September marked two important dates for opponents of repression. Banned Books Week, held September 20-27, celebrated the right of authors to speak without censorship.
September 11 marked the 30th anniversary of the rise to power of General Augusto Pinochet, a Chilean dictator accused by Amnesty International of overseeing countless "[civilian] 'disappearances,' extrajudicial killings and acts of torture" during his 17-year reign.
On this date Overlook Press released a new English translation of "Carmen's Rust," a Chilean novel that attacks Pinochet's government under the guise of a tale of family dysfunction.
When Ana Maria del Rio wrote "Carmen's Rust" in 1976, she was living in Pinochet's Chile, where criticizing the government could lead to torture or execution. Feeling compelled to speak out, she hid her criticism through allegory, creating a microcosm of Pinochet's Chile as an oppressive Santiago household. That her book was not only published under Pinochet but also won a literary prize at the time is testament to her skill with "artfully masked references and significant silences."
Yet at times Carmen's references seem a little too artfully masked. Readers unfamiliar with Pinochet's regime, or with the book's setting of 1950's Chile, may sense holes in the text where they are supposed to infer things they don't understand.
Michael J. Lazzara, who holds a Princeton University M.A. in Spanish, translated the work; he preserved del Rio's voice and style beautifully, but in the process made Carmen less accessible for cultural novices.
Another obstacle for the reader is the novel's slow beginning, which details the setting so meticulously that little plot has room to develop. What holds the reader's interest are the novel's flashes of humor and its unusual yet vivid imagery; third class on trains, for instance, is described as a place "where the passing hours bury themselves deep in your buttocks and remain there stuck."
The characters are equally vivid, with a cast that includes a nauseating mama's boy (referred to by the narrator as "the President of the Republic" in mockery of his mother's aspirations) and a gentle old man who lives in a self-fashioned chicken coop in the attic.
The pace picks up as the novel progresses, with characters intertwining to produce a dark narrative that speaks volumes even in its economy. The narrator is sent with his half-sister Carmen to live in his domineering aunt's house, which is "full of [the aunt's] presence: eyes, ears, searching for whatever evil they can hear."
The story, though, is really about Carmen, a rebel who captivates her half-brother with her beauty and wildness and draws him into an incestuous entanglement. Upon discovering the relationship, the enraged aunt decides to purify the sinful girl with a strict regime of isolation, starvation, and forced prayer, leading to a brutal conclusion that will give readers of Orwell's 1984 (and if you aren't one, why not?) familiar chills down the spine.
Knowing she would have to pass the inspection of government censors, del Rio took lengths to disguise her book's true meaning. It is not difficult, though, to see the real-life subtext beneath the merciless, overbearing aunt; the crumbling house, which is kept up for more than the family can afford to maintain an image of prosperity; the suffering yet determined rebel; and the horrified witness left to contemplate the aftermath.
The question of every university student, of course, is "Who has time to read?" But writing majors will find it worthwhile to study Carmen's graceful wording, with phrases such as "nervous as an eighth note" and "a nose that if it wasn't fake, was unique"; politics majors will enjoy tunneling into its layers of meaning; and engineering majors will find the slim 87-page volume a refreshing break from beating their heads against their desks.
Although he could do little to mobilize an initially sluggish plot, Lazzara should be proud of having preserved the color and subtlety of del Rio's language. Whether one thinks of a translator wrestling with regional references, a dictator ruling through concealment and threats, or a novelist using allegory to communicate a forbidden message, Carmen's Rust is a timely reminder that language is not just a bridge but also a battlefield.
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