Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco was an easier read than some of the other books covered in this course. While it dealt with ‘gritty’ topics such as drugs, gunplay, and sex for money, there were not the different ‘tracks’ (as outlined by Stam) at work—as in the novels Money to Burn and Pantoja. A complexity of this novel, however, is its chronology and how that affects the story on the whole.
While it is narrated over the course of a single night, while Antonio is in the hospital after Rosario is shot, he sinks into memories of the time he spent with her and his best friend Emillio. It is unclear when he is narrating—either as he is in the hospital or after. There is evidence to support both, however as he claims from the beginning that Rosario does not survive, I believe the latter. Additionally, his flashbacks are only roughly in order—he does jump around a bit. These aspects of the book, though they made for interesting reading, make me wonder about the film adaptation. Because we know from the beginning that Rosairo is dead, there is not the climax of finding out whether or not she will survive. There is no other major climax in the story otherwise. Also, flashbacks lend themselves to film, however does the fact that these are out of order matter? I wonder what the director of the film will do with it—will he rearrange Antonio’s memories? Will he create a climax?
Perhaps one of the main contributions of film to literary technique has been the use of flash backs. (I know there are many literary precedents. However, I would also argue that film helped make it a much more common literary device). The fact that Franco's first training was in film may be relevant to the structure of the novel.
ReplyDeleteHowever, now that I think of it a common thread among several of the books we've read have been their use of filmic devices. Vargas Llosa's "telescoping dialogues," Puig's screenplay like writing and his use of film stories in Kiss of the Spider Woman, arguably the presence of noir elements in Money to Burn, can be seen as manifesting the imprint of film.