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Spanish to English: 2666 at the Goodman: Vulgar, Misogynist and Anti-Mexican
Source text - Spanish 2666 en el Goodman: vulgar, misógina y anti-mexicana
Febronio Zatarain
Roberto Bolaño es, de los narradores conocidos de habla hispana de fines del siglo XX, el único que puso su actividad literaria por encima de todo. Por eso no hay duda de que Los detectives salvajes es la última gran novela escrita en español en el siglo pasado.
El exceso del cigarrillo y del alcohol llevaron a Bolaño a ver la cercanía de la muerte; sabía que no había sido un padre ejemplar, y quiso compensar esa carencia asegurándoles a sus hijos un futuro, valiéndose de la escritura. He ahí la gran falla en los cimientos de 2666: puso a sus hijos por encima de la literatura, cuando todo gran artista pone su arte por encima de todo, hasta de su propia vida. Eso lo tenía claro Bolaño, e incluso en este trabajo fallido encontramos ecos de esta convicción en el pintor que se cercena una mano para volverla parte de uno de sus cuadros. Estoy seguro que si Bolaño hubiese estado vivo cuando su familia y la editorial Anagrama decidieron su publicación, no la hubiese permitido.
Otra de las grandes fallas de la novela es la ignorancia que tenía Bolaño sobre la vida en las ciudades fronterizas mexicanas así como de las culturas estadounidenses, en particular la afroamericana; por eso el personaje Quincy Williams, armado más que todo a partir de estereotipos, no convence. La escena más inverosímil sucede el día de la muerte de la madre de Quincy; él tiene que hacer un viaje de varias horas para llegar a la casa de su madre, en ésta se encuentra a una jovencita de quince años acompañando al cadáver ya vestido y arreglado por una vecina. Cualquier estadounidense sabe que un hecho así es imposible que se dé en los Estados Unidos.
No está demás señalar que para nada se siente la atmósfera de un barrio afroamericano. El lector no nota que Quincy es de raza negra hasta que el narrador lo dice. Por eso es inexplicable el Premio del Círculo de Críticos Nacional del Libro de Estados Unidos otorgado en 2008 a 2666.
Este premio ha causado tanto revuelo que llevó al Teatro Goodman a ponerla en escena. A veces de una mala novela, pensé, se ha hecho una excelente película; tal vez lo mismo suceda en el teatro.
La obra, en su primera parte, se maneja en un humor frívolo; aspecto que no me sorprendió porque yo mismo al leer este apartado de la novela sentí que leía una obra traducida al español; muchos pueden hacer una salvedad porque los cuatro personajes son críticos literarios de diferentes nacionalidades e idiomas; yo no la hago porque he leído cuentos de Jorge Luis Borges donde el protagonista es estadounidense, alemán o irlandés y jamás sentí que estuviese leyendo una traducción, sentía y siento que leo a Borges. Un excelente ejemplo: El atroz redentor Lazarus Morell.
En la segunda parte de la obra de teatro, pareciera en primer lugar un homenaje a Gregory Nava (Mi Familia, Selena) por esa cursilería que la obra emana cuando aparece Amalfitano con su hija o con su esposa; y en segundo lugar a Robert Rodríguez (El mariachi, Desperado) en las escenas que suceden en los antros de Santa Teresa. Es en estos antros donde la obra cae en lo vulgar, en lo sexista, en lo sensacionalista y en lo anti-mexicano. Hay un personaje que discursa sobre cómo se ha ido mejorando la raza mexicana mezclándose con la blanca, y antes ya se había hecho referencia a lo alto que era el presidente Fox; esta referencia es una grave inconsistencia cronológica porque su periodo presidencial inicia con el actual milenio, y el último suceso de la novela se da en 1999.
En la parte de los crímenes, de los feminicidios, se agregan dos características más: la obscenidad y la misoginia; esto gracias a una infinidad de chistes de mal gusto, Además hay que agregar un enlistado descriptivo muy tedioso de un centenar de asesinadas. Este tedio también se siente en la novela; hay que tenerle mucha fe a Bolaño para seguir leyéndola.
Hasta aquí uno llega a la conclusión de que todos los hombres mexicanos son violadores, que sólo están buscando la oportunidad para involucrarse en el crimen. Inevitablemente sospeché que cada estadounidense trae un Donald Trump adentro, y sentí algo de temor cuando presencié la ovación de pie del público.
La última parte de la obra como del libro giran en torno a la vida del personaje central de esta obra: el escritor misterioso alemán Benno von Archimboldi. Este apartado es el mejorcito tanto en la novela como en la obra de teatro, pero no rebasan la mediocridad: no llegan a ser arte.
Esta actitud contra lo mexicano está muy arraigada en el inconsciente colectivo estadounidense, y se manifiesta lo mismo en conservadores y liberales de manera sorpresiva en la vida diaria. La obra de teatro 2666 en el Goodman es una prueba fehaciente de esta afirmación.
