The Untameable
1960s Mexico City and Yukon Territory: Within a four-year span, a plethora of brutal, graphic deaths engulf teenager Juan Guillermo’s entire family, including pets. He first encounters death in the womb, where his umbilical cord strangles his twin. Years later, after inadvertently allowing religious fanatics to murder his beloved older brother, Guillermo’s guilt demands vengeance. Consumed, he plans and brutally obliges. Meanwhile, in the Yukon, part-Inuit Amaruq is tracking a wolf.
This extraordinary story contains every death imaginable and ought to carry an advisory: prepare for the read of your life! At times it seems more autobiographical than fiction, such is the fly-along narrative’s objective factuality, with forays into erotica. The non-linear dual storyline flows fluidly once you’re comfortable hopping across time and continents to yet another revelation and subsequent backstory. The slow-release bloodline link between Mexico and the Yukon is masterfully handled, introducing an avuncular lion tamer who teaches Guillermo the spiritual interconnectedness of man and beast, pack mentalities, the humanity of the wolf, the barbarism of the human and, crucially, the art of taming.
Arriaga’s writing style is crammed with literary, philosophical and historical knowledge, quite astonishingly presented. Spread throughout are four explanatory pages listing, dictionary-like, an ‘Etymology of Events’. Some pages are poetry-like, one contains but a single word, and on others words visibly shape their meanings. One paragraph comprises 65 words, each capitalised and full-stopped. Between chapters are short passages on superstitions, legends and traditions about birth, life and (mainly) death according to Serbian witches, Aboriginals, Transylvanians, Africans and Inuits; especially relevant is the Viking virgins reference. The translation alone deserves an award. Outstanding.
