Synopses & Reviews
The exotic escape and subsequent capture of a hippopotamusthe final remnant of the incongruous zoo Pablo Escobar used to flaunt his poweris the spark that activates the mechanisms of Antonio Yammaras memory, protagonist and narrator of El ruido de las cosas al caera dark balance from a time of terror and violence, set in a Bogota painted as a region full of literary significance. In 1995, Antonio meets the intriguing Ricardo Laverde, a man who has served a 20-year sentence. Laverde, an acknowledged pilot, is part of the group that gathers at the pool hall where Yammara, a young university Law professor, burns what is left of his youth. The two men become fast friends, to the point where Antonio, whose life has always been full of doubts, affirms that a warning hides within his friends tortuous experience. Antonio will try to understand Laverdes generation (which is also his parents, with all its love stories), to evaluate their share of innocence and complicity in the creation of a society dominated by corruption, chaos and violence. Yammaras memory takes us on a vibrant journey through Colombias recent history, bringing back attractive and complex characters. Such is the case of Ricardo Laverde, a character drawn with the mastery of Juan Marsé, Mario Vargas Llosa and, in the central image of the pilot, particularly in the idea of a lost” or injured” one, the hand of Juan Carlos Onetti, whose favorite story by Faulkner, All the dead pilots, he translated.
Synopsis
In 2009, Antonio Yammara recalls his relationship years before with Ricardo Laverde, a man with a hidden past who was killed in the days when the drug trade in Colombia was at its height, and examines its effects on everyone in the country.