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Los de abajo (1916) es una novela de la Revolución Mexicana basada en las experiencias que vivió su autor Mariano Azuela como médico militar en las fuerzas de Julián Medina y en las anécdotas que escuchó de sus camaradas. De hecho, uno de sus personajes, Luis Cervantes, comparte semejanzas con la vida del autor, como la de ser médico y unirse a las tropas villistas.
Es una novela de carácter realista y una clásica de la Revolución Mexicana, pero se diferencia de otras obras de este género por su sincera crudeza que hasta revela delitos de guerra que cometieron los insurgentes.
Es una novela de carácter realista y una clásica de la Revolución Mexicana, pero se diferencia de otras obras de este género por su sincera crudeza que hasta revela delitos de guerra que cometieron los insurgentes.
153 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1915
About the author
Mariano Azuela
70 books68 followersMariano Azuela González was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism.
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June 11, 2019
The author (1873-1952) knows first-hand what he writes about because he joined as a doctor an army that was part of Pancho Villa’s forces in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-14. What he saw and later wrote about soured him on the Revolution. He came to believe that the social justice being promoted by the revolt was equalized by the evils occurring.
The general who is the main character says “If a man has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely he should use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That is scarcely a matter of importance.” (Which reminds me of a passage in A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi All through the story there is a continuous backdrop of distant and near gunfire and explosions from grenades and rockets destroying the city [Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan]. “Outside, everyone is shooting, without knowing at whom or what for.”)
When they rout the federales, they take no prisoners, killing wounded and captured, although a few convert to the rebel cause.
The major, now made general, attends a war strategy session with other leaders and says, basically, “I don’t care - just tell me what to do.”
They go from town to town, seemingly aimlessly at times, entering a village, taking over the largest hacienda, humiliating or killing the owner, burning the books and artwork, taking the jewelry and silverware, drinking the booze until they are in a several-day stupor, gambling everything away on cards, dice and cockfights. Then the burn the mansion. Sometimes they shoot the priest. The carry on with (willing) 12- and 14-year old girls who are already prostitutes.
Whereas early in the Revolution the villagers welcomed them with church bells, flags, music and parades, now they hide in the hills. The ideals of the Revolution have disintegrated into serial episodes of debauchery as the army travels from village to village. The ending speaks volumes
The introduction it says that many consider this book the book about the Mexican Revolution – that’s sad.
The book is short with a lot of dialogue. There’s a lot of action so it kept my attention.
Top photo Mexican rebels from fineartamerica.com
Pancho Villa from cdn.Britannica.com
Mexican stamp honoring the author from .mlstatic.com/timbre-mariano-azuela-e...
The general who is the main character says “If a man has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely he should use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That is scarcely a matter of importance.” (Which reminds me of a passage in A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi All through the story there is a continuous backdrop of distant and near gunfire and explosions from grenades and rockets destroying the city [Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan]. “Outside, everyone is shooting, without knowing at whom or what for.”)
When they rout the federales, they take no prisoners, killing wounded and captured, although a few convert to the rebel cause.
The major, now made general, attends a war strategy session with other leaders and says, basically, “I don’t care - just tell me what to do.”
They go from town to town, seemingly aimlessly at times, entering a village, taking over the largest hacienda, humiliating or killing the owner, burning the books and artwork, taking the jewelry and silverware, drinking the booze until they are in a several-day stupor, gambling everything away on cards, dice and cockfights. Then the burn the mansion. Sometimes they shoot the priest. The carry on with (willing) 12- and 14-year old girls who are already prostitutes.
Whereas early in the Revolution the villagers welcomed them with church bells, flags, music and parades, now they hide in the hills. The ideals of the Revolution have disintegrated into serial episodes of debauchery as the army travels from village to village. The ending speaks volumes
The introduction it says that many consider this book the book about the Mexican Revolution – that’s sad.
The book is short with a lot of dialogue. There’s a lot of action so it kept my attention.
Top photo Mexican rebels from fineartamerica.com
Pancho Villa from cdn.Britannica.com
Mexican stamp honoring the author from .mlstatic.com/timbre-mariano-azuela-e...
November 8, 2016
Strong fiction set in the middle of the Mexican Revolution.
This review is bilingual. First, you will find the English version and after that one, you will find the Spanish version.
Esta crítica es bilingüe. Primero, encontrarán la versión en Inglés, y luego de esa, encontrarán la versión en Español.
REVIEW IN ENGLISH
I had to read this novel as part of the Spanish program in high school, in my country, Costa Rica.
Los de Abajo that it can be translated as "The ones from bellow". I think it's a wordgame, since indeed the main characters are from the low levels of society but also, most of them are soldiers that supposed to be very brave, so they have a lot "balls" that indeed they can be found...
...well bellow.
This book is a fictional story set in the middle of the Mexican Revolutionary War (1910-1920) and it's written by the mexican, Mariano Azuela, who was a military medic in that war, in fact he had to exile himself to El Paso, Texas, and it was there that he wrote this book, first in segments published on a local newspaper and later it was published finally as a novel.
A good thing about the book while it mentions big names like Pancho Villa, all those historic characters are secondary and in many times only mentioned and not actually having active roles in the story. The book narrates the fictional revolutionary campaign of Colonel Demetrio Macías, and in almost the whole book, the reader perceived the events through the eyes and opinions of Luis Cervantes, a young idealist man who joined the Macías' insurgent army.
Another good thing about the book is that the author, Mariano Azuela, didn't glorify the war but without any remorse, it portraited as something dark, violent and senseless. The novel shows how ironic is the situation of the revolutionary forces where they have battled for years without having any real political position or even knowing why they were in either side of the war.
Also shows how poverty was ruling in the Mexican towns to an extreme that even the revolutionary soldiers have money but the towns didn't have anything to sell, barely surviving, questioning how any good can be doing that revolutionary war to the civilians in the middle of the battling.
Irony is a strong issue in the narrative of the story, since the very beginning of it is based on it, due that Demetrio Macías, the main character didn't have any interest to be part of the revolution but when an enemy of Macías, labeled him as a member of the revolutionary forces, the Federal army tried to arrest him, but it provoked instead that he would form his own ragtag army and entering, for real, in the revolution.
Moreover, I think that Mariano Azuela with intention or not, he acomplished perfectly with this novel to show the seven deadly sins: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony, where the main character, Demetrio Macías is guilty of each sin at some point in his life, but also the rest of the characters are guilty of some of those sins. Showing that in a war, and even worse, a civil war (since making a war to destroy another's country is bad, making one to destroy your own's country is even worse), the sins run free causing amok.
--o--
CRITICA EN ESPAÑOL
Yo tuve que leer esta novela como parte del programa de Español en el colegio, en mi país, Costa Rica.
Los de Abajo pienso que es un juego de palabras, ya que en efecto los personajes principales son de los nivels bajos de la sociedad pero también, la mayoría de ellos son soldados que se supone son muy valientes, o sea ellos tienen muchas "bolas" que en efecto pueden ser encontradas...
...bueno abajo.
Este libro es una historia ficticia situada en medio de la Guerra Revolucionaria Mexicana (1910-1920), y está escrita, por el mexicano, Mariano Azuela, que fué medico militar en esa guerra, de hecho he tuvo que exiliarse a sí mismo a El Paso, Texas, y fué allí donde el escribió el libro, primero en segmentos publicados en un periódico local y después fué publicada finalmente como novela. Un cosa buena sobre el libro es que aunque menciona nombres grandes como Pancho Villa, todos esos personajes históricos son secundarios y en muchas casos solo mencionados y no tiene roles activos en la historia.
El libro narra la ficticia campaña revolucionaria del Coronel Demetrio Macías y en casi todo el libro, el lector percibe los eventos a través de los ojos y opiniones de Luis Cervantes, un joven idealista que se une a la armada insurgente de Macías. Otra cosa buena del libro es que el autor, Mariano Azuela, no glorifica la guerra sino que sin ningún remordimiento, la muestra como algo oscuro, violento y sin sentido.
La novela muestra que irónica es la situación de las fuerzas revolucionarias donde ellos han batallado por años sin tener ninguna verdadera posición política o incluso saber porqué están ellos en cualquier lado de la guerra.
También muestra como la pobreza reina en los pueblos Mexicanos a un extremo que incluso los soldados revolucionarios tienen dinero pero los pueblos no tienen nada para vender, apenas sobreviviendo, cuestionando que bien puede estar haciendo esta guerra revolucionaria a los civiles en medio de la batalla.
La ironía es un punto fuerte en la narrativa de la historia, ya que desde el mismo principio de ella está basado en esto, debido a que Demetrio Macías, el personaje principal no tiene ningún interés en ser parte de la revolución pero cuando un enemigo de Macías, lo marca como miembro de las fuerzas revolucionarias, el ejército Federal trata de arrestarlo, pero esto provoca en su lugar que él vaya a formar su propia armada de desarrapados y entrando, de verdad, en la revolución.
También, yo pienso que Mariano Azuela con intención o no, logró perfectamente con esta novela mostrar los siete pecados mortales: Ira, Codicia, Pereza, Orgullo, Lujuria, Envidia y Glotonería, donde el personaje principal, Demetrio Macías es culpable de cada pecado en algún punto de su vida, pero también el resto de los personajes son culpables de algunos de estos pecados.
Demostrando que en una guerra, y todavía peor, una guerra civil (ya que hacer una guerra para destruir el país de otro es malo, pero hacer una para destruir tu propio país es peor), los pecados corren libres causando destrucción.
This review is bilingual. First, you will find the English version and after that one, you will find the Spanish version.
Esta crítica es bilingüe. Primero, encontrarán la versión en Inglés, y luego de esa, encontrarán la versión en Español.
REVIEW IN ENGLISH
I had to read this novel as part of the Spanish program in high school, in my country, Costa Rica.
Los de Abajo that it can be translated as "The ones from bellow". I think it's a wordgame, since indeed the main characters are from the low levels of society but also, most of them are soldiers that supposed to be very brave, so they have a lot "balls" that indeed they can be found...
...well bellow.
This book is a fictional story set in the middle of the Mexican Revolutionary War (1910-1920) and it's written by the mexican, Mariano Azuela, who was a military medic in that war, in fact he had to exile himself to El Paso, Texas, and it was there that he wrote this book, first in segments published on a local newspaper and later it was published finally as a novel.
A good thing about the book while it mentions big names like Pancho Villa, all those historic characters are secondary and in many times only mentioned and not actually having active roles in the story. The book narrates the fictional revolutionary campaign of Colonel Demetrio Macías, and in almost the whole book, the reader perceived the events through the eyes and opinions of Luis Cervantes, a young idealist man who joined the Macías' insurgent army.
Another good thing about the book is that the author, Mariano Azuela, didn't glorify the war but without any remorse, it portraited as something dark, violent and senseless. The novel shows how ironic is the situation of the revolutionary forces where they have battled for years without having any real political position or even knowing why they were in either side of the war.
Also shows how poverty was ruling in the Mexican towns to an extreme that even the revolutionary soldiers have money but the towns didn't have anything to sell, barely surviving, questioning how any good can be doing that revolutionary war to the civilians in the middle of the battling.
Irony is a strong issue in the narrative of the story, since the very beginning of it is based on it, due that Demetrio Macías, the main character didn't have any interest to be part of the revolution but when an enemy of Macías, labeled him as a member of the revolutionary forces, the Federal army tried to arrest him, but it provoked instead that he would form his own ragtag army and entering, for real, in the revolution.
