Yo el Supremo

Trilogía sobre el monoteísmo del poder #2

by Augusto Roa Bastos

Latin America has seen, time and again, the rise of dictators, Supreme Leaders possessed of the dream of absolute power, who sought to impose their mad visions of Perfect Order on their own peoples. Latin American writers, in turn, have responded with fictional portraits of such figures, and no novel of this genre is as universally esteemed as Augusto Roa Bastos's I the Supreme, a book that draws on and reimagines the career of the man who was "elected" Supreme Dictator for Life in Paraguay in 1814.

By turns grotesque, comic, and strangely moving, I the Supreme is a profound meditation on the uses and abuses of power—over men, over events, over language itself.

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature, Historical Fiction, Latin American, Literature, Latin American Literature, 20th Century

556 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Augusto José Antonio Roa Bastos was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor. He is best known for his complex novel Yo el Supremo (I, the Supreme) and for his reception of the Premio Miguel de Cervantes in 1989, Spanish literature's most prestigious prize. Yo el Supremo is one of the foremost Latin American novels to tackle the topic of the dictator. It explores the dictations and inner thoughts of Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ruled Paraguay with an iron fist and no little eccentricity from 1814 until his death in 1840.

Roa Bastos' life and writing were marked by experience with dictatorial military regimes. In 1947 he was forced into exile in Argentina, and in 1976 he fled Buenos Aires for France in similar political circumstances. Most of Roa Bastos' work was written in exile, but this did not deter him from fiercely tackling Paraguayan social and historical issues in his work. Writing in a Spanish that was at times heavily augmented by Guaraní words (the major Paraguayan indigenous language), Roa Bastos incorporated Paraguayan myths and symbols into a Baroque style known as magic realism. He is considered a late-comer to the Latin American Boom literary movement. Roa Bastos' personal canon includes the novels Hijo de hombre (1960; Son of Man) and El fiscal (1993; The Prosecutor), as well as numerous other novels, short stories, poems, and screenplays.

Roa Bastos was an exponent of the Neobaroque style that brought Latin American literature to the fore internationally in the mid-20th century. Among others, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is also associated with this school of writing. The style uses a complex system of metaphors that are often very closely tied to the land, flora and culture of the particular writer, especially in the case of Roa Bastos. Magic realism is a Neobaroque concept that applies such systems of metaphor to otherwise realistic settings (Yo, el Supremo being a notable example of the form). The Neobaroque style was used by many Paraguayan writers in exile after 1947 and until the 1980s. At the core of much of the work from this group are ideas of political freedom and the emancipation of their homeland.[33]

Roa Bastos started out writing poetry in the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque traditions. Later he took on "a new sensibility" in response to the poetry of Valle-Inclán, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and García Lorca. However, it is as a prose-fiction writer Roa Bastos has built his considerable reputation, through his novels and numerous short stories. Roa Bastos' novels blend the present and past by creating scenes with myths from pre-colonial times and Christian legends, developing a special kind of Magic Realism, although there are significant stylistic variations between his major novels.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Have you ever, browsing at a village bookshop, picked up a book and thumbing through it discover things like variations between single and double columns and footnotes and little chapter-ish headings like "(In the private notebook)" and "(On a loose sheaf)" and "(Perpetual circular)" and "(Compiler's note)" and but you can't remember quite if you've heard of the book before and if so on what list it had appeared but then you decide to not take it home only to learn shortly thereafter that you have committed a grave literary sin? Because not only did this particular village bookshop deserve every dollar I can afford to spend with it and not only does Dalkey also have an edition of this very book (which spine in time would've aided me in avoiding this particular sin) but Yo, el Supremo, translated by Helen Lane (all hail!!!), finds its home on both the Rabelasian Codpiece and among the Shandian Spawn. Deservedly because it is a rollicking word-drunk, writing-centric, multivalent and poly-vocal (overcomes that first=person pov curse), dense (yes, a slog at times with some of the political stuff but whatchya gunna do?) bit of S.American-o dictator fiction.

Here's the genre breakdown for you genre junkies (I'm just learnin' so I'm borrowin' from wikipedia (thanks Geoff))* ::

"....a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society". "Challenges"? *shrugs*. So far though I would insist that we do limit the genre to its geographical constraints. At least until, well, something else. "Moreover, a dictator novel often is an allegory for the role of the writer in a Latin American society" ; just like all novels, at least the 'allegory' part is in potentia in most good novels. "Although mostly associated with the Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, the dictator-novel genre has its roots in the nineteenth-century novel Facundo: Or, Civilization and Barbarism (1845), by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento." Cool. Let's start a list ::

I, The Supreme
The Feast of the Goat** by LLosa
Reasons of State by Alejo Carpentier

"The genre of the dictator novel has been very influential in the development of a Latin American literary tradition, because many of the novelists rejected traditional, linear story-telling techniques, and developed narrative styles that blurred the distinctions between reader, narrator, plot, characters, and story."

Literary critic Roberto González Echevarría argues that the dictator novel is “the most clearly indigenous thematic tradition in Latin American literature”, and traces the development of this theme from “as far back as Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s and Francisco López de Gómara’s accounts of Cortés’s conquest of Mexico.”

Miguel Ángel Asturias's*** El Señor Presidente (written in 1933, but not published until 1946) is, in the opinion of critic Gerald Martin, "the first real dictator novel".

The Autumn of the Patriarch

Keefe Ugalde points to the realisation on the part of many authors that "the tyrant's power is derived from and defeated by language."

Conversation in the Cathedral
Denzil Romero's La tragedia del Generalísimo
Sergio Ramírez's Te Dio Miedo La Sangre? ("dictator novel without the dictator")

"...use of interior monologues, radically stream-of-consciousness narrative, fragmentation, varying narrative points of view, neologisms, innovative narrative strategies, and frequent lack of causality."

"...creating a link between power and writing through the force wielded by their pen."

"...the interdependence of the Latin American tyrant and United States imperialism."

"Masculinity is an enduring motif in the dictator novel. There is a connection between the pen and the penis in Latin American fiction,...."

José Marmol's Amalia ("precursor")
Ramón del Valle-Inclán's Tyrant Banderas ("a key influence")
Jorge Zalamea, El gran Burundún-Burundá ha muerto
Enrique Lafourcade's La Fiesta del Rey Acab
Luisa Valenzuela's The Lizard's Tail
Tomás Eloy Martínez's The Peron Novel
The General in His Labyrinth

The “not quite dictator novels” :: A Manual for Manuel ; In the Time of the Butterflies ; Empire of Dreams (third part thereof) and her United States of Banana ; Distant Star ;

...employed techniques of the “new novel”, by which the writer rejected the formal structure of conventional literary realism, arguing that “its simplistic assumption that reality is easily observable” is a narrative flaw.

"As a genre, the dictator novel redefined the literary concept of 'the novel' in order to compel the readers to examine the ways in which political and social mores affect their daily lives."

Therefore, the regional politics and the social issues of the stories yielded to universal human concerns, thus the traditional novel’s “ordered world view gives way to a fragmented, distorted or fantastic narrative” in which the reader has an intellectually active role in grasping the thematic gist of the story.

