PEDRO PARAMO by Juan Rulfo
A book review from hellish inability
Walking down the steps at Piccadilly Circus to get on the Piccadilly line and a familiar unfamiliar voice calls out from the bottom
“Could anyone spare a small something to help me out?”
“Could anyone spare a little something?”
I think about making an explanation of inability when my bottle unscrews the final mm & my genmaicha empties out onto the floor where he sits—oh god I’m so sorry I go to press the help point on the platform & worry about looking like I’ve walked away very nonchalantly—then I’m back, “someone’s coming”. I start offering random things from my bag
“Deep moisture mist?”
“Na. I’m pretty thirsty though have you got any water?”
“Yes. It’s genmaicha—” I hand him the (water) bottle and what’s left of the green tea inside,
“It’s yummy” I explain
And then I show him my empty purse just so he knows I’m not lying & then I apologise once more for the tea in his vicinity & start to walk away—which is when I notice the stack of books where his money cup is. I spin around & crouch down half-blindly
“What you got?”
He takes the cup off and starts spreading:
“Siddhartha.”
“Something by Kenzaburo Oe.”
“You know Stoner, this is his other one.”
“The third book in My Struggle.”
“Mythologies—by that French guy.”
“Jung—”
“But this one” he stops. “This, has been the find of the year.”
He holds up a slim book with a barren image on the front. Find of the year? He beats the book in the air in front of me like a half-dead humming bird. I believe him. I take out my diary—
“Have it.” He hands it to me.
“Hold on.” I open my bag. I take out THE ISLAND which I’m struggling to get through for the second-time and offer it meekly, “it’s also Spanish-sounding.”
“Fiction?” (alarmed)
“Yeh, of course” (understanding)
He nods alright. The deal is done. When my train arrives I fall into it feeling high. This is exactly how I like to get my next book. (I know I have to come back and give him something else because I don’t entirely back poor Ana María—I turn around just before the doors shut,)
“What’s your name?”
“Stephen.” He doesn’t look at me. I’m Tilly I think I say unnecessarily & then I’m off. I see the guy from upstairs mopping up the floor after me.
PEDRO PARAMO by Juan Rulfo
1955, n/a, Spanish
When I open it I see the markings straightaway. I assume it’s an illustration but then I see they’re everywhere—fields of capital letters without breath. Lucy has always been a spokesperson for noble pervdom—saying just how much she likes to find other people’s inscriptions in books. This is just that. Somewhere in my horrible world-conscious maturity I stopped scribbling in mine because I thought it would increase their shelf-life—how wrong I was. This book here covered in both standard annotation and conventional madness (sentences without spaces) is treasure. I feel stupid now, asking his name. Shouldn’t I have asked something more sensible like,
“What is it about this book for you?”
Then I could bring him something useful next time. I know he gets thirsty and I know he likes books. In the grand scheme of things a name is a key. “Stephen, I’ve brought you this.”—I see the numbers in the back. A whole double-spread of finely-printed telephone numbers and names. Why did he give this to me? Did he forget? Has he committed them to memory? Fucks sake. What if I called one? The names are strange: Shan, China Flash Rocket Bigsy Jingles Crisis Fizz Frenchy Jimmy Kay Marlon Mix Mo Sleeper Two Jocks Terry and a Soda. That’s not all of them either. I’m learning more: Stephen likes the rain. In a blank space he’s written:
AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING? PRAYING?
NO, GRANDMA, I WAS JUST WATCHING THE RAIN
Marvellous? And then here drizzle is underlined... and then here, another description of the rain...drops... sliding... down the windows in..thick..threads...like...tears...we have that in common I nod. My head is moving slowly towards the unknown. I decide to lean into this scene & stay on the same train on the Piccadilly line up & down so I can return it to him in a few hours time.
My first impression of this novel is of an older lover. I feel the tower of potential experience clamouring above me and for the first time in years I feel I have not experienced even half of the emotions life has to offer me—an expression which is bit piggy cos it posits life as an all you can experience buffet—gross!
