This book reminds me of the time when I was a kid and my grandma would leave me for a bit at her friend’s apartment, and she would let me sit in the window with my legs dangling from in between the window’s bars, and from that view at a moderate height above the world, I would loudly proclaim I love that dog! I love the buildings! I love the puddle! I love the trees! I love the cars! I love it!

That’s what it felt like reading this, like discovering that little girl again. And it has been a while since I’ve felt that way. When I first started reading this book, I thought Well? Where are the notes on wonder? This guy is just telling me how much he loves falcons and pants and his children. My bad. I had forgotten what wonder even is. This book reminded it to me.

Maybe the greatest miracle is memory. Think about that this morning, quietly, as you watch the world filter and tremble and beam

This compilation of essays was truly a gift to read. Doyle’s prose is described in the foreword as one that ”made timid readers feel as though they’d been thrown into a kayak and sent careening down a literary equivalent of Idaho’s Payette River during spring runoff”, and it is absolutely correct. Doyle dives headfirst into his ideas, every word a memory, and, just like memories, changing shaping bulging contracting and falling off the face of the earth only to be resurrected once again in a new form. The words go tumbling out of his brain and out of his hands, flipping over and under, they go pitter-pattering and swirling into a long river that becomes a song which itself sings of endless days and warm blanket goodnights; each comma a falcon’s talon and each ampersand a curly lock of hair. The parentheses expand and inflate like a balloon full of words, while the audience looks on, shocked and in horror, betting on when it’s going to pop and what sound will it make when it does. It is all wonderfull, wonderfull, wonderfilled, wonderoverflowed, my cup runneth over.

I am absorbed by the way that we all speak one language bur use different tones and shades and volumes and timbres and pronunciations and emphases in order to bend the language in as many ways as there are speakers of the language. (I didn’t omit any commas in that sentence. He just didn’t write any.)

For the nature lovers, the bird lovers, the family lovers, the sunrise and sunset lovers, the holding hands lovers, the God and the god and the universe lovers, the memories coming back lovers, the pain in between a smile and a smile in between the pain lovers, the fish behind the stone and the mystery behind the world lovers. For the teary-eyed lovers of the world, and those who want to love it more, I recommend this book.

The moist soil, the laboring beetles, the unwritten poem Of the lost leaves, the duff, the thin spidery bones of old Twigs. Once in a while we all stopped sprinting and just Stared at what was there all around us, the wealth of dirt, The sudden green feather about to adorn its second wild Animal, the tender next minute waiting for us to emerge.

Warning: This review might be a bit shit, but I can't review this book in any objective or critical way. It's one of those books we all have. I can only say what it does to me.

I first finished this book a little over a year ago. It was the first day of February, and I had read the book in two days. I remember finishing it on my bus on the way to work. It was a Saturday, so I worked in the morning. The air was cold, and every road, building, and tree was tinted blue by the morning dawn, the sun not yet high in the sky. The world was quiet.

I arrived at my stop, I got down, I walked a few paces, for privacy, and then I sobbed.

Much like the protagonist in this novel, ironically, I, too, walked through an empty world that morning. I saw no one living or dead. In my—thankfully—long way to work, I wept, and I wept, and then the day arrived.

I do not believe I cried only because of the novel, but because of what the novel unlocked in me. From all the recognition and all the memories it brought forward. Me finally experiencing my own loss. If you cry about one thing, you cry about all things.

I want to try and define what this novel is, so maybe I'll start by saying what it's not.

The Review

This is not a typical zombie story. There is gore, so content warning about that. But you won't find any thrill or true horror here. This is a meditation on the nature of grief told through a story told through a zombie. But the zombies are not even the most important part. There is also the crow, the stump, the hunger, the cardigan, the trees, the moon, the stone, the beach, the silence. For some of these, the author will tell you what they are, but for others, you can choose to make sense of them in whichever way you prefer. "Every metaphor presents itself as what was there all along"

It is also not highlighter bait, even if it might appear that way at first. Upon first glance, it could strike you as a bunch of deep-sounding quotes taped together loosely through dubious plot, moving the protagonist to and fro until they land on the stage for their next tragic line. It's disjointed sometimes and spare in others, like a bunch of broken thoughts flying in the wind during a walk. I've highlighted this book more than all other books I've ever read combined. And yet, it all comes together. The parts talk to each other. I can feel the real pain and the real grief and the real human heart behind it all. Barely anything happens in the book, let me say it plainly. And yet the emotional world is so vast. As vast as you want it to be, as your own longing is, even.

