Pedro Paramo

Before attempting my own review of Juan Rulfo's unique masterpiece, I decided to read a few earlier reviews, just for fun. In actuality, it wasn't much fun; many of the reviews were obviously written by high school students who had been required to read "Pedro Páramo" as a class assignment. I wouldn't relish the task of choosing books for assigned reading, though I acknowledge that "somebody needs to do it." But this is a poor choice. Not only is it a 'difficult' book in its multifarious narrative style, but it requires a kind of detached emotional maturity that few adolescents have developed. And it demands a context in history, at least a minimum knowledge of the Mexican Revolution, of 'latifundia' and its enduring effects of damage to Mexican culture, and of the syncretic "Aztec Catholicism" of Mexico. Unless a teacher is prepared to spend a semester establishing that context, reading "Pedro Páramo" will be confusing and frustrating for even the 'above-average' student. I suppose those strictures might apply to many adult readers, also. However, most adults who come upon this work, first published in 1955, will have already read some of the 'bestsellers' of later Magic Realism -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Roberto Bolaño -- and will thus be primed for Juan Rulfo's innovative narrative structure. This novella IS widely regarded as the progenitor, for better or worse, of virtually all contemporary Latin American fiction. "Pedro Páramo" is a ghost story, or rather, a story told by ghosts, to ghosts, in a ghost village. The title character is a pre-revolutionary latifundista -- an arrogant and amoral landowner who 'rules' the peasants of the village of Comala (presumably in Jalisco) by intimidation. His father was the local 'cacique' as well, and his son would succeed to exactly such unbridled dominion, except for a fatal accident and for the onset of the Revolution. Pedro's domination of his community is, in a sense, genetic. His father raped or seduced virtually every female of his generation in the village, and Pedro has followed his example. The initial narrative of the novella, Juan Preciado, is the son of a woman victimized by Pedro, who escaped to a larger city-world; Juan has promised his dying mother to return to Comala and exact some acknowledgement or retribution from the Father he's never known. But when he reaches Comala, he learns that Pedro is dead, the village itself is dead, the life it represented is dead, he himself is dead ... indeed, Life itself may be dead. I first read "Pedro Páramo" in the 1970s, when I was a grad student at the University of Mexico in Puebla. It didn't seem at all hard to accept its ghostly realism then. Mexico was, and is, a land friendly to ghosts, with its pervasive amalgamation of pre-Conquest and Catholic religiosity. Sin, penitence, absolution, and intercession are all part of the psychological vocabulary there. Violence is never far away, as the current drug-cartel wars prove. "Machismo" is so intrinsic to Mexican life that the word has entered the language of "El Norte" as a pejorative. Hallucinogenic mushrooms, peyote, pulque, and mescal make all Reality 'magic'. Actually, the first Mexican novel of hallucinatory realism was written by an American in English: "Under the Volcano" by Malcolm Lowry, set iaround the same time as "Pedro Páramo" but written decades earlier. I've re-read "Pedro Páramo" as a response to works by Vargas Llosa. I wanted to know if it was a powerful and original as I remembered. It is. It's just over a hundred pages in length, and the Spanish is as tangy as a chipotle pepper. It truly deserves to be considered a "world classic." A translation into English is available. The translation has received mixed reviews, but any version of this masterpiece has to be worth reading.

It's the size of a postcard. Do not buy this if you need glasses to read. The text is tiny.

Me encanto!

great product, great seller

I checked out this book from the library and finally decided to purchase it. By far the very best edition of Pedro Páramo. It has so many footnotes and so very informative!!! However, if you just want to read the text from start to finish without footnotes, I recommend another text which I bought from Amazon, too! I have two different editions! Love them both! Enjoy reading them!

Originally written in Spanish by don Juan Rulfo, never mind the language you can read it. Please do it sometime this summer. It will change your life forever. Go ahead, please!

This novel offers a variety of themes that have multiple interpretations. It's confusing at first, but as you continue reading you will understand the hidden truth.! I highly recommend it.

Una novela rica, apasionante y con un uso maravilloso del lenguaje. Es un mundo desolado y de alucinaciones donde los muertos aún comparten el legado de Pedro Páramo. Disfruté los apéndices del libro, especialmente las aclaraciones de Rulfo. "Cuando me senté a morir... sentí cuando cayó en mis manos el hilito de sangre con que estaba (el alma) amarrada a mi corazón.