Luis Sepulveda – A Dissident who Realized the Limitations of Marxist Lessons Learned

# Jayakrishnan

Like Herman Melville’s ‘Mobbydick’ or Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, we can say that ‘The Old Man Who Read Love Stories’ is a conflict between nature and man. But while Melville and Hemingway depict man trying to conquer nature, Sepulveda looks in the opposite direction’.

Read Jayakrishnan’s article in ‘Vakola’ of Mathrubhumi daily about Lewis Sepulveda’s great work that raises endless questions about nature, love and man…

ChiLuis Sepulveda was the person who led the armed revolution against the dictator Augusto Pinochet in Li. The dictatorship that poisoned Neruda, captured Sepulveda and sentenced him to twenty-eight years in prison. He escaped from prison; Not once, but twice. After leaving Chile, he joined UNESCO in environmental protection activities.

From his association with the Shuar tribe in the Amazon forests, he realized that the Marxist lessons he had learned were not sufficient for the survival of those who were attuned to nature. He then wrote many stories for children. Sepulveda was taken away on April 16, 2020 by a pandemic that spread across the world. But in the meantime he had written what may be described as the book of the century; That is the novel ‘The Oldman Who Read Love Stories’.

Antonio José Bolivar and his wife Dolores Encarnacion lived in the village of San Luis in northern Ecuador. Under special circumstances they reached the village of El Idilió on the banks of the Nangaritsa, a tributary of the Amazon.

Antonio’s wife died of malaria the second year. With that, he hated life and started living with the Shuar people who helped him out of the immigrants. From them he learned the joy of being in harmony with nature. But he had to leave later.

Some Americans who came in search of gold once shot his friend, a Shuar. It should be replaced. The head of the shooter should be hanged on a stake. Otherwise the soul of the Shuar who was shot would ‘become a blind parrot.’ They sent Antonio himself to avenge him. But instead of killing him in direct combat, Antonio finishes him off by seizing the American’s gun. Thus the revenge was fruitless. The spirit of the Shuar tribe became blind. They were forced to send Antonio away, albeit with sadness.

Antonio moved back to El Idilio. But he built a hut in a place isolated from the new settlers. In his old age he made the great discovery that he could read. Antonio went looking for books. He liked love stories.

He also had to go one day with the tyrannical and idiot mayor in search of a female ocelot that had been killing the villagers one by one. The mayor and others retreated. Antonio followed Ocelote alone. He realized that she was taking him to euthanize her mate who was dying after being shot by a hunter.

He kills him. And then her. He threw the gun into the river when he ended the love affair that was greater than any story he had ever read. He is returning. He doesn’t need the reward promised by the mayor or the heroism of the man who freed the village from the cannibals, just the cleanliness of his hut and the love stories waiting right there.

Like Herman Melville’s ‘Mobbydick’ or Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, we can say that ‘The Old Man Who Read Love Stories’ is the conflict between nature and man. But while Melville and Hemingway depict man trying to conquer nature, Sepulveda looks in the opposite direction.

If old Santiago catches the giant fish to make up for his shame as a fisherman, Antonio José Bolivar weeps for shame when he kills the ocelot. The guilt-ridden shame of conquering nature.

‘The old man who has read love stories’ fills our minds with endless questions about nature and man. We are reminded of the piano music of the rain falling through the cracks in the decaying roof of the world in the poem of the Chilean poet Pablo de Rokha. Dedicated to Chico Mendes, an environmentalist who gave his life to save the Amazon rainforest, this novel is one of the great books of the 21st century.