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Last Date in El Zapotal
I never understood what was happening during my life. It's no surprise that death is the same.
This is a ghost story. A junkie has gone to El Zapotal to die – to rent a room in this crumbling backwater, melt into one last fix, and not come back. For someone so ready to no longer be alive, though, he can’t stop clinging to the past. His old dog, Kid, who he abandoned. His love, Valerie, who he introduced to drugs. There’s no such thing as a good memory.
El Zapotal doesn’t want him either. The people aren’t welcoming, the streets are empty except for strays, and he’s having trouble pacing his supply. As the drugs run out, the line between what’s real and what’s not blurs to the point of illegibility, and we’re left wandering a tenderly described hinterland of despair, hunger, and regret. García Elizondo has given us an homage to Pedro Páramo, a descent for the ages, a long goodbye with no clear line between the living and dead.
This is a ghost story. A junkie has gone to El Zapotal to die – to rent a room in this crumbling backwater, melt into one last fix, and not come back. For someone so ready to no longer be alive, though, he can’t stop clinging to the past. His old dog, Kid, who he abandoned. His love, Valerie, who he introduced to drugs. There’s no such thing as a good memory.
El Zapotal doesn’t want him either. The people aren’t welcoming, the streets are empty except for strays, and he’s having trouble pacing his supply. As the drugs run out, the line between what’s real and what’s not blurs to the point of illegibility, and we’re left wandering a tenderly described hinterland of despair, hunger, and regret. García Elizondo has given us an homage to Pedro Páramo, a descent for the ages, a long goodbye with no clear line between the living and dead.
164 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 2019
About the author
Mateo García Elizondo
3 books31 followersMateo García Elizondo (Ciudad de México, 1987) es licenciado en Letras Inglesas y Escritura Creativa por la Universidad de Westminster en Londres, y cuenta con un posgrado en Periodismo por la London School of Journalism. Ha escrito artículos para medios como National Geographic Traveler Mexico y PijamaSurf. Es guionista del largometraje Desierto (2015, ganador del premio FIPRESCI en el Festival de Cine de Toronto), así como de los cortometrajes Domingo (2013, selección oficial en el Festival de Cine de Morelia) y Clickbait (2018, mejor corto gore en Feratum FilmFest, mención honorífica FICMA 2018).
Su ficción ha aparecido en medios impresos como Epoka Magazine, Revista Alba y Huun. Arte/pensamiento desde México. Vol.1, y su trabajo como guionista de narrativa gráfica ha sido publicado por editoriales como WP Comics Ltd, Premier Comics, Swampline Comics y revistas como Entropy. Una cita con la Lady, publicada por Anagrama en castellano y Feltrinelli Editori en italiano, es su primera novela.
(Fuente: Anagrama)
Su ficción ha aparecido en medios impresos como Epoka Magazine, Revista Alba y Huun. Arte/pensamiento desde México. Vol.1, y su trabajo como guionista de narrativa gráfica ha sido publicado por editoriales como WP Comics Ltd, Premier Comics, Swampline Comics y revistas como Entropy. Una cita con la Lady, publicada por Anagrama en castellano y Feltrinelli Editori en italiano, es su primera novela.
(Fuente: Anagrama)
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July 31, 2024
It's My Wife, It's My Life
Review of the Charco Press paperback edition (June 25, 2024) translated by Robin Myers from the Spanish language original Una cita con la Lady [A Date with the Lady] (November 6, 2019).
I could appreciate more the hallucinations and the encounters between the living and the dead in this novel, as the rather hapless addict wanders through the village and its outskirts. He even takes on final requests from some of the dead that he encounters. He hovers between both worlds and at some point he makes a crossover which isn't obvious to the reader at first. You could say I read it more as a metaphor for the experience of living. Heroin may be the crutch for the narrator's existence, but each of us have our own crutches, i.e. our reasons for living, don't we? And is it just me or do we not encounter the dead in our own dreams at times?
The painting "This was All Folly" by Tomas Harker, was used as the cover illustration for the original Spanish language edition "Una cita con la Lady" (2019) published by Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona. Image sourced from JacksonsArt.com.
I realize that most would not enjoy the surface subject matter here, but for me it became a 5-star, because I just couldn't stop reading it and couldn't help but be fascinated by it.
Soundtrack
The choice was obvious on this one, and it also provided for my lede header. It is Heroin by Lou Reed as recorded on The Velvet Underground debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). You can hear the track on YouTube here or on Spotify here.
Trivia and Links
The English language synopsis for Last Date in El Zapotal describes it as "an homage to Pedro Páramo" (1955), which was a novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo (1917- 1986). You can read more about that novel and its influence at a Wikipedia article here (Note: Plot spoilers).
Review of the Charco Press paperback edition (June 25, 2024) translated by Robin Myers from the Spanish language original Una cita con la Lady [A Date with the Lady] (November 6, 2019).
I ask the girl why if they're dead, I can see them but they can't see me.
'The dead see only what they damn well please,' she says.
Which is something the living do as well. - excerpt from "Last Date in El Zapotal."
Last Date in El Zapotal may seem like a book about death, but it's really a book about living. And about (here I am, editorialising flagrantly now) how difficult it is to stop. - excerpt from the Translator's Note by Robin Myers.The Translator's Note (printed at the back of the book) was actually the first thing that I read from this recent Charco Press book and it probably had a great influence on the way I approached the novel itself. I think most people would otherwise find a book about a heroin addict who has retreated to an obscure village in order to die through the use of his final fix to be not only depressing but rather distasteful.
I could appreciate more the hallucinations and the encounters between the living and the dead in this novel, as the rather hapless addict wanders through the village and its outskirts. He even takes on final requests from some of the dead that he encounters. He hovers between both worlds and at some point he makes a crossover which isn't obvious to the reader at first. You could say I read it more as a metaphor for the experience of living. Heroin may be the crutch for the narrator's existence, but each of us have our own crutches, i.e. our reasons for living, don't we? And is it just me or do we not encounter the dead in our own dreams at times?
