“The one that’s really the worst,” offered Meli, “is that cousin, Collins.”
Leti rolled her eyes and groaned. “All of his pontificating, his tackiness! Horrrrrriiiiiiiible!”
A colorful list of insults followed. Collins is un tarado (a cretin), un blando (a coward), un fofo (a wimp)—in short, ridículo.
“We’re in agreement on all of that.” Ignacio José put a period to the verbal thrashing. “What about the father, Mr. Bennet?”
“Doesn’t even exist.” Leti and her fan dismissed him.
“Well, I liked him,” Meli countered.
“But that marriage between the Bennets is a nightmare!” Leti continued, raising her voice. “He doesn’t just make fun of his wife—I think he actually hates her for making all their lives so difficult!” She suddenly gestured toward my tiny digital recorder on the table next to the Christmas goodies. “That thing’s right here in front on me, why on earth am I talking so loudly!?” She laughed and set the others off, as well.
Ignacio José took the opportunity to shift the topic. “Leti mentioned earlier that she felt Austen’s novels are very similar to each other, with all the concern about getting married. But if you think about it, Herman Melville wrote constantly about sailors, in “The Encantadas,” Benito Cereno, Moby Dick, on and on with sailors, without being criticized for it.”
“That’s what he knew about, and what Austen knew about was the whole issue of marriage and competing for husbands,” Fernanda said.
“This was precisely the problem for women in that period,” Leti observed, “the fact that they didn’t have options, they could never live the same as men.”
Fernanda pounced. “And that’s why I say that Austen has feminist concerns, pointing this out.”
“But she’s not criticizing her culture. It’s not a feminist focus,” Leti insisted.
“Sometimes it is,” Fernanda countered.
“Another way to see it is that she’s simply presenting the reality and allowing the readers to use their judgment—like a spokesperson for her era,” Ignacio José suggested.
“She did like to write about what she knew, just as Ignacio José points out with the comparison to Melville.” I steered us out of the feminist shoals. “In fact, one of Austen’s nieces was working on a novel and needed help with a scene she wanted to set in Ireland. Austen basically replied, ‘Why take your characters somewhere you’ve never been? Stick with what you know.’”
Oscar weighed in again. “Is there a character in the novel that’s like Austen herself?”
Ah, that question again. People really are endlessly curious about the connection between Austen’s life and her works. “A lot of people assume that she’s Lizzy, but the fact is, we’re not sure—any idea like that is speculation.”
He took this in with a nod. “I’m not sure if the rest of you had this reaction, but I felt it was Lizzy because we know the most about her. It seems that the author connects best to this character.”
“She’s the heroine, the protagonist,” Fernanda agreed.
“No, there are two protagonists—the two closest sisters,” Leti corrected.
“Lizzy’s more important,” Fernanda responded firmly.
I couldn’t tell if this was good-natured sisterly bickering or if there were more behind it. Nobody else seemed uncomfortable with the number of times Uruguay and Argentina were locking horns, so I decided I shouldn’t be either. “It’s important to keep in mind that during that time period,” I said, “you couldn’t assume there was a close relation between the author’s life and their work. These days, we often think of writing as a way of working out personal issues.” I struggled to frame the idea that modern psychology has changed how many writers approach their work, but before I could get this out, the conversation took a different turn.
“I do think Austen was talented,” Leti said directly to me, “but this book is really very light. We’ve read books together that are much more complex.”
Ignacio José came to Austen’s defense. “We can agree that the basic theme is light, although it was crucially important during her time period. But I must say that I believe Austen’s capacity to delineate characters, to enter into their thought processes, to expose the psychology behind their actions is extraordinary. The lightness of her theme contrasts brilliantly with the profundity of her vision.”
“That’s well said,” Fernanda agreed. “Just like The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
“Exactly,” Ignacio José said, “That’s also light yet profound.”
