Maqroll: Three Novellas : The Snow of the Admiral/Ilona Comes With the Rain/Un Bel Morir

by Álvaro Mutis, Edith Grossman (Translator)

Three novellas by the new Latin American writer chronicle the life and adventures of Maqroll--adventurer, sailor, entrepreneur, and student of St. Francis. National ad/promo.

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature, Latin American, Literature, Adult, Literary Fiction

289 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Novelista y poeta colombiano. Uno de los grandes escritores hispanoamericanos contemporáneos. Autor destacado por la riqueza verbal de su producción y una característica combinación de lírica y narratividad. A lo largo de su carrera literaria ha recibido, entre otros, el Premio Xavier Villaurrutia en 1988, el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras en 1997, el Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana en 1997, el Premio Cervantes en 2001 y el Premio Internacional Neustadt de Literatura en 2002.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three novellas of adventure by a Colombian author (1923 – 2013) who fled the dictatorship in his home country and lived most of his life in Mexico City. He wrote many works, but his Maqroll series consists of seven novellas that are combined in different ways in various editions. The edition I am reviewing has three novellas. They are action/adventure stories with good writing and a strong literary flair.



The main character is Maqroll the Gaviero. As far as I can figure out, Gaviero means something like a sailor on a sailing ship but in context, more like “wingman.” Wikipedia I think gives a good opening summary so the next paragraph is copied from that source:

Mutis' works are most widely read in Latin America and Europe. Mutis is not well known in the anglophone world, probably because he is not easy to categorize. His literary work is not part of what is commonly understood in the American academy as "Latin American Literature". Maqroll, his most well-known character, is of indeterminate origin, nationality, age and physiognomy. He is not evidently from Latin America and does not represent anything particularly Latin American in character. Maqroll is a solitary traveler who brings a stranger's detachment to his encounters and his lovers; he searches for meaning in a time of violence and inhumanity.

In the novella Snow of the Admiral, Maqroll is making a 3-month long trip up an imaginary Amazon River tributary to supervise a sawmill operation. He knows nothing about his destination or about sawmills, but that’s what Maqroll spends his whole life doing. When he reaches his destination after all that time, what he finds is so forlorn and unexpected that he stays one day, turns around and goes back downriver.

As he does in all the novellas, in the three-month journey he thinks back on previous escapes, nick-of-time escapes, lost loves, brushes with the law and with death. We hear about his escapes running a mine, fencing stolen art, etc.

He visits a prostitute. When he leaves he notices a picture of his father on her wall. He asks, in effect, “Is that your best customer?” She replies, “No that’s my father.” Nobody has adventures like Maqroll!

Maqroll has incurable wanderlust. For relaxation he reads books about Medieval times and lives of the saints, as if his soul belonged to that era. But, of course, he’s irreligious and a fatalist.

In “Ilona Comes With the Rain” (which was made into a Spanish movie in 1996), he’s been cast up in Panama City. He get so drunk every night that he ends up in the morning with a woman in his bed he has no recollection of – until he catches on that they were let in by the hotel clerk so they can charge him money for imaginary services.

He’s found an old flame and perhaps they have a short time of true love. But they are stranded there with no money. Ilona comes up with a money-making scheme to run a brothel featuring women attired as airline stewardesses. It’s a big success but like almost everything else Maqroll gets involved in, ends in tragedy. One of the prostitutes is pursued by ghosts.



Un Bel Morir, I think, is the last of the seven novellas. Maqroll is getting old and has lost his energy. In a small, unnamed Latin American country. he has been hired to haul loads of engineering equipment by mule train up a mountain. But he has been duped. The crates really contain arms and explosives for a revolutionary group, so of course he’s ends up in big trouble with the law.

We also get extra treats with his recounting of his bizarre dreams. In one, he is having sex with a woman in her a hospital bed when the curtains are suddenly flung open by a group of altar boys and a priest who are there to administer last rites to him.

Some passages that illustrate good writing:

“A Coleman lamp burns at night, and a parade of large insects smash into it, their colors and shapes so varied I occasionally have the impression that the order of their appearance has been arranged for some mysterious educational purpose.”

He goes to places where things are “Just what you’ve seen, no more, no less. Intelligence is blunted here and time is confused, laws are forgotten, joy is unknown, and sadness has no place.”