The painting "This was All Folly" by Tomas Harker, was used as the cover illustration for the original Spanish language edition "Una cita con la Lady" (2019) published by Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona. Image sourced from JacksonsArt.com.
I realize that most would not enjoy the surface subject matter here, but for me it became a 5-star, because I just couldn't stop reading it and couldn't help but be fascinated by it.
Soundtrack
The choice was obvious on this one, and it also provided for my lede header. It is Heroin by Lou Reed as recorded on The Velvet Underground debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). You can hear the track on YouTube here or on Spotify here.
Trivia and Links
The English language synopsis for Last Date in El Zapotal describes it as "an homage to Pedro Páramo" (1955), which was a novel by Mexican author Juan Rulfo (1917- 1986). You can read more about that novel and its influence at a Wikipedia article here (Note: Plot spoilers).
June 23, 2024
That’s where I live now, that’s what this whole town is: limbo. That’s what heroin is too. You’re halfway between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and neither wants to deal with you.
Last Date in El Zapotal (2024) is Robin Myers translation of Una cita con la Lady (2019) by Mateo García Elizondo. It begins (translation and original):
I came to El Zapotal to die once and for all. I emptied my pockets as soon as I set foot in the town, tossing the keys to the house I left behind in the city, my credit card, anything with my name or photograph. All I've got left are three thousand pesos, twenty grams of opium, and a quarter-ounce of heroin, which had better be enough to kill me.
«Vine a Zapotal para morirme de una buena vez. En cuanto puse un pie en el pueblo me deshice de lo que traía en los bolsillos, de las llaves de la casa que dejé abandonada en la ciudad, y de todo el plástico, todo lo que tenía mi nombre o la fotografía de mi rostro. No me quedan más que tres mil pesos, doscientos gramos de goma de opio y un cuarto de onza de heroína, y con esto me tiene que alcanzar para matarme.»
The opening lines a very deliberate echo of Rulfo's Pedro Páramo's “Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo.” ("I came to Comala because I was told my father lived here, a man called Pedro Páramo" in the translation by Douglas J. Weatherford).
Our narrator has come to El Zapotal for a last date with his "skinny bride", heroin, one he expects, hopes even, to be fatal, having lost many of his friends to the same drug, his dog through neglect and his love, Valerie, to an OD. El Zapotal, founded as an encampment for the lumber trade, really is at the end of civilisation, with the forest fighting back by reclaiming the village:
From what I've heard, the village was founded as an encampment for the lumber trade, because that's all this place has to offer, the only thing of interest.To encourage the expansion of the settlement, the government brought in prostitutes from all over the state, and the outpost started by lumberjacks and whores became El Zapotal. Besides the mostly humble houses, there's a scattering of farms, a couple of sawmills, a chapel, two abandoned haciendas, a convenience store, and a cantina. The dirt road into town exists only for the lumber lorries, laden with amputated trunks, plus the occasional bus, like the one that brought me here. These are the only means of transport into this wasteland, supplying enough beer, cigarettes and Coca-Cola to give the village an illusory air of civilisation.
The town, rather like Comala, exists, particularly in the narrator's mind in a liminal state, with him unclear if the interactions he has are imaginary, if those he interacts with are real or ghosts, and indeed which state he is in:
When your mind is no longer preoccupied with sensation, with seeking pleasure and dodging pain and disgust, there's a void that opens up, and it starts to fill with shadows, fantastical forms sculpted from the residues of sanity that wash up on the shores of consciousness. Your memory falters, and you fall into a spiral of oblivion that corrodes everything your life once was. But some still-active part of the brain recycles everything that's been buried and anaesthetised, turns it all into a kind of perpetual daydream, totally indistinguishable from everyday life. Reality takes on the bizarre texture of hallucination, and your memories of your life and your dreams become more or less indistinguishable: vague, fragmentary, garbled, and absurd.
Myers translation captures this liminal sense perfectly, and in an afterword she explains how she captured the two types of dream in the prose: "oneiric curiosity and nightmarish dread".
While a nod to Rulfo's work, the novel's key inspiration lies in the tradition of beat literature, and that on the experience of drugs in particular, such as William S. Burroughs (see e.g. this Spanish-language interview). More accurately, the author explains his interest in the process of altered consciousness, where near-death experiences and those of certain drugs, allow him to explore the topic.
But that's ultimately the big issue I had with this book - that's probably my least favourite sub-genre of literary fiction, so a reluctant 2 stars for personal taste as not a novel I appreciated at all, while one I would commend in terms of its literary quality amongst its type.
Last Date in El Zapotal (2024) is Robin Myers translation of Una cita con la Lady (2019) by Mateo García Elizondo. It begins (translation and original):
I came to El Zapotal to die once and for all. I emptied my pockets as soon as I set foot in the town, tossing the keys to the house I left behind in the city, my credit card, anything with my name or photograph. All I've got left are three thousand pesos, twenty grams of opium, and a quarter-ounce of heroin, which had better be enough to kill me.
«Vine a Zapotal para morirme de una buena vez. En cuanto puse un pie en el pueblo me deshice de lo que traía en los bolsillos, de las llaves de la casa que dejé abandonada en la ciudad, y de todo el plástico, todo lo que tenía mi nombre o la fotografía de mi rostro. No me quedan más que tres mil pesos, doscientos gramos de goma de opio y un cuarto de onza de heroína, y con esto me tiene que alcanzar para matarme.»
The opening lines a very deliberate echo of Rulfo's Pedro Páramo's “Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo.” ("I came to Comala because I was told my father lived here, a man called Pedro Páramo" in the translation by Douglas J. Weatherford).
