Ronald Flores

I just read Underworld. The novel. Yes. The massive novel by Don DeLillo. Underworld. Page after page. Abundant one sentence paragraphs, one word by line. Wow. Libra, White Noise. And then this. A novel about waste. Dazzling. Ironic. Underworld.

“This is the only arte I’ve mastered, Father –walking these streets and letting the senses collect what is routinely here” (p. 672).

I did have a bit too much of the fragmented sentences. But it’s all style. Yes, but too much. “He swerved into sermons and admonitions, streams of rumination…” (p.626). DeLillo’s narrator says about Lenny Bruce. But it also self-referring. Yeah.

The novel Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo (New York, 1936) is a great narrative documentary on American Life during the last half of the Twentieth Century. The narration feels like a stream of ruminations, like the routines of Lenny Bruce, on waste, nuclear plants, American life and a marriage based on “a deep betrayal”. (more…)

It will be hard to beat the hype about a first novel after “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” (2007) by Junot Diaz (Dominican Republic, 1968). Of course, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” deserves the praise and the Pulitzer for muchas razones.

El mean Spanglish in a mainstream novel is one of dem. How I wish Gloria Anzaldúa was here to read it! (”Her Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza” is one unforgettable posionamiento, but it was published in the 80’s before the Latino crossover trend).

“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” highly amusing, ironic, sarcastic, performative narrator, Yunior, sounds like a character out of a Judd Apatow movie, on Latino culture. After all, Oscar is something like The Twenty-Something Year Old Dominican Virgin or a slightly older Seth from Superbad. The Latino Diaspora provides a lot of dramatic and funny situations, both on our adaptation to US culture as our difficulty adapting back to the culture in our home countries (life in the hyphen). (more…)

La novela “La loca de Gandoca” (1991) de Anacristina Rossi (Costa Rica, 1952) trata sobre la lucha de una mujer por salvar un refugio de vida silvestre y su matrimonio. En esta narración, el esfuerzo de Ana Luisa, la protagonista, se realiza en dos registros: el personal (familiar) y el colectivo (nacional).

Ana Luisa, la loca de Gandoca, se enfrenta a la burocracia, empecinada en fomentar el turismo a costa de la naturaleza, y al comportamiento auto-destructivo de su marido, que les impide nutrir el amor que los unió. De tal forma, la novela transita de la ilusión a la desilusión, inevitable, devastadora, como presenciar un atardecer añorando que el día se prolongue.

Escrita en un registro realista, con una prosa sencilla, accesible, por momentos poética, “La loca de Gandoca” de Anacristina Rossi es también una novela romántica, que mezcla adecuadamente la denuncia social, política, ecológica. Aunque se sitúa en la costa atlántica y en San José, Costa Rica, el asunto de la novela es común al resto de los países latinoamericanos. (more…)