Deep Rivers
by José María Arguedas
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Description
Los rios profundos (Deep Rivers) is Arguedas' most famous novel. It tells the story of a young man's experience of growing up in highland Peru in a deeply divided society and of his struggle to overcome conflicts of language and culture. He manages to elaborate an alternative vision of Peru, drawing above all on native Indian sensibility and traditions. In the process, the novel draws on key elements of Peruvian history and culture and above all on popular memory. Suitable for university and show more A-level teaching as the plot is uncomplicated and the emotional atmosphere is immediately graspable. This edition offers a full glossary, and a comprehensive introduction which outlines the main features of the plot, with a clear interpretation of major episodes and of chief elements within the text, relating them to key features of modern Peru and explains the chief elements of native culture such as the use of myth. This Spanish text is useful for teaching Peruvian, Latin American literature or cultural history at upper sixth-form and university level. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This is a fascinating look into racism and discrimination against the indigenous Quechua-speakers in 1930s Peru (a racism so pervasive it is said to continue to this day). The story centers on the education of Ernesto, a 14-year-old who becomes a boarder in a religious school. In the words of Mario Vargas Llosa, who contributed an excellent afterword, Ernesto is “bewildered by the violence with which at every moment, and in a thousand subtle or devious ways, two races, two cultures, two classes clash in the solemn setting of the Andes.” Having accompanied his father from place to place as a boy, Ernesto is now forced to grow up in a single place where the injustices of society are made vivid in a way that he must witness and, more, show more take sides. Ernesto’s tragedy lies in the fact that he feels deeply drawn to the Quechua characters and society but recognizes that his “position” in society ( by virtue of who his father is and what he does for a living) places him among the whites who routinely reject, mistreat, and oppress the Quechua.
The novel is said to be autobiographical and distinctly has that feel. Arguedas was raised by and among his family’s indigenous, Quechua-speaking servants because his mother died when he was 2 and his father was rarely at home (he travelled constantly for his work as an itinerant lawyer). As a result, Arguedas spoke Quechua before he spoke Spanish. He also chose to write in Spanish heavily influenced by Quechua vocabulary and syntax, making his writing a complicated matter to translate. Much of his work addressed the tension between Hispanic society and the indigenous world. And, befitting the latter, Arguedas emphasizes the natural world as well as inanimate objects, especially the zumbayllu, a top that whistles as it spins; in Ernesto’s words, it is “a new kind of being, an apparition in a hostile world, a tie that bound me to the courtyard I hated, to that vale of sorrow, to the school.” This emphasis helped create an atmosphere that reminds me—to go back many decades—of the feel of a book by Carlos Castaneda, a sort of magical exploration of reality and consciousness.
Deep Rivers ends as Ernesto’s life is about to change. His choice to embrace Quechua culture inevitably means that he will have to live by indigenous values in a Spanish society. That said, Arguedas is not, in my reading anyway, pessimistic. His goal was to value and appreciate indigenous culture, not bemoan its future. I have read dozens of novels wrestling with the confrontation between the traditional and “the other,” the outside, the modern. Deep Rivers is one of only a relatively few books that has conveyed a true “feel” for the indigenous and bicultural peoples, their surroundings, and their worldview. Arguedas recognized that the Quechua culture was changing, that it constantly redefined itself as its sought to balance tradition and modernity. Arguedas understandably rejected the claims that Quechua knowledge and Quechua culture was in any way less valuable than Spanish and Western tradition, knowledge, and culture.
A solid, reliable translation would seem possible only by someone fluent in both (Peruvian) Spanish and Quechua. The quality of the translation is of especial importance because I have a deep sense that this is an important book, a rare view of its subject. Sadly, the novel is often difficult to follow. Conversations in particular can be fluid or so disjointed that there seems to be a publishing error. The challenge diminishes as the book progresses and I was unable to decide whether this is Arguedas’s intentional style—the book is constantly concerned with the tensions and the disconnect between cultures—or a result of the translation. Indeed, Vargas Llosa comments that Arguedas “does not seem to be very much worried by the technical aspects of the novel.” Although I could find no reviews of Deep Rivers that addressed the translation itself, I did find two reviews of Yawar Fiesta by Quechua scholars. Both, for different reasons, raised questions about the reliability of the English version. In the end, for those who are interested, I highly recommend it. Indeed, though I visited Peru many decades after Arguedas wrote, I believe it would have been an enormous help in understanding what I witnessed. I sense better than I can explain that it’s a very important work in Peruvian and, indeed, world literature. (Remarkably, the entire novel (with Vargas Llosa’s afterword as well) is available in an easily readable .pdf form at this website.) show less
The novel is said to be autobiographical and distinctly has that feel. Arguedas was raised by and among his family’s indigenous, Quechua-speaking servants because his mother died when he was 2 and his father was rarely at home (he travelled constantly for his work as an itinerant lawyer). As a result, Arguedas spoke Quechua before he spoke Spanish. He also chose to write in Spanish heavily influenced by Quechua vocabulary and syntax, making his writing a complicated matter to translate. Much of his work addressed the tension between Hispanic society and the indigenous world. And, befitting the latter, Arguedas emphasizes the natural world as well as inanimate objects, especially the zumbayllu, a top that whistles as it spins; in Ernesto’s words, it is “a new kind of being, an apparition in a hostile world, a tie that bound me to the courtyard I hated, to that vale of sorrow, to the school.” This emphasis helped create an atmosphere that reminds me—to go back many decades—of the feel of a book by Carlos Castaneda, a sort of magical exploration of reality and consciousness.