It is also not immediately understandable. It's one of those stories you can read a million different ways. You can find connections, references, and hidden and not-so-hidden meanings. Moments that call out to you, or moments that remind you of your dad, your mom, your cousins, your long-dead grandma, your friends, or your country. The whole world can be found in it because grief does, indeed, fill the whole world, and you can find it even in as gentle an image as that of a tree, borne down with fruit. None of these interpretations, however, are real. Well, some of them are. The feelings behind them are.

And I found myself trying to understand it all, on both reads. I can connect some things to other things. I can find meaning in metaphors. I can find similarities to The Divine Comedy, to my own experiences, to things I've read that I don't remember where I read them anymore. It's all there if you look for it. And the thing is that, the protagonist tries to do so, too. We try to find meaning in this story, and we find that the protagonist is doing just the same. She wants meaning, depth. An end after what lasts forever. She wants to find a reason for all of this pain, and we search for it, too. Holding hands, we ask this world together, "Why?". But it doesn't answer, or maybe it does, but it's not the answer we want. The meaning is elusive.

What's behind this whole book, however, is the true nature of longing. Of saying goodbye a million times and knowing you will have to do it a million times more. The true heart of this book is a feeling we all have, and we'll all continue to have, if we're lucky enough to love something to the point of suffering it this much. The book is a long journey through yourself and each other, through the empty world of hope. Through the ruins, the abandoned cities, the forests, the world just beginning to fall asleep. She walks through the stages of grief like a walk through the country. She finds things, let's go of things, experiences changes, big and small, interior and exterior. It is funny at times; the laugh surprises you in the middle of the funeral. It is also hopeful at times, but you have to look for it. Even here, there is a light.

Grief has many names in this book. We can find it under every rock, in every object, in every person and animal, but that's the best we can do. The open hand of those who walk this same path with you—however, whoever—is the most meaning you'll ever find.

Final Thoughts

On my first read, I read this in two days. Like the protagonist, I was hungry. I was empty. This read, though, took me 22 days. It was a calmer experience. I could never read this book for more than 10 minutes without putting it down and listening to the emotions it stirred in me. I listened to my own crow as I went on this journey.

I could never read for more than 10 minutes at a time, so I savored it. I sipped this book, little by little, like the glass of wine I never had with you.

I listen to my heart like I can't listen to you. Because you're not here anymore, because I'm scared your voice has changed with age, because in every word I wish you were saying something else. I sipped this book like a glass of tears—like seawater—and it reminded me of you.

Esta reseña está escrita en: / This review is written in:

1. Español
2. English

Advertencias al final / TWs at the end

La reseña: Español

“Su… patrón, —añadió con visible reticencia— sólo sabe de mí que soy un mulato, que desciendo de esclavos de su familia. Al verme debió preguntarse: “¿Cómo es que éste anda suelto por ahí?”. El ignora que poseo un grado universitario, que hablo varios idiomas y que he publicado un libro sobre enfermedades tropicales. Le he robado algo que le pertenece: mi vida, mi destino.”

Cumboto, un cuento de siete leguas, escrito por Ramón Díaz Sánchez y galardonado con el premio William Faulkner de novela en 1964, es un relato ficticio que se da casi enteramente en las siete leguas que conforman la finca de la familia Lamarca, hogar y lugar de nacimiento de Natividad, un hombre negro nacido de esclavos de la familia y, también, el narrador de nuestra historia. Natividad, junto con el hijo del dueño de la finca, Federico Lamarca, crecen juntos en un tiempo de cambio social en el país —muy poco tiempo después de la abolición de la esclavitud en Venezuela— un tiempo en el cuál las viejas costumbres se pelean con los nuevos paradigmas de la república.

Al principio de leer esta historia, pensé que sería un libro centrado en el punto de vista individual de un hombre esclavo y sus experiencias en una casa colonial. Y diría que ciertamente esa es la base de la historia, pero también es mucho más. Lo que se ve en este corto libro es un ejemplo pequeño de un trauma nacional, de una marca del mal en el país. Los recuerdos lejanos y no tan lejanos de las masacres a la mano de los esclavistas se sienten en cada página del libro, en cada cuento, leyenda, e historia presenciada por Natividad. Al mismo tiempo, la narrativa se rehúsa a ser una historia genérica de esclavo contra esclavizador, si no que se atreve a indagar más. Nos hace cuestionar los lazos más profundos cuando se forman en cautiverio, a cuestionar el racismo institucional, y el internalizado, así como nos invita a reflexionar sobre como la precariedad y la violencia de la esclavitud puede marcar el pensamiento de generaciones enteras, de países enteros. Como una enfermedad congénita, la marca de la esclavitud vive y se siente dentro de los corazones de los hijos de las víctimas, y de los victimarios.

