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Publicada en 1958, esta novela del escritor peruano José María Arguedas tiene hondas raíces autobiográficas. Ernesto, su protagonista y narrador en primera persona, es hijo de blancos, pero sus primeros años transcurren en una comunidad india, cuyo mundo primitivo, puro, sumergido en la naturaleza y entretejido de magia, será constantemente el refugio de sus recuerdos y nostalgias.

Durante una estancia en Cuzco (el libro comienza con la descripción de esta ciudad), Ernesto toma conciencia de que en el Perú viven en continuo contacto, pero chocando constantemente y sin posibilidad de una integración real, dos pueblos con distintas concepciones del mundo y de la vida. De un lado, los blancos, y en particular la clase dominante de los grandes terratenientes; de la otra, los indios, conquistados en el pasado por la violencia. Ambos forman parte de un sistema social y económico que sólo conoce dueños y esclavos.

Los largos vagabundeos de Ernesto se interrumpen en Abancay. Es internado en un colegio dirigido por religiosos, cuyos métodos educativos están por completo al servicio del orden constituido. La brutal explotación de los indios por parte de la oligarquía latifundista es vista por los mismos como un orden agradable a Dios. Para Ernesto, el período del colegio es tormentoso; los choques continuos con sus compañeros, entre los cuales se encuentra cada vez más aislado, le llevan a los barrios de los indios de Abancay y a sus casas, donde los indígenas viven como bestias, rodeados por la oscuridad y la inmundicia.

En las "chicherías" de estos barrios, o sea en las típicas tabernas peruanas, Ernesto revive, volviendo a descubrir la vida, los objetos y las fantasías de los quechua. Un día estalla una revuelta de prostitutas. Debido al acaparamiento especulativo por parte de la administración municipal, no se encuentra sal; consiguen dar con los depósitos de la misma, que son vaciados, y las mujeres, seguidas por Ernesto, fascinado y exaltado por la acción, se dirigen a las casas de los indios para distribuirla.

Pero de inmediato los guardias a caballo les vuelven a quitar la sal y todo vuelve a entrar en el orden establecido bajo la conmovedora y consoladora bendición del padre rector. Al final, estalla la peste, seguida de una revuelta de los indios, que los fusiles de los guardias no consiguen detener. Ernesto deja el colegio y Abancay y se encamina hacia la cordillera.

En Los ríos profundos, José María Arguedas lleva a cabo una innovación de carácter fundamental en la literatura latinoamericana. Según dice Mario Vargas Llosa en un apéndice a la novela, en los relatos y narraciones de Arguedas se substituyen, por primera vez en América Latina, los indios abstractos y subjetivos creados por los modernistas e indigenistas por personas reales, objetivas, localizadas tanto histórica como socialmente. Arguedas consiguió crear un estilo que le permitió "traducir" al español el lenguaje propio del indio mediante una ruptura sistemática de la sintaxis tradicional, que cede el paso, en la construcción de la frase, a una organización de las palabras que no está de acuerdo con un orden lógico, sino con uno emocional e intuitivo.

Kecsua Iskola a határon, talán erőteljesebb szociális érzékenységgel megírva. Az elbeszélő kiskamasz édesapjával érkezik hosszas vándorlás után valami perui mezővárosba, ahol a jó apa* be is passzolja őt egy jezsuita internátusba. Itt aztán főhősünk barátokat és ellenségeket szerez, szövetségi rendszerekbe tagozódik be, és nyilván tanul is valamit, bár erről sok szó nem esik – közben pedig a háttérben a vidék lakóinak, birtokosoknak és nincsteleneknek a sorskérdései is konfliktussá állnak össze.

