Paradise is elsewhere

Paradise is Elsewhere ( Spanish: El paraíso en la otra esquina ) is an extraordinarily detailed novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa from 2003.

Many of the episodes presented from the life of the painter Paul Gauguin and his maternal grandmother, the socialist Flora Tristan , can be reduced to one common denominator: in the futile search for paradise within the capitalist world of the 19th century, both the painter and it escape militant grandmother of civil marriage, each blessed with several children. While the work of the great painter is known to outlast time, the narrator wants to call the socialist a failed revolutionary, but half retracts the condemnation a few lines later.

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In 22 chapters, eleven episodes from the lives of the two prominent relatives are told alternately. In doing so, the narrator always approaches his two protagonists once by using them as a divergent from the third person.

Since the grandmother died four years before Gauguin was born, the two present memories are inevitably side by side. This novel lives from the retrospective in general. In a primary time level, the end of life of the two heroes is run through chronologically; Flora spent the last six months of her life and Paul spent the last ten years. Starting from each of the two primary levels, the review takes place on a secondary level - that is, on the time that has long passed.

The title game of paradise is played by children in large France everywhere and frames the novel. In the first chapter in April 1844 a child in Auxerre asks : “Is this paradise here?” The question is playfully answered in the negative. The little questioner should inquire "at the next corner". In the last chapter the same game was repeated on the Marquesas in May 1903.

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Paul met his painter colleague Camille Pissarro in France through his first wife, the Danish Mette Gad . Pissarro had spoken with respect about some of Flora Tristan's publications. So Paul only found out about his grandmother through a stranger. Because Paul’s mother Aline († 1867 in Paris), writes Vargas Llosa, kept this relationship from her for good reason: While Flora Tristan fought for the rights of the working people in France and England, she gave Aline into the care of strangers. Living separated from her husband André Chazal, Flora had to find out that Aline had been abused by her birth father, this "disgusting hyena" .

Flora in France in 1844

Flora can be found in Lyon , Roanne , Saint-Etienne , Avignon , Toulon , Montpellier , Béziers , Carcassonne and Bordeaux , among others . In Lyon she gives lectures to silk spinners. Police commissioner Bardoz arrives at the hotel with a search warrant and threatens the pacifist with a trial for agitation. In Roanne, Flora visits the cloth factory of a former worker who has now - become an entrepreneur - properly squeezes his subordinates.

In November Flora vomits bile in Bordeaux, has to take opium, receives the last unction on November 11th , dies on November 14th and is buried on November 16th in Bordeaux.

• Review

While fleeing from her husband André Chazal, “the little French woman” Flora embarks on a trip to Peru in Bordeaux. Her father was born in Arequipa . Flora's uncle Don Pío Tristán, a curmudgeon and the richest man in all of Arequipa, had reluctantly consented to the life-threatening circumnavigation of Cape Horn . Flora, the narrator calls ever again Andalusian travels over the Cape Verde Islands to South America, reached after 133 days the Chilean Valparaíso and a little later in September 1833 Islay to Arequipa. In 1834 she experienced the civil war there. On April 25, 1834, Flora returned to France via Lima and returned to Paris in early 1835. From now on she can live on the modest pension from the stingy uncle Pío's box. In the same year, Flora made the acquaintance of Charles Fourier . One speaks about the social order of this world - analogous to the Newtonian order of the universe. Flora still believes naively in the potentially generous capitalist. Your book “My trip to Peru. Rides by a pariah ”helps her to gain a social reputation. The reaction to the frank travelogue is inevitable from overseas. The book ends up in the fire in Arequipa. Uncle Pío withdraws the financial support from Flora. André Chazal wants to shoot his wife on September 10, 1838. A bullet gets stuck in Flora's chest near her heart. The surgeon is unable to remove the bullet. The shooter is sentenced to twenty years of forced labor. Flora is allowed to use her maiden name again. In 1839 Flora traveled to London. The non-violent struggle against English colonialism is on the agenda.

Before the attack, Chazal had kidnapped his daughter Aline several times; not only to abuse her, but also for the riches he had suspected in Flora after her return from Peru. Flora was fed with peanuts by Don Pío Tristán. So the intended blackmail didn't work out.

Paul in Polynesia and France from 1892 to 1903

Even in Tahiti , Paul, whom the Polynesians call Koke, cannot escape state power . He is also waiting for a transfer. Once money arrives, he pays his debts and is again penniless. After a stay in France, the painter returned to Tahiti in 1897 via the Suez Canal , Sydney and Auckland . Paul suffers from eczema on his legs. There is no shortage of accommodating young women in Polynesia either. Paul had made Teha'amana pregnant. After their miscarriage, the painter changes wife. The lucky one is 14-year-old Pau'ura. He immediately impregnates the beautiful child. Rumor has it on the island that Paul suffers from leprosy . The painter tries in vain to poison himself. A daughter was born to him on December 21, 1896; a reason to celebrate. Fortunately, 1,500 francs for pictures and a sculpture arrived from France . Before baptism, the newborn dies of acute shortness of breath. No woman wants to sleep with Paul, the man with the inflamed legs, anymore. So the patient moved to the Marquesas on September 10, 1901. According to reports, "little girls" are supposed to be waiting for him there. The expectation is met and even exceeded, but Paul has to admit that paradise cannot be found on the Marquesas either. For the first time since he had turned his back on the Paris Stock Exchange once and for all, Paul felt a reluctance to work on the easel. He finds it difficult to walk. On May 1, 1903, he can barely get out of bed, dies on May 8 and is buried on May 9. The Bishop of Hiva Oa forgives - it seems - this "enemy of God" and "famous artist".

