The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Posted on: May 03, 2012

The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Previously published in the Herald magazine. 

Juan Gabriel Vasquez’ protagonist claims to be the man whose life story has been entirely plagiarized by British writer Joseph Conrad for his 1904 novel Nostromo. Vasquez’s narrator, Jose Altamirano is indignant and would like to set the record straight – he wants you to know his story, and while you’re at it, he wants you to know his version of Conrad’s life story as well. Of course, because The Secret History of Costaguana is, like much other contemporary literature, a victim of what James Wood’s calls ‘hysterical realism’, Jose Altamirano would also like you to know everything else about everything else he has every known.

 

Vasquez gives us a detailed biography of his narrator, of his narrator’s father, of their significant others, neighbours, friends, town politicians – and of course a solid lecture in the historical background of Panamaand Columbia. At the very start of the book Jose warns that his story must begin with his father and his story. A dozen pages in and its still not clear what The Secret History… is about – readers may well be forced to return to the blurb on the jacket to remind themselves what the premise of the book was. This is not just a factor at the start of the story – the entire novel consists of many detailed detours, not all interesting. Even actress Sara Bernhardt makes an appearance: she’s in town very shortly; she performs and leaves without speaking to a single Panamanian – ‘securing, nevertheless, a place in [this] tale’. Why? Why is that enough for her to feature in the narrative? Her appearance adds nothing to the plot, it does not move the story along and it is barely adds to historical references healthily littered through the book. Painter Paul Gauguin too, is also mentioned, but once again, for no discernable reason.

Vasquez writes, ‘Chronology is an untamed beast; the reader doesn’t know what inhuman labours I’ve gone through to give my tale a more or less organized appearance (I don’t rule out having failed in the attempt)’. This of course will make readers question: has the narrator (and/or the writer) failed? The frequent use of direct speech may attempt to connect with the reader and break down the fourth wall, but it does nothing to help seal in the world of the novel - a world that is already fairly complicated and crowded, since Jose/Vasquez’ ‘intention is to tell faithfully, [his] cannibalistic tale must include everything, as many stories as can fit in the mouth, big ones and little ones’.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is for many readers the final word in Latin American writing, and many younger Latin writers have made an attempt to step away from Marquez’s shadow. Vasquez too attempts to clarify that is not a book full of magic realism: it is not a book where the dead speak and people can fly. However, it is still a book where a bullet shot point blank into a chest ‘goes through Korzeniowski’s body without touching a single vital organ, zigzagging improbably to avoid arteries, traveling ninety degree angles if necessary to miss lungs’. This immediately raises the question: why is that more believable that the dead speaking? How is this any less ‘magical’ than a person rising up in air? And of course, is it inevitable that all Latin writing will somehow end up in Marquez’ looming and dense shadow?

It is difficult to say whether The Secret History is a ‘good’ book or not. Vasquez has received much praise for his earlier work, The Informers, and this second book is generally being lauded as well. Some things are clear: Is the narrative vivid? Yes. Is the story itself riveting? Not nearly enough. Perhaps the problem is with an unreliable narrator who insists on meandering away from the task he has set himself to. In a story where the reader is the jury, even Vasquez knows that they will protest ‘what are you saying, Mr. Narrator? […] facts don’t have versions, the truth is but one’.