Arguedas könyvének legnagyobb erénye, hogy a legtöbb általam olvasott, őslakosokat a központba állító dél-amerikai szöveggel ellentétben nála a kecsuák nem díszindiánok, akik díszkukoricát morzsolnak a díszfalvakban, miközben időnként eldalolnak egy dísznépdalt vagy eljátszanak egy dísznéprajzi díszbetétet, a háttérben meg ott a paraván a giccses festett Díszandokkal. Nem bábok, akiken keresztül a szerző bemutatja a kontinens zsigeri igazságtalanságát, az egyenlőtlenség struktúráit, hanem igazi, hús-vér emberek. Látszik, Arguedas ismerete róluk mély, mint a címben szereplő folyó, ezért képes sokszínűen ábrázolni Perut: nem feketeként vagy fehérként, hanem olyan államként, ami a különböző kultúrák egymásra rétegződéséből született: részét alkotják indiánok, meszticek, négerek és fehérek, mindegyik a maga sajátos világértelmezésével, része a kereszténység, a gazdagok és a cselédek, és még annyi minden más is. Ez a sokszínűség a szereplők megrajzolásából is kitűnik (különösen az internátust vezető „Atyácska” sikerült emlékezetesre), nem jók vagy rosszak ők, hanem emberek, autonóm célokkal. Tetszetős regény – igaz ugyan, hogy a cselekmény gyakran mintha összekuszálódna, a szereplők kapcsolatai pedig inkább érzékeltetve, mint ábrázolva vannak, de határozott atmoszférát képes teremteni maga körül. Az embernek kedve támad tőle elmélyíteni a kapcsolatát a tengerimalacával – hisz neki is biztos akadnak kecsua gyökerei. Tán mesél róla valamit.

* Nem ironikusan mondva, mert tényleg nagyon jó apa. Az apa-fiú viszony ábrázolása (attól függetlenül, hogy csak az első 30-50 oldalban jelenik meg) amúgy is kifejezett erőssége a regénynek.

Reading this for August 2021 BOTM Reading 1001. This books significance is that it was written for Andean people of Peru and tho it is in Spanish, the author thought and expressed himself as Quechua. So far, it is the story of a young lad's experience expressed in terms of sensual and spiritual. The book is semi autobiographical. The main character is a boy with a double origin. "A child with roots in two hostile worlds." quote by Mario Vargas Llosa. He was brought up by Indians but yet he is white and therefore does not fit in that world or in the world of the Indian. Ernesto doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere. He lives in his memories and in his communion with nature. He also has a love of music. In the last chapter there is this quote about Ernesto as he walks around the schoolyard where he has been a resident and soon will be leaving; "more attentive to memories than to external things." This is also a story of Ernesto's coming of age. He is going from a reality of innocence to one where he is aware of evil.

The title Deep Rivers refers to nature but also to life to the depth, the hidden, the treacherous.
Nature Quotes:
"feel the rest of their lives the brush of its comforting warmth on their hearts, protecting them from hatred and melancholy." (reference to the insect Zumbayllu.
"The Abancay lemon, large, thick-skinned, edible within and easy to peel, contains a juice which, when mixed with brown sugar, makes the most deliciou and potent food in the world. It is a burning and sweet. It instill happiness. It instills happiness. It is as if one were drinking sunlight."
"sunshine often appears between scattered showers" and "deeply moved by the sun and the dark clouds that cast down their rain.".

Ernesto has his own religion. He incorporates his Indian upbringing with his Christian. The Rector of the boarding school is the incarnation of human duplicity and the accomplice of injustice." (LLosa). Also in reference to social status, the reference of the hacienda owners as a form of God to his subjects. To quote one of the boys Antero. "I used to weep,. Who wouldn't but the Indians must be kept down. You can't understand because you're not a landowner." Two episodes in the book include the insurrection of the market women and the ravages of the plague.

The book is considered by the translator as one that is hard for us readers to connect because while it was written in Spanish but author wrote it for the people who speak Quechua. He wanted to write it in quechua and it contains Quechua. I found it beautiful writing of nature and did not find it hard to read.

Selección y cuidado de la edición a cargo Ricardo González Vigil.

Cronología: p. 37-44.; "Producción de Arguedas" : p. 657-668.