Our narrator has come to El Zapotal for a last date with his "skinny bride", heroin, one he expects, hopes even, to be fatal, having lost many of his friends to the same drug, his dog through neglect and his love, Valerie, to an OD. El Zapotal, founded as an encampment for the lumber trade, really is at the end of civilisation, with the forest fighting back by reclaiming the village:
From what I've heard, the village was founded as an encampment for the lumber trade, because that's all this place has to offer, the only thing of interest.To encourage the expansion of the settlement, the government brought in prostitutes from all over the state, and the outpost started by lumberjacks and whores became El Zapotal. Besides the mostly humble houses, there's a scattering of farms, a couple of sawmills, a chapel, two abandoned haciendas, a convenience store, and a cantina. The dirt road into town exists only for the lumber lorries, laden with amputated trunks, plus the occasional bus, like the one that brought me here. These are the only means of transport into this wasteland, supplying enough beer, cigarettes and Coca-Cola to give the village an illusory air of civilisation.
The town, rather like Comala, exists, particularly in the narrator's mind in a liminal state, with him unclear if the interactions he has are imaginary, if those he interacts with are real or ghosts, and indeed which state he is in:
When your mind is no longer preoccupied with sensation, with seeking pleasure and dodging pain and disgust, there's a void that opens up, and it starts to fill with shadows, fantastical forms sculpted from the residues of sanity that wash up on the shores of consciousness. Your memory falters, and you fall into a spiral of oblivion that corrodes everything your life once was. But some still-active part of the brain recycles everything that's been buried and anaesthetised, turns it all into a kind of perpetual daydream, totally indistinguishable from everyday life. Reality takes on the bizarre texture of hallucination, and your memories of your life and your dreams become more or less indistinguishable: vague, fragmentary, garbled, and absurd.
Myers translation captures this liminal sense perfectly, and in an afterword she explains how she captured the two types of dream in the prose: "oneiric curiosity and nightmarish dread".
While a nod to Rulfo's work, the novel's key inspiration lies in the tradition of beat literature, and that on the experience of drugs in particular, such as William S. Burroughs (see e.g. this Spanish-language interview). More accurately, the author explains his interest in the process of altered consciousness, where near-death experiences and those of certain drugs, allow him to explore the topic.
But that's ultimately the big issue I had with this book - that's probably my least favourite sub-genre of literary fiction, so a reluctant 2 stars for personal taste as not a novel I appreciated at all, while one I would commend in terms of its literary quality amongst its type.
December 6, 2019
La idea que me hice de esta novela, después de leer por primera vez la sinopsis, hará cosa de dos meses, era que se trataba de una especie de novelización del De-loused in the Comatorium, el disco de The Mars Volta, dónde efectivamente, a través de una imaginación alucinógena y alucinada, se cuenta la historia de Cerpin Taxt, el yonqui chicano que intenta suicidarse en El Paso y eso da pie a ese viaje por mundos a cada cual más extraño e infernal. En cierta forma, Una cita con la Lady, si bien no sigue ese mismo patrón, si comparte el punto de partida.
En verdad se trataría de los personajes del Yonqui de William Burroughs paseándose por la Comala de Pedro Páramo. El protagonista llega al imaginario Zapotal y se encuentra con un pueblo que parece el último agujero del planeta, un lugar empobrecido, de aire fantastmal y decadente. Su propósito es consumir la heroína y el opio que le queda en la reserva y extinguirse en ése, el rincón más olvidado que ha podido hallar. Sin querer revelar mucho más, diremos que hacia el final la historia da un viraje considerable y algunas de las insinuaciones realizadas durante la narración cobran enorme relieve y pasan a primer plano narrativo.
Se trata de la historia de un hombre sumergido en el consumismo más puro, el de la droga, tanto que se autoalimenta de su propio apetito hasta crear un bucle que absorbe todo lo que puede y lo que no, lo excluye y lo aleja. Vamos sabiendo que de sus allegados algunos se hicieron yonquis como él y murireron y los que no, lo abandonaron. En medio de una desolación absoluta, fascinado por ese intenso mundo lisérgico, se planta y decide apartarse y perecer, pues ya no le queda ni intereses ni deseos por nada que exista en el mundo ni impulso vital.
Él se considera algo intermedio entre los vivos y los muertos, un ente que vaga por el mundo sin otro propósito que proporcionarse su amada sustancia. La expresiva escritura de García Elizondo recrea ese ambiente obsesivo y lóbrego, los temas se van reiterando sutilmente con ocurrentes variaciones, de forma que al final la atmósfera del libro logra atrapar hasta el ánimo del lector y contagiarle ese singular tono, tan poco simpático y vitalista.
Se trata de un libro escrito por alguien de poco más de treinta años y en su primera novela publicada. Cómo se sabe, no se trata de un cualquiera, él ha tenido el privilegio de ser nieto de los escritores Gabriel García Márquez y Salvador Elizondo, por lo cuál él ha tenido más fácil el poder iniciarse en el mundo de la ficción, ahora bien, una vez leído este Una cita con la Lady no me cabe duda que él ha sabido demostrar mérito propio y que vale para esto de narrar historias poco convencionales y atrapantes. Han sido dos días de lectura febril. Sin duda sería una gran noticia que alguien como él, un narrador dispuesto a explorar la ficción desde ángulos poco usuales, iniciara con este libro una extensa obra. Yo por lo menos así lo esperaré. Pero por favor, que no me busquen en Zapotal.
June 9, 2021
Vine por las drogas, me quedé por los fantasmas.
January 5, 2020
Una voce narrante potente descrive il viaggio di un’eroinomane verso la fine. Ambientato in un villaggio sperduto, in cui nessuno vorrebbe vivere, il racconto si snoda lungo la linea di confine tra vita e morte. Realtà e allucinazioni si alternano, finché diventa impossibile distinguere le une dalle altre e i ricordi si trasformano nel tempo perduto, in una dimensione di tempo sospeso.
