19 mar 2023

Perumal Murugan's The Story of a Goat: A Review

Perumal Murugan, The Story of a Goat (Londres: Pushkin Press, 2018 [2016]). 183 pages. Translated from the Tamil by N. Kalyan Raman.
“The birth of an ordinary creature never leaves a trace, does it?” Well, it does, actually: for an old couple of the farming poor in India who have survived in a small, arid village in the south, the arrival of a puny black baby goat becomes an unforgettable event.


They name the kid Poonachi, and the ginormous man who leaves the goat behind in their care assures them Poonachi, a female, is truly a miracle. Despite their scarce resources, the old couple take the creature in and do their best to feed her.

The country depicted by Murugan has a government that is incredibly inquisitive about what animals people have. Strict controls take place and tough questions are asked if the animal’s provenance cannot be ascertained. At home, Poonachi is ostracised by most other goats and cannot feed on the nanny-goat’s milk. The old woman, however, ensures the little black goat will grow.

Murugan writes about the life of a goat while deftly constructing a more than entertaining allegory for the human condition. Through Poonachi’s story and point of view, we are ‘treated’ to the many misadventures, cruelties and sad events that mark a female animal’s life in a poor area. While Murugan is apparently focusing us on the hardships of people and the worries and humiliation the absurdly strict rules of the government of the country can inflict on the vulnerable, on another level the book works as a profoundly bitter denunciation.

Perumal Murugan: Another author to pay close attention to. Photograph by  Augustus Binu.

Poonachi’s survival as a baby goat just serves her on a plate for more brutality and disappointment: Murugan’s narrative includes scenes of castration, rape, erotic love and then frustrated romance. More than a sad fable, The Story of a Goat comes across as a seriously inventive reflection on existence, injustice and the human ability to withstand misfortune. Murugan subtly warns the reader against complacency in a world where ultraright-wing tumult and violence against women seem to go hand in hand. N. Kalyan Raman’s translation occasionally sounds brilliantly foreign yet neat. A nice little surprise of a book!

15 mar 2023

Reseña: River Sing Me Home, de Eleanor Shearer

Eleanor Shearer, River Sing Me Home (Londres : Headline Review, 2023). 376 páginas.

Rachel, la protagonista de esta novela, la primera de la autora, nació en la esclavitud en una plantación de caña de azúcar en Barbados. En su vida solamente ha conocido la crueldad, la brutalidad, la obligación de trabajar a cambio de nada y el robo de los cinco hijos que sobrevivieron a las durísimas condiciones en que vivían. Cuando en 1834 llega el decreto real que pone fin a la esclavitud, ella sabe que no le ha llegado la libertad. La realidad era otra: los esclavos pasaban a ser “aprendices” con un contrato de seis años que no podían romper y que apenas les daba para no morirse de hambre.

Intuyendo que de un infierno van a pasar a otro, Rachel decide huir. Su única meta en la vida es reencontrarse con sus hijos. La primera ayuda le viene de una enigmática mujer, Mamá B., que acaudilla un pequeño poblado de esclavos huidos y emancipados. Gracias a Mamá B., Rachel consigue llegar a la ciudad, Bridgetown. Rachel encuentra a su hija Mary Grace, que trabaja en una sastrería. Los dueños de la tienda se apiadan de ella y le ofrecen trabajo y un lugar donde refugiarse del dueño de la plantación, que sigue buscándola.

Alentada por datos de un registro de venta de esclavos, de Barbados parten hacia Georgetown, en la Guyana Británica, en busca de los otros cuatro hijos. Durante el viaje se les une un marinero llamado Nobody (Nadie). En una de las plantaciones Rachel recibe la noticia de que a uno de ellos, Micah, lo ejecutaron sumariamente durante la rebelión de Demerara en 1823 (suceso histórico que es el eje central del libro White Debt, que reseñé hace unos meses). En su largo periplo se adentran en la jungla de Guyana hasta encontrar al tercero, Thomas Augustus, en un remoto y oculto poblado de esclavos huidos. Pero Thomas Augustus no quiere abandonar el lugar en el mundo en el que ha encontrado la paz y la libertad, de modo que Rachel, Mary Grace y Nobody reemprenden su viaje, esta vez rumbo a Trinidad, donde se supone que están las dos hijas que faltan.

En Trinidad no tardan en encontrar a Cherry Jane, que ha logrado ascender socialmente y no quiere renunciar a su buena fortuna. El viaje final para encontrar a su última hija, Mercy, es arduo, largo y dificil. Trinidad es una isla mucho más grande que Barbados y las condiciones son tremendamente difíciles. Cuando por fin dan con Mercy, descubren que está embarazada en una plantación del este de la isla. El dueño es el epítome de la brutalidad y será nada fácil que deje ir a Mercy. Pero la lucha por la libertad propia y de sus hijos guía a Rachel.

