The Shape of the Ruins

by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Anne McLean (Translator)

A sweeping tale of conspiracy theories, assassinations, and twisted obsessions -- the much anticipated masterpiece from Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

The Shape of the Ruins is a masterly story of conspiracy, political obsession, and literary investigation. When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets; and it haunts those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings.

This novel explores the darkest moments of a country's past and brings to life the ways in which past violence shapes our present lives. A compulsive read, beautiful and profound, eerily relevant to our times and deeply personal, The Shape of the Ruins is a tour-de-force story by a master at uncovering the incisive wounds of our memories.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Spanish Literature, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Latin American, Novels

526 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 11, 2015

About the author

Juan Gabriel Vásquez is a Colombian writer, journalist and translator. Regarded as one of the most important Latin American novelists working today, he is the author of seven novels, two volumes of stories and two books of literary essays, as well as hundreds of pages of political commentary.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is a narrator and to a certain degree he is one of the main partakers…
An afterglow of yesterday… The ruins of the past…
The story begins with a man trying to steal a suit of the politician assassinated more than half a century ago…

He waited for the last group of uniformed schoolchildren to leave before going up to the second floor, where a glass case protected the suit Gaitán was wearing on the day of his assassination, and then he began to shatter the thick glass with a knuckle-duster. He managed to put his hand on the shoulder of the midnight-blue jacket, but he didn’t have time for anything else: the second-floor guard, alerted by the crash, was pointing his pistol at him.

This peculiar man wants to rummage in the secrets of the past… And a wander through the ruins of the bygone days begins…

Conspiracy theories are like creepers, Vásquez, they grab on to whatever they can to climb up and keep growing until someone takes away what sustains them.

History wallows in controversy… History has no objectives… But it turns all of us into its subjects…

“Feelings of humiliation, resentment, sexual dissatisfaction, inferiority complexes: there you have the engines of history, my dear patient. Right now someone is making a decision that affects you and me, and they’re making it for reasons like these: to harm an enemy, to get revenge for an affront, to impress a woman and sleep with her. That’s how the world works.”

Some start believing that they are chosen by history… Their grandiose ideas burn out their reason… And fanatics are always on a mission…

“A fanatic is a person who’s only good for one thing in this life, who discovers what that thing is and devotes all his time to it, down to the last second. That thing interests him for some special reason. Because he can do something with it, because it helps him to get money, or power, or a woman, or several women, or to feel better with himself, to feed his ego, to earn his path to heaven, to change the world.”

Paranoia always was an inalienable part of history.

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neîndoielnic, un roman foarte bun. Vă invit să-l citiți... A ajuns pe lista scurtă a Man Booker International Prize în 2019. Își merită cu prisosință steluțele.

Primirea acestui roman în spațiul valah a fost mai mult decît laconică. N-am găsit nici o recenzie. Am citit, în schimb, cîteva interviuri acordate de Vásquez, cînd a fost invitat, în 2018, la FILT. Vă invit să le căutați și să le citiți, sînt mai elocvente decît orice recenzie aproximativă.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez declară două lucruri importante. Primul: nu e bine să uităm trecutul, poate să se repete. Istoria Columbiei moderne e o dovadă. Al doilea: în pofida faptului că naratorul se numește Juan Gabriel Vásquez și că multe personaje sînt reale, romanul e departe de a fi o autoficțiune. Prozatorul a intenționat cu totul altceva: „Am vrut să derutez cititorul... Am încercat să atenuez granița dintre ficțiune și nonficțiune, asta a fost intenția cărții”.

Romanul e construit ca o anchetă criminalistică (sau mai multe): cine l-a ucis cu adevărat, în 15 octombrie 1914, pe generalul Rafael Uribe Uribe? Dar pe avocatul liberal Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, în 9 aprilie 1948? Nu cumva ucigașii desemnați de justiție au fost niște țapi ispășitori? Și dacă da, cine a fost ADEVĂRATUL ASASIN, eminența cenușie? În cazul Uribe Uribe, anchetatorul principal este tînărul Marco Tulio Anzola: „avea convingerea de nestrămutat că uciderea [generalului] fusese rezultatul unei conspirații de proporții uriașe” (p.308). Cînd e pe cale să-i divulge pe vinovați, Anzola e aruncat în temniță.

Dar cine a fost ucigașul din umbră, cel care a tras sforile? De îndată ce formulăm astfel de întrebări, intrăm în domeniul gîndirii de tip conspirativ (la mare modă astăzi). În Forma ruinelor, personajul care ilustrează o astfel de gîndire e Carlos Carballo. În opinia lui, nimic din ceea ce se știe și se spune (despre orice) nu e ce pare a fi. Adevărul e întotdeauna în spatele unor aparențe mincinoase. Cine crede în aparențe se înșală amarnic. Este un naiv demn de milă, pe care o forță malefică de nenumit îl duce de nas într-un scop inavuabil (dar evident pentru orice minte isteață).

De asemenea, gîndirea de acest tip exclude cu totul întîmplarea. Pentru Carlos Carballo nu există hazard, coincidențe: nici un strop de ploaie nu cade aiurea, nici un glonț nu-și ratează ținta. Istoria urmează un plan scris de mult de către un grup malefic de indivizi opaci. Desigur, orice încercare de a-i descoperi e sortită eșecului...

Numai un citat:

„În politică, nimic nu se petrece întîmplător“... Fraza îi încîntă pe adepții teoriilor conspirative, poate pentru că vine de la un om care de-a lungul timpului a hotărît atît de multe (adică nu a lăsat loc cauzalității sau întîmplării). Dar ceea ce conține în esenţă, dacă te apropii de adîncimile ei fetide, este suficient ca să-l înfricoșeze chiar și pe cel mai curajos dintre noi, pentru că fraza aceasta face praf și pulbere una dintre puținele certitudini pe care ne bazăm viața: că nenorocirile, ororile, durerea și suferința sînt imprevizibile și inevitabile, iar dacă cineva le poate prevedea sau cunoaște va face tot posibilul să le evite” (pp.480-481).

P. S. Ați citit cumva Zgomotul lucrurilor în cădere?

[Glenn Russell]

Bogotá, Colombia, epicenter for Juan Gabriel Vásquez's sprawling masterpiece - The Shape of the Ruins.

Assassinations, conspiracy theories, obsessions, friends, family, births, deaths, memorials, literary references, they're all here, most especially books and writers since the narrator of this multifaceted saga is none other than Juan Gabriel Vásquez - that's right, the Colombian author has written himself into his own novel.

Readers are in for a special treat for three reasons: 1) translator Anne McLean renders the Spanish into clear, fluid English; 2) many photos and documents mentioned in the story are included; 3) appeal of the book itself - large trim size, readable print, quality paper. Thank you, Riverhead Books.

Right in the opening chapter, we're served a sumptuous feast of major players, important themes and key ideas that will be expanded and embellished upon as we move through the tale's 500 pages - among their number:

Carlos Carballo - It's 2014 and Juan Gabriel watches the TV screen flash a news headline: Carlos Carballo arrested at the former home, now museum, of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán for attempting to steal the serge suit the liberal politician wore the day of his assassination, a suit on display in a glass case. Unlike thousands of TV viewers, Juan Gabriel isn't at all surprised since the 41-year old author first met Carballo face-to-face ten years ago and is well aware of Carballo's obsession. Like a match set to a keg of dynamite, the arrest of Carballo ignites Juan Gabriel's memory, enough explosive recollections to propel the author to chronicle the story we're about to read.

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán - Charismatic firebrand, political leader loved by the people and the man likely to become Colombia's next president, Gaitán was assassinated while walking down a busy sidewalk in Bogotá on April 9, 1948. This event proved monumental, resulting in not only riots, mass killings and the burning of much of the city but for ten years thereafter the political scene in the country spiraled down into a bloodbath known as La Violencia, which, in turn, was one of the factors that led to guerrilla insurrections, death squads and those horrific Pablo Escobar years.


Fiery Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, 1903-1948. Assassin Juan Roa Sierra pictured in the upper right.

Juan Roa Sierra - The assassin who shot and killed Gaitán was a young Colombian by the name of Juan Roa Sierra. Ah, those demented loners who strike out on their own! But wait - could things possibly be more complex? We'll never know because Sierra was attacked and killed by a mob within minutes. Why? Well, as reported by none other than Gabriel Garcia Márquez who happened to be in vicinity on that fateful April afternoon, a tall man "wearing an irreproachable gray suit as if he were going to a wedding" incited the crowd to bloody violence and then was picked up by a new car as soon as the assassin's corpse was dragged away. And from then on, that tall, well dressed man appears to have been erased from history forever. Garcia Márquez recollects many years later that it occurred to him "the man had managed to have a false assassin killed in order to protect the identity of the real one."

Does the fate of Gaitán's assassin ring any bells? How about Lee Harvey Oswald? Many Colombians, particularly a conspiracy fanatic like Carlos Carballo, have not failed to make the connection, and that's understatement.

Francisco Benevides - A friend of Juan Gabriel, a physician whose father was the man who conducted the forensics on Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's corpse, Francisco Benevides and Carlos Carballo go back. Benevides isn't exactly as obsessed as Carballo when it comes to conspiracy theories, but it's close. Benevides is also a lover of literature and thus has many reasons to cultivate Juan Gabriel's friendship.

Hospital Drama - In the opening pages of the novel, Juan Gabriel recounts his time at a hospital with his dear wife who must be cared for since she will be giving birth prematurely to twin baby girls. True, Juan Gabriel loves his family, however, the swirl of conversations and revelations in his home city of Bogotá acts like a powerful magnet and Juan Gabriel quickly succumbs to its force. At one point, some weeks after leaving the hospital, Juan Gabriel's wife confronts him directly, "What's happening to us is important. You have to pay attention. We still haven't come out the other side, there are still lots of things that could go wrong, and the girls depend on us. I need you to be with me, concentrated on this, and you seem more interested in what a paranoid madman says."

