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The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (book)

The Old Man Who Read Love Stories is a literary novel written by the Chilean journalist and filmmaker, story- and novel-writer Luis Sepúlveda. It was written in 1988. The book was so widely successful that it has been translated into 60 languages and reached 18 million sales after being published. The novel was brought to the cinema with the writer's own script, under the direction of the Australian Rolf de Heer and performed by Richard Dreyfuss. It received the Tigre Juan Prize (Oviedo, 1989).

Plot

This novel tells the story of Antonio José Bolívar Proaño who lives in El Idilio, a remote village in the Amazon region of the indigenous Shuar, with whom he learned to live and know the Forest, respecting its laws and animals, as well as to hunt, in particular a tiger cat that was causing problems in the village. His desire to read shows itself when the dentist Rubicundo gives him love stories, and as a product of this he dedicated himself to reading intensively in his nights alone.

"Characters"


 * Antonio José Bolívar Proaño: an old man of nearly seventy years that lived in El Idilio. In his pronta youth, he married Dolores Encarnación del Santísimo Sacramento Estupiñán Otávalo. After his wife's death, he became a very solitary man until he met the indigenous Shuar tribe. After being involved in an incident he was forced to leave the tribe and later took up the habit of reading to el hábito de la lectura to detach himself from the hostile environment that its inhabitants and the hunters that discover the forest presented.
 * The mayor "the slug": the novel's antagonist, described as a violent, large person that sweated too much (the reason behind his nickname). He was hated among the inhabitants of El Idilio due to his behaviour and cowardice, and above all because he established a tax collection system in which he collected taxes for reasons that couldn't be accounted for.
 * The tiger cat: a female animal that was prowling through the forest until a North American hunter killed its young and wounded the male. Afterwards, through its animal instinct it commits a series of killings whose end is the goal of a hunt organised by the mayor. It was killed by Antonio José Bolívar Proaño.
 * The indigenous inhabitants (the Shuar): an indigenous Amazon village from which the protagonist learns to appreciate nature and live with it. They walk half-nude and are characterised as nomads as well as excellent hunters. The colonists call them jíbaros.
 * Rubicundo Loachamin: Antonio José Bolívar Proaño's only friend, who gave him love stories that he got on his travels. He was a dentist that visited the indigenous people of the area and the inhabitants of El Idilio.
 * Dolores Encarnación del Santísimo Sacramento Estupiñán Otávalo: Antonio José Bolívar Proaño's wife. She was a very religious woman, as can be inferred by her name and the reactions she had in the face of Antonio's attempts to kiss her. After she moved to El Idillo, the winter and malaria ended her life.
 * Nushiño: an indigenous person of the Shuar tribe, killed by a gold digger. He became a dear friend of Antonio's.

Reception

Roxana Orué, a Peruvian-Canadian writer, author of poems, stories, essays, and literary criticism) points out that: "It's such a short novel that seems like a long story and in it the handling of the forest atmosphere is superb. In this Amazon environment, even the majority of the characters that aren't Shuar breathe indigenous feeling. And this is the book's toll: making us identify ourselves with the indigenous people, impress us with the ignorant invasion of "civilisation", leads us to love the forest, invokes in us the desire to be more familiar with it, make us uneasy to the point that we want to know what we can do to protect it. The work synthesises its messages with such intensity that we can risk [saying] that no one will forget it if they read it." 1

On the literary website Traslalluvialiteraria, she expresses that: “Luis Sepúlveda gifts us a captivating story with which he shows a clear narrative ability. In The Old Man Who Read Love Stories he shows how at certain times it's absolutely unnecessary to lengthen a novel so it seems more elaborate. The author tells, in a few pages, what he wants to tell and makes the decision to end the book when it's already achieved its goal. A very wise decision, no doubt".

