El llano en llamas
Por Juan Rulfo
4/5
()
Información de este libro electrónico
Rulfo comenta los relatos que sigue escribiendo en cartas a su novia Clara Aparicio. En 1951 se publica el séptimo, "Diles que no me maten", en la revista América. Gracias a la primera beca que Rulfo recibe del Centro Mexicano de Escritores puede terminar los ocho que aparecerán con los previos en 1953, en el libro titulado El Llano en llamas, dedicado a Clara. Dos relatos más, aparecidos en revistas en 1955, serán incluidos en la edición de 1970.
Los cuentos incluidos en este volumen fueron considerados por Rulfo como su aproximación a Pedro Páramo. La presente edición incluye el texto definitivo de la obra establecido por la Fundación Juan Rulfo.
Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo nació el 16 de mayo de 1917. Fue registrado en Sayula y vivió en la población de San Gabriel, pero las tempranas muertes de su padre (1923) y su madre (1927) obligaron a sus abuelos a inscribirlo en un internado en Guadalajara, la capital de Jalisco. Durante sus años en San Gabriel conoce la biblioteca literaria de un cura, depositada en la casa familiar, experiencia esencial en su formación. Se suele destacar su orfandad como determinante en su vocación artística, olvidando que su contacto temprano con aquellos libros tendría un peso mayor en este terreno. Una huelga en la Universidad de Guadalajara le impide inscribirse en ella y se traslada a la ciudad de México. Asiste a cursos en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras y se convierte en un conocedor de la literatura histórica, antropológica y geográfica de México. Durante las décadas de 1930 y 1940 viaja extensamente por el país, trabaja en Guadalajara o en la ciudad de México y comienza a publicar sus cuentos gracias a su gran amigo Efrén Hernández. En estos mismos años se inicia como fotógrafo. Obtiene en 1952 la primera de las dos becas consecutivas del Centro Mexicano de Escritores, fundada por la estadounidense Margaret Shedd, sin duda la persona determinante para que Rulfo publicase en 1953 "El Llano en llamas" y en 1955 la novela "Pédro Páramo", que lo consagran como un clásico de la lengua española. Las dos últimas décadas de su vida las dedicó Rulfo al Instituto Nacional Indigenista, donde se encargó de la edición de una de las colecciones más importantes de antropología contemporánea y antigua de México. Juan Rulfo falleció en la ciudad de México el 7 de enero de 1986.
Lee más de Juan Rulfo
El gallo de oro y otros relatos Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5Cartas a Clara Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5
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Comentarios para El llano en llamas
706 clasificaciones31 comentarios
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Muy buenos cuentos que retratan la identidad del mexicano de principios del siglo XX.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5The short stories in this collection--and some of them are very short, telling of just one incident--do an amazing job of evoking the landscape and climate of the region of Mexico described. It sounds like desert (more specifically, it sounds like the Colorado Desert in CA/AZ, which extends into Mexico). One of the stories, though, implies that the area is south of Mexico City. The landscape/climate is a character unto itself, and is so similar between the stories.The main characters are poor, struggling, and doing what they need to do to get by. The stories do not specify if they are largely of Indian descent, though the intro says so. Perhaps Mexicans reading the original Spanish can tell, whether by names used, jobs held, or other clues that I miss as an American reading in English.
A 1 persona le pareció útil
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Has its moments but the spliced narrative and surreal sequences actively confuse and wear out the reader. A book this short shouldn't be a slog.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5“El Llano en Llamas” (“The burning plain”) is a collection of tales about life, poverty, treason and death. Rulfo captured with precision the harsh and raw rural life of the people of his hometown state, Jalisco (center-Pacific of México), during the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero Rebellion (beginning of the 20th century). The language is apparently simple, as it depicts the way of talking of the subjects, but the writing is deep and rich. I have read some excerpts in English and the translations are good but, as it always happens, the richness of the language gets lost in translation. I would recommend that, if your second language is Spanish, first read the book in your native language and then give it another go in the original version. The book is not long and this would be rather easy to do in a short period of time.Oh, and, just in case. This book doesn’t belong to magical realism. It’s realism in its purest form (for the best example of magical realism, read Rulfo’s “Pedro Páramo”, the book that inspired Gabriel García Márquez to write “One Hundred Years of Solitude”).