Did I mention Juan Gabriel's tale contains a layering of many dimensions back there? Oh, yes, the following eight chapter detonate with a fiesta of themes and threads - historical, political, social, cultural, literary, personal. Here's a pair I found especially captivating:

Novelist Narrator - In the course of his narrative, Juan Gabriel refers directly to his past novels: about a woman from Germany (The Informers), his novel about Panama (The Secret History of Costaguana), about the Pablo Escobar years (The Sound of Things Falling), the novel he was working on (Reputations).

Juan Gabriel also alludes to a string of other novelists and their books: Georges Perec, Vladimir Nabokov, Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, Juan Carlos Onetti, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Malcolm Lowry and frequent inclusion of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges - for example: "Then I remembered "The Modesty of History," an essay by Borges that I'd always liked and that there, in that man's apartment, seemed to acquire a mysterious pertinence, for in it Borges sustains that the most important dates in history might not be the ones that appear in books, but other, hidden or private dates." This literary element adds real sparkle and depth to the tale - not only to have a literary man as narrator but to have Juan Gabriel himself - a zesty enhancement!

Rafael Humberto Moreno-Durán - Juan Gabriel attends the memorial service for one of the most notable novelists of his generation, a writer known to his friends, Juan Gabriel among their number, as R.H.. Following the service, still in the church, guess who pops up? Carlos Carballo collars Juan Gabriel and insists on telling him how R.H. spoke in an interview about Orson Wells' visit to Bogotá and how he, Carballo, proposed a book to R.H., a book that could be written when he, Carballo, fed R.H. tantalizing information revolving around the assassination of Gaitán. Carballo goes on to say that R.H. agreed to write the book but couldn't because of his illness. Carballo continues speaking, relating that R.H. told him he knows the writer who could and should write the book - Juan Garcia Vasquez. Now the plot really thickens, twists and begins dancing the cumbia.


Colombian novelist Rafael Humberto Moreno-Durán, 1945-2005

So the question poses itself: Did Juan Gabriel Vásquez finally agree to write the book proposed by Carlos Carbillo, a fictional character of his own creation? The answer is 'yes' - our narrator/author did write that book, a book in the form of a novel, the very novel under review, a novel entitled The Shape of the Ruins. Read all about it, the tale is spectacular, or in Spanish, espectacular.


Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez, born 1973

[Makis Dionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Για τον Έλληνα αναγνώστη είναι πολύ γνωστά το μακρύ χέρι και η δράση του παρακράτους (από τους Χίτες στην κατοχή, στον Λαμπράκη, τον Πέτρουλα, και τον Τεμπονέρα, ως πρόσφατα με τον Killah P) . Με την ίδια συνέπεια και την ίδια αποτελεσματικότητα λειτουργεί σε όλες τις σύγχρονες αστικές δημοκρατίες όταν η πλειοψηφία του λαού έχει διαφορετική άποψη από την οικονομική ελίτ. Ο Βασκες περνάει την ιστορία του διπλοτριπλοβελονια. Πυκνή γραφή, με πολύ λεπτομέρεια, για 2-3 συγκεκριμένα ιστορικά συμβάντα. Προσπαθεί να πάρει την θέση του συνηγόρου του διαβόλου και να φανεί σκεπτικιστης, να αποστασιοποιηθεί. Αλλά δηλ��νει έμμεσα ότι μόνο ο εθελοτυφλων δεν βλέπει τι συμβαίνει γύρω του. Το σύστημα είναι εντροπικό . Όσο ζωτικό χώρο αφήνεις, το διπλάσιο θα απαιτήσει ο εκάστοτε "διπλανός" και σχεδόν πότε δεν είναι για το δικό σου όφελος. Και οι σύγχρονες Λατινοαμερικάνικες δημοκρατίες έχουν χτιστεί πάνω σε λουτρά αίματος. Η εποχή της αθωότητας δεν υπήρξε ποτέ

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can honestly say I've never read a book quite like this. It's a mix of historical biography, meta-fiction, and literary mystery. The author inserts himself—or at least a fictional version of himself—into the narrative and describes how he allegedly got sucked into researching & investigating a conspiracy theory about the assassination of a high-profile Colombian leader in the 1940s.

The novel's structure is a bit like a maze, with different twists and turns, not just plot-wise but also shifting in and out of different genres. I would be lying if I didn't say the middle section was quite arduous to get through, and yet I didn't ever want to give up. It was a very rewarding read, but I wasn't expecting a book that at one point was a straight-up account of 20th century Colombian history. It isn't a bad thing at all, just a very different experience than I was expecting.

There were so many passages I underlined or noted during my reading and I actually could see myself revisiting this one again in the future. I was tempted to start it over again once I finished, not necessarily because I loved it but because by the end I had such a better grasp on the book that a second reading, I presume, would be easier to follow and even more rewarding. But maybe someday I will come back to this one again, and I will definitely check out more of this author's work!

[George-Icaros Babassakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ό,τι καλύτερο έχει γράψει ο Βάσκες (και έχει γράψει ήδη πολύ καλά μυθιστορήματα). Ένα κράμα Borges και Bolaño, ένας συνδυασμός επινοητικότητας και τεκμηρίωσης δυνατά εμπλουτισμένος με γνώσεις και μνείες στην ιστορία της λογοτεχνίας. Τρεις φόνοι (Ουρίμπε Ουρίμπε, Γκαϊτάν, Κέννεντυ) αναμοχλεύονται, μυθιστορηματικά ώστε συγγραφέας και αναγνώστης να συνομιλήσουν σχετικά με τις κρυφές πτυχές και τα σκοτεινά καμώματα της Ιστορίας. Άριστη η μετάφραση του Αχιλλέα Κυριακίδη (μεταφραστή εξάλλου και των άλλων δύο μυθιστορημάτων του Βάσκες που έχουν εκδοθεί, όπως και αυτό, από τον οίκο Ίκαρος. Καίτοι το πιο πολυσέλιδο μυθιστόρημα του Κολομβιανού συγγραφέα, το διάβασα ταχύτερα από τα άλλα, μόλις σε δύο πυκνά εικοσιτετράωρα. Ίσως επειδή είναι το πιο καλά δομημένο.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delighted to see this now on the MBI 2019 long-list

...there are truths that don't happen in those places, truths that nobody writes down because they're invisible. There are millions of things that happen in special places... they are places that are not within the reach of historians or journalists. They are not invented places... they are not fictions, they are very real: as real as anything told in the newspapers. But they don't survive. They stay there, without anybody to tell them.

This is a marvellous book but, strangely for me, it's hard to put my finger precisely on what makes it so powerful and, ultimately, moving. Straddling that contested area between fact and fiction, where the narrator shares the name of the author, this certainly has the postmodern feel of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum crossed with the historical self-consciousness of Binet's HHhH. I'm confident that readers better versed in Latin American literature than I am will spot other influences and literary relationships.

On one level this narrates key episodes in the C20th history of Columbia via, especially, two assassinations of Leftist leaders. Alongside this, however, are richer veins that meditate on history and story-telling, on the interpenetration of past and present, on inheritances in personal, national and even wider terms.

Vásquez writes unflashy, precise and intelligent prose (a shout-out, too, to the translator) and the stories that unfurl are quietly gripping. Inevitably, this isn't linear but Vásquez keeps his histories circulating through levels of narratives, stories embedded within stories, not doing that cheap trick of flitting around between time periods that every other novel seems to perform.

The way this is put together is masterful as we finally, along with the narrator, see the shape of the book we've been reading. But it's also exceptional at the local level: 'they are simply human remains, ruins, yes, the ruins of noble men.'

Deeply political, deeply humane, deeply literary - a nexus of ideas meld together to form a narrative of distinction and significance. In some ways the conclusion could be profoundly pessimistic: 'because nothing has changed here in centuries of existence and never will change' - and yet the very power of words serves to undermine that desolation: 'he wanted me to make a mausoleum of words where his father could dwell, and he also wanted the last two hours his father lived to be documented just as he understood them, because that way his father would not just have a place in the world, but would have played a part in history'.

Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC via NetGalley

[João Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jorge Eleiécer Gaitán (1903 – 1948)

Juan Gabriel Vásquez nasceu em 1973 em Bogotá, Colômbia; na Nota do Autor no final de ”A Forma das Ruínas” (2015) informa: ”A Forma das Ruínas” é uma obra de ficção. As personagens, os incidentes, os documentos e os episódios da realidade, presente ou passada, são aqui usados de forma romanceada e com as liberdades próprias da imaginação literária. O leitor que queira encontrar neste livro coincidências com a vida real terá de o fazer sob a sua própria responsabilidade.”
Carlos Carballo é um colombiano atormentado, obcecado com a morte de um líder político Jorge Eleiécer Gaitán (1903 – 1948) assassinado em 1948, em plena guerra política que culminou com o denominado Botogazo, cujas terríveis consequências mudaram permanentemente o mapa político, social e cultural do país; que tenta averiguar quais foram as forças conspirativas que perpetraram tão hediondo crime, com o registo da eventual impunidade criminal decorrente de manobras e enredos distorcidos pelos políticos colombianos.
Juan Gabriel Vásquez acaba compelido por Carlos Carballo a aprofundar esses segredos, apesar de inicialmente desdenhar as extravagâncias e as obsessões do seu interlocutor, convencido da inexistência de teorias da conspiração ou de teses conspiratórias no caso de Jorge Eleiécer Gaitán. A inevitável associação com o assassinato do presidente norte-americano John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) e do general colombiano Rafael Uribe Uribe (1859 – 1914) acabam por surgir.
Enquanto a investigação avança, Juan Gabriel Vásquez revela um integral domínio da narrativa, que oscila entre o passado e o presente, intercalada com inúmeras fotografias, testemunhos reais e artigos de jornais. A atracção evidente pela investigação e pela interpretação histórica da Colômboa que Juan Gabriel Vásquez elabora, sendo obviamente a sua motivação primordial para escrever "A Forma das Ruínas", exerceram em mim um fascínio inequívoco, como se de um romance policial se tratasse. Acrescento ainda que a vertente autobiográfica de Juan Gabriel Vásquez é memorável, uma profunda e genuína reflexão, onde incorpora as suas influências familiares, sociais e culturais, nomeadamente, as literárias.
”A Forma das Ruínas” é um excelente romance - fiquei apenas desapontado com os dois capítulos finais -, desafiante e engenhoso na sua construção; permitindo ao leitor que tal como eu desconhece os factos relatados - englobando e integrando a história da Colômbia, no séc. XX e séc. XXI.