A blind woman says: “It’s not so bad being blind, you know. I don’t believe there’s all that much to see. What do you think?”

“You’re immortal, Gaviero. It doesn’t matter that you’ll die one day like the rest of us. That doesn’t change anything. You’re immortal for as long as you live. I think I’ve been dead a long time.”

“To learn, above all, to distrust memory. What we believe we remember is completely alien to, completely different from what really happened. So many moments of irritating, wearisome disgust are returned to us years later as splendidly happy episodes. Nostalgia is the lie that speeds our approach to death. To live without remembering may be the secret of the gods.”

“She looked into her interlocutor’s eyes but not at the person. I mean that more than merely looking, she seemed to be searching, with secret, patient astuteness, for the other being that is always with us and comes to the surface only when we are alone, to deliver certain messages, dissolve certain fragile truths, abandon us to unspeakable perplexity.”



Good literary writing wrapped in intriguing adventure stories, served up with philosophical nuggets, so I gave it a 5.

Top photo, a clip from the movie "Ilona llega con la illuvia" from cinelatinoamericano.org
Photo of a ship going up the Amazon from .gonomad.com
The author from Wikipedia

[Stacia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once upon a time, this is a book I might have enjoyed more. But with more awareness of the old white guy canon vs. the diversity of authors out there, it made it less appealing overall. There are some nuggets of insight, some well-drawn descriptions, some adventurous escapades. There's also an overarching melancholy, a tendency to have the female characters be prostitutes (or saints), and a very man-centric view of the world.

I thought it would be a picaresque adventure, but there's too much gloom for that, I think. It was also a little disorieting in time, sometimes seeming like stories/places/people from a century ago, yet certain details brought time crashing forward to decades more in tune with the 1970s or so. Mostly it felt like ennui weighted down with oppressive humidity and a patchy, thin veil of magical realism.

[James Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ever there was an original and charismatic hero it's Maqroll the Gaviero (the Lookout). In this book over the course of three novellas he is introduced as an adventurer, sailor, lover, friend, and entrepreneur. Like the famous Odysseus he is a man of many sides and ways. In fact his character seems born of the lineage of Odysseus or Don Quixote or any of the sailors that inhabit the novels of Joseph Conrad. As with many a hero, one of Maqroll's strengths is simple knowledge: he's been everywhere, met everyone, has a memory or story for every occasion. Maqroll seems to be from the mold of characters created by B. Traven; Maqroll takes the world as known and thus no one's, with nothing to offer but memories of what's been lost and anticipations of the losses to come. He's much more Marlow than Indiana Jones, more fatalist than flaneur.

These three novellas describe his ventures that range from smuggling rugs in Alicante, to managing a brothel in Panama, to involvement, unintentional as it may be, with guerillas in South America. What makes these adventures stand out is not only the character and actions of Maqroll but the background of these episodes that benefit from the prose of Alvaro Mutis. He brings the rivers and the jungles to life along with the indigenous characters that inhabit them. The impressions of places including a coastal town and a decaying jungle settlement are inhabited by fascinating characters like the captains of the ships on which Maqroll sails or the beautiful and enigmatic Larissa who provides the intrigue for one of the novellas.

In "The Snow of the Admiral", after a brief introduction by the author, the story is told through entries in Maqroll's diary describing a trip up a river in some unnamed country. Maqroll is unique in the wealth of knowledge and experience he displays, especially the breadth of his reading; he reads every chance he gets, and in his very first entry he makes an offhand reference to Dicken's Little Dorrit. He ends his first diary entry with the following curious remark:
"It's all absurd, and I'll never understand why I set out on this enterprise. It's always the same at the start of a journey. Then comes a soothing indifference that makes everything all right. I can't wait for it to arrive."

Through the diary entries we see more aspects of his character. He attended a Jesuit Academy which tells you a lot about his education and his seemingly unorthodox discipline. In addition to his reading I liked his philosophical or thoughtful side as seen in this example of what he calls a "precept":
"Thinking about time, trying to find out if past and future are valid and, in fact, exist, leads us into a labyrinth that is no less incomprehensible for being familiar."
Moments later, after several more examples, he calls them all "fake pearls born of idleness and the obligatory wait for the current to change its mood". They are all the more fascinating nonetheless.