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5I feel like I say this every time I review a book of short stories, but I'll say it again anyway: I'm not much of a short story fan. I often feel like I'm left hanging at the end of a story, and not in a good, "I'm going to think about what I think might have happened next" sort of way, but in a "well, that seemed pointless" sort of way. This collection drew me in with the first story, which takes place inside the mind of a child who is waiting next to a drain to kill frogs.The stories are about people with hard lives, living in harsh landscapes. Violence and deprivation are common to the stories, but they don't read like a litany of woes. Few of the characters have given up, even when faced with injustice or seemingly insurmountable odds. But the characters themselves are often not angelic or blameless in their circumstances either - the criminal element is explored as well. The stories seemed steeped in masculinity to me, and the collection reminded me of a south of the border Cormac McCarthy. (Disclaimer: I do not like Cormac McCarthy, so I guess I'm saying for myself, I found Rulfo to be a more successful version of McCarthy.)I think in addition to the first story, "Macario," my favorite was "Paso del Norte," about a man who attempts to cross the border into the US. Recommended for: Cormac McCarthy fans, viewers of Breaking Bad, people interested in snapshots of mid-century Mexico.Quote: "When she calls me to eat, it's to give me my part of the food. She's not like other people who invite me to eat with them and then when I get close throw rocks at me until I run away without eating anything." (Macario)
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5I'm sure there's some kind of allegory here that I'm missing....
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Read in German. Very atmospheric. Lots of people/ ghosts. Who is alive and who is dead is secondary.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5I picked this up because I read that it was this novel that broke years of writers block for Gabriel Garcia Marquez. and was the inspiration for 100 Years Of Solitude.
It is weirder than weird. It's about a journey to the land of the dead (I think?) In my mind I still see this novel in dark tones, vignetted, lots of dust and flames in the wind, cold dark houses and strange stilted conversations. It's a bit like you die along with him (but did he even die?) I could smell one of the women and could almost reach out and touch her, it was like a dream.
Confusing? I am still confused, what the hell was it about? Were they all dead or only some of them? Did anyone die at all? Did I actually read this book? Who the hell am I anyway? What? - Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5This is a book that stands out today as an exceptional piece of literature, one that was written half a century ago. I read it in Spanish, which was no easy feat, as my Spanish is intermediate at best and, well, Rulfo's mid-twentieth century Mexican-Spanish was not very easy to get through. But even I was able to enjoy the rich texture of the vivid images Rulfo evokes. The rain, the wind, the dust, the sounds of the town, the murmurs of ghosts, the echos of footsteps... all were interwoven seamlessly in a narrative that reads like a dream.
I am not sure if I would consider Pedro Paramo to be a magic realist work. Perhaps it shares some elements with magic realism, perhaps magic realism as we know it today, but it certainly reads and feels different. - Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5I read this for Reading Globally's Mexico month. In fact, I read it twice, and I will probably read it again in the future. It is a book that, despite its brevity, will continue to reward and enlighten a reader with each successive reading.It is the story of a son's quest for the father he has never known. Juan Preciado promised his mother on her deathbed that he would seek his father, Pedro Paramo. He travels to the town of Comala, where he has been told his father lives.At first Comala appears to be deserted and abandoned. It is actually a place 'swarming with spirits: hordes of restless souls who died without forgiveness, and people would never have won forgiveness in any case...' Comala is a town permeated with rain, fog, falling stars, and murmurs.From the murmurings, Juan learns the story of his father. The story is told with seamless shifts in points of view; it is non-chronological and non-linear. In that sense, it reminded me of Faulkner, but without the dense and wandering prose. Rulfo writes in simple language, as in a fable or fairy tale.The novel is intense, surreal, and almost hallucinatory. It was extremely influential on Latin American writers who followed Rulfo, including Donoso, Vargas Llosa, and Garcia Marquez. In fact, Marquez said that he had memorized the entire book.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5I'm not really a big fan of magical realism, and in general I don't like the Latin American literature that is heavily steeped in it. So I started this iconic novel with some skepticism. The Mexican Juan Rulfo published it in 1955, and it is generally seen as the real start of Latin American literature. The novel begins fairly conventionally, with the story of a young man who travels to the village of his presumed father, Pedro Paramo. But what follows is a succession of strange, hallucinatory scenes, with shadowy characters in what appears to be a ghost town, a village where time and space intertwine, and death is omnipresent. Primal father Pedro Parama is about the only connecting element, a mafia figure who rules over life and death without much scruple, but who appears to have a touching soft spot for a woman who has been living in seclusion in the dark for years. In other words, this novel is a very disorienting reading experience, intriguing and frustrating at the same time. The only recent point of comparison seems to me to be 'Lincoln in the Bardo', by George Saunders (2017). But in comparison, Rulfo certainly places more tragic, existential, accents.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/59/10