[Roula · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Δεν ξερω ποτε αρχισα να αντιλαμβανομαι οτι το παρελθον της χωρας μου μου φαινεται ακατανοητο και σκοτεινο,μια πραγματικη δυστοπια, ουτε μπιρω να θυμηθω την ακριβη στιγμη κατα την οποια ολα αυτα που θεωρουσα τοσο αξιοπιστα και προβλεψιμα-το μερος που μεγαλωσα, το μερος που μιλαω τη γλωσσα του και γνωριζω τις συνηθειες του, το μερος που το παρελθον του μου το διδαξαν στο σχολειο και στο πανεπιστημιο, το μερος που το παρον του εχω συνηθισει να το ερμηνευω και να υποκρινομαι οτι το καταλαβαινω- αρχισαν να μετατρεπονται σε ενα κρατος ζοφου απο το οποιο ξεπηδουσαν αποτροπαια πλασματα μολις χαλαρωναμε την επαγρυπνηση."

Το βιβλιο αυτο θα ελεγα οτι μιλαει για καποιες "συμπτωσεις" της ιστοριας που τελικα μονο αφελης πρεπει να εισαι για να πιστεψεις οτι ηταν τυχαιες. 3 ιστορικα γεγονοτα, 3 τεραστιες πολιτικες προσωπικοτητες -ο Τζον Κένεντι, ο Χορχε Ελιεσερ Γκαϊτάν και ο Ραφαελ Ουριμπε Ουριμπε(οι 2 τελευταιοι ηταν αρχηγοι φιλελευθερων πολιτικων κομματων σε διαφορετικες χρονικες περιοδους στην Κολομβια)- συνδεονται με την τραγικη μοιρα της δολοφονιας αλλα τελικα δεν εχουν μονο αυτο το κοινο.δεν τους συνδεουν απλες συμπτωσεις..
Το βιβλιο αυτο παροτι ηταν αρκετα ογκωδες(περιπου 700 σελιδες), το διαβασα σχετικα συντομα και το απηλαυσα απεριοριστα. Ηταν ενα βιβλιο που παρ'ολο που ασχολειται με πολιτικη,ιστορια και θεωριες συνωμοσιας(θεματα που δεν τα λες και ευκολα), καταφερνει να γινει τρομερα ενδιαφερον και αυτο θεωρω οτι οφειλεται στην γραφη του Vasquez που ειναι...εθιστικη.παρουσιαζει τα γεγονοτα με απλο και κατανοητο τροπο ,ακομη και αν σε καποια σημεια αισθανθηκα οτι επαναλαμβανοταν και ελεγε πολλα.αληθειες και ψεματα, παρελθον και παρον, τυχαιο και μοιραιο, ολα αυτα σμιγουν και εμφανιζονται ξανα και ξανα μπροστα μας στην παροδο του χρονου και της ιστοριας και τελικα μας διδασκουν πως "Αν συμβαινει κατι , ειναι επειδη ετσι σχεδιαστηκε", ή οχι?
ειχα ξεχωρισει το πρωτο βιβλιο του Vasquez που ειχα διαβασει (ο ηχος των πραγματων οταν πεφτουν), αλλα αυτο το βιβλιο καταφερε να μπει στα πολυ αγαπημενα μου.
Επισης αξιζει ενα μεγαλο μπραβο στις εκδοσεις Ικαρος τοσο για τις εξαιρετικα προσεγμενες εκδοσεις βιβλιων , οσο και τις επιλογες τους, μιας και σε μενα τουλαχιστον δεν εχει συμβει μεχρι στιγμης να διαβασω βιβλιο τους που να μη με ενθουσιασει.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m sorry to spoil your theories, but someone had to tell you one day that Santa Claus was your parents.

The Shape of Ruins translated (wonderfully as ever) by Anne McLean from Juan Gabriel Vásquez's La forma de las ruinas is based around two pivotal assassinations in 20th Century Colombian political history, and the conspiracy theories that swirled around each.

There are two ways to view or contemplate what we call history: one is the accidental vision, for which history is the fateful product of an infinite chain of irrational acts, unpredictable contingencies and random events (life as unremitting chaos which we human beings try desperately to order); and the other is the conspiratorial vision, a scenario of shadows and invisible hands and eyes that spy and voices that whisper in corners, a theatre in which everything happens for a reason, accidents don’t exist and much less coincidences, and where the causes of events are silenced for reasons nobody knows. “In politics, nothing happens by accident,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said. “If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” This phrase, which I haven’t been able to find quoted in any reliable source, is loved by conspiracy theorists.

In 1914, as the Great War raged in Europe, itself triggered of course by an assassination by Gavrilo Princip, In October of the same year, but on the other side of the world, a man who was not an archduke, but a General and a senator of the Republic of Colombia, was assassinated, not by bullets but the hatchet blows of two poor young men like Princip. Rafael Uribe Uribe, veteran of several civil wars, uncontested leader of the Liberal Party (in those days when being a liberal meant something) was attacked at midday on the 15th by Leovigildo Galarza and Jesús Carvajal, unemployed carpenters.

And, three decades later, the assassination by a lone gun man, Juan Roa Sierra, on 9 April 1948 of the great Liberal caudillo Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, hero of the people and future president of the Republic of Colombia (although in a later account of Gaitán in the closing pages of the novel, he comes across as something of a dangerous populist in his tactics, if not his policies, freely borrowing from the cult created by Mussolini.)

This last killing eerily foreshadowed the assassination, 15 years later, of John F Kennedy, with the reputed killer himself killed shortly afterwards (albeit here at the hands of an angry mob), followed by a wave of conspiracy theories and reports of a second gunman:

Like all Colombians, I grew up hearing that Gaitán had been killed by the Conservatives, that he’d been killed by the Liberals, that he’d been killed by the Communists, that he’d been killed by foreign spies, that he’d been killed by the working classes feeling themselves betrayed, that he’d been killed by the oligarchs feeling themselves under threat; and I accepted very early, as we’ve all come to accept over time, that the murderer Juan Roa Sierra was only the armed branch of a successfully silenced conspiracy.

Although Kennedy's death can be seen as the start of a wave of political violence that characterised the 1960s in the US, the effect of Gaitán's death was more dramatic. On the day itself it triggered ten-hours of rioting, and retaliatory violence from the authorities, with up to 3,000 people believed to have been killed, an event referred to as the Bogotazo the grandiloquent nickname that we Colombians gave to that legendary day a long time ago.

And this was followed by a ten-year civil war, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and with repurcussions, such as the drug-gang violence from Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel in the 1980-1990s.

Colombians don’t agree on many things, but we do all think that Gaitán’s murder was the direct cause of the Bogotazo, with its three thousand casualties, as well as the opening shot of the Violencia that would end eight years and three hundred thousand deaths later.
...
April 9 is a void in Colombian history, yes, but it is other things besides: a solitary act that sent a whole nation into a bloody war; a collective neurosis that has taught us to distrust each other for more than half a century.

The book draws some interesting links between these events and the great Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. In the interviews with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza documented in the book El Olor de la Guayaba (The Fragrance of the Guava), García Márquez reveals that the character of Colonel Aureliano Buendía in One Hundred Years of Solitude was loosely based on Rafael Uribe Uribe.

And in his autobiography, Vivir para contarla (Living to Tell The Tale) García Márquez hints at conspiracies behind the Gaitán murder, in particular a shadowy figure reputed to have incited the mob to take revenge on the alleged killer:

Many years later, in my days as a reporter, it occurred to me that the man had managed to have a false assassin killed in order to protect the identity of the real one.

The novel is narrated by a Colombian novelist called (you've guessed it) Juan Gabriel Vásquez. As the novel opens, his wife is about to give birth to two very premature babies (as happened in the real author's life) and he also encounters a surgeon who turns out to have parts of the post-autopsy remains of Gaitán in his personal possession, inherited from his father who performed the autopsy - things that really happened in the author's life (the real life doctor is called Leonardo Garavito). Juan Gabriel Vásquez explained his reason for this auto-fictional approach in an interview:

Well, the reason had to do with the circumstances in which the novel was born. I met this surgeon who invited me to his place and showed me the human remains - right? - a vertebra that belonged to Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and then a part of the skull that belonged to Rafael Uribe Uribe. This happened in September of 2005. That was the same moment in my life in which my twin daughters were being born in Colombia - in Bogota. Now, they were born very prematurely - at 6 1/2 months - which is a complicated situation that led to my wife and me spending a lot of time at the hospital while the girls recovered in their incubators.

I saw myself immersed in this very strange situation in which I went to this guy's place to take in my hands the human remains of two victims of political violence in Colombia, and then I went back to the hospital to take my own girls into my hands.

And the situation was so - so potent with me that these questions began taking shape very slowly in my head. What relationship is there between the two moments? Is my country's violent past, is that transmissible? Will that go down generation after generation to reach, in some way, the lives of these girls that have just been born? How can I protect them from this legacy of violence? I have always been aware that my life has been shaped by the crime of Gaitan for personal reasons, family reasons, sociopolitical reasons. It has shaped my whole country and the life of everybody I know. And so I thought, will that happen to my girls?

And so I realized that inventing a narrator, inventing a personality different from myself would, in a way, diminish them - or rather, undermine the importance these events had for my life. So - making a narrator up would remove me from these events, these anecdotes. And I didn't want that to happen. I wanted to take moral responsibility, as it were, for everything that I was telling in the novel.
(from https://www.npr.org/2018/11/07/665219...)

His fictional alter-ego makes a similar point:

I swear that I thought, after finishing The Sound of Things Falling, that my personal accounts with the violence it had fallen to me to live through were settled. Now it seems incredible that I hadn’t understood that our violences are not only the ones we had to experience, but also the others, those that came before, because they are all linked even if the threads that connect them are not visible, because past time is contained within present time, or because the past is our inheritance without the benefit of an inventory and in the end we eventually receive it all: the sense and the excesses, the rights and the wrongs, the innocence and the crimes.