“Well, there’s Lolita; that’s an easy book to read, but it’s definitely profound psychologically,” Leti conceded. “He’s a genius, Nabokov.” Oscar murmured agreement, nodding emphatically.
“And he loved Austen,” I pointed out. “Nabokov said that Austen’s works may seem superficial, but that’s, um, that’s a delusion that changes when you know more about her.” Actually, he’d said, “This is a delusion to which the bad reader succumbs.” Not only did I have no idea how to say “succumbs” in Spanish, I also didn’t want Leti to think I was calling her a “bad reader”—which she wasn’t—so I paraphrased.
“Austen’s work is marvelous, too, for how it allows us to enter into her time period.” Fernanda carefully selected a cookie from the table, passing along the plate as she continued. “We don’t have to work at all ourselves to step into the era, this little window into England that she opens for us.”
Here was my opportunity to treat the topic we’d arrived at in both Guatemala and Mexico. “Do you believe that this story is particular to its original context, that it could only happen just the way it does in the England of Austen’s time? Or could you change the names and relocate it to Guayaquil, for example?”
Ignacio José didn’t hesitate. “Impossible. You couldn’t set either the people or the places here.”
“Or in France or in Spain either,” Leti seconded.
Fernanda agreed, joining the cross-talking between Leti and Ignacio José. “Religion is just one of the issues. These people are Protestants. There’s the man who doesn’t want to be a clergyman and goes into the army, and the other who’s a clergyman and is hunting for a wife. It’s just like in Agatha Christie’s novels—there are things that could only happen in the particular time period in England that she’s describing.”
“I’ve got to disagree.” Oscar spoke quietly but firmly, again magically silencing the group. “There are values laid out in this novel that you can definitely translate into any culture. She’s discussing the end of the eighteenth century, beginning of the nineteenth. When you asked that question just now,” Oscar turned to me as he continued, “I found myself thinking of what Chile was like during our time of independence in 1810. There’s a Chilean novel called Martín Rivas, by Blest Gana. The things that happen in that novel, the problems it examines, like what happens to women without dowries or husbands, all of those things are in Austen. The books aren’t identical, but the issues are very similar.”
“On that issue, on women’s roles, I agree,” Fernanda concurred.
Before the feminist debate could flair again, Meli added, “I agree with Fernanda, but I have to say, if you moved the setting to France, for example, I just don’t see Mr. Collins fitting in there!”
“There are a lot of specific things that would have to change,” Fernanda responded. “Even the countryside they live in, the way land is distributed, and how communities are made up.”
“But the real question here,” Ignacio José said in his best moderator tone, “is whether or not the book demonstrates universal values.”
“Yes, it definitely does.” This from Fernanda, firmly.
“On the broadest level, it does,” Ignacio José continued, “and from that perspective, it could be moved to whatever situation, not just to our modern d
ay but back to the time of Christ. But I still believe that the specific way these values are examined, the actual cultural configuration in which the values are examined—no. That’s specific. These characters are not people I could picture living in Guayaquil, with a house in El Portijo or in San Brandón, with a little cottage nearby.”
“No,” Oscar responded, “but the psychology of their actions, what’s happening under the surface, that really seems the same to me. It’s got nothing to do with the landscape or their religion. Not having a dowry in the early nineteenth century, whether in England or in Chile, was a serious matter, so people are going to react more or less the same anywhere that’s true. The culture dictates that you’ve got to get married, and for a woman, you needed money or beauty to do it. Otherwise, you were between la espada y la pared.”
In other words, a penniless young Chilean would find herself between the sword and the wall, while her English counterpart would be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Same underlying idea, different detail—rather like the point Oscar was trying to make.
“Europe is one thing,” Fernanda took up the line of thought, “but if you’re talking about the Americas, it’s different. Uruguay and Argentina during this period were very different culturally from Spain or England. The English were much more rigid about class.”
“In our countries,” Ignacio José directed his comments to me, “things were more free, more fluid.”