Dreamlike and beautiful. Alternatingly kaleidoscopic and stark. I couldn't stop reading this. Rulfo writes like myth. - Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5My wife bought me this just after our wedding. It must be admitted that it took me 20 or so pages to recognize that the flotsom of characters were actually deceased.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5This is definitely a book where you just almost HAVE to read more than once to really understand it. There's just so much going on - death, perception of time, culture, history, etc. - and all you can truly relate to Mexican culture. Some might say the Mexican bit is not really fitting (I've heard it), but it really truly is if you read behind the lines of what is written - I can just sense the massive amount of culture etched in every word.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5It is often said that this work is the prototypical magical realist novel of Latin America, and that is with good reason. It is filled with ghosts, to the point where corpses listen for gossip in their graves and every character is portrayed as a wandering soul. If not that, the swirl around death like pebbles circling a drain. Further, the narrative is altogether nonlinear, and in way that at least for me made it hard to keep track of characters and events, even though I have read a good share of nonlinear novels. Despite that, I would still recommend the book for its haunting language alone. It's one of those novels that exudes poetry and holds a magnificent trove of images.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Dreamy, meditative and disjointed, Pedro Páramo tells the story of several generations living in a little Mexican village through fleeting encounters with the ghosts of former inhabitants. This is one of those books that are made not by the story but by the telling. The non-chronological novella makes frequent hops back and forth between generations (and storylines), each illuminating the others, and the precise progression of events only becomes clear gradually. Rulfo douses the poverty and the harsh, unforgiving landscapes with introspection and love for the forgotten everyman. In some ways, this feels like a reverse Western: Rulfo takes the perspective of a sleepy Mexican village and squarely focuses on the relationships and the low-level generational grudges that the lone gunmen, outlaws, or even lawmen of traditional Western movies would not even notice. The people’s ghosts cry out for remembrance, for relevance, for a continued existence, vicarious though it may be. Pedro Páramo will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but working through its intricately constructed narrative ends up delivering a rewarding experience. It’s one of those little books that open themselves up more at every reread.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Second reading. Surprisingly readable prose for such a dense and multi-layered story. A young man follows his mother's dying wish to return to the village of her birth and make Pedro Páramo, the young man's father, pay for the abandonment of his family. What follows is something like Dante's descent into hell as the young man, Juan Preciado, and his Virgil, a burro-driver named Abundio — also a son of Páramo — make their way down the long road to the village. The village of the mother's youth is now a ghost town in which the living and the dead meet freely. What we might call the present action is rendered in the first-person voice of Juan Preciado. Spasmodically then the prose will switch to a third-person narration of life in the village long ago. The Páramos are a murderous bunch of thieves who take what they want, including the young women, who are always inexplicably grateful for being knocked up by them. Once we've switched to the third-person voice and back a few times, we begin to get a number of other first-person voices from those who once lived in the village. But don't let this put you off, for despite the multiple voices and a few touches of surrealism the book's not at all difficult for those who read attentively. (Susan Sontag introduces the text with a bit of well-earned praise and an explanation of how influential Pedro Páramo has been among Latin-American writers.) I suppose my favorite sequence is when those buried in the local graveyard listen to each other and comment on what is being said! Superficially, the novella seems close to Machado de Assis's own worthwhile Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, but that's an acerbic comedy compared to this piece of profound gravitas. Not to be missed.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5What a great book. Why has it taken me so long to get round to it? A short novel. Not a novella, not an essay. More like the transcription of a dream. A reflection of persistent Mexican cultural interest in death and the afterworld. Whether seen through the eyes of the catholic church or a pre-conquest lens. What a feat of imagination.