Although much of the novel is fictional, particularly the creation of an conspiracy theory obsessive, Carlos Carballo, a protege of the surgeon's father. Within minutes of meeting him, Carballo has explained to our narrator what really happened on 9/11 and with Princess Diana, before turning to his favourite topic - the April 9, 1948 killings and the suspicious similarities with Kennedy's death (and 9/11):

What did Juan Roa Sierra and Lee Harvey Oswald have in common? They were both accused of acting alone, of being lone wolves. Second: they both represented the enemy in their historic moment. Juan Roa Sierra was later accused of having Nazi sympathies, I don’t know if you remember: Roa worked at the German Embassy and brought Nazi pamphlets home, everybody found out about that. Oswald, of course, was a communist. ‘That’s why they were chosen,’ Carballo told me, ‘because they were people who wouldn’t awaken solidarity of any kind. They were the public enemy of the moment: they represented it, they incarnated it. If it were now, they would have been Al-Qaeda. That makes it much easier for people to swallow the story.’ Third: both assassins were, in turn, murdered almost immediately. ‘So they wouldn’t talk,’ Carballo told me, ‘isn’t it obvious?’

In another neat García Márquez link, Carballo claims to be a years younger than he actually is, so that his birth date can coincide with the events of 1948:

García Márquez had done something similar: for many years he maintained that he was born in 1928, when he was actually born a year earlier. The reason? He wanted his birth to coincide with the famous massacre at the banana plantation that became one of his obsessions, and which he described or reinvented in the best chapter of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

And as Carballo strings him a succession of increasingly fantastical stories about himself, the narrator also recalls Sebald:

I hadn’t made such a marvellous discovery since the day in 1999 when I opened the strange book of a certain W.G. Sebald.
...
A page of The Emigrants came to mind in which Sebald talks about Korsakoff syndrome, that disease of the memory that consists of inventing memories to replace true ones that have been lost, and I wondered if it weren’t possible that Carballo suffered from something similar.

At one point another character tells the narrator:

Conspiracy theories are like creepers, Vásquez, they grab onto whatever they can to climb up and keep growing until someone takes away what sustains them.

But of course that is not really true - conspiracy theories often have such tangled roots that even with the lack of any sustaining source and the removal of their underpinning (in the 1948 case, the autopsy proved that the bullets all came from one gun) the theories still flourish.

Much of the story to around half way relates the various encounters of the narrator and Carballo over the years, culminating into a visit to his house, where he reveals some of his treasures, in particular a now obscure, but once famous, book written on the Uribe Uribe killing by one Marco Tulio Anzola, who forms a role model for Carballo's own exhaustive investigations.

In a rather odd editorial decision, over two hundred pages (40%) of the book is then devoted to an exhaustive, and factual not fictional, examination into the Uribe Uribe murder.

In real-life, a young man, Marco Tulio Anzola was commissioned by the General's family to mount a private investigation into the death, and after several years produced a detailed account which, in contradiction to the official judicial view, claimed to reveal a widespread conspiracy as well as (inevitably) a third killer who escaped the scene.

It was published as a book Asesinato del general Rafael Uribe Uribe. Quienes son? (The Assassination of General Rafael Uribe Uribe. Who Are They?) in 1917 (https://www.worldcat.org/title/asesin...) and caused a sensation at the time, Anzola being permitted to call various witnesses to the trial of the alleged sole murderers, but his account, while compelling as a story, failed to reach judicial standards of proof. As a newspaper reported at the time:

It is a simple and very easy labour to suggest, in any sort of matter, vague and sinister complicities; the popular spirit is very fertile soil for those kinds of seeds; in it suspicion catches, even the most absurd, marvellously fast; however, that wasn’t what was expected of Señor Anzola, but proof and concrete accusations, and the country was left waiting.

his case collapsed and he was discredited, and eventually arrested for attacking a police officer and faded into obscurity.

In the novel, our narrator is pressured by Carballo into reading the book:

I opened Who Are They? and flipped through pages without disguising my boredom. There were three hundred pages of cramped type

and while he ultimately finds the account fascinating, it is also highly confusing, and easy to lose track of exactly why being able to prove such and such a person was in a particular place at a certain time is quite so key:

“Emilio Beltrán,” I said. “Rings a bell, but I don’t remember who he was.”

The problem for the reader of The Shape of the Ruins is that Juan Gabriel Vásquez essentially rewrites a second-had version of Who are They?, which if it is 'only' 200 pages not 300 still produces very similar sensations of boredom, at times, and confusion.

I felt some sympathy to Anzola, as a person, but entirely unconvinced of his findings - the former was surely the author's intention, but the latter possibly wasn't. The theories of Who Are They? are built on the usual sources of crackpots, publicity seekers and delusional and contradictory witnesses - where, in fact, the only sources of agreement are those entirely consistent with the official account. And yet Anzola believes that too is a conspiracy - the witnesses have been bribed to undermine their own credibility. At one point he even accuses the key figure in the whole conspiracy, another senior General, of causing the death of his own mother to avoid a court appearance.

Anzola uses the press to give public voice to his accusations: launching these difficult contentions from the tribune of the free press.

But as the author has said in the aforementioned interview, one of the perfidious effects of 21st century conspiracy theories as a tool used by political populists (see Brexit, the Labour left, Trump) is to undermine the free press not by suppression or censorship, but simply by destroying belief in any objective authoritative truth.

It is all fascinating in many sense, but this section rather uses a sledgehammer to the reader's patience to make its point.

The novel does however end strongly. The narrator gives us Carballo's back story, and we and the narrator come to have some sympathy with what drives his obsession. The narrator also presents a balanced rationale for the competing cock-up versus conspiracy theories of the chaos that seems to govern our lives. Carballo argues:

He understood that, Vásquez, he understood that terrible truth: that they were killed by the same people. Of course I’m not talking about the same individuals with the same hands, no. I’m talking about a monster, an immortal monster, the monster of many faces and many names who has so often killed and will kill again, because nothing has changed here in centuries of existence and never will change, because this sad country of ours is like a mouse running on a wheel.

Overall, an extremely impressive novel. This is my fourth Juan Gabriel Vásquez novel and I think the best. Middle section aside this could have been 5 star territory, but a good 4 stars, and a strong shortlist contender for the MBI.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kietai sukalta knyga, labai kietai. Tikrai bus viena iš mano šių metų greriausiųjų.
Nelengvai man ėjosi ją skaityti, nes politinės žmogžudystės, konspiracinės teorijos nelabai mane domina, o jau true crime tai iš viso nemėgstu. O čia kaip tik tokie šio istorinio-politinio trilerio rėmai.

Pasakojama apie tragišką, brutalų Kolumbijos laikotarpį, prasidėjusį 1914-iais, kai buvo nužudytas teisininkas, politikas,liberalų partijos narys, generolas R. Uribe Uribe. Tyrimas ir teismo procesas buvo lydimas dingusių liūdininkų ir pačio tyrėjo priverstiniu emigravimu į JAV, kur, beje, jis prapuolė ar sugebėjo vykusiai pasislėpti. Po kelių dešimtmečių, 1946-iais nužudomas kitas liberalų partijos narys, kandidatas į prezidentus, socialistas J. E. Gaitan.

Po šio nusikaltimo Bogotą apėmė gyventojų sukilimas (Bogotazo), kuris išplito po visą šalį.

Žudynės, plėšikavimai tapo šalies kasdienybe. Prasidejo pilietinis karas, La Violencia, smurto laikotarpis užtrukęs dešimtmetį, jei ne ilgiau. Toliau sekė Pablo Escobar kruvinasis periodas...

Šiaip jau, keista buvo man, kad apie dalykus, apie kuriuos skaityti nemėgstu, mane taip įtraukė. Autorius žinoma susikoncentravęs į savo šalies istoriją, tačiau jis tikrai turi omeny pasaulinę istoriją. Užsimenama, beje, ir apie J. F. Kennedy nužudymą. 

Tačiau kas mane labiausiai sužavėjo šioje knygoje, tai kaip ta ideja, įvykių interpretacija pagal Vasquez, yra išpildyta. 

Pasakotojas ir pagrindinis charakteris - pats autorius, Kolumbijos rašytojas Juan Gabriel Vasquez.
Knyga pilna autobiografinių faktų, pamini autorius ir savo literatūrinės karjeros pradžią,  savo ankstesnį romaną... Apskritai, (pa)svarstoma apie literaturą, istoriją... Fotografijos, kurių vis dažniau pasitaiko šiuolaikinėje grožinėje lit., sudaro įspūdį,  lyg skaitytum nonfiction. O kur dar ir einamuoju , autoriaus pasakojamu laikotarpiu, besivystantis detektyvas. Šiaip jau, painus visas tas žmogžudysčių, tikrų faktų, spelionių, etc. raizginys, bet, mano galva, autorius - genealus vedlys tame labirinte.

 [...]'they were killed by the same people. Of course I'm not talking about the same individuals with the same hands, no. I'm talking about a monster, an immortal monster, the monster of many faces and many names who has so often killed and will kill again, because nothing ever will change, because this sad country of ours is like a mouse running on a wheel.'


Beje, ši knyga įtraukta į 2019 metų trumpąjį Man Booker International sąrašą.  Labai rekomenduoju.

 

[Olga Kowalska (WielkiBuk) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Między prawdą a fikcją, między historią a zmyśleniem – Juan Gabriel Vásquez snuje opowieść o teoriach spiskowych i zamachach, które naznaczyły Kolumbię na dziesięciolecia w "Kształcie ruin", powieści, która znalazła się pośród finalistów Międzynarodowej Nagrody Bookera.