Moreover, I think that Mariano Azuela with intention or not, he acomplished perfectly with this novel to show the seven deadly sins: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony, where the main character, Demetrio Macías is guilty of each sin at some point in his life, but also the rest of the characters are guilty of some of those sins. Showing that in a war, and even worse, a civil war (since making a war to destroy another's country is bad, making one to destroy your own's country is even worse), the sins run free causing amok.
--o--
CRITICA EN ESPAÑOL
Yo tuve que leer esta novela como parte del programa de Español en el colegio, en mi país, Costa Rica.
Los de Abajo pienso que es un juego de palabras, ya que en efecto los personajes principales son de los nivels bajos de la sociedad pero también, la mayoría de ellos son soldados que se supone son muy valientes, o sea ellos tienen muchas "bolas" que en efecto pueden ser encontradas...
...bueno abajo.
Este libro es una historia ficticia situada en medio de la Guerra Revolucionaria Mexicana (1910-1920), y está escrita, por el mexicano, Mariano Azuela, que fué medico militar en esa guerra, de hecho he tuvo que exiliarse a sí mismo a El Paso, Texas, y fué allí donde el escribió el libro, primero en segmentos publicados en un periódico local y después fué publicada finalmente como novela. Un cosa buena sobre el libro es que aunque menciona nombres grandes como Pancho Villa, todos esos personajes históricos son secundarios y en muchas casos solo mencionados y no tiene roles activos en la historia.
El libro narra la ficticia campaña revolucionaria del Coronel Demetrio Macías y en casi todo el libro, el lector percibe los eventos a través de los ojos y opiniones de Luis Cervantes, un joven idealista que se une a la armada insurgente de Macías. Otra cosa buena del libro es que el autor, Mariano Azuela, no glorifica la guerra sino que sin ningún remordimiento, la muestra como algo oscuro, violento y sin sentido.
La novela muestra que irónica es la situación de las fuerzas revolucionarias donde ellos han batallado por años sin tener ninguna verdadera posición política o incluso saber porqué están ellos en cualquier lado de la guerra.
También muestra como la pobreza reina en los pueblos Mexicanos a un extremo que incluso los soldados revolucionarios tienen dinero pero los pueblos no tienen nada para vender, apenas sobreviviendo, cuestionando que bien puede estar haciendo esta guerra revolucionaria a los civiles en medio de la batalla.
La ironía es un punto fuerte en la narrativa de la historia, ya que desde el mismo principio de ella está basado en esto, debido a que Demetrio Macías, el personaje principal no tiene ningún interés en ser parte de la revolución pero cuando un enemigo de Macías, lo marca como miembro de las fuerzas revolucionarias, el ejército Federal trata de arrestarlo, pero esto provoca en su lugar que él vaya a formar su propia armada de desarrapados y entrando, de verdad, en la revolución.
También, yo pienso que Mariano Azuela con intención o no, logró perfectamente con esta novela mostrar los siete pecados mortales: Ira, Codicia, Pereza, Orgullo, Lujuria, Envidia y Glotonería, donde el personaje principal, Demetrio Macías es culpable de cada pecado en algún punto de su vida, pero también el resto de los personajes son culpables de algunos de estos pecados.
Demostrando que en una guerra, y todavía peor, una guerra civil (ya que hacer una guerra para destruir el país de otro es malo, pero hacer una para destruir tu propio país es peor), los pecados corren libres causando destrucción.
September 4, 2024
Siempre hay que tratar de mirar el vaso medio lleno, y esta vez no será la excepción.
Lo bueno es que el libro es acerca de la revolución mexicana. Lo malo es que, primero, lo tuve que leer cuando estaba en la escuela hace muchos años y no me gustó. Le di otra oportunidad leyéndolo de nuevo... y nada, el mismo tono y ritmo aburrido.
En mi opinión bastante personal y humilde, no es mi tipo de lectura. Muy lenta y de la forma en que está hecha... meh, no es para mí.
No lo recomiendo sencillamente porque no es mi estilo de literatura y la historia no engancha tanto, a pesar de ser un tema interesante. No tengo nada en contra del libro o el autor, así que quizás podría leer algunas reseñas por ahí e interiorizarme un poco más en este libro, pero no me gustó.
Lo bueno es que el libro es acerca de la revolución mexicana. Lo malo es que, primero, lo tuve que leer cuando estaba en la escuela hace muchos años y no me gustó. Le di otra oportunidad leyéndolo de nuevo... y nada, el mismo tono y ritmo aburrido.
En mi opinión bastante personal y humilde, no es mi tipo de lectura. Muy lenta y de la forma en que está hecha... meh, no es para mí.
No lo recomiendo sencillamente porque no es mi estilo de literatura y la historia no engancha tanto, a pesar de ser un tema interesante. No tengo nada en contra del libro o el autor, así que quizás podría leer algunas reseñas por ahí e interiorizarme un poco más en este libro, pero no me gustó.
November 20, 2023
Underdogs often command some degree of sympathy, simply by virtue of the fact that they are fighting against superior odds. And at least some of the Mexican revolutionaries who fight their way through Mariano Azuela’s 1915 novel The Underdogs will no doubt enlist reader sympathies – even as the thoughtful reader may question some of the motivations of some of those revolutionaries.
When Azuela wrote The Underdogs – its title in the original Spanish was Los de abajo, or Those from Below – he was writing from experience. A physician by training, he served as a combat medic in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. And the picture that he draws of that war is a grim one – a tableau that combines high ideals with muddled execution, a great deal of uncertainty, and a good deal of bloody violence.
Readers outside of Mexico may not be familiar with the events set forth in The Underdogs -- a novel that, in its English printing, has the subtitle A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Therefore, in hopes of helping any non-Mexican readers who are not already familiar with the events of la Revolución Mexicana, I offer a brief setting-forth of the revolution’s various phases or fases:
Fase Uno (Phase 1), 1910-11: Francisco Madero, a leader committed to democracy, overthrows General Porfirio Díaz, an autocrat who had ruled Mexico for 30 years.
Fase Dos (Phase 2), 1913: General Victoriano Huerta, an autocrat like Díaz, takes over the government. The pro-democracy Madero and his vice president are murdered, almost certainly on Huerta’s orders.
Fase Tres (Phase 3), 1913-15: Huerta’s dictatorial rule is opposed by four leaders – Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata. By 1915, this alliance has defeated Huerta and forced him to flee Mexico.
Fase Cuatro (Phase 4), 1915-20: The alliance breaks up, with Carranza and Obregón pitted against Villa and Zapata.
Confused yet? Considering the chaotic turns of events that characterized this revolution, it should be no surprise that the revolutionaries who are the main characters of Los de abajo sometimes seem unsure who or what they are revolting against, or why. Indeed, author Azuela himself went from following Carranza to following Villa, and some of his perspectives regarding the revolutionary way of life seem starkly cynical.
The protagonist of The Underdogs, and the leader of the revolutionary band whom the reader follows, is one Demetrio Macías. An effective leader and man of action, Demetrio is also someone who originally joined the revolution for reasons having as much to do with the personal as with the political.
In contrast with Demetrio’s down-to-earth, realistic approach to revolution – trying to make sure that his men have food to eat, ammunition to fight with, that sort of thing – one also sees the idealistic side of revolution, in the form of Luis Cervantes, a high-minded young man who wants to join a fight that he’s written a great deal about but not seen much of.
When he first meets the revolutionaries that he has been seeking out, Luis declares grandiloquently that “The revolution benefits the poor, the ignorant, all those who have been slaves all their lives, all the unhappy people who do not even suspect they are poor because the rich who stand above them, the rich who rule them, change their blood and sweat and tears into gold…” But he spends the first part of his time with the revolutionary forces suffering from a bullet wound and wondering whether he’ll be executed as a federal spy.
Luis’s naivete makes him a good surrogate for the reader, as Demetrio eventually takes the lad under his wing and starts teaching Luis the basics of fighting in this revolution – like attending to the tactical details most likely to ensure battlefield success. Preparing for an assault on a group of federales, Demetrio dismisses out of hand Luis’s suggestion of reconnoitering the federal position or seeking out a guide:
“No, curro….We hit ’em when they least expect it, and tha’s that. Tha’s how we’ve always done it, many times before, and it’s how we’ll always do it. Ever seen how squirrels stick their heads outta their holes if ya fill ’em up with water? Well, these damned little conservative mongrels will come out just as stunned when they hear the first shots. They’ll come out, and we’ll be there ready to use their heads as target practice.”
The theme of disillusionment quickly becomes pre-eminent in Los de abajo. When Demetrio’s forces join with those of General Pánfilo Natera, in preparation for an (ultimately unsuccessful) attack on the town of Zacatecas, Luis Cervantes encounters an acquaintance named Solis, an officer in Natera’s army. Observing with mild irony Luis’s revolutionary zeal, Solis sets forth with some asperity his own experience of the revolution:
I hoped to find a meadow at the end of the road. I found a swamp. Facts are bitter; so are men. That bitterness eats your heart out; it is poison, dry rot. Enthusiasm, hope, ideals, happiness – vain dreams, vain dreams….When that’s over, you have a choice. Either you turn bandit, like the rest, or the timeservers will swamp you…”
Anticipating the shocked Luis’s next question, Solis adds, “You ask me why I am still a rebel? Well, the revolution is like a hurricane: if you’re not in it, you’re not a man…you’re a leaf, a dead leaf, blown by the wind.”
But it takes Luis time to learn the realities of the revolution – and some truths about himself as well. Luis meets a wild set of supporting characters – prominent among them a tough-minded camp follower nicknamed “War Paint,” who regularly bestows her vividly expressed contempt upon everyone around her – and is dismayed at how the rebels behave. Seeing all the looting that goes on when the rebels have taken a town from which federales and their sympathizers have fled, Luis denounces the brigandage that he sees around him, complaining that “this sort of thing hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!” In reply, Demetrio dryly points out that Luis himself has stolen a box of diamond earrings.
The revolutionary band’s wanderings and encounters, with plenty of drinking and quarrelling and some sexual activity, come to seem increasingly pointless – more like a rock band’s on-tour misadventures than a military campaign. And the revolution starts to become an end in itself.
Part Three of The Underdogs is set in May of 1915, by which time the revolution has settled into its singularly unfocused fourth phase. And this particularly grim part of the book centers around this quote from a poetry-minded revolutionary named Valderrama: “Villa? Obregón? Carranza? What’s the difference? I love the revolution like a volcano in eruption; I love the volcano because it’s a volcano – the revolution, because it’s the revolution! What do I care about the stones left above or below after the cataclysm? What are they to me?” In other words, the point of the revolution is to keep on fighting the revolution.
One of the revolutionaries, Anastasio Montanez, asks an eminently sensible question: “What I can’t get into my head…is why we keep on fighting. Didn’t we finish off this man Huerta and his Federation?” His fellow soldiers only laugh at him in response, and the novel’s narrator thus sums up the state of mind behind the soldiers’ laughter: “If a man has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely he should use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That is scarcely a matter of importance.”
Even the renowned Pancho Villa – the charismatic leader for whom they are fighting – comes to be seen through the same lens of disillusionment. When news comes that Villa has been defeated at Celaya by Obregon’s forces, the dispirited revolutionaries fall into “a lugubrious silence”, and the narrator sums up their state of mind by observing that “Villa defeated was a fallen god; when gods cease to be omnipotent, they are nothing.”
The book’s cynical outlook regarding the revolution is reinforced one last time, by an affecting scene when Demetrio briefly gets to see his beautiful young wife and their son, after a separation of two years. Demetrio makes clear to his wife that he intends to return to the revolution, even though his wife asks him to stay with her and expresses her certainty that this campaign will be his last:
”Why do you keep on fighting, Demetrio?”
