Luis J. Rodriguez's The Republic of East L.A.: Book Review

 

Luis J. Rodriguez's The Republic of East L.A.: A Book Review

by Armando Ortiz            

It’s said that sometimes reading books transports you to distant lands and takes you into the world that the author has created. What I recently read not only did that, but it also brought back many memories; familiar sights and sounds; of places I’ve been in Los Angeles. Although Luis J. Rodriguez’s collection of short stories, The Republic of East L.A., centers around downtown and the eastern parts of Los Angeles. The places the author mentions are places that I have driven through, are near places where friends live or are locations where I ended up for one reason or another. One of the stories in the book takes place in and around USC-L.A. County Medical Center where, “a lot of Chicanos inhaled their very first breath,” which reaffirms where I was born, and is a place that I have visited since I was a little kid.

In one of his stories a lady takes her granddaughter on a trip to Downtown LA, where they end up shopping at Grand Central Market. Just mentioning that place conjures up images of when I was a little kid and my mom took my sister and I down to the big market that was directly across the giant skyscrapers. There she’d buy fruits, meats and vegetables. Every time we took a trip down there she’d buy us some tacos from one of the stands inside and we’d go find some seats. The tacos that they sold there were gigantic. This also brought back memories of a man that sold beans, rice and other dried food stuff. It was there that my mom would buy pounds of rice and beans. She’d also buy tiny star noodles that she used to make chicken soup with.

In another one of his stories he talks about the poverty that is a reality for many families in Los Angeles. Although I never did see kids kill pigeons to take home and cook, I do remember hearing stories of people killing ducks at MacArthur Park and Lincoln Park and cooking dinners, and of course as a little kid seeing the people that fished at MacArthur Park made me want to fish there also. I remember catching one or two tiny fish which my mom then fried for me. At such a young age one doesn’t consider what might be lurking inside those man-made lakes, but nevertheless the silvery fish tasted good.

There are several stories that stand out, but I won’t dive into each individual one. They are all good and have a different perspective of the city. I particularly liked the limo driver who was also a member of a garage band. That story touched on a point that one usually doesn’t think about. That aside from the stereotypical people that exist in the poor Spanish speaking barrios of Los Angeles, there are creative minds pursuing their hearts calling and are making a positive impact in their community. In addition the majority of the people living there are working class folk that have jobs and struggle just like anyone else would in any big city. Other stories are tragic and touch on things that almost every family in this world experiences at one point in their lives, a family member that struggles with drugs or alcohol. 

There was another story that was excruciatingly powerful, and that’s the one where two sisters have to fend for themselves most of the time. The girls suffer the consequences of irresponsible parents, but are at a point where they are beginning to start their own lives, but starting their lives in tough circumstances won’t be easy. Nevertheless, the story shows that people are resilient even in tragedy and that there are other people out there that are trying to reach out to kids like Olivia and Luna, and show them that there is another and better world out there. A world that doesn’t have to be like their present and that this better world can be theirs as well. It is a world where creativity and imagination are practiced, like writing, painting and performing, a world where anger and desperation are defused via creative outlets. Though it is a short story it shows what teachers working in poor neighborhoods throughout the United States, and the world confront. The challenges are daunting, but even in such bleak environments there are glimmers of hope and compassion.

The stories contained in this collection are teeming with life, love and hope. I particularly liked the fact that the characters are a common folk. There are local eses that have grown up and are working blue collar jobs, single mothers are pushing ahead with their lives and trying to do something for their kids, and there are kids that are simply trying to survive their environment. There is a tremendous amount of love and kindness that is showcased. Be it from the next door neighbor that shares their awesome pozole with the other neighbor, to the grandmother that shows her grandchild that sometimes one has to dance their emotions away, and finally to other working folk sharing their wisdom with the young naive person.

Joseph Campbell: The Mythical Journey

 Yesterday I finished reading Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By. The book is a collection of lectures/essays that he presented in the 60's and 70's. This particular book deals with myth and modern life. A few days back I found this video on youtube, where Campbell talks about life, psycheledics, psychosis and mysticism. This particular talk can be found on chapter ten and its titled, "Schizophrenia: The Inward Journey." Enjoy.

Roberto Bolano's Antwerp: Book Review

“An urge, at the cost of nervous collapse in cheap rooms, propels poetry toward something detectives call perfection.” – Roberto Bolano, Antwerp

Roberto Bolano's Antwerp: Literary Shadow Puppeteer

by Armando Ortiz

Let me begin my discourse by talking about Roberto Bolano’s novelette, Antwerp. It’s a brief and compelling novel. In the story, a detective searches for a missing person, their role in the crime unclear. It also includes a woman that might be a prostitute, a vagrant or then again she might be a victim of a crime. In addition, the novelette includes a person that’s either a cop impersonator or quite possibly a dirty cop that is using his badge to exploit people. Lastly, there is a writer who is living a vagrant’s life or better put, the writer is poor. 

One of the recurring scenes found in this particular work are of people being in and around a campsite. There is a camp keeper, who is always watching television, and inside the camp people wash their clothes, do their cooking, and in one extended scene they set up a makeshift screen using a white blanket to watch a film. They mostly lurk behind trees or are walking around their tent which in turn gives the reader a sense of them being shadows. A gruesome discovery is made on a path leading to the campsite, and no one seems to know what’s happened. Everything is a mystery to the reader and to the characters. The work also shifts scenes alternating with a seaside town during its winter season, so people are few. Another setting is of his characters walking up the stairs or closing doors, and in essence closing the doors to the world. It’s in their rooms where they become themselves.

