April 20, 2007

Why I Love Latin American Literature

There is something about Latin American literature that you don't seem to find anywhere else. I'm currently reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar -- he just happens to be my all time favorite author. This book has it all: death, life, intellectualism, anti-intellectualism, the riduculous, the serious, and so on and so forth.

I was reading a chapter this morning on my way to work, and it reminded me why I like him. The scene was absolutely ridiculous. We're talking mind-shattering levels of retardedness. The main character (for some reason known only to him) decided he needed to straighten a can full of nails. In the middle of all this he decides he wants some tea, but he doesn't have any in the house. So he yells out to his friend that lives on the same floor in the apartment building across the alley. Instead of simply bringing the tea over, these 2 idiots decide to build a bridge between their windows from some ratty-ass boards they have laying in their apartments.

Throughout this whole process they're having this crazy intellectual discussion, and they con the neighbor's wife into crossing the bridge to deliver the tea (and more nails). She gets about halfway across and gets really scared; she thinks the bridge is going to break and she'll fall to her death. Her husband decides she needs a straw hat to keep the sun off her head. The other moron makes her play this stupid game involving questions that purposely make no sense. Eventually, she makes it back to her apartment, the guy gets his tea (even though the bag exploded when it hit the dresser he toppled over on his bed to support the rope he'd tied to the springs to keep the 'bridge' from falling) and everyone is more or less happy.

The scene ends with the people downstairs commenting on the whole thing. Turns out the woman on the board wasn't wearing anything under her bathrobe. And one kid remarks that he'd never seen so much hair on a woman. R-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s! It was so fantastically absurd, idiotic, and unbelieveable. And yet at the same time, it seemed like there was an allegory for the state of affairs in Latin America. So, I'm going to rename this book to Jackass - The Novel.

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