“The people who came here weren’t the real aristocracy. Those people already had what they wanted and stayed put in Spain,” Fernanda added, as the others nodded agreement.
Ignacio José carried her point to its logical conclusion: “Some people don’t like to admit that. The ones who came were the social climbers, trying to move up the ladder.”
“My ancestors came as tax collectors, to make money,” Fernanda continued. “Latin America just doesn’t have the same history of aristocracy Spain does. Virtually all of the immigrants were from the middle classes on downward.”
“They earned their money first,” Meli agreed, “then used it to get titles and names.”
Ignacio José gestured dramatically. “Exactly! There’s a case here in Guayaquil—the illustrious Conde Caca” (translation: Count Crap). “He made a fortune collecting crap from Las Peñas, along the Malecón. Thirty-five years collecting crap, if you please, gets you wealth and seven married daughters. Think how happy Mrs. Bennet would have been married to him! He bought a string of names: Don Pedro López de—”
“Caca!” Leti sang out, to laughter all around.
After several minutes of small talk, Oscar brought us back to Austen: “If you gave me this book without letting me see the cover and told me it was a modern novel, I’d believe you—I’d have had no idea this was written two hundred years ago. Her prose has such grace, such clean agility. This must be marvelous in the original. I’ve got to buy it in English.”
Instant cross-talking rang approval of this statement, with Leti fanning herself and nodding energetically, Ignacio José praising the dialogue, and Fernanda repeating, “She’s like a painter—a painter!”
“There’s no one quite like her.” I was pleased that they were pleased, overall, with the book. “Is there any writer with this kind of popularity in Ecuador? Someone focused on customs and relationships from that period?”
Brows were furrowed and heads were scratched.
Oscar finally spoke up. “There weren’t any novelists that I know of writing about society in Ecuador during Austen’s lifetime.”
As the others concurred, Ignacio José added, “Ecuadorian literature didn’t establish itself firmly until the beginning of the twentieth century. That’s the age of the Guayaquil Group and the Realists, but they were working less with city customs—they consciously wanted to give value to the life of country people, of campesinos.”
I suddenly remembered the copy of Cumandá still in my purse. I pulled it out, curious to have their opinions.
Ignacio José caught sight of the cover first and shrieked (yes, he actually did), “Juan León Mera! She’s got Cumandá!”
Fernanda, Leti, and Meli reacted as though I’d just pulled a handful of the Conde Caca’s stock in trade from my purse. If the Christmas tree had still been on, its din would have been drowned out by the universal groan of horror.
“Dios mío, what a book!” Leti exclaimed. “It’s fatal, fa-tal, tacky as can be—don’t waste your time on that novel!”
“Give me some paper, something to write with,” Ignacio José cried, eager to save me from Cumandá.
As the others chipped in titles, he began writing. But silently I resolved to try at least a chapter of Cumandá. Any book generating such outrage had to be worth looking into.
While Ignacio José finished up my Approved Reading List, Fernanda asked, “Was this discussion similar to the ones you did in Guatemala and Mexico?”
“Yes and no.” My energy level had begun dropping sharply, and that always led to a breakdown in my Spanish. “We talked, we did talk about prejudice, but it was about…not the same types of prejudices.”
“The prejudices against women in Guatemala are very strong,” Ignacio José offered helpfully.
“No, actually, the issue was indigenous people—about racism and prejudices against people of indigenous origins.”
I dug into my purse and pulled out my fancy-pants Dr. Amy Elizabeth Smith cards from the university, handing them all around after penciling in the phone for the room where I was staying.
“The email there’s good, but not the phone number—that’s my office in California.”
“Oh, you live in California; how nice!” Fernanda studied the card. “Are you married?” All eyes turned, polite but expectant.
“No—I’ve never been married.”
“Jane Austen’s situation,” Leti said with a smile.
