Vargas Llosa, Mario. Le dedico mi silencio (Barcelona: Alfaguara, 2023) pp. 301. [See English below] Según el autor, esta obra, que se ocupa del Perú, el país natal del escritor, será la penúltima de sus obras. Como sabemos, don Mario ha sido un autor prolijo y altamente reconocido, el más celebrado en la actualidad en Latinoamérica. Pero parece que nos dice que los años se suman y el cuerpo y el alma buscan descanso.
De modo que parece que Le dedico mi silencio representa el ultimo razonamiento escrito por don Mario sobre su país.
Vale reconocer al mismo tiempo que su trabajo literario a través de los años ha sostenido un punto de vista crítico y controvertido acerca del desarrollo político y social de América Latina incluyendo su país, e incluso se presentó en un momento decisivo como candidato a la presidencia de Perú, aunque no lo logró. En otras palabras, ha tenido mucho que decir a cerca de los retos que achacan su país y el resto de América Latina y también ha sido objeto de no poca critica.
Se puede decir también que ha sufrido un amor-odio por su terruño reflejado no solo en sus obras escritas sino también en su residencia en Europa desde hace mucho tiempo, pero hay que decir a la vez que otros personajes insignes han hecho lo mismo . En todo caso Le dedico mi silencio merece atención.
Para comenzar podemos afirmar que esta novela combina la relación ficticia con ensayos abreviados donde el autor ofrece contexto al tema que va hilvanando.
La idea principal de esta obra la expresa a menudo y de muchas maneras Toño Azpilcueta, un escritor en apuros que actúa como el personaje principal y que casualmente escuchó en una taberna deslucida de Lima a un guitarrista llamado Lalo Morfino tocar un vals peruano en una forma maravillosa. Toño queda tan abrumado por la actuación de Morfino que se obsesiona con la idea de que la música criolla, como el vals peruano, pueda servir como un embrujo para la integración de los peruanos. Esta noción es clave y en ella don Mario aborda algo muy conocido por los peruanos: que la sociedad peruana sufre de múltiples fracturas.
En la voz del observador anónimo,
“[L]a música criolla podía doblegar prejuicios y abrir las mentes y los corazones…[se] reconciliarían las diferencias, los abismos sociales e hicieran que más ricos blanquiñosos…se unieran felices con negras pobretonas…o viceversa, mujeres blancas y ricas cayendo en los brazos de hombres negros, cholos, indios tan pobres como el mismo Toño.” (p.214)
Una “utopía criolla” es la idea fundamental que nos ofrece don Mario, pues. Y, en el acto, debo apuntar porque me complació enormemente, que el autor pasa lista de los artistas criollos peruanos más destacados del siglo veinte. Vale notar también que muchos de ellos son afroperuanos, reflejando una consideración que, pienso, se ignora o subestima muchísimo en el Perú. En otras palabras, el papel de los peruanos de ascendencia africana en la vida del país recibe poca atención. Es más, la obra está repleta de referencias y comentarios de índole étnico-racial, lo que me llamo mucho la atención.
Pero a pesar de que don Mario se fija en lo étnico-racial, debemos notar también que los originarios del país reciben poco comentario. ¿Lograron los peruanos de formar un mestizaje parecido al de otros países latinoamericanos, como el de México, por ejemplo? El criollismo generalmente no se entiende como el cruce de sangre española con la indígena. Estoy diciendo que existen razones que el criollismo como concepto supera al concepto del mestizaje en Perú a pesar de la robustez de la cultura indígena. Don Mario opina poco al respecto. Me habría gustado algo suyo sobre esta cuestión.
Merece también esclarecer el título de esta novela ingeniosa. Son las palabras que Lalo Morfino, el insuperable guitarrista hermético y etéreo, le masculla a su querida que lo desdeña. Es como decir, “si no me quieres me voy.” Esto es lo que don Mario nos dice a nosotros sus lectores. [March 2024]
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Le dedico mi silencio, written as a farewell by Latin America’s most famous author today, Mario Vargas Llosa, addresses issues of race and ethnicity in Peru in novel form. As such, it first appears as a simple story but applied analysis reveals a more complex picture.
On the surface it is a story that has to do with Peruvian popular music. Don Mario, as many refer to him out of respect, is Peruvian and he specifically states that this will be the last of any writing he does about his native country or any other Latin American topic. I had the impression that the years had added up and his body and soul were seeking some rest.