Demetrio frowned deeply. Picking up a stone absent-mindedly, he threw it to the bottom of the canyon. Then he stared pensively into the abyss, watching the arch of its flight.
“Look at that stone; how it keeps on going….”
Once again, a fighter cannot explain why the fight must continue; the revolution has become a perpetual-motion machine of blood and violence. It is against the backdrop of this tragic final conversation that The Underdogs moves toward its grim resolution.
Novelist Azuela left the Mexican Revolution in 1915 and took refuge on the U.S. side of the border, at El Paso, Texas, where he wrote The Underdogs. The book succeeds because of the immediacy of detail with which Azuela sets forth the day-to-day life of the revolutionaries – and succeeds even more through its moving depiction of how soldiers who begin by fighting for high ideals can end up fighting for nothing more than the “right” to keep on fighting.
When Azuela wrote The Underdogs – its title in the original Spanish was Los de abajo, or Those from Below – he was writing from experience. A physician by training, he served as a combat medic in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. And the picture that he draws of that war is a grim one – a tableau that combines high ideals with muddled execution, a great deal of uncertainty, and a good deal of bloody violence.
Readers outside of Mexico may not be familiar with the events set forth in The Underdogs -- a novel that, in its English printing, has the subtitle A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Therefore, in hopes of helping any non-Mexican readers who are not already familiar with the events of la Revolución Mexicana, I offer a brief setting-forth of the revolution’s various phases or fases:
Fase Uno (Phase 1), 1910-11: Francisco Madero, a leader committed to democracy, overthrows General Porfirio Díaz, an autocrat who had ruled Mexico for 30 years.
Fase Dos (Phase 2), 1913: General Victoriano Huerta, an autocrat like Díaz, takes over the government. The pro-democracy Madero and his vice president are murdered, almost certainly on Huerta’s orders.
Fase Tres (Phase 3), 1913-15: Huerta’s dictatorial rule is opposed by four leaders – Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata. By 1915, this alliance has defeated Huerta and forced him to flee Mexico.
Fase Cuatro (Phase 4), 1915-20: The alliance breaks up, with Carranza and Obregón pitted against Villa and Zapata.
Confused yet? Considering the chaotic turns of events that characterized this revolution, it should be no surprise that the revolutionaries who are the main characters of Los de abajo sometimes seem unsure who or what they are revolting against, or why. Indeed, author Azuela himself went from following Carranza to following Villa, and some of his perspectives regarding the revolutionary way of life seem starkly cynical.
The protagonist of The Underdogs, and the leader of the revolutionary band whom the reader follows, is one Demetrio Macías. An effective leader and man of action, Demetrio is also someone who originally joined the revolution for reasons having as much to do with the personal as with the political.
In contrast with Demetrio’s down-to-earth, realistic approach to revolution – trying to make sure that his men have food to eat, ammunition to fight with, that sort of thing – one also sees the idealistic side of revolution, in the form of Luis Cervantes, a high-minded young man who wants to join a fight that he’s written a great deal about but not seen much of.
When he first meets the revolutionaries that he has been seeking out, Luis declares grandiloquently that “The revolution benefits the poor, the ignorant, all those who have been slaves all their lives, all the unhappy people who do not even suspect they are poor because the rich who stand above them, the rich who rule them, change their blood and sweat and tears into gold…” But he spends the first part of his time with the revolutionary forces suffering from a bullet wound and wondering whether he’ll be executed as a federal spy.
Luis’s naivete makes him a good surrogate for the reader, as Demetrio eventually takes the lad under his wing and starts teaching Luis the basics of fighting in this revolution – like attending to the tactical details most likely to ensure battlefield success. Preparing for an assault on a group of federales, Demetrio dismisses out of hand Luis’s suggestion of reconnoitering the federal position or seeking out a guide:
“No, curro….We hit ’em when they least expect it, and tha’s that. Tha’s how we’ve always done it, many times before, and it’s how we’ll always do it. Ever seen how squirrels stick their heads outta their holes if ya fill ’em up with water? Well, these damned little conservative mongrels will come out just as stunned when they hear the first shots. They’ll come out, and we’ll be there ready to use their heads as target practice.”
The theme of disillusionment quickly becomes pre-eminent in Los de abajo. When Demetrio’s forces join with those of General Pánfilo Natera, in preparation for an (ultimately unsuccessful) attack on the town of Zacatecas, Luis Cervantes encounters an acquaintance named Solis, an officer in Natera’s army. Observing with mild irony Luis’s revolutionary zeal, Solis sets forth with some asperity his own experience of the revolution:
I hoped to find a meadow at the end of the road. I found a swamp. Facts are bitter; so are men. That bitterness eats your heart out; it is poison, dry rot. Enthusiasm, hope, ideals, happiness – vain dreams, vain dreams….When that’s over, you have a choice. Either you turn bandit, like the rest, or the timeservers will swamp you…”
Anticipating the shocked Luis’s next question, Solis adds, “You ask me why I am still a rebel? Well, the revolution is like a hurricane: if you’re not in it, you’re not a man…you’re a leaf, a dead leaf, blown by the wind.”
But it takes Luis time to learn the realities of the revolution – and some truths about himself as well. Luis meets a wild set of supporting characters – prominent among them a tough-minded camp follower nicknamed “War Paint,” who regularly bestows her vividly expressed contempt upon everyone around her – and is dismayed at how the rebels behave. Seeing all the looting that goes on when the rebels have taken a town from which federales and their sympathizers have fled, Luis denounces the brigandage that he sees around him, complaining that “this sort of thing hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!” In reply, Demetrio dryly points out that Luis himself has stolen a box of diamond earrings.
The revolutionary band’s wanderings and encounters, with plenty of drinking and quarrelling and some sexual activity, come to seem increasingly pointless – more like a rock band’s on-tour misadventures than a military campaign. And the revolution starts to become an end in itself.
Part Three of The Underdogs is set in May of 1915, by which time the revolution has settled into its singularly unfocused fourth phase. And this particularly grim part of the book centers around this quote from a poetry-minded revolutionary named Valderrama: “Villa? Obregón? Carranza? What’s the difference? I love the revolution like a volcano in eruption; I love the volcano because it’s a volcano – the revolution, because it’s the revolution! What do I care about the stones left above or below after the cataclysm? What are they to me?” In other words, the point of the revolution is to keep on fighting the revolution.
One of the revolutionaries, Anastasio Montanez, asks an eminently sensible question: “What I can’t get into my head…is why we keep on fighting. Didn’t we finish off this man Huerta and his Federation?” His fellow soldiers only laugh at him in response, and the novel’s narrator thus sums up the state of mind behind the soldiers’ laughter: “If a man has a rifle in his hands and a beltful of cartridges, surely he should use them. That means fighting. Against whom? For whom? That is scarcely a matter of importance.”
Even the renowned Pancho Villa – the charismatic leader for whom they are fighting – comes to be seen through the same lens of disillusionment. When news comes that Villa has been defeated at Celaya by Obregon’s forces, the dispirited revolutionaries fall into “a lugubrious silence”, and the narrator sums up their state of mind by observing that “Villa defeated was a fallen god; when gods cease to be omnipotent, they are nothing.”
The book’s cynical outlook regarding the revolution is reinforced one last time, by an affecting scene when Demetrio briefly gets to see his beautiful young wife and their son, after a separation of two years. Demetrio makes clear to his wife that he intends to return to the revolution, even though his wife asks him to stay with her and expresses her certainty that this campaign will be his last:
”Why do you keep on fighting, Demetrio?”
Demetrio frowned deeply. Picking up a stone absent-mindedly, he threw it to the bottom of the canyon. Then he stared pensively into the abyss, watching the arch of its flight.
“Look at that stone; how it keeps on going….”
Once again, a fighter cannot explain why the fight must continue; the revolution has become a perpetual-motion machine of blood and violence. It is against the backdrop of this tragic final conversation that The Underdogs moves toward its grim resolution.
Novelist Azuela left the Mexican Revolution in 1915 and took refuge on the U.S. side of the border, at El Paso, Texas, where he wrote The Underdogs. The book succeeds because of the immediacy of detail with which Azuela sets forth the day-to-day life of the revolutionaries – and succeeds even more through its moving depiction of how soldiers who begin by fighting for high ideals can end up fighting for nothing more than the “right” to keep on fighting.
September 3, 2020
“Ο Mariano Azuela, περισσότερο από οποιονδήποτε άλλο μυθιστοριογράφο της Μεξικανικής Επανάστασης, σηκώνει τη βαριά πέτρα της ιστορίας για να δει τι υπάρχει κάτω από αυτό».
- Carlos Fuentes
Η πένα που έγραψε αυτή την νεκρολογία της επανάστασης στη Λατινική Αμερική είναι απο μόνη της ένα μπαρουτοκαπνισμένο όπλο που γράφει πυροβολώντας στη μάχη κατά των εκμεταλλευτών της μεξικανικής γης που την πότιζαν με ανθρώπινο αίμα και την έσκαβαν ως τις πύλες της κολάσεως, στα έγκατα και στα σπλάχνα της αβύσσου και της σάρκας μέχρι να βρουν το βάρος της ανθρώπινης ιστορίας σε χρυσό.
Οι καταδικασμένοι, μας παρουσιάζουν έτσι μια ευρεία άποψη των κοινωνικών, πολιτικών και ιστορικών χαρακτηριστικών του Μεξικού και, κατ 'επέκταση, της Λατινικής Αμερικής: είναι ένα υποβαθμισμένο έπος αλλά και ένα χρονικό πολιτικής αποτυχίας και επίδοξου έθνους. Δεν υπάρχουν μυθιστορήματα της Λατινικής Αμερικής πριν από την ανεξαρτησία τη δεκαετία του 1820. Είναι το έθνος που απαιτεί την αφήγησή του, αλλά και ότι η αφήγηση χρειάζεται ένα έθνος για να διηγηθεί. Αυτό, πράγματι, συνδέει την προέλευση του μυθιστορήματος της Βόρειας Αμερικής και της Λατινικής Αμερικής. Ό, τι κι αν είναι, εμφανίστηκαν για πρώτη φορά μαζί με τη «γέννηση του έθνους».
Οι άνθρωποι του Μεξικού είναι «οι στρατιές της νύχτας» της φωτιάς, της βίαιας αρπαγής υλικών ,πνευματικών και άϋλων επεξεργασμένων ιδεών και καταστάσεων. Είναι θρησκεία, λογική, πολιτική, πίστη και ιδεολογία. Υπήρξε καταστολή στο Μεξικό - πολιτικών κομμάτων, ατόμων, συνδικάτων, αγροτικών κινημάτων, δημοσιογράφων - αλλά οι συγγραφείς έχουν διατηρήσει έναν υψηλό βαθμό κριτικής ανεξαρτησίας.
Είναι λογοτεχνία λοιπόν, και φαντασία και όνειρα με γλυκές ελπίδες, με τραγούδια χαρμολύπης, με παιδικά γέλια και μητρικές αγκαλιές ζεστές απο τα δάκρυα και μυρωμένες απο τις προσευχές που ψιθυρίζονται συνεχώς για να ακούσει τις εκκλήσεις όποιος Θεός υπάρχει ή να γεννηθεί απο αυτές και να λυτρώσει με κουράγιο ψυχές και σκέψεις, σπονδή στο βωμό Ιστορίας, στο βιβλίο του Azuela.