In his thesis, Rodrigo Malaver Rodríguez, professor at the National University of Colombia, Linguistics Department, National Pedagogic University, languages department (Spanish-English), Francisco José de Caldas District University, points out: “The urgency of reevaluating paradigms like the one of the forest is vital in culture. An example of this need is illustrated through The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepúlveda by means of a process that can be written in Cultural Studies and with which it also takes aside a process of secularisation, called ethnotext by(?) oraliture. This author makes(?) ecology through his novel recording the culture of the Shuar village, a village that is part of the forest and also its protection. The understanding of his recording of this culture through the stream of the investinvolucramiento that includes oraliture y ethnotext which at their time give rise to ecotext (marked in) ecoliterature, moves the reader closer to a more objective view of such an environment and, naturally, of such a paradigm".

Juan Gabriel Araya, academic of the Arts and Literature Department, is an author of books and stories, novels, and theatrical works, and an investigador and professor at the University of Bío-Bío, points out various aspects of the author and his novel, placing emphasis on the importance on its importance in the literary world and the quality of his work.

José Carlos Saranda, Doctor of Philosophy and Literature and Doctoral Candidate in Educational Sciences, makes a deep analysis of Luis Sepúlveda's novel, dividing its themes:

"In this first part, the protagonist is a contributor to the system, doesn't question if what he's doing is good or bad, it's the only way of life he knows and the only one that he can conceive from his experience".

"The second, the turning point, after his wife's death, involves the experience of adaptation to the environment: alone and without any motive to keep struggling, with a heart full of hatred for the forest that he blames for the death of his wife, he abandons himself and in this abandonment he meets the Shuar."

"The third involves his return to "civilisation" once transformed and living with his previous type of life, but since his knowledge of the deep reality that surrounds him, a reality which already forms a part of him and which he identifies himself with. At this stage, the old man already isn't a contributor to factual or economic powers the State, the mayor, the forces, the gold diggers… and his deep understanding of life in the forest shows us the nature of ignorance and the pride of the newly arrived –colonists, gold diggers, adventurers - the origin of all of them and the dangers that prey on the people that live in this environment without intending to learn and understand its rules."

Finally Saranda lays out the three main themes that, as in his opinion the novel contains, are these: Defence of nature (protection of the Amazon), The goodness of wild man and being human facing social conventionalities - the pressure of collectiveness on the individual (divided into three sub-themes).

Ecological dimension

In his works Luis Sepúlveda presents dimensions that are intimately related to man and the landscape, both themes like the barbaric(?) civilised human along with the conservation of the natural environment. Patagonia Express (1995), Hot Line (2002), The story of a gull and the cat that taught it to fly (1996), The World at the End of the World (1994) and of course The man who read love stories (1988) are clear examples of these themes.

This novel is born from the experience that Luis Sepúlveda had in the Amazon together with the Shuar, just like Antonio, the main character, did. It is worth noting that Luis Sepúlveda belongs to Greenpeace.

At the start of the book the author presents his notes and dedication; it is there that he mentions two people that are related to ecology.

This novel won't reach your hands now, Chico Mendes, dear friend of few words and plenty of deeds, but the Tigre Juan Award also belongs to you, and all the people that will continue your path, our collective path in protecting this one world we have.

To my distant friend Miguel Tzenke, Shuar representative of Zumbí in the tall Nangaritza and a great protector of the Amazon. In one night of brimming magical narrations he gave me some details of his unknown green world, which in other distant bounds of the equatorial Eden would later help me build this story.

The motives that the author has to present people like this are to make them known and make them have a stance on the protection and equilibrium of the environment. In essence, the nature that Luis intends to show is provided by an unimaginable number of species that end up being threatened by gold diggers that want to interfere in the forest by brute force and clear it for the animals that originate from it and the Shuar. The combination between ecology and literature that Luis Sepúlveda produces is very important: he presents people, places, actions that are intimately related with the natural environment to later present a real problem that is a danger to exactly this.

It urges reflection on its preservation and to generate opinions on its protection and its equilibrium for humans to survive in this environment.