I was recommended this book on another website and reviews seemed overwhelmingly positive so I picked it up. I was looking for some other latam lit after reading 100 Years Of Solitude (great) Love in the Time of Cholera (good) and 2666 (great) and had high hopes.
I’m now done with 3/4 and boy is it a stinker, I really push myself to finish books no matter what but this is an absolute slog. Every story feels like Dr. Evil’s description of his childhood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTJj4wbmAhk). Protagonist goes to some far away location and gets involved in some niche scheme (which seem interchangeable with one another) where he meets a beautiful woman who has lots of sex with him. Then she dies and he escapes. Rinse and repeat. The author seems to name drop for the sake of it. Anyone else read and enjoy this one?
You know - I read the comparisons to Don Quixote before I picked up this book and I REALLY disliked Don Quixote. I did finish part 1 but could not bring myself to start part 2 - not sure if that counts as DNF or not.
In answer to your question, I’m not sure I see strong parallels between Maqroll and Don Quixote, the tone in Don Quixote was much less disenchanted/jaded and more… well, quixotic. I don’t think Maqroll as character has the same “humorous” (I didn’t find it funny) self-delusion that people appreciate in Don Quixote. Maqroll is a realist his adventures just aren’t very believable and I don’t think the writing/atmosphere outweighs the trudging plot. I think my main objection to Maqroll (hearkening back to the Dr. Evil reference) is that it comes across to me as if it was written by a person who isn’t very worldy but uses obscure/exotic settings to seem like they are. Which is strange because by all accounts Mutis was actually quite well traveled. I guess in my opinion where Melville succeeds in building credibility by delving into the minutia of cetology Mutis fails in establishing his worldliness with his plot/settings (in my opinion of course).
Wow, fascinating to hear. Again, haven’t read the book, but it seems to me that you’re pretty clear-eyed about the ways in which it doesn’t work for you. It all just has me curious (like you) about how so many people can be so enchanted by it—a quick Google reveals very positive reviews from some major heavy hitters in literary critique.
I do think that the academy/literary establishment tends to privilege disenchantment and jadedness to a very high degree (so much so that it’s almost integral to literary realism), so maybe that’s the disconnect? I know personally that I also dislike totally jaded writing, and so am turned off by a decent chunk of well-regarded literature because it strikes me as almost disingenuously cool and detached and disbelieving. Like, some works attempt to be so clear-eyed about the human capacity for evil and self-interest that they actually become almost cartoonish, no longer reflecting the positive valences of real lived experience.
Are there any other books with that kind of jaded, detached narrator that you do enjoy? It sounds like this could have been a perfectly bad combination for you of rambling Quixotic travelog and falsely worldly self-affectedly jaded protagonist.
Suttree strikes me as being similarly world weary as Maqroll but McCarthy’s characterization is much richer than Mutis’s and I enjoyed the book more than I’m enjoying Maqroll.
Maybe there’s more going on in McCarthy’s work than just world-weariness, whereas Mutis is focused on that sense of superficiality and jadedness to the point that it excludes other details and depths? Thanks for the thoughtful analysis, this was interesting to read.