"...redefined the formal literary categories of author, narrator, character, plot, story, and reader..."

...the etymological link between “author” and “authority”...

"....wherein the figure of the novelist (the author) became very important to the telling of the tale."

In the dictator novels, the writers questioned the traditional story-teller role of the novelist as the “privileged, paternal figure, as the authoritative ‘father’, or divine creator, in whom meaning would be seen to originate”, and so, the novelists fulfilled the role of the dictator.




And in this election season I'm going to add to our dictator reading syllabus the following two N.American-o novels :: The Tunnel and The Public Burning. Probably a couple of others.



* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictato...

** Literally had houseguests recently and they asked, Have you ever heard of this novel The Feast of the Goat? I'm reading it right now. And I'm all like, !!!, Check out the dictator novel I'm cr-ing! (yes, literate folks exist in rl too!)

*** Nobel Prize guy.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

--I the Supreme

Guaraní Words Used in the Novel

[Chris Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The General in his Palabyrinth

Or

The Auto-da-fé of the Patriarch

My admittedly feeble neologism à la Roa Bastos is not ideal because The Supreme doesn’t so much get lost in his words, he is consumed by them. Here’s a passage that gives an idea of Roa Bastos’s verbal invention:

To this deliciously black decomposition there now hasten avid sylphids with diamantine, iridescent eyes; the nine species of necrophores, lyrophore Homers of this funerary epic. The squadron of round and hook-shaped Aquarians initiates the process of desiccation and mummification. After the aquarians (whose real name is acarians although I prefer to call them aquarians) come the agrarians.

Possibly the most often repeated neologism is ladronicide. Not the killer of a thief, the meaning (which you have to infer) seems to be more like “someone who kills [the country] through theft”. The Supreme belongs to that category of dictator that seeks power not as a means of self-aggrandizement or self-enrichment (the real-life Supreme, 19th Century Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, apparently lived very austerely), but because he is completely wedded to a vision for the country that no one else can be trusted to realise. Personal greed is the character trait he most hates in others. All of his enemies are ladronicides.

The novel, as Carlos Fuentes explains in the London Review of Books, came out of an idea he had with Mario Vargas Llosa, to set Latin American authors the surely impossible task of creating fictional dictators who were more fantastical than the real ones the continent had produced – including “Venezuela’s Juan Vicente Gomez, who announced his own death in order to punish those who dared celebrate it; or El Salvador’s Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, who fought off scarlet fever by having street lights wrapped in red paper”. The proposed anthology of short pieces didn’t make it to print, but Roa Bastos turned his idea into I the Supreme, and Garcia Marquez went on to publish the Autumn of the Patriarch.

The Supreme mistrusted everyone. Wikipedia tells us of the real-life Dr Francia, that “Whenever he would go out riding, he had all bushes and trees along the route uprooted so that assassins could not hide; all shutters had to be closed, and pedestrians had to prostrate before him as he passed”. In the novel, he even uses words to thwart emotional closeness – “my presumptive sister”, “the woman regarded as my half-sister”; and most importantly, of his parents, “They mistook mongrels for greyhounds. My genealogical tree is growing sideways in the chapter hall. Although I have no father or mother, and haven’t even been born yet, I have been had and procreated legitimately, according to the perjuries of notaries. Stink of an obscure heredity falsified on the coat-of-arms of my non-house: a black cat suckling a white rat on gray quarters in the gules abysses of the nine partitions, parturitions, and disparitions.

But mostly, the narrating “I” (perpetual dictator, Excellency, the Great Man, as others call him), uses words to create The Supreme, a mythical, extraordinary being, who presumably can realise the impossible dream of salvaging Paraguay’s independence despite the terrible hand it has been dealt, a small encircled country fighting desperately for access to the sea, and surrounded by powerful neighbours who want to devour it. This struggle of the narrator “I” mirrors Roa Bastos’s impossible task – “How to compete with history” as Fuentes writes. The Supreme is created via the “perpetual circular”, the “logbook”, “the private notebook” and excerpts from contemporary texts, mixing English, Spanish, Guaraní and Portuguese, the texts often ending mid-sentence and noting something like “the remainder of the folio burned”. We have an unnamed “compiler” to thank for putting it all together – another textual distancing technique.

“I” dreams of becoming one with the Paraguayan people, and cannot bear the knowledge that this is not possible. He cannot reconcile his desire to empower the “people” – a mythical concept - with his pathological mistrust of the actual flesh and blood people around him. In a dialogue with one of his friend-turned-enemies, he writes that he is

freed of the excessive superlove of one’s own person, which is our way of mortally hating all men in a single one. If you happen by any chance, to come across the footprint of the species to which I belong, rub it out. Hide the trail. If you should find this noxious weed in some remote cranny, pull it out by the root […] I won’t mistake it, my good Sire. I know it very well. It turns up everywhere. One roots it out and it springs up again. Keeps growing and growing. Turns into an immense tree. The gigantic tree of Absolute Power. Somebody comes with an ax. Chops it down. Leaves branches strewn all over. Out of this great leveling there grows another one. This evil species of the Single-Person will not die out until the Multitude-Person arises by its own right to impose the full power of its right on what is twisted and poisonous in the human species.

Although I didn’t compare against the Spanish, it’s very clear that Helen Lane has done an extraordinary translation job, where necessary inventing her own new words, or drawing on the more obscure treasures of English. It was a pleasure to learn words like “tope”, to drink alcohol to excess; “macaronic”, which “denotes language containing words or inflections from one language introduced into the context of another” (sharing an etymology with macaroni) could sum up Roa Bastos’s writing style. Even the cover illustration is perfect - although frustratingly uncredited.