All these characters seem to be in search of something. Whatever that is, it’s at hands reach, yet far enough to be unreachable. It's as if the characters in the story were aware that they are dreaming but cannot find a way to wake themselves up. The reader suddenly becomes a cast away with the characters in an ocean of uncertainty, and we wait for help to come. The story setting, to me, is very postmodern. This is due to the barren and somewhat lifeless landscape that he describes, yet the elements of nature are there, present. It’s a stark contrast to the energy of a bustling cosmopolitan city. Hashima Island a.k.a. Battleship City, is an abandoned Island that was used for mining, and once housed as many as five thousand people. It reminds us of the extremes we sometimes go to exploit the earth, and our own people, and then leave them abandoned and forgotten like many towns in the American Rust Belt. 

Bolano tells a story that revolves around the overlooked people of society, those of whom everyone’s turned a blind eye -the forgotten ones. Since, no one really pays attention to them; the detective spends more time suspecting strangers and distant shadows than actual suspects. People, if you can call them that, in both books are out living and surviving in an environment that seems metaphorically post-apocalyptic, but that quite possibly represents the fringe and marginalized of every society. It is a reflection of those whose life and death is at play every second of their life. At times I got the feeling that I was looking at a photo album, a collection of slides that had been abandoned in an alley dumpster.

Antwerp is a very illusive piece of work. It’s like being in a dream or watching a mystery film. There are moments where one gets the feeling of being sedated and high on drugs. The characters are desperately searching for that elusive dragon, seeking the master key that will solve all the world's questions. It’s as if one is on the operating table and the anesthesia needle has already pierced the vein and the white liquid is about to enter the bloodstream. 

Bolano’s brief novel challenges Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, as his characters survive the desolation without resorting to cannibalism, yet both authors metaphorically employ similar themes. In McCarthy’s novel, some characters hunt humans for nourishment and for pleasure. Scavengers walk around ready to pounce on anyone that’s weak and in plain view. Antwerp portrays a world of fringe characters who exploit each other, including the dirty cop preying on vulnerable women, without the backdrop of a nuclear winter. 

Bolano’s Antwerp reminded me of Jim Morrison’s book, The Lords and New Creatures. Morrison’s writings seem to naturally fit well with Bolano’s story.

Cinema derives not from painting, literature,

sculpture, theater, but from ancient popular

wizardry. It is the contemporary manifestation

of an evolving history of shadows, a delight in

pictures that move, a belief in magic. Its

lineage is entwined from the earliest beginning

with Priests and sorcery, a summoning of phantoms.

with, at first, only slight aid off the mirror and

fire, men called up dark and secret visits from

regions in the buried mind. In these séances,

shades are spirits which ward off evil.

Literature, like cinema, has its roots in theater, oral tales, and what Morrison labeled “ancient popular wizardry.” Though Bolano’s is telling a story and Jim is describing the inner trappings of the ancient practice of show play, both works complement each other. Jim describes what Bolano, the storyteller, is doing- is a symbolic form of shadow puppetry. His literary voice becomes a light and with a combination of words he manages to create objects that come alive, which in turn project shadows in the corners and crevices of our mind. Jim specifically talks about the history of film and goes back to the days of shadow puppetry, and keeps going farther back in history all the way to the Shamans who told their stories around a bonfire. 

This eerie reality is also, in a sense, what Bolano conjures up by telling his story. He gets us, sits us around the fire he’s made, and begins his strange tale. 

Morrison tells the reader the following:

When men conceived buildings,

and closed themselves in chambers

first trees and caves.

(Windows work two ways,

mirrors one way.)

You never walk through mirrors

or swim through windows.

In Bolano’s piece, one of the characters thinks, “who was the first human being to look out a window?”  You find yourself looking through a peephole, and looking at things that ought to be private. The torture of a person is supposed to be anonymous and secret, yet he puts the reader there, in the middle of everything, and describes the scenery in rather pornographic and violent detail. The reader becomes a wall in one of his scenes, an insect, a book- an accomplice. We become peeping toms. The peeping tom only looks and observes, just like we all do when we look at ourselves in the mirror or peer through the windows to see if it will rain.

Cinema has evolved in two paths.

One spectacle. Like the Phantasmagoria, its

goal is the creation of a total substitute

sensory world.

The other is peep show, which claims for its

realm both the erotic and the untampered obser-

vance of real life, and imitates the keyhole or

voyeur's window without need of color, noise,

grandeur.

Bolano has a cinematic effect that is hard to describe, it seems that his frugal use of words works wonders, and conjures up images in every reader. As if his writing has a preternatural energy, which makes such a short story worth reading. One will not be disappointed and the images and thoughts it brings forth from the mind will have the reader making connections with things that the mind has seen, heard of and experienced in life.

Hashima a.k.a. Battleship City, Japan

 This video will be a part of an essay where I talk about Bolano's writing style, which will touch on Jim Morrison's and Cormac McCarthy's writing. Enjoy.