Affascinante, poetico e tragico.
Affascinante, poetico e tragico.
May 7, 2020
Está muy bueno.
Cuenta la historia, narrada en primera persona de un drogadicto que llega a un pueblo (Zapotal) con el claro objetivo de morirse, desde el principio honestamente la atmosfera del lugar te recuerda a Comala, en Pedro Páramo, cuya premisa inicial es semejante: una persona que llega a un pueblito sospechosamente solitario, oscuro y misterioso.
Es una idea original sobre una base ya conocida de la relación entre el mundo de los vivos con el mundo de los muertos en el que los límites físicos no están bien definidos por lo que en ciertos momentos llegan a coincidir de tal manera que nunca sabes bien dónde estás parado.
Se nota muchísimo la influencia de su abuelo, el maestro Gabo, en la narrativa de Mateo que refleja situaciones claras de realismo mágico, destacando la amenidad con la que relata esta historia, el registro oral está muy presente lo que te mantiene siempre entretenida y expectante a lo que va sucediendo.
Cuenta la historia, narrada en primera persona de un drogadicto que llega a un pueblo (Zapotal) con el claro objetivo de morirse, desde el principio honestamente la atmosfera del lugar te recuerda a Comala, en Pedro Páramo, cuya premisa inicial es semejante: una persona que llega a un pueblito sospechosamente solitario, oscuro y misterioso.
Es una idea original sobre una base ya conocida de la relación entre el mundo de los vivos con el mundo de los muertos en el que los límites físicos no están bien definidos por lo que en ciertos momentos llegan a coincidir de tal manera que nunca sabes bien dónde estás parado.
Se nota muchísimo la influencia de su abuelo, el maestro Gabo, en la narrativa de Mateo que refleja situaciones claras de realismo mágico, destacando la amenidad con la que relata esta historia, el registro oral está muy presente lo que te mantiene siempre entretenida y expectante a lo que va sucediendo.
August 6, 2024
I really loved this! It’s about a heroin addict who takes the train go a random town with enough heroin left to end his own life, but he ends up getting mixed up with a bunch of drug dealers and strange people who rob him of his stash so he ends up just walking around in a sort of high-limbo waiting to see if he will die.
The way the narrative straddled the line between life and death was fantastic and I found it super easy and enjoyable to read the main character’s voice. The way the afterlife was explored was so clever and how the book tricks you into questioning what is real and what could just be a hallucination because of the drugs is done so well.
I don’t usually like books which are quite hallucinatory but the way this was structured and told was just fantastic and kept you hooked. It was never confusing but always engaging, funny and thought provoking. I really can’t wait to read more from this author because from this book I can tell his writing is completely brilliant.
The way the narrative straddled the line between life and death was fantastic and I found it super easy and enjoyable to read the main character’s voice. The way the afterlife was explored was so clever and how the book tricks you into questioning what is real and what could just be a hallucination because of the drugs is done so well.
I don’t usually like books which are quite hallucinatory but the way this was structured and told was just fantastic and kept you hooked. It was never confusing but always engaging, funny and thought provoking. I really can’t wait to read more from this author because from this book I can tell his writing is completely brilliant.
September 24, 2020
¿Qué pasaría si uno de los personajes jonkis de Burroughs hubiera sido el protagonista de Pedro Páramo? Con esta pregunta podríamos dar una idea bastante buena sobre Una cita con la Lady, primera novela de Mateo García Elizondo que automáticamente lo ubica como un talento para no perder de vista.
La novela arranca de forma muy potente, revisitando el pasado del protagonista y todas las formas en que su vida se fue poco a poco desintegrando a causa de su adicción a la heroína. Algo importante de recalcar es que la obra nunca toma un tono moralista o juzgador con respecto a las adicciones, sólo las muestra en su basto espectro de brutales complejidades, y he ahí el gran acierto de esta obra, con escenas que pueden hacer revolvernos en nuestros asientos pero que muestran la dolorosa humanidad de un grupo de chicos perdidos en su deseo de escapar del mundo.
Sin embargo, a medida que la novela avanzaba la trama pasó a ser cada vez más fantástica y a tratar menos sobre el pasado autodestructivo-marginal del protagonista, lo que desde mi punto de vista debilitó mucho el nivel que venía llevando. No digo que haya sido una mala idea mezclar estas dos temáticas a simple vista tan distintas: marginalidad descarnada y realismo mágico; pero en lo personal me resultó muy distractor y creo que la novela habría sido mucho más potente si se hubiera centrado sólo en la temática de adicciones y deterioro humano. Para el final de la novela sentía que estaba leyendo un libro muy distinto al que había empezado, más cercano a La Divina Comedia que a Less Than Zero.
Aún así, tomando en cuenta que ésta es apenas la primera novela del autor, queda claro que tiene talento y que a medida que lo siga puliendo seguramente producirá obras que desde ya espero con ansias.
La novela arranca de forma muy potente, revisitando el pasado del protagonista y todas las formas en que su vida se fue poco a poco desintegrando a causa de su adicción a la heroína. Algo importante de recalcar es que la obra nunca toma un tono moralista o juzgador con respecto a las adicciones, sólo las muestra en su basto espectro de brutales complejidades, y he ahí el gran acierto de esta obra, con escenas que pueden hacer revolvernos en nuestros asientos pero que muestran la dolorosa humanidad de un grupo de chicos perdidos en su deseo de escapar del mundo.