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Wow!! one has to really pay attention to all the names and details to understand this book. It kind of reminds me of the Il Gattopardo, because is the life of a patriarch, through all it's stages, but there ends their resemblance.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Wow! This is one of those books, which when you read the last sentence you want to immediately turn back to page one and start again. I have never read a novel like it. It is as the description states an extraordinary mix of images, passions and mysteries. So much so that it seems to me to be prose poetry. Indeed the works it most reminds me of are the verse plays by Federico Garcia Lorca, in particular Blood Wedding. This is in part because like poetry the book is a distillation of a story: only 122 pages long, it is what is left after Rulfo cut and cut a much longer book. Having written it, Rulfo wrote no more books, but then why, after writing such a masterpiece, would one feel the need?This book profoundly influenced South American magic realism. Marquez has said that it is the book he would most like to have written and he is able to quote large chunks of the book. It is hard to credit that such a modern feeling book was written in 1955. The book is not an easy book to read and those readers who need to be clear about what is going on and who is speaking will hate it. The book is multi-voiced. It starts simply in the first person: I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Paramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. The speaker is Juan Preciado. But as he arrives in the ghost town of Comala, more voices press in, in the third and first person and in the past and present tense. They are the voices of the dead, confused and confusing, for it becomes clear that Comala is a sort of purgatory. At one point Juan dies: There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August. Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time…until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever. I mean, forever. Juan lies in the ground, listening to the whispering of the dead all around, and we lie there with him. From the words of the dead the picture forms of Pedro Paramo's life. But the dead, like the living, do not always tell the truth and seldom tell the whole truth. The best approach to this book is, to my mind, to relax and let the words and images form, as you cannot get it all at first reading. Then read it again and more will become clear. This book was listed by the Guardian newspaper in the top 100 novels of all time. I have to agree. I can't tell you how excited I have been to discover it. It alone makes this magic realism challenge worthwhile. This book is out of print and is hard to obtain. Beg, borrow, besiege your local library, but get it!
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5This review contains plot spoilers.About ten years ago, not too long after graduating high school, a friend of mine recommended this novel to me. I had been chatting with him over the Internet for a long time. He was pursuing a Ph.D. in Spanish language literature in Florida, and I asked him for a list, as extensive as he wished, of literature that he thinks I should eventually read. I distinctly remember “Pedro Paramo” and “The Burning Plain and Other Stories,” both by Rulfo, being on that list. Without him, I would never have picked up Cortazar, Amado, or Eca de Queiros, all of whom I have appreciated greatly since. I think this is one of those novels whose historical moment is of more import than its actual literary execution. This might be due either to a mediocre translation (I can’t judge since I don’t read Spanish) or Rulfo’s cautious literary experimentation that falls somewhere between the recognizable realism of his day and the innovative so-called magical realism that would be endlessly copied soon after the appearance of “Pedro Paramo.” My intuition is that it’s a little of both. With this story, Rulfo takes some considerable steps away from realism. While she’s on her deathbed, Juan Preciado’s mother beseeches him to pursue his father (Pedro Paramo) in the state of Comala. Soon after entering the state of Comala (thought to be based on the real Mexican state of Colima), he starts to realize that the few people that he encounters there are haunted, and haunting. He hears unbearably painful moaning and caterwauling from all corners of the city, and from the people he encounters. He soon realizes that almost everyone he meets there is actually already dead. Comala brings a whole new meaning to the words “ghost town.” Rulfo’s omniscient, roving narration is particularly interesting: the point of view switches from Juan Preciado to Pedro Paramo to the woman that Juan eventually realizes was the love of his father’s life, Susana San Juan, all of whom are also dead. Through these successive narrative shifts, Juan Preciado learns more about his father’s life: he was the impresario of Comala in its heyday, was a ruthless Lothario, and was madly in love with Susana even though she herself is haunted by the memory of her dead husband Florencio. After Susana’s death, Pedro Paramo breaks down and refuses to do anything, which causes Comala to fall into its current state. Halfway through the story, Juan Preciado himself dies. The style here wasn’t the only bit that seemed to taken up by other offers in the few years after “Pedro Paramo” first appeared in 1955. The themes seem oddly familiar, too. The dead, and the past they inhabited, are sometimes much more alive than those who just happen to have blood flowing through their veins; remembering that past isn’t something that we do in a linear, objective way but rather is tied up with passions, poignant memories, and anxiety; finally, this is a wonderful example of how places too, never die, even if no one is there to remember them. They have a pulse all their own, a kind of indelible biological imprint that they leave that may or may not ever be discovered. These ideas were inseparable from much of the work of Borges, Marquez, and Faulkner. It wasn’t for no reason that Borges called it the one of the greatest novels of all time. He had the great fortune of being able to read it in Spanish. I would certainly encourage anyone who this ability to do the same, and would give a nudge to everyone else, if just to see how far and wide Rulfo’s influence has really been.