[Ricardo Loup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superlativa, magnífica, extraordinaria. Una de las más grandes creaciones artísticas del mundo. Que Roa Bastos, un paraguayo, sea su creador, es el equivalente a que los frescos de la Capilla Sixtina hubieran sido pintados en la bóveda del templo de La Encarnación. No hay palabras suficientes que puedan describir la majestuosidad de este libro maravilloso. Pero quizás, la mejor definición de él sea la que el propio Supremo dicta a su amanuense: "Escribir no significa poner lo real en palabras, sino hacer que la palabra sea real". La potencia de su texto se impone sobre lo conocido, lo palpable, y se superpone a la realidad real como una presencia tangible que domina nuestra inteligencia. El magnetismo de su personaje nos hace dudar de todo: de la historia, de nuestras creencias, de la magia y de la ciencia. Ya no sabemos qué es real y que netamente ficticio. Un libro de una ambición inmensurable, quebrantadora de todos los moldes, abarcadora de todo lo que es posible poner en palabras. En él confluyen los idiomas del Paraguay, en él las épocas y los tiempos, la vida y la ultratumba, la poesía y la prosa, caben de pronto todos en la boca y pluma del Dr. Francia.
Los pies de página nos colocan a cada instante en la encrucijada de esta terrible interrogante: ¿Debemos creerle a este Supremo, hecho total y exclusivamente de palabras y de la imaginación de su autor, o a los textos y testimonios de personas reales, que lo conocieron en carne y hueso? Casi siempre, por no decir siempre, triunfa la ficción. Nos resistimos a creer que lo que Roa Bastos nos pone no es lo real, contradiciendo nuestra lógica y la lógica de la propia Historia, con mayúscula. Hemos caído, la ficción nos ha dominado. Nunca veremos al personaje del Dr. Francia con los mismos ojos, porque lo hemos visto, lo hemos sentido, hemos sucumbido a sus poderosas razones, a su desmesurado intelecto. Despreciamos de la misma manera a sus contrapartes, nos impacientamos una y mil veces con Patiño, su rastrero amanuense. Cualquier precio parece ser poco para conservar la independencia, agachamos la cabeza para reconocer a este Karai Guasu que nos paternaliza con su poder.
Es la quinta vez que leo este libro, y aún ahora, sigo maravillándome ante su osado esplendor. Una obra cuyo único parangón quizá sea el Quijote, el obvio modelo sobre el cual fue concebido. Pero mientras en la obra de Cervantes, la pareja protagonista es tierna y risueña, en Yo el Supremo, el Dr. Francia y su escudero, Patiño, conforman una asociación siniestra, vil y oscura. Recelamos de ellos, los dejamos generar esa extraña simbiosis del poder corrompiendo sus personalidades, cada cual a su modo. La incorruptibilidad del Supremo es su propia corrupción, la docilidad del secretario su propia manera de imponer sus ambiciones. La contradicción nos inunda, nos obliga a leer lo que subyace debajo del texto, nos frustra y fascina.
No hay estrellas suficientes para calificar a esta obra maravillosa. Sólo nos queda celebrarla, atesorarla como la extraordinaria demostración de lo que el intelecto de un genio puede hacer a partir de lo más básico de nuestro pensamiento: palabras.

[Elsie · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to get inside the mind of a dictator:

"Do you know what distinguishes daytime handwriting from nighttime? In a nocturnal hand there is obstinacy with indulgence. The proximity of sleep files the angles smooth. The spirals sprawl out more. The resistance from left to right, weaker. Delirium, intimate friend of the nocturnal hand. The curves sway less. The sperm of the ink dries more slowly. The movements are divergent. The strokes droop more. They tend to distend..."

"Those with prodigious memories are almost always mentally retarded imbeciles."

I think I have a pretty good memory for some things (conversation, song lyrics), but "The man with a good memory remembers nothing because he forgets nothing."

So far: I have learned that I actually have a very BAD memory, because I choose what to remember and forget a lot of things. (I think this may be true.)

Also: Augusto Roa Bastos is really cool.

Also: Dictators are crazy.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, The Autumn of the Patriarch is my favorite of this trilogy; I'll be back after I read Carpentier's Reasons of State.

warning: this one was even more challenging than Autumn of the Patriarch in terms of reading. Not for fainthearted or impatient readers.

[Stephen Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reading this Paraguayan historical novel a second time and enjoying (and understanding) it much more, though it's still incredibly dense and mind-boggling. Helen Lane, the translator, should have won some sort of award for faithfully capturing the spirit of the Perpetual Dictator's rambling, insulting, witty, and pretentious wordplay and neologisms.

[azurduyyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of all the "Dictator Novels" I've read, this is by far the best. The Supreme is such a complex character, and I guess you have to be really invested in latin-american history and political divisions to understand the depths of this book.

The Supreme never seems a caricature, or an evil blood thirsty maniac (two common character types for this genre); he comes off as a simplistic, nationalistic, and authoritarian ruler who is convinced he's the best option for his country - and, in contrast to the other kinds of Dictators, he acts accordingly. Diving inside his thought process is riveting and sometimes even fun to the point that he starts to become alive, and human. For moments, I even cheered for him.

The book is long, and exhausting, though, so be warned - it's a long monologue that often makes no sense until you familiarize yourself with the guy. Once it gets its groove going, you won't be able to stop, though.

[Jean Ra · Rating 3 out of 5]

En otra reseña de esta web se compara a Yo, El Supremo con el Zama de Di Benedetto. No me parece una relación del todo inapropiada si consideramos que ambas tienen el punto de contacto de la colonización española, aunque, en ambos casos, de una forma bastante tangencial, pues se concentran más en al sociedad americana antes que en realizar crítica alguna del período colonial. Yo añadiría que mientras Zama, por su estilo empobrecedor es Beckett, Yo, El Supremo es Joyce por su ambición maximalista y acaparadora.

Este es un libro que hizo, hace y hará feliz a aquellos que prefieran la escritura sobre el argumento. Como se menciona en algún pasaje, la obra está escrita desde dentro del lenguaje. Por momentos parece que Roa Bastos no quiere dejar de enumerar ninguna posibilidad lingüística, desde aliteraciones hasta arcaísmos; que como objeto estético no puede dejar de exprimir cualquier fleco a propósito del ejercicio del poder y su necesaria manipulación del lenguaje para mejor justificar su existencia, de las maquiavélicas maquinaciones políticas, de los choques diplomáticos, de las diferentes y variadas raíces de Paraguay y casi cualquier aspecto relacionado con una figura caudillesca como El Supremo de França. Algo que, sin duda, está en las antípodas de la etiqueta lenguaje sencillo y directo, usada para hablar servilmente benévolamente de trabajos de literatos que dedican más tiempo al Viagra que a la escritura.

El resultado es un vigoroso ejercicio lingüístico que viene a demostrar el agotamiento de la novela realista. Y a veces también del propio lector. Percibo una gran ambición por parte de Roa Bastos y también cierto desapego respecto a quien recibe su lectura, como si en ocasiones exigiera demasiado y ofreciera en recompensa una escuálida ración de hechos, imágenes, ideas estimulantes. Es antes un ríndente a su poderío que un gozo. Por hacer una comparación más bien somera y reduccionista, vendría a ser como realizar una colosal caminata por montes escarpados de senderos interminables para al final llegar a un pico desde el que sólo se contempla un gran banco de nubes. Por lo tanto no se puede decir que sea un derroche, pero tampoco satisface. Por lo menos en mi caso. Por otra parte también he de reconocer que mientras que con ciertos mamotretos posmodernos norteamericanos, con los que sin duda Roa Bastos se puede medir sin pudor alguno, he sentido cierta irritación y sensación de malgastar el tiempo, con Yo, El Supremo no ocurre tal cosa. La lectura, a pesar de los malabarismos, se sostiene. No me entusiasmó, pero el humor que gasta Roa Bastos es refrescante y tampoco se puede decir que lleve las cosas más allá de límites razonables. Sencillamente, en ningún momento sentí placer alguno por el hecho de estar leyendo.

Aunque el balance final es positivo, tampoco me vería capaz de recomendarlo. Lo que sí me extraña es como desde publicaciones culturales se nos venden a estos novelistas universitarios en lengua inglesa cuando en castellano disfrutamos de autores tan o más geniales y con una sensibilidad más allegada a nuestro temperamento latín-o (yo también sé deconstruir palabras, jaja).

[Youssef · Rating 5 out of 5]

عزيزي باستوس،
أنهيتُ روايتك الكبيرة "أنا الأعلى" مؤخرًا، بينما كانت ديكتاتوريتُنا في هذا الشرق تنهار هي الأخرى.

