Author: Joaquín Berges
- Fiction
- Tusquets Editores
- ISBN: 9788483833278
- Release Date: 12-01-2011
-Reviewed by: Sara Martínez
Vive como puedas is a humorous novel in the black comedy mode where the pathos falls flat although there are moments of beauty and some of the characters do strike a chord.
Luis is an engaging protagonist whose life is at crossroads and quickly starts to unravel into chaos. The novel begins with his efforts at keeping a diary in order to make sense of it all – life, in general and his life specifically [‘to find out who the hell I am’ p. 16, my trans)] aiming for Equilicuá! The situation is that he has failed at his first marriage and has rolled over for his cousin Oscar, allowing him to take over his family and his job.
The novel begins with a self-deprecating tone promising a comedy of errors with a cast of curious and eccentric characters. Most engaging are the children – toddler Everest with his endless questions of a philosophical bent and his patient half-sister Valle with her wise and endearing answers. There is ample opportunity for hilarity and there are some genuinely funny scenes as Berges channels Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Kops. And then all of a sudden, Luis’s hypochondriac mother drops dead after he has hung up the phone on what he assumes will be one of her daily calls to report her blood pressure. From this point on, the novel becomes deadly serious and Luis must confront his situation and himself in a conclusion that is sad but satisfactory.
The novel’s storyline is based on Luis’s midlife crisis angst and the chaos surrounding that. Although the structure aims at complexity by alternating between the first person diary entries and third person omniscient viewpoint, the plot is self-centered and self-directed by Luis who has very little capacity for empathy. All the other characters and their own stories and angst are thus reduced to supporting players in his soap opera. When they start dying toward the end of the novel, it is quite jarring and does finally make an impact.
One tangled plotline that is overly coincidental has Luis starting an affair with his son’s kindergarten teacher Lucía who has been left by her boyfriend for Luis’s neighbor Carles (also his confidant, friend and brain doctor) who works at the hospital where Luis’s oldest daughter Cris’s boyfriend Pablo is supposedly a pediatrician but is really a clown named Dumbo, who befriends Luis with Luis not figuring out that he is Pablo… The subplots are explored only as they relate to Luis and his existential problem.
Berges’s style of writing flows easily; the switch in point of view keeps the narrative from becoming monotonous. Luis’s middle-aged metro-sexual voice felt frank and heartfelt-self-centered, self pitying and confused. The dialogue that is most plausible and at the same time most far-fetched takes place between Luis and his two youngest children. Valle, his stepdaughter, is too wise to be real. She tells Everest “I am going to reveal to you the final answer that exists for all the whys that you can imagine. That way, you won’t have to ask about everything.” She then leads him into a series of philosophical questions about knowing that ends up at “To be happier. ¡Equilicuá!” She is 11 or 12.
With its nebbishy protagonist, Vive como puedas might resonate in the U.S. with those who like Woody Allen movies or the John Kennedy O’Toole novel A Confederacy of Dunces. One challenge to overcome in the translation would be the concept of “Equilicuá”. A plotline that might not translate well for North American cultural mores is Luis’s adulterous relationship with Everest’s kindergarten teacher and her subsequent pregnancy. And an off-putting scene (although ultimately hilarious) takes place when Luis accidently eats a bowl of stew made from a skull his daughter excavated from the local cemetery and is boiling down for a school assignment.
Readers in the U.S. could certainly relate to his antagonistic encounters with the traffic cop and impatience with second wife Sandra’s hippie Zen fanaticism. However, Luis comes off as shallow for having married her for her ease at reaching orgasm while admitting that he never quit loving his first wife. This reader felt the most sympathy for Sandra although her character is almost a caricature. She was very badly treated by Luis and that final bofetada is well-delivered. The gay theme and characters could have been handled better and made an interesting side plot. As it is, the characters are again extensions of Luis’s ego problems and an opportunity to see how he has hurt the people who love him. The portrayal of the unnamed lawyer who switches sexual orientation, unknowingly affecting Luis’s love life and most important friendship, rings false.
To sum up, the theme of working through a midlife crisis by writing a journal is not that different or unusual. Berges is adept at creating an authentic, if not unique or particularly endearing voice for Luis Ruiz Puy who at the end does find self-knowledge and a new lease on life in this Almodovar-style black comedy.