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5An excellent rendering of an elegiac ghost town. Rulfo's haunting locale sucks you in and sweeps you up in the turmoil of its recent past. Like many works in this genre, Pedro Páramo is more a mood piece than anything else. A coherent progression of plot is absent (though that's not to say that nothing progresses) but the town and the voices Rulfo gives to its inhabitants are beguiling. The tone may never waver from mournful but the authors sparse prose is never less than absorbing. This seems the kind of story a lesser writer would spin out for twice as long but Rulfo keeps everything tightly in check and what could become a confusing mess instead drifts serenely from one voice to another.It's not quite five stars, for me, as I do like some traditional structures, but it's still brilliant and damn close to full marks.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5It's difficult to give only 3 stars to a book which seems to have only hard-boiled fans. Reading it I felt it is probably a great book. But I have to admit that I was glad when I finished it though it has only 123 pages in the English translation (145 in German). I know I have to blame myself for not understanding a story told in many tenses and by many characters (you don't know always who is talking and if (s)he is still alive), but in the end I can't give 5 stars only for the fact that I did not understand the book.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5It was an interesting and worthwhile read, perhaps largely because I can see Rulfo's writing informed the writing of Marquez and others. I didn't find the story particularly compelling, but I don't think this book is supposed to be about the story so much as the language, mood, and themes. I would like to read it in Spanish as I can imagine that it's more powerful in the original language and is probably difficult to translate effectively.
- Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas2/5I totally agree with soylentgreen23: I thought it very much disappointing, incomprehensible, even boring. But I probably the problem was me; wrong time and not much patience. But anyway now I'm afraid of reading more Juan Rulfo =/ would anybody recommend me something from him, please?
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5I read this book a number of years ago but it still is in my thoughts today. It is sincerely haunting. I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who likes to have an active role with text. It is written in sections where the narrator changes between characters, between times, and between realities. It takes some thinking to make it through with a good understand of what is going on and what has already happened.Rulfo was a gift writer and I really wish he had written so much more instead of working in a office.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5Pedro Paramo is Juan Rulfo's best novel and one of the best fiction I have read. Ever! I read it several times (and will probably re-read it at some point) and never fail to find it fresh, enthralling, challenging, deep, and sad. Rulfo narrates a story drenched in passion, pride and steep love, but love so tragic and harsh it seems almost chipped from stone. It addresses memory, as well. Pedro Paramo, a Mexican patriarch of yore, is remembered by the son who returns to his hometown to find the father he never new except from hearsay. He will hear plenty about his father in his hometown. Things aren't fated to work out the way the nameless son expects them to nor does the story meet the readers' expectations either. One doesn't know what to expect from Pedro Paramo the first time one reads it nor what to make of it the following times, and that is a great part of its enduring appeal. The short novel begins by creating a dream-state and takes the reader through labyrinths from which it is impossible to ever completely walk out, but the journey is fascinating enough that one doesn't mind.
- Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas1/5There are books that I appreciate without fully understanding, and then there are those that leave me completely lost without the cushion of an interesting or accessible story or characters to fall back on. Rulfo's work here is definitely the latter; I'm sure it's a very good story, and told very well, but only if you can get into it. I couldn't.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5The perfect novel Jorge Luis Borges wished he would have written. Magic Realism in its purest form, without exotic cliches or new-age mambo jambo
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5When "Gabo" (García Márquez) was on the verge of quitting his writing and going back to journalism, a friend handed him this slim volume by Rulfo. After reading it, Gabo was struck and went back to writing immediately. This novel is eerie and haunting, and it's fun to pick out similarities in Gabo and Rulfo's writing.