كنتُ أعتقد، كمواطن وُلد في هذه البلاد المنكوبة، أنّه لن يُدهشني ما يُسمّى بأدب الديكتاتوريات؛ فقد عشتُ ما عشت، ورأيتُ ما رأيت، وأعلم أنّ لكل ديكتاتور لوثةَ جنون. لكنّ عملك هذا، يا سيدي، كان أكثر جنونًا؛ ليس فقط في وصف شطحات "الأعلى"، بل في سردك وكتابتك نفسها: كتابةٌ مجنونة، حارّة، متدفقة، كتدفّق نهر الباراغواي العظيم.

عزيزي باستوس،
لم يكن غريبًا كيف استولى "الأعلى" على صوتك في الرواية، فكان صوته هو الأعلى، في الرواية كما في بلادكم، في لغته كما في أفعاله، بهوسه بالقوافي، والعِلم، والتفاصيل — من تصميم ألعاب الأطفال في ديكتاتوريتكم بقياساتها الدقيقة، إلى تصميم أزياء الجنود في جيشكم طيّةً طيّة. لقد فرض هذا الاستيلاء على صوتك وروايتك، تارةً عبر دورياته الأبديّة التي حفظت أوامرَه العليا وتفاصيلَ حكمٍ شمل البلاد والأبد، وتارةً عبر دفاتره الخاصّة، وما يُمليه على كاتبه المسكين باتينيو.
لكنّ ما أدهشني حقًا هو حيلتك الذكية باقتحامك النصّ بصوتك الواضح هذه المرّة، لتعليقك على هذيان "الأعلى" في اللغة والسرد، ولعودتك بنا إلى حقائق التاريخ، مذكّرًا إيّانا بأن الرواية ملكك، فلا تدع لهذا "الأعلى" أن يسرق صوتك ويستبدّ هنا أيضًا.

عزيزي باستوس،
أودّ أن أقدّم لك جزيل امتناني واحترامي، لك ولعملك العظيم هذا، ولساعاتٍ طويلة من البحث والعناء لتشييد هذا الصرح اللغوي. وسأبقى ممتنًا ومشتاقًا لساعات المتعة والدهشة التي قضيتُها برفقتك، وبرفقة السيّد الأعلى...

قارئك المحب،
يوسف

ملاحظة: لقد أُنجزت أمانة ترجمة كتابك هذا إلى العربيّة على أكمل وجه؛ فترجمة السيّد بسّام البزّاز مدهشة، متمكنة، وموسوعيّة.

[Tarek Abdel Hamid]

"أنا الأعلى" - أوغوسطو روا باستوس

"أنا الأعلى" رواية للكاتب الباراغوايي أوغوسطو روا باستوس، نُشرت في العام 1974، عندما كان روا لا يزال يعيش في منفاه في الأرجنتين. تُعتبر الرواية واحدة من أروع الأعمال الأدبية باللغة الاسبانية، وتمتاز على وجه الخصوص ببنائها الأدبي المحكم، واللعِبِ المتقن فيها صرفاً ونحواً، بالإضافة إلى احتوائها كماً من العناصر التاريخية والتخيّلات دُمجت جميعها في سياقٍ ممتعٍ من السرد، تتداخل فيه الأحداثُ والأزمنة بصورة مبهرة. تتلاحق فصول الرواية بصوت بطلٍ واحد، بينما تبدو باقي الأص��ات فيها مجرّد رؤىً تاريخية أو وجهات نظر المؤلفِ نفسه. وروا باستوس، حين يتحدّثُ في "أنا الأعلى"، إنما يعبّرُ عن نفسه في وجهة نظر الديكتاتور.
والأعلى كان معروفاً كمحاميٍ لامع، وثائر وديكتاتور أبدي في جمهورية الباراغواي، وهو خوسيه غاسبار رودريغز دي فرانسيا، والذي حكم البلد بدايةً في ظل الحكم الثلاثي ي العام 1811، وفي ظلّ نظام القنصلية ابتداءً من العام 1813، وكحاكم مطلقٍ أوحد منذ العام 1816 حتّى وفاته في العام 1940.
وتعكسُ الرواية الجوانب الأكثر سلبية لولاية الديكتاتور فرانسيا، وهي عملٌ مُتطلّب، تتداخل فيها قيم العدالة والظلم، وتُسلّط الضوء على أوجه القوة والضعف لدى الديكتاتور. نجدُ في رواية "أنا الأعلى" استعراضاً جلياً وتاريخياً للحياة السياسية لديكتاتور الباراغواي الأعلى على مرِّ ستة وعشرين عاما من عمرِ ولايته، حيث تبلور عالمٌ من الظلم والاستغلال والعنصرية والشقاء والاضطهاد والموت، وحيث تخبّطت المشاعرُ الشعبية وانقسمت ما بين الرغبة بالتمرد والصبر على الابتلاءات.
يتميّز هذا العمل برؤيةٍ أكثر واقعية من المعتاد في الأعمال الأدبية المعنية بالديكتاتورية في أمريكا اللاتينية، فتصف شخصية فرانسيا من غير تشويه ولا شيطنة، وتورد بياناتٍ موثقّة. فيها هجومٌ واضح على الاستبداد والتسلّط، وإدانةٌ لا لبس فيها للقمع الذي عاشه البلد وانتقادٌ صريحٌ لتجاوزات الحاكم. في العمل سردٌ لتاريخ الدكتور فرانسيا من وجهة نظر ضحايا نظامه، مدعومةً بتدوينات الديكتاتور نفسه في مفكّرته الخاصة. عبر صفحات الرواية يظهرُ العالم المتخيّل الذي عاشه غاسبار رودريغيز دي فرانسيا، وقد حجبته السلطة عن عالم الناس البسطاء في الجمهورية الوليدة، حيث انتفت الحريّاتُ وأطبق الحصار على أهلها.
تبدأ الرواية بالعثور على منشور عُلِّق على باب الكاتدرائية، وفيه على لسان الديكتاتور نفسه ايعازٌ للشعب بتعليق رأسه بعد موته على رمحٍ في الساحة العامة، ودعوة لقتل كل معاونيه. وتدور فصول الرواية حول مسعى الديكتاتور الغاضب للقبض على المذنبين، ويحاول تحليل كلمات المُلصق واسلوبه ومعرفة كاتبه، مستعرضاً كل الاحداث والشخصيات التي أحاطت به، ومستذكرا وقائع تاريخية ومتخيّلة، فيملي على كاتبه حينا، ويدوّن في مفكرته الخاصة احياناً، ويرجعُ للوثائق التاريخية ويورد مقارباتٍ اسطورية، وتتشعب فصول الرواية فيما يشبه المتاهة المحكمة، خطّت سطورها بأسلوبٍ بليغٍ ولغةٍ ليست بالسهلة ابداً، حتى ذابت فيها رؤى المؤلف وتخيّلات الديكتاتور.
لقد حاز الكاتب على جائزة سرفانتس الأدبية المرموقة في اسبانيا، وتعتبر الرواية من بين المئة عمل الأكثر قيمة في الأدب العالمي، ومن أهم الاعمال في أمريكا اللاتينية، وقد ترجمت إلى لغاتٍ كثيرة من بينها العربية، وقام بترجمتها طارق عبد الحميد في الباراغواي (2018) بمناسبة الذكرى المئوية الأولى لولادة روا باستوس، عبر مشروع بمبادرةٍ من السفارة اللبنانية في أسنسيون، وتبنّاه مركز الجمهورية الثقافي التابع للكونغرس في الباراغواي.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Have you been to Paraguay? It's a marvelous system they have. The people own nothing." Voltaire, CANDIDE. I have been to Paraguay, on several occasions, and must tell you of one adventure before introducing this gargantuan labyrinth of a novel of dictatorship. Once I traveled to Puerto Stroessner, which the country's president, General Alfredo Stroessner, had modestly named after himself. Innocently, I asked my Brazilian tour guide while passing the ruins of an old church, "The Catholic Church is one of the sources of opposition to the regime, isn't it?" and with a look of fright in his eyes he told me, "Never say that in public. The General has spies everywhere!" How did Paraguay get to be a clownish horror-show ? How did Latin America? Augusto Roa Bastos decided to look at the polluted three streams that came together at the time of independence in the nineteenth century and in the case of Paraguay in the form of one man, Dr. Jose' Francia, father of his country and "Supreme Leader for Life". (Yes, he really did sign state papers and letters, "Yo, El Supremo"). Dr. Francia incarnated three centuries of Catholicism, indigenous ways, and the Enlightenment, forging a perfect triangle of paranoia, patriotism and science. For starters, he closed off the country from the outside world, turning Paraguay into a North Korea-style "hermit kingdom." (Think the Kim dynasty.) Since the Jesuits had both run the country's leading industry, Yerba mate, and educated its labor force, the majority Guarani Indians, Dr. Francia simply monopolized the first and integrated the second into his "Greater Nation." (A kind of Stalinesque Indo-socialism.) Finally, in a land of mostly illiterates he established himself the Supreme Educator and Propagator of all ideas coming from Europe, carefully selected and censored by El Supremo. (Think every dictator there ever was.) Roa Bastos tries to find some method to this, and His, madness, by having Dr. Francia tell his own story, then superimposing upon it the reflections of his most trusted aide, and lastly the voices of his victims. This novel is not for the faint-hearted nor is it to be missed.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but definitely worth it. The history is great, and the writing is off-the-charts amazing in many, many places, but for me (and this may be why it was so amazing), Helen Lane's translation just pushes the book over the top (for an English reader, obviously). Talk about magical--I really don't know how they do it. I knew I was reading a translation, but I found myself stopping at various points and saying, "Wait...this HAD to have been written in English..." But it wasn't! Great book--dark, diabolical, funny and sad.

[Giovanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm paraguayan. I'm happy that someone from my country is at least slightly famous (we have pretty low standards). That been said, I hate this book. I don't know about the english version but in spanish it is without a doubt the most boring book I've ever had the misfortune of pickung up. And I tried to finish it several times but I couldn't get past the first chapter. I'm sorry Augusto.

[Yerutí Vázquez · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me gustó. Pareciera que debo justificar por qué no, pero no tengo demasiado que decir más que eso. Siento que se construyó una atmósfera de temor a leer a Roa y una obligación de que te guste, pero particularmente esta obra no me agradó. Tal vez lo intente más adelante con otras obras suyas.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I, The Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos is a complex, technically accomplished, creative and stylistically unique book, a classic example of the dictator novel genre that explores the nature of authoritarianism and tyranny; the mindset and self-justifications of authoritarian leaders, the way they convince themselves that they are ultimately righteous and acting in the best interests of the people and the nation; the way dictatorial power inherently distorts the perspective of a leader by allowing them to live without confronting the way reality does not line up with their vision and agenda; the divide between the role of the leader and the person who occupies it even as they embody it; historical narratives and the ways they are used as weapons by their writers to claim power and how untrustworthy they can be, a theme Roa Bastos explores through the use of multiple texts within the text; the created and imagined nature of power and the importance of the use of language to either reinforce or destroy it; the fragility of power because of its created and imagined nature and how that drives authoritarian leaders to seek absolute power, including over history itself; the evils and brutality that leaders who see themselves as inseparable from a people and a nation can bring down on them while insisting they are acting in their name, and the history of Paraguay and the decolonization era in South America.

All that being said, I will probably remember I, The Supreme best for being the book that finally revealed to me that I do not actually enjoy reading magical realism. This is a hard read, dense and deliberately unfocused and growing moreso as it goes on, playing games with time and reality and language (both in the sense of use of words and even which language it uses with Roa Bastos frequently communicating in Guarani), told largely through unreliable narrators, primarily the dictator Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia who is increasingly losing control of his mind as he approaches his death. It’s deeply invested in its own symbolism and dismissive of typical expectations of narrative. At times, I frankly found it incomprehensible. Perhaps it requires a better and more committed reader than me, but I found it a lot more engaging when Roa Bastos stuck to the real or near-real than I did when he veered into the supernatural or too deeply dove into stylistic experiments. It may be personal – I picked up this novel for insight into politics rather than a stumble through corners of the dark underground prisons of El Supremo’s mind or literary invention.

That being said, beyond the opportunity for a politically engaged writer to express his frustrations with his native country and its consistent crushing under the heels of dictators and disasters, one can see why Roa Bastos found Dr. Francia worth writing about. His combination of apparently semi-sincere nationalist populism and devotion to the Paraguayan national project and the creation of a truly independent and decolonized country with his hunger for control, his megalomania, his paranoia, his micromanaging, his pettiness, his viciousness against enemies and anyone who rose high enough in his esteem to fail him and his mix of adoration and contempt for his people is deeply intriguing. It recalls simultaneously global experiences with tyranny in general; the specific sins and psychology of men like Stalin and Peron (and one could not help but be reminded at times of the rhetoric of Donald Trump, much as I prefer not to think about it); and no one at all but Karai Guazu himself.

While the use of alternate texts within the text to question its own narratives and conclusions and more broadly to comment on history and historiography is perhaps the most memorable element of I, The Supreme, even more interesting to me than the dueling portrayals of history were El Supremo’s insistence on fighting that duel. He is deliberately, openly and specifically in conversation with both present and future critiques of him and his regime throughout I, The Supreme, and Roa Bastos makes it very clear why. Dr. Francia’s power is, at its heart, fundamentally insecure. It can be undercut by historians, subverted by enemies foreign and domestic, claimed by someone else (and repeatedly it is, by imposters of varying degrees of daring), and destroyed with the simple words whose impact he sneeringly dismisses. At the heart of it is that political power is no more real in its way than the talking ghost of the Robertsons’ dog or the voice from the skull he finds as a boy. It is something that only exists when the players involved agree it exists, and no matter how many of his political rivals he consigns to lightless dungeons or to isolated prison camps that apparently turn them into monsters or stone he cannot guarantee that the nation will not change its perception about his power – it cannot be absolute. This obsesses and drives him in a way I found very real and very relevant, making him determined to make his own truth. (It brought to mind the thought for me that the most effective, or perhaps only successful, dictators are the ones who manage to shape the historical narrative as it is seen by the people as an ideological tool for themselves, those who understand its value – and El Supremo seems to be one of them, no matter how much he insists otherwise.)

