Opinions?

opinions?

what even happened tho

Juan Preciado was in a literal hell created by his father's unrequited love.

was it hell? i thought it was maybe just some kind of ethereal plane

Why did he write so little?

One of the absolute greatest works of universal literature. Rulfo admits to being heavily influenced by Faulkner, and really that's probably the best comparison I can admit. Really, every damn word in there is necessary (at least in the original), nothing is out of place. I think either Angeles Mastretta or Elena Poniatowska once tried reprove that Rulfo uses a certain idiom or expression somewhere in the middle of the book which is only used in urban or metropolitan Mexico, but that's too much like splitting hairs.

I once tried to argue in an academic essay that it's plot is comparable to Wuthering Heights, but in a more brutal and sarcastic tone, and set in rural Mexico.

He ahead, read it. I bet you can find it for free anywhere you look. It'll take you a couple of hours, an afternoon at most. You won't regret it.

One of my favorites, but it must be readed in Spanish

It was more of a purgatory. But really, the point it's that Comala is an earthly place, not hell or purgatory or anything like that.

>Faulkner

Rulfo said he had read Faulkner like once, and every other time he denied it. It really doesn't matter whether there is influence there or not. It's as if everyone tries to justify Rulfo as a great writer by saying that Faulkner influenced him, and thus he is great because Faulkner is too, when actually the sheer genius and poetic power of Rulfo doesn't need any outside reference or justification for it to be great. Even your comparison with Wuthering Heights perpetuates that, even if you didn't mean it.

He didn't feel like writing anything else. Not that he needed too. In any case, he wrote a lot of prologues, letters, and essays, which have yet to be properly collected. Hell, he even translated Rilke.

Are they translated into Iglesias?

What?

Are his essays translated into English? Monolingual here.

You're right, I think it was GGM who said he was originally influenced by Faulkner. I won't disown my youthful vigour though: I was enough of an ass to compare PP to WH in college.

Really what it comes down to is his unrelenting perfectionism and ruthless editing. I think he sat on El llano en llamas for over a decade before Arreola rent it from his hands and published it.

I don't think so. I haven't even seen them in libraries. That's why I said they haven't been properly collected. They were more like conference talks, articles for newspapers and magazines, etc. Rulfo also wrote 2 or 3 scripts for Mexican movies.

Nah, GGM was fundamentally influenced by Pedro Páramo, not by Faulkner's novels. Unless you meant that GGM said that Rulfo was influenced by Faulkner, which is quite other matter. I mean, it is highly probable that Rulfo did read Faulkner, but in the end he went beyond his influence and created something different and original. That's why I can't understand why a lot of people try to explain him through the influence of an American writer, i.e oh he is the Mexican Faulkner, instead of saying, for example, that Faulkner is the American Rulfo.

And now that you mentioned Arreola, there's the other side of the coin: that people can't stand the fact that Arreola was instrumental to the editing of Pedro Páramo. That recalls the myth of the solitary genius, completely unaided and self-exiled in his ivory tower. Contrast it with the myth of the poor third-world writer who couldn't have written without the help of the great Western writer. There you have the two great misunderstandings of Rulfo the writer. One that exalts him and the one that diminishes him.

I meant that I believe GGM discloses in one of his interviews that his first works, including La hojarasca, Nadie escribe al coronel and a handful of stories from Los funerales de la Mamá Grande, were initially influenced by Faulkner. It wasn't until years later, in a dingy apartment in Mexico City, that Álvaro Mutis threw a copy of Rulfo's collected works at him, saying, "learn how to write from this," that he began to write his mid-career classics.

Or wait, was that Kafka instead?

>wrote 2 or 3 scripts for Mexican movies

Were any of those scored by Silvestre Revueltas, or did he die too early (1940) to collaborate with Rulfo?

I read Pedro Páramo a few years ago not expecting much and it swept me away. I remember reading passages over and over, having caught myself in his dream-like narrative wisps. I had taken the book with me on the train for some light reading to take my mind off things--for some reason I had expected some sort of funny picaresque romp. Ever since, I've been meaning to read El llano and at the same time I've been aching for a reread of PP. Are his stories written in the same style? It's a breeze, yet very dense. It's both easy and difficult to read.

>Rulfo uses a certain idiom or expression somewhere in the middle of the book
There are a few words used in the book to refer to things in rural areas in Mexico. It's not hard to understand what are they refering to in the context of the book.

What do you guys think about Cartucho?

If you read it in english, take on mind that the translation it's awful.
>As for the reasons for keeping the Spanish term in the English translation, Campobello's translator explains that "the English equivalent [. . .] has none of the Spanish rhythm and feeling."

Yes, the short stories are similar. Less fantastical I guess, but that doesn't really take much away from the dreamlike quality of the writing.

Go for them. It can't take you more tan 2 days to get both through Llano and PP for the second time.

is this about spoopy ghosts

One of my favourite books of all times and probably on of the most influential authors in universal literature (together with carpentier)

Is Carpentier similar in style? What should I read by him?

Start with The kingdom of this world.

Not really similar. It feels more Caribbean to me, if that makes any sense. More colourful and also more modernist in style. I find him a little bit closer to what later would be called magical realism. I prefer Rulfo but he is a fantastic writer as well. Check out El reino de este mundo and El siglo de las luces.

As a mexican, should I go out of my way and buy his books? I havent read any, and given that 2017 is el centenario de Rulfo...

Thanks for posting this. I read this a long time ago and it has haunted me but I forgot the name of the author.

you should even if you weren't a mexican

Grasseeaz, mee ahmeegoes from the wrong side of el moo-roh.