The Dream of the Jaguar
Miguel Bonnefoy, born in France to a Venezuelan mother and Chilean father, created this family saga beginning in the 1930s, to illuminate Venezuela’s troubled history through the lives of three generations of the fictional Romero family. Antonio Romero, abandoned at three days old on the church steps in Maracaibo with a cigarette-rolling machine as his only identity, is found and raised by a beggar woman, Mute Theresa. In youth he works as a jack-of-all-trades at the Majestic brothel. Later he miraculously is aided by his wealthy lawyer uncle and attends medical school, where he meets and later marries Ana Maria. Antonio becomes a brilliant and much revered cardiologist. His wife, Ana Maria, runs a maternity clinic. They immerse themselves in work. Their daughter, Venezuela, moves to Paris, where her son, Cristóbal, is born. At eighteen, Cristóbal, “straight out of a Beaudelaire poem,” journeys to her home country to discover and write his family history.
This novel has been translated from the original French to English. It is divided into four sections illuminating each of the characters’ stories in minute detail with many secondary characters to keep track of. Written in third person with little dialogue and uneven character development, it can be quite dense. This reader was not drawn in. There’s so much detail and time spent on local history and geography that it would probably resonate more in Latin America, especially Venezuela. We are made aware not only of the deep divide between rich and poor but also of the turbulent history of dictatorship, coup d’état, and revolution. Perhaps this story would play out better as a trilogy or miniseries. This novel was first published in France 2024 as Le Rêve du Jaguar.