"Kształt ruin" przypomina skomplikowany labirynt, w którego sercu tętnią dwa wielkie nazwiska – Uribe Uribe i Gaitán. Nazwiska, które pulsują i nadają rytm całej opowieści, które napędzają bohaterów i pozwalają im meandrować po kolumbijskiej historii w poszukiwaniu prawdy. Vásquez udowadnia jednak, że prawda zagubiła się gdzieś, rozmyła, została zakopana, zatuszowana i przykryta kolejnymi warstwami kłamstw, fałszywych i prawdziwych wspomnień, domysłów... Tak głośne zamachy rodzą legendy, plotki, wreszcie skomplikowane spiski i paranoiczne wyobrażenia. To właśnie wokół nich kręcą się bohaterowie, próbują rozplątywać kolejne supły, by natrafiać na kolejne. Z narastającą fascynacją zanurzają się w półprawdach i wcale nie chcą się wynurzyć.
Mitologizacja zbrodni nie pomaga nawet przy dowodach rzeczowych, których zdjęcia również odnajdziemy w książce. To już bardziej symbole niż namacalne dowody cudzych zbrodni.

A w tle powieści Vásqueza – Kolumbia z całą swoją historią skąpaną we krwi, w strachu, w narkotykowym pyle.

Takie książki jak "Kształt ruin" pozostawiają w czytelniku jakąś cząstkę siebie. Rodzą cichy niepokój, bo w końcu oparte o prawdziwe wydarzenia historyczne ciągną nas w ciemność domniemywań i niedopowiedzeń. Rozbudzają niezdrową fascynację tymi, których zabrał czas, a którzy wciąż żyją w zbiorowej wyobraźni.

I chociaż "Kształt ruin" nie jest lekturą łatwą, to wciąga w swój poplątany świat i zachwyci wszystkich miłośników dobrej literatury.

[Georgina Koutrouditsou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Συγκλονιστικό!
(soon κριτική)

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man Booker International Prize Longlist 2019. Vásquez has written an impressive historical novel that explores the ramifications of two important assassinations in Columbian political history. On October 15th in 1914, Rafael Uribe Uribe, the leader of the Liberal party, General and Senator of the Republic of Columbia was assassinated by two disaffected carpenters, Leovigildo Galarza and Jesús Carvajal with hatchets. The second spectacular assassination occurred on April 9th in 1948 when Juan Roa Sierra shot Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the liberal populist and future President.

The death of Gaitán triggered riots that resulted in roughly 3000 deaths when the authorities were brought in to quell the violence and called Bogotazo. It was followed by a 10-year civil war that caused thousands of more deaths and the rise of Pablo Escobar’s drug-gang violence during the 1980s and 1990s.

These two significant assassinations were impenetrable, chaotic events where facts were hard to discern. This led to numerous conspiracy theories—often convoluted and intricate. Hard evidence and hearsay were given equal weight. Public rumors refuted documentation, and third-hand accounts influenced the recollections of first-hand accounts.

Uribe’s brother had hired Marco Tulio Anzola to find the truth about Uribe’s killing and its perpetrators. Anzola recorded his efforts in a book that Vásquez came across. Anzola clearly had become obsessed with Uribe’s assassination and this account fascinated Vásquez. The author pulls heavily from the book in this offering to help explain Uribe’s death.

There was no similar account for Gaitán’s assassination, so Vásquez created the character Carlos Carballo that is conspiracy theory obsessed. Carballo’s search for the greater truth follows labyrinthine paths.

In probing these two deaths in his novel, Vásquez illuminates how conspiracy theories are tools used by political populists to undermine the free press by destroying belief in any objective truth. The result is that history becomes less based on facts, and instead is ‘the shape of the ruins’. Recommend.

[SAM · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered the existence of this book in a review by the Guardian. I had no prior knowledge of the author or of Colombian history but the review was so well written and the book synopsis so intriguing I added it to my ever growing to-read list. 

The Shape of the Ruins focuses on two keys events in Colombian history: the 1914 murder of General Rafael Uribe Uribe and the 1948 assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Vasquez combines fact with what I'll call speculative fiction, because although the murderers in both cases are known this book looks at possible conspiracies and shady goings on in the higher echelons of the government and other powerful organisations.  

The facts are utterly fascinating especially as, other than Pablo Escobar, I was ignorant of Colombia's past. Gaitan is seen as a JFK type figure and a great deal of similarities are drawn between them. Both wanted change and both attracted the wrong kind of attention. April 9th 1948 in Colombia is as infamous as 22nd November 1963 in the USA, although the fallout in Colombia was marred by blood and violence. 

The speculation, as is usually the case, is far more interesting than the recorded facts. The author draws on the theories of Carlos Carballo, whose research into April 9th 1948 has become his life's obsession and Doctor Benavides, who comes across as a little less fanatical than Carballo. Both have their opinions and both are able to offer spine-shivering intrigue with their theories. 

The author also gives us an insight into his childhood whilst growing up amidst the warring cartels, including a couple of violent acts perpetrated by Pablo's faction. These chapters are brief but equally as interesting as the main subject. There's a passage where he describes putting masking tape across his windows to dull any sharp edges resulting from bomb blasts. 

I could go on about this book but nothing i say will do it justice. It's just the best book i have read this year.

Here's a link to the review i read:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

[Cristians. Sirb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romancier de prim rang, Juan Gabriel Vásquez - maturizat, promițător, mare plăsmuitor. Asemeni marilor povestitori sud-americani. Am văzut Auster în cartea asta și am văzut Bolaño (Detectivii sălbatici).

O răvășitoare poveste în poveste în poveste… Ofrandă literară, desăvârșit închegată, închinată plăcerii de a povesti și plăcerii de a asculta/a citi povești bine spuse.

[Nicoleta Balopitou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πρώτη φορά Βάσκες, αλλά όχι και η τελευταία. Συγκλονιστικό βιβλίο, καταπληκτικός αφηγητής.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Esas ruinas humanas eran memorandos de nuestros errores pasados, y en algún momento fueron también profecías" p 541

"These human remains were memories of our past mistakes, and in some moment, they were our prophecies too."

This line from the end of Juan Gabriel Vásquez's latest book sums up the challenging theme of "the past comes back to haunt us." Vásquez, a Colombian who lives mostly in Barcelona, digs up the dirt on Colombia's past or in his own words, "no podía dejar de pensar en mis crímenes colombianos" p 544. I relistened to a podcast interview done around 2012.  He admits that Colombia's past 100 years is a time of almost constant conflict. He reflects his own personal drama in  during the cartel wars of the 1990s  in "The Sound of Things Falling" and the Nazi connection during the Second Wolrd War in "The Informers"." 

So it didn't surprize me that in "La forma de las ruinas" Vásquez takes a front seat and starts telling an almost autobiographical role as one of the main characters. His connection to Carlos Carballo, a man introduced in the first pages after being caught trying to steal the suit from a museum of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, is alarming. Gaitán was a leading political figure murdered in 1948 which cause unrest in the country. His death had some speculating a conspiracy and quickly Vásquez adds in the Kennedy assignation, and the book is off to conspiracy heaven. To be honest, the first 240 pages are riveting. 

Then the book jumps back in time to the murder of Rafael Uribe Uribe in 1914. Vásquez spends a lot of time in this section underlining and connecting dots to his thesis of "mis crímenes colombianos" and I was starting to get a little overwhelmed. The connection to a now lost book "Quiénes son" by Marco Tulio Anzola, was baffling and arresting at the same time. Time buries things and Vásquez shines light on some of those books hidden away in the dustbins of history. 

In true Vásquez fashion he brings everything back together (they never really were gone). He begins with an absolutely mesmerizing thesis on the past in the chapter called "La forma de las ruinas". Ruina can mean "ruin" or "remain" and his pondering about finding the remains of a person in history, or anyone, including one day his own rremains is shear brilliance.

Yes, Colombia has a dreadful past. Vásquez left his country to raise his daughters in Spain and yet he also muses whether this is good for them. Will they know his past; their heritage. What does it mean to escape one's past, especially when it is full of violence? He visits Colombia often and always finds more stories to uncover. This one is remarkably strong and unlike a straight historical novel, makes one think about things. I have so much respect for this writer.

read in Spanish.

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez was a riveting historical fiction novel focusing on the tumultuous and dark political history of Colombia over the years. This powerful book begins with the arrest of a man attempting to break into an exhibition in the museum of the bullet-ridden suit of a beloved Colombian politician. But we soon learn of all of the twisted conspiracies and stories of the historical secrets that link this crime with the assassination of another beloved Colombian leader a generation before. It is the unraveling of this history and the conspiracies throughout this spectacular book that not only keeps one turning the pages but makes us stop to pause and think about what is our truth. This book touches not only on history but on literature such as the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Living in a time rife with conspiracy theories, don't pass this amazing book up because if nothing else, it makes us look at our beliefs and how they are influenced in myriad ways. As someone who gravitates to Latin American authors, this author is new to me but he is one that I will certainly read more of his work. Thank you, Glenn.

"I recognized the red slipcase long before the doctor handed the book to Carbello. It was "Living to Tell the Tale," the memoir Gabriel Garcia Marquez had published three years earlier, copies of which had then flooded all Colombian bookshops and a good part of those elsewhere."

"And of course I had read Garcia Marquez's memoir as everyone had, and even alarmed at the clarity with which the country's best novelist, as well as our most influential intellectual, suggested without foundation or euphemism the existence of a hidden truth."

"The world was beginning to divide itself between those who were with him and those who were against him. On one side, those who were searching for the truth; on the other, this who wanted to hide it, bury it. He also felt that the world around him was behaving in unfathomable ways."

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Kétféleképpen lehet szemlélni azt, amit történelemnek nevezünk: az egyik nézőpont szerint - ez az esetlegességre alapuló szemlélet - a történelem irracionális cselekmények, kiszámíthatatlan eshetőségek és előre nem látható események végtelen láncolatának véletlenszerű terméke (az élet mint csillapíthatatlan káosz, amelyben mi, emberi lények, kétségbeesetten próbálunk rendet teremteni); a másik, a konspiratív szemlélet szerint viszont láthatatlan árnyak és kezek színpada, meg szemeké, amelyek minden utcasarkon ott figyelnek, és hangoké, amelyek minden utcasarkon ott suttognak. Színház, amelyben minden meghatározott okból történik, véletlen nincs, váratlan egyidejűség pedig még sokkal kevésbé, s ahol a történetek mozgatórugóit gondosan elhallgatják, soha senki által nem ismert okokból."

