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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
To be a critic of a corrupt government takes a certain amount of bravery. However, Nietzsche said, "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.." This sets the table for Juan Gabriel Vasquez's new novel, Reputations.
Javier Mallarino is a famous political caricaturist in Colombia for the past thirty years. He has faced threats from powerful officials. These threats are enough to end his marriage and force him to live on the outskirts of Bogota. However, an incident early in his career turns the tables against his enemies and would cement his legend. He becomes the one to be feared. However, doubts over the incident lead to his own self-examination.
Vasquez's work brilliantly examines the concept of a reputation. Once established, it proceeds you wherever you go, both good and bad. However, once the accuser's reputation is called into question, does that make amends or does it lead to more destruction? A short introspective work that's difficult to put down.
Javier Mallarino is a famous political caricaturist in Colombia for the past thirty years. He has faced threats from powerful officials. These threats are enough to end his marriage and force him to live on the outskirts of Bogota. However, an incident early in his career turns the tables against his enemies and would cement his legend. He becomes the one to be feared. However, doubts over the incident lead to his own self-examination.
Vasquez's work brilliantly examines the concept of a reputation. Once established, it proceeds you wherever you go, both good and bad. However, once the accuser's reputation is called into question, does that make amends or does it lead to more destruction? A short introspective work that's difficult to put down.
Clever and sharp, this novella is short but impactful. Vasquez has lots of interesting things to say about memory, power, and public perception. The prose is powerful and the book is engrossing even though not much happens. The weight of the story and complexity of the prose makes you read it slowly, so it feels longer than its 193 pages. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is that essentially this is a story about a young girl's sexual assault that comes back to haunt her in adulthood, but the book isn't really about her at all. Samanta is just a vehicle for Mallarino's character development-- her appearance forces him to think about his life and his impact, but her own thoughts and feelings about the whole thing are barely considered. Even the parts about going to see the widow are obviously more about Mallarino and his feelings than Samanta and hers. It feels pretty gross to use sexual assault as the impetus for someone else's character development .
Sagan sjálf er mjög góð. Þemun er mannorð, minni og hagsmunir og býr höfundurinn til mjög dramatíkst andsúmsloft í þessari meitluðu sögu. Engu er ofaukið og þýðingin skrambi fín. Þetta er bók sem ég hefði ekki lesið ef Benedikt bókaútgáfa hefði ekki ráðist í útgáfu á þýðingu hennar. Það er staðreynd.
This sits on the cusp of a 4-start for me. The prose itself is very engaging and well-written. I liked the exploration of the passing of time and memory. (Also it's very short and I had fallen behind on my reading goal)
Ultimately thought the plot line that led to the ending just sort of fell flat. Also there's a substantial amount of random detail that felt like distracting filler.
Ultimately thought the plot line that led to the ending just sort of fell flat. Also there's a substantial amount of random detail that felt like distracting filler.
A meandering, dreamlike tale which takes a simple premise, which in less capable hands may only have been fodder for a short story, and draws a refractive novella from it, sinking in and out of the past and its main character's thoughts to lend a depth I didn't think possible.
It's almost plotless, just an old political cartoonist remembering a long-ago incident and now unsure of the actual truth and fictions that grew from it.
It is of course poetically structured but very realistically created, avoiding neat twists or reveals or endings. It is as much an evocation as prose can be striving for poetry: the capture of an emotion. I don't know how you'd classify it or figure it but it is beautiful if ephemeral.
It's almost plotless, just an old political cartoonist remembering a long-ago incident and now unsure of the actual truth and fictions that grew from it.
It is of course poetically structured but very realistically created, avoiding neat twists or reveals or endings. It is as much an evocation as prose can be striving for poetry: the capture of an emotion. I don't know how you'd classify it or figure it but it is beautiful if ephemeral.
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Como en El ruido de las cosas al caer, el barrio de La Candelaria en Bogotá y una casa en las afueras de esa ciudad son los escenarios para una historia que, como en esa novela, se juegue mucho con el pasado, como este puede cambiar, como ciertas revelaciones pueden cambiarlo y también nuestro presente y futuro. Y como nuestras revelaciones pueden cambiárselo a otro ¿Debería llamarse Las revelaciones antes que Las reputaciones? No necesariamente, porque la historia gira también en relación a como la imagen de una persona puede cambiar, ser adorado u odiado, sin darle a estos cambios importancia o explicación válida. Una novela fuerte y conmovedora, que maneja bien lo no dicho, como lo hacía Joyce, al quien menciona. Que nos envuelve de forma amena con el mundo de los caricaturistas. Y que, además, sabe jugar bien con los tiempos de la historia, con los flashbacks y la evolución del personaje principal porque "Es muy pobre la memoria que solo funciona hacia atrás".
