Leonardo Padura

„Mario Conde nahm die geschlossene Akte in die Hand. Ihm schwante, dass sie eine Art Büchse der Pandora sein könnte, und er verspürte keinerlei Lust, die Dämonen der Vergangenheit aus ihr zu befreien.“ (Zitat Seite 22)

Inhalt
Noch sehr angeschlagen von der Silvesterfeier, freut sich Teniente Mario Conde über sein freies Wochenende, als sein Chef anruft und dieses beendet. Denn am Abend des 1. Januar hat die Ehefrau von Rafael Morín Rodríguez ihren Mann als vermisst gemeldet. Dieser Fall ist brisant und Conde muss sofort zu ermitteln beginnen, denn Rodríguez ist der einflussreiche Leiter der Import-Export-Abteilung im Industrieministerium. Da es sich bei Rafael Morín um genau jenen Schulkollegen handelt, der Tamara Valdemira geheiratet hat, die heimliche große Jugendliebe von Mario Conde, begleiten persönliche Erinnerungen den Teniente bei seinen aktuellen Recherchen. Das Leben und Verhalten von Rafael Morín Rodríguez waren immer perfekt, ein untadeliger Mann mit einer weißen Weste, wo sind die Schatten?

Thema und Genre
Der vorliegende Kriminalroman spielt in Kuba. Es ist der erste Band der Serie Havanna Quartett und es geht hier um wesentlich mehr, als das Verschwinden einer Person. Themen sind Politik, Gesellschaft, Jugenderinnerungen, sowie die Lebensträume einer jungen Generation und die Veränderungen im Laufe der Jahre.

Charaktere
Seit zwölf Jahren ist die Hauptfigur, Teniente Mario Conde, bei der Polizei und ebenso lang fragt er sich, warum. Gerade dieser aktuelle Fall führt El Conde weit in seine Vergangenheit zurück und kurz wünscht er sich, wieder sechzehn Jahre alt zu sein, einen anderen Weg für sein Leben auszuprobieren. „Eines Tages vielleicht würde er seine alten Illusionen wieder haben, würde in einem Haus in Cojímar wohnen, wie Hemingway, direkt an der Küste, in einem Holzhaus mit roten Dachziegeln und einem Zimmer zum Schreiben.“ (Zitat Seite 147)

Erzählform und Sprache
Die Handlung wird personal erzählt, die aktuellen Ermittlungen werden ergänzt durch Erinnerungen an Ereignisse im Jahr 1972 und Gedankenströme, sowie Beobachtungen und Schilderungen des Umfeldes und der Situation in Kuba. Zwischendurch wechselt die Erzählform sowohl bei Mario Conde, als auch bei seinem Mitarbeiter Manolo in die Ich-Form, was uns tief in die Gedanken der Figuren eintauchen lässt und die Geschichte auch sprachlich interessant und abwechslungsreich gestaltet.

Fazit
Ein vielschichtiger Kuba-Roman mit interessanten Themen und ebenso facettenreichen Figuren. Eine spannende Geschichte mit atmosphärischen Schilderungen Kubas, auch sprachlich überzeugend.… (mer)

"Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a boy who wanted to be a writer.." (p. 111) His heroes were Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, Julio Cortazar, and JD Salinger.

At 35, Mario Conde, "the Count" laments the state of his life... a policeman who dreams of being a writer. How did he wind up in this life? He can't understand it. He and his friends had such dreams...
This is the heart of the story...the murder of a teacher at Conde's high school ("Pre-Uni) brings about reminisces of his time there. What could he and his friends be if they still had their time again?

"Nobody can imagine what night-time is like for a policeman. Nobody can know what ghosts visit him, what hot flushes assail him, the hell where he simmers on a slow burner, or where fierce flames shoot around him. The act of closing your eyes can be a cruel challenge, conjuring up troublesome figures from the past, who never leave your memory, who return, night after night, with the tireless regularity of a pendulum. Decisions, mistakes, acts of arrogance, and even the frailties of generosity return like irredeemable sins to haunt a conscience marked by each petty act of infamy committed in the world of the infamous." p. 26

This, and a new love brings about an existential crisis for the Count...
"I dream I could dream other happy dreams, build something, possess something, hand something on, receive and create something: write. But it's the futile delirium of a man who feeds on what has been destroyed, That is why a policeman's loneliness is the most fearful loneliness: it accompanies his ghosts, sorrows, guile..." p. 28

This book, as well as the previous one in the series, "Havana Blue", is not a typical detective novel
The crime is a McGuffin, a backdrop that helps move the story of the Count's sorrowful tale of lost love, regrets, and dying dreams. As he reflects, "writing is very difficult, that writing is something almost sacred and even painful", and that being a policeman has sapped all his emotional energy. Finally, there is this to contemplate...the Count's rumination on death:
"There is nothing,...the mere idea that man's time on earth is a brief interlude between two voids has been humanity's greatest source of anguish since it became conscious of its existence. That's why I can't get accustomed to death and it always surprises and terrifies me: it's a warning that mine is getting closer." p. 233 Creating something will be a way of leaving a legacy for the future. Would he ever write again? Will he ever become a writer? "He thought it alarming how easily heaven and earth could combine to crush a man like a sandwich about to be chomped painfully". p. 285

5 stars and looking forward to the next book in the series, "Havana Red". The translator is British and reads well.… (mer)