Óvakodjatok az országoktól, amelyeknek történelme véres. Rettegjetek, tartsátok távol magatokat tőlük, különösen ha ez az ország egyben szülőanyátok is. Mert az erőszakos múlt ingovány: azt a gondolatot ülteti el bennünk, hogy ennyi rossz véletlenül nem történhet, nem lehet egy személytelen, tárgyilagos, hideg történelmi folyamat eredménye. Muszáj lennie valami tervnek, egy gonosz összeesküvésnek, ami vesztünket célozza, hisz anélkül nem lenne értelme az egésznek. És mivel az értelemmel bíró rossz mindig vonzóbb, mint az értelmetlen, ezért az ember hipotéziseket állít fel. A hipotézisekhez pedig könnyen talál bizonyítékokat is - vagy legalábbis olyan dolgokat, amiket ő maga bizonyítéknak akar látni. Így megy ez: ha elég szilárdan ragaszkodunk egy előítélethez, a rajta emelt világnézetbe gyakorlatilag minden tapasztalat téglaként beépíthető. Még az is, ami nem. ("A bergengócok mind bunkók." "De én találkoztam egy kedves bergengóccal." "Igen, mert a bergengócok még kétszínűek is: leplezik a bunkóságukat.") Az ember pedig épít, csinosítgatja a kis konteóját, hogy Kennedy-t a kommunisták, az ufók vagy a tengerimalacok ölték meg, azt hiszi, az igazság világló fáklyáját viszi épp a tudatlanság sötét barlangjába be, pedig csak egy újabb vak és terméketlen járatot ás, ami nem vezet sehova. Különben meg nem is az a baj, hogy nincs igaza - mert még az is lehet, hogy igaza van. A tengerimalacok például nekem mindig gyanúsak voltak. A baj az, hogy el se tudja képzelni, hogy ne lenne igaza. Enélkül pedig minden hipotézisünk értéktelen.

Pont az a fajta könyv, amit szeretek: okos, ravasz, sokrétegű. Látszólag arról szól, hogy egy író, akit Vásqueznek hívnak, hogyan tér haza szülőföldjére, a politikai gyilkosságok honába, Kolumbiába. És ha már hazatért, hogyan gabalyodik bele a történelmi összeesküvések hálójába. Valójában azonban nem ezt a helyzetet ábrázolja - hanem épp ennek a helyzetnek az ábrázolhatatlanságát. Hogy ezt az egészet nem lehet elmesélni. Csak kommentárokat lehet fűzni hozzá, hol szükségtelenül terjengős, hol szükségszerűen hiányos magyarázatokat. És tulajdonképpen addig jó, amíg nem világos a miért. Mert ha mindent érteni vélünk, az alkalmasint már maga a konteó.

[Alma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"As teorias da conspiração são como trepadeiras, Vásquez, agarram-se ao que for para subirem e continuam a subir enquanto não se lhes tirar aquilo que as ampara."

"Aquelas ruínas humanas eram memorandos dos nossos erros passados, e nalgum momento foram também profecias."

[Iulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Existã cãrți pe care nu ai vrea sã le termini, iar când le termini rãmâi aṣa prostit, vrãjit ṣi timpul decurge altfel, eṣti în altã dimensiune, auzi mai greu, mai lent, mai cețos. Ṣtii rațional cã ți-a plãcut ṣi de ce ți-a plãcut, ṣtii cã in acest caz ruinele au aceastã formã bine ṣlefuitã ṣi nelãsatã la voia întâmplãrii, dar tot eṣti copleṣit ṣi impresionat cã uite, existã ṣi aṣa ceva!, ceva atât de frumos la care tocmai ai avut acces. Ṣi ai fãcut parte din tot acel.frumos, din toatã acea construcție care e artã a simțurilor deṣteptate de cuvinte, idei, fapte.
Asta e destul cât sã fii recunoscãtor cã lectura e unul dintre hobby-urile tale ṣi cã tu eṣti un cititor suficient de experimentat cât sã înțelegi ce bun e Vasquez, ce minunatã este toatã forma ṣi cât de viguroasã este, va fi, va face proba timpului întreaga construcție.

[ΠανωςΚ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Με βάση τα απολύτως υποκειμενικά μου κριτήρια, ο Βάσκες δεν θα έπρεπε να μου πολυαρέσει, λόγω της μετριοπάθειας που τον διακρίνει, ωστόσο ό,τι δικό του έχω διαβάσει μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ (αυτό ήταν το τρίτο). Το ενδιαφέρον εδώ είναι ότι παίζει και αμφισβητεί, καθώς έρχεται σε επαφή με συνωμοσιολογίες, ακριβώς αυτή τη δημόσια εικόνα του ως μετριοπαθούς και λογικού ανθρώπου -φυσικά αμφισβητεί και τις συνωμοσιολογίες, τι λογικάριος θα ήταν άλλωστε;
Εντούτοις το βιβλίο είναι συναρπαστικό και ο ρυθμός καταιγιστικός -με μία, δυστυχώς πολυσέλιδη, εξαίρεση, στο σημείο που η αφήγηση μάς μεταφέρει πίσω στο 1914. Το τέχνασμα με το οποίο το έκανε ο Βάσκες δεν μου πολυάρεσε. Βασικά, άλλαξε τελείως τον ρυθμό του βιβλίου, για πολλές, πάρα πολλές σελίδες. Αυτός είναι και ο μοναδικός λόγος που χάνει ένα αστεράκι στην τελική βαθμολογία.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Or are you going to tell me that known history is the only version of things? No, please, don't be so naive. What you call history is no more than the winning story, Vasquez. Someone made that story and not others win, and that’s why we believe it today. Or rather: we believe it because it got written down, because it wasn't lost in the endless hole of words that only get said, or even worse, that aren’t even spoken, but are only thought."

This book revolves around two assassinations. In October 1914, General Rafael Uribe Uribe was hacked to death by two men. He was the "indisputable leader of the Liberal party, senator of the Republic of Colombia and veteran of four civil wars". Almost 34 years later, on 9 April 1948, Liberal presidential candidate (a potential Colombian JFK) Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was shot and killed by Juan Roa Sierra, who was immediately beaten to death by a mob (most notably, for this book, before anyone could learn anything about his motives or any associates he may have had).

In the first part of the book, we are gradually pulled into a world of conspiracy theories, of men whose motives we are unsure of. Benavides seems OK, but we begin to wonder - is he pulling more strings than we can see? Caraballo is obsessive, a fanatic: he sees links between the assassinations and the death of John F. Kennedy. Is he paranoid, is he mad? Is he right?

Vasquez sets himself as the narrator of the book (we learn about his previous novels, the birth of his daughters) and skilfully sets about merging fact and fiction to build a story that draws the reader in. We are presented with quotes from various Spanish-language writers (most frequently Gabriel Garcia Marquez), we are shown photographs of key moments or pieces of evidence. But we know that not everything we are being told is "fact". And this is partly the point of the book, I think. Vasquez tells us that history isn’t just "facts" - everything we call history is an interpretation of what remains after the event (the shape of the ruins).

As Vasquez gets sucked into Caraballo's orbit, I, too, found myself being sucked into the story and keen to know how this auto-fiction detective thriller was going to play out.

For me, things took a bit of a down turn just over a third of the way through. At this point, the narrative switches to a prolonged (I want to say interminable) description of Uribe’s assassination. It is an important part of the book, but it lasts for at least 200 pages (feels like more) and the book is only just recovering from it when it reaches the final page. I would be the first to acknowledge that my reaction might be completely different were I Colombian and more invested in the history being told.

Be that as it may, this is, overall, a fascinating novel that intertwines two key events and investigates the political machinations of a country that I know very little about.

"It’s another turn of the screw in the relationship between history and the novel. The novel is becoming the great instrument of historical speculation."

Having recently re-read DeLillo's Libra and Munoz Molina's Like a Fading Shadow, I find myself agreeing! Much of this is an engrossing story and it’s only my struggle with the length of the middle section that makes me mark it down.

My thanks to Quercus Books, via NetGalley, for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee)]

DNF at 30%
Just not my cup of tea. Too dry and longwinded for me

[Eliza Rapsodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

REVIEW IN ENGLISH
** NO SPOILERS

I need to read more colombian authors, because my comfort zone is not the literature of my country. Thanks to a book swap, this book came into my hands. And it was a very good decision.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez (1973) is a lawyer, columnist, writer and translator from Bogotá; who emigrated very young to Europe and spent more than a decade residing in Barcelona. He has several novels translated into english, if you want to read them. Juan Gabriel was one of those authors that you saw his face in banners at book fairs, so he is way too promoted by this publishing house. I have my doubts but now I can firmly say that this book is good.

Click below if you want to continue reading *3* No spoilers inside

Juan Gabriel returned to Bogotá, after living 16 years in Barcelona. It took him some time to become accustomed to his country. The novel starts when he tells us his story in the past and in the present, when he met a man named Carlos Carballo. Also the nature of his relationship of admiration-scorn with him and why Carballo got himself imprisoned later on.

This is a novel that navigates between being autobiographical, a piece of historical novel and a detective story. Also it navigates between reality and fiction, something Juan Gabriel trully defends. The aforementioned Carlos Carballo, the heart of the novel and the author himself as protagonist, All of this woven with conspiracy theories and historical memory ¿Who are the ones responsible for the death of illustrious men?

Carlos Carballo is a man tormented by his past and faithful defender of conspiracy theories. He believes that there is always someone behind assassinations of important men such as Rafael Uribe Uribe, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, including John F. Kennedy himself. His life is spent studying and analyzing cases to discover the truth. The murders in Colombia, distanced by 34 years of difference (the first in 1914 and the second in 1948) have a prophetic meaning for Carballo and so the murder of two illustrious men obsess his life. How are these murders related? Is it the same people ordering them? Both cases had an executor and it was condemned or murdered, but, is there someone behind? Who are they?

From Juan Gabriel's perspective, we know the circumstances of his relationship with Carballo, how this man affected his life and we also get to know the story of the murders, which marked the life of the author and Colombia in general. What Juan Gabriel does here is a interesting and powerful reflection of Colombian history in times of polarization and internal conflict.

