literary criticism

Today we look for keys in fiction to understand a complex world without forgetting the literary perspective. We offer readers the analysis of a magnificent thriller about the turbulence in Brazil at the beginning of the century (Brazilian Psycho)another high above the politics in the southern United States (A just death) and the recovery of two reissued classics: on the one hand, by Jorge Ibargüengoitia (Two crimes) and on the other, to top it all off, a reading guide to the excellent criminal fictions by Leonardo Sciascia that Tusquets has been publishing.

Brazilian Psycho, Joe Thomas (Salamandra, translation by Rita da Costa García). The culmination, in every sense, of a disturbing quartet, this book is a first-rate literary exercise that uses the schemes of the crime novel to give us a political thriller, several mystery stories, one of initiation and framing it in a social and Fascinating history. The setting is São Paulo, infinite city, capital of Latin America, nest of vipers, paradise for a few rich people, home to many millions of poor people. The author lived there for 10 years; From his balcony, he had a panoramic view of the Paraisópolis favela, one of the great settings of the novel. The action begins in 2003 and extends until the arrival of Bolsonaro. The common thread of the plot is crime, a series of hate crimes, and the fight of a few against those who want to cover it up, on the one hand, and against generalized indifference, on the other.

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Thomas knows that this cannot go alone, no matter how spectacular the approach and setting are, and he puts the burden on a series of characters. We have Mario Leme and Ricardo Lisboa, so different and so united by the essentials, already one of the best police couples in contemporary crime novels. They are accompanied by Renata, Leme’s wife, a former employee at an investment firm, now a local activist. In the middle is Rafa Nascimento, a young man from the favelas through whom we see the close relationship between gangs and power. But it is his love story and struggle to get out of the hole that interests us. On the other side, Ray Marx stands out, a period character, a former CIA agent, achiever at the service of ruthless capital, heroin addict and bon vivant. He structures the dark part of the narrative and the reader can come to believe that he is in the hands of James Ellroy. “He is my favorite character,” Thomas told me in BCNegra a few weeks ago. Threading all these narrative lines, plots and stories and making them have a final and unique meaning is complicated. Thomas achieves it and provides a language between the street and the sublime that the translator maintains with class when switching to Spanish. David Peace said we were looking at something on the level of Ellory’s American Tabloid. Also think about Don Winslow’s drug novels. The adjective epic, so overused, here acquires its full meaning.

A Just Death, John McMahon (RBA, translation by Andrés Iriarte). The political significance of this novel is seen from the opening pages: a murderer enters a school, kills a teacher and takes hostages. The most powerful politician in the area calls the protagonist, a police officer who we will now talk about, to shoot the assailant since he has him within range. He feels obligated. Because? Because he owes the politician a favor, a very big one that sinks into the dark interior of this policeman named PT Marsh, protagonist of this and two other previous novels (also published by RBA and also quite good, but it is not necessary to read them beforehand). , however highly recommended it may be). To give you an idea, Marsh is from the lineage of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker (also in what torments him, but we won’t say more in case anyone wants to read the first installments). And so that they have another idea: he is the purest police officer of those we have chosen today and he reads himself. One more reference: the procedural is in the style of Michael Connelly’s Bosch stories, an investigation that goes from here to there, very well staged, so much so that one forgets about the politics, but it reappears because it is hidden in the final motivation of everything. Underline the solvency as a character of his partner, Remy Morgan, the only one who sees light in the complexity of our hero, the perfect complement to her.

All the previous references make sense due to the diversity of the proposals. In this case, the third part of A Just Death accelerates and all the clues planted at the beginning make sense within a context of violence (contained), and high-flying conspiracy (typical of this type of stories, especially in the United States). in which there is still room for details of the character (his dogs, his loneliness, his father-in-law, his alcoholism) that tie the reader to this tormented guy, on the limit, but who works. “There’s always some new bad guy we don’t know about,” Marsh says near the end. Everything is so well put together that not much more can be said.

Leonardo Sciascia: reading guide to dissect power

The Sicilian author is one of the great exponents of the political scope of the crime novel when it knows how to execute with that intention. All the cited works have been published by Tusquets, who is doing a great job of recovering and gathering the writer’s texts. The author of The Aldo Moro Case (here we would be in non-fiction, although sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, as is the case with The Disappearance of Majorana) has an absolute classic to start with: Any Way. If you have not read it, you have permission to leave this article and get a copy as soon as possible. The summit of political irony from a curious beginning: a group of gyrfalcons (bankers, industrialists, journalists, priests… and some women) meet to meditate in a secluded hotel, where Father Gaetano also arrives. In that idyllic and gloomy environment at the same time there is a murder. And they call the police, and everything gets complicated.

Leonardo Sciascia, at his home in Sicily in an undated image. Sophie Bassouls (Sygma via Getty Images)

There are good characters, but it is more of a choral novel, not so much The Knight and Death, in which my favorite protagonist of this entire selection appears: Vice, a hopeless detective who investigates the murder of a powerful lawyer and politician, a crime apparently committed by terrorists who call themselves the Sons of ’89, in reference to the French Revolution. A novel that honors that “nothing is what it seems” but in which, above all, the sewers of power are portrayed. Any reader of Sciascia will be missing his most famous novel, The Day of the Owl, but his turn is coming. A bricklayer and contractor is murdered when he is about to board the bus to go to Palermo. The witnesses flee and no one wants to have anything to do with it. You know: the law of silence. You have never seen her portrayed like this. That’s what Sciascia has. When you run out of novels (there are more, but these are the essential ones) turn to rehearsals.

Two crimes, Jorge Ibargüengoitia, (Machado books). The least conventional work and most on the edge of the genre of all those presented today. In this case, politics is the trigger rather than the main subject but, like good Marxists, its protagonists believe that everything is a political act. Less dark but more ironic than his excellent Las Muertos (also recently recovered by this same publisher), what this Mexican classic presents to us in this book is the following: two young leftists have to flee from the capital of Mexico when they are accused of of an attack and of preparing others. In order to survive, Marco and Chamuca separate. Marco ends up in the countryside, in the house of his uncle, a wealthy and sick man surrounded by a flock of nephews who only want him to die so they can inherit. The arrival of the young cousin, absent for so many years, unleashes all kinds of passions, animosities and conspiracies. When the reader is wondering what all this is about (although he is still entertained by the intrigues of that group of birds of prey and his bitter uncle), a strange investigator comes into play, the perspective changes and everything flows. Here the approach of the first part gains meaning. The events always accelerate within Ibargüengoitia’s taste for simple narration with almost no action. The ending has a sad and major surprise.

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2024-02-22 06:30:38
#Crime #novels #politics #powerful #novelties #classics #understand #world