The Sound of Things Falling
Homicides by the hundreds of thousands, millions of people and animals displaced or destroyed, massive economic and environmental devastation 鈥� these are among the effects of Colombia鈥檚 devastating drug wars.
But what about the fear? Is there any way to measure a fear so overwhelming that it becomes a part of national culture?
That seems to be the question troubling Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel V谩squez in The Sound of Things Falling, V谩squez鈥檚 latest novel, translated into English by Anne McLean.聽
The violence that Colombians experienced, V谩squez stresses, is not 鈥渢he violence of cheap stabbings and stray bullets, the settling of accounts between low-grade dealers鈥� but rather 鈥渢he kind that transcends the small resentments and small revenges of little people, the violence whose actors are collectives and written with capital letters: the State, the Cartel, the Army, the Front.鈥�
This is a violence that brings terror, an emotion so intense and corrosive that it warps the lives of all the characters in this story-within-a-story. The novel鈥檚 narrator, Antonio Yammara, a young law professor, witnessed the death of Ricardo Laverde, an older man 鈥� an ex-pilot and one-time drug trafficker 鈥� with whom he sometimes played billiards.
They were not particularly close. But through his murder (during which Antonio was severely injured), Ricardo becomes an obstacle to Antonio鈥檚 future. Antonio must explore the reasons behind Ricardo鈥檚 death.
Aura, Antonio鈥檚 wife, is a generous and patient woman but, having lived outside of Colombia during the worst of the terror, she can鈥檛 really understand Antonio鈥檚 quest.
Now, even at the risk of destroying his own family, Antonio must travel back in time to the 1960s and 鈥�70s, to understand Ricardo and the minor role he played in the beginnings of Colombia鈥檚 drug trade.
Characters caught up as collateral damage include the wives and daughters of both Antonio and Ricardo and even the exotic zoo animals collected by real-life drug lord Pablo Escobar. The innocent and the guilty alike, it seems, must pay a terrible price 鈥� all to feed an American appetite for drugs.聽
And yet it is an idealistic American impulse that begins the story that Yammara traces. Elaine Fritts 鈥� the woman that Ricardo will marry聽鈥� steps off a plane in 叠辞驳辞迟谩 in 1969, as a Peace Corps volunteer, 鈥渞eady to carry out various clich茅s; to have an enriching experience, leave her mark, do her share, no matter how small.鈥�
Elaine 鈥� and her Peace Corps compatriots 鈥� do leave their mark on their host country, but not in the ways that they intended.聽 Antonio is able to dive deep into the story of Elaine and Ricardo when he meets their daughter, Maya, now an adult and perhaps even more damaged than he by the recent history of their country.
In interviews, V谩squez has acknowledged a debt to Colombian literary master Gabriel Garc铆a M谩rquez. But don鈥檛 look for the whimsy and color of magic realism in 鈥淭he Sound of Things Falling.鈥�
V谩squez鈥檚 narrative is taut and somber and depicts a world forever in the shadows. The 叠辞驳辞迟谩 he shows us is a 鈥渃ity of sly, shrewd people鈥�. When Elaine first writes home to her grandparents in the United States to share her initial impressions (鈥淣obody warned me 叠辞驳辞迟谩 was going to be like this鈥�), there are already hints of disaster ahead. The first line of the letter leans on the paragraph that follows 鈥渓ike a suicidal person on a cornice.鈥�
As Antonio learns more about Elaine and Ricardo 鈥� how they fell in love, brought Maya into the world, and simultaneously were sucked into the drug trade 鈥� he feels that the story is also his. He experiences the 鈥渄iscomfort of knowing that this story in which my name did not appear spoke of me in each and every one of its lines.鈥�
But learning the story does not necessarily provide Antonio with the relief he seeks. 鈥淚n the end,鈥� he tells the reader, 鈥渁ll my feelings were reduced to a tremendous solitude, a solitude without visible cause and therefore without remedy. The solitude of a child.鈥�
It leaves Antonio 鈥� and Colombia 鈥� with a paradox. There can be no understanding without looking back. But at the same time, the act of remembering brings a paralysis that shuts out the future.
It may be, however, that understanding is the beginning of forgetting 鈥� or at least letting go 鈥� for both Antonio and his country.
And it is the plea for understanding that gives this novel its resonance. The story of individual lives destroyed by the drug trade may provoke sorrow. But the depiction of an entire nation frozen by fear compels a deeper kind of compassion.聽
Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor's books editor.
