JAGUARS' TOMB, a #WITMonth read whose time came

JAGUARS' TOMB
ANGÉLICA GORODISCHER (tr. Amalia Gladhart)
Vanderbilt University Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jaguars' Tomb is a novel in three parts, written by three interconnected characters. Part one, "Hidden Variables" by María Celina Igarzábal, is narrated by Bruno Seguer. Seguer in turn is the author of the second part, "Recounting from Zero" ("Contar desde zero"), in which Evelynne Harrington, author of the third, is a central character. Harrington, finally, is the author of "Uncertainty" ("La incertidumbre"), whose protagonist is the dying Igarzábal. Each of the three parts revolves around the octagonal room that is alternately the jaguars' tomb, the central space of the torture center, and the heart of an abandoned house that hides an adulterous affair.

The novel, by Argentine author Angélica Gorodischer, is both an intriguing puzzle and a meditation on how to write about, or through, violence, injustice, and loss. Among Gorodischer's many novels, Jaguars' Tomb most directly addresses the abductions and disappearances that occurred under the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976-83. This is the fourth of Gorodischer's books translated into English. The first, Kalpa Imperial—translated by Ursula Le Guin—was selected for the New York Times summer reading list in 2003.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Y'all remember me talking up Kalpa Imperial, right? The link is above for refreshing of memories. This novel, made up of three novellas "by" three writer-characters, is like that collection of SFF stories in the sense that she is using the narrative form to make a bigger point that really means more than than it would if she just sat down and typed out the story.

Oh dear. That sounded like a rush to the exit.

The Dirty War against the Argentine military junta's enemies started almost fifty years ago...officially...but it won't really be over while there are survivors bearing scars. If you're wondering how long that will be...read A FLOWER TRAVELED IN MY BLOOD: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children. These are nation-defining scars inflicted in the name of...what, greed? cruelty for its own sake?...these questions are the ones Author Gorodischer treats in these three novellas.

I think a lot of people, hearing that a novel is woven of shorter story-strands, aren't inclined to do more than nod absently that they've heard the description. Add another layer of artifice, fictional authors telling these fictional stories, and *click* out go the lights as brains head upstairs to bed.

Wake up now, drink some of Author Gorodischer's strong, bitter coffee, and think about what could cause so much pain that the story must be wrapped in a big layer cake of artifice in order to bring the impact down to bearable levels. That is the case with these intertwined tales of the horrors of life under a government that kidnaps, tortures, and kills its citizens who are guilty of nothing but disagreeing with the very government that is committing these horrible acts.

Layering, padding, defenses against the mere idea of direct head-on confrontation with the terrible subject...well, yeah, I think that would never be less than a helpful coping strategy. And as the layers are constructed they reveal what they were made to obscure. The very title of the novel is an uneasy nod to the avoided reality. There are many things this technique does well, eg making the empty space the center of the story's arc much as the absence of los desaparecidos is the center of those left behind's lives.

Like any technique, though, every benefit has a cost. Avoidance of difficult topics can end up with the literary equivalent of avoidant personality disorder. The bitterness of self-judgment, the harsh inner gaze that spotlights things not done, the Inquisition-level blaming of everyone especially the self for things not reasonably in their control, all so reasonably justified and so irrational on examination, all here. It's not an easy read though it's written in lovely prose. The depths of loss and rage...these are never easy topics to treat. It's greatly to Author Gorodischer's credit that she does not use her padding as a cop-out, a way of prettifying horrifying behavior.

It is inevitable that splitting the story into three narratives by three different people who are all writing about each other does not create deep investment in each character. While I can see this as a deliberate choice made to reinforce the central absence as painful, it also makes the read more effortful in the moment. I read this book to about the 33% mark during the Biden administration's extraordinary rendition kerfuffle (he'd publicly opposed it in 2007 but it continued as fact if not policy). It felt artificial, a stylistic tic to me then.

Come January 2025 and Kilmar Abrego García's travails, the idea seemed much more immediate, indeed urgent, to grapple with. I found myself unwilling to confront the horrors head-on, needing some space between myself and the topic's hyperreality.

Rather makes Author Gorodischer's case for her technical choice for her.

I'm hoping this desire to see what the behaviors we are tacitly, by silence, condoning today cost an earlier generation of a society that did then what we are doing now cost them in psychic suffering.