ADSactly Literature - You do not hear barking dogs, a story by Juan Rulfo
You do not hear barking dogs, a story by Juan Rulfo
As you are, kind readers. These days someone was asking me to recommend a storybook. I must confess that it was difficult for me to suggest just one, but I was inclined towards a book, which at the time, a professor recommended to me. I remember it was the first storybook I bought with my own money. From that text, saving money to buy books became a habit and a necessity. The book I'm telling you about is Juan Rulfo's El llano en llamas.
The sensation of reading El llano en llamas is extraordinary. I say that it is and not that it was because remembering it activates a landscape of infinite joy. With this book I remember that more than words, I saw how some worlds and doors opened before me. Although all the stories told in that book belong to a living space different from mine, many of their stories were close to me and at the same time fantastic, mysterious, unknown, unforgettable.
As I said at the beginning, El llano en llamas (1953) is a compilation of stories by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, who with only two works, the novel Pedro Paramo and this book of which I speak, achieved international renown. El llano en llamas consists of 17 stories and although I like them all, my favorites are: Macario, Tell them not to kill me, We are very poor, Talpa, Luvina, En la madrugada, and very especially, You don't hear the dogs barking (No oyes ladrar los perros), story I'd like to talk about today.
You don't hear the dogs barking, tells the story of a father who carries his son on his shoulders because he can't walk and they have to get to the nearest town to cure him. The story concentrates on these two characters and becomes more interesting when we see the reasons why the son is wounded and why the father rejects him. The story begins with the father's search for a sign indicating how long it will take to reach the town. The father tells the son:
-You who go up there, Ignatius, tell me if you don't hear any sign of something or if you see any light somewhere.
The father will look throughout the story for a sign of life to maintain the hope necessary to make him follow the journey. The two men walk forming a single image, a single "long black shadow", since Ignacio, wounded, is clinging to the shoulders of his father, who walks with great difficulty due to the terrain in which he is and the weight of the son. The father wants to go to the town to take the son to the doctor and have him cured, but when the father asks every longing question, Ignacio always answers with dry and cold refusals, even harsh ones, leaving no room for a little hope: I do not see anything, I do not hear anything, I don't see a trace of anything; until in the end he doesn't even answer.
Despite the son's refusal to see or hear anything, the father continues walking and although at times he staggers because of the weight and the conditions of the terrain, he keeps his son on his shoulders. It is through the father's monologue that we discover what kind of son Ignacio is and we can intuit why he is wounded:
-I will collapse, but I will come with you to Tonaya, to relieve the wounds that have been inflicted on you. And I am sure that as soon as you feel well, you will return to your bad steps. I don't care about that anymore. As long as you go far away, where I never hear from you again. As long as... Because to me you are no longer my son.
With this confession we understand three fundamental things: Ignatius is a man who has done wrong and if he comes out of that trance alive, he will continue to do wrong. On the other hand, the father, in spite of the evil that his son has done, is looking for a way to save his life and finally, if Ignatius is saved, the father wants nothing to do with him. With these premises, we can not only see the degree of sacrifice that a father can have towards a son, but also the capacity to recognize the errors of the children. Aware of the son's evil, the father says as he walks:
I have cursed the blood you have from me. The part that touched me I have cursed. I said, "Let the blood I gave you rot in your kidneys!" I said it from the moment I knew that you were driving along the roads, living on robbery and killing people... And good people. And if not, there's my friend Tranquilino. The one who baptized you. The one who gave you his name. He also had the bad luck of meeting you. Since then I've said, "That can't be my son."
From these words we know what Ignatius does: kill and steal. This is what makes the father renounce him, but in spite of that, he carries him on his shoulders, takes him to cure him, to save him, even though he knows how bad the son is. In one of the moments of the journey, the father admit the real reason why he is saving him:
-Everything I do, I don't do for you. I'm doing it for your deceased mother. Because you were his son. That's why I do it. She would reprimand me if I had left you there, where I found you, and hadn't picked you up to take you to be healed, as I am doing. She's the one who encourages me, not you. Beginning because I owe you nothing but pure difficulties, pure mortifications, pure shame.