Vista previa del libro
El llano en llamas - Juan Rulfo
EL LLANO EN
LLAMAS
Juan Rulfo
EDITORIAL RM & FUNDACIÓN JUAN RULFO
MÉXICO
A Clara
Índice
El llano en llamas
Nos han dado la tierra
La cuesta de las comadres
Es que somos muy pobres
El hombre
En la madrugada
Talpa
Macario
El llano en llamas
¡Diles que no me maten!
Luvina
La noche que lo dejaron solo
Paso del norte
Acuérdate
No oyes ladrar los perros
El día del derrumbe
La herencia de matilde arcángel
Anacleto morones
Créditos
NOS HAN DADO LA TIERRA
dESPUÉS DE TANTAS horas de caminar sin encontrar ni una sombra de árbol, ni una semilla de árbol, ni una raíz de nada, se oye el ladrar de los perros.
Uno ha creído a veces, en medio de este camino sin orillas, que nada habría después; que no se podría encontrar nada al otro lado, al final de esta llanura rajada de grietas y de arroyos secos. Pero sí, hay algo. Hay un pueblo. Se oye que ladran los perros y se siente en el aire el olor del humo, y se saborea ese olor de la gente como si fuera una esperanza.
Pero el pueblo está todavía muy allá. Es el viento el que lo acerca.
Hemos venido caminando desde el amanecer. Ahorita son algo así como las cuatro de la tarde. Alguien se asoma al cielo, estira los ojos hacia donde está colgado el sol y dice:
—Son como las cuatro de la tarde.
Ese alguien es Melitón. Junto con él, vamos Faustino, Esteban y yo. Somos cuatro. Yo los cuento: dos adelante, otros dos atrás. Miro más atrás y no veo a nadie. Entonces me digo: Somos cuatro.
Hace rato, como a eso de las once, éramos veintitantos; pero puñito a puñito se han ido desperdigando hasta quedar nada más este nudo que somos nosotros.
Faustino dice:
—Puede que llueva.
Todos levantamos la cara y miramos una nube negra y pesada que pasa por encima de nuestras cabezas. Y pensamos: Puede que sí.
No decimos lo que pensamos. Hace ya tiempo que se nos acabaron las ganas de hablar. Se nos acabaron con el calor. Uno platicaría muy a gusto en otra parte, pero aquí cuesta trabajo. Uno platica aquí y las palabras se calientan en la boca con el calor de afuera, y se le resecan a uno en la lengua hasta que acaban con el resuello.
Aquí así son las cosas. Por eso a nadie le da por platicar.
Cae una gota de agua, grande, gorda, haciendo un agujero en la tierra y dejando una plasta como la de un salivazo. Cae sola. Nosotros esperamos a que sigan cayendo más. No llueve. Ahora si se mira el cielo se ve a la nube aguacera corriéndose muy lejos, a toda prisa. El viento que viene del pueblo se le arrima empujándola contra las sombras azules de los cerros. Y a la gota caída por equivocación se la come la tierra y la desaparece en su sed.
¿Quién diablos haría este llano tan grande? ¿Para qué sirve, eh?
Hemos vuelto a caminar. Nos habíamos detenido para ver llover. No llovió. Ahora volvemos a caminar. Y a mí se me ocurre que hemos caminado más de lo que llevamos andado. Se me ocurre eso. De haber llovido quizá se me ocurrieran otras cosas. Con todo, yo sé que desde que yo era muchacho, no vi llover nunca sobre el llano, lo que se llama llover.
No, el llano no es cosa que sirva. No hay ni conejos ni pájaros. No hay nada. A no ser unos cuantos huizaches trespeleques y una que otra manchita de zacate con las hojas enroscadas; a no ser eso, no hay nada.
Y por aquí vamos nosotros. Los cuatro a pie. Antes andábamos a caballo y traíamos terciada una carabina. Ahora no traemos ni siquiera la carabina.
Yo siempre he pensado que en eso de quitarnos la carabina hicieron bien. Por acá resulta peligroso andar armado. Lo matan a uno sin avisarle, viéndolo a toda hora con la 30
amarrada a las correas. Pero los caballos son otro asunto. De venir a caballo ya hubiéramos probado el agua verde del río, y paseado nuestros estómagos por las calles del pueblo para que se les bajara la comida. Ya lo hubiéramos hecho de tener todos aquellos caballos que teníamos. Pero también nos quitaron los caballos junto con la carabina.