El Sexto es una novela corta que narra la experiencia carcelaria de Arguedas entre 1937 y 1938 en uno de los penales más conocidos de la capital. Gabriel Osborno, alter ego del autor, es un estudiante universitario que fue preso por su actividad como líder estudiantil. Joven e idealista, la prisión significará para él conocer de cerca el mundo criminal. Obligado a convivir con asesinos, maleantes y detenidos de todo tipo, Gabriel ve amenazada su vida y su sensibilidad al entrar en contacto con la escoria criminal de la cual empieza a formar parte. En el desarrollo del relato encontramos tres ejes constitutivos que nos dan a conocer esa experiencia: los diversos registros políticos de lo carcelario, el envilecimiento de los reos y los ideales del protagonista a partir de un horizonte étnico compartido. Son esos tres matices los que configuran el horror de los once meses que el autor estuvo preso.

My edition of this book (which has the same ISBN as the edition I chose, but looks different and comes in at just under 250 pages) took me over 2 weeks to read. Over 2 weeks for fewer than 250 pages. Clearly, I did not love it.

From everything I have read (the intro, the afterword by Llosa, and the goodreads description), this novel is a semi-autobiographical account of Arguedas' childhood. Brought up by Indians, when he re-entered Latino society, he found he did not fit in. But he didn't fit into Indian culture either, being Latino and not native.

I know I have to be missing some (read: many, or maybe all?) cultural clues in this book. I struggled to know who was Indian and who was not—at the seminary school, the boys have a huge hierarchy (very Lord of the Flies-esque, another book I did not love). I could not understand how this hierarchy was determined. Wealth? Looks? Smarts? Plain old popularity? To me, this book was about a boy who had been brought up on the road, traveling with his father from town to town and not getting to stay anywhere for as long as he would like. And his father then leaves him at this seminary. And yes, he does not fit in, but that is because he has never needed to or had the opportunity to live amongst the same people for long, and his father does not visit nor write. He is all alone, trying to make friends (and he does, though it is hard and he is an outcast). He simple does not know how to function in a stable society.

The descriptions of the natural world--birds, bugs, landscape--were my favorite parts. I googled many of the trees and birds to see what they really look like. It made me laugh when one of the birds turned out to be a South American mockingbird. And yes, the description sounded like one!

Interestingly, the 1001 books summary sees this book more how I read it. The clueless non-Latin-American interpretation, perhaps.

Also, much of the language in this book reminded me of Calvino's Invisible Cities (which I did enjoy). I read both in translation, which strikes me as--odd. Something about the cadence of the writing.

What a lovely book this is. I thoroughly enjoyed Jose Maria Arguedas' "Deep Rivers" and marveled at the ability of translator Frances Horning Barraclough to create a rhythm that seemed really unique in a book that was considered tough to translate. Argeudas wrote in Spanish, but used the sentence constructions of Quecha, a language used in the Peruvian Andes.

The story centers on Ernesto, a white boy who was banished to the kitchens by his stepmother, so he lived among Peruvian Indians, learning not only Quecha but their manner of relating to the landscape so closely. (This was in fact Arguedas' own upbringing.) Ernesto is left at a boarding school in Abancay, where life proceeds as it might in a small Peruvian town.

Although there seems to be a sort of universality to stories about boys' boarding schools, no matter what the culture, this story was told in such a remarkable and interesting way. It felt like a primer on Peru's culture without feeling dry... just a great story wrapped up in a fascinating setting.½

This was a haunting and at times painful book to read. It is the story of Ernesto, a white Peruvian boy who was relegated to the kitchen by the relatives he was sent to live with and thus was raised by the Indian servants and came to speak their language, Quechua, and love their culture, especially their relationship to the natural world. When he got a little older, his father, a not-so-successful itinerant lawyer, took him with him as he traveled around the Andes seeking work.

As the story opens, the father is taking his son to see his estranged brother, known as the Old Man, in the ancient city of Cuzco. The Spanish colonial walls built on top of the remains of Inca stone buildings set the symbolic stage for the rest of the book, for Ernesto is caught between the two cultures. Later, father and son go to the town of Abancay, where the father hopes to stay but ultimately leaves his son at a Catholic boarding school. It is there that most of the novel takes place.