Δίνει στον αναγνώστη την εντύπωση μιας βίαιης, αυθόρμητης έκρηξης. Αλλά προειδοποιήστε. Η αμεσότητα που φέρνει ο Αζουέλα στον λαό είναι αποτέλεσμα της μακράς πειναλέας πολυμέλειας και της άγονης, σκληρής μεταμέλειας, της καταπίεσης που φόρεσαν σαν ακάνθινο στεφάνι, σαν κορώνα, σαν εύφημη μνεία στον καθολικά λοβοτομημένο και διαμελισμένο λαό : μισή χιλιετία αυταρχικής κυριαρχίας από τους Αζτέκους, τις αποικιακές και δημοκρατικές δυνάμεις. Εάν αυτό το βάρος του παρελθόντος εξηγεί τουλάχιστον εν μέρει τη βαρβαρότητα του παρόντος, ισχύει όχι μόνο για τη μάζα του λαού αλλά και για τους πρωταγωνιστές, τους ηγέτες, τα άτομα που ωθεί ο Αζουέλα: ο επαναστάτης στρατηγός Δημήτριος και ο επαναστάτης διανοούμενος «Curro» Θερβάντες, συνοδευόμενος από πλήθος επεναστατικών δορυφόρων υποστήριξης.
Όπως οι άνθρωποι, έτσι και οι αντάρτες που πρωτοστατούν στους καταδικασμένους, είναι κληρονόμοι καταπιστευμάτων αυταρχικής εξουσίας και υποταγής. Αλλά αν η επαναστατική μάζα κινείται, ωστόσο τυφλά,ενάντια στο παρελθόν, οι παραζαλισμένοι απο ποτό, καπνό, χώμα και αίμα στρατιώτες και βαθμοφόροι ηγέτες φατριών της επαναστατημένης ουτοπίας επαναλαμβάνουν το παρελθόν.
Κάνουν πρόβες για το ρόλο του ιθαγενούς, ισπανικού και ρεπουμπλικανικού καταπιεστή, ο συνταγματάρχης αντάρτης στο ενεργό μέτωπο και ο στρατιωτικός γιατρός από την πνευματική πλευρά.
Και οι δύο βλέπουν το Μεξικό ως προσωπική κληρονομιά τους. Θέλουν να είναι πατέρες, δικαστές, δάσκαλοι, προστάτες, φυλακισμένοι και, αν χρειαστεί, εκτελεστές του λαού, αλλά πάντα στο όνομα των ανθρώπων της επανάστασης και της ελευθερίας με ισονομία και ίσα κοινωνικά και ταξικά δικαώματα. Ποτέ και πουθενά. Η πολιτική θεωρία που υποστηρίζει την ομοσπονδιοποίηση της πολιτικής και κοινωνικής οργάνωσης μιας χώρας είναι η άμοιρη μοίρα των επαναστατών.
Και γιατί οι εξαθλιωμένοι δούλοι άνθρωποι συνεχίζουν την επανάληψη του μαρτυρίου τους αγόγγυστα ή αυτοί που δρέπουν καρπούς απο όλα τα καρποφόρα κυβερνητικά δέντρα - στο βιβλίο εξυφαίνεται αυτή η κατάσταση ως απάτη συνομωτική με εξαιρετικά ρεαλιστική, κυνική αποτύπωση των κύριων χαρακτήρων - αδιάλειπτα, οι φτωχοί να πιστεύουν ότι αντιμετωπίζονται με κακή μεταχείριση από την υπάρχουσα κυβέρνηση και οι πλουσιότεροι ιδεαλιστές που αναζητούν μια αλλαγή για να γίνουν αυτό για το οποίοι αρχικά επαναστάτησαν.
Το βιβλίο διερευνά το αποτέλεσμα της ήττας για κάθε μία από αυτές τις ομάδες. Πολλές από τις γνώσεις του συγγραφέα σχετίζονται πολύ με το χάος που δημιουργείται από τις πιο σύγχρονες επαναστάσεις.
«Και όμως, ίσως αυτό το έπος των αποτυχιών (ή αποτυχημένο έπος) είναι ένα μεγάλο μυθιστόρημα γιατί, για όλο τον ρεαλισμό του, ακόμη και παρά τον κυνισμό του, εκπλήσσεται από έναν κόσμο που δεν καταλαβαίνει πλέον. Και αυτή η υπέροχη αίσθηση έκπληξης δίνει στο Los de abajo το μόνιμο θαύμα του».
-ΚΑΡΛΟΣ ΦΟΥΕΝΤΕΣ
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
- Carlos Fuentes
Η πένα που έγραψε αυτή την νεκρολογία της επανάστασης στη Λατινική Αμερική είναι απο μόνη της ένα μπαρουτοκαπνισμένο όπλο που γράφει πυροβολώντας στη μάχη κατά των εκμεταλλευτών της μεξικανικής γης που την πότιζαν με ανθρώπινο αίμα και την έσκαβαν ως τις πύλες της κολάσεως, στα έγκατα και στα σπλάχνα της αβύσσου και της σάρκας μέχρι να βρουν το βάρος της ανθρώπινης ιστορίας σε χρυσό.
Οι καταδικασμένοι, μας παρουσιάζουν έτσι μια ευρεία άποψη των κοινωνικών, πολιτικών και ιστορικών χαρακτηριστικών του Μεξικού και, κατ 'επέκταση, της Λατινικής Αμερικής: είναι ένα υποβαθμισμένο έπος αλλά και ένα χρονικό πολιτικής αποτυχίας και επίδοξου έθνους. Δεν υπάρχουν μυθιστορήματα της Λατινικής Αμερικής πριν από την ανεξαρτησία τη δεκαετία του 1820. Είναι το έθνος που απαιτεί την αφήγησή του, αλλά και ότι η αφήγηση χρειάζεται ένα έθνος για να διηγηθεί. Αυτό, πράγματι, συνδέει την προέλευση του μυθιστορήματος της Βόρειας Αμερικής και της Λατινικής Αμερικής. Ό, τι κι αν είναι, εμφανίστηκαν για πρώτη φορά μαζί με τη «γέννηση του έθνους».
Οι άνθρωποι του Μεξικού είναι «οι στρατιές της νύχτας» της φωτιάς, της βίαιας αρπαγής υλικών ,πνευματικών και άϋλων επεξεργασμένων ιδεών και καταστάσεων. Είναι θρησκεία, λογική, πολιτική, πίστη και ιδεολογία. Υπήρξε καταστολή στο Μεξικό - πολιτικών κομμάτων, ατόμων, συνδικάτων, αγροτικών κινημάτων, δημοσιογράφων - αλλά οι συγγραφείς έχουν διατηρήσει έναν υψηλό βαθμό κριτικής ανεξαρτησίας.
Είναι λογοτεχνία λοιπόν, και φαντασία και όνειρα με γλυκές ελπίδες, με τραγούδια χαρμολύπης, με παιδικά γέλια και μητρικές αγκαλιές ζεστές απο τα δάκρυα και μυρωμένες απο τις προσευχές που ψιθυρίζονται συνεχώς για να ακούσει τις εκκλήσεις όποιος Θεός υπάρχει ή να γεννηθεί απο αυτές και να λυτρώσει με κουράγιο ψυχές και σκέψεις, σπονδή στο βωμό Ιστορίας, στο βιβλίο του Azuela.
Δίνει στον αναγνώστη την εντύπωση μιας βίαιης, αυθόρμητης έκρηξης. Αλλά προειδοποιήστε. Η αμεσότητα που φέρνει ο Αζουέλα στον λαό είναι αποτέλεσμα της μακράς πειναλέας πολυμέλειας και της άγονης, σκληρής μεταμέλειας, της καταπίεσης που φόρεσαν σαν ακάνθινο στεφάνι, σαν κορώνα, σαν εύφημη μνεία στον καθολικά λοβοτομημένο και διαμελισμένο λαό : μισή χιλιετία αυταρχικής κυριαρχίας από τους Αζτέκους, τις αποικιακές και δημοκρατικές δυνάμεις. Εάν αυτό το βάρος του παρελθόντος εξηγεί τουλάχιστον εν μέρει τη βαρβαρότητα του παρόντος, ισχύει όχι μόνο για τη μάζα του λαού αλλά και για τους πρωταγωνιστές, τους ηγέτες, τα άτομα που ωθεί ο Αζουέλα: ο επαναστάτης στρατηγός Δημήτριος και ο επαναστάτης διανοούμενος «Curro» Θερβάντες, συνοδευόμενος από πλήθος επεναστατικών δορυφόρων υποστήριξης.
Όπως οι άνθρωποι, έτσι και οι αντάρτες που πρωτοστατούν στους καταδικασμένους, είναι κληρονόμοι καταπιστευμάτων αυταρχικής εξουσίας και υποταγής. Αλλά αν η επαναστατική μάζα κινείται, ωστόσο τυφλά,ενάντια στο παρελθόν, οι παραζαλισμένοι απο ποτό, καπνό, χώμα και αίμα στρατιώτες και βαθμοφόροι ηγέτες φατριών της επαναστατημένης ουτοπίας επαναλαμβάνουν το παρελθόν.
Κάνουν πρόβες για το ρόλο του ιθαγενούς, ισπανικού και ρεπουμπλικανικού καταπιεστή, ο συνταγματάρχης αντάρτης στο ενεργό μέτωπο και ο στρατιωτικός γιατρός από την πνευματική πλευρά.
Και οι δύο βλέπουν το Μεξικό ως προσωπική κληρονομιά τους. Θέλουν να είναι πατέρες, δικαστές, δάσκαλοι, προστάτες, φυλακισμένοι και, αν χρειαστεί, εκτελεστές του λαού, αλλά πάντα στο όνομα των ανθρώπων της επανάστασης και της ελευθερίας με ισονομία και ίσα κοινωνικά και ταξικά δικαώματα. Ποτέ και πουθενά. Η πολιτική θεωρία που υποστηρίζει την ομοσπονδιοποίηση της πολιτικής και κοινωνικής οργάνωσης μιας χώρας είναι η άμοιρη μοίρα των επαναστατών.
Και γιατί οι εξαθλιωμένοι δούλοι άνθρωποι συνεχίζουν την επανάληψη του μαρτυρίου τους αγόγγυστα ή αυτοί που δρέπουν καρπούς απο όλα τα καρποφόρα κυβερνητικά δέντρα - στο βιβλίο εξυφαίνεται αυτή η κατάσταση ως απάτη συνομωτική με εξαιρετικά ρεαλιστική, κυνική αποτύπωση των κύριων χαρακτήρων - αδιάλειπτα, οι φτωχοί να πιστεύουν ότι αντιμετωπίζονται με κακή μεταχείριση από την υπάρχουσα κυβέρνηση και οι πλουσιότεροι ιδεαλιστές που αναζητούν μια αλλαγή για να γίνουν αυτό για το οποίοι αρχικά επαναστάτησαν.
Το βιβλίο διερευνά το αποτέλεσμα της ήττας για κάθε μία από αυτές τις ομάδες. Πολλές από τις γνώσεις του συγγραφέα σχετίζονται πολύ με το χάος που δημιουργείται από τις πιο σύγχρονες επαναστάσεις.
«Και όμως, ίσως αυτό το έπος των αποτυχιών (ή αποτυχημένο έπος) είναι ένα μεγάλο μυθιστόρημα γιατί, για όλο τον ρεαλισμό του, ακόμη και παρά τον κυνισμό του, εκπλήσσεται από έναν κόσμο που δεν καταλαβαίνει πλέον. Και αυτή η υπέροχη αίσθηση έκπληξης δίνει στο Los de abajo το μόνιμο θαύμα του».
