A review by thebooktrail88
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

5.0

Visit the locations in the book

This is a wonderfully captivating and fascinating read on so many levels. How to describe it? It’s an experience, a visit to a country as it goes through the assassination of two of its politicians and the consequences and history of the country as a result.

It’s not a linear or straightforward read by any means but then life and history are complex and the stories wrapped in stories wrapped in history is a weave of wonder. Is that the best way to describe this book? You have to experience it for yourself to find out.

I do think this is a very interesting way of putting a book together and the story of an entire country. Bogota is highly featured as are some of the more gruesome parts of the city, but this is more than a murder trail, it’s an overview of a country in crisis. It’s a book that reads fluently with snippets of newspaper articles, quotes from authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s a mix of fact and fiction, history and memories of that history.

History isn’t just “facts” – it’s an interpretation of what remains after the event – the shape of the ruins. Don’t they say the history books are written by the winners ?

.there are truths that don’t happen in those places, truths that nobody writes down because they’re invisible. There are millions of things that happen in special places… they are places that are not within the reach of historians or journalists. They are not invented places… they are not fictions, they are very real: as real as anything told in the newspapers. But they don’t survive. They stay there, without anybody to tell them.

Highly recommended and a very insightful and thought -provoking read.