Although the usual pranks and even some terrible cruelties take place at the school -- most horribly the opaquely described repeated rapes of a mentally unstable woman called "the Idiot" -- most of Ernesto's time there is spent inside his own unhappy and lonely head. The most moving and lyrical parts describe his connection to nature, not just animals and plants but the mountains and rocks and rivers, all of which in Quechua culture have much greater significance than in white culture, and are often even personified. Aruguedas, whose early life was similar to Ernesto's, frequently uses Quechua words and Quechua songs to illustrate Ernesto's deep love of the culture and its conflict with the powers that be. Ernesto is also drawn to the myths and spirits and music of the Indian culture and endows a top he receives as a gift with the powers of communication.

I found it a little difficult to keep track of who the various schoolboys were, but I think this was intentional, as they are really more symbols of different aspects of white and mestizo upbringings than fully developed characters. Although there is not much of a plot, a couple of things of significance happen, including an uprising by local woman because the distribution of salt has been halted; feeling himself connected more to these women than to the society inside his school, Ernesto runs after them, drawing the ire of the powerful but condescending priest, the Rector, who runs the school. (Later, however, in the wake of another trouble that strikes the area, the Rector will try to protect Ernesto.) Following the uprising, the troops come to town, and that gives Arguedas the opportunity to further contrast people from the coastal regions with those from the highlands, and to further show the conflicts between the descendants of the colonialists and the indigenous populations.

Mostly, as I said, this book is about Ernesto, and the tragedy of his alienation from both worlds which leads to his living so much in his own dreams and odd ideas.

"I wanted to see Salvinia, Alcira, and Antero. And then to become a falcon and soar over the towns where I had once been happy; to descend to the levels of the rooftops, following the streams that bring water to the settlements, hovering for a moment over the familiar trees and stones that mark the boundary of the tilled fields and, later, calling down from the depths of the sky." p. 161

Because Ernesto is the center of the book, and because he is so unhappy and feels so out of place, this was in places a difficult book to read. The ending of the book is ambiguous, and not a little shocking.

Arguedas, who was also raised by Indian servants in a home in which his white stepmother despised him, became an ethnologist and ultimately killed himself. My edition had an interesting afterword by fellow Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.

Deep Rivers is not an easy novel. It was not novel that ever intended to be translated and certainly was not written for an international audience. The introduction states that the author saw himself as "talking not only about the Andean peoples, but for and to them." And while this novel was written in Spanish, Arguedas deliberately constructed sentences according to the rules of Quecha syntax.

Arguedas was an anthropologist, as well as a writer and poet. He drew heavily on his childhood experiences and anthropology training in writing Deep Rivers. Thus, it reads more like non-fiction, somewhat dryly depicting a chronological series of events with no apparent narrative arc. The beauty of the story is found in the cumulative effect of his descriptions of the world as seen through the eyes of young boy who is lost in the white man's world, yet does not belong in the Quecha world in which he was raised.

Book about the differences between 'lo indio y lo espanol' in Peru. This contradiction is embodied in the main character of the book; Ernesto. English introduction by William Rowe, who used to be a Lecturer in Spanish-American Literature at Kings College, London.

High up in the Peruvian Andes, Ernesto travels with his itinerant-lawyer father as he looks for work in the hacienda towns. Ernesto is a mestizo, who in the home of his uncaring stepmother and without the presence of his father, was driven to the care of the Indian servants. Living among them, he learned their ways, their language, their stories, and the myths of their people, and it is them and these stories that he longs for as wanders with his father. On their journeys, he is left by his father in a Catholic boarding school in the town of Abancay, with a promise to return at the end of the school year. In the school compound, he is witness to and player in the games, innnocent and not so innocent, that the boys fill their time outside class with. But for this strange, lonely boy, the top is not merely a toy that is carved from wood, it is a magical being, its whipping sound recalls the sound of certain insects, of trumpets resembling the bellows of bulls charging, of the songs of his beloved Indians. He is witness to the loyalties and the violence of the boys, and the school yard is a stage where both are played out in both its innocent and dangerous forms. And beyond the school gate, the abuses of the landowners and merchants of this desolate town become fertile ground for an uprising of the women. The priests themselves are not wholly indifferent, and took sides. Ernesto knows whose side he was on. He is a mute observer, in his heart he wills the Indians of the haciendas to take up arms with the women but he feels their agonizing silence, their crushed souls, their powerlessness to follow the women beyond the mountains to plan their revolution. The town is later visited by the plague which is ravishing the region, and Ernesto is the only one in his school left unscathed at least outwardly, waiting for his father, his salvation.

