review of
Paco Ignacio Taibo II's Just Passing Through
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 9-10, 2019

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1087722-sebasti-n-san-vicente

Taibo can do no wrong, from my perspective. This novel's a tad different from other ones I've read insofar as the thin historical sources he's trying to flesh out don't result in much meat. That's ok, though, it's still good food-for-thought.

"A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

"Much of what is written on the pages that follow is faithfully based on original documents, like conference minutes, police files, reports from foreign secret agents, witnesses' memoirs, articles from union newspapers, magazines and national newspapers.

"It would be difficult to describe this work as a novel."

"ANOTHER NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

"The majority of what is written on these pages has been reconstructed using the aurhor's imagination, as well as his personal and not very reliable accounts of events that took place in Tampico, Atlixco, Veracruz and Mexico City between 1920 and 1923. The documentary evidence is just the framework around which the fiction is built.

"It would be difficult to describe this work as a documentary; it is obviously a novel."

"A FINAL NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

"Just what the hell is a novel?"

Taibo quotes telegrams back & forth between J. Edgar Hoover & various agents. This was before the FBI existed so Hoover wd've been "head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Division" (Wikipedia) at the time of the following quote:

"AUG 20, 1920.

"ALL PORTS ARREST WARRANT SAN VICENTE AKA RUBIO. PREVENT DEPARTURE FROM COUNTRY. FOLLOW UP IF THE CONTRARY. AUTHORIZATION LIMITED TO MEXICO, CUBA, CANADA. MAX ALLOCATION SIX AGENTS FOR SAME.

"HOOVER" - p 2

"War Emergency Division

"He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Woodrow Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail allegedly disloyal foreigners without trial. He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.

"Bureau of Investigation

"Head of the Radical Division

"In August 1919, the 24-year-old Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Division, also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals. America's First Red Scare was beginning, and one of Hoover's first assignments was to carry out the Palmer Raids.

"Hoover and his chosen assistant, George Ruch, monitored a variety of U.S. radicals with the intent to punish, arrest, or deport those whose politics they decided were dangerous. Targets during this period included Marcus Garvey; Rose Pastor Stokes and Cyril Briggs; Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman; and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, who, Hoover maintained, was "the most dangerous man in the United States."

"Head of the Bureau of Investigation

"In 1921, Hoover rose in the Bureau of Investigation to deputy head and, in 1924, the Attorney General made him the acting director. On May 10, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as the fifth Director of the Bureau of Investigation, partly in response to allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. When Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents. Hoover fired all female agents and banned the future hiring of them."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

I checked Hoover's history online because I wanted to doublecheck whether he was as powerful in 1920 as Taibo presents him as being. He was. Hoover, of course, is an archetype of what's wrong with the Injustice System in the US insofar as he persecuted people active in causes that I support, such as the Civil Rights movement. He, of course, is notorious for denying the existence of Organized Crime at the same time that he was getting tips on the horse races from Mafiosa.

San Vicente, a dedicated revolutionary, is the hero of this bk.

"He told me about the Paris Commune as if he had been there, about Red Barcelona and the May 1 Chicago Haymarket Martyrs like Louis Ringg who blew his face off with an exploding cigarette before they could hang him" - p 12

"Ringg" is what it says in the bk & I find that peculiar b/c, as far as I know, the person in question was Louis Lingg. Is this a typo? Or is this the author presenting the narrator as a person w/ flawed memory or a person who misunderstood in the 1st place? I doubt that Taibo made a mistake.

Alas, even the hero gets robbed & the usual separation between poor people w/ consciences & poor people w/o consciences comes into play:

"On top of all that—in a little notebook with just a few leaves—he jotted down notes about Tampico, wrote a few unfinished letters, and balanced some accounts... A pair of pickpockets who worked for Slippers stole the notebook from him in San Lázaro station, who in turn passed it to a reserve polcieman, who turned it over to the authorities and, years later, it turned up on the desk of Gendarmerie Capt. Arturo Gómez." - p 19

A report to Hoover:

"While there, one of the most active members of anarchist groups and IWW. Said to have been involved in Mayflower assassionation attempt when Pres. Wilson got back Europe (JA)." - p 26

I find no mention of an attempt on President Wilson in James W. Clarke's excellent American Assassins, The Darker Side of Politics so I looked online. In Wikipedia's "List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_a... ) there's no mention of a plot against Wilson. Given that I think Taibo's an excellent researcher I wonder what he knows that might not've gotten into general circulation. Then again, I wonder if this was some Hoover-manufactured bullshit being used as an excuse to arrest 'political undesirables'.

