Pedro Paramo (Juan Rulfo) Review

The Cover of Pedro Paramo (Grove Press)

Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Paramo" is a classic in Mexican literature, perhaps obscure outside of writers themselves but nonetheless a rocksteady base of the cultural lifeblood of literature from that region. "Pedro Paramo" is a tale that resembles a maze of memorable characters more than a narrative. That isn't to say that there isn't a narrative but rather when the reader is faced with a character, new or old, that character, at that moment feels like the singular focus of the whole story. Dreamy as it is rooted in the tumultuous time of its taking place, the book has the easy lure of being about a man who comes to meet and/or confront his estranged father. However, from there, the story takes as many twists and turns as it likes, blurring past, present, and future into a canvas of unabashed brilliance. At first, it knocks the reader to and fro with characters who are dead, not dead, and not alive, whilst at the same time telling the story of Pedro Paramo non-linearly without warning. Anyone unfamiliar with this style surely will need a few tries to gain their sea legs, but once the reader accepts that the writing will be whatever it wants to be at any given moment, the freedom to follow the story becomes much easier. Every section of dialogue feels as if it was stolen out of the mouths of characters who really existed. The exasperation and understanding of the times the story is set in feel even more real with every breath each character takes. No character seems added to the story for the sake of moving things along but as they intersect into the main character's journey so too do they feel like they are here to read briefly before going off to live a life somewhere off the page.

Rulfo's dialogue feels careful and deliberate but not calculating, characters say what they must and go but how and why they say them feels rooted in the reality of people (dead or alive) relating with each other. Some with empathy, others with passing vanity, ignorance, and pain.

Rulfo also can set the scene of a location with such economic clarity. At no time is there a blank image conjured up in the mind of the reader but Rulfo also doesn't linger on over exposition. In many ways you the reader are part voyeur to the story, quietly watching it play out but without a purpose to interject.

In the end, "Pedro Paramo" need not defend itself as a classic; any attuned reader will pick up on that quite immediately. Instead, its staying power lies within its ability to captivate and paint a picture all these years later. Like watching a distant past through the obscured beauty of a stained glass window, the more you read, the more in reach it feels but also the further away from reality it becomes. A classic that does not read like any other classic, in a class of its own but meekly hidden between 129 pages.

My Rating: 8/10