Do You Have To Ask Neighbors Before Fence

In search of the lost journals Julio Ramón Ribeyro

In search of the lost journals Julio Ramón Ribeyro

H. By Diego Zuñiga
Book Review of El Mercurio, Sunday March 27, 2011

In that room there are shelves full of books. And notebooks. And archiving. In that room, Julio Ramón Ribeyro wrote stories, parts of his novels, diaries, many pages of his journals. Of those in Temptation of failure, which compiles from 1950 to 1978 - but also those still unpublished. Journals about his life in Paris and other travel Germany, Belgium and Spain, as well as their returns to Lima.

In that room, at different times, two young writers through the same experience almost epiphanic: a day in the eighties, Ribeyro let them in and showed them his day when not even think about publishing. Both young writers-Santiago Gamboa (Ulysses syndrome) and Guillermo Niño de Guzmán (Horses midnight) - entered the room and saw the same thing: the bookshelves and part of them-on the shelf nearest the Floor-, notebooks, many notebooks and binders with the daily life of Julio Ramón Ribeyro.

Niño de Guzman says: "All afternoon I leaf through random left, I will, and I found memorable passages." And Gamboa says: "I sat on the floor and began to see. Things by hand, leaves of hotels, last day machine, something extraordinary."

According to Gamboa, was 4 000 leaves. According to Alfredo Bryce Echenique-Ribeyro endearing friend who also read, some time, his diaries before published-were more than 50 notebooks and folders. According to James Campodonico, the editor who published the first volumes of Temptation failure (in Peru was published in three volumes), had to publish material from seven to nine volumes more. That is, many, many more pages than the 704 that contains the temptation of failure.

This story is on these pages: those that were unpublished, which are stored in a bank in Paris, because, as noted by several friends and editors Ribeyro, Alida Cordero, his widow has not wanted to publish. Those ranging from 1979 to 1994-year-Peruvians who died just as he had won the Juan Rulfo Award and his work began to be recognized.

What happened to newspapers?

At some point, the story of Julio Ramón Ribeyro merges with the history books. Read temptation or failure of the dumb The word "complete" his stories seem to be the best proof that life and work here, almost completely melted. Because reading a story like "Only for smokers," a defense of smoking and, incidentally, a portrait of the years when operated at Ribeyro, twice, cancer-or revise any page of his diaries, is, at times the same exercise.

"It remained only that: I have to operate. The doctor told me of an ulcer has healed subcardial wrong and I obstructs the esophagus (...). There is not another option: go to the slaughterhouse," he writes, in his diary on January 4, 1973. And in "Only for smokers," he writes: "I woke up seven hours later as a beef cut and sewn like a rag doll (...). I'd rather not remember the weeks I spent in the hospital fed through a vein and then mush mouth they gave me in spoons. " Maybe that's why

Temptation of failure is a book so important. Because it explains part of the work of Ribeyro-which, of course, also be read without the key-autobiographical, but also because it is one of the most dazzling writers diaries of those who may have memory.

The introduction of daily Ribeyro announces that it will be ten or twelve volumes that make up this book, only managed to publish the first three-, leaving in the air all the unpublished material. What happened to those newspapers?

"I saw them. The agreement I had with Julio Ramon, was that I publish all the papers," says Campodonico. This occurred in the early nineties, when Ribeyro decided to move all his new material from Paris to Lima and had no idea that those years would be the last of his life.

Ribeyro 's nephews

failure Temptation not only is a collection of autobiographical facts, but rather a book that wanders without problems, the ways of testing and the aphorism. Ribeyro talks about his life and his Peruvian friends lost in Paris, but also reflects on the work of his contemporaries ( praises City and dogs, Vargas Llosa, as well A world for Julius, Bryce Echenique ) on the exercise of reading and writing ("The great admiration that we wake up a writer is evident not so much that requires us to read his work, but reading their favorite reading") and its own authority figure "Writer discreet, shy, hardworking, honest, exemplary, marginal, intimate, neat, lucid: I have here some of the adjectives that critics have given me. Nobody ever called me a great writer. For surely I'm not a great writer, "he writes in 1976.

