Asturias is part of the Mexican magical realism fiction movement, or one of the only Mexican genres that has been recognized by major international prizes, and canonized. At the end of his career, he worked as the Ambassador for Guatemala. This novel was copyrighted in 1949 in Spanish, and was first-translated and published by Penguin in 1993, decades after the author’s death, but just late enough to accept a novel as being old enough for it to be a classic.
Unlike the densely annotated and introduced new edition of Orlando, there are relatively light introductions in this novel. The “Foreword” begins with an abstract summary of the “Indigenous heritage” being a “mystery” to outsiders. Then, it returns to reality by confessing that his “mother was a store cashier, my father a parking lot valet”. The “I” that this “Foreword” is written from is not Austurias’, but rather Hector Tobar’s; he also won a Pulitzer Prize, and is a professor at UC Irvine. The editor of this volume should have put Tobar’s byline directly under this “Foreword”, as otherwise readers might assume Austurias’ family were impoverished.
The following “Introduction” argues that this novel is unique in its “ambitious” scope in the description of life after colonialization. This novel is claimed to rival the “Maya Genesis” Bible, or Popol Vuh, which was mentioned in another study in this set of reviews, “which existed long before the Spaniards arrived.” As I explained in the previous section, since only a Latin version of this Bible has survived, it seems very likely that it was forged by Spaniards as part of their conquest-propaganda. This “ecological” Bible relates that “gods of prehistory created animals before human beings” and tried to make people out of different substances before succeeding in making “them out of maize”. This reference explains the title. This novel was published during a period in the middle of the Guatemalan Revolution that lasted between 1944 and 1954, which was attempting to make “agrarian reforms” after centuries of colonialism. This novel’s style is to weave together random fragments. “writers had been banned from publishing novels during the three hundred years of Spanish rule”. Colonialism worked because the colonists had complete control of the press and could spin all events in their favor by outright lying about history. Dictatorial rule that followed was from these foreign monopolists retaining indirect power, even if they left direct control. Meanwhile, Asturias was credited with translating Popol Vuh while he lived in France.
A separate section offers a synopsis of the novel. First, Maya Indian tribesmen guerrillas struggle for independence from the forests: this is set at the end of the 19th century. Because this novel is anti-capitalist, it seems to have been pro-Revolutionary propaganda of the socialists, being published in the middle of that revolutionary struggle. “Communal Indigenous territories” are juxtaposed against “capitalist agriculture”. Then the next two parts happen 7 years later, the rebellion has failed, and families fight to hold on to their land with minor rebellious acts. The editor mentions that the history of capitalist-socialist struggle is not directly mentioned in the text, so I turned to the novel itself.
Chapter “I: Gaspar Ilom” begins, as explained in a note, with a structure that includes “repetition of one half of a sentence followed by the elaboration of a metaphorical chain in the other”; this “is characteristic of primitive litanies or spells”, as in the “Maya codices”. By starting with these author is confessing he is consciously attempting to create a new puffed mythology of the Maya (304). An example of a sentence from this opening: “To deny, to grind the accusation of the earth where he lay sleeping with his reed mat, his shadow, and his woman, where he lay buried with his dead ones and his umbilicus, unable to free himself from a serpent…” (5) The mention of the serpent suggests an attempt to convince Christians this myth might be about them as well. When this mythology is not put in quotation marks, the narrator is still repetitive and overly mythological: the sun almost set fire to the maize-leaf ears of the yellow rabbits in the sky, the yellow rabbits in the forest, the yellow rabbits in the water…” A drumbeat of Mexican mythological keywords echoes without making much progress regarding just what this story is about (6).
If somebody is extremely high on acid, they probably would have an amazing trip trying to read this novel cover-to-cover. But anybody who is sober is not likely to make it far before giving up. My theory was supported by the line: “He felt his head, full of liquor, like a gourd hanging from one of the wooden uprights of the rancho.” Though the next paragraph clarifies that this “was” not the typical “liquor” but rather the “water of war”. “He drank to feel himself burned, buried, beheaded, which is how you have to go to war if you want to go unafraid: no head, no body, no skin” (8).
Well, if this was propaganda, it might have been anti-revolutionary, as it seems to be convincing revolutionaries to escape into drunkenness during battles. If any side was drunk, it was not likely to win. But it is typical for revolutionaries to intoxicate the soldiers, as it tends to be difficult to explain warfare to sober people. If the author was attempting to give the impression that a great Mexican writer was a drunkard… it seems to have succeeded… Or if he was just trying to give readers an authentic sensation of what a drunkard feels and thinks like: also succeeded in this regard. I cannot keep reading this novel because it has run into my time-limit and patience. But if reading over this commentary, you want to brave it; then, I recommend you proceed. Perhaps a drunk reader would be more receptive of its rhythm. Most libraries of all types should have a copy of this novel because it is a classic. I am glad to have it in my library, especially if I am ever asked to deliberately write a digressive magic-realism novel.
--Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Summer 2024 issue

Powerful, poetic, rhythmic story about capitalist violence against the environment and indigeneity. A difficult read, but unfortunately relevant in a way that hasn't lessened in the 75 years or so since this was last published. Immensely tragic and weighty, but nevertheless incredibly dignified. This book made me add Asturias to my list of authors to read more of!