Literary Master 1983

Chapter 15: Lonely Latin America (Part )
"Yu Qie, if you want to oppose it, go ahead. Young people should talk more. Those who dare not speak cannot become writers."

Ma Shi Tu said: "As for where you want to send it? I can help you find a way."

Then, Alai discovered that Yu Qie had disappeared, or rather, Yu Qie was everywhere, at the seminar, in the provincial library, and in the reference rooms of several universities.

Until Yu Qie found some newspapers that he couldn't understand.

"What is this?" Alai asked.

“Spanish.”

"About whom?"

“Márquez and Latin America.”

Yu Qie started writing.

This is his first literary study. The title is: "What are we talking about when we talk about magical realism?"

In 1982, in Stockholm, the Swedish royal family awarded that year's Nobel Prize in Literature to Márquez. The writers of the Third World were greatly encouraged and the people were excited. But Márquez himself did not show any joy on his face. He was more serious than ever before and delivered a speech entitled "The Solitude of Latin America".

In his speech, Márquez talked about these facts:

【We are free from the Spanish, but not from the madness.】

【Three Mexican warlords held grand funerals for their right legs lost in the "Pastry War"; General Gabriel ruled Ecuador for 16 years like an absolute monarch. After his death, he was dressed in military uniform, with medals on his chest, and sat on the presidential throne for people to mourn; El Salvador's tyrant, a theosophist, once inhumanely massacred 30,000 farmers at one time, invented a pendulum to detect whether food is poisonous, and ordered street lamps to be covered with red paper to prevent scarlet fever. 】

When Alai saw Yu Qie write these words, he took a deep breath and said, "Has this speech never been translated?"

"Not yet, as far as I know."

"Those absurd things turned out to be true?"

"So I say, there is no magic realism, only realism. In Márquez's view, the suffering of Latin America was caused by Europeans. However, his hometown people accepted the Western concept of his 'magic realism' and transformed his true record of suffering into an exaggerated narrative of art. When he gave a speech, he was full of resentment and helplessness towards his hometown. At this moment, he was the extremely lonely Latin American in his speech."

Yu Qie's pen continued to move across the paper.

[Five wars, seventeen military coups, and a demonic warlord who, under the banner of God, spearheaded the contemporary genocide in Latin America.]

【At the same time, 20 million Latin American children died before the age of two, more than the total number of people born in Europe since 1970. Nearly 120,000 people disappeared due to repression and persecution. Countless pregnant women were arrested and gave birth in Argentine prisons. The military government secretly gave their babies to adoption or orphanages, and their whereabouts are still unknown. In order to prevent such incidents from happening again, about 200,000 Latin American people gave their lives, of which more than 100,000 were buried in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, three small and reckless countries in Central America. 】

[If converted to the United States at the same rate, it would be equivalent to 1.6 million deaths in four years.]

Alai said: "Latin America is really a land full of suffering. I wonder if it is lucky or unlucky for a writer to be born in such an environment?" Yu Qie said: "Suffering inspired Marquez's inspiration, but when he realized this, he became lonely."

【Reality is so incredible that those of us who live in it, whether poets or beggars, warriors or gangsters, do not need much imagination. The biggest challenge is that we cannot use conventional methods to make others believe in our real life! Friends, this is the crux of our loneliness.】

【This is the lonely Latin America. 】

I paused here and added a comment of my own:

“The history of Latin America is a collection of high-spirited but futile struggles, a collection of dramas that were destined to be forgotten. When we call it ‘magical realism’, we not only go against the original intention of the author Marquez, but also, like those frivolous publishers, abstract the real life of the Latin American continent into a certain form of artistic expression. We must know that this will cause endless trouble.”

It is said that the level of a translated work mainly depends on the translator's polishing. The difference between a good translator and a bad translator's translation of the same book is like the difference between Light Tiga and Dark Tiga.

The difference is so great that it feels like writing a Qing Dynasty drama for men.

It is not easy to reproduce Marquez's speech in a brilliant way in Chinese, and real literary research requires more solid evidence. Yu Qi tried to support his point of view from a deeper perspective.

The most important thing is to explain the social basis of "magical realism".

The name of magical realism did not first come from the works of Marquez, nor was it given to just one person.

As early as 1948, a Venezuelan writer applied "magical realism" to the appreciation of Latin American literature. Then, from after World War II to the s and s, a series of talented writers emerged in Latin America. People described the common style of these writers' works as the so-called "magical realism literature" trend.

Marquez is just the most famous one among them. He may not even be the most outstanding one, but he is definitely the best-selling one in the West.

However, when we think about why this "magic realism" trend appeared in Latin America, it is better to think about why there is no "magic realism" trend in other places? Why did the trend appear in Latin America?

This is because, although all Third World countries suffer to varying degrees, the suffering in Latin America has its own unique roots.

Yu Qie wrote in the manuscript:

[The wisdom of the Mayans, the military of the Aztecs, the management ability of the Incas, and the brilliant civilizations created by these classical empires were destroyed in the conquest of Spain and Portugal. The original slave society entered the plantation economy in a very short time. Latin America was invaded and plundered, and its culture, politics and religion were invaded.]

[Blacks appeared in Latin America, while white groups were hostile to each other, mixed-race children emerged in large numbers, social relations became increasingly complex, and armed struggles between classes continued; the contradictions between the colonies and the mother country also deepened, and capitalism also sprouted in this continent... Latin America is unprecedentedly complex, there is no pure land here, and Latin Americans have long lost their souls. 】

【Thus, the culture of Latin America, like the countless mixed-race children born in Latin America, has long been a product of the Western rule, invasion and contamination of Latin Americans for hundreds of years, and there is no turning back; in order to regain the purity of their own culture and build a common consciousness in this multi-ethnic society, they have spontaneously revived those long-standing myths and legends, religious concepts and customs on this continent, hoping that these can more strongly dominate their thoughts and behaviors. 】

[Finally, they heard the call of their ancestors, and the genes flowing in their blood were revived, which guided their literary creation style.]

(End of this chapter)