“The memory has a marvellous capacity to remember the forgotten, its existence and its stalking, and thus allow us to stay alert when we don’t want to forget and forget when we choose to.”
Javier Mallarino is a political cartoonist, revered and respected by the public of Colombia, and feared by the ones who bow down to corruption. His influence is immense, his art is a weapon against all that is rotten. Now, the time has come to be honoured as he deserves. But all is not well. One of his daughter’s friends from childhood comes to visit him. Her presence brings back memories that are too painful to be remembered. But Samanta WANTS to remember. She deserves to know whether she had fallen victim of a horrific act and Javier realises that sometimes, a comic strip in a newspaper may have dubious repercussions.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez masterfully depicts the feverish desire and demand for justice, the nectar of acceptance by the public and the inevitable ‘’god’’ status within the community of a land where balance is sensitive and condemnation is so difficult and yet, so easy. The writer lets us into Javier’s mind and there we witness all his doubts, his fears and his satisfaction of helping an innocent soul find peace.
But is there peace? And where do the limits of criticising end? What happens when threats and fear enter your peaceful home because you are doing the work that the authorities are unable or unwilling to perform?
A magnificent novel by one of the most important writers of our times.
‘’It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.’’
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
Javier Mallarino is a political cartoonist, revered and respected by the public of Colombia, and feared by the ones who bow down to corruption. His influence is immense, his art is a weapon against all that is rotten. Now, the time has come to be honoured as he deserves. But all is not well. One of his daughter’s friends from childhood comes to visit him. Her presence brings back memories that are too painful to be remembered. But Samanta WANTS to remember. She deserves to know whether she had fallen victim of a horrific act and Javier realises that sometimes, a comic strip in a newspaper may have dubious repercussions.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez masterfully depicts the feverish desire and demand for justice, the nectar of acceptance by the public and the inevitable ‘’god’’ status within the community of a land where balance is sensitive and condemnation is so difficult and yet, so easy. The writer lets us into Javier’s mind and there we witness all his doubts, his fears and his satisfaction of helping an innocent soul find peace.
But is there peace? And where do the limits of criticising end? What happens when threats and fear enter your peaceful home because you are doing the work that the authorities are unable or unwilling to perform?
A magnificent novel by one of the most important writers of our times.
‘’It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.’’
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
So certainties acquired at some moment in the past could, in time, stop being certainties: something could happen, a fortuitous or deliberate event, and suddenly all evidence is invalidated, the truth ceases to be true, the seen ceases to have been seen, and the occurrence to have occurred; all lose their place in time and space, are devoured and passed on to another world, or to another dimension of our world, a dimension we don't know. But where is it? Where does the past go when it changes? In which folds of our world are they hiding, cowardly and ashamed, the events that had been unable to remain, to keep being true in spite of the wear and tear of time, to win their place in human history?
Από κοινού με τα βιβλία του Philip Roth, ο Vásquez δεν αποφεύγει να θέτει τις ομιλίες μεταξύ των ηρώων σε περίοπτη θέση, επιτρέποντας στον αναγνώστη να βυθιστεί πλήρως στα γεγονότα και να μη μένει μόνο στην επιφάνεια της δράσης. Στο σχετικά μικρό μυθιστόρημα, που αφορά έναν πολιτικό γελοιογράφο και τις αντιφάσεις του ως ατελής, πολύπλοκος κι όμως αξιόλογος άνθρωπος, ο συγγραφέας αναμειγνύει, χρωματίζοντας σταδιακά το παρόν και το παρελθόν, και ταυτόχρονα εξερευνά τα θέματα της μνήμης, του εγώ, της φήμης, με την Κολομβία να αποτελεί ακόμη μια φορά τον κεντρικό χαρακτήρα του έργου.
Beautiful and elegant. This reminds me of Patrick Modiano.