According to these words, the father is helping the son because it is his duty, because the mother of Ignatius, who is already dead, would have done so or asked for it. In this confession we see that it is not the son who is the reason for the sacrifice, but the duty, the paternal and maternal relationship which exists through him and which is almost sacred. The father tries to save the son not because he wants to, but because of the father's duty.
Throughout the story we hear the father asking the son who, being on his shoulders, should have better visibility and better listening, if he doesn't hear the dogs barking or if he doesn't see lights, unequivocal evidence that there is a nearby village. To all questions, the son says he sees nothing and hears nothing. But as soon as they reach the village and the man puts the son's body on the ground, he hears thousands of dog barks, so the father at the end tells the son:
-Didn't you hear them, Ignatius? -You didn't even help me with this hope.
With these words, desolate and definitive, we find the despair of the father before the useless son, how sterile can be the paternal feeling, the loneliness of the father before the lack of help and the real accompaniment of the son. With the words of the father we understand the true burden that some children mean, the cross that some parents must carry at a cost, the sacrifice that they must make to save them. Literally, as in the story in which the character of the father must carry his son on his shoulders, despite the obstacles, trying to save him no matter what evil they have done, so it is in real life, where some parents are obliged to carry their children as if they were a heavy burden.
If I were ever asked what books I would take to a deserted island, I'm sure El llano en llamas would be among them. A book that I read and reread always with great admiration, with surprise, like that of a child who discovers hidden treasures. His stories, apparently simple, settled in me like a familiar sea that I always visit, but I do so with caution, knowing that I can find new things in each reading.
I hope you have the curiosity to continue reading this author. I also hope you can vote for @adsactly as a witness and join our server in discord. Until a next smile. ;)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rulfo
https://www.literatura.us/rulfo/perros.html
Written by: @nancybriti
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It is extraordinary to see how it is enclosed in El llano en llamas, a book of such little physical volume, a universe so astonishing that it leaves us perplexed and admired in every story we read.
I am particularly fascinated by Rulfo's simple and magical language for its effectiveness in describing the great social problems of Mexican reality and the human feelings that emerge in that land of sordidness and poverty produced by the Mexican revolutions at that time.
I look forward to your continued analysis of Rulfo's work, @nancybriti. Thank you @adsactly for publishing.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
A long time ago, I was presented with the idea that if Octavio Paz could think of someone to represent his "Labyrinth of Solitude" -a book so Mexican and so universal as "The Plain in flames"-, Juan Rulfo -as a person, writer and photographer- could embody that image. All of Rulfo's work, and the tale you comment on expresses it clearly, is crossed by a cold thread of loneliness and fatality. The image of the father is so felt in Rulfo; sometimes it is his sacrificed presence, as in "You hear the dogs...", or an absence and desolate memory. Thank you for such a good post, @nancybriti, and for allowing us to revisit Rulfo. Greetings.
Rulfo is perhaps one of the intellectuals who has been able to describe the essence of the Mexican, the Latin American and man in general. There is always in his texts an anguish, an ancestral and primary sadness that is born from the earth itself. Thank you for your always accurate comments, @josemalavem!
An interesting story and you explain the details.
A story that tells the story of the relationship between children and fathers who are conditioned to each other. Children who should grow up become independent individuals but in the eyes of the father has made the family embarrassed. Just because he wants to make his wife and soul calm makes his father want to beat his child for a long time and a long distance. this he did so that his child got care and healed.
complicated story that is very likely to occur in the nativity. Don't we still see parents who are struggling to give children?
Thank you @nancybriti
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There's a lot of sacrifice in the paternal and maternal figures. In this story we observe that no matter how bad the son is and no matter how embarrassed the father feels, he will always look for a way to help or protect him. Thank you for commenting, @rokhani
I had never heard about this book. I am intrigued by your saving money to buy a book and invest into your self this wisdom @adsactly
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I think reading and buying books is a good investment. Thank you for commenting, @shinesrsfamily