Fernando Vallejo

A very sad, sad story about a horrible situation but the way it was told with the first person narrative of the old grammarian made the violence less so and easier to accept. It did not inspire any desire to visit Columbia because that would be scary if this book has any bearing on truth and this book is not couched in any magical realism.

"And three of the onlookers in the crowd sticking up for him. They were the kind of champions of 'human rights', or delinquents' rights, who spring up spontaneously around here and lay claim to that 'defender of the people' role instituted by the new Constitution convoked by the idiot queer."

"The policeman, on of those ultra-young rookies they're recruiting these days to cast into the lions' den unarmed and with their hands tied by the whoremongering of the law, didn't know what to say or what to do."

"...protected by the cowardly boldness of the mob, were apparently ready to apparently let themselves be killed, if it were apparently necessary, by a man who carried no weapons."

It was interesting to learn that the narrator's name is the same as the authors "Fernando". The narrator was gone and is now returned. In his diatribe we are introduced to such topics as Columbia's president, the drug culture, priests, communists, sociologists, television, and soccer". It is a picture of social collapse, a "city where death rules supreme but where nobody will ever die of boredom."… (more)