One of Taibo's fictional filling-in-of-the-gaps is about someone being hired to kill San Vicente:

""I'm told you were given some bills to kill me," he said straight off and without so much as a hello.

[..]

""Take the money out of your vest pocket with your two fingers and put it on the table," he told me. People were gathering round, and they were no assholes either, all getting behind him. It was clear that if there was going to be a shoot-out, it would all come my way.

"I spread the money out like a deck of cards, juts like they'd given it to me.

""You know this isn't for me. I won't touch a penny of it."" - p 34

"That asshole of a boss at the Cantabria squealed to some working stiff there so if I didn't kill San Vicente, he'd kill me, and then he'd send the cops in to finish things off. It wasn't the double-cross that bothered me most, it was the lack of trust.

"So I went along to Cantabria offices and put a slug between the wise-ass' eyes." - pp 34-35

Taibo's fiction has a hit man turn on his employer & kill him. Nice fantasy. I wonder if that's ever happened? Taibo touches further on his research:

"Once when I was in Washington, D.C., in the basement of the National Archives, I did a computer search to turn over the FBI's database for all the information they had on lists of foreign anarchists who had roamed around Mexico. I waited in the white-walled booth in which I was closed up. The computer rejected the name Sebastián San Vicente. I suppose that is where this story began.

"I wrote his name again, joining up the two words in his surname (Sanvicente), and the computer grudgingly gave me a list of files, that half an hour later turned into six rolls of microfilm, which a girl with spectacles like bottle tops brought to my electronic cavern." - pp 37-38

""Excuse me, is this the San Vicente family house?"

""..."

""I know this may seem a little strange, but I'm a writer trying to find out about a Mr. San Vicente who lived in Mexico City in the twenties."" - p 91

The Mexican Revolution is said to've lasted from November 20, 1910, to May 21, 1920. As such, this attempt at a history of San Vicente takes place after the revolution.. but not long after. Presumably, there were many people who felt that the revolution had not succeeded enuf. One of my favorite scenes in the novel is one in wch San Vicente & a fellow revolutionary, Phillips, continue to discuss political issues while they're being arrested & imprisoned.

"San Vicente's forty-five rolled along the waxed floor, and then followed the man, with his hands in the air.

""You're completely wrong, Phillips," he said, looking at his friend, without even glancing at the gun-barrels aiming at him. "The revolution is an act of will. What the bleedin' hell has science got to do with it?"

""Move your ass, jerk," a gendarme said, poking him with his rifle." - p 62

""Why not the soviets? But they must be soviets for all tendencies, soviets with room for all political organizations. Soviets elected from the grass roots, from the workers' assemblies."

""That's the way the soviets are in Russia."

""If that's the way they really were. But they've shut out the anarchists and social revolutionaries."

""They weren't elected in the last congress."

""They're being persecuted."

""They've acted against the revolution."

""They've acted against the Bolshevik dictatorship," said San Vicente." - p 64

""Are you a Bakuninite, one of Malatesta's pure anarchists, like one of those Spanish anarcho-syndicalists from the CNT, or what?" Phillips asked, and then added, "I met Pestaña in Moscow last year."

""I haven't had the pleasure. I happen to be an anarcho-syndicalist, or hadn't you noticed all these months we've been seeing each other? I like chorizo sausage, but I'm a vegetarian like all the Spanish working class," said San Vicente, half jokingly but half seriously." - pp 66-67

Mexican authorities institute a campaign of surveillance.

"The undersigned had been commissioned together with nine other agents from his group to keep a surveillance watch on the Gneral Workers' Confederation local at No. 27 Uruguay Street, hoping that the Spanish subversive José San Vicente, error, Sebastián San Vicente, a.k.a. Pedro Sánchez, a.k.a. the Tampico Man would show up, since he is on our wanted list. Although he was deported from Mexico last year, he has returned to continue with his illegal activities" - p 95

San Vicente goes into action against scabs.