Ernesto's extraordinary connection to nature sprung from his Indian upbringing. The mountains are high and majestic, the rivers are deep and swift, nature here overwhelms and is rightly considered, Mother. Everything comes from and returns to Her, and in the insecurities that saddle him -- loneliness, adolescent longings, and bewilderment amidst the conflicts around him -- his solace and comfort lie in the memories of his Indians and his deep love for nature, which he tries to conjure through songs of his childhood, the songs of the Quechua. He is young, but the author imbues in him a frightful maturity -- still possessing of childish attributes such as longing for a toy, jealousy over friends, or a lack of hesitation to exchange punches in the yard, but at the same time, having a capacity for reflection and memory and an astuteness that is rooted to something ancestral.

This is a moving story, lyrical and sad, and hauntingly beautiful. It is a meditation on solitude -- the solitude of the misfit and the dispossesed --, on awakening, on nature, and on the poetry of the indigenous peoples. The narrative is punctuated by verses and songs in Quechua, but which have immediate translation on another column in the same page, so there is no interruption in the reading. There is a glossary and the translation of the poetry seems to capture excellently the moods that are portrayed. Deep Rivers is an unforgettable book, and the best I've read so far this year.

Arguedas was an ethnologist, a poet, a folk musicologist, and considered a major indigenista writer. He was committed to giving voice to the Andean Indians through his works, and worked hard for their recognition. This voice mainly refers to attributing identity to the Indians beyond the dehumanizing one assigned to them by the Spanish conquerors. In his works, he explores the themes of the conflict between the forces of "tradition" and "modernity." He published his poetry in Quechua, but invented a language for his novels in which he used native syntax with Spanish vocabulary, which makes translation of his work into other languages extremely difficult. Arguedas was tormented by the dilemma of authentically illuminating the life of the Andean Indians which drove him into depression. He died by his own hand in 1969. Deep Rivers is a semi-autobiographical novel.½

La fête nationale du Pérou est le 28 juillet. On commémore l’indépendance par rapport à l’Espagne, déclaré par José de San Martín le 28 juillet 1821. Le Pérou, ce n’est pas que Lima. Il y a aussi 24 régions divisées en provinces. Je ne sais pas si c’était les mêmes subdivisions administratives à l’époque où l’histoire se passe, dans les années 1930, mais on est dans la région de l’Ayacucho, dans la province du Lucanas à Puquio.

Maintenant que le temps et l’espace sont bien ensemble, Passons à l’histoire. On prépare activement le 28 juillet dans la village de Puquio. La principale attraction de cette journée est la corrida. Pas celle avec le torero mais avec des indiens, en général ivres, qui se font très souvent encornés (il y a en général beaucoup de sang, des morts et des veuves d’où le nom de la fête, et qui se défendent en faisant des passes avec leurs ponchos et en utilisant de la dynamite. C’est visiblement une très vieille tradition que les gens aiment beaucoup. Le village de Puquio est divisé en quatre ayllu, mot quetchua (je ne saurais pas vous dire si cela prend un s à la fin) pour désigner un quartier ou une communauté indienne. Le 28 juillet, c’est aussi l’occasion pour les quatre quartiers de s’affronter, de mesurer leur bravoure respective par exemple. Cette année est particulière car un ayllu a décidé d’amener pour le corrida un taureau mythique, le Misitu. Il loge dans un champ de quinoa, près d’une rivière, dans un grand fossé. Personne n’ose approcher de peur de se faire tuer. Cette année est aussi particulière car Lima a décidé d’interdire la corrida ou tout au moins de la rendre moderne (espagnole) en obligeant à avoir un torero professionnel. Les Indiens s’y opposent, quelques notables aussi mais le préfet, les autres notables, les émigrés de Lima veulent que l’on fasse respecter la loi (pour des raisons différentes les uns des autres).

