THE DEEP ONES: "The Intoxicated Years" by Mariana Enriquez

"The Intoxicated Years" by Mariana Enriquez

Discussion begins on June 26, 2019.

First English publication in Granta Online 132: Possession.



ONLINE VERSIONS

https://granta.com/intoxicated-years/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Enr%C3%ADquez#Bibliography

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Things We Lost in the Fire

MISCELLANY

https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/mariana-enriquez
https://lithub.com/mariana-enriquez-on-political-violence-and-writing-horror/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Enr%C3%ADquez
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/mariana-enriquez
https://tinyurl.com/yy7tu8vf

The perhaps most obvious question the narrative leaves open is if Andrea will indeed return to Paula and the narrator, or if she'll react more negatively to her boyfriend's death. I found another looming larger in my mind however: does the title and the fact it's told in the first person past tense imply that there is a later, non-intoxicated time from which the narrator is looking back?

I don't think there is anything weird, in the sense of supernatural, going on with the girl in Parque Pereyra; she's just weird, in the mundane sense, and seen through the eyes of a narrator who's frankly not in an optimum of mental health.

I've heard a number of reasons for hating rich people, but the girls' is probably the worst.

I think that what our otherwise unreliable, drugs-and-alcohol addled young narrator tells us happened during the bus sequence is actually spot-on, and why not? The sequence lurks as a dark undercurrent throughout the rest of the story for a reason. We first hear the word "witch" at that point, and things get ever more dire after that. The girls could certainly be seen as teenagers acting out. Nothing new there. But aren't they also acting, however unwittingly, more and more like a kind of coven?

I've read other stories by Enriquez, and the otherworldly often coexists side-by-side with supposed reality. So of course the girl with hatred in her eyes "wasn't anyone's daughter". She's a magical being who lives in the forest. She's cursed the girls with her malevolent presence. Bruja!

As the friends helplessly spiral into more dangerous and ultimately violent patterns of behavior, one might simply assume that it's the drugs, but I suspect that they are being led. As always, I appreciate the ambiguity.

I got a kick out of the musical references, such as using Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" to annoy the punk, and the fact that he likes "anything chemical, he said: powdered juices, pills, nylon." Ha! I can tell that the author speaks from experience.

>2 AndreasJ: I've heard a number of reasons for hating rich people, but the girls' is probably the worst.
I love this line.

I didn't notice any change in behaviour before or after seeing the girl in Parque Pereyra, apart from Andrea leaving the other two girls -- and that wasn't directly after so who knows if it was related or not.

The story is, for me, an unfamiliar mosaic made up from familiar puzzle pieces. Punks and hippies, stoners and rich girls, public buses and private cars. Easy to assume they all fit together in familiar ways, but the Argentine setting makes me pause. How different was the middle class? And so forth.

>2 AndreasJ: a later, non-intoxicated time
The years of the story parallel the Menemist Decade, following and preceding economic depressions. So after the Intoxicated Years would come a hangover and DTs, in Argentina's case including major riots.

I read the story as a sociopolitical allegory, without much supernatural. Voodoo economics, maybe, but no vodun.

Some lapses in storytelling jumped out: maybe from translation? Of course the telephone installer didn't call before arriving, there wasn't a phone to call; the drunk father went to the kitchen for ice but there were power blackouts. Trivial but they nagged, could have easily been avoided.

When I finished this story, I at first grumbled "And?". It seemed incomplete. What happened next? Is the punk rocker dead?

Then I realized it's the metaphorical completion of the process of social isolation that's been going on throughout the story. The girls have no sympathy for their parents and their valid concerns. It doesn't matter if the punk rocker is dead because the only thing in the mirror at the end is the coven.

>2 AndreasJ: Yes, that title does imply a future, non-intoxicated time for at least the narrator, but there's no acknowledgement of regret over anything she's done so maybe not.

>4 gwendetenebre: I liked the music references too. Paula's not wearing any "flowers in her hair". She's gone for something more magical and dangerous. I think I may get out that Pink Floyd album and listen to it again. Also, Enriquez is a near-contemporary to the girls, so the characters may have been like girls she knew.

I'm not much for teenage protagonists in any sort of story. As far as holding my interest, I must say I'll take Enriquez's surly and ungrateful teenagers over many a plucky and smart alecky teenager seen in so many stories.

>6 RandyStafford:

Ummagumma is my second favorite Pink Floyd album, after their soundtrack for the Barbet Schroeder film, More.

I think Enriquez is inspired by the idea of an Argentina haunting itself. As she says in the Lithub interview above, "There’s something about the scale of the cruelty in political violence from the estate that always seems like the blackest magic to me. Like they have to satisfy some ravenous and ancient god that demands not only bodies but needs to be fed their suffering as well."

I also had to smile at the reference to The Wicker Man. I just re-watched it a couple of nights ago on The Criterion Channel. It remains one of the great horror films.

And is the author wearing a pentagram necklace in the above photo? ;)

The lithub interview listed above is indeed instructive. Enriquez's discussion of genius loci puts a new layer on the story, or perhaps frames the political layer in a particular way.

>5 elenchus:

FYI, in the Swedish translation, the phone installers are not said not to call, merely to not inform beforehand when they’ll turn up (which they presumably could have done via mail if they cared to). The father does go to the kitchen for ice despite the blackouts.

(Maybe the blackouts were simply too rare and infrequent for the freezer to thaw? When I was a kid and we lived in a rural area where blackouts were a thing, nobody, near as I can remember, worried about the freezer or fridge.)

>9 AndreasJ: I wondered if translation was an issue regarding the phone installers!

Reflecting upon this story I think this is a case where context set my expectations too rigidly. While not overtly or a "strong" Weird tale, I certainly see the rationale for including this story and (I'm guessing) other Enriquez stories in the subgenre. Insisting upon too much supernatural diverted me from what the story is, which I'd now characterise as literary with supernatural tone. I'm interested to read more Enriquez, the sociopolitical commentary especially is interesting.

>10 elenchus:

I very highly recommend Things We Lost in the Fire. It's a really stunning collection of her short stories. NEED MORE!

>10 elenchus:

Having now read a couple more Enríquez stories - this read got me to buy the Sw. translation of The Things We Lost in the Fire - she seems to be big on ambiguity as to whether anything supernatural is going on.

That collection was already on my recon list and this reading reinforced my interest. I'll probably leave it to happenstance: if I come across it used, or the urge hits me while at a bookstore, I'll pick it up. I have many such titles on my radar and I've found this is the best means of deciding when to commit on any particular book.