As a Colombian, We all tend to think that we are always suffer the same misfortunes, that is a cycle that does not end. But we fall again into the same misfortunes, in the same hopelessness. Juan Gabriel talk about his youth, his aspirations, about his life in Europe and describes in a brilliant way through Carballo and himself the story of two murders happened in a country that NEVER seems to learn.

Juan Gabriel tell us about these men and their ruins, and he wanted to exorcise his mind as well. I confess that I felt very identified by the proximity of our violence, the situations that we have lived directly or indirectly and that can really leave a mark on us.

I am really impressed and satisfied with this novel. Will you read it? Because it's worthy of your time.


**********************************
RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL

Hace tiempo que sentía la necesidad de leer más autores colombianos y no es porque no haya a quién leer, que si hay, sino que a veces mi zona de confort no está en la literatura de mi país. Y ahora, gracias a un intercambio literario este libro llegó a mis manos. Y para ir adelantando, ha sido una muy buena decisión.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez (1973) es un abogado, columnista, escritor y traductor bogotano; que emigró muy joven a Europa y pasó más de una década residiendo en Barcelona. Como él mismo dice, publicó novelas menores en Colombia y luego salió del país queriendo ser mejor narrador. En el  otro lado del océano publicó novelas que fueron calificadas como revelación y grandiosas para la crítica como El ruido de las cosas al caer, Los informantes, entre otras. Es de esos autores que veías su cara en pendones en las ferias del libro, promocionando su última novela (recuerdo haber visto carteles cuando se promocionaba El ruido de las cosas al caer). Mi primer contacto con sus textos fue mucho después, haciendo mi trabajo de grado, cuando leí un texto que escribió para El Malpensante sobre El gran Gatsby. Incluso cité un artículo que escribió sobre la reseña literaria y que hizo parte de mi tesis de grado. Desde ese momento sabía que era un tipo culto y sobre todo, que escribía bien.


Los gafufos conquistaremos el mundo

Esta vez estamos hablando de su novela más reciente, publicada en 2015. Juan Gabriel regresó a radicarse en Bogotá, luego de vivir 16 años en Barcelona, ahora acompañado por su esposa y sus hijas. Pasó un tiempo para que se volviera a acostumbrar a Colombia. En medio de esa época es cuando nos cuenta lo que vivió con un hombre llamado Carlos Carballo  y como era su relación de admiración-desprecio y lo que llevó a este hombre meterse al museo de Jorge Eliécer Gaitán para terminar encarcelado.

Podría ser una virtud o un punto negativo, pero La forma de las ruinas es una novela que navega entre lo autobiográfico, la novela histórica y el relato detectivesco. No hay una definición génerica, navega entre la realidad y la ficción, cosa que Juan Gabriel defiende a cabalidad. Y de esto se sirve para contarnos varias historias con personajes clave: un doctor que le hace una revelación impactante, el mencionado Carlos Carballo, hilo conductor de la novela y el propio autor es protagonista, que nos narra experiencias personales (el nacimiento de sus hijas, prematuras luego de un complicado parto). Todo esto tejido con las conspiraciones y la memoria histórica ¿Quiénes son los que se encargan de urdir la muerte de hombres ilustres?


Asesinato de Lee Harvey Oswald, sospechoso del asesinato de John F. Kennedy



Carlos Carballo es un hombre atormentado por su pasado y fiel defensor de las teorías conspirativas. Cree que siempre hay alguien detrás de asesinatos de importantes hombres como lo fueron Rafael Uribe Uribe, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, incluso el propio John F. Kennedy. Su vida transcurre en estudiar y analizar los casos para descubrir la verdad. Los asesinatos en Colombia, distanciados por 34 años de diferencia, (el primero en 1914 y el segundo en 1948) tienen un sentido profético para Carballo y por eso el asesinato de dos hombres ilustres obsesionan su vida. Ambos liberales, el primero un general que catalogaban de ateo perdido y el segundo, el caudillo del pueblo, llamado "El Jefe" y una de las últimas grandes figuras políticas colombianas, avivaron la tensión de todo un país. La de Gaitán, desencadenó la ira del pueblo y la destrucción de gran parte de la capital del país y el recrudrecimiento de una violencia bipartidista ya existente.  ¿Cómo se relacionan estos asesinatos? ¿Es la misma gente que ¿Porque ambos casos tuvieron un ejecutor y este fue condenado o asesinado, pero, hay alguien detrás? ¿A quién le convenían sus muertes?


Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, ya fallecido, el 9 de abril de 1948

Desde varios momentos y desde la voz de Juan Gabriel, vamos conociendo las circunstancias de su relación con Carballo, cómo este hombre afectó su vida durante una época y por ende el acercamiento a la historias de estos asesinatos, que marcaron la vida del autor y de todo un país. Lo que hace aquí Juan Gabriel es reflexionar de forma acertada e interesante los detalles de la vida política nacional y las épocas de un país siempre convulso, polarizado y en guerra. Desde Rafael Uribe Uribe y la finalización de la guerra de los mil días y sus años posteriores hasta llegar a la polarización política de los años cuarenta por la figura del caudillo Jorge Eliécer Gaitán y cómo su muerte marcó miles de vidas.



Los colombianos ya tendemos a pensar que siempre nos pasan las mismas desgracias, que es un ciclo que no termina. Si no es así, por qué nos sorprende que un tipo como Luis Carlos Galán, dirigente del partido Liberal (como lo fue Gaitán) también haya caído asesinado por las balas en 1989; el que en su momento representó para muchos la esperanza de que todo cambiara. Pero caemos de nuevo en las mismas desgracias, en la misma desesperanza. Juan Gabriel reflexiona sobre su juventud, sus aspiraciones, sobre el exilio, el desarraigo y describe de forma brillante por medio de Carballo y él mismo la historia de dos asesinatos sucedidos en una patria que una vez fue llamada "boba", una que se autodestruye por medio del odio y la eliminación de los que nos estorban.

Creo que esta novela es un muy buen ejercicio de reflexión sobre la memoria y la historia, que nos hace plantearnos las dudas que aquejan a Carballo y que además aquejan a su autor. Por cosas de la profesión, enterarme posteriormente que Carballo no era un personaje real me dejó algo desilusionada pero paradójicamente contenta por creerme un personaje como me lo creí. El bogotazo tambien marco a Juan Gabriel y todo su pasado y sus ruinas, y por esto lo ha querido exorcisar en esta novela. Confieso que me sentí muy identificada por la cercanía de nuestra violencia, la que hemos vivido directa o indirectamente y que nos ha marcado como sociedad.


Los gafufos conquistaremos el mundo: Parte 2

Me he quedado muy impresionada y satisfecha son el trabajo de Juan Gabriel. Y ya me he agenciado otra de sus novelas porque ya que he leído la más reciente, no me queda más remedio que leer las anteriores. ¿Leerán ésta? Porque lo vale mucho.

[Irma Sincera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bandau prisiminti, kaip ši knyga atsidūrė mano taikinyje. Spėju, kad ėjau per sąrašus apie geriausias Lotynų Amerikos knygas ir ką būtina perskaityti. Pažymėjau "to be read" ir gyvenau toliau, kol nepamačiau jos knygų mugėje vieno stendo lentynoje, patraukė rašytojo pavardė ir pagriebus knygą įsijungiau savo goodreads paskyrą ir pamačiau, kad aš jau ja domėjausi, todėl nepalaikiau to atsitiktinumu ir įsigijau.

Man labai patinka knygos, kur tikri istoriniai faktai persimaišo su fikcija. Kur kaip skaitytojas, pradedi abejoti kas yra tiesa, kas melas. Ar tai ką matome per žinias yra tikroji istorija? O gal yra kita istorijos pusė, kurios niekas nužrašo ir neįamžina?
Knyga daugiasluoksnė, istorija istorijoje, knyga knygoje. Jau atrodo supratai kokia bus pagrindinė linija, o tada paaiškėja, kad tai tik įžanga į dar vieną istoriją. Pradžia įtraukė akimirksniu, vidurinė dalis skaitėsi lėčiau, bet niekada nesinorėjo mesti, na o pabaigoje viskas gražiai apjungiama. Manau skaityti ją antrą kartą būtų net įdomiau, daug daugiau detalių pastebėčiau.

Tematika - dvi žmogžudystės Kolumbijos politiniame pasaulyje. Niekada nemaniau, kad tuo susidomėsiu, bet užvertus knygą ėjau ieškoti daugiau informacijos apie aprašomus įvykius. Autorius pats save įtraukia kaip knygos personažą, kas suteikia viskam dar daugiau realistiškumo ir ta linija tarp kas tikra, o kas išgalvota, tampa dar plonesnė.

[Juan David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vásquez es un brillante narrador. 💎

Confirmo que desde que empecé a leerlo se ha convertido en mis escritores colombianos favoritos. La historia es contingente, y Vásquez en sus obras, quiere dar a comprender nuestra realidad personal y como sociedad a traves de dos opciones de entender los hechos de la historia: la casualidad accidentada de unos hechos o la premeditación y la conspiración detrás de esos mismos hechos, que suelen pensarse que sucedieron por un simple azar, un destino caprichoso del cuál no tenemos mucho que hacer; pero también pueden obedecer a alguna "mano negra" (llámese poder, grandes corporaciones, banqueros, la oscura elite etc) que termina influyendo fuertemente en el devenir de una vida, de generaciones y de un país, incluso siglos después de los mismos sucesos.

Influenciado bajo estás fuerzas oscuras de la historia y de como termina siendo después contada o manipulada, Vásquez exorciza sus obsesiones bajo el poder de la ficción que le otorga la novela como género, y nos narra en sus obras, en este caso "La forma de las ruinas", esa parte de la historia que incomoda al status quo, al establecimiento que a repetido una mentira o una versión (la de los ganadores por lo general) tantas veces, que a terminado por convertirla en verdad y olvidó para el pueblo. Vásquez va más allá de lo sentenciado o de lo oficial en un acontecimiento histórico crucial, va a las versiones alternativas de más testigos, a versiones que no suelen convenir al poder, y sobre todo va a aquellos sentimientos y emociones que se despertaron y afectaron las vidas privadas de los ciudadanos de un país, desde el momento en que un puñado de políticos o un par de asesinos contratados por mafias poderosas, deciden acabar con alguna esperanza de cambio, pavimentando así el devenir de generaciones futuras que no tienen nada que ver con lo ocurrido y aún así la ola de esas terribles decisiones y consecuencias los embiste, heredando aquellos pesares y odios.

