The Book of Embraces - Eduardo Galeano

Blatant Colonialism mutilates you without pretense: it forbids you to talk, it forbids you to act, it forbids you to exist. Invisible colonialism, however, convinces you that serfdom is your destiny and impotence is your nature: it convinces you that it's not possible to speak, not possible to act, not possible to exist. - Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces pp. 159 ("The Culture of Terror" 7)

I have been reading a bit but mostly comics (that list I'm growing and have a few left to finish before I give those reviews out) but also a lot of literary nonfiction. I've read so many Mary Oliver essays for the next episode of Couplet but not the entire book. While researching for the podcast allowed me a lot of time to spend in research and examination, I unfortunately feel victim to my own spiral of production. And In not being a thing that has gained enough attention to warrant the intense amount of labor, am likely shutting it down soon. It's also strained because I want to remember I read too just to enjoy it. Sometimes to pass on a good piece of literature to the next person.

I came across Galeano while reading about Roque Dalton for the podcast, and this wonderful quote he had on Dalton's passing:

We all meet death in a way that resembles us. Some of us, in silence, walking on tiptoe; others, shrinking away; others, asking forgiveness or permission. There are those who meet it arguing or demanding explanations, and there are those who make their way slugging or cursing. There are those who embrace death. Those who close their eyes; those who cry. I always thought that Roque would meet death roaring with laughter. I wonder if he could have. Wouldn’t the sorrow of being murdered by those who had been your comrades have been stronger? (Galeano 96) - From Edward Galeano - "Quito, February 1976: I light the fire and beckon it," pp. 85-87 in Dalton, Poems.

The way he captures the execution and betrayal of Dalton signified something I would like to do; something I try to do: to be exact with language. The Book of Embraces, for me at least, is a precursor to what I'm going to try and do next, which is read all three volumes of The Memory of Fire in their complex and experimental glory, and what I want to personally do.

I have been making it through short collections of essays regularly (Braiding Sweetgrass, What is Found There, Long Life) and it's the only style then when I write prose I feel I'm any good at. Fiction has evaded me therefore, and I'm not sure why. It's why poetry really became the way I wrote because experimental one act plays certainly wasn't attracting anyone's attention and I can't finish a novel for shit. But I do want to write longer things - or longer than the enjamb sets work. I feel it would be helpful for my craft to do this more frequently. I am then, when I read the way that Galeano's book blends his own memory with fantasies, dreams, colonial observance and revolutionary development of Uruguay, Chile, and others...I feel inspired. 

It feels like I'm alive in a world of possibility again rather than stuck in what is my current - mostly isolation of my own and systemic creation. Working 7 days a week that is about to become 45 hours back to back. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that - probably not well. I told myself this morning that if I can do it for a year I should walk away with a bit of money. I told my therapist yesterday that if I don't get a fulltime job this year I'm galivanting to a firewatch tower. Either way, I'd like to write more again. I'd like to get some comfort in it as well.

In short, this is a book that I have a thousand sticky notes in to remember which essays made moves through my heart and head and if you can find it, you should.