cal Society in London, to travel the
length of the Casiquiare that appar-
ently defies the laws of nature and
flows uphill, Starks and Murcutt
noted other paradoxes. First and
foremost was the fundamental
hubris of the “adventure travel”
seeker who has been programmed
by a kind of false consciousness
to blind oneself to physical and
political risk. The true risks are not
as romantic as they might appear
in the historical travel narratives:
the authors are held captive by the
farc, a Colombian narco-trafficking
group that has turned to kidnap-
ping in order to extort large sums
of cash. The authors were fortunate
to have a boat moored on the river
and did not have to pay the $10,000
demanded of them. While they
made their escape, however, Starks
recalls all the others who were not
so lucky and the thousands who
are still held captive with little
hope of escape.
The authors also meditate on
how myth and a kind of narrative
of desire interweave to blur real-
ity and one’s own perceptions. A
case in point are the Yanomami,
ostensibly one of the most vio-
lent and aggressive peoples on
the planet, who have been exten-
sively described by explorers. The
authors do not find poison-tipped
arrows. Instead, the Yanomami
appear passive and in fairly poor
health, plagued by parasites.
While the authors weave in
accounts of historical expeditions,
they also reflect on the desire to
uncover hidden knowledge that
drives many expeditions. What the
uncomfortable truth may turn out
to be is that many of the puzzles
which the explorers seek to solve
do not have a resolution, and as
the mystery of how a river can
flow uphill is solved by looking at
the bifurcations of its channels, the
sense of indeterminacy is height-
ened. Discourses of explanation
expire in the gaze of a new reader
who encounters them and imposes
his or her own beliefs and narrative
desires.
Susan Smith Nash
University of Oklahoma
Jorge Volpi. El insomnio de Bolívar:
Cuatro consideraciones intempesti-
vas sobre América Latina en el siglo
XXI. Barcelona. Debate / Random
House Mondadori. 2009. 258 pages.
€20.90. isbn 978-84-8306-862-5
Simón Bolívar as an insomniac.
That’s the image that pervades the
four sections of Jorge Volpi’s new
book, El insomnio de Bolívar. His-
tory tells us that at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, Bolívar died
without seeing his dream realized.
Latin America, after its Indepen-
dence, had not only failed to unite,
but it was even more fragmented,
hostile, and chaotic than ever. Two
hundred years later, Mexican writer
Volpi returns to the same question
that must have kept Bolívar up
at night: What does the dream of
a united Latin America look like?
Is there actually one place called
Latin America? If so, does it contain
one or various cultures? Beyond
the unifying language, what do the
inhabitants of Colombia, Mexico, or
Peru have in common? Are those
countries with existing democrat-
ic systems reliable? Does a Latin
American identity exist? Or is what
we call “Latin American” only an
expression coined by the writers of
the Boom?
Volpi’s compelling introspec-
tion made this book possible; he
realized that in addition to being
Mexican, he was also Latin Ameri-
can. This somewhat late epiphany
happened when he was living in
Salamanca, Spain, as a graduate
student and inspired him to revis-
it the history, politics, and Latin
American literature from its inde-
pendence to—in a daring imagina-
tive exercise—the signing, in the
year 2110, of the Constitution of the
United States of the Americas.
Volpi concludes the book
with little hope. Democracy now is
threatened by “democratic caudi-
llos,” those politicians that, elected
by the popular vote, revive all those
shady political practices used by
the old caudillos from centuries
past, including those of terrible
Latin American dictators. Corrup-
tion, drug trafficking, and popu-
lism appear to be the new ills that
afflict Latin America. Within this
context, Volpi points out that this
is not completely negative. The cul-
ture has liberated itself from the
obligation to be “Latin American,”
especially the writers who, in par-
ticular, no longer feel the need to
express themselves under those
terms. Volpi argues that this new
generation of writers and intellectu-
als no longer feel weighed down by
the specific reality of their countries
or the continent. “Never has Latin
America been less Latin Ameri-
can,” states Volpi. Perhaps the last
few decades have brought change;
many, but not all, of the character-
istics that defined Latin America
have ceased to exist. Despite bouts
of insomnia, Bolívar’s sleep might
have finally allowed him to shift
the shape of his dream. However,
this dream no longer seems like
something imagined by a character
from One Hundred Years of Solitude.
By moving beyond magic, Latin
America can start facing the reality
of this new century.
Marcelo Rioseco
University of Oklahoma
May – June 2010 ı 79