-ΚΑΡΛΟΣ ΦΟΥΕΝΤΕΣ
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
May 16, 2022
A novella set in Mexico during the Revolution of the early 20th century. I didn’t know anything about the author before reading the book, but seemingly he had been a military doctor with the rebel army of “Pancho” Villa, and during rest periods he made notes about incidents he had witnessed. I assume some of these were incorporated into the novel.
The two main characters are Demetrio Macías, initially the leader of a group of about 20 bandits, who later becomes a general in one of the revolutionary armies; and Luis Cervantes, a young doctor who has deserted from the Federal army. Macías is an Indian peasant - the author calls him an “Aztec”. Cervantes pretends to be a convert to the revolutionary cause, although in reality he deserted the government army for personal reasons. Demetrio is completely uneducated but ferocious in battle and skilled in tactics.
One of the main themes of the book is that Demetrio’s band do not become revolutionaries out of political conviction. Mostly they became outlaws almost by accident – by getting drunk and fighting with a policeman, or arguing with a landowner, and so on. Becoming a revolutionary allows each man to take back his pride. Early on the author describes the band riding to a new mission:
“The men threw out their chests as if to breathe the widening horizon, the immensity of the sky, the blue from the mountains and the fresh air, redolent with the various odors of the sierra. They spurred their horses to a gallop as if in that mad race they laid claims of possession to the earth. What man among them now remembered the stern chief of police, the growling policeman, or the conceited cacique? What man remembered his pitiful hut where he slaved away, always under the eyes of the owner or the ruthless and sullen foreman, always forced to rise before dawn, and to take up his shovel, basket, or goad, wearing himself out to earn a mere pitcher of atole and a handful of beans?”
On the other hand, the bandits/revolutionaries have the traditional hatred of the peasant for educated “city men”. Whenever the group captures a town, they take great delight in robbing, beating, humiliating and murdering the inhabitants. They loot everything they can and destroy everything they can’t. If they have a philosophy it’s simply one of revenge against the rich, the educated, and the town dwellers. They seek to live simply by plunder.
It's a compelling novel, but I should warn the reader that it’s full of descriptions of cruelty and sadism. The author gives us a vision of a sort of Hobbesian anarchy, where the only laws are those of the gun and the fist, and where the most violent people in society are free to do whatever they want. It’s a nightmarish vision, but I don’t doubt its accuracy. After all, Azuela was there.
The two main characters are Demetrio Macías, initially the leader of a group of about 20 bandits, who later becomes a general in one of the revolutionary armies; and Luis Cervantes, a young doctor who has deserted from the Federal army. Macías is an Indian peasant - the author calls him an “Aztec”. Cervantes pretends to be a convert to the revolutionary cause, although in reality he deserted the government army for personal reasons. Demetrio is completely uneducated but ferocious in battle and skilled in tactics.
One of the main themes of the book is that Demetrio’s band do not become revolutionaries out of political conviction. Mostly they became outlaws almost by accident – by getting drunk and fighting with a policeman, or arguing with a landowner, and so on. Becoming a revolutionary allows each man to take back his pride. Early on the author describes the band riding to a new mission:
“The men threw out their chests as if to breathe the widening horizon, the immensity of the sky, the blue from the mountains and the fresh air, redolent with the various odors of the sierra. They spurred their horses to a gallop as if in that mad race they laid claims of possession to the earth. What man among them now remembered the stern chief of police, the growling policeman, or the conceited cacique? What man remembered his pitiful hut where he slaved away, always under the eyes of the owner or the ruthless and sullen foreman, always forced to rise before dawn, and to take up his shovel, basket, or goad, wearing himself out to earn a mere pitcher of atole and a handful of beans?”
On the other hand, the bandits/revolutionaries have the traditional hatred of the peasant for educated “city men”. Whenever the group captures a town, they take great delight in robbing, beating, humiliating and murdering the inhabitants. They loot everything they can and destroy everything they can’t. If they have a philosophy it’s simply one of revenge against the rich, the educated, and the town dwellers. They seek to live simply by plunder.
It's a compelling novel, but I should warn the reader that it’s full of descriptions of cruelty and sadism. The author gives us a vision of a sort of Hobbesian anarchy, where the only laws are those of the gun and the fist, and where the most violent people in society are free to do whatever they want. It’s a nightmarish vision, but I don’t doubt its accuracy. After all, Azuela was there.
March 28, 2023
Casi me duermo leyendo esto, ya que para ser corto se me hizo largo y pesado. Muy aburrido y con poca chicha por masticar.
Entiendo que la idea es mostrar la violencia de una época bastante tensa en la historia mexicana pero los personajes son esbozos, panfletos que abogan por una personalidad y principios que se sienten débiles. El "héroe" principal es de tonalidad gris, sus seguidores igual de detestables e inmorales, luego hay otro personaje que sirve como contraposición a los analfabetas que es un hombre letrado que solo se ha acoplado a esa lucha para su propio beneficio y para ganar reconocimiento. Y por último, están las mujeres, quienes llevan el peor trato.
El caso es que si bien la idea de mostrar los grises del bando de los revolucionarios, porque vemos que no son perfectos y cometen grandes brutalidades (igual a los federales) como abusar de mujeres, robar por pueblos y campos, saquear casas y matar o torturar a inocentes que nada tienen que ver con el conflicto como talya que no participan activa y directamente... el problema está y radica en que el contenido narrativo me parece súper básico. No pude conectar con su manera tan superficial de contar la historia.
Empezando porque es una novela mayormente narrada a base de diálogos que mantienen el coloquialismo (con palabras del contexto que a veces se me hizo complicado seguir el hilo con las notas a pie de página). Pero la cuestión no es esa, sino que cuando el narrador intervenía en tercera persona a mí me parecía que estaba ante una obra de teatro por la forma tan seca y directa de exponer las escenas, todo lo que ocurría. Era demasiado simple y sin sabor, tampoco quería un libro lleno de florituras pero esto es casi que una serie o novela guionizada.
En fin, no me extiendo más. «Los de abajo» es apenas (me parece a mí) trazos poco claros y profundos sobre gente luchando por sus ideales y sus derechos humanos pero jodiendo a otros en el camino, tomando como telón de fondo la lucha tensionante entre federales y revolucionarios. Me atrevería a decir que más lástima me dieron las pobres mujeres y el trato que recibieron por los hombres, porque si ellos como campesinos, pobres y nobles estaban abajo en la pirámide social queda demostrado que ellas lo estaban incluso aún más. Que eso, me gustan las ideas más no la ejecución misma dentro de la historia.
P.D.: y el tratamiento al tema de la Pintada y Camila me pareció abominable, típico utilizarlas solo para tenerse miedo, odio y celos por los hombres. Pero no me puedo esperar mucho de una novela de principio de siglo XX publicada por un hombre.
Entiendo que la idea es mostrar la violencia de una época bastante tensa en la historia mexicana pero los personajes son esbozos, panfletos que abogan por una personalidad y principios que se sienten débiles. El "héroe" principal es de tonalidad gris, sus seguidores igual de detestables e inmorales, luego hay otro personaje que sirve como contraposición a los analfabetas que es un hombre letrado que solo se ha acoplado a esa lucha para su propio beneficio y para ganar reconocimiento. Y por último, están las mujeres, quienes llevan el peor trato.
El caso es que si bien la idea de mostrar los grises del bando de los revolucionarios, porque vemos que no son perfectos y cometen grandes brutalidades (igual a los federales) como abusar de mujeres, robar por pueblos y campos, saquear casas y matar o torturar a inocentes que nada tienen que ver con el conflicto como talya que no participan activa y directamente... el problema está y radica en que el contenido narrativo me parece súper básico. No pude conectar con su manera tan superficial de contar la historia.
Empezando porque es una novela mayormente narrada a base de diálogos que mantienen el coloquialismo (con palabras del contexto que a veces se me hizo complicado seguir el hilo con las notas a pie de página). Pero la cuestión no es esa, sino que cuando el narrador intervenía en tercera persona a mí me parecía que estaba ante una obra de teatro por la forma tan seca y directa de exponer las escenas, todo lo que ocurría. Era demasiado simple y sin sabor, tampoco quería un libro lleno de florituras pero esto es casi que una serie o novela guionizada.
En fin, no me extiendo más. «Los de abajo» es apenas (me parece a mí) trazos poco claros y profundos sobre gente luchando por sus ideales y sus derechos humanos pero jodiendo a otros en el camino, tomando como telón de fondo la lucha tensionante entre federales y revolucionarios. Me atrevería a decir que más lástima me dieron las pobres mujeres y el trato que recibieron por los hombres, porque si ellos como campesinos, pobres y nobles estaban abajo en la pirámide social queda demostrado que ellas lo estaban incluso aún más. Que eso, me gustan las ideas más no la ejecución misma dentro de la historia.
P.D.: y el tratamiento al tema de la Pintada y Camila me pareció abominable, típico utilizarlas solo para tenerse miedo, odio y celos por los hombres. Pero no me puedo esperar mucho de una novela de principio de siglo XX publicada por un hombre.
September 9, 2018
Wow. And I thought Blood Meridian was bleak...
February 26, 2014
Este maravilloso libro cuenta la vida de Demetrio Macias y su grupo de amigos durante la Revolución Mexicana, es una historia tan sencilla pero tan bien hecha que no es de extrañar que en un momento te haga reír y al otro te haga sentir un nudo en el estomago.
El uso del lenguaje es impecable, puedes oír a los personajes hablando en tu cabeza con la jerga de aquellos tiempos, imaginarte los paisajes por los que van avanzando, la gente que encuentran a su paso y te hace amar u odiar a sus personajes. El libro esta lleno de frases increíbles y conmovedoras, y aunque es imposible entender a 100% lo que lleva a los personajes a hacer lo que hacen y ser como son, parece un poco más fácil ponerte en los zapatos de algunos y terminas sufriendo sus penas y celebrando sus alegrías...
No cabe duda que esta lleno de emociones encontradas. Si les interesa empaparse un poco de la época sin que se convierta en una lección de historia, este libro es una gran opción.
Poco a poco le irán cobrando "voluntá"
El uso del lenguaje es impecable, puedes oír a los personajes hablando en tu cabeza con la jerga de aquellos tiempos, imaginarte los paisajes por los que van avanzando, la gente que encuentran a su paso y te hace amar u odiar a sus personajes. El libro esta lleno de frases increíbles y conmovedoras, y aunque es imposible entender a 100% lo que lleva a los personajes a hacer lo que hacen y ser como son, parece un poco más fácil ponerte en los zapatos de algunos y terminas sufriendo sus penas y celebrando sus alegrías...
No cabe duda que esta lleno de emociones encontradas. Si les interesa empaparse un poco de la época sin que se convierta en una lección de historia, este libro es una gran opción.
Poco a poco le irán cobrando "voluntá"
March 19, 2017
Foreword, by Carlos Fuentes
Introduction, by Sergio Waisman
Suggestions for Further Reading
Chronology of the Mexican Revolution
Chronology of Mariano Azuela's Life and Work
--The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution
Notes
Introduction, by Sergio Waisman
Suggestions for Further Reading
Chronology of the Mexican Revolution
Chronology of Mariano Azuela's Life and Work
--The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution
Notes
April 10, 2010
First of all, this is NOT a history book. If you're interested in learning about the Mexican Revolution pick up a history book.
