I have readMario Vargas Llosa, Historia de Mayta (1984)
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I have written... nothing ...
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in search of man
(garbage & landscape)
Historia de Mayta is one of those books I had for a very long time. Latin-American literature was fashionable in Poland early after the fall of the Wall of Berlin, it was one of our earliest discoveries. That such people as Mayta were Trotskyists did not mean much for us; I ignored the precise meaning of the term for many years. When I read this novel for the first time, I imagined the text was old, even if its Polish translation was, by our standards, almost immediate. Maybe because the book spoke of distant events, a failed revolution attempt that dated back to 1958. I just felt the time lapse, built up by the writer in such a compelling way.
Yeah, it was all very abstract, Latin America, Trotskyism, even to be a homosexual. All those things laid behind our horizon; I might eventually understand how and why he went to school to the Salesians'. I also went to the Salesians' as a child, even if it was only for the catechesis before my First Communion.
So I might search for Mayta just as the hero of this novel did, trying to speak to people, trying to break into secrets, trying to make connections. A revolution. Somewhere, in the mountains of an unknown continent, among Indians. What could it mean to be an Indian? And why this novel, today, still brings to my mind such a pervading sensation of strangeness, of something I cannot fathom, something I cannot comprehend? Parts without a whole, a puzzle without the guiding image. Poverty, but strangely not alike our own. Poverty of an exotic kind.
He finds his man. Mayta at the end of everything, failed revolutions, expropriations, prison, in which his own companions put him, to get rid of him. Dreaming only about going abroad, vaguely. Because he understood that Peru cannot be changed. It just stands there, like that village built by Mayta's and other guys' wives, in the proximity of the prison of Lurigancho; even if they get out of it, they remain nearby. Just like Mayta, I dream vaguely about going abroad, starting from scratch; a second life. If I ever get out, will I remain nearby? Just like Peru, Poland sinks in garbage.
***
The years passed by. I check on the Global Democracy chart published by The Economist. Peru: flawed democracy. Rank: 57. Score: 6,53. Poland: flawed democracy. Rank: 50. Score: 6,85. In February, when the results for 2021 get out, Mayta's country may be above us.
Mario Vargas Llosa, Historia de Mayta (1984). Read in a Polish translation: Historia Alejandra Mayty, without the name of the translator, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Tenten, 1991.
Kraków, 8.11.2021.
Yeah, it was all very abstract, Latin America, Trotskyism, even to be a homosexual. All those things laid behind our horizon; I might eventually understand how and why he went to school to the Salesians'. I also went to the Salesians' as a child, even if it was only for the catechesis before my First Communion.
So I might search for Mayta just as the hero of this novel did, trying to speak to people, trying to break into secrets, trying to make connections. A revolution. Somewhere, in the mountains of an unknown continent, among Indians. What could it mean to be an Indian? And why this novel, today, still brings to my mind such a pervading sensation of strangeness, of something I cannot fathom, something I cannot comprehend? Parts without a whole, a puzzle without the guiding image. Poverty, but strangely not alike our own. Poverty of an exotic kind.
He finds his man. Mayta at the end of everything, failed revolutions, expropriations, prison, in which his own companions put him, to get rid of him. Dreaming only about going abroad, vaguely. Because he understood that Peru cannot be changed. It just stands there, like that village built by Mayta's and other guys' wives, in the proximity of the prison of Lurigancho; even if they get out of it, they remain nearby. Just like Mayta, I dream vaguely about going abroad, starting from scratch; a second life. If I ever get out, will I remain nearby? Just like Peru, Poland sinks in garbage.
***
The years passed by. I check on the Global Democracy chart published by The Economist. Peru: flawed democracy. Rank: 57. Score: 6,53. Poland: flawed democracy. Rank: 50. Score: 6,85. In February, when the results for 2021 get out, Mayta's country may be above us.
Mario Vargas Llosa, Historia de Mayta (1984). Read in a Polish translation: Historia Alejandra Mayty, without the name of the translator, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Tenten, 1991.
Kraków, 8.11.2021.
