“We are Green and Trembling”

“We are that which creates life between the rocks and the stars. Star and rock incarnate, we are green and trembling. The world was not made in a single week, beloved aunt, it is made and unmade at every moment.” (We are Green and Trembling, p. 189)

Magical realism again! In We are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara the central character, who narrates the story, is based on a historic figure. He is Antonio de Erauso, an adventurer in colonial South America, who was born Catalina de Erauso, a noblewoman. As a girl, Catalina escaped from a convent and utterly changed her identity to Antonio. The narrative is addressed to Catalina/Antonio’s aunt, who had attempted to force her into convent life. The true story at the heart of the book is already surreal, I think.

Antonio’s narrative alternates between a description of his current situation, isolated and threatened in the jungle with two helpless little children and a narrative of how he got there. (Very surrealistic!) He tries to make the children understand life in general and especially to visualize life in Spain, but they never seem to get it. For example, he tries to explain to the children the idea of oranges… they constantly see new jungle fruits, brought down from the trees by monkeys — but never oranges. For example:

“The monkeys return with fruits that look like artichokes. With a sweet taste somewhere between pineapple and banana. ‘Hey, che, these are your oranges?’ ‘You know they are not.’ ‘And where are your oranges?’  ‘In Spain.’ ‘Chirimoyas, these.’” (p. 36)

Of all the exotic jungle fruit, the chirimoya is the only one I’ve ever seen or tasted, so I noticed this. (Chirimoyas tasted to me like juicy fruit chewing gum.) I did wonder a bit why so many South American novels incorporate magical realism, but I guess I’ll never know. I checked for reviews of the book: there are not many of them.

I did find a summary of the novel by reviewer Brock Kingsley in the Chicago Review of Books:

“As Catalina, Antonio was confined to a convent under the supervision of her aunt, the prioress. The convent soon became a prison, both literally and symbolically. Antonio escapes and begins a process of transformation, drawing on lessons learned in religious life. His journey—from convent escapee to muleteer, cabin boy, soldier, and secretary to a grotesque conquistador—mirrors a continual act of becoming. Antonio’s shape-shifting identity challenges not only the gender norms of the seventeenth century, but also those of our own time. Through his character, the novel interrogates fixed notions of masculinity and the often rigid expectations imposed on trans identities.”

And Laura Pensa in World Literature Today writes:

“Cabezón Cámara combines the most explicit scenes of violence—including a bonfire where people burn alive; the image of a pink, waxy lagoon haunted me that night in a dream—with moments of familiarity and entirely original tenderness. Particularly in Antonio’s relationship with the girls, a bond made of mutual care but also of teasing and abandonment, it becomes clear that, although his attitude and intention might align with those of a white savior, it is the girls who take care of him. They name him, feed him, dress him as a man-bird, walk him into the forest, share with him everything he needs to know to comprehend and accept the course of events. Even his own heroic will (to save the girls from captivity) twists by the force of reality: he is the outsider who needs to be cared for, for which he must first take on the task of caring.”

Well, it was another strange reading choice, and I don’t know how I heard of it.

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