In any case, he is not known as an expert on music, but he employs Peruvian popular music, known generally in this book as música criolla, as a literary device aimed at broader issues of ethnicity and race in his home country. The word criollo or criolla [the double l is pronounced like a y in Spanish] plays a central role in this writing so I offer background notes below. There was no translation into English at the time of this writing.
It is important to keep in mind that don Mario has held critical views, some very controversial, about the political and social development of Latin America, including his own country. Many writers stay away from contemporary politics but not don Mario. At a key moment, in fact, he even campaigned as a candidate for the presidency of Peru but did not win. So, he has had a lot to say about the challenges facing his native country as well as the rest of Latin America and some of his views have not been entirely appreciated.
I also have the impression that he has suffered a love-hate relationship for his homeland reflected not only in his written work but also in his long-time residence in Europe, although I admit that this is not unique for Latin American influentials. In any case, Le dedico mi silencio was a fascinating read for me, so I believe it deserves special attention.
For starters, we can affirm that this book is a mixture of fiction and abbreviated essays in which the author comments at length on the topic he is dealing with. These nonfiction pieces are interspersed throughout the volume.
The main idea in this work is expressed often and in many ways by Toño Azpilcueta, a struggling writer who serves as the main character, and who happens to have heard in a seedy Lima bar a fantastic rendering of a vals peruano (a form of música criolla) by a guitarist named Lalo Morfino. Toño is so overcome by Morfino’s performance that he becomes obsessed with the idea that music like his can serve as a charm for the integration of all Peruvians. This notion is key and don Mario is addressing something that all Peruvians know: that Peruvian society is fractured in more ways than one.
Here are the background notes to help us understand don Mario’s deeper message: In the colonial period, before 1821, Peruvian society was a racially stratified and divided into three segments, a) Spaniards born in Spain, b) the descendants of Spaniards born in Peru also known as criollos, and c) the rest of the population, a majority, comprised of Indians, Blacks, and people of mixed heritage. Colonial Peru functioned as a pigmentocracy wherein the aristocratic European-born whites ruled over everyone else.
The criollos were different from their European forefathers because they loved their homeland, their lifestyle was more flexible than their ancestors, and, among other things, their music and food reflected roots from Spain, Africa, and the conquered Incas, none of which was appreciated in the same way by the peninsular-born patriarchs. This regard for local ways became known as criollismo or to be criollo (foodstuffs like potatoes and tomatoes, for example, were also regarded as criollo). This sense of America eventually helped bring independence. Don Mario’s novel is mainly about criollo music and criollo folkways.
In the voice of an anonymous observer in the story,
“Criollo music could break prejudices and open minds and hearts…[it] would reconcile differences and bridge social chasms and make rich white men…join together happily with poor black women…or vice versa, rich white women falling into the arms of poor black men, or cholos, or poor Indians like Toño himself.” (translated by this reviewer from p.214)
The main idea here, then, is a “criollo utopia,” as one reviewer put it.
It pleased me enormously that the don Mario identifies the names of the most renown criollo artists who made their mark in the 2oth century. And many of them are Afro-Peruvian, something that I think is greatly ignored, or underestimated in Peru. In any case, the story is full of references and comments of an ethnic-racial nature.
But while don Mario pays a lot of attention to criollismo and ethnic-racial issues, he says little about Peru’s native peoples. He hardly uses the word mestizo, for instance, which in Mexico and other places in Latin America, denotes a widespread acknowledgement of racial fusion, meaning people and their culture descending from both Indian and Spanish roots.
The presence of Peruvian native peoples, mostly of Inca origin, becomes obvious to any visitor by virtue of their unique dress, their bountiful craftsmanship in the form of pottery and textiles, and the rampant abundance of Inca archaeological remains. An observer cannot overlook Peruvian nativeness, yet the country’s aboriginals are hardly mentioned in this book.
So, is don Mario indirectly admitting that he and his fellow countrymen were unable historically to form a blended or mestizo society and for that reason he draws a bead on criollismo? Yet the quote above reveals a yearning for racial tolerance if not fusion.
The title of this ingenious novel (“I dedicate my silence to you”) deserves clarification too: it immortalizes the words that Lalo Morfino, Toño’s guitarist hero, managed to mumble to the woman he loved but who dismissed him at the same time, it’s like he retorted upon being spurned, “if you don’t love me, I’ll leave,” (and Lalo uses the formal le instead of the informal te suggesting an arm’s length relationship with the woman he loved). It seems that don Mario is saying this to us too, his readers.
Pensamientos (thoughts) over the border by carlos b. gil 