Sin embargo, a medida que la novela avanzaba la trama pasó a ser cada vez más fantástica y a tratar menos sobre el pasado autodestructivo-marginal del protagonista, lo que desde mi punto de vista debilitó mucho el nivel que venía llevando. No digo que haya sido una mala idea mezclar estas dos temáticas a simple vista tan distintas: marginalidad descarnada y realismo mágico; pero en lo personal me resultó muy distractor y creo que la novela habría sido mucho más potente si se hubiera centrado sólo en la temática de adicciones y deterioro humano. Para el final de la novela sentía que estaba leyendo un libro muy distinto al que había empezado, más cercano a La Divina Comedia que a Less Than Zero.
Aún así, tomando en cuenta que ésta es apenas la primera novela del autor, queda claro que tiene talento y que a medida que lo siga puliendo seguramente producirá obras que desde ya espero con ansias.
July 14, 2024
charco press do release bangers icl
▪️the concept of this was so interesting to me and it was fleshed out really well for something i feel could have really been hit or miss
▪️i loved the stream of consciousness as it delved into questions of life and love and what truly makes us fulfilled and connected to the world and reality around us
▪️this kind of lost some momentum within the last 40 pages or so but it's definitely worth sticking with as it does pose some interesting ideas worth contemplating
depressing short read = a happy reader
▪️the concept of this was so interesting to me and it was fleshed out really well for something i feel could have really been hit or miss
▪️i loved the stream of consciousness as it delved into questions of life and love and what truly makes us fulfilled and connected to the world and reality around us
▪️this kind of lost some momentum within the last 40 pages or so but it's definitely worth sticking with as it does pose some interesting ideas worth contemplating
depressing short read = a happy reader
December 9, 2019
Esta novela pudo haber sido un artículo de Vice.
August 30, 2024
Briefly, I loved this book and I feel a numerical rating doesn't give that justice. This is such a dark, harrowing, bleak look at life, existence, addiction, and death, and all of that resonated with me deeply. I think the book for me hinged more on its final act, and while it was obvious this story only had one place to go in terms of the character's arc, I wish it had gone in a slightly different direction.
I think for me when a book focuses on existential dread or crises, the meaning of life, and even the afterlife, I prefer when it ends on a darker tone, and here I didn't feel that. If you've read A Short Stay in Hell, for me that's exactly the kind of ending I want in a story like this, and that didn't quite happen here. The connecting tissue between the first 100 or so pages and the final 50 could have been strung together better, but these are nitpicks - this is a fantastic novel and I'm super happy I read it. SO many great lines and passages. Giving a 4 here but closer to a 4.25 or 4.5 for my tastes, if you want a look into a sad, dying addict's quest to end his own life and his chronicling of it, this is a great place to see it.
I think for me when a book focuses on existential dread or crises, the meaning of life, and even the afterlife, I prefer when it ends on a darker tone, and here I didn't feel that. If you've read A Short Stay in Hell, for me that's exactly the kind of ending I want in a story like this, and that didn't quite happen here. The connecting tissue between the first 100 or so pages and the final 50 could have been strung together better, but these are nitpicks - this is a fantastic novel and I'm super happy I read it. SO many great lines and passages. Giving a 4 here but closer to a 4.25 or 4.5 for my tastes, if you want a look into a sad, dying addict's quest to end his own life and his chronicling of it, this is a great place to see it.
August 9, 2020
Tiene habilidad para nombrar lo abstracto, que no es menor, y hay ecos de Rulfo, pero me pareció impostada, tremendista. Como si Reygadas hubiera escrito una novela.
February 3, 2024
a disturbing, tender, stream of consciousness. life and death! what more needs to be said
August 7, 2024
A heroin addict seems to have run out of hope, and in accepting his circumstance journeys to an almost deserted Mexican village to die.
He rents a room in this seedy backwater and prepares one last fix, but is haunted by memories of his past that won’t let go.
He becomes stuck in limbo among the bums of El Zapotal and the ghosts of his past so that neither he, nor we as readers, can tell them apart.
It’s a ghost story of a sort, a horror story, and a fable considering damnation and deliverance. But its brilliance is in its language, translation, and style. I’ve read it compared to Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, which I can see, and I’d add to that the prose of Bukowski, which several times it put me in mind if.
It’s another excellent find from Charco Press who continue to discover tremendous world literature in translation.
Here’s how it starts..
He rents a room in this seedy backwater and prepares one last fix, but is haunted by memories of his past that won’t let go.
He becomes stuck in limbo among the bums of El Zapotal and the ghosts of his past so that neither he, nor we as readers, can tell them apart.
It’s a ghost story of a sort, a horror story, and a fable considering damnation and deliverance. But its brilliance is in its language, translation, and style. I’ve read it compared to Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, which I can see, and I’d add to that the prose of Bukowski, which several times it put me in mind if.
It’s another excellent find from Charco Press who continue to discover tremendous world literature in translation.
Here’s how it starts..
I came to El Zapotal to die once and for all. I emptied my pockets as soon as I set foot in the town, tossing the keys to the house I left behind in the city, my credit cards, anything with my name or photograph. All I've got left are three thousand pesos, twenty grams of opium, and a quarter-ounce of heroin, which had better be enough to kill me. If not, I'll be too broke to even buy a pack of cigarettes, much less pay for a roof over my head or score some more lady, and then I'll freeze and starve to death out there instead of making slow, sweet love to my skinny bride, just as I've planned.
That should get me through for sure. But I've missed the mark before and I always wake up again. I must have some unfinished business to take care of.
January 13, 2021
5 días y 184 páginas después. El primer libro del autor que leo del autor. No sabía nada del autor, hasta que lo vi posteado en varias menciones.
Es una narración buena, pero bastante repetitiva, y aunque tiene los capitulos definidos, hay algo que te hace perderte dentro de la misma historia. ¿Aleatoriedad? Bastante, pero que puedes esperar de un adicto a la heroína. ¿Qué puedes esperar de un libro que narra la historia de una persona que solo se quiere destruir y que cree ver muertos?