Weeks into the trip he speaks with a Major who tells him, "There's no mystery in the jungle, regardless of what some people think. That's its greatest danger. It's just what you've seen, no more, no less. Just what you see now. Simple, direct, uniform, malevolent. Intelligence is blunted here and time is confused, laws are forgotten, joy is unknown, and sadness has no place."

Following the diary entries the novella concludes with four appendix-like sections, one of which gives the novella its name, all introduced with the simple line, "Further information concerning Maqroll the Gaviero". In one of these sections he visits the Aracuriare Canyon where he builds a hut and stays for a time. "the Gaviero began an examination of his life, a catalogue of his miseries, his mistakes, his precarious joys and confused passions. He resolved to go deep into this task, and his success was so thorough and devastating that he rid himself completely of the self who had accompanied him all his life, the one who has suffered all the pain and difficulty. . . .
But as he faced that absolute witness of himself, he also felt the serene, ameliorating acceptance he had spent so many years searching for in the fruitless symbols of adventure."

There are two further novellas in this collection, and a second volume by Mutis that contains four additional novellas about Maqroll the Gaviero, an astonishingly unique adventurer.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Snow of the Admiral”: 2 stars
- other reviews have related the following anecdote with approbation. i will not. one day, after forty years of writing nothing but poetry, mutis sensed that a piece of prose poetry he was currently working on felt much more like the former than the latter. and what is more, it felt like something that should belong to a larger narrative arc. so he thought. to scratch this itch, mutis composed this novella, and proceeded to send it to his publisher. he attached a note: "I don't know what this is."

and how.

this work felt like reading something by a man whose reaction upon finishing it was “huh?” i mean, who doesn't enjoy reading the graphomanic output of a confused first-time novelist?

… a different thing …

here’s edith grossman on her translation ethos:

“A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.”

indeed. i, obviously, do not have the linguistic ability to judge from the source texts themselves, but my history with her has left me with one impression: it’s hard not to feel grossman in everything she translates, regardless of the author. there’s an aristocratic leisure and stilted eloquence to her sentences that might or might not exist in the original — who knows? for me, at least, it throws a veil over the thing itself that’s difficult to see clean through.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written collection of three picaresque novellas by the Columbian author/poet Mutis, all involving Maqroll the Gaviero (lookout), a seaman wanderer. There are Columbian authors other than Garcia Marquez, and Mutis gives him a run for the money with no magic realism. I had a hard go at the first novella, The Snow of the Admiral, but it was probably due to reading it at night. The other two novellas I felt were much better. Since they are novellas, they are probably best enjoyed in one setting, which I find hard to do these days.

There is a sequel of 4 more novellas. I will probably take a palate-cleansing break before tackling.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mutis is a Colombian writer, of the same generation as Gabriel García Márquez. Like GGM he spent much of his career in Mexico. The three stories in this volume are about Maqroll the Gaviero (lookout).

