Book Notes: El hombre by Guillermo Arriaga

I took my first course on Latin American literature in 1999 and was confused when I discovered that the first novel we were going to read was Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Since then I found out that contemporary Latin American novel is largely a rewriting of Faulkner’s masterpiece.

A quarter of a century passed, and Latin American authors are still trying to write their own Absalom, Absalom! Guillermo Arriaga’s new novel El hombre is the most recent 600-page retelling of Faulkner. To spice up the plot that has been exhausted by decades of rewritings, Arriaga adds graphic descriptions of brutality and sexual perversions. I listened to El hombre on Audible, and the exceptionally talented work of the actors helped me to get through the repetitive scenes of torture, murder, incest, and sexual abuse. If I read the book on paper, I’d probably skip many pages.

Faulkner’s plotline that Latin American writers can’t get over features an extremely cruel man of obscure origins and burdened by tragic mysteries. He arrives in Mississippi with the goal of making a fortune and starting a great dynasty. His dream is thwarted by complicated racial relations. The novel jumps backwards and forwards in time and is narrated by different characters.

This is exactly what Arriaga’s new novel is like except his character arrives in Alabama.

What El hombre adds to the plot inherited from Faulkner is the description of the events of 2024 when the descendants of the obscure cruel man. They are spoiled rich bastards who are woke as a joke and plot to install Democrat politicians to keep bringing over masses of illegal immigrants.

El hombre is not a bad novel if you are fine with every single character but two being a disgusting freak. The two characters (a college professor and the main character’s wife) who are not disgusting freaks are clinical morons, so the novel offers a mix of crazy bastards and congenital idiots.

I have no doubt that this novel will be translated into English. It has a lot about slavery and the US Civil War. And there’s a Trump-like character in the parts set in 2024. Stupid people can easily mistake the novel for an endorsement of the standard leftist slogans. It’s actually the exact opposite but you need a working brain to catch it.