(urth) Pedro Paramo
Gwern Branwen
gwern0 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 12 22:34:45 PDT 2008
On 2008.04.12 18:24:00 -0500, Steven Hall <sghall at comcast.net> scribbled 2.2K characters:
> I recently read a piece on Slate about Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo
> (http://www.slate.com/id/2186109/). While reading about it, I couldn't help but notice
> certain similarities to Peace. From the article:
>
> Peculiar things start to happen on the page, things I've never seen in a book. The tenses
> switch back and forth, past to present and back again, sometime in the space of a single
> paragraph, until time itself becomes senseless. The stories begin to refract, shatter, and
> rebuild; pronouns multiply--I, he, she, you, stumbling over each other. Dialogue and
> thoughts are left unattributed. The perspectives shift from internal to external and back
> again, from Preciado to Paramo to Paramo's childhood love, Susana San Juan. "This town is
> full of echoes," one character says. "It's like they were trapped behind the walls or
> beneath the cobblestones. When you walk, you feel like someone's behind you, stepping in
> your footsteps. You hear rustlings. And people laughing. Laughter that sounds used up. And
> voices worn away by the years." And why? Because--the reader realizes this about the same
> time Preciado does--all these people are dead.
>
> Is anyone familiar with this novel? Any idea if Wolfe may have read it?
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
It's at least chronologically possible. _Peace_ was 1975, and apparently the abridged English translation published by Grove Press appeared in 1959 (<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFD71030F935A3575BC0A963958260>). But it strikes me as unlikely, because it was obscure for so long (and still isn't as famous as, say, _100 Years of Solitude_), and the 1959 translation is described as undistinguished.
--
gwern
FALN Security M5 out Fortezza 03 Missiles FLiR FLETC bullion
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