Every morning the town shudders with passing carts. They come from all over, loaded down with saltpeter, with ears of corn, with hay. Their wheels creak, making the windows rattle, waking everyone. At that same hour the ovens open and everything smells of freshly baked bread. Suddenly, the sky thunders. Rain falls. Perhaps spring is on its way. When you’re there you’ll get used to all the “suddenlies,” my son.
But what at first promises bounty and scope soon closes in around me. I’m bewildered. This novel is not a basket casting me down a narrative stream this novel is a cage—or a maze—and as it turns out, page after page, I’m lost. Perpetually. It seems to be about a perpetual everywhere which is also a perpetual nowhere. The specifics of existence spread thin on an ancestral map. The first thing to note plainly is that Juan Rulfo is Mexican. This novel is full of jokes about the dead. How unusual that is—how crass—for the living to make jokes about the dead? About the ghosts walking in circles—about the ghosts not being up to date—about the ghosts being clammy and difficult—it’s a kind of Ghost Awareness Program this book (most ghosts don’t realise they’re dead.) It’s an economical book—it’s a slim book, but it’s filled with mystery. It is not a story book. It is a wriggling riddle under my thumb-book & I’m not sure if I have the patience to not let it wriggle away—I’m dumb-founded on every page. I look up to the tube map for nothing. I’ll be spending a lot of time on this train.
But at least have a key through this maze: Stephen.
I will have to ask Stephen what it all means and why is it so good? Of course these questions aren’t the keys. You have to ask the right question to get the nut. What will I ask Stephen to find out what counts in this book?
Have you ever heard a dead man moaning?
No I haven’t. “All the better” says the lady in my book. Out of despair I turn to the Foreword written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. GGM is madly euphoric. To be gushed over like this by Garcia Marquez—trust me it is an orgasm to last a life time. He recounts the extended moment when he first read PEDRO PARAMAR—this night he could hardly sleep for very excess of re and re reading it. What a nightmare. Not sharing sentiments with Garcia Marquez is one thing. But what about the exceptionally well-read homeless man waving it in the air?
“Find of the year.”
What does Stephen share with Garcia Marquez that I don’t?
I close the book & read the back in continued desperation—
Writers and artists including Jorge Luis Borges, Günter Grass, Mario Vargas Llosa, Werner Herzog and Valeria Luiselli have all praised PEDRO PARAMO as a timeless literary masterpiece. The novel was selected as one of a hundred core works of world literary heritage in 2002 survey of writers by the Nobel Institute.
Now I really want to throw the book across this semi-crowded carriage. It is the object (proof) of my own stupidity. But of course: the man begging in the underground is smarter than me. That’s the real problem. I can handle the Noble Institute towering above me but not him—it’s his relationship with this book that I’m dementedly jealous of. I close my eyes and see him waving the book in front of my face like a window-wiper from hell. Find of the year. I hate him. I’m still struggling to go further than one paragraph at a time. At this rate I won’t be back home before midnight. The novel is impenetrable. I return to the orderly certainty of the foreword again. This time I note how Gabriel Garcia Marquez calls this book a “poetic work of the highest order” and I decide that’s all you need to know. No wonder I’m struggling. I’m not very interesting with poetry. Why not? Because I’m so mercurial and productive. What’s the difference between people who like poetry & people who read novels? If we split them down the middle and make them stand at either ends of the bar the people who read poetry will probably have more drugs. I’ll ask them—
Where the fuck are you supposed to read poetic works of the highest order?
Oh on the floor of the underground probably—great. Thanks i’ll try it. I change trains to go back into town. I want to find Stephen again. He shouldn’t have given me this cryptic book. I would rather do nothing than try to keep reading it. But when I get finally resurface at Piccadilly Circus Stephen is nowhere to be found. And I’m stuck with it.
[ENDS]