Vuelvo hacia todos lados y miro el llano. Tanta y tamaña tierra para nada. Se le resbalan a uno los ojos al no encontrar cosa que los detenga. Sólo unas cuantas lagartijas salen a asomar la cabeza por encima de sus agujeros, y luego que sienten la tatema del sol corren a esconderse en la sombrita de una piedra. Pero nosotros, cuando tengamos que trabajar aquí, ¿qué haremos para enfriarnos del sol, eh? Porque a nosotros nos dieron esta costra de tepetate para que la sembráramos.
Nos dijeron:
—Del pueblo para acá es de ustedes.
Nosotros preguntamos:
—¿El Llano?
—Sí, el llano. Todo el Llano Grande.
Nosotros paramos la jeta para decir que el Llano no lo queríamos. Que queríamos lo que estaba junto al río. Del río para allá, por las vegas, donde están esos árboles llamados casuarinas y las paraneras y la tierra buena. No este duro pellejo de vaca que se llama el Llano.
Pero no nos dejaron decir nuestras cosas. El delegado no venía a conversar con nosotros. Nos puso los papeles en la mano y nos dijo:
—No se vayan a asustar por tener tanto terreno para ustedes solos.
—Es que el Llano, señor delegado…
—Son miles y miles de yuntas.
—Pero no hay agua. Ni siquiera para hacer un buche hay agua.
—¿Y el temporal? Nadie les dijo que se les iba a dotar con tierras de riego. En cuanto allí llueva, se levantará el maíz como si lo estiraran.
—Pero, señor delegado, la tierra está deslavada, dura. No creemos que el arado se entierre en esa como cantera que es la tierra del Llano. Habría que hacer agujeros con el azadón para sembrar la semilla y ni aun así es positivo que nazca nada; ni maíz ni nada nacerá.
—Eso manifiéstenlo por escrito. Y ahora váyanse. Es al latifundio al que tienen que atacar, no al Gobierno que les da la tierra.
—Espérenos usted, señor delegado. Nosotros no hemos dicho nada contra el Centro. Todo es contra el Llano… No se puede contra lo que no se puede. Eso es lo que hemos dicho… Espérenos usted para explicarle. Mire, vamos a comenzar por donde íbamos…
Pero él no nos quiso oír.
Así nos han dado esta tierra. Y en este comal acalorado quieren que sembremos semillas de algo, para ver si algo retoña y se levanta. Pero nada se levantará de aquí. Ni zopilotes. Uno los ve allá cada y cuando, muy arriba, volando a la carrera; tratando de salir lo más pronto posible de este blanco terregal endurecido, donde nada se mueve y por donde uno camina como reculando.
Melitón dice:
—Ésta es la tierra que nos han dado.
Faustino dice:
—¿Qué?
Yo no digo nada. Yo pienso: Melitón no tiene la cabeza en su lugar. Ha de ser el calor el que lo hace hablar así. El calor que le ha traspasado el sombrero y le ha calentado la cabeza. Y si no, ¿por qué dice lo que dice? ¿Cuál tierra nos han dado, Melitón? Aquí no hay ni la tantita que necesitaría el viento para jugar a los remolinos.
Melitón vuelve a decir:
—Servirá de algo. Servirá aunque sea para correr yeguas.
—¿Cuáles yeguas? —le pregunta Esteban.
Yo no me había fijado bien a bien en Esteban. Ahora que habla, me fijo en él. Lleva puesto un gabán que le llega al ombligo, y debajo del gabán saca la cabeza algo así como una gallina.
Sí, es una gallina colorada la que lleva Esteban debajo del gabán. Se le ven los ojos dormidos y el pico abierto como si bostezara. Yo le pregunto:
—Oye, Teban, ¿dónde pepenaste esa gallina?
—Es la mía —dice él.
—No la traías antes. ¿Dónde la mercaste, eh?
—No la merqué, es la gallina de mi corral.
—Entonces te la trajiste de bastimento, ¿no?