Deep Rivers ends as Ernesto’s life is about to change. His choice to embrace Quechua culture inevitably means that he will have to live by indigenous values in a Spanish society. That said, Arguedas is not, in my reading anyway, pessimistic. His goal was to value and appreciate indigenous culture, not bemoan its future. I have read dozens of novels wrestling with the confrontation between the traditional and “the other,” the outside, the modern. Deep Rivers is one of only a relatively few books that has conveyed a true “feel” for the indigenous and bicultural peoples, their surroundings, and their worldview. Arguedas recognized that the Quechua culture was changing, that it constantly redefined itself as its sought to balance tradition and modernity. Arguedas understandably rejected the claims that Quechua knowledge and Quechua culture was in any way less valuable than Spanish and Western tradition, knowledge, and culture.
A solid, reliable translation would seem possible only by someone fluent in both (Peruvian) Spanish and Quechua. The quality of the translation is of especial importance because I have a deep sense that this is an important book, a rare view of its subject. Sadly, the novel is often difficult to follow. Conversations in particular can be fluid or so disjointed that there seems to be a publishing error. The challenge diminishes as the book progresses and I was unable to decide whether this is Arguedas’s intentional style—the book is constantly concerned with the tensions and the disconnect between cultures—or a result of the translation. Indeed, Vargas Llosa comments that Arguedas “does not seem to be very much worried by the technical aspects of the novel.” Although I could find no reviews of Deep Rivers that addressed the translation itself, I did find two reviews of Yawar Fiesta by Quechua scholars. Both, for different reasons, raised questions about the reliability of the English version. In the end, for those who are interested, I highly recommend it. Indeed, though I visited Peru many decades after Arguedas wrote, I believe it would have been an enormous help in understanding what I witnessed. I sense better than I can explain that it’s a very important work in Peruvian and, indeed, world literature. (Remarkably, the entire novel (with Vargas Llosa’s afterword as well) is available in an easily readable .pdf form at this website.) show less
Wer Peru literarisch kennenlernen will,
muss Arguedas lesen:
Sein Meisterwerk "Die tiefen Flüsse"
ist ein interkultureller Bildungsroman,
ebenso indianisch wie westlich geprägt.
Jahrelang ist Ernesto mit seinem Vater, einem mittellosen Anwalt, von einem
Dorf zum nächsten gereist. Dem Kindesalter entwachsen, kommt er schließlich
auf ein katholisches Internat in der Provinzhauptstadt Abancay, hoch oben in
den Anden.
Dort ist zum Beispiel Añuco, der Sohn des verarmten Großgrundbesitzers,
der zusammen mit dem Kraftprotz Lleras die jüngeren Schüler malträtiert; Palacitos,
ein scheuer, kaum des Spanischen mächtiger Indio; Gerardo, der Sohn
des Militärkommandeurs; Ántero, der Ernesto mit der Magie eines Kreisels verzaubert,
dessen sphärischer show more Klang den Schulhof erfüllt und zum letzten Mal
unbeschwerte Kindheit vorgaukelt.
Denn des Nachts wird derselbe Schulhof zu einem düsteren, unheimlichen
Ort, wo sich die schwachsinnige Küchenmagd den älteren Schülern hingibt.
Arguedas zeichnet sie als Vorbotin der Katastrophe, die über Abancay und das
Internat hereinbricht - und in der allein Ernesto einen kühlen Kopf bewahrt. show less
muss Arguedas lesen:
Sein Meisterwerk "Die tiefen Flüsse"
ist ein interkultureller Bildungsroman,
ebenso indianisch wie westlich geprägt.
Jahrelang ist Ernesto mit seinem Vater, einem mittellosen Anwalt, von einem
Dorf zum nächsten gereist. Dem Kindesalter entwachsen, kommt er schließlich
auf ein katholisches Internat in der Provinzhauptstadt Abancay, hoch oben in
den Anden.
Dort ist zum Beispiel Añuco, der Sohn des verarmten Großgrundbesitzers,
der zusammen mit dem Kraftprotz Lleras die jüngeren Schüler malträtiert; Palacitos,
ein scheuer, kaum des Spanischen mächtiger Indio; Gerardo, der Sohn
des Militärkommandeurs; Ántero, der Ernesto mit der Magie eines Kreisels verzaubert,
dessen sphärischer show more Klang den Schulhof erfüllt und zum letzten Mal
unbeschwerte Kindheit vorgaukelt.