Second of all, you didn't get the point. It's not about the life of rural Mexico, or how people lived, or how they lost their ideals. It's about joining "la bola" the mass of people fighting for no particular reason. The "campesinos" didn't really join the fight because they believed they were getting land and freedom, they joined because they believed in their leaders, joining the fight for the love of their "jefe" or simply to join "la bola".
I'm sure many of you will disagree with me, and I'm sure there were exceptions to what I'm saying, but I'm only commenting on what Mariano Azuela was trying to get across; don't forget, Azuela fought in the war.
Second of all, you didn't get the point. It's not about the life of rural Mexico, or how people lived, or how they lost their ideals. It's about joining "la bola" the mass of people fighting for no particular reason. The "campesinos" didn't really join the fight because they believed they were getting land and freedom, they joined because they believed in their leaders, joining the fight for the love of their "jefe" or simply to join "la bola".
I'm sure many of you will disagree with me, and I'm sure there were exceptions to what I'm saying, but I'm only commenting on what Mariano Azuela was trying to get across; don't forget, Azuela fought in the war.
August 10, 2021
“I love the revolution like a volcano in eruption; I love the volcano because it’s a volcano, the revolution because it’s the revolution! What do I care about the stones left above or below after the cataclysm? What are they to me?”
Set in 1910-1915, this story follows protagonist Demetrio Macías, a peasant who becomes involved in the Mexican Revolution after a disagreement with a local landowner. He forms and leads a band of outcasts as they travel the country, committing random acts of violence in support of the cause. They do not seem to understand exactly what or for whom they are fighting. Pancho Villa and other historic figures are mentioned but are not the focus.
My favorite part is the way the author portrays the mental and behavioral changes exhibited by the outcasts. It portrays how the oppressed become the oppressors. The novel feels rather fragmented, which could be due to the translation. Published in 1916, it is short and worth reading solely for the historical context and the fact that the author experienced the Mexican Revolution first-hand.
Set in 1910-1915, this story follows protagonist Demetrio Macías, a peasant who becomes involved in the Mexican Revolution after a disagreement with a local landowner. He forms and leads a band of outcasts as they travel the country, committing random acts of violence in support of the cause. They do not seem to understand exactly what or for whom they are fighting. Pancho Villa and other historic figures are mentioned but are not the focus.
My favorite part is the way the author portrays the mental and behavioral changes exhibited by the outcasts. It portrays how the oppressed become the oppressors. The novel feels rather fragmented, which could be due to the translation. Published in 1916, it is short and worth reading solely for the historical context and the fact that the author experienced the Mexican Revolution first-hand.
March 24, 2020
La Sierra con tutti i suoi colori, le sfumature, gli odori, e la polvere.
E a muoversi tra le sue rocce quelli che fanno la Rivoluzione, senza nemmeno sapere perché.
Perchè quando hai in mano un fucile, e la cartucciera piena di pallottole, non puoi fare altro che sparare.
Nessun ideale, solo sopravvivenza. Personaggi al margine di tutto, anche della comprensione, usati da chi rincorre il potere, sapendo bene invece a cosa mirare.
Letteratura della Rivoluzione la chiamano. Uscito più di cento anni fa.
Una lettura di cui credo però, non mi resterà molto.
Una sola eccezione per il titolo: quelli di sotto mi ha ricordato il film Parasite (premiato con l'Oscar solo poche settimane fa... ma che in questo momento mi sembra un evento così lontano e insignificante) con i suoi reietti che continuano in tutte le società, di ieri e di oggi, a rimanere lì, relegati nei bassifondi di una megalopoli, o sulle montagne della Sierra, destinati a ruoli marginali, schiacciati dall'esigenza di sopravvivere, e usati da chi il potere continua a gestirlo in ogni occasione. Anche in una Rivoluzione.
E a muoversi tra le sue rocce quelli che fanno la Rivoluzione, senza nemmeno sapere perché.
Perchè quando hai in mano un fucile, e la cartucciera piena di pallottole, non puoi fare altro che sparare.
Nessun ideale, solo sopravvivenza. Personaggi al margine di tutto, anche della comprensione, usati da chi rincorre il potere, sapendo bene invece a cosa mirare.
Letteratura della Rivoluzione la chiamano. Uscito più di cento anni fa.
Una lettura di cui credo però, non mi resterà molto.
Una sola eccezione per il titolo: quelli di sotto mi ha ricordato il film Parasite (premiato con l'Oscar solo poche settimane fa... ma che in questo momento mi sembra un evento così lontano e insignificante) con i suoi reietti che continuano in tutte le società, di ieri e di oggi, a rimanere lì, relegati nei bassifondi di una megalopoli, o sulle montagne della Sierra, destinati a ruoli marginali, schiacciati dall'esigenza di sopravvivere, e usati da chi il potere continua a gestirlo in ogni occasione. Anche in una Rivoluzione.
June 30, 2020
Η αέναη μάχη της ζωης
Η αέναη μαχη για τιην ελευθερια
Στο Mexico στις αρχες του 20ου αιώνα , ο αγώνας ενάντια στο καθεστώς κ στη απόλυτη φτώχεια δίνεται κάθε λεπτό. Δαιμονες και φτωχοδιάβολοι συνθέτουν ένα υπέροχο γκροτέσκο σκηνικό
Η αέναη μαχη για τιην ελευθερια
Στο Mexico στις αρχες του 20ου αιώνα , ο αγώνας ενάντια στο καθεστώς κ στη απόλυτη φτώχεια δίνεται κάθε λεπτό. Δαιμονες και φτωχοδιάβολοι συνθέτουν ένα υπέροχο γκροτέσκο σκηνικό
March 4, 2021
Demetrio Macías está en su casa con su mujer e hijo, cuándo llega una partida de Federales. Sabe lo que va a ocurrir, por lo cual, luego de asegurar a su familia, parte a la sierra dónde se encuentra con otros campesinos, su tropa en la lucha campesina contra el Gobierno Federal de Haedo. Atrás quedó la destitución de Porfirio Díaz, la decepción del primer gobierno revolucionario, el de Madero, y el posterior golpe de Estado.
Con su tropa empiezan a andar, sin que quede claro si están huyendo o detrás de algún objetivo, con el amparo y protección de otros campesinos y con quienes, a diferencia de los Federales, los une un afecto y un respeto.
Gradualmente comienza a acercarse y unirse con otras tropas similares. Con escasa instrucción militar, pero con la fuerza que dan el valor y la lealtad de amigos, van logrando avances.
El arte de Azuela está en esta representación tan clara de los valores que guían a estos hombres desharrapados, reproduciendo el lenguaje campesino de las sierras, que por momentos me ha presentado alguna dificultad de comprensión.
Y también se demuestra su arte, en la imperceptible transformación de esta tropa campesina, que gradualmente va perdiendo esta amabilidad en los pueblos a los que llegan, y los van llevando a actos de prepotencia y crueldad.
A pesar de mis intentos de conocer las características de la Revolución Mexicana, debo reconocer que me ha costado comprender muchos de sus matices. Con esa prudencia, puedo decir que me ha parecido una muy buena obra, y un excelente testimonio de un proceso revolucionario que a partir de un motivo justo, llegó a generar situaciones de desorden y sufrimiento, a veces mayores que los que intentaba combatir.
Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) participó cómo médico en la Revolución, y su participación le proveyó de elementos para la creación de esta historia ficcional, pero no irreal.
Con su tropa empiezan a andar, sin que quede claro si están huyendo o detrás de algún objetivo, con el amparo y protección de otros campesinos y con quienes, a diferencia de los Federales, los une un afecto y un respeto.
Gradualmente comienza a acercarse y unirse con otras tropas similares. Con escasa instrucción militar, pero con la fuerza que dan el valor y la lealtad de amigos, van logrando avances.
El arte de Azuela está en esta representación tan clara de los valores que guían a estos hombres desharrapados, reproduciendo el lenguaje campesino de las sierras, que por momentos me ha presentado alguna dificultad de comprensión.
Y también se demuestra su arte, en la imperceptible transformación de esta tropa campesina, que gradualmente va perdiendo esta amabilidad en los pueblos a los que llegan, y los van llevando a actos de prepotencia y crueldad.
A pesar de mis intentos de conocer las características de la Revolución Mexicana, debo reconocer que me ha costado comprender muchos de sus matices. Con esa prudencia, puedo decir que me ha parecido una muy buena obra, y un excelente testimonio de un proceso revolucionario que a partir de un motivo justo, llegó a generar situaciones de desorden y sufrimiento, a veces mayores que los que intentaba combatir.
Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) participó cómo médico en la Revolución, y su participación le proveyó de elementos para la creación de esta historia ficcional, pero no irreal.
December 29, 2015
An important book this, and one that has been poorly translated in the past, so I advise you not to read the free versions out there.
As always with Norton, there are some great essays and other contextual docs here which provide much needed background and additional detail for those of us not too familiar with the Mexican Revolution.
The novel (or, really, novella) is well written and punchy - comparisons to the short sentences of Hemingway are not misplaced.
As always with Norton, there are some great essays and other contextual docs here which provide much needed background and additional detail for those of us not too familiar with the Mexican Revolution.
The novel (or, really, novella) is well written and punchy - comparisons to the short sentences of Hemingway are not misplaced.
April 29, 2018
Demetrio Macías è un poveraccio che lavora per un proprietario terriero, un cacique, il quale per punirlo dei suoi ideali rivoluzionarli un giorno gli fa incendiare casa (e per poco assassinare moglie e figlio) da un gruppo di soldati federali agli ordini del dittatore Porfirio Díaz. Per questo Demetrio e i suoi compari iniziano a organizzarsi per farla pagare ai soldati.
Con la Rivoluzione che incombe, il gruppo passa dall’essere guastatori locali con la velleità di metter fine alle ingiustizie sociali, a un manipolo di rivoluzionari con grado e armi che finisce col comportarsi allo stesso modo delle truppe ufficiali di cui sopra. Demetrio, all’inizio rivoluzionario per sopravvivenza, diventerà generale in un’ascesa che lo porterà alla rovina: di violenza in violenza, finirà per perdere i compagni e una fanciulla di cui si era innamorato durante le proprie peregrinazioni, tornerà nel latifondo dove tutto iniziò, scoprirà con amarezza che Pancho Villa (comandante del mando del quale il nostro faceva parte) è stato sconfitto da Carranza, che il figlio non lo riconosce più e troverà alla fine la morte, chiuso in imboscata da un gruppo di carranzisti.
Los de abajo, Quelli di sotto sono il popolo. Che prima della Rivoluzione viene vessato da una fazione, durante la Rivoluzione da un’altra e alla fine chi sta sotto, sotto resta.
Emblematico, nel finale, che l’unico che la scampi è Luis Cervantes, se vogliamo la spalla di Demetrio Macías nella vicenda: borghese di nascita, con qualche studio di medicina, prima tra i regolari di Díaz diserta e si aggrega al gruppo di Demetrio per improvviso colpo di fulmine verso gli ideali rivoluzionari, fa il secondo del generale Macías, ma alla fine ripara a El Paso, Texas, dove si dedica alla professione di medico godendosi la vita, per quanto può.