—No, la traigo para cuidarla. Mi casa se quedó sola y sin nadie para que le diera de comer; por eso me la traje. Siempre que salgo lejos cargo con ella.
—Allí escondida se te va a ahogar. Mejor sácala al aire.
Él se la acomoda debajo del brazo y le sopla el aire caliente de su boca. Luego dice:
—Estamos llegando al derrumbadero.
Yo ya no oigo lo que sigue diciendo Esteban. Nos hemos puesto en fila para bajar la barranca y él va mero adelante. Se ve que ha agarrado a la gallina por las patas y la zangolotea a cada rato, para no golpearle la cabeza contra las piedras.
Conforme bajamos, la tierra se hace buena. Sube polvo desde nosotros como si fuera un atajo de mulas lo que bajara por allí; pero nos gusta llenarnos de polvo. Nos gusta. Después de venir durante once horas pisando la dureza del llano, nos sentimos muy a gusto envueltos en aquella cosa que brinca sobre nosotros y sabe a tierra.
Por encima del río, sobre las copas verdes de las casuarinas, vuelan parvadas de chachalacas verdes. Eso también es lo que nos gusta.
Ahora los ladridos de los perros se oyen aquí, junto a nosotros, y es que el viento que viene del pueblo retacha en la barranca y la llena de todos sus ruidos.
Esteban ha vuelto a abrazar su gallina cuando nos acercamos a las primeras casas. Le desata las patas para desentumecerla, y luego él y su gallina desaparecen detrás de unos tepemezquites.
—¡Por aquí arriendo yo! —nos dice Esteban.
Nosotros seguimos adelante, más adentro del pueblo.
La tierra que nos han dado está allá arriba.
LA CUESTA DE LAS COMADRES
LOS DIFUNTOS TORRICOS siempre fueron buenos amigos míos. Tal vez en Zapotlán no los quisieran pero, lo que es de mí, siempre fueron buenos amigos, hasta tantito antes de morirse. Ahora eso de que no los quisieran en Zapotlán no tenía ninguna importancia, porque tampoco a mí me querían allí, y tengo entendido que a nadie de los que vivíamos en la Cuesta de las Comadres nos pudieron ver con buenos ojos los de Zapotlán. Esto era desde viejos tiempos.
Por otra parte, en la Cuesta de las Comadres los Torricos no la llevaban bien con todo mundo. Seguido había desavenencias. Y si no es mucho decir, ellos eran allí los dueños de la tierra y de las casas que estaban encima de la tierra, con todo y que, cuando el reparto, la mayor parte de la Cuesta de las Comadres nos había tocado por igual a los sesenta que allí vivíamos, y a ellos, a los Torricos, nada más un pedazo de monte, con una mezcalera nada más, pero donde estaban desperdigadas casi todas las casas. A pesar de eso, la Cuesta de las Comadres era de los Torricos. El coamil que yo trabajaba era también de ellos: de Odilón y Remigio Torrico, y la docena y media de lomas verdes que se veían allá abajo eran juntamente de ellos. No había por qué averiguar nada. Todo mundo sabía que así era.
Sin embargo, de aquellos días a esta parte, la Cuesta de las Comadres se había ido deshabitando. De tiempo en tiempo, alguien se iba; atravesaba el guardaganado donde está el palo alto, y desaparecía entre los encinos y no volvía a aparecer ya nunca. Se iban, eso era todo.
Y yo también hubiera ido de buena gana a asomarme a ver qué había tan atrás del monte que no dejaba volver a nadie; pero me gustaba el terrenito de la Cuesta, y además era buen amigo de los Torricos.
El coamil donde yo sembraba todos los años un tantito de maíz para tener elotes, y otro tantito de frijol, quedaba por el lado de arriba, allí donde la ladera baja hasta esa barranca que le dicen Cabeza del Toro.
El lugar no era feo; pero la tierra se hacía pegajosa desde que comenzaba a llover, y luego había un desparramadero de piedras duras y filosas como troncones que parecían crecer con el tiempo. Sin embargo, el maíz se pegaba bien y los elotes que allí se daban eran muy dulces. Los Torricos, que para todo lo que se comían necesitaban la sal de tequesquite, para mis elotes no; nunca buscaron ni hablaron de echarle tequesquite a mis elotes, que