{"id":17680,"date":"2022-09-20T04:25:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T10:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/?p=17680"},"modified":"2023-05-23T13:20:41","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T19:20:41","slug":"from-invasion-of-the-spirit-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/2022\/09\/from-invasion-of-the-spirit-people\/","title":{"rendered":"From Invasion of the Spirit People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juan Pablo Villalobos\u2019s fifth novel, translated by Rosalind Harvey, adopts a gentle, fable-like tone, approaching the problem of racism from the perspective that any position as idiotic as xenophobia can only be fought with sheer absurdity.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an unnamed city, colonized by an unnamed world power, an immigrant named Gast\u00f3n makes his living selling exotic vegetables to eateries around town. He has a dog called Kitten, who\u2019s been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and a good friend called Max, who\u2019s in a deep depression after being forced to close his restaurant. Meanwhile, Max\u2019s son, Pol, a scientist away on a scientific expedition into the Arctic, can offer little support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faced with these dispiriting problems, Gast\u00f3n begins a quest, or rather three: he must search for someone to put his dog to sleep humanely; he must find a space in which to open a new restaurant with Max; and he must look into the truth behind the news being sent back by Pol: that human life may be the by-product of an ancient alien attempt at colonization\u2026 and that those aliens might intend to make a return visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Invasion of the Spirit People<\/span><\/i> was published in English in July 2022 by <\/span>And Other Stories<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the story of Gast\u00f3n and of his best friend, Max; it is also the story of Kitten, Gast\u00f3n\u2019s dog, and of Pol, Max\u2019s son. There are lots of other characters in this story, but we\u2019re going to accompany Gast\u00f3n at all times, as if we were floating just behind him and had access to his feelings, his sensations, the flow of his thoughts. Basically, we\u2019re a bunch of prying busybodies; we\u2019ll have to be cautious, then, or else he might push us aside and put an end to our plan. Our plan is to reach the last page of this book (don\u2019t go thinking this is some kind of conspiracy), and this is why we must follow Gast\u00f3n, in the present, until we reach the end. The present is here, here as we write and here as we read. Here. The place, too, the city in which the story unfolds, is here. On this page\u2014no need to go looking for it further on. After all, time and space are the same thing. Our place is the time we are moving through; the present is our place of residence. The past we will gradually come to understand along the way, because it is the connection between the present and future. The past will be the finger that will turn the pages of this book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s turn the page: the future is there.<\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/p>\n