Todo iba excelente hasta que se hace esa mezcla de las visiones, cosa que no estuvo mal, pero que es terriblemente experimental. A algunos les puede gustar, o funcionar, pero en lo personal siento que fue demasiado ambicioso al querer narrar cosas tan filosoficas (y alocadas) en tan poco.
No es el hecho de que se hayan visto ya decenas de relatos de drogos, ni que sea una escabrosidad parecida a la de otros realismos mexicanos, sino el hecho de que la novela es un experimento que no acaba de completarse.
Sin embargo, me parece una excelente primer novela, habrá que seguir viendo lo que el autor escribe. Y tenerlo cerca. Hubo unas frases excelentes.
No habrá reseña.
Es una narración buena, pero bastante repetitiva, y aunque tiene los capitulos definidos, hay algo que te hace perderte dentro de la misma historia. ¿Aleatoriedad? Bastante, pero que puedes esperar de un adicto a la heroína. ¿Qué puedes esperar de un libro que narra la historia de una persona que solo se quiere destruir y que cree ver muertos?
Todo iba excelente hasta que se hace esa mezcla de las visiones, cosa que no estuvo mal, pero que es terriblemente experimental. A algunos les puede gustar, o funcionar, pero en lo personal siento que fue demasiado ambicioso al querer narrar cosas tan filosoficas (y alocadas) en tan poco.
No es el hecho de que se hayan visto ya decenas de relatos de drogos, ni que sea una escabrosidad parecida a la de otros realismos mexicanos, sino el hecho de que la novela es un experimento que no acaba de completarse.
Sin embargo, me parece una excelente primer novela, habrá que seguir viendo lo que el autor escribe. Y tenerlo cerca. Hubo unas frases excelentes.
No habrá reseña.
August 27, 2023
Me sonó a un relato muy personal de alguien que toca fondo con las drogas y su decisión de como salir de ello..
"Los placeres no duran mucho, pero los males terminan por pasar también."
Una cita con la Lady
Mateo García Elizondo
"Los placeres no duran mucho, pero los males terminan por pasar también."
Una cita con la Lady
Mateo García Elizondo
August 1, 2024
"Sometimes I wonder why I don't just shoot up a big fat dose and get it over with. Then I remember that dying is no easy feat. Inevitable, sure, but not always easy. That's part of why I came here. In the city, you can't even give up the ghost in peace. I tried a few times, but they always brought me back, and I'm still here, never managed to take the leap. Like I said, I must have some unfinished business to take care of. Dying, though it's one of the most beautiful things there is. It's not scary or confusing like people say. I think they talk like that because the idea of eternal rest is too tempting. Because if they didn't, then everyone would want to die."
"When you've run into death as often as I have, life takes on another meaning. The place I'm talking about isn't meant for the living, and when you've gone away and come back as many times as I have, you don't really belong to this world anymore either."
"Of course there's a God, but he never sets foot in this town."
"There aren't many places in this world where people can grasp the existence of beings like me, the undead who've been buried and dug up again so many times that they no longer participate in society and have been permanently cast off by it. When they do, they call us zombies."
"It's nice to feel that you can solve all your troubles three times a day. Your misery gets worse and worse, it gets unbearable, but the solution gets simpler and simpler, too. You leave behind everything you know and dive into that world. And being there, you understand, comes at a price so high that few are willing to pay it. But you are, and you think your willingness grants you a kind of nobility, makes you a member of another species, and it's true. You do become a member of another species. In the end, you make the leap, because you think the reward will be worth it."
"The trouble with living in such a small sad town is that sometimes the dead are better company than the living. That's why we hang out here, in the graveyard, to see if we run into anyone we can talk to for a while."
"I realise the drugs have liquefied my brain, that I can't trust what I see and hear. I know I'm incapable of distin- guishing opium dreams from real life, and it's ridiculous to think I can actually talk with the dead. But the more I dwell on it, the more sense it makes. I'm so close to becoming one of them that the border between us grows wispy, frail. Maybe it sometimes fades away altogether. It's been happening to me for a while. It's just hard for me to remember when I'm awake. It's like I've already joined them, already turned into a spirit doggedly clinging to the corpse it drags along."
"The dead see only what they damn well please. Which is something the living do as well."
"Matter has the benefit of transience, occurring in a state of constant flux and transformation. Pleasures don't last long, but pain passes too. Here, in the plane I find myself in now, is where the life sentence was invented. Even if I make it out someday, every second here feels like forever."
"The dead observe us with a mix of fascination and utter detachment. Most are no longer involved in earthly affairs. I think they must feel pity and tenderness towards us because we still are, because of how seriously we take everything. They see it all as if from behind a glass window, from the perspective of someone who no longer has anything at stake, no more obstacles to overcome, not even time itself."
"It's getting harder to differentiate between reality and my own ravings, but that's been the case for so long that I've come to wonder if there's any difference at all. Maybe they're one and the same, part of a single experience that transcends both life and death, dreams and waking. Which must mean that those flowy-robed Tibetans weren't full of shit after all. Here in the bardo you do run into all kinds of beings that let you pass - or not - through the underworld toward the light, and the only way to cross the threshold is to know that none of it is real. They're projections on a curtain, tests that distract you and keep you lost in the labyrinth of your own mind, your habits, the desires you fed until they got so strong that they survived your earthly life, survived you."
"When you've run into death as often as I have, life takes on another meaning. The place I'm talking about isn't meant for the living, and when you've gone away and come back as many times as I have, you don't really belong to this world anymore either."
"Of course there's a God, but he never sets foot in this town."
"There aren't many places in this world where people can grasp the existence of beings like me, the undead who've been buried and dug up again so many times that they no longer participate in society and have been permanently cast off by it. When they do, they call us zombies."
