Sognai la neve bruciare. Una ballata cilena

by Antonio Skármeta, Gianpiero Manfredini (Translator)

Ecco dopo oltre quarant’anni il primo libro scritto da Antonio Skármeta. Questa è la storia di un giovane arrogante che arriva nelle strade di Santiago per diventare un calciatore, nel frattempo la sua nazione passa dall’entusiasmo socialista di Allende al colpo di stato di Pinochet, capace di trasformare uno stadio di calcio in un centro di tortura.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Esteban Antonio Skármeta Vranicic was a Chilean writer, scriptwriter and director descending from Croatian immigrants from the Adriatic island of Brač, Dalmatia. He was awarded Chile's National Literature Prize in 2014.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A case of serendipity brought this novel to my attention - I was reading 'Granta 22: With a Tongue Down My Throat' from 1987 and I was dazzled by the advertisements for so many wonderful books which I had meant to read, but hadn't, and seeing an advertisement for 'I Dreamt the Snow was Burning' I knew I had to immediately redress my 1980's failure and read this book now! Now I have done so and it was beautiful, moving and devastatingly sad. Whether it will have as profound and moving affect on anyone else I will not predict. I can't be objective about this novel because as an adolescent school boy of 15 I was horrified and moved by the newspaper images of the bombing of La Moneda, Chile's presidential palace, and the overthrow of Allende's democratically elected government. For those of us who were adolescents or students in 1973 Chile was our cause celebre. An event that was so hideously wrong and in which the government of the USA (but also those of UK and Australia as we would later learn) was a combined godfather, patron saint and paymaster. That the horror never stopped with torture centres established in the National Stadium and elsewhere, the disappearance of thousands and the suspicious death, now confirmed as poisoning, of Pablo Neruda the nightmare never ended. That Chile was the guinea pig for the Neo Liberal economic theories of the Milton Friedman inspired 'Chicago Boys' which would eventually sanctify the increasingly grotesque disparities in wealth, opportunity, health and education that we live with today is all to often forgotten.

But what does this all have to do with Skarmeta's 'I Dreamt the Snow was Burning' - well his novel is an impressionistic tale of of a vanished and now forgotten world - Chile - pre Pinochet, pre the coup a land were ordinary people had, for the briefest of moments, attempted to build a different world, one where things would not be ordered as they always had been by those who owned everything but by ordinary workers and peasants who for the first began to take control their own lives destinies. It was a time of immense optimism when 'the people' on the streets, in the factories and slums felt hope and dreamt dreams. It was a time of hope and illusion. In his inter twined tales Skarmeta shows all this, the dream, but don't imagine it is some agitprop piece - one of the most touching elements in this novel is the tale of Arturo, an apolitical youngster who comes to the capitol Santiago to follow his dreams of a career in football and, even more important, to loose his virginity but who has no interest in politics.

This is a beautiful novel of pathos and humour - I could go on and mention so many of the others we meet, it is a novel bursting with life and characters as rich as any in Victor Hugo or Cervantes. It is utterly unlike anything in USA/UK literature. We follow a rag-tag collection of characters as they dream of and try and create a new world through the false optimism of failed Tanquetazo tank putsch in June 1973 to the inevitable denouement of September 1973 in which a future was lost, to all of us, but the people of Chile most of all.

It is a wonderful novel and, considering Skarmeta is still writing, and his works are still appearing in English (though many are not - interestingly enough he is highly translated into Arabic - I wonder did his works help inspire the Arab Spring?) it is shocking that this novel has never been republished nor made available on Kindle.

[Daniel Díez · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nivel de argumento es muy interesante. Lo guay de este señor es que con sus novelas puedes aprender mucho sobre el gobierno de Salvador Allende y el golpe de estado de Pinochet.
Ahora bien, esta novela en particular me ha costado bastante, muchas partes que son difíciles de entender, historias entrelazadas....
Eso sí el último capítulo es muy bonito y poético

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just like its wonderful title, Skarmeta's novel is a very poetic, dreamy affair. Experimental, varied in style, syntax and tone, I Dreamt the Snow Was Burning is a challenging piece of South American political satire documenting the fall of Allende in Santiago and the military coup. The plot mostly follows a group of volatile activists and political thinkers lodging at a boarding house as they welcome a young country boy intent on making his name as a footballer to the house. Arturo is the epitamy of political apathy and youthful cockiness, determined only to make a success of himself through sport. This friction between apathy and action governs the dialogues and relationships in the hostel.

Arriving with Arturo, Senor Pequeno is the dreamer of the story. A performer and an artist, he teams up with a giant sidekick. His section are often difficult to read, lending the book a haunted circus atmosphere. The early conversation with Arturo on the train to Santiago when Senor Pequeno's chest is bulging with some kind of animal have a hazy comic feel to them, almost Python-esque sketches of bemusement and wry smiles. The dreams and sly humour fade out towards the end after scenes of slapstick failure and misunderstanding leave Senor Pequeno down and out and wishing to be left to sleep on the street - left to apathy and defeat.

Some parts of the novel, particularly Arturo narrative, are fairly linear and syntaxically easy to follow. With brash confidence he joins a football team, scores his goals and goes on a conquest of a girl. Skarmeta's development of Arturo's slowly collapsing confidence is expertly done - we really feel the awakening of his humility (and in a sense, maturity) after the double setback of his red card and the failures of his seductions. Skarmeta stretches his novel structurally to include elements of football commentary (radio voices, albeit very literary ones), media, music and song - a full bodied, complicated images of a city in flux, of striving voices among the masses.