"the streetcars were running, driven by scabs and with army escorts!" - p 107

"It was 11:15 on a cloudy morning. The first streetcar—a motorized one, No. 798—with a car in tow, had left the depot at eleven and went through the Plaza de Armas a few minutes later. There were no passengers on board because nobody had felt like stopping it. A scab was driving it escorted by eight soldiers—all Yaqui Indians amed with Mausers—from the palace guards regiment." - pp 107-108

"San Vicente cocked his pistol but was not the first to act. Robert Etagere, a streetcar worker, took a running jump and threw himself through a streetcar window and wrestled a Mauser off one of the soldiers. Then he shot the scab who was driving. San Vicente jumped through the door opposite. Rifle shots flew around inside the streetcar. The Spaniard fired off six shots at the solfiers, wounding three of them." - p 108

"A friend, a comrade says to him, "Sebastián, normal men fall in love with a whore once in their lives, idealists spenf time trying to reform them, but you couldn't stop there. No, you just had to go and organize them."" - p 113

""But did this man exist or didn't he?" my publisher Marco Antonio Jiménez—who's really suspicious—asks.

""Of course he existsed."

""But how do you tell his story?"

""I just go along, a few details here and there."

""Real details?"

""Well, are you going to publish it nor not? What the fuck does it matter whether he was really like this or like that, whether his clothes were this color or that?"

""But did he exist?"

""Sure enough."

""Good."" - p 117

There's a hunchback doctor who treats people for free, essentially another revolutionary.

"It's not for nothing that I'm the only hunchback with a medical diploma from the Sorbonne who treats people for free in the Bolsa district, who practices abortions, cures bleeding runaways, watches out for venereal diseases and quack herbal remedies. All that, and preventative medicine, selling condoms at cost, curing skin diseases and curing uncontrollable drug and alcohol addiction using the Prado method where if the patients don't die, it's a cinch they're saved for the rest of their vice-free days." - p 121

Remember VD? Venereal Disease? Does anyone say that anymore? Or is it just STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)? Or is thre a new term I don't know? & what about this "Prado method"? What is it? I looked for it online & didn't find it. Perhaps it was a method that's considered too dangerous or untrustworthy now that doctors don't want information about it online out of fear of misuse. Dunno.

""The CROM couldn't find any other way to move into the La Colmena works than hiring a bunch of unemployed men—unemployed cops sacked from El Oro—and put them under the command of a friend of Alvarez, a slob of a leader from the Mexico City Federation, whom even they had sent to Coventry because he had got addicted to drugs and was of no use, not even as an office worker.["]" - p 123

"The Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM) (Spanish: Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers) is a federation of labor unions in Mexico.

"It was founded in Saltillo in 1918 at a congress of labor delegates called by Mexican President Venustiano Carranza. The federation, of which Luis Napoleón Morones was a major leader, marked a departure from the traditionally anarchist stance of Mexican labor to a nationalist position." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Confederation_of_Mexican_Workers

In other words, a fake union meant to serve government purposes. As for being "sent to Coventry":

"To be ignored or ostracised. This behaviour often takes the form of pretending that the shunned person, although conspicuously present, can't be seen or heard.

"The origins of this phrase aren't known, although it is quite probable that events in Coventry in the English Civil War in the 1640s play a part." - https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sent-to-coventry.html

Of course, the police are after San Vicente. One of them is Gómez.

"Gómez, that's me. Arturo Gómez, captain in the Mexico City mounted police. Shot my way up to Captain, rather than getting here by picking up housebreakers or punks who mug old women. A frustrated pianist too, if you must know. I don't mean frustrated by lack of time or talent, but because I had two fingers blown off my left hand in the Battle of Celaya, and nobody composes piano piecs for just the right hand." - p 131

NOT.

