Historia d'amor i amistad entre una dona trans i un noi activista políticament a Chile en l'època de Pinochet ( )

This too-short book grew on me: Beautiful, passionate. By the end, I wished it was so much longer. The main character, the Queen, was so brave, graceful, full of a viral hope; the writing, which at times may have been too florid (but also apt for the protagonist), transported me to Pinochet's Santiago. A truly gifted writer. ( )

This is a book of love of delusion, of projection, of ideals without fruition. Romantic songs and soft fabrics line the pages, flowery words and fancy hats lead to a delicate unrequited love.

The Queen is a masterpiece. She, and her precious, precocious femininity, fill the pages with the frivolous thoughts, whilst running parallel is an aching sense of reality. She believes in the fantasy and she sees the veracity and both exist woven together, like one of her beautiful embroidered tablecloths.

I am finding myself drawn more and more to the floral language, and I love the rhythm of the sections of the book focused on Santiago life from the Queen’s point of view. Her beloved Carlos is a shadow of a character, mostly a pretty projection from within the Queen’s mind, but she is so aware of the idolising nature of the infatuation that this doesn’t seem to matter. Falling in love with a fantasy is still falling in love, and when the love is shattered, it hurts no less.

“How do you look at something you will never see again? How do you forget something you never had?”

This is the second book I’ve now read where the protagonist is transgendered, the first being ‘[b:The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|32388712|The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|Arundhati Roy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520327592l/32388712._SY75_.jpg|53001637]The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ by Arundhati Roy. This is progress I believe in my aim of reading a more varied portrayal of gender.

Moving on from the Queen, in consideration of the General Pinochet character, I read Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile before reading Peter Lemebel’s My Tender Matador, and both of these books included a fictionalised Pinochet. In My Tender Matador, I felt that Pinochet, and even more so his wife, were caricatures. I felt an opportunity was lost here to explore how someone with such lacking appreciation of human rights could develop. To me, the children’s birthday party story just felt farfetched and out of place. I also couldn’t understand how a character with such an authoritarian hand could put up with his wife’s wittering as he did.

But maybe Pinochet’s character is a mystery? The Wikipedia page says barely anything of his childhood and on reflecting on his character just seems to talk about how he had a large library, but a library devoid of fiction.

In September of 1986 there was an assassination attempt as he was making his way back to Santiago from one of his country homes. My Tender Matador is a fictionalised account of this. Newspaper reports tell me that five, not seven, bodyguards were killed, and that Pinochet’s ten-year-old grandson was also in the car with him at the moment of the attack despite being omitted in the novel. If I had written the book I would have kept the child there, it’s emotionally more complex to be on the protagonist’s side when the protagonists are shooting at a child, and I would have dropped much of the character of Pinochet’s wife, for she was tedious to read.
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"Pero no iba a soportar humillaciones. ¿Qué se creía el cabro güevón para tratarla así? Creía que porque era universitario, y buen mozo, y joven, y tenía esos ojos tan... Solamente por él se hacía la señorita, porque la intimidaba con esos ojos amables, la achunchaba con su cortesía de chiquillo educado. Y si no fuera por eso, si no fuera porque lo quería tanto, le salía la rota y mandaba todo a la chucha".

De los libros más notables que he leído, por la forma tan hermosa de narrar que tiene Lemebel. La historia tiene varios ingredientes (una "relación" homosexual en un país más pechoño que ahora, el atentado a Pinochet, un país crispado y tenso por la dictadura) que le dan un valor extra al relato del amor no correspondido (¿o sí?) entre sus protagonistas.

La gracia de Lemebel es que sabe llevar este enamoramiento del protagonista con una forma tan propia y tan natural que es imposible no identificarse con el personaje, con sus miedos, sus temores y sus cambios entre la rabia y la ternura. Incluso, hasta te llama la tristeza al final porque empatizas tanto que es normal hacerlo.

Por mucho, recomendable lectura. ( )

Dedication: "...to Myrna Uribe (La Chica Myrna), tiny esoteric epicenter, who staved of the afternoon of the coyote with her poetic depravity..." This book is a relatively unsentimental yet romantic exploration of the days in Santiago, Chile during the time of Pinochet. It provides us access to not only Pinochet's (and his wife) perspective, but also insight into the lives of the revolutionaries trying to assassinate him. "We were brought together by two stories that barely even shook hands with each other in the midst of everything that happened. And what didn't happen here will never happen anywhere in the world." Even in translation, this is an amazing novel of love in the time of revolution. ( )