In retrospect, I was less focused on something I perhaps should have been: the question of the failure of Gaspar de Francia’s revolution and whether or not he himself caused its failure with his own mistakes and his inability to truly love the people. This is particularly interesting in light of how much of this book discusses his rationalizations of his violence and his dictatorship (such as his belief that Paraguay is both great and weak, in need of protection from powerful foreigners; that it is the home of a truly revolutionary state that is simply still too immature for democracy; that he is the One Indispensable Man who can guide the Paraguayans, and his entirely accurate conclusion that European economic domination could reduce them to essentially vassal status) in a way that both calls attention to those of this rationalizations that are shared by other dictators and dictator wannabes, and that establishes him as the best-written kind of villain, the one where you can truly understand why they might think of themselves in their hearts as a hero.

Roa Bastos was from my side research very much engaging in a critique of Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator of Paraguay who dominated the country through much of his lifetime, highlighting and attacking the cruel tactics and human rights violations that Gaspar de Francia and he shared and presumably some of their defenses of those tactics – and I suspect in subtle ways through some of the areas in which Gaspar de Francia seems reasonable, too. As Galeano argues, the isolationism pursued by Gaspar de Francia and the later Francisco Solano Lopez, while often portrayed negatively in histories written outside of Paraguay can also be seen as a courageous act against the essential re-colonization of a Latin American country by foreign capital, and there are certainly times when Roa Bastos seems more sympathetic to Gaspar de Francia in his exploration of this area of policy. This was, to my belief, not a direction shared by Stroessner. He also has El Supremo repeatedly point out that his rise to power was in fact confirmed by something that for that era could quite legitimately be considered the consent of the governed in a way that few other leaders were – again a sharp contrast with Stroessner, who came to power in a military coup.

My knowledge of Paraguayan history, although I like to think pretty decent for a child of the United States, was in general a big drawback in this book. Whatever our tendency to lump Latin American writers together, this is a thoroughly Paraguayan work rather than one that primarily aims to speak for the region or universally, a book steeped in that country’s national narratives, myths, debates and past. I did enough Googling while reading to get the sense that there was a lot going on both at and under the surface that would be immediately clear (or clearer) and pointed to a Paraguayan reader, or at least a reader more familiar with the subject matter, that was completely going beyond me. Considering the obstacles this book poses stylistically already, I would advise anyone who wants to take it on to make it easier on themselves by doing more background reading on Paraguay than I did in advance.

[Sebastian Porta · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Paraguay there are two historical figures that arouse the most heated discussions: Francisco Solano Lopez, President of Paraguay during the Paraguayan War (1864 - 1870), the deadliest and bloodiest war in Latin America’s history; the other figure is Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, ideologist and political leader of the Independence Revolution (1811) that freed Paraguay from the yoke of United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, the Empire of Brazil and the Spanish crown and became the “Supreme and Perpetual Dictator” in Paraguay, where he ruled with iron fist for twenty-six years. I the Supreme is a novel written by Paraguayan author, Augusto Roa Bastos (winner of the Cervantes Prize) that delves into the public and private life and personality of the Dictator Francia and explore his inner thoughts and his deepest and unknown side. He is, without a doubt, the most controversial and fascinating figure of our history; someone who causes the most contradictory feelings and beliefs, even today.

If you ask anyone here in Paraguay: “who has been the most relevant writer in your country?” The answer you’ll receive, immediately and unanimously, will be Augusto Roa Bastos; even if some of them have never read him in their entire lives, they will answer, sure of themselves: Roa Bastos. He is not only the most significant representative of Paraguayan Literature or wasn’t just the best-known ambassador of our intellectual class; he turned into a cultural symbol, lodged in our collective unconscious and became the name of literature par excellence between Paraguayans. His face appears on the covers of books of our cultural history, his books can be find in any bookstore throughout the country and are compulsory reading in schools. His name is invoked in contests, foundations and prizes of literature and cinema and it is used to name streets and plazas. His aphorisms appear on posters and spray painted walls. And I the Supreme is the novel that everyone has supposedly read here in Paraguay, as the Quixote, the Divine Comedy, Pride and Prejudice or the Odyssey. Even if it is one of the most complex and rich novels that has been ever written in South America.

Roa Bastos always fought against all forms of authoritarianism and dictatorship and in a country that allowed itself to be seduced by despotism for a long time, exile was the only solution for him, as it was for many other Latin American writers of his generation. He was forced to live and work in Argentina and then in France as a screenwriter and teacher and most of his work was written abroad; but the history, culture and social issues of Paraguay always occupied the center of his literary universe. Roa Bastos absorbed myths, customs, symbols and idiosyncrasies of his country and turned them into baroque short-stories and novels with elements of magical realism and costumbrism with an undeniable spirit of denunciation. I the Supreme is consider his masterpiece, in which the author exhibits all his prodigious mastery of language, literary techniques and penetrates into an entire era through the complex personality of Dr. Francia.

Dr. Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia was the most enlightened man in Paraguay. He advocated the ideals that came from the French Revolution, was a keen reader of great thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau and the French Encyclopedists. He had the largest library in all Asuncion and was able to speak five languages; Spanish, Guaraní, English, French and Latin. When he started on the country’s political scene he was considered a radical because he supported the peasantry and the lower classes to the detriment of the Spanish, criollos and the elite class. He became the indisputable leader of the Independence because of his extraordinary education (he was the only man in the whole country with a doctorate alongside Juan Bogarín), his leadership skills and his passion for politics. He understood, before the paradigmatic moment that the country was facing, that the dictatorship was the only possible form of government (resorting to an old Roman tradition when they were threatened by foreign forces). His government was marked by his absolute power all over the country and his fierce repression against the opposition, most of them criollos and Spaniards who saw their privileges affected by the reforms of the Supreme. He also was an implacable enemy of the Church -according to official documents he “abolished the Inquisition, suppressed the college of theology, did away with the tithes, and inflicted endless indignities on the priests” (which I find really cool)-, he made primary school free and compulsory and imposed a ruthless isolation upon Paraguay, forbidding all external trade, while at the same time he encouraged national industries. Dr. Francia had earned a reputation as a terrible and brilliant leader and was called Karaí-Guazú (Great Lord in Guarani) among his people.

Augusto undertook a challenging task that only writers deeply committed to the history of their countries in addition to an absolute literary genius can take; like Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, Carpentier and Asturias, who also wrote novels labeled like “Dictator novel”. Dr. Francia never wrote a book of memoirs and everything that is known about him has come to us through letters and official documents and Roa Bastos did a remarkable job by capturing the distinctive features of his way of thinking and writing, without forgetting the historical events that surrounded him and even allowing himself to go further; imagining his private notes, predicting the future, dialoguing with Latin America’s history, implicitly criticizing the Stroessner dictatorship and including supernatural elements. It’s a novel hard to summarize, in which texts such as the dialogue between the Supreme and his secretary, Policarpo Patiño, the government’s projects in the “Circular Perpetua” and his private notebook (mostly an account of his own life and his most intimate and philosophical thoughts) are intermingled. Dr. Francia embodies the prototype that knowledge means power and the novel constantly gives the impression that he seeks to give meaning to history and his reality through an uncontrollable verbiage and explosions of lucidity. This is so because the central theme in the novel is the deep interrelation between language and power. “I don’t write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please, adjusting, stressing, enriching its meaning and truth” or “To write does not mean to convert the real into words but to make the power of the word real.”