However, his work did achieve to get recognition while he lived, as has Bryce Echenique:" It was always a very sure of the genuineness of his writing and never sought to fashion. He stuck to what he was, and perhaps for that reason and because his work was mainly short stories, was left off the so-called Latin American boom, but was highly regarded by these writers. I will cite two when I met asked me to please submit them to Ribeyro: one was Julio Cortázar and the other was Juan Rulfo. The two had read, and introduced them because they had a blind admiration by Julio Ramón ".

But certainly, it was during his last years in Lima, since 1990, when he lived with greater certainty Ribeyro recognition of their work. Jorge Coaguila, ribeyriano expert and author of essays and interviews the author, met him at the time and recalls the legendary release of Volume 4 of the dumb The word, when the place was packed: "There were many expectations, because stories published since 1978, and for many it was the best storyteller of all time Peruvian. Among the things that happened that day, a nephew wanted to enter the auditorium and told a guard: 'I am the nephew of Ribeyro want to spend. " And he answered: 'I myself have said many, so I can not let go. Too many nephews' ".

The late

Ribeyro Friends For many, these years in Peru were the happiest of his life." During that time did not see it because I was in France but I know I received all the love in the world, as always drank moderately-smoked and was surrounded by fellow writers, all young, who deeply admired him, "says Bryce Echenique. These are the years, also, which is awarded the Juan Rulfo and travels for the first time, New York, where he would begin the end of his story. There he fell ill and returned to Lima, where he was hospitalized for no more out. Are precisely those years that are registered in unpublished diaries and Ribeyro, when he was dying, he decided that his brother Juan Antonio's look and keep them. "He told his brother to take them home, not wanting that newspapers remain adrift. He hoped that he could publish, but on the death of Julio Ramon, Alida noticed missing newspapers and asked to hand them over, "says Lucy Ipenza, Ribeyro widow's brother, who rose to read the newspapers, while he had, but prefer not to talk about its contents.

After that, the papers are returned to Paris in a bank, where he now lives Alida Cordero and who is responsible, according to those interviewed for this story, even those newspapers that remain unpublished.

Ribeyro 's heir A

Alida bother to think that Ribeyro recent years were the happiest of his life. "It's baloney. He was happy when we got married, he was happy when she had her son. She had lovers in Lima, but that's not just happiness, but had not returned (During the nineties, Ribeyro came back a couple of times to Paris). One thing is to be at work and have responsibilities, and another to stay on vacation without any responsibility other than to write, "says Alida about the years in Lima, when he only engaged in literature. The son who both had and that same name as Ribeyro, adds: "I remember I was very happy years in Paris. But it is true, the fact of not working and returning to their homeland, I think him very happy. "

He, who is director of photography, is the direct heir of the work of Julio Ramón Ribeyro. However is Alida who has managed the publications after the death of Peru. By asking the question of why did not wish to publish the unpublished diaries, she explains in the first instance: "I do not know if there is great interest from publishers. In those interested that the author is alive. The day you find a I certify major publishing a full distribution, will be awarded the second volume of Temptation failure. " And Julio Ramón son, added: "It's a very delicate, because my father corrected things and not know to what extent the last parts of the diary were reviewed. It would be a job that should be done seriously and carefully."

addition to this detail correction, Julio Ramón mentioned another: "I do not know if once an author has died, have to publish all their drafts, because I suppose there were things I did not like and pulled. So it's not a decision anyone." His mother concurs with this view, although he confesses that does not close completely, the ability to publish and this is accomplished, somehow, with the dedication he wrote to James Campodonico Ribeyro on the first page of a copy of The temptation of failure: "This is the first volume and I want to adhere to edit the next 10. A hug, Julio Ramon."