The Case For Juan Rulfo

Forget Everything Else You've Read on ROL This Week. Juan Rulfo Is the Best Writer You've Never Heard Of.

Dear Republic,

Our continue our Underestimated Writers series with yet another criminally underestimated great writer. How many of them are out there??

Get yer tickets to the inaugural ROL Book Club featuring Kimberly Warner’s Unfixed! They’re going fast but there are still a few places left. Please e-mail republic.of.letters.substack@gmail.com with “Unfixed” in the subject line to reserve.

We’re also looking for pieces for the next round of the Writers’ Cup. If you’d like to write in favor of Emma Cline or Colson Whitehead — or against either of them — write in to republic.of.letters.substack@gmail.com with “Cline” or “Whitehead” in the subject line as appropriate and the piece attached. These pieces should be about 1000-1500 words. The deadline is October 19.

-ROL

THE CASE FOR JUAN RULFO

I don’t think I’ve read a single body of work with such an impact on its own country of birth — yet still remain seemingly a ghost to the world — than the written works of Juan Rulfo. I had never heard the name until two years ago and I can guarantee my typewriter (okay, maybe not that, how about a fountain pen?) that there are dozens of readers in the same place.

“But wait,” many will say on countless forums and comment sections. “Juan Rulfo is a household name, you fool. Every soul in Mexico knows of the writer — his stories are mandatory reading in school just like Crime and Punishment in Russia and Faust in Germany.”

To this I bid thee silence, dear contrarian! Take your fidgeting hands from the keyboard and read on. Juan Rulfo is a famous name in Mexico. I’ve spoken with those from the country who know the name well, even if they had not read his work. When asked, they would agree that he would be likened to popularity and notoriety similar to other writers in their own country of birth, ranging from Tolstoy to Shakespeare, Murakami to Hugo. But outside of Mexico, specifically north of the border and going all the way to Europe, the response to Rulfo’s name is mostly crickets.

I myself would never have heard the name if Cliff Sargent from Better Than Food had not reviewed Rulfo’s fantastic novel, Pedro Páramo. Since then, I’ve found little information of him on all platforms. I’ve been able to find worthwhile articles here and there, some videos, a podcast or two. It is a tragedy, in my mind. I believe Rulfo’s name should received the recognition it deserves and only by talking about it can we do so.

But why is he so impactful?

With a flick of his wrist to discard a finished cigarette, leaving it to sail across the vast landscape of golden hills, dry deserts and ripe rows of agave ripe for harvest, Juan Rulfo is without a doubt a massive influence, if not the cause of the literary Latin Boom. The Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez is often attributed with kickstarting this same generation. But the man himself had admitted that he was in a rut — having written books with only moderate sales, he just couldn’t get the gears turning. It was when he moved to Mexico City and a friend had leant him a copy of Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo that it all clicked. After reading it twice in one day, he said, every idea and solution for his next novel all fell into place — resulting in his writing what would become the monumental One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Much like One Hundred Years’ retelling of Colombian history through the story of a town in the jungle, Pedro Páramo is filled with thematic, allegorical allusions to the roots of Mexican culture, its history and spiritual beliefs, the political and cultural history of Mexico from the time of Porfirio Diaz, to the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War, all through the lens of a gothic story about a ghost town in the middle of a desert.

So, just what all has he written? Surely, he must have dozens and dozens of short stories to his name similar to Jorge Luis Borges? Or perhaps a handful of novels like Marquez? All of it brimming with the Mexican identity he is so lauded with capturing.

How does one novel and two collection of short stories sound? Pedro Páramo, El Llano en IIamas (The Burning Plains), and The Golden Cockerel. That’s right — unless there is a vault or drawer in some small museum dedicated to this writer containing other hidden drafts, that’s all we have.

To be able to write such a small body of work and yet for his tremors to be felt across a nation is testament to his skill as well as to his understanding of the country he was writing in. The amazing thing, I am told, is once he had released the work stated above, the man simply stopped writing. He had said what he was compelled to say and that was that. He had, however, taken up photography. His dreamy, atmospheric work can be found online if you were to look for it.

Susan Sontag called Pedro Páramo a masterpiece. Jorge Luis Borges called the same book one of the greatest written texts in any language. So, why is Juan Rulfo so underestimated and downright overlooked by much of the globe outside of the Spanish speaking world? I would say it is partly because he is exactly that, a Spanish writer. In North America, I find most writers from other countries — especially those considered ‘third world’ — often overlooked save for one or two individuals from each region. Aided by a Nobel, it seems Marquez became the face of the Latin American Boom while Rulfo remained in the shadows.

I would claim it is also because Rulfo’s masterpiece, Pedro Páramo, can be a difficult book to piece together if one is not versed in reading books that demand you work for it. Set in the town of Comala, the story follows Juan Preciado, who promises his mother on her deathbed to track down the father who left them to fend for themselves, only to discover Comala is a ghost town in a literal sense, everyone having died off long ago still murmuring in the shadows. The novel is structured as fragments, with these ghostly figures of the town revealing more and more information for the reader to piece together into a complete story. The book, at least my translation by Douglas J. Weatherford, often veers off into the memories and ruminations of other characters midsentence. Most people, I unfortunately admit, don’t like reading books like these anymore, as rewarding as they can be.

There is hope, however. It seems that over the years Juan Rulfo has been steadily gaining recognition in North America as more and more people are led to reading his works. I see more and more videos speaking of Pedro Páramo and more articles. A recent Netflix adaptation, though given insultingly little advertisement, gives Rulfo further potential of being noticed by people who absolutely must read him.

It is my aim to do the same. While a work that is purely Mexican, Rulfo’s stories are, like most great literature, deeper than that. His stories are often grim, but they are further pieces making up the puzzle that is the human story archived through the written word. The atmosphere of his work is like wind hissing through the desert, his passages of prose — cut so pristinely with no fat whatsoever — are spellbinding. You will learn the worst of people through his stories, but you will also learn the best. It is what makes literature so powerful.

I have to go. Now that I have him in my thoughts again, I’ll have to take up Pedro Páramo and dive into Rulfo’s world once more. I’ll leave you with words from Gabriel Garcia Marquez highlighting the importance of Juan Rulfo:

Juan Rulfo didn’t write more than three hundred pages, but they are almost as many and, I believe, as durable as those we’re acquainted with from Sophocles.

Thank you.

Brandon Westlake is a writer from Ontario, Canada who regularly releases fiction, poetry and essays through his publication, Blind Poets.