Un lugar en el mundo. Mayaro Beach, Trinidad y Tobago. Fotografía de Kalamazadkhan. 

De todo lo anterior se podría pensar que es una excelente trama (y en cierto modo, pese a la obvia falta de verosimilitud en muchos momentos, lo es). Pero una gran historia no siempre resulta ser una gran novela. En River Sing Me Home es más que notable la ausencia de oficio narrativo. Los personajes carecen de profundidad, pese al evidente esfuerzo de Shearer por dotarlos de algo sustancial. La famosa regla novelística (“Show, don’t tell”) apenas se cumple, y la novela se construye en una narración absolutamente lineal. Hay únicamente un punto de vista (el de la voz narradora omnisciente), constantemente centrado en la perspectiva de Rachel. Y además, le sobra melodramatismo.

River Sing Me Home, que tan buenas reseñas ha recibido tras su aparición, no deja de ser un claro ejemplo de cómo se puede dar con una gran historia y desarrollarla construyendo una trama que es simplemente pasable, y que sin embargo termina materializándose en una narración rectilínea, bastante predecible y una pizca ramplona. Una pena, todo sea dicho.

12 mar 2023

Fabien Toulmé's Hakim's Odyssey, Book 1: A Review

Fabien Toulmé, Hakim's Oddyssey: Book 1: From Syria to Turkey (University Park, PA: Graphic Mundi, 2021). 262 pages. Translated from the French by Hannah Chute. 
The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is close to 4 million people. The war began in 2011 around the same time as the so-called Arab Spring, now a distant memory of the short-lived push for Western-style democracy in many Arab-speaking countries. Few pundits will currently believe it has any chances of a resurgence.

Hakim is the fictitious name of a Syrian refugee who fled the country. His story is narrated by Fabien Toulmé, a French graphic artist with a cause. In his prologue, underneath the drawing of a plane flying above clouds: “Curiously, the urge to write about the migrants who are crossing the Mediterranean came upon me because of a disaster that had nothing to do with this problem…” (p. 2) The plane was the Germanwings Flight 9525 that left Barcelona but never reached Düsseldorf. Toulmé contrasts this terrifying tragedy with the recurrent tragedies of boats sinking while trying to reach Europe. Why do the deaths of tens of thousands of refugees who try to make it across the Mediterranean (when not a very high fence in Melilla) hardly ever make it to frontpage news? Why are we never told who these persons were or what dreams they had?

Toulmé suggests it is an issue of empathy: we are able to picture ourselves as passengers on a doomed plane, of course. But never would we imagine ourselves as the precarious overload on a leaky boat escaping war or famine or political repression or all three of the above.

The story has been divided into three volumes. The first one introduces us to a young Hakim growing up in a country that has been ruled by one family dynasty, the Assads. He comes from a family of gardeners who have successfully run a plant nursery near Damascus for decades. When the trouble starts, Hakim tries to avoid it as much as possible. But one day, at a military checkpoint, soldiers find a mask in the boot and immediately suspect him of being linked to terrorists.

In a peaceful country you are able to work and smell the roses...until a genocidal dictator decides otherwise. 

He is arrested and tortured. His freedom is attained only because someone in his family circle agrees to pay a hefty amount for his release. The family nursery gets confiscated by the army; so when his brother disappears, Hakim makes up his mind to leave Syria and look for work in Lebanon. He is not alone, of course. Jobs are hard to find in Beirut, so he goes to Amman in Jordan. The same situation confronts him there: badly paid jobs, discrimination, precariousness, the risk of being under surveillance from Assad’s agents…

"Their questions got crazier and crazier..." As if answering any of them would be of any use!

Eventually he arrives in Antalya, southern Turkey. Hakim meets Abderrahim, a wealthier Syrian who has also fled the country. He and his family help him to get jobs and make some headway. So much so that he marries Abderrahim’s daughter Najmeh. Volume 1 ends with their move to Istanbul.

Their wedding reception takes place in a small pizza parlour in Antalya. Unforgettable!

The message about the horrors, the repression and the corruption of the Assad regime comes through loud and clear. The fact that the character is a humble nursery gardener makes it even easier for the reader to make a connection. But he is just one of the hundreds of thousands whose stories deserve to be widely divulged.

Hakim’s Odyssey is composed in very simple artwork, yet it works really well in terms of backing the narrative with few colours and details. Toulmé acknowledges he had to use the services of an interpreter to interview Hakim. He is completely aware that his story is doubly mediated. This is a great story told through very simple yet powerful images.

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