensed the smell of clove. The cocoa beans falling out and releasing sweet fragrances.

I saw Gloria sitting on her window, longing for passion and a man willing to defy the most powerful man in town just for a night in her bed. I saw Mundinho Falcao arriving with progress to Ilhéus.  I saw Gabriela hips dancing as she walked and her beautiful cinnamon-colored skin and the red rose she left on Nacib’s bar at lunchtime.

“Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon” by Jorge Amado was a feast for my senses.

Even as I keep my fingers holding the last pages of the book to use the Brazilian-terms glossary, going back and forth to understand the food, the drinks and the people of the interior of Brazil, I am enchanted by the colors distilling from this novel. They truly project inside of me with ochre tones, a wide array of yellows, oranges and greens that take me back to another time– a land stained by jagunços were love can truly flourish.

Nacib and Gabriela make me a believer. There is nothing better to make you feel just plain, good inside as a love story. And even more when the characters are from different social levels and manage to put that aside and let loose a passion that is marked and stained by the events brought by progress in Ilhéus.

I am really longing to feel the weight of someone’s leg on my tights while I sleep. Having someone call me “Bié.”

My blog is all about spreading some insight about great books. “Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon” by Jorge Amado is by far one of the greatest love stories I have ever lived. I am sure I will be writing more about this book soon after I am done with the last chapter. I got a little ahead of myself, but my fingers could literally not wait any longer to broadcast the feel-good sense of satisfaction this book brought to my life.

Thanks Andie.

Roberto Bolaño’s “The Savage Detectives”

Reminiscent of Julio Cortázar’s “Hopscotch,” “The Savage Detectives” already makes me feel in Mexico City during the 1970’s. That feeling of belonging to a literary group and hearing what each member has to say, makes me feel almost the same was I felt in relation to Maga’s relationship with Oliveira in “Hopscotch.”

What I am enjoying the most out of Bolaño’s book is the use of different perspectives to tell a story. It is as if the reader is living it too. I feel like a journalist, interviewing everyone at the scene of a crime. I get to hear what everyone has to say. I am deeply intrigued to know more about Cesárea Tinarejo and why she is omnipresent in the book.

La persistencia de su memoria

Estaba parado en medio de las enfermeras de un hospital.

Ellas, fascinadas, lo llamaban novio mientras el hacia su entrada triunfal por los pasillos, mirándolas sonrojado con su semblante en alto y una actitud de príncipe Persa.

El, muy coqueto, batía sus largas pestañas negras, mientras escondía y revelaba la luz de sus grandes ojos cafés. Realmente pensaba que ellas estaban enamoradas de él y que su amor infantil era correspondido por estás mujeres de caderas grandes y exageradas por sus ceñidos uniformes.

Un harén de hermosas mujeres que no tenían ojos para ningún otro hombre. Ese era su inocente sueño.

Su madre lo llevaba del pequeño al hospital para revisiones de rutina, siempre tuvo buena salud y fue un niño feliz, rodeado de todo lo que le daba su mamá.

Era la luz de sus ojos, su niño especial.

Su carita pequeña miraba el sol de medio día a la salida del hospital. No tenía idea de que las enfermeras muy seguramente ya tenían otro novio, mas pequeño, pero jamás tan encantador como el.

Todavía sus oscuras pupilas vagan en el rincón derecho de sus ojos, mientras recuerda la escena en el hospital. El niño esta atrapado en ese cuerpo de adulto, buscando la oportunidad de escapar por sus propios poros al recordar estos episodios fugaces; sus primeros amores con las enfermeras.

Su sonrisa todavía tiene el mismo encanto que enamoró a las enfermeras, su carita todavía tiene rasgos infantiles. Mientras recuerda, sus ojos se iluminan, recordando su infancia en su pequeño país. El lugar donde el es el rey Persa en un hospital, donde el mar rodea todo su mundo y donde el ambiente adquiere un tono amarillo de ensueño al atardecer.

Gioconda Belli transported me, yet again

Not a curious and careless seductress, as Gioconda Belli puts it, Eve was not as guilty as it may appear from the Genesis story.