They are alone in the empty restaurant, 13.8 billion years after the birth of our universe, watching a match played by the city team, the team for which the best footballer on Earth plays, and drinking a second beer at the bar; Gast\u00f3n on the customers\u2019 side, with Kitten lying at his feet, dozing, and Max on the barman\u2019s side. It\u2019s a rustic wooden bar, painted green, which aims to imitate those from Max\u2019s native land, although the peppers that decorate it are more reminiscent of those from the Near East; the carpenter Max hired was, in fact, Near Eastern, and he turned out to be a good carpenter\u2014efficient and reliable\u2014but useless when it came to vernacular styles from other lands. The metal shutters at the entrance are down and there is a sign saying closed for the holidays, which is how Max plans to avoid having to explain things to his customers and local residents.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if we bought the premises?\u201d Gast\u00f3n asks Max.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is Max, or what is left of him, if we pay attention to how Gast\u00f3n feels when he looks at his friend. Max, his shoulders hunched and his eyes permanently lowered ever since he discovered the multicoloured sweetie game on his phone. He\u2019s going through a rough patch, Max; first his son had to go and live far away for work, and then he lost his restaurant, or rather was swindled out of it. The landlord sold it behind his back, taking advantage of the rental agreement having expired, without giving him a chance to renegotiate. Since then, Max has shut himself away in the building that is both the restaurant and his home; this arrangement, which, years ago, was a practical solution\u2014living in the same building as the restaurant, which occupies the ground floor\u2014now helps facilitate his monastic routine. In the morning he comes down from the third floor, spends the day in the restaurant not doing anything, and goes back up when he\u2019s finished (and since not doing anything is an activity that can easily spiral out of control, he tends to go back up pretty late, generally in the early hours of the morning). He has just a few days left to hand over the premises, and the only thing he has done, the only decision he has made, is not to open the place up again to customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inside, it smells of rancid, fried sunflower oil, the topped-up, reheated oil in which there remains perhaps a billionth of a litre of the original oil into which Max threw a few triangles of corn tortilla for the first time almost thirty years ago to make a plate of nachos with avocado salsa. Every TV in the place is switched on, including the huge screen in the dining area, because there\u2019s a system that controls them all simultaneously. It must be possible to operate them independently, but that would involve working out how, asking the technician who installed them, or racking his brains to remember, and this is one of the many things that Max ought to be doing but continues to put off, as if there were no cut-off date, no deadline on the calendar, not the last day of the month. The volume on the TVs is down; we are missing the strident voice of the commentator, his litany of words pouring out in the native language, and the general hubbub of customers drinking on their feet, crowding around the bar, for it to be just any old night.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t got any money,\u201d Max replies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got savings,\u201d Gast\u00f3n says; \u201cwe could go into business together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m tired,\u201d Max replies, without lifting his head, staring at the screen of his phone instead of the game. \u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gast\u00f3n knows that when Max says he\u2019s tired he means that he\u2019s already written off this and other options. Rents in the neighbourhood have gone up so much that he\u2019d be forced to pay almost double for new premises; he could move to a cheaper location, although then he would lose his regular customers and have to start all over again from zero, something that seems deplorable to him at his age (Max is fifty-five years old, one year younger than Gast\u00f3n).<\/span><\/p>\n

The screens show that the best footballer on Earth has stopped running. He is leaning forwards, his hands on his knees, and spitting, or perhaps vomiting. The game continues, although the cameras remain on him, as if the ball were merely an accessory or the aim of the game were to suffer some kind of ailment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with him?\u201d Gast\u00f3n asks, addressing the air, addressing an interlocutor who is not outside his head, addressing himself, this page, us.<\/span><\/p>\n

He picks up the remote control and turns the sound up to hear the commentator say that in the land where the best footballer on Earth was born they\u2019re reporting that he\u2019s afraid, that he has anxiety attacks, and that this is why he is incapable of leading his side to a World Cup win. Meanwhile, the city team is passing the ball back and forth, making its opponents dizzy, waiting for the hero to regain his composure. Gast\u00f3n turns the volume back down again. All at once, Max emerges from the daze he\u2019s in, leans over the bar and holds some nachos out to the dog. Kitten flattens his ears and his eyes fill with tears; it\u2019s the same expression he makes whenever he\u2019s sick on Gast\u00f3n\u2019s sofa or his bed. We assume that he\u2019s trying to say yes, but he is a dog. A dog in pain. Last week, Gast\u00f3n took him to the vet\u2019s after finding a lump on his chest. It was a mass of abnormal cells, malignant ones, which had already spread through his whole body.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen does the treatment start?\u201d Max asks, plunging his hand into a giant bag of nachos. He walks around the bar in slow motion, places a handful of fried tortillas on the floor, in front of the dog\u2019s muzzle, and kisses the top of his head.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gast\u00f3n replies with an insult that shocks us, an insult that mentions Max\u2019s mother, or rather, not exactly his mother; it\u2019s one of those rhetorical insults so common in Max\u2019s native land and which Gast\u00f3n has adopted as his own after so many years alongside his friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is Gast\u00f3n an irascible guy? Another one of those angry maniacs so common in the history of literature? Let\u2019s hope not. We\u2019re tired of stories about men with chips on their shoulders, fed up with glorifying resentment and frustration. No, it\u2019s OK; now we understand what\u2019s going on: someone has just scored a goal against the city\u2019s team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Translated by Rosalind Harvey<\/span><\/h5>\n
Juan Pablo Villalobos photo credit: Rita Platts<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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