a novel to enter the Tenampa with your head held high

In 2002, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, creator of the Captain Alatriste saga, gave us “La Reina del Sur”, a novel about drug trafficking that starts in northwestern Mexico, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, for more information in the Malverde chapel , the mythical bandit of the revolutionary era who gave money to the poor. Twenty years later, the master of the historical fiction novel puts an end to a prolonged absence of almost a decade, to situate us once again in northern Mexico, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where the adventure of Martín Garrett begins, a young engineering engineer. Spanish mines, whom Pancho Villa’s troops force to join them in stealing treasure from a bank.

“Revolución” is the new installment by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Cartagena, Spain, 1951) under the Alfaguara label, presented this Tuesday to the media at the famous Sanborns de los Azulejos, where it is erroneously stated that the revolutionaries had breakfast the morning of December 6, 1914. “Breakfast at Sanborns” was originally going to be the title of the novel, the writer points out, and clarifies, “in reality the cafeteria was a little further on, here it was an elite club, but then they changed over here”.

“Revolución”, located between 1911 and 1920, is the historical account of the armed conflict made by a writer who sits at home, not the narrative of a “gachupin” -he says-, but that of a veteran war correspondent disillusioned with the final result of the revolutions, because it was in seven throughout 20 years, and at the same time from the fascinated look of a young man who is seduced by the characters of Villa and Zapata, whose personal and demystified portrait is one of the great contributions of the work

War as learning

The heart of the novel “is the Mexican revolution as an apprenticeship for a young Spaniard. Garrett is not a revolutionary, he does not want to change the world, he does not want to change anything, he wants to learn, and for him Mexico is a place of learning and therefore that is seduced by the revolution, and that is going to change his life completely”, says the author.

It is also a family reminiscence. “It all started because my grandfather was a mining engineer in Spain, and a friend of his, as a child, came to Mexico, was touched by the revolution, and wrote letters home recounting the exploits of Pancho Villa and Zapata, and then I grew up listening those stories, revolutionary songs, seeing books and newspapers of the time, and finally one is what one reads, plus what one writes, plus what one imagines, plus what one has lived (…) Without being an autobiography, I would say that yes, it is my most autobiographical novel”, he confesses.

The author points out that he decided to place most of the story in the north and with the figure of Villa, because the revolution in the south seemed darker and sadder to him. Instead, “Villa was a very interesting character, he was a bandit, happy and womanizing, he was neither black nor white, he moved in a wide range of grays” and that is exactly what Garrett’s character discovers. That the revolution is made by human beings, in the end, brave and cowardly, loving and cruel, loyal and traitors”.

And there also sneaks in the reference to a personal experience: “When I went to war for the first time I discovered that war was a very important school of lucidity, that one in war, in violence, discovered things that maybe in normal life it would take years to discover.”

“That by looking at human beings, doing the good and the bad, sometimes in the same day, one learned that by approaching them I could complete my training as a human being, so I give the character (Martín Garrett) that look, he learns through revolution, he doesn’t believe in revolution, he doesn’t think it changes anything and he doesn’t care, I know this sounds like intellectual selfishness, but what he thinks is that the people who are doing it are fascinating, so he knows He humbly approaches them to learn, and ends up becoming a part of themselves.”

The creative process

Pérez-Reverte narrates that behind this work, which took him two years, are all the novels he has read about the Mexican Revolution —all those that have been written— and a huge amount of materials that he gathered to make the composition of the scenarios and the characters. “I worked with many old photographs, I got a map of Mexico City from the year 1920, of how it was then: tram lines, car stops, shops, hotels; the Bristol hotel, where I place my character, which is still open, so I rebuilt this Mexico that I had in my head, but now I see it differently”, he shares.

And he adds: “By coming here (to Sanborns) I have been eliminating the modern elements that I saw and I have been mentally placing what I have had in my head for two years when writing this novel.”

“Books change our perception of things, one never sees the world the same as before and after writing or reading a book. That is the great privilege of authors and readers, that we can erase from the present what hinders us and refurnish it with what reading or writing provides us”.

skeptical of revolutions

Arturo Pérez-Reverte declares himself skeptical of revolutions, more precisely, of their final result, “all of them, except the French one that did change the world, end up like Daniel Ortega’s in Nicaragua: when those from below reach the top , they become those from above and forget those from below”, he affirms.

“As a reporter I was in 18 wars, of which 7 were revolutions. I think I have first-hand knowledge of what a revolution looks like and how people behave in a revolution. I would not like to disappoint anyone, but in the novel what interests me about the Mexican revolution is not the revolution itself, which unfortunately did not change much, but the behavior of human beings, ”he adds.

And he adds: “I do not have a good concept of the end of revolutions, I am skeptical, I think they are necessary and they have to be done, to force the one upstairs to sleep with one eye open, not to sleep peacefully, but knowing that when the below reaches above, becomes the one above.