[Joni · Rating 5 out of 5]

magisterial. paragraphs triggered by sovereign decrees expand into manias splintering riotously off into the sounding nights of the rio. uninvited voices set the chambers of the supreme head echoing, awakening it into a world of petty libel and insidious comment. walking the insomniac galleries of his palace he pours surplus speech into the gaping spaces for patino, his palimpsest machine, to gather it in print. in the ensuing text we hear the increasing stampede of his mumblings, hallucinations, self-citations, vain amendments, evasions, delusive iterations, and sense-rending aggressions as they form into a roaring self-sustaining loop that collapses only with the eventual waning of his sanity. the narrative cracks. he knows not who he is. he orders the dogs of the city to be shot. the most compelling fictional study ive ever come across of language as a self-referring system co-levelled with the world. a text to be read till madness sets in. reader go gently into that good night

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is another proof of the genius of the South-American literature. Again an experimental probably postmodernist novel. A poly vocal novel, different perspectives on the story-telling. The dictator is seen in his relation to the people, to the enemy, to his family, his mistress, his "servants". The are dialogues, there are monologues. Roa Bastos became a dictator in order to write this novel, otherwise how else could you write like that? I imagine he stood in front of the mirror and thought of the dialogue, of the Supremo's words.
The Romanian translation has been done by Andrei Ionescu and he did a fantastic job. The language is rich and inventive. There are a lot of word games which Mr. Ionescu succeeded to translate in Romanian too and make them believable.
All 3 novels have their charm. This one was the most difficult, the most challenging but also the most rewarding from them (Marquez and Carpentier).

[hayatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

يلعب باستوس هنا على فكرة الفرق بين التفكير والوجود ؛ "يثار العقل البشري من خلال الإصرار على إيجاد معنى، إنه يسعى ولا يجد شيئاً سوى التناقض والهراء."، و كذا الجحيم و حقيقته التي ستُرى بعد فوات الأوان. والصراع المتبادل في السرد بين العقل الانفعالي والوجداني المسموم بالأوهام. حيث كان العقل محور الصراع.
أنا الأعلى تجليات إله السلطة بغروره وجشعه في أن يكون بجبروته الكل أو الطوفان من بعده!

النص معجون بسرد تاريخي دمج بين الواقعي والمتخيل لشخصيات وأحداث ذات وقائع تاريخية ومتخيّلة. ترك من خلالها باستوس ل الديكتاتور الغاضب خوسيه غاسبار دي فرانثيا حرية السرد والقص والتخيل. حيث حقائق القوة لها السيادة دائمًا.

أبدع الكاتب في شرارة البداية التي تفتح التكهنات في ذهن القارئ لما سيؤول عليه الأمر بعد إذن، ما يجعله متحفز و في ترقبٍ دائم :" what next ?"، و هو ما يعيد للأذهان وهج بداية رواية الامساخ ل كافكا، وما صنعته في غيوم المخيلة وأجنحتها الممتدة في ذهن الأقلية الهائلة من القراء.

[Liam Ostermann]

I have not finished this novel but put it aside because I have become distracted by other books - that is a problem I have when confronted by the many books I own waiting to be read and all the other books that are just TBR list on GR. That I was distracted is no reflection 'I the Supreme' as a gripping narrative, only my habit of reading several books at a time, most recently 'The Voyage of Forgotten Men' by Frank Thiess and 'Florence in the Forgotten Centuries' by Eric Cochrane and I had to put some of reading on hold! I will return to this extraordinary novel.

[Alfonso Oramas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Perdí bastante tiempo.

[MK]

.

-------------------------------------------

Haven't read yet, notes from another review:

part of a "tryptych", I learned from a review of this book:

I, the Supreme (Trilogía sobre el monoteísmo del poder #2)
by Augusto Roa Bastos, Helen Lane (Translator)

Nancy Oakes's review Jan 26, 2019
* * * * really liked it
bookshelves: latin-american-fiction, translated-fiction, 2019

So far, The Autumn of the Patriarch is my favorite of this trilogy; I'll be back after I read Carpentier's Reasons of State.

warning: this one (I, the Supreme) was even more challenging than Autumn of the Patriarch in terms of reading. Not for fainthearted or impatient readers.

message 1: by Michael - added it 7 hours, 8 min ago

I had no idea that "Autumn of the Patriarch" was part of a triptych back when I read it! Such an interesting story behind these three books -- ie each of these authors deciding to each write a novel on dictatorship in Latin America.

I really look forward to hear read your collective thoughts on these books, and I hope Carpentier treats you well with his final instalment in the trilogy. I remember struggling somewhat with him, when I read a couple of his novels (a long time ago).

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here comes a weird review for a weird book. I gave this three stars. It’s probably four or five, but I enjoyed this about as much as a two star read, but I think it was probably very good. I just wasn’t receptive to it. It wasn’t just the small print, the almost complete lack of paragraphs, the actual complete lack of speech marks, and the length of the book. It was something else. The style of the book was a fever dream, stream of consciousness kind of monologue of madness. Which usually appeals. But there was no story arc. Or perhaps there was, and I just didn’t really see it in amongst the words words words words words. Overall, I found it indigestible, but I get the sense that it’s a book that you could read on a different day and give five stars. There was a kind of wild genius about it. I’ll definitely try and reread it at some point. Squeezing it in at the end of the year was not a great idea.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a little while to get into it, but worth the early struggle. I see this as a sort of companion to News From The Empire as both books cover early post-colonional history in Latin/South America.

[крсн · Rating 5 out of 5]

osjećam se kao da sam se porodila i rodila malo slabiju i duplo duzu verziju patrijarhove jeseni ALI VRIJEDJELO JE

zbog apsurdne količine uloženog truda i osobenosti stila i jezika dajem 5 ali mogla je biti kraća i imati efektniji kraj… ima djelova koje kad se čitaju ne vjeruješ šta vidiš pred sobom koliko su dobri

[Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difícil escribir una reseña de un libro tan inclasificable. Considerada la mejor novela de dictador latinoamericano, dentro de esa lista donde se encuentra El señor presidente, El otoño del patriarca, La fiesta del chivo y el Recurso del Método. No puedo dar mi opinión al respecto, debido a que no he leído ninguna de ellas, pero si puedo reconocer lo extraordinario de esta obra.

Yo el supremo es una larga corriente de la conciencia, conciencia del dictador que por momentos va mutando en otros personajes, o que habla desde otros, como una forma de mostrar la omnipotencia de este gobernante. Incluye diversas notas históricas, que funcionan como una especie de «lado de afuera» de la narración de «el supremo», contrastando lo real con lo imaginario.

Es una novela demandante, que no es fácil de leer. Si bien utiliza elementos propios de la novela de vanguardia del siglo XX, que usó y caracteriza bastante el Boom Latinoamericano, también corre con propios códigos, que lo hacen estar más cerca de un Onetti o un Sábato.