Con la Rivoluzione che incombe, il gruppo passa dall’essere guastatori locali con la velleità di metter fine alle ingiustizie sociali, a un manipolo di rivoluzionari con grado e armi che finisce col comportarsi allo stesso modo delle truppe ufficiali di cui sopra. Demetrio, all’inizio rivoluzionario per sopravvivenza, diventerà generale in un’ascesa che lo porterà alla rovina: di violenza in violenza, finirà per perdere i compagni e una fanciulla di cui si era innamorato durante le proprie peregrinazioni, tornerà nel latifondo dove tutto iniziò, scoprirà con amarezza che Pancho Villa (comandante del mando del quale il nostro faceva parte) è stato sconfitto da Carranza, che il figlio non lo riconosce più e troverà alla fine la morte, chiuso in imboscata da un gruppo di carranzisti.
Los de abajo, Quelli di sotto sono il popolo. Che prima della Rivoluzione viene vessato da una fazione, durante la Rivoluzione da un’altra e alla fine chi sta sotto, sotto resta.
Emblematico, nel finale, che l’unico che la scampi è Luis Cervantes, se vogliamo la spalla di Demetrio Macías nella vicenda: borghese di nascita, con qualche studio di medicina, prima tra i regolari di Díaz diserta e si aggrega al gruppo di Demetrio per improvviso colpo di fulmine verso gli ideali rivoluzionari, fa il secondo del generale Macías, ma alla fine ripara a El Paso, Texas, dove si dedica alla professione di medico godendosi la vita, per quanto può.
December 26, 2020
".. Τι φιάσκο αγαπητέ μου φίλε, τι πελώρια αποτυχία αν όλοι εμείς που δώσαμε και την ψυχή μας για να συντρίψουμε έναν πανάθλιο τύραννο, χτίσουμε στα ερείπια του παλιού κόσμου ένα καινούριο παλάτι όπου μέσα του θα γεννηθούν οι αυριανοί δυνάστες, οι καταπιεστές του λαού, τέρατα με ίδια ή και χειρότερη ακόμα μορφή. Λαός δίχως ιδανικά! Λαός που γεννά τυράννους! Άδικα, άδικα χύθηκε τόσο αίμα!.."
Οι καταδικασμένοι δεν είναι ένα βιβλίο για τον αναγνώστη που θέλει να μάθει για τη Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση, αλλά ένα μυθιστόρημα για αυτόν που θέλει να μεταφερθεί νοερά στο 1910 ανάμεσα στους αντάρτες του Δημήτριο Μασίας.
Οι καταδικασμένοι δεν είναι ένα βιβλίο για τον αναγνώστη που θέλει να μάθει για τη Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση, αλλά ένα μυθιστόρημα για αυτόν που θέλει να μεταφερθεί νοερά στο 1910 ανάμεσα στους αντάρτες του Δημήτριο Μασίας.
December 28, 2015
Retrato de la Revolución Mexicana del lado de los revolucionarios. Me gustó bastante la utilización del lenguaje mexicano, es una gran muestra de aquel tiempo (y de lo que perdura hasta hoy). También es una buena descripción de cómo era el trato hacia las mujeres, la forma de interactuar y los valores de aquellos hombres que en momentos en que ya estaban embriagados de la violencia en que vivían, perdían la conciencia de la causa de por la cual peleaban.
Mi única reflexión al final de la mayoría de relatos de guerra es que los únicos ganadores son los líderes que luchan por sus causas desde la comodidad de sus moradas. La gente siempre pierde, siempre saca lo peor de sí, y al final sólo hay cambio de poderes, el pueblo está todavía bastante lejos de tener un resultado que haga justicia a tanto sacrificio.
Mi única reflexión al final de la mayoría de relatos de guerra es que los únicos ganadores son los líderes que luchan por sus causas desde la comodidad de sus moradas. La gente siempre pierde, siempre saca lo peor de sí, y al final sólo hay cambio de poderes, el pueblo está todavía bastante lejos de tener un resultado que haga justicia a tanto sacrificio.
August 13, 2021
This is an excellent window into the situation in México a bit over 100 years ago. The book does not inform about the Mexican revolution, but rather follows a leader and his band of soldiers through different episodes.
It's very clear from the book that the author, who participated in the revolution himself, was disillussioned with the revolution after seeing what was going on. The band basically pillage, rape and kill as they please in between the battles against the federales, and so I see the book as an anti-war book and a book that exposes some of the real revolutionary leaders and soldiers as less heroic than they are made out to be.
It's very clear from the book that the author, who participated in the revolution himself, was disillussioned with the revolution after seeing what was going on. The band basically pillage, rape and kill as they please in between the battles against the federales, and so I see the book as an anti-war book and a book that exposes some of the real revolutionary leaders and soldiers as less heroic than they are made out to be.
September 15, 2020
No es mi tipo de lectura, sin pies ni cabeza, terminé por orgullo :(
May 22, 2018
Azuela is one of the first major Mexican novels, with his novel Los de Abajo being one of the first books to replicate the horrors of the Mexican Revolution. Later greater stylists like Juan Rulfo would be considered greater innovators in the Spanish-language novel, but Azuela also broke ground. Much like Emile Zola, Premchand, or Stephen Crane, or any major early 20th century writer, Azuela was a naturalist, interested in the character as an archetype of social oppression, and so the people who inhabit the book are the farmers and the poor who are destroyed by war. While I normally read in Spanish, I could only find a (free) e-book of the novel in English. My review represents the fact that I read it in translation, and thus I will keep my review to English.
Several things for me made Azuela stand out. First was his use of symbolism, naming his characters and archetypes after Latin concepts (naming his main character Demetrio over the Greek goddess of agriculture, Demeter, is a very obvious example). This allows the novel to be read on its literal level and a symbolic level, which enhances re-readability. The second was the language. The style reminded me of Hemingway. The prose is quite sparse, powerful when it needs to be, when someone is about to be shot or shoot, when the person says just the right or wrong thing. A lot of the scenes are dialogue driven, and while I did not live in 29th century Mexico, the characters appear to mimic real speech. When Azuela chooses to write descriptively, it is apt to the scene. The prose crows with the roosters, it flickers gunpowder with the rifles, it makes the milk curdle with the gulps.
Still, I would not necessarily rank it amongst the best of novels written. One can never shake the feeling that the prose has didactic intentions behind it, and despite the amount of dialogue and action, despite the amount of people who die, there is very little of life to the characters created or the world rendered, and as a result, it feels little as a book that merits to live on.
Several things for me made Azuela stand out. First was his use of symbolism, naming his characters and archetypes after Latin concepts (naming his main character Demetrio over the Greek goddess of agriculture, Demeter, is a very obvious example). This allows the novel to be read on its literal level and a symbolic level, which enhances re-readability. The second was the language. The style reminded me of Hemingway. The prose is quite sparse, powerful when it needs to be, when someone is about to be shot or shoot, when the person says just the right or wrong thing. A lot of the scenes are dialogue driven, and while I did not live in 29th century Mexico, the characters appear to mimic real speech. When Azuela chooses to write descriptively, it is apt to the scene. The prose crows with the roosters, it flickers gunpowder with the rifles, it makes the milk curdle with the gulps.
Still, I would not necessarily rank it amongst the best of novels written. One can never shake the feeling that the prose has didactic intentions behind it, and despite the amount of dialogue and action, despite the amount of people who die, there is very little of life to the characters created or the world rendered, and as a result, it feels little as a book that merits to live on.
April 18, 2021
No pensé que me fuera a gustar tanto esta novela...
May 28, 2016
رغم أن "أهل القاع" هي رواية الثورة المكسيكية عن حق و جدارة ؛ إلا أنها أيضا رواية كل ثورة وقعت أو ستقع في أي مكان و في كل زمان ..
رواية الثورة التي تنبع من أصل نبيل و شريف لتصب في النهاية هناك حيث لا نبل و شرف ..
يتعقب ماريانو في هذه الرواية بدقة الخيوط الدقيقة و النوازع الخافية التي تؤدي بالنفس الإنسانية إلي تلك الحالة الثورية حيث لا فرق بين موت و حياة ، و لا يبقى لتلك النفس إلا المبدأ الذي تفنى فيه من أجل بعثه متجسدا بكل وضوح و قوة ..
لكن ما بال تلك الانتكاسات التي باتت حقيقة مسلمة ،تكاد تكون أصل من أصول الثورة ، خاصة من خصائصها ؟ .. ألابد لكل ثورة من انتكاسة ؟ أيجب أن يستبدل بالسئ الأسوأ .. ألا تكاد الشعوب تنجو من حفرة حتى تسقط في هوة سحيقة ؟ ..
كل ذلك يأتي به المؤلف بشكل إنساني عالمي مصبوبا في قالب أدبي مميز تلتحم فيه الحقائق بالخيالات و الواقع بالإبداع، مجدولا بالحالة الخاصة المميزة بالثورة المكسيكية المندلعة بين جنبات الظرف الجفرافي و الثقافي و الاجتماعي المحدد بالمكسيك ذاتها .. فهو يكتب لشعب المكسيك و لكل الشعوب في آن واحد ..
رواية الثورة التي تنبع من أصل نبيل و شريف لتصب في النهاية هناك حيث لا نبل و شرف ..
يتعقب ماريانو في هذه الرواية بدقة الخيوط الدقيقة و النوازع الخافية التي تؤدي بالنفس الإنسانية إلي تلك الحالة الثورية حيث لا فرق بين موت و حياة ، و لا يبقى لتلك النفس إلا المبدأ الذي تفنى فيه من أجل بعثه متجسدا بكل وضوح و قوة ..
لكن ما بال تلك الانتكاسات التي باتت حقيقة مسلمة ،تكاد تكون أصل من أصول الثورة ، خاصة من خصائصها ؟ .. ألابد لكل ثورة من انتكاسة ؟ أيجب أن يستبدل بالسئ الأسوأ .. ألا تكاد الشعوب تنجو من حفرة حتى تسقط في هوة سحيقة ؟ ..
كل ذلك يأتي به المؤلف بشكل إنساني عالمي مصبوبا في قالب أدبي مميز تلتحم فيه الحقائق بالخيالات و الواقع بالإبداع، مجدولا بالحالة الخاصة المميزة بالثورة المكسيكية المندلعة بين جنبات الظرف الجفرافي و الثقافي و الاجتماعي المحدد بالمكسيك ذاتها .. فهو يكتب لشعب المكسيك و لكل الشعوب في آن واحد ..
Read
May 8, 2018While serving as a doctor in the Northern Division Azeuala somehow found the time to dash off this formally complex but brutally raw novel about the Mexican revolution, from its early, idealistic period to its moral and military collapse. This is fabulous, beginning as a scathingly subtle satire of heroic military literature before taking an abrupt nihilistic turn, some fascinating amalgam of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and Heart of Darkness. And to recap, he wrote all of this literally while it was happening—even Victor Serge had to sit on his stuff a while. Really, really good. Really mean.
December 5, 2020
L'epica del disincanto
Quelli di sotto non è solo un libro sulla rivoluzione messicana del 1910 ma è il primo libro su questo tema, un'opera figlia di un'esperienza sul campo dalla quale Azuela trasse una profonda disillusione che emerge chiaramente dalla lettura di queste pagine.
Demetrio Macías è un allevatore di bestiame che aderisce convintamente alla causa delle rivoluzione e poi si ritrova a nuotare in un mare nel quale i confini si fanno sempre più indistinti. Non esistono i buoni da una parte e i cattivi dall'altra ma solo sfumature di grigio, un grigio che tende sempre più pericolosamente al nero perché la guerra sembra avere la capacità di tirar fuori il peggio dalle persone, a qualunque fazione esse appartengono. Le buone idee e i valori alla base della rivoluzione finiscono così per perdersi per strada, sacrificate in nome dell'opportunismo e dell'ambizione. Il bene pubblico è l'agnello sacrificale immolato sul tempio dell'interesse personale e tanti saluti alle buone intenzioni. Da soggetto ad oggetto, la triste parabola di Macías è quella di diventare semplice strumento di quella rivoluzione di cui voleva essere uno degli artefici e di conseguenza la sua lotta si trasforma una specie di moto inerziale, qualcosa che una volta iniziato non c'è motivo di interrompere anche se si fatica a trovare motivi validi per giustificarlo.
