Siruela nos ofrece la edición conjunta de todas las novelas que tienen como protagonista a Maqroll, llamado Gaviero. En este volumen van las tres primeras.

"La Nieve del Almirante" sirve de presentación (aunque parece que el personaje ya había asomado por otras novelas anteriores de Mutis) y es, quizá, la menos buena de las tres. Claramente deudora de "El corazón de las tinieblas" pero sin agente Kurtz al final, nos muestra al protagonista embarcado en un negocio improbable de tráfico de maderas subiendo un río tropical en el que casi deja la vida en varias ocasiones y no consigue beneficio alguno. De fondo, el recuerdo de la mujer que dejó en el bar de carretera de montaña que da nombre a la novela.

La segunda es "Ilona llega con la lluvia", situada en la ciudad de Panamá, donde el Gaviero ha llegado en situación extrema de la que le rescata una vieja amiga y amante. Aquí ya nos hemos familiarizado con la maestría de Mutis para combinar la poesía y la prosa no de manera formal, sino profundamente. Los diálogos y las acciones se mezclan con las reflexiones y las descripciones sin que tengan espacios narrativos claramente definidos, sino que corren todos al compás. Mutis consigue que disfrutemos de la calma reflexiva y las tramas aventureras al mismo tiempo, incluso con sus momentos cómicos. Realmente esta novela en concreto es una maravilla.

La última, "Un bel morir", mete a nuestro personaje en un asunto de tráfico de armas en la cordillera colombiana. Maqroll está cansado de todo lo que ha visto, pero aún así se deja engañar y se mete en negocios peligrosos. Frecuentemente, en las tres novelas, repite que está por el mundo como si ya hubiera muerto, como si todo le diera igual, aunque realmente no es así del todo. En fin, cada novela está presidida por una mujer que le salva la vida metafórica y literalmente y a las que el viejo marino arrastra en una especie de destino trágico. Y sin embargo, estas no son novelas tristes. ( )

If ever there was an original and charismatic hero it's Maqroll the Gaviero (the Lookout). In this book over the course of three novellas he is introduced as an adventurer, sailor, lover, friend, and entrepreneur. Like the famous Odysseus he is a man of many sides and ways. In fact his character seems born of the lineage of Odysseus or Don Quixote or any of the sailors that inhabit the novels of Joseph Conrad. As with many a hero, one of Maqroll's strengths is simple knowledge: he's been everywhere, met everyone, has a memory or story for every occasion. Maqroll seems to be from the mold of characters created by B. Traven; Maqroll takes the world as known and thus no one's, with nothing to offer but memories of what's been lost and anticipations of the losses to come. He's much more Marlow than Indiana Jones, more fatalist than flaneur.

These three novellas describe his ventures that range from smuggling rugs in Alicante, to managing a brothel in Panama, to involvement, unintentional as it may be, with guerillas in South America. What makes these adventures stand out is not only the character and actions of Maqroll but the background of these episodes that benefit from the prose of Alvaro Mutis. He brings the rivers and the jungles to life along with the indigenous characters that inhabit them. The impressions of places including a coastal town and a decaying jungle settlement are inhabited by fascinating characters like the captains of the ships on which Maqroll sails or the beautiful and enigmatic Larissa who provides the intrigue for one of the novellas.

In "The Snow of the Admiral", after a brief introduction by the author, the story is told through entries in Maqroll's diary describing a trip up a river in some unnamed country. Maqroll is unique in the wealth of knowledge and experience he displays, especially the breadth of his reading; he reads every chance he gets, and in his very first entry he makes an offhand reference to Dicken's Little Dorrit. He ends his first diary entry with the following curious remark:
"It's all absurd, and I'll never understand why I set out on this enterprise. It's always the same at the start of a journey. Then comes a soothing indifference that makes everything all right. I can't wait for it to arrive."

Through the diary entries we see more aspects of his character. He attended a Jesuit Academy which tells you a lot about his education and his seemingly unorthodox discipline. In addition to his reading I liked his philosophical or thoughtful side as seen in this example of what he calls a "precept":
"Thinking about time, trying to find out if past and future are valid and, in fact, exist, leads us into a labyrinth that is no less incomprehensible for being familiar."
Moments later, after several more examples, he calls them all "fake pearls born of idleness and the obligatory wait for the current to change its mood". They are all the more fascinating nonetheless.

Weeks into the trip he speaks with a Major who tells him, "There's no mystery in the jungle, regardless of what some people think. That's its greatest danger. It's just what you've seen, no more, no less. Just what you see now. Simple, direct, uniform, malevolent. Intelligence is blunted here and time is confused, laws are forgotten, joy is unknown, and sadness has no place."

Following the diary entries the novella concludes with four appendix-like sections, one of which gives the novella its name, all introduced with the simple line, "Further information concerning Maqroll the Gaviero". In one of these sections he visits the Aracuriare Canyon where he builds a hut and stays for a time. "the Gaviero began an examination of his life, a catalogue of his miseries, his mistakes, his precarious joys and confused passions. He resolved to go deep into this task, and his success was so thorough and devastating that he rid himself completely of the self who had accompanied him all his life, the one who has suffered all the pain and difficulty. . . .
But as he faced that absolute witness of himself, he also felt the serene, ameliorating acceptance he had spent so many years searching for in the fruitless symbols of adventure."

There are two further novellas in this collection, and a second volume by Mutis that contains four additional novellas about Maqroll the Gaviero, an astonishingly unique adventurer. ( )