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sabotabbyThe murderer is not going to return to the scene of the crime, simply because the murderer is the scene of the crime. The murderer is the system.
The nice thing about my ridiculous commute is that I just burn through books like you wouldn't believe. So I finished reading The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos this afternoon on the ride home. It did not disappoint. I was worried that it might—you know the thing about how revolutionary sorts frequently don't make particularly good writers? Marcos is a good writer. Taibo is better, at least to my taste, but their contrasting styles worked for the sort of pomo-absurdist book they were going for.
The Uncomfortable Dead is structured as alternating chapters (PIT writes the even-numbered chapters, Marcos the odd) about intertwining mysteries involving government corruption and repression. In Chiapas, Zapatista investigator Elías Contreras is sent to Mexico City ("the Monster," as the Zapatistas call it) by Subcomandante Marcos to seek out "the Bad and the Evil," and in particular, a man named Morales who betrayed the EZLN and may have had a hand in the Acteal Massacre. Meanwhile in the city, the one-eyed detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne is also searching for a man named Morales, who may or may not be the same Morales, who reportedly murdered a former political prisoner. But the aforementioned activist may not be entirely dead—Belascoarán learns of him after he leaves a series of rather hilarious messages on a former comrade's answering machine.
I mentioned that the book was pomo—it's written in a mishmash of styles, from multiple viewpoints and tenses (the narrative is, at one point, snatched from Elías by a gay Puerto Rican mechanic named Julio who, much to his annoyance, disappears entirely from the book after his chapter is finished). Elías is dead, though we never find out how he died or, more crucially to the plot, when. Marcos appears several times as a character in his own chapters, from Elías' first-person point-of-view, both a Trickster archetype and the omnipotent author. One of my favourite bits involved multiple characters being irritated with Marcos because, having written the book, he should know how it ends and tell them already. Oh, and there's Barney the purple dinosaur. Trust me, it makes sense in context.
At any rate, some of you should read it so that I have someone else to blabber on about it with. It's terrible amounts of fun mixed with good politics and a serious emotional jolt, so go check it out.
The nice thing about my ridiculous commute is that I just burn through books like you wouldn't believe. So I finished reading The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos this afternoon on the ride home. It did not disappoint. I was worried that it might—you know the thing about how revolutionary sorts frequently don't make particularly good writers? Marcos is a good writer. Taibo is better, at least to my taste, but their contrasting styles worked for the sort of pomo-absurdist book they were going for.
The Uncomfortable Dead is structured as alternating chapters (PIT writes the even-numbered chapters, Marcos the odd) about intertwining mysteries involving government corruption and repression. In Chiapas, Zapatista investigator Elías Contreras is sent to Mexico City ("the Monster," as the Zapatistas call it) by Subcomandante Marcos to seek out "the Bad and the Evil," and in particular, a man named Morales who betrayed the EZLN and may have had a hand in the Acteal Massacre. Meanwhile in the city, the one-eyed detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne is also searching for a man named Morales, who may or may not be the same Morales, who reportedly murdered a former political prisoner. But the aforementioned activist may not be entirely dead—Belascoarán learns of him after he leaves a series of rather hilarious messages on a former comrade's answering machine.
I mentioned that the book was pomo—it's written in a mishmash of styles, from multiple viewpoints and tenses (the narrative is, at one point, snatched from Elías by a gay Puerto Rican mechanic named Julio who, much to his annoyance, disappears entirely from the book after his chapter is finished). Elías is dead, though we never find out how he died or, more crucially to the plot, when. Marcos appears several times as a character in his own chapters, from Elías' first-person point-of-view, both a Trickster archetype and the omnipotent author. One of my favourite bits involved multiple characters being irritated with Marcos because, having written the book, he should know how it ends and tell them already. Oh, and there's Barney the purple dinosaur. Trust me, it makes sense in context.
At any rate, some of you should read it so that I have someone else to blabber on about it with. It's terrible amounts of fun mixed with good politics and a serious emotional jolt, so go check it out.