Translation - English 2666 at the Goodman: Vulgar, Misogynist and Anti-Mexican
Febronio Zatarain
Of the well-known writers who wrote in Spanish near the end of the last century, Roberto Bolaño is unique in that he put the literary life above everything else. That's one reason why The Savage Detectives is the last great novel written in Spanish in the 20th Century.
A life filled to excess with cigarettes and alcohol brought Bolaño within sight of an early death; he knew he hadn't been good father and he wanted to make up for this failing by assuring his children a future, paid for by his writing. There lies the great flaw in the foundations of 2666: he put his children above literature, when a great artist puts his art above everything, even his own life. That was clearly what Bolaño wanted, and even in this failed work we find echoes of this commitment in a minor character, a painter who gives own hand to be part of a painting. I'm certain that if Bolaño had been alive when his family and the Anagrama publishing house decided to go ahead with the release of 2666, he wouldn't have permitted it.
The other great failing of this novel proceeds from the Bolaño's ignorance of the way people live in the Mexican cities along the northern frontier, and his ignorance as well of life in the United States, especially among African-Americans: his character Quincy Williams, constructed out of stereotypes, fails to convince. The scene that rings most false comes on the day of the death of the Quincy's mother. He has to make a journey of several hours to arrive at his mother's house, in which he finds a 15-year-old girl sitting by the corpse, which a neighbor has already dressed and made up to look nice. Anyone who lives here knows that just wouldn't happen in the United States. No further proof is needed that Bolaño knew nothing of life in an African-American community. The reader doesn't even notice that Quincey is Black until the narrator mentions it. It makes no sense that that 2666 won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008.
This prize created such a stir that the Goodman Theater felt the need to put novel on stage. Now sometimes a bad novel has been made into an excellent movie; perhaps the same thing could happen in the theatre.
The stage play (in English, of course) manages, in its first part, a frivolous humor, which didn't surprise me because I myself felt in this part of the novel that I was reading a work translated into Spanish; some readers may give Bolaño a pass here because the four main characters are literary critics of different nationalities; I won't do so because I've read stories by Jorge Luis Borges where the hero is American, German or Irish and it never felt that I was reading a translation; I felt and still feel that I was reading Borges. An excellent example: El atroz redentor Lazarus Morell (The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell).
The second part of the the stage play starts off with what seems like an homage to Gregory Nava (Mi Familia, Selena) because of cuteness that fills the theatre like perfume when Amalfitano appears with his daughter or his wife; then it becomes an homage to Robert Rodriguez (El mariachi, Desperado) in scenes that take place in the dive bars of Santa Teresa. In these dens the play falls into the vulgar, the sexist, the sensationalist, and the anti-Mexican. There's a character who argues that the Mexican race has been improved by mixing with the White, and before long there's been a reference to how great was President Fox; a serious chronological inconsistency because his presidency began in the current millennium, and the last events of the novel take place in 1999.
In the part about the crimes, the femicides, two more characteristics are added to the mix: obscenity and misogyny, thanks to an infinity of jokes in bad taste. And then there's the endless list describing the deaths of hundreds murdered women. One feels the same tedium in the novel; you need to have a lot of faith in Bolaño to keep reading.
From here it's a short step to the conclusion that all Mexican men are rapists, that they're only looking for a opportunity to get involved in crime. I couldn't help but suspect that every Anglo-American carries a Donald Trump inside, I felt something like fear when I witnessed the audience rise for a standing ovation.
The final part of the play, like the book, revolves around the life of the central character: the mysterious German writer Benno von Achimboldi. This is the best part of both the novel and the stage play, but it never rises above mediocrity: it never manages to become art.
This anti-Mexican attitude is rooted deeply in the collective unconscious of United States, in both liberals and conservatives, and manifests in surprising ways in daily life. The stage play 2666 at the Goodman is a striking example of this.
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Years of experience: 8. Registered at ProZ.com: Feb 2015.
David Brendan O'Meara is a writer, director, performer, and web developer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His current works-in-progress are My Way to Canossa a blog of an impossible journey, The Death of the Humunculus, a remix of his experimental podcast, Five by Five
Dave's production company, O Tempora! O Mores! Productions has been developing, producing, and occasionally marketing innovative spoken word performances, both in live performance in various recorded media, since 1992.
Dave also created Five by Five, an experimental multithreaded audio podcast.
From 1999 to 2002, Dave was Artistic Director of Hotel Milwaukee, a weekly one-hour comedy-variety radio show on the Ideas Network of Wisconsin Public Radio. Under Dave's direction, the show won a Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and was selected to be aired nationally on the A&E Channel of Sirius Satellite Radio.
In addition to writing and performing the trio of "plays for one actor" which compose A Metaphysician in the Dark, (published by OT!OM! and Lulu Press) Dave has also toured the Midwest (mainly bars and Irish festivals) with Moon & Cloud, a pair of "plays for one actor" which he adapted and performed from short stories by James Joyce and Joseph Gahagan.
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