The Sound of Things Falling

The Sound of Things Falling

by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean

The place seemed familiar to her that day, not with the simple familiarity of someone who’d been there before but in a more profound or private way, as if she’d read a description of it in a novel. – p. 192

I just finished reading this incredible book for the second time.  When I first read it, I knew little about Colombia, but liked it enough to recommend it to a friend and to load two other books by the author, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, onto my kindle.  Then I quickly forgot almost everything about it except the haunting voice of the narrator.  I wrote as much the other day on a book list I compiled for a friend traveling in Colombia, but I felt like an idiot that I couldn’t recall the plot, so I thought I’d read the first part again to see if that would jog my memory.

Well I’ve just read the whole thing again, as slowly as I could to savor it (I am waiting for a ship, after all), and am looking forward to forgetting just enough that I can read it another time. 

I’m sure the music analogy has occurred to other people about other books, but this is the first book that I’ve read that felt like I was listening to really good music.  That is, the experience I imagine real musicians have when they listen to music and simultaneously hear the different melodies played separately and together by different instruments, the key changes, the harmonies and the variations on the themes.   (When I listen to music I can hear only ever focus on one of these at a time.)

Besides the incredible writing, the story is a fascinating contemplation of what it means to be a Colombian who grew up in the 1980s.  There is history, geography, drug lords, presidents, the peace corp and poetry  (note to self:  search out more poetry by Jose Ascuncion Silva, Leon de Greiff and Aurelio Arturo).  If you are traveling in Colombia, this is a must read (or reread) while you’re here.

Another thing the author does particularly well is to create the experience of doing one thing while listening to something else. What is happening around you when you have headphones on, driving while listening to the separate thread of your own thoughts, hearing a message and being present both in the moment of the recording and of the listening.  This must be the Sound of Things in the title.

One final comment: the translation was extraordinary. Anne McLean, the translator, thanked the same person in Italy in her Translator’s Note that the author had in the Author’s Note.  Does this mean the translator was present during the writing?  Did she return to the same retreat where the author had written the book to hear its sound as she translated?

Next time, I am hoping I’ll be able to read this incredible book in Spanish:  El ruido de las cosas al caer.  But should I read it in Bogota or at a retreat in Italy?