A
▪ Album for One Hand Alone No.1 (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Album for One Hand Alone No.2 (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Album for One Hand Alone No.3 (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Album für das einhändige Klavierspiel (Hochstetter, Cäsar)
▪ Amygdala Nocturne No.1 in A minor (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Amygdala Nocturne No.2 in A-flat minor (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Amygdala Nocturne No.3 in A-sharp minor (Beneking, Stephan)
C
▪ Clavierstück für die rechte oder linke Hand allein, H.241 (Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel)
▪ 24 Concert Études (Giorni, Aurelio)
E
▪ 6 Elegies for One Hand in B minor (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Etudes rhapsodiques, Op.51 (Kessler, Joseph Christoph)
G
▪ Glasperlenspiel (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ 3 Grandes Études, Op.76 (Alkan, Charles-Valentin)
▪ 5 Gymnopédies (Beneking, Stephan)
L
▪ Lyrische Stücke (Grieg, Edvard)
M
▪ 3 Morceaux de Concert (Satter, Gustav)
▪ 3 Morceaux (Lisovsky, Leonid)
N
▪ 10 Nocturnes for One Hand Alone in C-sharp minor (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ 10 Nocturnes-Etudes for One Hand Alone (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ 6 Nocturnes-Etudes for One Hand (Beneking, Stephan)
O
▪ Ohne (Mirzazade, Khayyam)
P
▪ 15 Pieces de clavecin faciles (Vogler, Georg Joseph)
▪ 18 Preludes for One Hand Alone (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ 20 Preludes, Op.52 (Foote, Arthur)
S
▪ Serenade for a Right Hand (Yamamoto, Jun)
▪ Springar (Zintl, Frank)
U
▪ Un Sourire à Papeete (Lyonnaz, Paul)
V
▪ Valse chantée, H 131 (Berlioz, Hector)
▪ 24 Valses melancoliques for One Hand (Beneking, Stephan)
▪ Vocalise (Bitensky, Laurence Scott)
- https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:For_piano_right_hand

But San Vicente evades capture.

""Come out, San Vicente, with your hands up!"

"There is a window—you lean out. You can hear bullets tearing through the door behind you. First things first—you throw a five-foot wardrobe against the door, then the cot and a trunk full of old plates. The window. On the first floor. You stick your head out, your hair on end as if you had just had a fright. And what the hell is this if it isn't a fright? The glass shatters and a shot comes in through the window. The bullet smashes into the ceiling, raising a neat little cloud of plaster. You smash the remaining window-panes with the barrel of your colt, and rattle off five shots in quick succession. The rifle butts are now splintering the door. You jump out of the window. You lose a shoe when your feet hit the ground, and you keep on shooting—using the revolver now—at two shadows that go scurrying away. You reload by lamplight" - pp 139-140

"San Vicente puts a copy of Anarchyby Errico Malatesta into his jacket pocket and breathes deeply. He cannot go to the Nuestra Palabra editorial meeting because the police are bound to be waiting for him when he gets there. Leave town? Go to Librado Rivera's anarchist group in San Luis Potosí? Or to Veracruz, where Fernando Oca from Santander was now trying to take anarchist unions into the countryside? Or to Bruschetta in Puebla? Or somewhere new, where the CGT hasn't spread, like the mining districts in Chihuahua, Coahuila or Zacatecas?" - p 143

I figure Malatesta is well enuf known for me to not go into him here — but what about the rest?

"Librado Rivera (August 17, 1864 - March 1, 1932) was an anarchist during the Mexican Revolution. He co-published the anarchist newspaper Regeneración with Jesús Flores Magón and Ricardo Flores Magón. He took over editorial duties for the anarcho-syndicalist newspaper Sagitario in 1924." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librado_Rivera

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1087722-sebasti-n-san-vicente ( )

Messico 1920. Sebastián San Vicente è di passaggio, perché per i posti ci si passa, per le idee no. Nel corso di tre anni ruba
le buste paga di una fabbrica perché vadano agli scioperanti e non ai crumiri, si mette alla testa dei campesinos che assaltano
le fattorie al grido di «Viva Lenin», organizza un sindacato di prostitute. Espulso dal paese rientra clandestinamente attraverso
la selva del Chiapas, affronta a pugni l'esercito, mangia tacos, dirige scioperi. Poi ha un incubo da cui si risveglia per predicare
la sua ultima utopia. Quindi sparisce.