First of all, the freelance journalist, as she narrates, was looking for an adventure. She felt tempted to explore her chaotic homeland, to reencounter the land she had forgotten. The journalist found a partner that could help her investigate the conflict, and show the world what was happening as she pursued her adventure. Now that's too dull and cliché, how about you add a fling with a poetic Romani reporter, of whom she was reminded of every morning as she drank coffee in her New York apartment. Paternostro analyzed the Colombian map also hung in the wall of her home. The outline of the map, actually shaped through centuries of negotiations and wars, somehow reflected the essence of the country's war, as did the Baudelaire poem from the faraway lover.
It's not a crime to make a story interesting, it's just clashing to read about the conflict that surrounds me in an alienated opinion that doesn't really convince me. The author suggests that FARC isn't really into drug dealing, that's just an excuse the Colombian government uses to convince the US to help them fight the rebels. It must be, as everything revolves around the United States. Whether that's true or not, there is no doubt that FARC produces cocaine, also known as drug dealing, making them by definition narco-guerillas. Referring to the conflict with FARC and the paramilitaries, Paternostro says, "Add a big check of American dollars for the Colombian military into the mix and the map in my kitchen is transformed into a bloody landscape" (pg. 14). While the bullets Colombia buys with those dollars do kill people, it is important to understand that the government gave the FARC a lot of chances to negotiate, but as they didn't stop their kidnappings, bombings and drug production, for the sake of the safety of Colombian citizens, the government had to fight back. The map on her kitchen was way bloodier before the American dollars got here. Paternostro would disagree in saying that the FARC is not political anymore: "That's what Colombians have been doing; they have been catcalling and killing since the day Colombia was born... killed for being a Liberal, killed for being a Conservative... killed for being FARC, killed for being AUC" (pg. 15). Sadly it's true that Colombia has been in war since its independence, yet it's not the same war always. The Liberal vs. Conservative duel changed in the late twentieth century. It's not 50% vs 50% of the population anymore, its more like 95% vs the 10,000 FARC soldiers and those that don't have a political opinion.
The author wants to know when will it ever end, well, I think that calming down her regionalism might be a start. Referring to paisas as boring and ruthless, cachacos are haughty and hypocritical, and costeños as loud does not promote union and settlement. It's a good way of showing how some Colombians feel, but now a good way to describe the FARC conflict. I appreciate how Paternostro compares the popular son about the caiman with the Colombian spirit, but I feel like that's overdoing it, not every text means something about Colombia.
This blog entry might be an overreaction of mine to the first 25 pages of the book, but out of the introduction, I got the feeling that the memoir is turning the Colombian reality into her adventure and business. The juicer the story, the more it will sell. I hope that I'm getting a wrong vision of the writer from the beginning of the book. I have to admit that in the first pages of Book One, I didn't find any detail to criticize. Even though the book has been quite enjoyable to read by now, I clearly disagree with many of the author's opinions. I understand that I'm not at all qualified to judge--this might be just a sellable book, or the complete opposite, but I can still express my opinion just as the author does.