José María Arguedas décrit donc une tradition péruvienne (en tous cas dans les années 30) mais surtout la vie de l’époque d’un village des Andes. Il nous présente une société très hiérarchisée : les Indiens qui habitent au village, les Indiens qui habitent dans la Puna, les notables, les métis, les représentants de l’autorité centrale, les émigrés de Lima. Les liens entre ses différentes communautés sont très codifiés mais semblent surtout dictés par le mépris et l’arrivisme (on sait se résoudre à une décision si elle ne dessert pas totalement les intérêts). Les Indiens jouent sur leur nombre et leur volonté commune. C’est un des points très intéressants du roman : les gens nous sont présentés en groupe et non comme des individualités. Ils appartiennent à un groupe social et leur comportement est dicté par cela. On s’aperçoit que ceux qui dérogent à cela ne sont plus considérés comme appartenant à ce groupe social.

L’auteur présente aussi par quelques détours ce qui a amené, historiquement, à ce type de hiérarchisation, entre autres les persécutions qu’ont eu à subir les Indiens de la part des Blancs.

Au-delà de cela, je n’ai pas eu l’impression que l’auteur prenait parti ou présentait un type de société idéale ou même idéalisait une communauté plus tôt qu’une autre. Il ne m’a pas semblé lire l’opinion de l’auteur sur la corrida : doit-on la regarder comme une tradition ancestrale ou doit-on la supprimer comme étant une boucherie pour le taureau comme pour les Indiens ? doit-on forcer un peuple retissant à une décision qui se veut prise pour son bien ? Il présente des faits mais à la fin de lecture je n’ai pas réussi à savoir ce qu’il fallait en penser. Cela me perturbe un peu de ne pas pouvoir me dire : l’auteur a voulu écrire ce livre pour dire cela.

C’est tout de même un livre très intéressant. En plus, il permet de progresser en quechua pour pouvoir parler au beau vendeur de Décathlon.

El Sexto nous montre une société péruvienne divisée tant au niveau social et politique qu’au niveau géographique. Le niveau social est très bien décrit dans la quatrième de couverture donc je ne vais pas trop y revenir. Le niveau politique est intéressant car il y a donc au deuxième étage, une division entre apristes et communistes. Le fossé ne se comble sous aucun prétexte même quand il y a des morts. Si par hasard cela se fait, on considère cela comme une erreur ou quelque chose que l’on doit interpréter politiquement. Idem sur les divisions sociales, l’escalier permettant de passer d’un étage à un autre (principe même de l’escalier me direz vous) semble très difficile à gravir et à descendre. Il ne faut pas changer de camp ou même pactiser avec un autre camp. On perd tout le caractère humain que peut avoir une société

La séparation géographique est aussi flagrante entre les gens de Lima et le reste du pays. À plusieurs reprises, on nous dit que l’expérience de Lima, de la belle vie, est très différente de celle de la sierra, dans les villes. L’auteur écrit aussi que celui qui connaît Lima ne peut pas en avoir encore envie. De même, un homme plus bourgeois que les autres dit que la dépravation sexuelle de la prison ne peut pas être observée à la campagne, qu’il n’y a qu’à Lima que l’on peut voir cela. Cela laisse entendre qu’il y a deux Lima, une des bidonvilles et une des riches, qui s’oppose à la campagne et au reste du pays, où les gens sont plus “sains” malgré des conditions de travail très difficile. On retrouve un peu cela quand un communiste, le camarade de cellule de Gabriel, explique que dans les mines, les membres de l’Apra ne sont pas comme les dirigeants à Lima, qu’ils se révoltent et qu’ils tiennent au même titre que les autres.

Ce qui est très frappant aussi, c’est qu’il est impossible de ne pas faire partie d’un groupe. On imagine pour Gabriel (personnage dérivé de Arguedas), le traumatisme lui qui croit à l’unification, au respect entre personnes … toutes sortes d’idées qui le font qualifier d’”idéaliste petit-bourgeois”. Gabriel, en discutant avec tout le monde, se fait des “ennemis”. Quand j’ai lu le livre, je ne savais pas qu’Arguedas était aussi ethnologue et je m’étais fait la réflexion que Gabriel observait beaucoup, semblait obséder par l’idée de comprendre (à la fin, il agit un peu tout de même). En y réfléchissant, je trouve que c’est un excellent point de vue car je ne vois pas comment en ayant choisi un autre narrateur il aurait pu faire la même description.

