Honorio's death
The Death of Honorio ( Spanish La muerte de Honorio ) is a novel by the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva , which was published in 1963 by Losada Publishing in Buenos Aires . In Venezuela the text was published in 1968 by the Monte Avila publishing house in Caracas .
overview
Before January 22, 1958 in a remote Venezuelan prison south of the Orinoco : Five Venezuelan political prisoners tell how they were tortured by henchmen of the Seguridad Nacional during the dictatorial period , i.e. before 1958.
With the exception of the hairdresser Nicolás Barrientos, all five prisoners are political leaders - serious criminals in the understanding of the dictatorship. Therefore, they are strictly isolated from the other prisoners.
shape
The five stories of the prisoners about the above-mentioned torture in the cellars of the Seguridad Nacional secret police overwhelm the more sensitive reader. And the four fighters, members of the Partido Comunista de Venezuela , sometimes arouse the displeasure of “normal” readers from the 21st century with their blatant, bold sermon of Marxist ideas. However, Miguel Otero Silva does not present his indigestible material clumsily. When it is their turn, each of the five tells alternately on two levels - once verbatim for the ears of his four fellow sufferers and then in italics - his thoughts, intended for the willing reader. You can even find text passages in which Miguel Otero Silva's humorous prose art can be admired. For example, the five prisoners are initially deprived of their mail. When the receipt of mail is later permitted in moderation, some recipients hold a letter in their hands that has been badly cut up by the censor. But Milena, the language teacher, writes to the captured journalist Eugenio Rondón about the fight against dictatorship - wrapped up as a gossip story. Heroes' weaknesses are not kept secret. Noemí Mendizábal, the wealthy friend of Captain Roseliano Luigi, stirs the captain's jealousy at every opportunity.
The narrators
The five prisoners teach each other. The bookkeeper makes a name for himself as an English teacher, the captain teaches algebra , the journalist discusses the Divine Comedy with his four comrades and the doctor lectures on political economy .
- The accountant Luis Carlos Tosta
was head of the special service of his party . He “owes” the arrest to a bomb maker from his own ranks. Seriously injured by a premature bomb explosion, the dying man had revealed names to the curious police. Tosta was not a trained accountant. He just found his way around all kinds of professions without complications - including this one. Tosta's wife died giving birth to their first child. Before the two weeks of torture, his hair was gray. Afterwards it was white.
- The journalist Eugenio Rondón
comes from a legal dynasty. He refused to study law and was kicked out by his father. He worked successfully as a reporter and met with reform-minded officers. The police were looking for him from then on. Interrogators must have spoken. He was caught by chance during a reckless stroll through the city. After several weeks of torture, he was put in a cell containing three soldiers he knew well. None of them recognized Rondón.
- The doctor Salvador Valerio
took over the party's propaganda department, spared from raids . He liked to submit to party discipline. The Cuban Julio Antonio Mella is his role model. Valerio was arrested after denouncing his own ranks. As a resister, he has a family background. When Valerio was still a child, his father had spent twelve years in prison in an underground dungeon built by the Spanish conquerors by the sea. Finally released, the father died at home a few days later. The mother and aunts enabled Valerio to graduate and study. He had bought the fat anatomy textbook together with two other poor fellow students.
- The captain Roseliano Luigi
grew up at the foot of snow-capped mountains on the banks of the Chama , Albarregas, Milla and Mucujún rivers. The father had planned the engineering career for the son. In spite of this, the boy got his way and served himself up as captain in Caracas. Luigi becomes an opponent of the military government after learning of the murder of Ruiz Pineda, the existence of the Guasina concentration camp and the enrichment of leading military officials. The officers' uprising, in which Luigi takes part, is put down. The detainee does not give any names, takes on all the guilt, is retired by the military tribunal and is imprisoned for twelve years.
As soon as the dictatorship is overthrown, Luigi wants to return to the army and punish the guilty.
In December 1957, an uncle Luigis succeeds in visiting his nephew in prison. The uncle is convinced that the dictatorship will be overthrown within two months.
- The hairdresser Nicolás Barrientos,
Son of a bricklayer, is not interested in politics and is not even a trade unionist. When he was parroting a customer's gossip, an informer took him to jail.
Out of a need for recognition, Barrientos invents a six-year-old son Honorio in front of his four fellow sufferers, whom he wants to have together with his wife Rosario Cardoso. The fuss is taken from the hairdresser. All four comrades worry about the fictional Honorio.
On January 10, 1958, news of a general strike planned for mid-January reached the five prisoners. The joy of the four fighters at the impending freedom is clouded when the barber Barrientos confesses his lie. Honorio died for the four and they have to stifle their crying. They had secretly adopted Honorio. They wanted to watch his steps out in the open.
Text output
- Used edition
- Honorio's death. Translated from Spanish by Christel Dobencker. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin 1976 (1st edition), 235 pages, without ISBN
annotation
- ↑ Miguel Otero Silva gives at the end of the novel, shortly before the description of the liberation of the political prisoners, a single more specific date - Tuesday, January 21st. The day of the week fits the year 1958. From the context it can be concluded that the action in the prison south of the Orinoco runs from the year 1957 to that January 21, 1958.
Individual evidence
- ^ Spanish Dirección de Seguridad Nacional
- ↑ Spanish Parque nacional Sierra Nevada (Venezuela)
- ↑ eng. Ruiz Pineda
- ↑ span. Guasina