Juan Rulfo: Pedro Paramo

[Mirabell]

A great book, one of the best novels I've ever read. It's very short, yet it contains, as they say, a whole world, the history of that world and its dead. It's a historical novel, no it's a ghost story, no it's a love story, no it's... It's a very complex novel, much written in dialogue, full of incredibly evocative and rich descriptions. After you've read it it's as if you've seen a movie. The images conjured by Rulfo stay with you for a very long time. The influence of Rulfo on lesser writers such as Márquez is clear.

Wikipedia

Juan Rulfo (16 May 1917[1] – 7 January 1986) was a Mexican novelist, short story writer, and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo (1955), and El llano en llamas (1953, The Burning Plain), a collection of short stories that includes his admired tale "¡Diles que no me maten!" ("Tell Them Not to Kill Me!"). He was named alongside Jorge Luis Borges as the best Spanish-language writer of the 20th century in a poll conducted by People Magazine .

[Heteronym]

I had the pleasure of reading Pedro Parámo a few years ago, shortly after finishing The Burning Plain. It was depressing to realise there was nothing else by this writer to read.

This novella was a blueprint for One Hunded Years of Solitude: both describe the decline of a family along with the town they lived in. Both mix fantasy with realism. Both have a fragmented narrative. Gabriel García Márquez has acknowledged this influence, putting Rulfo alongside Kafka as his major literary inspirations.

Curiously enough, Rulfo's novella has many similarities too with Edgar Lee Masters' 1915 Spoon River Anthology, a collection of poems recited by the dead people of Spoon River, many of which overlap, creating sometimes a narrative and shedding new light on previous poems.