"It's nice to feel that you can solve all your troubles three times a day. Your misery gets worse and worse, it gets unbearable, but the solution gets simpler and simpler, too. You leave behind everything you know and dive into that world. And being there, you understand, comes at a price so high that few are willing to pay it. But you are, and you think your willingness grants you a kind of nobility, makes you a member of another species, and it's true. You do become a member of another species. In the end, you make the leap, because you think the reward will be worth it."
"The trouble with living in such a small sad town is that sometimes the dead are better company than the living. That's why we hang out here, in the graveyard, to see if we run into anyone we can talk to for a while."
"I realise the drugs have liquefied my brain, that I can't trust what I see and hear. I know I'm incapable of distin- guishing opium dreams from real life, and it's ridiculous to think I can actually talk with the dead. But the more I dwell on it, the more sense it makes. I'm so close to becoming one of them that the border between us grows wispy, frail. Maybe it sometimes fades away altogether. It's been happening to me for a while. It's just hard for me to remember when I'm awake. It's like I've already joined them, already turned into a spirit doggedly clinging to the corpse it drags along."
"The dead see only what they damn well please. Which is something the living do as well."
"Matter has the benefit of transience, occurring in a state of constant flux and transformation. Pleasures don't last long, but pain passes too. Here, in the plane I find myself in now, is where the life sentence was invented. Even if I make it out someday, every second here feels like forever."
"The dead observe us with a mix of fascination and utter detachment. Most are no longer involved in earthly affairs. I think they must feel pity and tenderness towards us because we still are, because of how seriously we take everything. They see it all as if from behind a glass window, from the perspective of someone who no longer has anything at stake, no more obstacles to overcome, not even time itself."
"It's getting harder to differentiate between reality and my own ravings, but that's been the case for so long that I've come to wonder if there's any difference at all. Maybe they're one and the same, part of a single experience that transcends both life and death, dreams and waking. Which must mean that those flowy-robed Tibetans weren't full of shit after all. Here in the bardo you do run into all kinds of beings that let you pass - or not - through the underworld toward the light, and the only way to cross the threshold is to know that none of it is real. They're projections on a curtain, tests that distract you and keep you lost in the labyrinth of your own mind, your habits, the desires you fed until they got so strong that they survived your earthly life, survived you."
July 9, 2024
Another oustanding read from Charco Press, this time of a heroin addict who goes to a bleak remote village to die.
In El Zapotal, you can see the dead. It's here that the man hires a room to reach oblivion.
Despite death being everywhere, and the grotesqueness and depressing existence of he and the villagers, this is very much about life and what we squander through trivialities and unfounded fear.
Definitely recommend.
In El Zapotal, you can see the dead. It's here that the man hires a room to reach oblivion.
Despite death being everywhere, and the grotesqueness and depressing existence of he and the villagers, this is very much about life and what we squander through trivialities and unfounded fear.
Definitely recommend.
September 1, 2024
Some of us have desires so strong that even they outlive us. These desires make us blind to those experiences, trivial or important, nostalgic or painful, that make us human.
June 6, 2020
El libro está impecablemente escrito, pero me aburrió. Estamos ante un gran escritor, seguramente con mucho futuro por delante. Mucho antes de la mitad del libro, dudé en dejarlo, me pareció repetitivo. Logré acabarlo por la extensión, de tener más páginas, lo hubiese dejado.
July 7, 2020
Ópera prima del escritor mexicano Mateo García Elizondo. La historia del Muertito buscando a la lady es por momentos brillante y por momentos soporífera. Tal vez el manuscrito debió reposar un poco, hasta encontrar mejor el tono.
September 30, 2020
Para ser la primera novela de Mateo García es muy buena. Con una prosa simple que nos lleva a las entrañas de una historia donde el protagonista nos cuenta su última aventura en esta tierra, Mateo logra que el lector se apasione pidiendo que el protagonista no llegue a su fatídica cita.
March 24, 2022
¿Será que la muerte física es el final de la conciencia? Hoy, muchos de los (pocos) multimillonarios que hay en el mundo, están empecinados en vivir para siempre, o al menos, vivir más que un humano promedio. Tal empresa requiere ingentes esfuerzos, además de muchísimo dinero, y hoy es claro que la posibilidad solo existe en la ficción o en los sueños delirantes de algunos entrepreneurs que están convencidos de que hay medios para lograr la eternidad, o al menos, conservar el cuerpo para un futuro más halagüeño, que lo dudo.
De ahí que esforzarse por morir sería una idea descabellada, pero no para el protagonista de “Una cita con la lady”. El “muertito”, como llega a conocerse una vez avanzan las páginas de esta ópera prima, se ha entregado en cuerpo y alma a la heroína, y en ese trasegar lo ha perdido todo. Absolutamente todo. De manera que con lo poco que le queda, decide emprender un viaje al pueblo más alejado posible, para consumir su última dosis para pasar de su estatus de muerto viviente a muerto muerto.
Sin embargo, su decisión al parecer simple, en su mundo delirante, se torna compleja, intrincada y dramática fuera de él. El Zapotal lo recibe de manera recelosa, pues este pueblo, escondido en la selva, no acostumbra a ver en sus calles hombres delgados, que arrastran sus pies y un cuerpo que es más un saco de huesos, completamente tumefacto.
El muertito, pues, la tendrá difícil; luego de consumir sus últimas provisiones (su cuerpo extremadamente adicto pareciera no necesitar agua, alimento o descanso) y gastar el poco dinero que restaba de la herencia de su padre, necesita desesperadamente una nueva dosis, lo que lo lleva a buscar por las calles polvorientas y desoladas, quién lo pueda “ayudar”.
