Pedro Paramo is a story whose narrative is twisting and unpredictable, destabilized. Points of view shift, and the past and present are illustrated side by side.
I really enjoyed the ghosts' knowledge of the living world and vice versa. There's definitely elements of magical realism here, but not just in the psychic and living-dead elements. A lot of the language has a sort of fairy-tale style to it; simple, pretty, charmed. I personally found the dialogue of an old woman's ghost to be terribly delicate and sweet on p. 54:
"Drink it! It will do you good. It's orange-blossom tea. I know you're scared because you're trembling. This will ease your fright."
At the same time that this is presented in ways as a reality, it can also be viewed as the scattered, fragmented thoughts of a man grief-stricken at the loss of his mother.
The story also seems marked by a lot of negative space and silence, absence and disappearance. Other than that, I'm not really sure what I have to say about the novel other than that it was a pleasant challenge.
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I agree. The ghosts seem to be as live as the living. Perhaps what makes the novel "magical realist"--a term which, by the way, I hate, but is useful here--is precisely the way the "realms" of the dead and the live is blurred.
ReplyDeleteI like what you had to say Tara. It is certainly a challenge(i'm rereading it now) oddly, the changing narrative- while hard to follow- only adds to that ghostly ,even spatial disconnect.
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