Review: Zama by Antonio de Benedetto

This book was originally published in Spanish in 1956 and this English version has been translated by Esther Allen.

My Review:
Don Diego de Zama is a clerk serving the Spanish monarchy in a remote town in Paraguay at the end of the eighteenth century.  His position as an assistant for the Governor is supposed to be one of prestige and the first step as he moves up in his political career.  But if only he could find a way to get out of the backwater of Paraguay and be assigned a better position in Buenos Aires, which would also be closer to his home and his wife.  Zama is a lazy, selfish, and even at times stupid man who only seems to do things that hurt his career and his family.

There is a scene in the book in which Zama has just finished spending what little money he has at the racetrack betting on horses.  He decides to take a siesta in the shade where he encounters another man resting.  While this man is sound asleep Zama sees a poisonous spider about to jump on this man’s face and Zama decides to do absolutely nothing about it.  He doesn’t lift a finger to dispose of the spider or even warn the man of the impending danger of the venomous arachnid that is about to jump on his face.  Zama simply sits there and watches the scene unfold and seems rather detached from the fact that a poisonous spider is crawling on another man’s face.  This episode perfectly exemplifies Zama’s selfish attitude not only towards the world around him, but also towards his life, his job and his family.

The book is divided into three parts, the first of which takes place in 1790.  When we are first introduced to Zama he is waiting for a ship to come in that might contain a letter from his wife and the salary that is owed to him by the Spanish crown.  Zama misses his wife a great deal, but the lack of intimate contact with her for almost two years drives him to find a woman to fulfil his sexual desires.  In a scene that is reminiscent of the Actaeon and Artemis story from Greek mythology, he accidentally sees a local upper class woman naked while she is bathing in a river.  Once he finds out who this woman is he does everything he can to scheme his way into her home without attracting the notice of her husband or the rest of the town.  His attempts to seduce this woman are clumsy and not well planned.

The novel skips forward four years to 1794 and Zama is still stuck in this town in Paraguay. But by this time he has moved into a ramshackle farmhouse with a widow named Emilia and has a son with her.  Zama’s salary that he is owed by the Spanish crown is very seldom paid to him, so he lives in poverty and doesn’t have very much to offer his mistress and child.  He notices the child is oftentimes dirty and crying but he is never moved to console the child or find a way to provide a better life for his family.  When he has extra money in his pocket he doesn’t offer it to Emilia or his son but instead he buys his own meals at the local inn or tavern.  His own needs continue to always come first.  Zama’s wife, whom he was so eager to be near in the first part of the book, is not mentioned at all during this time.  Zama’s emotional detachment from the hardships that his families suffer is astonishing.

In the final part of the book  Zama’s selfish nature finally brings about his downfall.  The year is now 1799 and Zama is sent on an expedition with the local militia to hunt down a notorious pillager and thief.  The sole reason that he volunteers for the mission is that he thinks it will finally get him a promotion.  The final part of the book is the most exciting as Zama travels with soldiers into remote parts of South America that are dangerous because of Indian tribes.  There is also a bit of intrigue during this part of the book when the bandit’s true identity is revealed and the only one who knows this key piece of information is Zama.  His selfish and clumsy reaction to this situation is typical of his character throughout the book but this time his impetuous actions bring about his own demise.

Reading about Zama’s life is like watching a train wreck.  We know from the beginning that because of his clumsy behavior Zama is headed for a bad end, but we can’t put the book down because of our morbid curiosity to know how he finally does himself in.

About the Author:
Antonio di Benedetto, (born 2 November 1922 in Mendoza – died on 10 October 1986 in Buenos Aires), was an Argentine journalist and writer. Di Benedetto began writing and publishing stories in his teens, inspired by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Luigi Pirandello. Mundo Animal, appearing in 1952, was his first story collection and won prestigious awards. A revised version came out in 1971, but the Xenos Books translation uses the first edition to catch the youthful flavor.  Antonio di Benedetto wrote five novels, the most famous being the existential masterpiece Zama (1956). Los suicidas (The Suicides, 1969) is noteworthy for expressing his intense abhorrence of noise. Critics have compared his works to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Julio Cortázar and Ernesto Sábato.  In mid-sixties or early seventies he caused a diplomatic faux-pas at a NATO meeting when during a ceremonial toast he raised his cup and said “cin cin” to bystanding Japanese diplomats. This caused an international pandemonium, as “chin chin” is a slang term for penis in Japanese. This later led to his prosecution. In 1976, during the military dictatorship of General Videla, di Benedetto was imprisoned and tortured. Released a year later, he went into exile in Spain, then returned home in 1984. He travelled widely and won numerous awards, but never acquired the worldwide fame of other Latin American writers, perhaps because his work was not translated to many languages.