Novela #1: “The Snow of the Admiral”: The story begins with the narrator, who buys a book about the assassination of Louis the Duke of Orleans in a second hand bookstore in Barcelona. In the pockets of the book, he finds handwritten loose paper that are journal entries + a few more pages from Maqroll, a traveler, adventurer, and entrepreneur. This story are those pages.
The beginning reminds me of Chapter IX of "Don Quixote" when the narrator, disappointed that he has run out of DQ’s story in the middle of the battle with the Basque, goes to the Toledo marketplace and by happenstance finds the rest of Volume 1 of Quixote. The joy of discovery and retelling. “The Snow of the Admiral” is a river voyage story, so it is reminiscent of Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness," Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s "The Secret History of Costaguana," and Gabriel García Márquez’s use of rivers in "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," and his memoir "Living to Tell the Tale." Given the geography of Colombia, rivers are clearly an important part of the imaginary landscape.
Maqroll reminds me most of the seven voyages of Sinbad the Sailor from "A Thousand and One Nights." Sinbad is an entrepreneur who packs a ship full of goods to sell, sails out into the world, only to encounter misadventures, disasters, and shipwrecks which leave him with no goods and no money, but he survives and returns home penniless to start again. Failure does not seem to deter him.
In “The Snow of the Admiral,” Maqroll travels by barge to the edge of the cordillera to engage three sawmills to provide him with milled lumber that he can sell in the ports. The venture is bankrolled by Flor Estévez, who nursed him back to health after a previous adventure, and who looms large in Maqroll’s libido. He has heard about the sawmills, but he is not certain that they exist. Those along the way offer him conflicting stories and opinions, which do not deter him at all but create a riskier, more attractive adventure for him. He documents his experiences on the barge through journal entries from mid-March to the end of June. It is quickly apparent that it is the writing and reflecting, philosophizing and psychologizing, inquiries into his past and future failed endeavors, that are most interesting to him. Along the way, an indigenous woman has sex with him, he suffers from and survives the resulting virulent venereal disease, the barge captain is unstable and drunk much of the time, the barge breaks down, the other passengers are escorted off the barge by the local military, the barge survives dangerous rapids, the captain commits suicide, the sawmills are guarded by the army and are not selling lumber. The experiences provide him grist for the journals, wondering why he fails or why he is not dead or what or why others do or do not do what they do. The river, the journey up and back, the entrepreneurial venture just give some structure Maqroll’s life and reflections. And when he returns, he finds The Snow of the Admiral–a roadside store, restaurant, and bar–dilapidated and closed, and Flor Estévez gone. There is no end point. Life simply goes on and is processed. Writing and reflection are the things. Business, entrepreneurship, love, sex, conversation et. al. simply create the opportunities to think about an interesting life.
In the stories of Sinbad’s voyages, we are never allowed into his head. We do not know why he keeps going back out. Is he a masochist? Love adventures, danger, risk, money? The writer(s) of the tale don’t say. We can only read what Sinbad does and surmise his motives. With Maqroll, we know that the writing and reflecting are what he values most. Everything else is water under the bridge (Ha!). And there is the book that he keeps with him–on the assassination of the Duke of Orleans–and reads and uses to store his writings, a book that finds its way back to a Barcelona used bookstore. Writing transcends the man and his adventures to be bought and retold, cycle without end.

Novela #2: “Ilona Comes with the Rain”

If there is a thesis for the three novelas in this book, I think it is the following sentence from the second story: “What does matter is something else: what we carry inside, the wild propeller that never stops spinning.”

In the first story, Maqroll has a “Heart of Darkness” experience, navigating and interacting in a world about which he knows nothing, and all those unknowns build up to become an irreal and dream-like story. “Ilona Comes with the Rain” is, at least initially, much more realistic. Here, Maqroll understands where he is and how he has gotten there. He understands the misadventures and the circumstances that have stranded him in Panama City without prospects or much money. He understands bad luck and behaves accordingly, doing what he can and waiting for his luck to turn so that he can get back on the water, embark on another voyage/adventure, let loose his wild propeller.

In Panama City, where he finds himself after the ship on which he has been purser has been impounded and the captain commits suicide, he is almost without funds and about to be caught up in–that is, victimized by–somebody else’s bad business, when he encounters Ilona, an old associate, friend, and lover. They rekindle their relationship, put their heads together, and create a high class bordello that will fund their departure from Panama City and move them on to their next adventure. Maqroll knows what he is doing, because he has done similar things previously, and the plot moves forward efficiently.

The twist comes with the introduction of the character of Larissa, who comes to Panama City on a ship, where she is haunted by two ghosts who make to love her and addict her to their ghostly lovemaking. A hurricane wrecks the ship on the beach, and she lives in the wreck, pining for the ghosts’s return. They don’t. She comes to the bordello looking for solace and salvation, which she doesn’t find. Yet, Maqroll and Ilona are sympathetic, because Larissa, like them, is trying to find a way out of a “blind alley.” The introduction of fantasy transforms the story from a piece of of realism to a cross between a harlequin romance and Jorge Amado’s Doña Flor and her Two Husbands, a comic novel about a woman haunted by her still randy dead husband. “Ilona Comes with the Rain” shifts from a story about a couple of sympathetic and successful ne’er do wells to one of sudden tragic loss. Maqroll escapes back to the water and onto other adventures. He is out of his blind alley and his “wild propeller” is free, but his escape is muted, because Ilona was caught by Larissa’s madness, trapped by the wrecked ship that will never sail again.