No obstante, poco a poco sus soliloquios comienzan a convertirse en su única realidad, carcomiendo lo que la droga ha dejado de su cerebro, llevándolo a darse cuenta de que tal vez el inframundo y el purgatorio solo puede experimentarse cuando se está vivo.
De ahí que esforzarse por morir sería una idea descabellada, pero no para el protagonista de “Una cita con la lady”. El “muertito”, como llega a conocerse una vez avanzan las páginas de esta ópera prima, se ha entregado en cuerpo y alma a la heroína, y en ese trasegar lo ha perdido todo. Absolutamente todo. De manera que con lo poco que le queda, decide emprender un viaje al pueblo más alejado posible, para consumir su última dosis para pasar de su estatus de muerto viviente a muerto muerto.
Sin embargo, su decisión al parecer simple, en su mundo delirante, se torna compleja, intrincada y dramática fuera de él. El Zapotal lo recibe de manera recelosa, pues este pueblo, escondido en la selva, no acostumbra a ver en sus calles hombres delgados, que arrastran sus pies y un cuerpo que es más un saco de huesos, completamente tumefacto.
El muertito, pues, la tendrá difícil; luego de consumir sus últimas provisiones (su cuerpo extremadamente adicto pareciera no necesitar agua, alimento o descanso) y gastar el poco dinero que restaba de la herencia de su padre, necesita desesperadamente una nueva dosis, lo que lo lleva a buscar por las calles polvorientas y desoladas, quién lo pueda “ayudar”.
No obstante, poco a poco sus soliloquios comienzan a convertirse en su única realidad, carcomiendo lo que la droga ha dejado de su cerebro, llevándolo a darse cuenta de que tal vez el inframundo y el purgatorio solo puede experimentarse cuando se está vivo.
August 31, 2024
god damn that last page made me emotional. such a raw and devastating look into the life of an addict who’s given up and run to a city to use until he dies. this book made me stop and think about life and the process of death a few times, which also validated some of my thoughts on it. it makes you think about those around you that you pass on the street and what could be going through their heads. taking .5 off because i think it could’ve used maybe 20ish more pages on his backstory and there were maybe 1-2 pages that kinda lost me. left a pit in my stomach thinking about the nothingness of death “Life and death are a single continuum, two sides of the same coin. In my current state, I myself don’t know if I’m real or a trail of memories snagged in the ether.”
August 22, 2024
i have a weakness for endings.
“I’m going to surrender the kit, my notebook, and my pencil too, and then I’ll go home. I’m going to meet my mother again. I can hear a tumult from inside, footfalls, movement, shouts and whispers calling for me, a tum-ta-tum-ta-tum like the drums of a wild celebration. They remember my name in there. I’m going to find the faces of my friends in the crowd and reunite at last with my señora.
I have a date with the lady, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
while this wasn’t a favorite i think the writing was still full of so much potential and i’m excited for any future works.
“I’m going to surrender the kit, my notebook, and my pencil too, and then I’ll go home. I’m going to meet my mother again. I can hear a tumult from inside, footfalls, movement, shouts and whispers calling for me, a tum-ta-tum-ta-tum like the drums of a wild celebration. They remember my name in there. I’m going to find the faces of my friends in the crowd and reunite at last with my señora.
I have a date with the lady, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
while this wasn’t a favorite i think the writing was still full of so much potential and i’m excited for any future works.
January 13, 2024
Impresionante. Se respira Comala en cada línea de la narración, pero con un magnífico estilo propio. El muertito tiene ya un lugar en mi corazón.
August 24, 2024
Dumbest title translation since szklana pułapka
September 24, 2024
A rare Charco press flop
July 3, 2024
A mediation on life and death and the slippery boundary between the two. Our narrator is a junkie who has come to the dead end town of El Zapotal for one last date with his lady—his lady being heroin. One last date and then he’s off to the other side. He’s so deep in his addiction that the pleasures of the earthly realm hold no power over him, they are not enough to entice him to stick around any longer. He’s made it to the threshold of death many times before, but this time he is ready to go all the way.
Writing his experience in his notebook, our narrator hopes to make sense of his last few days and the journey he’ll take from the land of the living to whatever lays beyond. As he wanders through this town in an opium induced stupor, he encounters beings that may or may not be ghosts, some asking for favors, others hoping to guide his passage to the other side.
As the book progresses, the narrator’s (and reader’s) sense of reality becomes distorted, is he still hanging on or has he officially joined the group of specters that haunt this wretched town?
The writing in this book is impressive, though it should come as no surprise as the author is the grandson of both Gabriela García Márquez and Salvador Elizondo. Despite this, I didn’t find myself wanting to pick it up. It’s repetitive and depressing, but so is addiction so I’m sure that’s the point.
I appreciate this book, but I’m glad to be done with it.
Writing his experience in his notebook, our narrator hopes to make sense of his last few days and the journey he’ll take from the land of the living to whatever lays beyond. As he wanders through this town in an opium induced stupor, he encounters beings that may or may not be ghosts, some asking for favors, others hoping to guide his passage to the other side.
As the book progresses, the narrator’s (and reader’s) sense of reality becomes distorted, is he still hanging on or has he officially joined the group of specters that haunt this wretched town?
The writing in this book is impressive, though it should come as no surprise as the author is the grandson of both Gabriela García Márquez and Salvador Elizondo. Despite this, I didn’t find myself wanting to pick it up. It’s repetitive and depressing, but so is addiction so I’m sure that’s the point.
I appreciate this book, but I’m glad to be done with it.
September 15, 2024
Estuve en una presentación del autor, motivo por el cual leí el libro. Al inicio parece un homenaje a Pedro Páramo, pero con el avanzar de las páginas se vuelve autónomo, inclinándose a veces en el cliché de los drogadictos.
Es muy buen libro, sí volvería a leer algo del autor.
Es muy buen libro, sí volvería a leer algo del autor.
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