Caracas Chronicles

Thanks to Katy, I got my hands on a copy of Falke, Federico Vegas’s remarkable novel about the ill-fated “invasion” of Venezuela by anti-Gomez exiles in 1929. I’m just starting it, but the book is so quotable you can hardly help yourself. I can’t imagine Vegas is, erm, unaware of the contemporary overtones when he writes passages like:

No hay quien se salve del gomecismo…unos están a favor y otros en contra mientras nuestro verbo gira desde hace demasiado tiempo alrededor del mismo sátrapa. Es un caso de vampirismo. ¡Nos ha chupado hasta los sesos!…La palabra “Gomez” anula esos inesperados vericuetos que le permiten vagar a una imaginación libre, y por lo tanto, su persistente efecto acaba tarde o temprano con las buenas conversaciones.

Nobody’s safe from gomecismo…some are in favor and others against while our words have been centered for too long around the same old fox. It’s a case of vampirism…he has sucked us down to our brains!… The word “Gomez” annuls those unexpected byways that allow a free imagination to wander, and so its persistent effect puts an end, sooner or later, to good conversations.