What I find fascinating about “Ilona Comes with the Rain” and “The Snow of the Admiral” is when Mutis takes and gives control to his protagonist, Maqroll. In both cases, the return of control signals the return to self. In “The Snow of the Admiral,” Mutis floats Maqroll in a milieu of the unknowable, and only when he writes can he return to himself. In “Ilona,” Maqroll maintains control throughout most of the story, but once the tragic ghost story disrupts the otherwise easily managed escape plan and trauma threatens Maqroll’s return to the sea, Mutis rather forcefully gives Maqroll control of his destiny again with whatever post-traumatic shadows will accompany him on his next adventure. Reminds me a little of Gulliver’s Travels.

Novela #3: “Un Bel Morir” (A Good Death, A Beautiful Death)
Maqroll does not die in this story, but he does sail off, like Charon, to grapple with his memories, draw them out and manifest them, in order to review the events of his life before he dies.
This story takes place much later than the previous two. Maqroll has settled in La Plata, a town in the Colombian interior on a river. He lives in a boarding house, and he receives remittances from the profits of a ship in which he is invested. He has essentially retired, and he spends much time in the village bar drinking and remembering, reconstructing his life. He is bored, though, and when the chance to embark upon another misadventure, this time transporting arms into the cordillera, he lets himself be lured into the work, although he has had similar misadventures in the past that have not gone well, and this job involves moving away from the water (sea, river), which is always bad luck. Still, he forges ahead, knowing that things won’t go well. As in the other two stories, Maqroll always chooses fatalism, knowing that he is doing something dangerous but also something that is challenging enough–tests his knowledge and abilities–to be satisfying.
So Maqroll’s last misadventure reinforces his lifelong identity. Moreover, like the old protagonist in Gabriel García Márquez’s "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," Maqroll develops an autumnal/invernal relationship with a much younger woman, Amparo Maria, who confirms his masculinity and becomes one of the women–along with Ilona and Flor Estévez of the other two novelas in this volume–around whom he organizes his life story as he conjures it from memory. So this final adventure is both a last hurrah and it is a means by which Maqroll manifests and organizes his memories, which he doesn’t finish doing by the end of the story.
What also comes clear in this last story is that Maqroll is not a lone adventurer. He is not Sinbad in this regard. In each of the stories, he has a group of friends and colleagues whom he trusts and who help him. In “Un Bel Morir,” if it weren’t for the political violence that blows up in La Plata, the village would be a good place for Maqroll to retire because of all the supportive and substantial relationships that he develops. In the first story, “The Snow of the Admiral,” those relationships are quite distant and/or unstable. In the second story, “Ilona Comes with the Rain,” there is a supportive community that coalesces around Maqroll before everything falls apart and he moves on. “Un Bel Morir” repeats the pattern of “Ilona.” Maqroll likes many people in this story, and they like him. The resulting supportive community is very strong and absolutely necessary for Maqroll’s survival, but Mutis dissolves it all, forcing Maqroll back on the water, motoring on to whatever is next. Clearly not retirement.

[Trina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like a chore. It reminded me of all those assigned reading lists with books you know you better read rather than want to read. Since I’m no longer in school, I see no point in forcing myself to go on with a book that fails to engage me. If I’m going to travel up steamy jingle rivers, I’d rather do it with Kurtz and Joseph Conrad than Maqroll and Alvaro Mutis.

[Vilis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Likumiski un ētiski apšaubāmi, bet piedzīvojumiem bagāti laimes meklējumi, pasaule, kur nekas nestāv taisni, kur sapņi cieši sajaukušies ar realitāti, veidojot tveices izpludinātu dzīvesziņu - man ideāls sajaukums, kam šeit ir izdevies arī sanākt kopā vienotā veselumā.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest living writer of prose fiction. Every time I re-read him, he gets better.

[Peter Allum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasional high points, but less than gripping.

This volume combines three novellas, all featuring an adventurer named Maqroll the Gaviero ("nautical lookout"). In the first novella, The Snow of the Admiral (1986), we find Maqroll on a river barge traveling through the jungle towards rumored upstream saw mills, where he hopes to buy lumber and ship it downriver selling it at a profit to military construction projects. There is perhaps something of Conrad's Heart of Darkness to the descriptions of the inhumane, oppressive jungle and something Kafkaesque in the distant, mysterious saw mills.

