The Burning Plain is a classic of Mexican literature, and I can certainly see why. These short stories are all sparse, yet powerful.
Each is short -- some are practically anecdotes. Others are apparently internal monologues. Others are dialogues that read like one person is imagining what the other would say. They build and slowly reveal.
In "The Hill of the Comadres", the narrator opens the story by stating that two of his friends are dead. As he continues, he eventually confesses to killing one of them, but even that seems almost tangential to his recollections. It's about despair, loneliness, deterioration of a community.
"We're Very Poor" is summed up in its first sentence: "Everything is going from bad to worse here."
"Luvina" almost seems like it doesn't fit here. Not that it's a bad story, but it seems tinged with fantasy, like a bad dream. It reminded me of Roberto Bolaño, although if I'd done my homework Bolaño would remind me of Rulfo.
"Anacleto Morones" is the longest in the collection, and almost seems like an extended setup for a dirty joke.
My favorite story in the collection? Probably "The Burning Plain", which is also the most straightforward, I think. Least straightforward? "The Man."
This is something to revisit, although probably not all at once.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
The Burning Plain
Labels:
desert,
despair,
fiction,
Juan Rulfo,
Mexico,
poverty,
reading,
Roberto Bolaño,
short stories
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