Other sections are incredible hard to decipher. The parts dealing with the group in the boarding house are characterised by a lack of punctuation, barely a full stop or a paragraph for pages, switching speakers and points of view mid sentence (an arbitrary word in this case) and very fluid, colloquial dialogue. While it is fascinating to attempt, it borders on the too dense and difficult and would require more time than the casual reader has to unearth Skarmeta's intentions. It also interrupts the flow of the otherwise addictive prose and colourful characters.

This stream of language does come into its own in the final frantic pages as the various characters attempt their escapes from the military and the tragedies pile up thick and fast as the football stadium changes face into an arena of torture. The confused nature of the narrative perhaps reflects the chaos of the moment quite well and does leave the reader gasping for breathe, and a little unsatisfied, when the final whistle blows. 4

[Steven Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

When this book was recommended to me I was really looking forward to it. A South American football novel (I’d found one!) set in the last days of Salvador Allende before the fascist coup brought down his democratic socialist government. A book written by a Chilean and published shortly after the coup; a coup with a grim football connection: Pinochet’s thugs rounded people up in their thousands and took them to the national football stadium where they were tortured, killed, taken away and disappeared.
I would like to say that I enjoyed it, but I can’t. It was like watching a subtitled film in the fog, through binoculars, wearing ear muffs.
Full review at: http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014...

[Palo · Rating 5 out of 5]

favorite.

[Mez Go258 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustó mucho, pero me costó leer este libro. En comparación a otros de Skarmeta el ritmo era más complicado.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

short but evocative novella about chile under allende just before the coup, following several different characters including militant workers, a football player with an enormous ego and a midget impresario/conman and his gigantic son/partner. less social realist than you might expect from that description, there are some great impressionistic passages and a couple of remarkable descriptions of football games.

[Talal Najjar · Rating 4 out of 5]

لم يخيب ظني سكارميتا الرائع ك باقي رواياته

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was published in 1975 and depicts imagined ordinary leftish people prior to the events of the military coup on 1973. The main characters being virgin football hopeful Arturo, and chancer Senor Pequeno aka Lecaros. Several friends (‘Negro’, ‘Fats’ and Sepulveda) meet a sorry end. The style is a typical Latin American jumble of opaque scenes linked by inferred unseen events – it rapidly becomes an ‘enjoy the language forget the plot’ type book. I’m sure perhaps that closer to the events at the timing of writing, symbolism and metaphor have greater meaning but today something was lost on me.

A quote
“…If you take a photograph of the house it won’t show the silences, it won’t show that new silence that Angel brought to the house, a mute thing as big as him which may be you can’t even make out, Angelito died bigger than a piano…”

It’s not particularly graphic or tragic for what I’m sure are very sorry events and somehow as a whole I’m not convinced by the writing – 3 stars.

[Daniel Polansky]

A jock from the provinces come to Santiago in the days before the assassination of Allende. A Faulknerian recreation of the golden moments before hell came to Chile. Funny and energetic in defiance of the subject matter.

[Eman Al Banna · Rating 2 out of 5]

من الرواية:
" كان يعاني من كل شيء ،تحديداً كل شيء لا اكثر ولا أقل من كل شيء"

‏" هل تعرف ما هي مشكلتك يا أرتوريتو؟ أنك ديكٌ منفوش الريش.. أنت ديك يمضي يومه في تأمل ذاته الرائعة."

‏"انتابه شعور بأنه قد تحّول إلى حزنٍ واحدٍطويل وووفيّ كظلّه.. وعندما تنضب دموعه سيظل الحزن حاضراً وفياً وحميماً"

‏" أنا وصديقي كنا بمنزلة شخص واحد، لأن المواقف التي يعيشها البشر معاً تخلط الحيوانات بعضها ببعض.. فأنا أتذكر أحياناً أمراً لا أعرف ما إن كنت قد عشتها بنفسي أم أن صديقي قالها لي، ويحدث معه الأمر ذاته.."


🔺الكتاب رقم (15 ) لسنة ٢٠٢٤
🔺اسم الكتاب: #حلمت_أن_الثلج_يحترق
🔺المؤلف: أنطونيو سكارميتا
🔺 عدد الصفحات: ٢٤٦

‏يسافر الشاب أرتوريتو إلى العاصمة ليحترف لعب كرة القدم قبل أن ينخرط تدريجياً مع بعض الرفاق في السياسة حيث تجتاحهم جميعاً المد والجزر الكابوسي في التاريخ. مع تحول البلاد إلى كابوس من العنف إثر انقلاب عام 1973 والذي يُعد واحداً من أكثر الأحداث عنفًا في تاريخ تشيلي..

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يصور سكارميتا، بأسلوبه اللاتيني المُتفرد، مجموعة جميلة من الشخصيات، التي تتقولب شخصياتهم على ��ار هادئة خلال أحداث الرواية المتصاعدة حتى يُرى التغيير واضحاً في نهاية المطاف..
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كنت في قمة الحماس لقراءة الرواية ذات العنوان الجذاب ، لكن يبدو أن توليفة السياسة وكرة القدم والمفردات الخادش�� لم تخلق رواية مفضلة بالنسبة لي!

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[Riccardo Pallotta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un romanzo di cui avevo sentito parlare e che mi ha affascinato anche nella sua edizione, come fosse un album delle figurine dei calciatori e diviso per giornate di campionato. Interessante, intenso e molto profondo.

[Eduardo Sánchez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tiene algunos momentos entrañables, pero es difícil de seguir si no se habla el castellano de Chile.

[Rami Hamze · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Antonia Contreras Klock · Rating 2 out of 5]

No me mató pero tenía que leer a Skármeta alguna vez. La narrativa era original al menos. Bueno y leer de Chile en los 70's no deja de ser entretenido.