The second novella, Ilona Comes with the Rain (1988), finds Maqroll stranded in Panama City after his work on a cargo boat ends suddenly. With dwindling funds, he looks for opportunities to make the necessary pot of money to get back on his feet. Just as his luck seems to have run out, he meets Ilona, a former lover and inspired inventor of money making schemes.

By this point, I'd had enough of Maqroll, and didn't try the third Novella, Un Bel Morir (1989).

Alvaro Mutis won important literary awards and had the critical backing of heavy-hitters such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Octavio Paz. In his novels, he focuses on the character Maqroll, perhaps an alter ego for the author. Maqroll is an individualist and adventurer, driven to travel and chase dreams, going through brief periods of abundance but then fated to lose it all and sink into poverty. He approaches life with dogged determination, suffering when he has to, but with the faith that something will turn up. He has much in common with the amoral Rick, former gun-running café owner played by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

The attraction of the Maqroll novellas lies in the protagonist's bizarre escapades. Somehow, though, they didn't captivate me. Perhaps, a Latin American reader in the 1980s would have found more in the character.

About Alvaro Mutis (courtesy Wikipedia)

Mutis was the son of a Colombian diplomat and lived in Brussels from age two through eleven. Returning to Colombia he became a poet, published at age 25, then moving to Mexico at age 33, a country which became his new home. He combined writing with corporate roles, acting as Standard Oil's public relations director for five years and as sales manager for Twentieth Century Fox and Columbia Pictures in their Latin American television divisions for over 20 years.

Mutis' works are most widely read in Latin America and Europe. He is not well known in the anglophone world, probably because he is not easy to categorize. His literary work is not part of what is commonly understood in the American academy as "Latin American Literature". Maqroll, his most well-known character, is of indeterminate origin, nationality, age and physiognomy. He is not evidently from Latin America and does not represent anything particularly Latin American in character. Maqroll is a solitary traveler who brings a stranger's detachment to his encounters and his lovers; he searches for meaning in a time of violence and inhumanity.

[Dan Plonsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these novellas (there are four more, in other volumes) Maqroll, a.k.a. the Gaviero ("The Lookout") has a series of doomed adventures -- and doomed adventures within doomed adventures. Well before he reaches the midway point in one of his misguided schemes, he recognizes his mistakes in judgement, or simply loses interest, but he continues along as he must, being unwilling to live within society, or to abide by any set of rules, as a sort of 60's-era anti-hero. Loyal friends and strangers take chances to help -- somehow he has a special status -- and some die, while he carries on. Gaviero-like, I think I'll read the remaining novellas, but I'm in no big hurry.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story made this book hard to get into. I cared for the characters a lot more in the second and third stories. Characters reappear, more often in thought and speech than in body.

There are many violent deaths in these novellas, and they take place in some desolate and dangerous places. A common theme is transport by water, and Maqroll getting himself into a fix by "going with the flow" or hanging around for too long.

[Jacob Vorstrup Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A geographical jitterbug featuring a spiritual, insightful protagonist with a tendency to hire prostitutes and commit felonies.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that started slowly but won me over. A very old-fashioned writer and book. First novella was meh (too Heart of Darkness), but second and third made me a Maqroll fan.

[Samue l · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Cuando le mentimos a una mujer volvemos a ser el niño desvalido que no tiene asidero en su desamparo."

[Daniel Brisbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow, what engaging, heavy hitting stories. I'm so glad there were more maqroll stories for me to dive into. love this series

[Tommy Salami · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

The second novella, Ilona Comes with the Rain, is my favorite.

I imagine that these stories and Mutis's prose style epitomize all that Spanish literature is supposed to be. There is lots of sex, murder, political coups, Catholicism, Indians, and adventure.