Sometimes I look at it that way. Like Austen, I’d had my proposals, some of them seriously tempting. Did my work stop me? Fear of commitment? Failure to find a man I believed would truly love me ’til death did us part, as it parted my father from my mother? Could Diego be that man? They say that negative parental role models can make relationships hard for people later in life—but I’m here to say that positive ones can be tough to live up to as well.
“I was dating somebody wonderful in Mexico, but long-distance relationships are complicated.”
“They’re the best thing in the world!” Ignacio José exclaimed. “Somebody there when you want them—but at a distance.”
Leti laughed heartily, and somehow, the end of our wonderful talk had been signaled. It was time to stand and stretch, search for purses and bags, say our good-byes. I couldn’t believe my luck in having found this wonderful group, thanks to Betsy. They all handed over email addresses and phone numbers, insisting that we needed at least one more get-together before I moved on to Chile.
“Thank you so much, all of you!” I said. “This group has been just wonderful!”
Meli led her wagon train of passengers—Leti, Ignacio José, and me—out to her car. Leti was deposited at her house first, sweeping away in a wave of kisses, kind words, and expensive perfume. By the time we finally reached my part of town, the full weight of my tiredness was hitting me, and all I could muster by way of communication were stupid smiles and nods.
“Fabulous—then it’s all settled!” Ignacio José was saying, his head jutting out the window as I shut the car door. “I’ll see you Monday at noon.” What on earth had I just agreed to?
Damnation. I simply had to stop nodding and smiling when I didn’t understand what somebody was asking me.
Chapter Nine
The lively Austen discussion landed me in bed for two days solid.
“What did they tell you at the clinic?” Emilia, Betsy’s sister-in-law, asked over the phone. “Nothi
ng’s wrong with you? Well, something’s wrong with them. I’m making you an appointment with a real doctor.”
She called back shortly to tell me it was arranged—after the weekend, I’d be seeing Dr. John Anderson, M.D. Quito, it seemed, was now out of the question. I’d wanted so much to travel to the country’s capital, famed for both its natural and architectural beauty, but if a mere book group was enough to lay me out for two days, travel to a city of Quito’s dizzying elevation would probably push me into that early foreign grave my mother kept nervously envisioning for me.
Well, at least that gave me time before the next Austen group to brave the horrors of Cumandá. Who among us can resist something we’ve been so emphatically warned away from?
Cumandá, published in 1879, is the most over-the-top novel I’d read in years. It’s pure, undiluted schmaltz. One of the more astute characterizations of Austen’s work is from Nancy Pannier: “Austen isn’t an opera, she’s a string quartet.” Well, Cumandá is an opera. Cumandá and Carlos are the requisite star-crossed lovers—she, a daughter of the jungle and he, a son of Europe. When her father discovers she’s given her chaste heart to a blanco, he sets her brothers on Carlos. They repeatedly fail to kill him, so her father promises her in marriage to an aged chief who already has six wives. What are the poor young lovers to do?
I could see why Mrs. Gardiner had tried to steer me away from the book. It has about as much to do with the realities of indigenous life in Ecuador as Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge has to do with fin-de-siècle Paris. But I adored Cumandá just as much as I adore Moulin Rouge—they’re luminous fantasy worlds, pure spectacle, outrageously beautiful.
I did feel obligated, however, to balance things with a group-approved recommendation. Don Goyo by Demetrio Aguilera Malta, published in 1933, was first on Ignacio José’s Anything-but-Cumandá list. The contrast with Mera’s novel was night and day. Life in Don Goyo ain’t opera—it’s raw, ugly, intense. The novel is arguably the earliest example of Magical Realism in Spanish-language literature, predating Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo by decades. On the nationalist level, it’s also important for its portrayal of cholos, mixed-race Ecuadorians who suffered severe discrimination and economic exploitation by upper-class Ecuadorians and foreign investors.
All Roads Lead to Austen: A Year-long Journey with Jane Page 14
