I discovered Delirium via a link to Bolaño. Set in Columbia, it tells the story of a husband whose second wife, Agustina, young and scatty, loses her mind. The husband, Aguilar, goes about the process of trying to recover it. The narrative is told from four different perspectives, Aguilar, Agustina as a young girl, Agustina's ex-lover the cocaine money launderer, Midas, and Agustina's German immigrant Grandfather, the composer, Portulinus.
The only Columbian writer I know is Marquez. Restrepo's prose has a similar fluid, relaxed style. In the voice of Midas, a man playing dice with Pablo Escobar, it occasionally felt too easy going, but perhaps, in contrast to our melodramatic visions of crime, this is how it feels to live on the sharp edge of a criminal culture. Delirium offers a window into the crazy, fucked-up narco-world of a country where normality is just a memory, professors sell dog food, and insanity lurks round any corner.
It's in the portrayal of Agustina's madness that the book takes hold. Agustina hovers on the brink between sanity and insanity, and this is part of her charm for Aguilar. Who hasn't loved someone because they're 'a little bit crazy'? So when Agustina crosses the line, and becomes altogether crazy, we root for him as he fights to win her back, a noble warrior in a land riven with moral ambivalence.
There's hints of Jane Eyre in all this, and it's possible that only a woman writer could get away with this depiction of female insanity. It might be that Agustina's perilous journey reflects her country's - a place sliding over the brink, which retains the hope of returning to that thing we know as sanity. Which, the narrative suggests, it needs to, because charming, idiosyncratic and exciting though madness may be, in the end it's not only tiring but it forecloses the possibilities of living. When Agustina retreats from the mess of her mind and offers Aguilar moments of sanity, it feels like the world has been put back in place.
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A note on branching out into the world of literature. For various reasons it feels as though this year I have rediscovered the art of reading novels. After a gap of about twenty years. Which is not to say that I have read no novels in the interim, just that I have rediscovered a relationship with the novel that has been semi-dormant. An appetite, if you like, which might be worth sharing.
The only Columbian writer I know is Marquez. Restrepo's prose has a similar fluid, relaxed style. In the voice of Midas, a man playing dice with Pablo Escobar, it occasionally felt too easy going, but perhaps, in contrast to our melodramatic visions of crime, this is how it feels to live on the sharp edge of a criminal culture. Delirium offers a window into the crazy, fucked-up narco-world of a country where normality is just a memory, professors sell dog food, and insanity lurks round any corner.
It's in the portrayal of Agustina's madness that the book takes hold. Agustina hovers on the brink between sanity and insanity, and this is part of her charm for Aguilar. Who hasn't loved someone because they're 'a little bit crazy'? So when Agustina crosses the line, and becomes altogether crazy, we root for him as he fights to win her back, a noble warrior in a land riven with moral ambivalence.
There's hints of Jane Eyre in all this, and it's possible that only a woman writer could get away with this depiction of female insanity. It might be that Agustina's perilous journey reflects her country's - a place sliding over the brink, which retains the hope of returning to that thing we know as sanity. Which, the narrative suggests, it needs to, because charming, idiosyncratic and exciting though madness may be, in the end it's not only tiring but it forecloses the possibilities of living. When Agustina retreats from the mess of her mind and offers Aguilar moments of sanity, it feels like the world has been put back in place.
+++
A note on branching out into the world of literature. For various reasons it feels as though this year I have rediscovered the art of reading novels. After a gap of about twenty years. Which is not to say that I have read no novels in the interim, just that I have rediscovered a relationship with the novel that has been semi-dormant. An appetite, if you like, which might be worth sharing.
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