Maurice Sparks y sus relatos, material de primera

  La Internet nos ofrece a los escritores un instrumento insuperable, casi diría que mágico, para dar a conocer creaciones, ficciones y divagaciones. Y para lograr promoción, claro. A veces me pregunto cómo se las arreglaba la gente para buscar información, para conocer y ser conocida, en los tiempos pre-googlicos, que ya parecen tan remotos.

  Gracias a la gran vitrina internaútica que conforman los blogs leí por primera vez Los Relatos de Maurice Sparks, en la bitácora del mismo título. En ese momento no sabía nada del autor que se ocultaba detrás de tal seudónimo, pero aquellos cuentos, certeros como pistoletazos bien dados, me parecieron fascinantes. Ahí, me dije, ahí hay tremendo material. Más tarde me puse en contacto con el escritor, Ernesto G., y resultó que habíamos estudiado inglés en la misma facultad, la de Lenguas Extranjeras de La Habana, y que teníamos amistades comunes. Así de chiquito es el mundo, y no sólo para los que vivimos en Taos.

  Por suerte para sus lectores, Ernesto G. ha reunido una selección de sus historias en un volumen impreso. Y ésa es la razón por la que tengo ahora en mis manos una edición cuidada y muy bien hecha (como todas las de Silueta) de Los relatos de Maurice Sparks. La portada, con una bellísima, evocativa ilustración de Daphne Rosas, es el complemento perfecto para la primera frase: “cualquiera es un Maurice.”

  Todos, todos los cuentos que forman el libro están perfectamente cincelados. Pero una, claro está, tiene sus favoritos. “Las buenas razones” es el mío desde que lo leí en el blog, por esa nota subliminal que tiene y que se queda dando vueltas en el cerebro. Otro que trata de la relación entre el amor físico y la escritura y también tiene mucho aché es “Mensajes.” Me gusta la filosofía a lo cubano de “La caída de la manzana,” “El señor y sus visiones” y una serie de bolígrafos de colores. Y “Ciertas instrucciones necesarias” ofrece, burla burlando, una visión muy clara del panorama actual. Ah… ¡y no se olviden de leerse los dos “Manuales para extraterrestres”!

  El libro está dividido en tres secciones: “Cualquiera es un Maurice,” “La primera vez fue en el carro” y “Los efectos secundarios,” perfectamente definidas, con sabores y olores peculiares, si me permiten la sinestesia. Los cuentos que aparecen en una no podrían, me parece, ser incluidos en otra. Pero no les quiero adelantar más…

  Como decía al principio, la Internet es un instrumento inmejorable para la promoción de los escritores y no ceso de preguntarme cómo nos las arreglábamos en los tiempos pre-googlicos. Pero ojo, que no hay nada como el papel impreso, el libro caliente y recién sacado del horno editorial, para disfrutar la lectura.   Y éste es el caso de Los Relatos de Maurice Sparks, que recomiendo encarecidamente a todos. Ahí hay material, sí, señor, y de primera clase.

Teresa Dovalpage Taos, septiembre de 2011

Teresa Dovalpage, Ph. D.
http://teredovalpage.wordpress.com/
http://dovalpage.wordpress.com/
www.dovalpage.com

A portrait of these Cuban times

By Margaret Durán, Ph.D.

Habanera, a Portrait of a Cuba Family, is the second English-language novel penned by Teresa Dovalpage and published by Floricanto Press in December 2010. It is a soft, almost tender look at the challenges faced by today’s Cuban youth. Focused on the life of Longina, a naïve teenager (somewhat similar to the Lourdes of A Girl like Che Guevara) Habanera… deals, however, with different issues and a completely different time. Longina, unlike Lourdes, doesn’t want to emulate Che Guevara and politics doesn’t play a substantial role in her life.
The novel starts in the early 80’s and takes the reader to a guided tour of the brief “golden years” enjoyed under the Cuban socialist economy. During the mid 80’s, the steady (and costly) support of the former Soviet Union allowed Cubans to buy at non-rationed stores and provided them with the kind of abundance that had not been seen in the island since the pre-Castro era. Longina describes it:
A red curtain of wealth had fallen over the island. Soviet TV sets, German typewriters, Chinese blouses, Bulgarian perfumes, and Vietnamese sandals appeared in the stores that belonged to the so-called parallel market. Waiting lines were shorter there and clerks more courteous than in carded shops. We didn’t need coupons, though the parallel-market merchandise was quite expensive.
But such abundance is not destined to last. The “special period,” that begins shortly before the 90’s, puts an end to the parallel market and inflates waiting lines again. And yet, the first hints of the upcoming crisis are hardly noticed:
That night Ma mère turned on the radio to the Voice of America as a posthumous tribute to her father. The most important news was that Lithuania had declared its independence from Moscow. It had something to do with perestroika, I suspected. But none of us imagined the impact that the disintegration of the Soviet Union would have on Cuba, though we were 9550 kilometers away from it.
As the crisis deepens and the American dollar becomes king, Longina, like everybody else, suffers the inevitable consequences. The sheltered life she has enjoyed up to that moment becomes a thing of the past, like European perfumes and pretty sandals. A parallelism is established between the collapse of communism in Europe and the breakdown of her family life.
A particularly relevant chapter is the one devoted to La Lenin, an elite boarding school that Longina starts attending reluctantly. However, it will contribute to open her eyes to the changes that are taking place in her country and the world.
It was also at La Lenin where I heard, for the first time, unveiled criticism of the system and even of You-know-who. My classmates didn’t just whisper about “this.” They used familiarly the first names of our leaders, criticized them and discussed the possibility of a revolt in Cuba, an aftereffect of the movement that had changed the European map.
“Would Raúl order the troops to fire on the crowds as Ceausescu did in Romania?” Miroslava asked once.
“I don’t doubt it,” Lisaveta answered. “Raúl is a coward, always hiding behind his brother’s shadow.”
The heirs of the high-ranking Communist Party members have had the opportunity to travel abroad and see a different world. Many have witnessed the start of perestroika and look forward to a similar movement in Cuba. Young and passionate Lisaveta, the daughter of a Prensa Latina journalist, becomes involved with the opposition group Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación, led by Oswaldo Payá. Longina, however, does not participate actively in the political scene. “[Lisaveta] was a daughter of perestroika and I, a ‘special period’ girl,” she acknowledges.
The 1994 Rafting Crisis, that followed a rioting in the Cuban capital, puts Longina at the crossroads. She must decide between staying and “bringing perestroika to Cuba” and looking for a better life at the Miami shores. She finally makes a decision and the novels closes with a crowd of desperate balseros wafting away as they pray for the blessings of a protective Afro-Cuban deity, Yemayá.
This novel is a must read for those interested in today’s Cuban life. What you won’t find here, though, is the sordid portrayal of jineteras and chulos preying on guiltless foreigners, juicy sexual scenes or excrement-oozing depictions of Old Havana tenements. Prostitution shows its heavily made-up face in a few pages, but it is not a central topic of this fast-paced, well written and hope-inspiring novel.

Margaret Duran, Ph. D. is a retired literature and English professor who currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.