After all, she was human as we all are and experiencing life was for her the beginning of history.

In Gioconda Belli’s latest book, “The Infinity in the Palm of her Hand,” the story of Adam and Eve as a couple is further explained. The journey of these two characters takes the reader from the time when they were in paradise, to when Eve bit the fig, as Belli explains, to when the first murder takes place.

Yet what I really love about this book is the sexual attraction between Adam and Eve.

Not only were they the fist couple to ever have sex, but they also had no notion of how this would happen at all. Belli makes an excellent job describing this first encounter and how their love was he beginning of history. In the book, their love takes a primal aspect because they are seeking survival, and they are both very much in touch with their sexuality almost at the same level with hunger.

Adam and Eve, as Belli portrayed them, remind me of how simple love, and sex, really are.

Un final un poco decepciónante

Después de cruzar los Pirineos con Lucia, de haber vivido la ocupación del Tercer Reich en Francia, de haber peleado imaginariamente la contra-guerra de la Resistencia, de haber explorado los confines de la mente del amnésico Jules y de haber visto de cerca la vida de una de las putas de Henri Lafont, me parece que Juan Manuel de Prada se quedo corto de imaginación al terminar “El Séptimo Velo.”

No le quiero dañar el final a nadie– ya que después de leer mas de 600 paginas me parecía que seguiría recorriendo la Europa de la Resistencia—pero al final, me pareció que le falto una conclusión digna de esta novela.

Para mi, fue como si al revelárseme la historia de Jules y al descubrir lo que se encuentra debajo del séptimo velo, hayan cortado la microfilmina de un film y me dejasen con una historia inconclusa.

De todas formas, este libro me pareció una de las obras mejor investigadas que he leído últimamente y abrió mis ojos a los efectos de la guerra. Además, me hizo pensar en la amnesia selectiva y como la memoria funciona de maneras misteriosas, haciéndonos olvidar todo aquello que no queremos recordar.

Juan Manuel de Prada me convenció.

Women’s guilt trip

Eve was blamed for making Adam bite the apple — or fig, as Gioconda Belli argues– and of being expelled from paradise.

But was Eve given the chance to explain her actions?

Last saturday, I went to Nova Southeastern University for the literary fair. There, I got to ask Gioconda Belli herself how is it that she picks out her female characters.

In the past, I’ve felt that she picked those very special women in history who were somehow misunderstood, judging by her argument defending Juana de Castilla in her book “The Scroll of Seduction.” Now I know, thanks to her answer, that the characters pick her and that in the case of Eve, the character has been a life-long obsession of Belli.

When she was discussing her latest novel, “Infinity in the Palm of her Hand,” Belli discussed guilt as the main theme in a women’s life, relating this theme to her personal life and the choices she made while raising her children. Belli described herself as a “guerrilla with a stroller,”  making me think about my own life as a writer. 

Also, Belli read a passage from her book, describing the first time Adam and Eve made love. This passage really makes me think about the wise choice Belli took, as a writer, of choosing these characters because of the unexplored territory she uncovered. Not only was this act the first ever sexual act, according to the Bible, but these characters discovered their own bodies as a result of their own awareness toward mortality. After all, there was no need to reproduce when they were going to be eternal; and when they were expelled from paradise, they discovered guilt and sex simultaneously.  

Lastly, Belli mad me think about something entirely new. Adam and Eve are such virgin characters, that they don’t even have a childhood because they were created adults and not babies. Then again, I have to give it up to Belli and her wit to make me aware of such a fact.

Little insight

When I write up in my mind, I imagine two different scripts– the things people say and the things they want to say. 

In “El Séptimo Velo,” or “The Seventh Veil,” Juan Manuel de Prada gives insight into the characters by doing exactly this. He mentions those things characters say to each other while paraphrasing what they wish they could say and don’t. But what I like the most about these insights, is that he explains the reasons behind the characters’ silence. 

De Prada is taking it to the next step, for me, because he goes deep into the character soul by showing me what they wish they could say.