• Review

The story of the very problematic friendship with van Gogh († 1890) is often interspersed in the text. The narrator calls the great Dutchman the "crazy Dutchman". Paul's father Clovis Gauguin had left France for Lima as a political refugee and died at sea. Paul's mother Aline Gauguin ended up as a widow with little Paul and their slightly older sister in the Peruvian capital.

Paul thinks back to the winter of 1872, when he met his first wife Mette Gad, the young, blonde, educated Viking, in Paris. In 1878 the Ethnographic Museum was opened in Paris. Among other things, certain ceramics made by the ancient Peruvians impressed Paul there; revealed a power for which further search had seemed worthwhile. The escape from Paris was the next step.

At the end of his life, Paul also thinks back to his childhood in Lima. Great-uncle Pío resided in the city apartment, drank steaming chocolate and called the boy: "Come here, Pablito, little rascal!"

Art and artist

• Civilization and art are mutually exclusive. Only a savage can paint.
• Against the love between man and woman in its “Western form”: For an artist only physical love, as practiced by the “primitive peoples”, is acceptable.
• Vincent van Gogh: The studio is taboo. The great outdoors inspires a work of art.
• The “real artist” paints from within - for example a black sun or a blue horse.
• Western European art has to mix with foreign cultures.

interpretation

The novel contains satirical passages. For example, when Flora goes to Peru, she learns about the enslavement of negroes on the way. The unfortunate are whipped under the equatorial sun. A spokesman deplored the "poor slave traders" who have to work so hard with the whip in the heat.

The review mentioned above is exaggerated. The 15th chapter - a Flora part - is according to the subtitle in Nîmes in August 1844 , but is called "The Battle of Cangallo". Accordingly, chapters degenerate into containers in which prehistory is packed.

reception

• In his review “In search of two lost paradises” in “ El País ” of March 29, 2003, Rafael Conte praises the documentary accuracy, but puts his finger on the wound: it is not one novel, but two great novels in front. The stories of the two relatives are told parallel to each other and are not intertwined.
• Fietta Jarque says in “El País” of March 29, 2003, two Peru episodes by the two protagonists - Flora undertook a desperate trip to Arequipa and Paul spent a few years of his childhood in Lima - were not enough to link the two vitae.

literature

Used edition

• Paradise is elsewhere. Novel. Translated from the Spanish by Elke Wehr . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003 (st 3713, 1st edition 2005), ISBN 978-3-518-45713-9

Remarks

1. ↑ After the father Don Mariano Tristán y Moscoso, colonel in the army of the King of Spain (Edition used, p. 12, 14th Zvu to p. 13, 11th Zvo).
2. ↑ Paul says of himself that he was a stockbroker, financier and banker (edition used, p. 375, 3rd Zvu).
3. ↑ In the Paul episodes, references to Flora are also occasionally made in other places (see for example the edition used, p. 123, 10th Zvu).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edition used, p. 325, 2. Zvo and p. 325, 2. Zvu
2. ↑ for example used edition, p. 364, 5th Zvu versus p. 365, 3rd Zvo or also p. 385, 3rd Zvo
3. ↑ Edition used, pp. 17, 17. Zvo
4. ↑ Edition used, p. 473 middle
5. ↑ Edition used, p. 415, 7. Zvo; see also p. 164 below to 165 middle
6. ↑ eng. Islay
7. ^ Spanish history of Peru from 1821
8. ↑ Edition used, p. 493, 3rd Zvu
9. ↑ see for example the edition used, p. 339, 7. Zvo
10. ↑ eng. Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
11. ↑ Edition used, p. 474, 8th Zvu
12. ↑ Edition used, p. 34, 3. Zvo
13. ↑ Edition used, p. 291, 5th Zvo
14. ↑ Edition used, p. 339, 7. Zvo
15. ↑ Edition used, p. 438, 2nd Zvu
16. ↑ Edition used, p. 445, 7th Zvu
17. ↑ Edition used, p. 177, 15. Zvu
18. ↑ Edition used, p. 301; closely. Cangallo district in Peru
19. ^ Spanish Rafael Conte : En busca de dos paraísos perdidos
20. ^ Spanish Fietta Jarque: Soy un utópico en todo menos en política