Why some people don't get the joke

'Saint Augusto'

When you publicly declare that you think that an entire indigenous race must be exterminated, that a war criminal and despot should be adulated and that a centre-left government was run by extremist communists, you wouldn't take this seriously nor even agree with it - would you?

Some people do. I have a comedy blog called Iván Izqueirdo and have received comments that surely would raise your eyebrows.

The premise of this blog is that an extremist right-wing person from the Chilean aristocracy spouts out his diatribes. The thing is that there are so many of these people, who say exactly the same things, that for many Chilean people this blog would seem perfectly authentic.

Having grown up amongst upper-middle class communities in Chile, I find the worldview perspective of these people very narrow and repugnant. Many of these people have shrines to Pinochet in their homes and are never able to wake up to the reality of situations.

I find that the progressive conservatives in Chile are fairly respectable people. The majority of people from the right, however, speak what Iván Izquierdo speaks word for word. (On second thought, because Spanish is their first language, they don't have to think too hard on their phraseolgogy so much...)

So, when you speak to these people on their level, they'll agree with you... Yet they don't realise that you are actually mocking them and everything they stand for...

One person who attended my old school said "I love the blog, [Pablo] Neruda is a fucking communist."

This brings back memories of a conversation I had with this kid back in the equivalent of year six. My father was voting for a leftist candidate at a local election and he replied "God grief, your dad is a leftist!" His political reasoning doesn't appear to have altered since he was eleven...

What inspired the blog was The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Colbert is a comedian who impersonates a ultra-right political commentator - the kind you see on Fox... Yet, in a world, when this is the norm, hoards of Americans watch this spoof show and don't notice the difference...

I'd like to add that the concept of irony doesn't really exist in Chile. I mean, this blog is pretty crude and unsubtle yet people still don't get it... I remember that whilst I was in Chile I would get a lot of laughs by being ironic, the likes of which I seldom get here in the UK...

It all may seem ludicrous and over-the-top, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of Iván Izquierdos around...

The fox and the hedgehog

Mario Vargas Llosa





Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One of my gateways into literature was the new wave of fiction from Latin-America which gained prominence in the 1960s. However, I have only read one book each (or as I am about to describe, one and a half) of its two main figureheads and nobel laureates: Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Back when Llosa was awarded that accolade I remember reading an article by William Boyd that was inculcated into my system: he described Vargas Llosa as a 'fox' and Marquez as a 'Hedgehog.'

From the two books I've read by each writer - The Feast of the Goat, a comparatively lesser work under Vargas Llosa's belt and One Hundred Years of Solitude, a unanimously acclaimed novel by Marquez - I find this to be an absolutely accurate statement.

What's striking about the two books is the style. Vargas Llosa is very varied - he switches tenses, locations and places in time within the space of a few pages. I have tried read Hundred Years of Solitude twice and I literally lose the will to live by page 150. I start of thinking "Yeah, that's cute," but as I progress through the narrative I am become exausted by the same stlye and tone being reiterated time and time again...

But it was revolutionary, you may say? I don't think so. Marquez was only popularising the concepts and ideas of writers who were far more complex and ingenious - Juan Rulfo, Juan Carlos Onetti and the stories of Borges... He simplified the more complex conceptions of these writers and spread a plague in which writers from across the world derived their ideas from Marquez and produced a magic realism that was even more kitsch than his own...

Reading about the bibilography of these writers to me is also indicative of the range of each. Vargas Llosa covers continents around the world, a wide variety of themes, a plethora of genres... Whilst Marquez, from what I can gather, simply writes the same book time and time again. If you look at it from this perspective, you can see that Llosa's prize was far more deserved. Marquez flippantly claimed that by awading him they were awarding the whole of South America - which was actually true... Vargas Llosa's award is a recognition of a lifetime of literary endeavour.

The Nobel commitee was criticised by some naive people for awarding the prize for Llosa's politics. I actually find it refreshing that the Nobel Prize was given out to someone from the political right; the politics of the Nobel comitee have always been incredibly biased and unfair. Borges, though it was a terrible move, gave support to Pinochet's government and was thus barred from ever winning the prize. Why should politics be brought to the equation when this is supposed to be a literary award?

Besides, the politics of Vargas Llosa are far more respectable than Marquez's. He is a centrist who leans to the right and an advocate for freedom and democracy against authoritarian dictatorships. Marquez, on the other hand, has been a vocal supporter of Fidel Castro since the inception of the Cuban regime... His politics are very rarely questioned, but they are as ineptly conceived and monotonous as his own writings...

My routine

"I lead an extremely quiet life. [...] I write during the day, go for a walk along the river in the early evening and then watch TV and drink whisky and soda. And that seems to be the right background for me as an imaginative writer; perhaps I need invisible surroundings and this suburb is almost invisible to me." - J. G. Ballard

A month-long break from university means I have the chance to practice my routine....

8-9

Get up by at least 8.30 and arrive at this pond by 9.00.

9-12

Read book.

Recently a few examples being:

12-1

Scourge the fridge for food. Invariably this tends to consist of egg, bacon, spagetthi, cheese, etc.

1-5

Go to the library and work. First two hours are spent on a short story (just started a piece called 'The Murmurings'), the next two hours are spent on an essay or other university work.

This is my workplace:

5-7


(From 5 onwards the schedule tends to be more variable and don't necessarily stick to it so rigidly)

'Chill'/listen to music. Last few days I've been using this block of time to hear Beethoven symphonies...

7-9

Once every two days, spend this block of time on the internet; the other day use this time to watch a film.

And all this will come to an end within a week or so... Aghhr. : (