Select quotations:
"The blind know more about people than those who have eyes to see and don't use them" (186)

"In this case, however, fear was not as great as repugnance at knowing he was at the mercy of someone who deserved neither respect nor gratitude. This was the kind of relationship he went out of his way to avoid" (231)

"They soon discovered the bloated remains of the mule swirling around an eddy and crashing into large rocks" (231)

[Jenine]

I'm reading the first two novellas for January 2025.
The Snow of the Admiral, finished Dec. 12, 2024. I liked the moody introspective time in and out of the jungle. Thought it was funny how our narrator describes himself as celibate right after having perfunctory sex with the anonymous Indian woman on the boat. (The passage is disappointingly distasteful and racist.) Several entwined possible outcomes are depicted, if I'm reading correctly. I liked the protag's outlook which is profoundly concentrated on what he perceives to be his own story but also acknowledges that others are on their own trajectories.
Ilona Comes with the Rain, finished Jan. 7, 2025. Can't say I liked this one much. It begins well with Maqroll sinking into penury and feeling defeated by this port town distant from everywhere else. Maqroll says that Ilona is wonderful but I didn't think much of her or her dramatic outcome. The clever money making scheme of running call girls failed to charm me. These novellas may be like Tintin stories, with colonialism, exoticism , adventure, sex & violence

[Socrate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Când credeam că prin mâinile mele trecuseră toate scrierile, scrisorile, documentele, relatările şi amintirile Gabierului Maqroll şi că cei care-mi cunoşteau interesul pentru tot ce însemnase viaţa sa epuizaseră căutările după orice urmă scrisă a nefericitelor lui peregrinări, hazardul mi-a rezervat o surpriză ciudată, când mă aşteptam mai puţin.

Una din plăcerile secrete pe care mi-o oferă plimbările prin Cartierul Gotic din Barcelona este să-i vizitez anticariatele, după părerea mea cele mai bine aprovizionate şi ai căror patroni păstrează încă acele talente subtile, acele intuiţii gratificante, acea ştiinţă scumpă la vorbă care constituie de fapt virtuţile unui librar adevărat, specie pe cale de iminentă extincţie. Zilele trecute am intrat pe strada Botillers, unde m-a atras vitrina unui anticariat de obicei închis şi care oferă lăcomiei colecţionarilor piese realmente excepţionale. În ziua aceea era deschis. Am pătruns cu religiozitatea cu care intri în sanctuarul vreunui rit uitat. Un bărbat tânăr, cu barbă neagră de evreu levantin, obraz ca de fildeş şi ochi apoşi, negri, încremeniţi într-o expresie de vagă mirare, stătea în spatele unui morman de cărţi şi de hărţi pe care le cataloga cu un scris mărunt de pe alte timpuri. Mi-a zâmbit uşor şi, ca un librar de bună tradiţie, m-a lăsat să scotocesc printre rafturi, încercând să rămână cât mai neobservat. În timp ce puneam deoparte cărţile pe care voiam să le cumpăr, am dat deodată de o frumoasă ediţie legată în piele purpurie a cărţii lui P. Raymond pe care o căutam de ani de zile şi al cărei titlu reprezintă în sine o frumoasă promisiune: Enquête du Prévôt de Paris sur l’assassinat de Louis Duc D’Orléans (Ancheta starostelui Parisului asupra asasinării Ducelui Ludovic d’Orléans) editată de Biblioteca Şcolii din Chartres, în 1865. Iată cum o întâmplare, un noroc al sorţii îmi răsplătea ani de aşteptare când îmi luasem de mult gândul. Am luat cartea, fără s-o deschid, şi l-am întrebat pe tânărul bărbos cât costă. Mi-a spus preţul cu tonul acela categoric, definitiv şi fără drept de apel, care face şi el parte din caracteristicile înaltei sale bresle. Am plătit fără ezitare, am cumpărat şi celelalte cărţi alese şi am ieşit ca să mă bucur singur de achiziţia mea, cu o voluptate negrăbită şi delicioasă, pe o bancă din mica piaţă în care se găseşte statuia lui Ramón Berenguer cel Mare. Frunzărind cartea am văzut că ultima copertă era prevăzută cu un buzunar mare, menit să păstreze iniţial hărţi şi arbori genealogici ce completau savurosul text al profesorului Raymond. În locul lor, am dat de un teanc de foi, majoritatea de culoare roz, galben sau albastru, care păreau facturi comerciale sau fişe contabile. Uitându-mă mai bine, am văzut că erau acoperite de un scris mărunt, cam tremurător, febril aş zice, aşternut cu un creion chimic, din când în când udat cu salivă de autorul înghesuitelor rânduri. Erau scrise pe ambele părţi, evitând grijuliu locurile tipărite şi care, cum am putut constata, erau într-adevăr tot felul de formulare comerciale. Deodată mi-a sărit în ochi o frază, făcându-mă să dau uitării scrupuloasa investigaţie a istoricului francez despre mişelescul asasinat al fratelui lui Carol al VI-lea al Franţei, ordonat de Ioan-fără-Frică, duce de Burgundia. Pe ultima filă, la sfârşit, cu cerneală verde şi un scris ceva mai ferm, am citit: „Scris de Gabierul Maqroll în timpul urcării râului Xurandó. A se înmâna Lui Flor Estévez, oriunde s-ar găsi. Hotelul Flandra, Anvers.” Cum cartea avea numeroase sublinieri şi note scrise cu acelaşi creion, era uşor de dedus că omul nostru, pentru a nu se despărţi de aceste pagini, a preferat să le păstreze în buzunarul destinat unor scopuri mai înalte şi mai academice.

[Catbalpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
Este primer volumen de algún modo se me hace muy familiar a la escritura de Juan Rulfo, por ejemplo en Pedro Páramo: la evocación de aventuras pasadas, la contraposición de elementos fantásticos con la realidad latinoamericana desoladora y violenta, la diversidad y riqueza de su forma narrativa, entre otras cosas. No puedo evitar comparar a Mutis con Rulfo -cosa que espero al primero le hubiera gustado- y quizá no tenga sentido hacer la reseña de un libro empleando tanta intertextualidad, pero es que, aunque “Empresas y Tribulaciones de Maqroll el Gaviero” tiene su propia esencia y exquisita narrativa, creo que no puedo describir mejor la construcción de personajes memorables en el presente libro que al compararla con la que logra el escritor mexicano en su obra. Maqroll es una genialidad (y sus acompañantes no se quedan muy atrás), y desde “La Nieve del Almirante” se deja ver con una claridad impresionante lo que lo compone, que queda más que perfectamente complementado a lo largo del desarrollo de sus demás crónicas. Quizá me equivoque y sea solo yo, pero creo que todos somos medio Maqroll el Gaviero, y personalmente me llevo varios aprendizajes de aquí. Espero poder leer sobre el resto de sus aventuras prontamente.

[bushn · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Bond for the I Choose To Know The Second Most Populous Cities Of A Country set. Tucker Max hardback backpacker. Maqroll, you fool!

—and yet, as we bore on ceaselessly on the river of life longing for the the mountains which we ought to inhabit but cannot live within, or around, and make port in the seething warts or human traffic instead, making up elaborate explanations for the attraction of lovers and work and play and death and wonder why, after so much additional reasoning, we still hop on a broken boat floating on water under which we will surely drown, not ever getting to know death as ourselves anyways, and probably being wrong about it regardless.

Indiana Jones from ...................................... central america.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection for a sweltering beach, a sweltering jungle hammock or a sweltering Central American hotel balcony. Mutis follows his fatalistic hero Maqroll on a series of doomed misadventures, but the outcome of the journeys is less important than the sensibility of the protagonist: bemused, dour and inquisitive, Maqroll is an alert guide and entertaining companion, someone you wouldn't want to trust with your life but you'd love to meet somewhere quiet, where the drinks were cold and nothing was at stake. No great action punctuates the atmosphere of possibility and dread, but when the action does happen, it matters and draws you on to the next adventure.

[Fernando Carvalho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inclui as seguintes narrativas:
La nieve del almirante
Ilona llega con la lluvia
Un bel morir

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to say, I just don't get it. I felt like I was stuck in the doldrums every time I dipped into the Gaviero's aimless travels. More than anything this book made me understand why so many new Spanish language writers have rebeled against the "magical realist" template. May I treat this book with the same shrug that Maqroll supplies to work and direction.

[Noreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolute must for the Literarians Group. Riveting, beautifully written, unlike anything else. Mutis is an original and we see what a foundational work in the Latin American canon this is in this beautiful translation by the incomparable Edith Grossman.

[Alta]

great style and a great translation by Edith Grossman

[Drake30 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisito.

[Peter Learn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maqroll is a great character but the stories of those around him just end. Like his girlfriend who is in a massacre. Agree is a near cross of Conrad and Marquez.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad I took a chance and ordered this book. Beautifully written tales of one mans travels around the globe and through his mind and feelings.
I will now read the next!!

[Jenny Bencardino]

Too much too think, too much too remember...