El personaje de Natividad es una persona compleja que no se adapta a ninguna caja en donde se pudiera querer meter. No es una víctima perfecta, porque él también victimiza (en particular, a una joven aborigen, en una escena horrible que ejemplifica el trato del nuevo país hacia los nativos originales y hacia las mujeres), y no es una figura en donde descargar nuestras ideas sobre como debería pensar y actuar una persona en su situación. Al contrario, la disonancia cognitiva y el racismo internalizado son partes claves de la narración, ya que Natividad sufre la peculiar situación de solo tener un amigo, el hijo del hombre que es su dueño, y solo tener un hogar que haya conocido, el hogar de la familia para la que sirve. Natividad en estas páginas nos muestra un narrador en medio de una crisis de identidad, de lealtad, y de moral; retratando a través de los años todas las formas en las que su vida y la vida del joven Federico Lamarca se interceptan, entrelazan, y parten la una de la otra. Los dos juntos en un matrimonio heredado, los dos solos en sus memorias.

Lo que yo pude ver en este libro, con sus tan pocas 184 páginas, es una historia que sirve como microcosmos explicativo para entender los momentos iniciales de un país entero. En una época marcada por el cambio social y la inestabilidad política, los residentes negros, blancos y mestizos de Cumboto se enamoran, se desprecian, matan, bailan, viven y sueñan entre las coqueras, asentando las bases para una futura cultura y población venezolana —mestiza, pero no libre de las viejas costumbres, las viejas enfermedades del pensamiento racista. Mientras que la republica avanza, Cumboto nos hace recordar los huesos que siempre estarán debajo de las carreteras, y que nunca debemos olvidar.

Advertencias para este libro: Escenas explícitas de agresión sexual, violencia general y discriminatoria, homicidio, racismo, guerra y personas inocentes afectadas por dicha guerra, recuerdos de esclavitud.

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The review: English

’Your… master,’ —he added with visible reluctance—'only knows that I am a mulatto, that I descend from his family’s slaves. When he saw me, he must have wondered: “How is it that this one is walking around free?” He ignores that I hold a university degree, that I speak several languages, and that I have published a book on tropical diseases. I have stolen something that belongs to him: my life, my destiny.’

Cumboto, un cuento de siete leguas [Cumboto, A Tale of Seven Leagues], written by Ramón Díaz Sánchez and winner of the William Faulkner Novel Award in 1964, is a fictional narrative set almost entirely within the seven leagues that make up the Lamarca family estate, home and birthplace of Natividad, a Black man born to the family’s slaves and, also, the narrator of our story. Natividad and the estate owner’s son, Federico Lamarca, grow up together during a time of social change in the country — very shortly after the abolition of slavery in Venezuela— a time when old customs clashed with the republic's new paradigms.

When I first began reading this story, I expected a book centered on the individual perspective of an enslaved man and his experiences in a colonial household. I would say that that is certainly the foundation of the story, but it is also much more. What we see in this short book is a small example of a national trauma, a mark of evil on the country. The distant and not-so-distant memories of the massacres at the hands of slave owners are felt on every page, in every tale, legend, and story witnessed by Natividad. At the same time, the narrative refuses to be a generic story of slave versus slaveholder, daring instead to delve deeper. It makes us question the deepest bonds when formed in captivity, to question institutional and internalized racism, and invites us to reflect on how the precariousness and violence of slavery can mark the thinking of entire generations, of entire countries. Like a congenital disease, the mark of slavery lives on and is felt in the hearts of the children of both victims, and perpetrators.

Natividad is a complex character who defies easy categorization. He is not a perfect victim, because he also victimizes others (in particular, a young Indigenous woman, in a horrific scene that exemplifies the new country's treatment of its original native inhabitants and of women), and he is not a figure onto whom we can project our own ideas about how someone in his situation should think and act. On the contrary, cognitive dissonance and internalized racism are key elements of his narrative, as Natividad suffers the peculiar situation of having only one friend, the son of the man who owns him, and only one home he has ever known, the home of the family he serves. In these pages, Natividad presents us with a narrator in the midst of a crisis of identity, loyalty, and morality; portraying, over the years, all the ways in which his life and the life of the young Federico Lamarca intersect, intertwine, and diverge from one another. The two together in an inherited marriage, the two alone in their memories.

What I gleaned from this book, with its mere 184 pages, is a story that serves as an explanatory microcosm for understanding the early days of an entire nation. In an era marked by social change and political instability, the black, white, and mixed-race residents of Cumboto fall in love, despise each other, kill, dance, live, and dream among the coconut trees, laying the foundations for a future Venezuelan culture and population—mestiza, yet not free from the old customs, the old ills of racist thought. As the republic advances, Cumboto reminds us of the bones that will always lie beneath the roads, bones we must never forget.

TW for this book: Explicit scenes of sexual assault, general and discriminatory violence, homicide, racism, war and innocent people being affected by said war, memories of slavery.