This episode of reading around the world brings me to Mexico and Pedro Paramo. It’s a country that I’ve spent a lot of time in, as a tourist and a Fulbrighter, and I love it so much. This book is a classic of magical realist literature in a new translation that shows why it has inspired writers including Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Here’s what’s cool about the story: it’s told in layers. At times, it’s not clear who is narrating, because Juan Rulfo shifts the tale being told the same way that an earthquake messes with geologic layers.
I realized pretty early on that different people were telling their stories simultaneously, but I didn’t realize why there were jumbled together until I was pretty far along. And then I understood why this became such an influential book for writers working in Spanish.
So stick it out!
A friend told me about the experience of reading the book in Spanish. She is an American but with deep fluency, and she said that non-native speakers would probably have a hard time understanding it. (She did, but it took some work.) I get that, because in translation, it took a while to get what was happening.
Two pieces of good news: one, it’s a short book, so “taking a while” means you aren’t in the dark for long. And two, once it comes together, it’s amazing.