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Around-the-world #156: Paraguay 🇵🇾.
Once upon a time, three Latin American authors decided to write one novel about a dictator each: Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote "The Autumn of the Patriarch", Alejo Carpentier wrote "Reasons of State" and Augusto Roa Bastos wrote "I the Supreme". The genre of Dictator Novels was born.
I thought I had picked up an easy read with this book, not knowing who Roa Bastos was, but this turned out to be a highly complex "novel", based on the actual life of the 19th century dictator of Paraguay, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. The book consists of supposed historical documents, including Francia's dictation to his secretary, his private notes, a "perpetual circular" and interventions by a "compilor". All these intertwine in a mesh of justification and apology, his own version of history and others' perspectives.
It is initially very fascinating, but ultimately the narrative gets repetitive and disintegrates. It results in a book that is a very slow and tedious read. The quality is on par with the other two authors, but is notnas enjoyable as it could have been.

[FP · Rating 5 out of 5]

El poder tiene una cualidad especial: es inherentemente transformativo. Puede tomar a la persona más pura y correcta y transformarle en un déspota. Incluso con persona que no son proclives a la pureza, individuos de naturaleza inicua ya predispuestos a malas acciones, el poder también ejerce una transformación sobre ellos. Un matón de mala muerte no es igual cuando se convierte en déspota todopoderoso.

Yo el Supremo nos cuenta la historia -o al menos una historia- de Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, uno de los héroes de la independencia paraguaya, posteriormente uno de los cónsules de Paraguay y finalmente su único gobernante, estilizado como “Dictador Supremo y Perpetuo del Paraguay”, con poder absoluto sobre su ciudadanía y sus leyes.
Paraguay obtuvo su independencia de facto antes que las otras repúblicas de Sudamérica. Lo remota de su ubicación les permitió expulsar al gobierno español en su propio microcosmos, tras lo cual Dr. Francia decidió enclaustrar al país no sólo para protegerla de sus enemigos exteriores (en un principio Portugal y España, posteriormente el Imperio del Brasil -que siempre estaba en busca de convertirla en protectorado o absorber territorio- y las Provincias Unidad/República Argentina -que no reconocía la independencia de Paraguay y la veía sólo como una provincia rebelde), sino también para proteger la pureza de su revolución interna.
Mientras que en los otros países de la región los gobiernos hicieron causa común los las elites (porque usualmente los miembros del gobierno eran parte de ella), Francia hizo causa común con la gente común, forzando a la elite local a bajar al nivel de ella, en temas sociales de educación e incluso lenguaje (aunque nunca la hizo desaparecer por completo, como la historia posterior lo haría ver).
Paraguay durante el gobierno de Francia (y en menor medida, en los gobiernos de sus dos sucesores, Carlos Antonio López y Francisco Solano López) era un país cerrado. Nadie entraba y nadie salía. El único modo realista de hacerlo era mediante los ríos, de cualquier modo, por lo que éstos eran constantemente patrullados. Los pocos extranjeros que lograban colarse al país, en su mayoría eruditos europeos estudiando en terreno, eran mantenidos en una especie de ‘arresto domiciliario’ extendido: usualmente les permitían pasearse por el país para hacer sus investigaciones, pero eran mantenidos con la correa corta y sólo podían irse si contaban con la aprobación de Francia, que usualmente tardaba años en darla. El objetivo era evitar contaminación a la revolución local y convertir al país en una nación autosustentable, no odiando las relaciones con extranjeros, sino que cuidando no depender de sus vecinos más grandes y potenciales enemigos. Comparaciones con la actual Corea del Norte son fáciles de hacer, aunque son más superficiales que nada.
Todo esto lo menciono para dar contexto al libro, puesto que la mayoría de la gente no sabe mucho de la historia temprana del Paraguay.

La estructura de la novela es que se trata de un libro, o más bien un compilado de varias fuentes, sobre la vida de Francia a cargo de Paraguay. Está compuesto por un conjunto dispar de elementos: un elemento narrativo en el que Francia habla con su amanuense Patiño, quien toma nota textual de casi todo lo que se conversa; diversas ‘Circulares perpetuas’ en donde Francia estipula nuevas directrices sobre el país; y los cuadernos personales de éste, en donde él reflexiona sobre su vida y su importancia para el país.
El poder absoluto corrompe absolutamente, y un individuo que se convierte en “Dictador Supremo y Perpetuo” adquiere una cosmología personal muy peculiar. La versión que nos cuenta Francia de su país y cómo lo ha forjado no es exactamente la historia, sino más bien su historia, torcida y reanalizada detrás de una bruma de egolatría y paranoia. Su paranoia hacia sus enemigos extranjeros rápidamente se vuelve hacia adentro. El dictador como concepto es un hombre triste: está en la cima solo y rodeado de enemigos.
A pesar de ello, sin embargo, su poder no es tan absoluto como aparenta. Ya al principio de la novela lo vemos, cuando alguien ha logrado falsificar la firma de Francia y ha publicado pasquines falsos a nombre de éste. Con una habilidad como ésa sus enemigos podrían trabajar para hacerlo caer. ¿Qué es lo que hace el falsificador con este nuevo poder? Publica normativas ‘paródicas’ y finge la muerte del Dictador para que le hagan exequias. Básicamente, para hacer una broma. Francia no le ve como algo gracioso y trata de darle caza al culpable, ya que lo reconoce como lo que en verdad es: una muestra, por pequeña que sea, que su poder absoluto es ilusorio y no una realidad.
La estructura y la forma en la que el libro está escrito también se prestan para el poder, en este caso del autor y del lector. Muchos de los desvaríos de Francia y sus versiones ‘personalizadas’ de la historia (es como leer un texto sobre la Teoría del Gran Hombre de la historia), vienen con diversas “Notas del Compilador”, en donde nos ‘aclara’ un poco lo que ‘realmente’ pasó, usando evidencia bibliográfica como evidencia, como cartas o diarios de vida de otras personas influyentes que estuvieron involucradas con Francia. Sus versiones no necesariamente son más verdaderas, pero contrastan bastante con la que nos cuenta él; si uno se quedara sólo con la versión de Francia, se queda con la impresión que todo Paraguay giraba en torno a él, que su voluntad era absoluta, que “ni una hoja se movía sin que él lo supiera”.

La verdad es que leer el libro es una delicia sólo por cómo está escrito, más allá de lo que trate. Puede ser algo difícil, eso sí. Francia es muy dado a los juegos de palabras, en muchas ocasiones incorporando un segundo significado a lo que dice que depende del contexto en el que está hablando. También hay mucho guaraní en la narración, lo que también va de la mano con la sociedad en la que vive. No es imposible de leerlo, pero es mejor apreciarlo tomándose su tiempo, y por ende, no leerlo en un par de días.

[Julio César · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un clásico de la literatura latinoamericana. Lo sentí bastante atado a su época, con innovaciones literarias importantes como los múltiples tipos textuales, la inserción de cartas, panfletos, proclamas.
La historia del dictador Francia no me pareció tan loca, siendo de este continente, como le podría parecer a un europeo. Medio larga.