Le regard de l’ethnologue Arguedas est omniprésent. On ne ressent pas le grouillement comme sur la photo. Gabriel est au deuxième étage et voit bien ce qu’il se passe au rez-de-chaussée ; il compatit mais ne fait pas vraiment preuve d’empathie. Il va aider mais c’est comme un devoir vis à vis de ses idées “idéalistes de petit-bourgeois”. Il y a une réflexion derrière son aide.

Au niveau littéraire, le livre est principalement construit de dialogues et donc de petites scènes. La chronologie des faits est parfois difficiles à comprendre, de même que la configuration des lieux. Arguedas se concentre sur le propos uniquement et l’image qu’il veut faire passer. Il y a énormément d’éloquence pour exprimer les idées. La distinction entre les étages est aussi marquée dans les différences de langages. Les descriptions des “incidents” sont courtes et frappent au cœur.

El Sexto est finalement plus un roman sur un microcosme représentant les travers de la société péruvienne de l’époque qu’un roman sur le régime carcéral au Pérou. D’après ce que j’ai pu lire, c’est un des objectifs fondamentaux de Arguedas : capter ce que l’on ne saurait voir d’une société en mouvement.

J’ai beaucoup apprécié ce court récit raconté comme un conte : une princesse est enlevé violemment par un prince mais elle ne peut s’empêcher de l’aimer tout de même. Sauf que le prince se tourne vers une autre princesse. La première princesse est jalouse et essaye de reconquérir son prince avec l’aide de Mariano, le serviteur préféré du prince.

C’est très beau, très lyrique et très poétique. Quand Arguedas nous décrit la vie du village, on y est. Quand il décrit les grands espaces du Pérou, on y est aussi. C’est un livre dépaysant.

Il y a un hic pourtant (vous vous y attendiez, non ?) : on nous dit qu’Arguedas fait partie du courant indigéniste, qu’il est “le promoteur d’un métissage des cultures andine d’origine quechua et urbaine d’origine européenne”. Je veux bien mais à mon avis l’auteur n’a pas écrit pour la traduction. J’ai eu l’impression que tout le contexte, l’enjeu social m’échappait et j’aurais aimé plus de précisions au moins pour cette édition car cela a l’air d’être cela que l’auteur voulait faire passer et pas le côté traditionnel que j’ai apprécié.

C’est pour cela que j’ai préféré El Sexto du même auteur.

Una vez más Arguedas describiendo a la perfección el mundo andino, de los comuneros, los colonos, los siervos, los gamonales, etc...y las relaciones históricas que entre se forjan...un mundo que, a pesar de un Perú que cambia, permanece en la raíz de tantas cosas en este país...magnífico Arguedas, imprescindible para entender algo del Perú.

PUES EL LIBRO ESTABA UN POCO LARGO

Los Rios Profundos (Deep Rivers in English) by José María Argüedas, is a great book, the first really good book that I´ve read this year. As soon as I finished the last page, I found myself turning back to the initial chapters, wanting to know more about what had happened over the course of the story and how the beginning set the stage for later chapters in the book. If I finish a book and don´t want to put it down, it means a lot to me. I imagined this book as a sort of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Peruvian-Mestizo-Quechua Man. It´s true that I haven´t read James Joyce´s book since I was in high school, but the first person style, the intensity of character and emotion of the young protagonist, and the questions of religious, social, and racial identity that he grapples with, all made me think of Joyce. I find it interesting how the influence of famous authors such as Joyce and Faulkner has trickled through the different national literatures of Latin America: which elements have been adapted by authors across such a large cultural space to fit their unique thematic and sociopolitical realities. I imagine the author reading Joyce´s book and seeing himself in its pages, adapting in his mind the coming of age story of Stephen Dedalus to fit the issues faced by his people and his country, and crafting something as beautiful as this book.