Links
https://www.otroangulo.info/libros/lo...
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-...
http://senzaudio.it/mariano-azuela-qu...
Quelli di sotto non è solo un libro sulla rivoluzione messicana del 1910 ma è il primo libro su questo tema, un'opera figlia di un'esperienza sul campo dalla quale Azuela trasse una profonda disillusione che emerge chiaramente dalla lettura di queste pagine.
Demetrio Macías è un allevatore di bestiame che aderisce convintamente alla causa delle rivoluzione e poi si ritrova a nuotare in un mare nel quale i confini si fanno sempre più indistinti. Non esistono i buoni da una parte e i cattivi dall'altra ma solo sfumature di grigio, un grigio che tende sempre più pericolosamente al nero perché la guerra sembra avere la capacità di tirar fuori il peggio dalle persone, a qualunque fazione esse appartengono. Le buone idee e i valori alla base della rivoluzione finiscono così per perdersi per strada, sacrificate in nome dell'opportunismo e dell'ambizione. Il bene pubblico è l'agnello sacrificale immolato sul tempio dell'interesse personale e tanti saluti alle buone intenzioni. Da soggetto ad oggetto, la triste parabola di Macías è quella di diventare semplice strumento di quella rivoluzione di cui voleva essere uno degli artefici e di conseguenza la sua lotta si trasforma una specie di moto inerziale, qualcosa che una volta iniziato non c'è motivo di interrompere anche se si fatica a trovare motivi validi per giustificarlo.
«Io avevo immaginato un prato fiorito al termine della strada… E ho trovato una palude. Amico mio, vi sono dei fatti e vi sono degli uomini che non racchiudono se non fiele. E questo fiele vi cola goccia a goccia nell’anima, e tutto amareggia, tutto avvelena. Entusiasmi, ideali, gioie… tutto! E allora non vi rimane che una alternativa: o diventate un brigante come essi, o scomparite dalla scena e vi rinchiudete tra le mura d’un egoismo impenetrabile e feroce.»
«perché combattere ancora, Demetrio?» Demetrio, la fronte aggrottata, raccoglie distratto un sassolino e lo butta in fondo al canyon. Poi rimane pensoso a guardare in giù, e infine dice: «Guarda come quel sasso non si ferma più…»
Links
https://www.otroangulo.info/libros/lo...
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-...
http://senzaudio.it/mariano-azuela-qu...
May 12, 2016
"Οι καταπιεσμένοι", εκδόσεις Λιβάνη (1983).
Βαθμολογία: 7/10
Κατά πολλούς, το μικρό αυτό βιβλίο είναι το καλύτερο (ή έστω το απόλυτο) μυθιστόρημα για την Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση, που ξεκίνησε το 1910. Προσωπικά δεν μου φάνηκε και τόσο καλό για έναν τέτοιο χαρακτηρισμό, αν και φυσικά δεν ξέρω ποια άλλα μυθιστορήματα έχουν σαν κεντρικό θέμα την συγκεκριμένη επανάσταση και πόσο καλά είναι. Εννοείται πως ούτε άσχημο είναι, αλίμονο, μπορώ να πω ότι είχε κάποιες πολύ καλές σκηνές και ορισμένες ωραίες περιγραφές, όμως έδειχνε φανερά τα εκατό και πλέον χρόν��α του, ενώ σχεδόν σε καμία στιγμή δεν δέθηκα με κάποιον από τους χαρακτήρες ή τις καταστάσεις στις οποίες μπλέχτηκαν. Η ιστορία του βιβλίου είναι αρκετά απλή, έχουμε τον Ντεμέτριο Μασίας, έναν απλό χωρικό, που μια μέρα οι καταστάσεις τον φέρνουν στο επίκεντρο της επανάστασης, και χωρίς να έχει ξεκάθαρη ιδέα για τα ιδανικά για τα οποία μάχεται, θα βρεθεί αντιμέτωπος με τις κυβερνητικές δυνάμεις και στο πλευρό άλλων επαναστατών.
Αν και το βιβλίο είναι αρκετά σύντομο και χωρίς βάθος, παίρνουμε μια ιδέα για το ποιοι πολέμησαν στην Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση και ποιες ήταν οι συνθήκες τότε. Λείπουν, όμως, πολλές λεπτομέρειες και περιγραφές που θα έδιναν βάθος στους χαρακτήρες και την πλοκή. Από άποψη γραφής δεν λέει και πολλά πράγμα��α, πάντως διαβάζεται γρήγορα και εύκολα, ενώ κάποιες περιγραφές οφείλω να παραδεχτώ ότι μου άρεσαν. Αυτά. Ούτε κακό βιβλίο είναι, ούτε πολύ καλό, θα το χαρακτήριζα απλώς καλούτσικο και ό,τι πρέπει για να ρίξει κανείς μια ματιά στην Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση. Πάντως μ'έκανε να ψάξω στο ίντερνετ για τα συγκεκριμένα ιστορικά γεγονότα, που σίγουρα παρουσιάζουν εξαιρετικό ενδιαφέρον. Α, και δεν μπορεί να παραβλέψει κανείς ότι το βιβλίο γράφτηκε την εποχή που ακόμα γινόντουσαν μάχες και σκοτωνόταν κόσμος, με τον συγγραφέα να είναι γιατρός στον στρατό του Πάντσο Βίλα.
Βαθμολογία: 7/10
Κατά πολλούς, το μικρό αυτό βιβλίο είναι το καλύτερο (ή έστω το απόλυτο) μυθιστόρημα για την Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση, που ξεκίνησε το 1910. Προσωπικά δεν μου φάνηκε και τόσο καλό για έναν τέτοιο χαρακτηρισμό, αν και φυσικά δεν ξέρω ποια άλλα μυθιστορήματα έχουν σαν κεντρικό θέμα την συγκεκριμένη επανάσταση και πόσο καλά είναι. Εννοείται πως ούτε άσχημο είναι, αλίμονο, μπορώ να πω ότι είχε κάποιες πολύ καλές σκηνές και ορισμένες ωραίες περιγραφές, όμως έδειχνε φανερά τα εκατό και πλέον χρόν��α του, ενώ σχεδόν σε καμία στιγμή δεν δέθηκα με κάποιον από τους χαρακτήρες ή τις καταστάσεις στις οποίες μπλέχτηκαν. Η ιστορία του βιβλίου είναι αρκετά απλή, έχουμε τον Ντεμέτριο Μασίας, έναν απλό χωρικό, που μια μέρα οι καταστάσεις τον φέρνουν στο επίκεντρο της επανάστασης, και χωρίς να έχει ξεκάθαρη ιδέα για τα ιδανικά για τα οποία μάχεται, θα βρεθεί αντιμέτωπος με τις κυβερνητικές δυνάμεις και στο πλευρό άλλων επαναστατών.
Αν και το βιβλίο είναι αρκετά σύντομο και χωρίς βάθος, παίρνουμε μια ιδέα για το ποιοι πολέμησαν στην Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση και ποιες ήταν οι συνθήκες τότε. Λείπουν, όμως, πολλές λεπτομέρειες και περιγραφές που θα έδιναν βάθος στους χαρακτήρες και την πλοκή. Από άποψη γραφής δεν λέει και πολλά πράγμα��α, πάντως διαβάζεται γρήγορα και εύκολα, ενώ κάποιες περιγραφές οφείλω να παραδεχτώ ότι μου άρεσαν. Αυτά. Ούτε κακό βιβλίο είναι, ούτε πολύ καλό, θα το χαρακτήριζα απλώς καλούτσικο και ό,τι πρέπει για να ρίξει κανείς μια ματιά στην Μεξικάνικη Επανάσταση. Πάντως μ'έκανε να ψάξω στο ίντερνετ για τα συγκεκριμένα ιστορικά γεγονότα, που σίγουρα παρουσιάζουν εξαιρετικό ενδιαφέρον. Α, και δεν μπορεί να παραβλέψει κανείς ότι το βιβλίο γράφτηκε την εποχή που ακόμα γινόντουσαν μάχες και σκοτωνόταν κόσμος, με τον συγγραφέα να είναι γιατρός στον στρατό του Πάντσο Βίλα.
November 23, 2020
A memorable, powerful, concise, vivid novella about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The story is mainly about Demetrius Macias, a naive, married, peace loving Indian farmer who finds himself a rebel in order to save his family. He becomes a revolutionary military leader through his fearlessness, good battle leadership and rifle marksmanship. Demetrius and his band of the poor underclass revolutionaries have little discipline and no provisions. On their way to their next military encounter, they take over towns, drinking, gambling, womanising and killing.
A worthwhile read.
A worthwhile read.
August 21, 2017
Me sorprendió. Azuela es un tremendo novelista. No glorifica ni justifica a nadie, la Revolución como un baño de sangre en el que, muchas veces, nadie sabía de qué lado peleaba. El triunfo de cualquiera de los bandos resultaba en la adicción al poder de sus dirigentes. Y el círculo de violencia sigue hasta nuestros días...
June 18, 2020
“I’m telling you that’s no animal. Listen to how Palomo is barking…That must be a man.”
So opens the novel ‘The Underdogs’, my second foray into the literature of the Mexican revolution (1910-1920). Change is imminent, there is danger lurking, the dog is sending a warning. Augustín Yañez’s ‘The Edge of the Storm’, which I looked at earlier in the week, also opened with a dog this time it was howling not barking.
After Don Timoteo Limón had his customary supper that night, neither more nor less than usual, he was already back in his room and telling his beads at the first stroke of curfew. He made his intercession for the most neglected soul in Purgatory or the one that stood most in need of prayer. On reaching the third mystery he was almost distracted by the howls of Orión, the dog he had had for so long, but, with an effort, he controlled his wandering thoughts, managed to ignore the ominous note in the barking, and kept on with his pious exercise.
In ‘The Underdogs’ the dog is called Palomo, Spanish for a kind of dove or pigeon, a symbol of peace? In ’The Edge of the Storm’ he is Orión, godfather of hunting in the underworld. In both novels the dog is killed, peace and hunting destroyed by the future.
For my full review visit https://messybooker.wordpress.com/202...
So opens the novel ‘The Underdogs’, my second foray into the literature of the Mexican revolution (1910-1920). Change is imminent, there is danger lurking, the dog is sending a warning. Augustín Yañez’s ‘The Edge of the Storm’, which I looked at earlier in the week, also opened with a dog this time it was howling not barking.
After Don Timoteo Limón had his customary supper that night, neither more nor less than usual, he was already back in his room and telling his beads at the first stroke of curfew. He made his intercession for the most neglected soul in Purgatory or the one that stood most in need of prayer. On reaching the third mystery he was almost distracted by the howls of Orión, the dog he had had for so long, but, with an effort, he controlled his wandering thoughts, managed to ignore the ominous note in the barking, and kept on with his pious exercise.
In ‘The Underdogs’ the dog is called Palomo, Spanish for a kind of dove or pigeon, a symbol of peace? In ’The Edge of the Storm’ he is Orión, godfather of hunting in the underworld. In both novels the dog is killed, peace and hunting destroyed by the future.
For my full review visit https://messybooker.wordpress.com/202...
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