RIBEYRO: FREEZING WHEN EFFORTS For Orlando Guillen Mazeyres
In his book of interviews with leading journalists of the press and television, "Rajesh's office," Pedro Salinas (Lima, 1963) holds an interesting dialogue Mario Vargas Llosa. What saddens Peru?, They ask the author of Journey to fiction and he replied that, generally, the Peruvian is inhibited, not one, but in all fields: "The Peruvian lacks enthusiasm. We are a country that lacks enthusiasm. Our enthusiasm is totally passengers, and most immediately followed by discouragement, a lack of continuity. " Then Salinas used a term very futbolero (that you said that we played, sometimes we play nice, but we never make goals) to continue giving the novelist rope: a Peruvian not end?
Vargas Llosa uses a very image of Lima, but not exclusive of the capital, is something we all see everyday, especially when the plane is about to depart or land and sea of \u200b\u200bunfinished homes and buildings seizes amorphous picture-postcard ranging from Piura to Tacna, something we can all see if we find around every corner of Arequipa: "In no city in the world and in Lima there are so many buildings are begun and then abandoned. To me that is a bit a reflection of national sensibility. After the initial effort inhibition arises, which is a paralyzing lack of conviction. So Peru is full of Peruvians who were going to be writers, and they were not. Peruvians would be painters, and were not. Peruvians who were to be musicians, and they were not. Peruvian lawyers would be extraordinary, and they were not. Why? Because on the way, as inhibited, lost momentum, lost enthusiasm. Efforts are frozen. It feels to me and it saddens me greatly demoralized. "
And surely, as good Peruvian, I feel that, today, I lost the urge, that froze me, I quit to change. I can run out of breath, but I have to keep reading, and thus returned to Ribeyro. Should not have.
It is well known that Julio Ramón Ribeyro is one of the teachers in the Peruvian and Latin American Short Stories (International received the Juan Rulfo, months before his death), but re-reading his stories is almost always found again with painful metaphors of the buildings started and then abandoned or distorted to prove to be misshapen, poor devils defeated by the routine or lack of fortune, self-esteem or anger. Peruvians who, like our forwards, not complete: they remain in the attempt, in front of arch rival. If you want to seduce a woman then fierce suffer setbacks, if they want to be successful entrepreneurs there is always something that leads to bankruptcy and, if you just want to escape, can not. Petrify. "Chance or fate? Both. Or none.
Ribeyro is a storyteller than as a few-and-PT in a few pages that national sensitivity soberly spoken of Vargas Llosa. What happens when efforts are frozen? We live a half, almost without a soul, wander around here and there sipping generous helpings of mediocrity confused with impotence or indifference.
long term
these lines I stop for a moment, looked out the window because the street noise makes me lose focus, there the front, everything is pure brick. Do not reach for the stucco? Do not be encouraged to paint the house? The question is stupid (frivolous to the clouds) if we think there are certainly other priorities. I want to go, touch the door and ask my neighbor why they never finished building his house. Then I discover that I have no home. Not even a brick, just a pile of books. Books: one, scrawled, in bold, like the characters ravaged Ribeyro, others intact, sleeping the sleep of the just, waiting ... as Ribeyro characters.
paralysis invades me, efforts will be frozen. Luckily, I finished writing this column. Or what is Worse, half did, as if to pay an unusual tribute to Ribeyro: becoming one of the characters ... Maybe I've always been ("a personage," Michael Corleone would say a resounding gesture of contempt). Yes, a personage. You have to be gentlemen and recognize, even at the risk of Vargas Llosa be disappointed ... again.
Miami, August 2009.
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