"Hay verdades que no quedan en los periódicos. Hay verdades que no son menos verdades por el hecho de que nadie las sepa. Tal vez ocurrieron en un lugar raro adonde no pueden ir los periodistas ni los historiadores. (…) Hay verdades débiles, Vásquez, verdades frágiles como un niño prematuro, verdades que no se pueden defender en el mundo de los hechos probados, de los periódicos y de los libros de historia, verdades que existen aunque se hayan hundido en un juicio o aunque las olvide la memoria de la gente".

La forma de las ruinas, nace a partir de unos hechos biográficos del autor, que además se incluye dentro de la novela como protagonista y narrador. En el año 2005, Vásquez asiste a una cita en la casa de un amigo médico, allí este amigo le muestra las ruinas de dos grandes hombres del siglo XX de la historia de Colombia. Estas ruinas son: parte de la médula del caudillo liberal Jorge Eliécer Gaitán dónde recibió una de las balas que lo mataron y parte del cráneo del General Rafael Uribe Uribe, asesinado por golpes de hachuela en su cabeza. A partir de ese día y teniendo aquellos restos en sus manos, Vásquez supo que debía escribir una novela, una obra que mostrará la relación, el sentimiento, esas emociones no contadas que vivió el ciudadano común y corriente con los asesinatos de dos de los hombres más importantes de nuestra época reciente.

Carlos Carballo, un hombre misterioso y solitario se encuentra profundamente obsesionado con las teorías conspirativas que se mueven tras las sombras del asesinato de Gaitán; Carballo a dedicado toda su vida a recolectar información, leer libros, periodicos, informaciones de la época que lo acerquen cada vez más a esas versiones censuradas en el asesinato del caudillo. Une métodos, informaciones y conspiraciones con el mismo asesinato de Kennedy, sabe que existieron como en el caso Kennedy autores intelectuales, mentes detrás de aquellos pobres diablos que solo sirvieron como autores materiales y que hicieron todo lo posible por tapar la verdad y, busca desesperadamente una mente que logre ver más allá de lo oficial y lo ayude a escribir un libro que revolucione la opinión pública y desmienta tantos años de encubrimientos e impunidad.

Es así, que mediante un encuentro auspiciado por el doctor Benavides, que Carballo y Vásquez se conocerán, y a pesar que dicho encuentro termina en resultados penosos, Vásquez queda con la duda, la espina de saber que por más loco que suene Carballo, sus teorías no se alejan de la verosimilitud y, solo la ingenuidad e incredulidad lo descartarían como alguien desesperado por una verdad que ya fue dicha.

"Eso que usted llama historia no es más que el cuento ganador, Vásquez. Alguien hizo que ganara ese cuento y no otros, y por eso le creemos hoy".

Luego de este encuentro, Vásquez vivirá una encrucijada, no sabe si alejarse definitivamente de estas teorías que por más verosímiles y apasionantes no terminan de probar nada o por inmiscuirse a tope por unas versiones que jamás quisieron prestarles atención y que él siente el llamado a hacer algo por la verdad. Y así por influencia del doctor Benavides, se acercara más a Carballo, lo conocerá con mayor detalle y leerá un libro que este le ha dado dónde está el epicentro de su conspiración. Un libro escrito en 1917 por Marco Tulio Anzola, titulado: Quienes son? asi con un solo signo de interrogación. Dicho libro, cuenta un conglomerado de entrevistas con testigos y cercanías a la verdad, de aquellas sombras poderosas que manejan el país, y que desde la clandestinidad han estado más que satisfechos con el asesinato del General Rafael Uribe Uribe. Y los encargados de la verdad (fiscalia-policia) hicieron todo lo posible por proteger la versión oficial. Relaciones y métodos parecidos con el años después asesinato de Gaitán, y la verdad manipulada hasta nuestros días.

Finalmente, con la delicadeza de una hoja que cae despacio en un lago y crea pequeñas ondas que se acercan a la orilla, termina Vásquez este libro. Una sutileza dónde cuadra todo: el pasado de la obsesión de Carballo, el juicio del asesinato de Uribe Uribe, las consecuencias de la investigación exhaustiva de Anzola, el Bogotazo de 1948... y el lector queda satisfecho por lo acabado de leer.

Como dije, Vasquez es un excelente narrador, y leer una novela policiaca, histórica, conspiranoica y autobiográfica es algo que logra este libro. Una mirada hacia nuestras ruinas olvidadas, una forma de honrarlas y darles forma tras su recuerdo.

"Ahora mismo alguien está tomando una decisión que nos afecta a usted y a mí, y la está tomando por razones como éstas: para joder a un enemigo, para vengarse de una afrenta, para impresionar a una mujer y acostarse con ella. Así funciona el mundo".

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book due to its inclusion on the 2019 Man Booker International Shortlist - a list I have found distinctly underwhelming (particularly when its seems a common view from those who follow translated fiction prizes more closely, that the shortlist this year was much the best pick of a weaker longlist).

Paul has already written an extremely comprehensive review of the book here - which gives much of the historical context to the novel as well as explaining its structure.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This excellent review in the LA Review of Books sums up some of my issues with the book

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/r...

I read the book in a single sitting, which I think should work to the book's benefit - as it makes it much easier to follow the two main assassinations, to spot the links between them, to be able to pick up the various witnesses and alleged incidents around the Uribe Uribe assassination, and to immerse oneself in the world of conspiracy theories.

In practice it was not an experience I particularly enjoyed - I do not find conspiracy theories appealing and too much of the first part of the book took place in them, and the lengthy section of the novel which effectively ends up as a fairly ordinarily written reproduction of a historical account of the supposed truth around the Uribe Uribe murders was simply tedious.

While there may be lots to like in this novel - the decision to include this section has cost it 4 stars in my view.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

now it seems incredible that i hadn't understood that our violences are not only the ones we had to experience, but also the others, those that came before, because they are all linked even if the threads that connect them are not visible, because past time is contained within present time, or because the past is our inheritance without the benefit of an inventory and in the end we eventually receive it all: the sense and the excesses, the rights and the wrongs, the innocence and the crimes.

juan gabriel vásquez's stirring new novel, the shape of the ruins (la forma de las ruinas), is a work of historical intrigue, conspiracy theory, and the immutable weight of both a country and a family's long legacy. somewhere between a political thriller and a fictionalized autobiographical account, the colombian author's latest book springs from the annals of yesteryear while situating itself in a milieu not dissimilar from what came before (evoking twain's famous line, "history never repeats itself but it rhymes"). the shape of the ruins, first published in spanish in 2015, contends with the dark, violent history of the author's homeland and the political turbulence that has marked so much of its past.

i don't know when i started to realize that my country's past was incomprehensible and obscure to me, a real shadowy terrain, nor can i remember the precise moment when all that i'd believed so trustworthy and predictable—the place i'd grown up, whose language i speak and customs i know, the place whose past i was taught in school and in university, whose present i have become accustomed to interpreting and pretending i understand—began to turn into a place of shadows out of which jumped horrible creatures as soon as we dropped our guard. with time i have come to think that this is the true reason why writers write about the places of childhood and adolescence and even their early youth: you don't write about what you know and understand, and much less do you write because you know and understand, but because you understand that all your knowledge and comprehension is false, a mirage and an illusion, so your book are not, could not be, more than elaborate displays of disorientation: extensive and multifarious declarations of perplexity. all that i thought was so clear, you then think, now turns out to be full of duplicities and hidden intentions, like a friend who betrays us. to that revelation, which is always annoying and often frankly painful, the writer responds in the only way one knows how: with a book. and that's how you try to mitigate your disconcertion, reduce the space between what you don't know and what can be known, and most of all resolve your profound disagreements with that unpredictable reality. "out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric," wrote yeats. "out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry." and what happens when both quarrels arise at the same time, when fighting with the world is a reflection or a transfiguration of the subterranean but constant confrontation you have with yourself? then you write a book like the one i'm writing now, and blindly trust that the book will mean something to somebody else.

the shape of the ruins has at its heart the assassinations of two prominent colombian figures: jorge eliécer gaitán (in 1944) and rafael uribe uribe (in 1914). himself a character and part-time narrator in the story, vásquez finds himself embroiled in the past, charged with wading through misinformation and conflicting records, while also contending with a pair of characters whose motivations aren't initially clear. as vásquez digs deeper into the mystery of gaitán's murder (and the possible conspiracy that preceded it and the cover-up that followed), he's forced to reckon with the veracity of colombia's accepted history, while attempting to make sense of a seemingly vanishing veracity.

contact sustained with other people's paranoias, which are multifarious and lie hidden behind the most tranquil personalities, work on us without our noticing, and if you don't watch out, you can end up investing your energy in silly arguments with people who devote their lives to irresponsible conjectures.

in our current era of fake news, conspiracy theories, alternative facts, and overall devaluation of truth, vásquez's novel speaks to a moment far greater than the ones from which it sprang. the shape of the ruins has a resonance that transcends both country and century, illuminating the ongoing power struggles that seem to alight on all things political. with his compelling characters and propulsive plot, vásquez's the shape of the ruins is an engaging tale of schemes and machinations. though vásquez's fiction trends toward the conventional, the shape of the ruins is an exquisite exploration of conspiracy, collusion, assassination, and society's shaping forces.

"he understood that, vásquez, he understood that terrible truth: that they were killed by the same people. of course i'm not talking about the same individuals with the same hands, no. i'm talking about a monster, an immortal monster, the monster of many faces and many names who has so often killed and will kill again, because nothing had changed here in centuries of existence and never will change, because this sad country of ours is like a mouse running on a wheel."

*translated from the spanish by anne mclean (vila-matas, halfon, rosero, cercas, abad, et al.)

4.5 stars