Red Havana- Crime Novel and The Start of a Quixotic Journey



Another fine installment in the Mario Conde series. Cuba,Summer, 1989... the body of a transvestite is found in the Havana Woods...
This is so much more than a crime novel. In the author's note at the beginning of the book, Padura states that "Mario Conde is a metaphor, not a policeman, and his life, quite simply unfolds in the possible space that is literature." vii
Although slightly dated in the attitudes toward LGBTQ people, it is in the end, a novel in which the character grows to understand and accept this community, eventually taking inspiration in their struggle for freedom of expression. It also expresses the need for self-acceptance in the instances when all your family and community misunderstand and even reject you.
In this book, as in his others, the crime story is merely the story on the surface, you could say the "McGuffin". The deeper story is that of overcoming obstacles and repression...which inspires Conde to begin writing again.
Suring the investigaton, Conde (aka "the Count")meets Marquess, who had been removed from his theatre company for his sexual identity and "subversive" productions never gives up writing.
"They wouldn't allow me to publish or direct, but no one could prevent me writing and thinking....those pages contained what was invincible." p. 225-226
Conde recalls his early attempts at writing in highschool. He sadly gave up his dream after the principal declared that the one and only edition of his highschool newspaper was "subversive".
It is an enjoyable read with a strong sense of time and place, as well as the motifs of regret and longing for the past, and disillusionment with the present, shown through his obsession with baseball, rock music (especially CCRB), Hemingway, Salinger, Sartre, and rum. And a strong dose of allusions to classic LITERATURE such as "Paradise Lost", "The Divine Comedy",Don Quixote, Oedipus Rex, Greek myths, and Electra Garrigo'. There are also many allusions to the Bible, especially The Transfiguration, as well as Catholic tradition.
The message here: writers need to be well- read!
Padura is an excellent writer, and the translation is well-done (except for an over usage of "reckon").
This passage is, for me, simply put, a "wow!"
"The worst thing was this sense of the void. As the alarm clock rang, it drilled into the Count's brain a quarter to seven, and his eyelids struggled against lethergy and the recent burden of beer, a quarter to seven, the void started to reclaim its space like an oil slick suddenly released and spreading over the sea of consciousness; but it was a colourless slick, because it was void and nothingness, the end which recommenced, day after day, with an unstinted cpapcity for self-renewal against which he lacked any defences or valid argument: a quarter to seven was all that was tangible in the depts of that void.
Recently he's started to imagine deathmight be somewhat similar: wakingto an absensce of atmosphere , onorous yet painless, stripped of expectioation and surprises because it was only this: a bottomless, empty void, a dark, padded cloud cushoning him definitively. " p. 15

Pretty heavy for a crime novel! Mario Conde is often asked by his coworkers and friends "Why did you become a policeman?" In this novel, he begins to realize the importance of being true to himself. The book closes with this passage (no spoilers):

"Was it possible to retrace steps and right wrondoings, mistakes, errors? Impossible, Conde, though you can still be invincible..." p. 233.
This is an inpirational message for all of us.… (mer)

I discovered this book through the podcast "A Strong Sense of Place", episode 11: Cuba: Castro, Conga, Cars, and Cigars. If you've never heard of it, the premise of the podcast is to discuss books that provide a strong sense of place featured in each episode. Among the 5 books discussed in this episode was "Havana Fever", the 4th installment in the Mario Conde Series. I realized that I had read his novel "The Man Who Loved Dogs", and had enjoyed his writing style. I wanted to start at the beginning of the series and I am glad that I did!
Blue Havana is Cuban Crime noir, and so much more. The disappearance of Rafael Morin, an important business manager and 'reliable comrade' is a McGuffin, an event that helps us get to know Mario, or "the Count", a boozy detective in Havana, his past, his dreams, and his desires, as well as his day to day habits and interests. (Among which are Hemingway, rock n roll, baseball jazz, and drinking).
Mario can't explain why he became a police officer; he once vowed to become a writer, and nothing else in front of a photo of Hemingway., "the idol he most worshipped" Although he is a gifted policeman, he no longer writes...he would like to be 16 again, in order to reshape his past:" there couldn't be a repeat of the long chain of errors and coincidences that had shaped his existence ". (Who hasn't felt that way!)
This disappearance brings up his past because Rafael was a schoolmate of Mario's. His "strolls down memory lane always ended in melancholy ", and in trying to solve the disappearance, Mario's calm solitude is disturbed as he confronts regret, disillusionment, and the dreams he, as well as his " lost, faceless" generation, had deferred...
"What have you made of your life Mario Conde, he asked himself daily as he attempted to reverse the time machine and one by one right his own wrongs, disappointments and excesses, anger and hatred, cast off his errant ways and find the exact point at which to start afresh."
Wow! Insightful writing. The translation is quite good...only one or 2 clunkers...calling a zipper a zip, and a car horn a klaxon. The writing alone hooked me, but the story and sense of place truly made it a book I strongly recommend and will never loan out! I bookmarked many beautiful, moving passages.
And if I had any doubts about continuing the series, the ending paragraph wowed me even more.
"He stretched out a hand towards his bookcase and picked out the only book that had never accumulated dust. 'May it be very squalid and moving', he repeated loudly and read the story of the man who knew all the secrets of the banana fish, which is maybe why he killed him and fell asleep thinking the story was pure squalor because of the quiet brilliance of the suicide."… (mer)