Los Rios Profundos is the story of Ernesto, a young boy whose mother has died, and who travels from town to town with his father, a poor lawyer who is continually searching for a place where he can live and earn enough money off of his law practice to survive. He eventually leaves his son at the Catholic school in the town of Abancay, and continues on his journey from town to town. The bulk of the story deals with Ernesto´s life in the school, the challenging and often brutal relationships that exist between the children of different social and racial backgrounds at school and in town, and the moral progression of Ernesto as he views the interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in the town and the surrounding haciendas, where the Quechua population is subjugated under the power of the hacendados, the military and the church, forced to live in poverty and ignorance. Ernesto feels a strong affinity for the indigenous people of the haciendas, perhaps connecting them with his dead mother, and yearns to understand them and connect with them in alliance against the oppression that he sees in the acts of those around them. The events that fuel Ernesto´s moral development include a conflict between the chola women of Abancay and the government over the distribution of salt, and an outbreak of typhus that sets in motion a series of events that lead to the imminent departure of Ernesto from Abancay at the end of the novel.

Over the past year I´ve read a handful of indigenist books from different parts of Latin America, and I think this is my favorite. It seems very sincere and, while I´ve read that Argüedas´s descriptions of the Quechua people have been criticized for being overly simple (the Indian being naïve and childlike), I don´t really feel that here. If anything, I see the author´s approach as a result of his understanding that he cannot understand everything that the Quechua people feel and experience, that he is half-connected with them yet different in so many ways. The protagonist, while not wholly a member of the Quechua ethnicity, is deeply connected to its traditions. His admiration for the culture shines through in the pages of this story, often in his love for and description of Quechua music, in the form of huayllas presented to the reader in both Quechua and Spanish. The conflict between his desire to connect with his Quechua heritage and his status as a member of the educated Mestizo class contributes to his moral struggles, because he understands that he is stuck in the middle and will not truly connect with either the indigenous or the non-indigenous classes of his country.

I highly recommend this book, and hope that others enjoy it as much as I did. I´ll seek out other works by Argüedas and try to read and reflect on them later this year.½

Nunca antes me había enfrentado a un libro como éste. Es muy difícil encontrarlo en mi área y tuve que dar una vuelta por toda la ciudad para poder hallar la última copia escondida en un estante de una de las librerías más afamadas de mis rumbos.
Una vez que empecé a leerlo me di cuenta de que es algo como nunca antes había leído, pues tal vez el hecho de confrontarme a una visión parcialmente indígena del mundo me hizo sentirme extraño leyendo una lengua que parecía ser distinta, a pesar de ser español.
El estilo de la narración no es elaborado, y sin embargo, presenta una visión compleja del mundo y de la naturaleza específicamente. Se puede ver en la manera en que se describe a la naturaleza como una madre, por dar un ejemplo.
La inclusión de los "jarahuis", los ríos, los mensajes y el "zumbaillu", son unas de las características que hacen a este libro ser catalogado como indigenista; mas yo preferiría marcarlo como criollo, ya que es una unión de dos culturas, lo cual sería más certero.
Lo recomiendo para todo aquel que haya disfrutado los textos de García Márquez o conciba al mundo indígena como algo digno de valoración, lo cual, creo yo, es uno de los trabajos intelectuales que una persona comprometida con su realidad debería hacer.

Arguedas es un innovador consciente de su entorno, que creció en medio de dos culturas totalmente diferentes. Al darse cuenta de que ambas nunca podrán unirse desarrolla un género literario nuevo basado en la biculturalidad y el pensamiento, la idiosincrasia y la manera de ver el mundo y la propia existencia que tienen los representantes de ambas culturas.

En Agua encontramos pues, estos dos mundos. Siempre acercándose, bordeando los límites uno del otro, sin llegar nunca a fusionarse, aunque sí podemos ver que a veces chocan y son esos choques los que le dan una gran riqueza a la obra.

Ernesto y Pantaleón son los representantes de los dos universos en constante convivencia, uno "blanco", el otro "indio", unidos por la aceptación de una verdad universal: que no somos razas puras.

literatura peruana