About his experience in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, he details: “I lived through that war, (the Sandinistas) I saw them kill, die, suffer, and I entered the (Anastasio) Somoza bunker with them, and I crossed the plaza with them, running, under fire from the last Somocistas who were shooting. And all this so that now Daniel Ortega (…) that is very normal. That skeptical melancholy, that disappointment, that lack of hope in the final result of the revolution is also here in the novel. Mexico had those extraordinary, necessary years, but in the end one realizes that the Mexico of that time did not change that much either, those from below and those from above continue here, all that suffering of the people who fought, who fought, who died, everything that effort and that heroic struggle did not change much”.

In Mexico violence is a state of affairs

To a question from El Economista, about how the author and his relationship with Mexico have changed since “La Reina del Sur”, Arturo Pérez-Reverte says: “I have a debt with Mexico, in Mexico I have understood many things about the human being (…) I understood that violence is slow, it is not an explosion, it is a state of affairs; Mexico helped me understand that gray is the color of life, not white or black; when I was in the north, for example, doing “La Reina del Sur”, observing the people, listening to the conversations in the bars, the songs, I discovered that this mixture embodied in Pancho Villa, but which is very Mexican, of violence and of tenderness, cruelty and generosity, pride and failure has made me understand human beings much better”.

The writer narrates the occasion in which he entered a Tepito bar accompanied by a “very spectacular blonde lady.” “I immediately thought: ‘you don’t leave here, but if we leave it’s worse’, so I went to the guy who seemed the most dangerous to me and said: ‘Look, I’m a foreigner, I don’t know the customs, maybe I’ve made a mistake or I’ve done something inconvenient, but in return I’ll treat all the gentlemen here present to a tequila,’ the atmosphere changed completely and they even escorted us to Plaza Garibaldi”.

With the anecdote, Pérez-Reverte wants to point out the importance of knowing the rules and the intrinsic languages ​​of each behavior. “Because the codes in Mexico are very complicated and it is necessary to know them to know how to move. Here they tell you, ‘give me your wallet or he dies, I won’t kill him, he dies’, I understand, I’m condemned to die, but he has his reasons, I learned that in Mexico, that even the most evil has reasons, that the cruelty and violence have reasons, they are not gratuitous, it is not that this guy is bad; I learned then that if you follow the rules you survive, you make friends, here I have been very scared and I have laughed a lot, sometimes with the same people; well, all of that is in the novel.”

“That’s why when I’m in Mexico I feel like I’m better understanding the world I live in. Mexico is a great school, I would recommend a master’s degree for young people, ‘Live in Mexico for a year’, and then come back again to discover something about life”.

“For example, I come here for the first time and I discover a Mexico that takes me to that novel (“La Reina del Sur”) and now, twenty years later, it is like the end of a conclusion; In all this time, this is what I have learned from Mexico. This book (“Revolución”) is a balance, it is an accountability, it is what I have learned from the Mexicans; one is horrified when reading this book, at how cruel a Mexican can be, and one is also amazed at how amazingly bright, funny, generous and brave the Mexican, Mexicans and Mexicans can be. It is my final balance, you will tell me when you read it if I have understood Mexico or if I am still a gachupin who walked through here as a tourist. But no, I sincerely believe that this book allows me to enter the Tenampa (bar) with my head held high”, he concludes.

A piece of history

“This is the story of a man, three women, a revolution and a treasure. The revolution was that of Mexico in the times of Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa. The treasure was fifteen thousand gold coins of twenty pesos of the so-called maximilianos, stolen from a bank in Ciudad Juárez on May 8, 1911. The man’s name was Martín Garret Ortiz and he was a young Spanish mining engineer. It all started for him that same day, when from his hotel he heard the first distant shot. He went out into the street to see what was happening, and from that moment his life changed forever… Revolution is much more than a novel about the dramatic events that shook the Mexican Republic in the first third of the 20th century. It is a tale of coming of age through chaos, lucidity, and violence: the amazing discovery of the hidden rules that determine love, loyalty, death, and life.”

The history

This is the story of a man, three women, a revolution and a treasure. The revolution was that of Mexico in the times of Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa. The treasure was fifteen thousand gold coins of twenty pesos of the so-called maximilianos, stolen from a bank in Ciudad Juárez on May 8, 1911. The man’s name was Martín Garret Ortiz and he was a young Spanish mining engineer. It all started for him that same day, when from his hotel he heard the first distant shot. He went out into the street to see what was happening, and from that moment his life changed forever… Revolution is much more than a novel about the dramatic events that shook the Mexican Republic in the first third of the 20th century. It is a tale of coming of age through chaos, lucidity, and violence: the amazing discovery of the hidden rules that determine love, loyalty, death, and life.”

Presentation of the novel

Date and time: Wednesday, October 26, 7:00 p.m.

Place: Polyforum Siqueiros (Insurgentes Sur 701, Colonia Napoles)

Participants: Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Élmer Mendoza and the actor Mauricio García Lozano with a dramatized reading.

Free entry. Limited availability

Revolution

Author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Year: 2022

Publisher: Alfaguara

Price: $489 (Paperback) $169 (Kindle)

No. of pages:

francisco.deanda@eleconomista.mx