Denn des Nachts wird derselbe Schulhof zu einem düsteren, unheimlichen
Ort, wo sich die schwachsinnige Küchenmagd den älteren Schülern hingibt.
Arguedas zeichnet sie als Vorbotin der Katastrophe, die über Abancay und das
Internat hereinbricht - und in der allein Ernesto einen kühlen Kopf bewahrt. show less
High up in the Peruvian Andes, Ernesto travels with his itinerant-lawyer father as he looks for work in the hacienda towns. Ernesto is a mestizo, who in the home of his uncaring stepmother and without the presence of his father, was driven to the care of the Indian servants. Living among them, he learned their ways, their language, their stories, and the myths of their people, and it is them and these stories that he longs for as wanders with his father. On their journeys, he is left by his father in a Catholic boarding school in the town of Abancay, with a promise to return at the end of the school year. In the school compound, he is witness to and player in the games, innnocent and not so innocent, that the boys fill their time show more outside class with. But for this strange, lonely boy, the top is not merely a toy that is carved from wood, it is a magical being, its whipping sound recalls the sound of certain insects, of trumpets resembling the bellows of bulls charging, of the songs of his beloved Indians. He is witness to the loyalties and the violence of the boys, and the school yard is a stage where both are played out in both its innocent and dangerous forms. And beyond the school gate, the abuses of the landowners and merchants of this desolate town become fertile ground for an uprising of the women. The priests themselves are not wholly indifferent, and took sides. Ernesto knows whose side he was on. He is a mute observer, in his heart he wills the Indians of the haciendas to take up arms with the women but he feels their agonizing silence, their crushed souls, their powerlessness to follow the women beyond the mountains to plan their revolution. The town is later visited by the plague which is ravishing the region, and Ernesto is the only one in his school left unscathed at least outwardly, waiting for his father, his salvation.
Ernesto's extraordinary connection to nature sprung from his Indian upbringing. The mountains are high and majestic, the rivers are deep and swift, nature here overwhelms and is rightly considered, Mother. Everything comes from and returns to Her, and in the insecurities that saddle him -- loneliness, adolescent longings, and bewilderment amidst the conflicts around him -- his solace and comfort lie in the memories of his Indians and his deep love for nature, which he tries to conjure through songs of his childhood, the songs of the Quechua. He is young, but the author imbues in him a frightful maturity -- still possessing of childish attributes such as longing for a toy, jealousy over friends, or a lack of hesitation to exchange punches in the yard, but at the same time, having a capacity for reflection and memory and an astuteness that is rooted to something ancestral.
This is a moving story, lyrical and sad, and hauntingly beautiful. It is a meditation on solitude -- the solitude of the misfit and the dispossesed --, on awakening, on nature, and on the poetry of the indigenous peoples. The narrative is punctuated by verses and songs in Quechua, but which have immediate translation on another column in the same page, so there is no interruption in the reading. There is a glossary and the translation of the poetry seems to capture excellently the moods that are portrayed. Deep Rivers is an unforgettable book, and the best I've read so far this year.
Arguedas was an ethnologist, a poet, a folk musicologist, and considered a major indigenista writer. He was committed to giving voice to the Andean Indians through his works, and worked hard for their recognition. This voice mainly refers to attributing identity to the Indians beyond the dehumanizing one assigned to them by the Spanish conquerors. In his works, he explores the themes of the conflict between the forces of "tradition" and "modernity." He published his poetry in Quechua, but invented a language for his novels in which he used native syntax with Spanish vocabulary, which makes translation of his work into other languages extremely difficult. Arguedas was tormented by the dilemma of authentically illuminating the life of the Andean Indians which drove him into depression. He died by his own hand in 1969. Deep Rivers is a semi-autobiographical novel. show less
Ernesto's extraordinary connection to nature sprung from his Indian upbringing. The mountains are high and majestic, the rivers are deep and swift, nature here overwhelms and is rightly considered, Mother. Everything comes from and returns to Her, and in the insecurities that saddle him -- loneliness, adolescent longings, and bewilderment amidst the conflicts around him -- his solace and comfort lie in the memories of his Indians and his deep love for nature, which he tries to conjure through songs of his childhood, the songs of the Quechua. He is young, but the author imbues in him a frightful maturity -- still possessing of childish attributes such as longing for a toy, jealousy over friends, or a lack of hesitation to exchange punches in the yard, but at the same time, having a capacity for reflection and memory and an astuteness that is rooted to something ancestral.
This is a moving story, lyrical and sad, and hauntingly beautiful. It is a meditation on solitude -- the solitude of the misfit and the dispossesed --, on awakening, on nature, and on the poetry of the indigenous peoples. The narrative is punctuated by verses and songs in Quechua, but which have immediate translation on another column in the same page, so there is no interruption in the reading. There is a glossary and the translation of the poetry seems to capture excellently the moods that are portrayed. Deep Rivers is an unforgettable book, and the best I've read so far this year.
Arguedas was an ethnologist, a poet, a folk musicologist, and considered a major indigenista writer. He was committed to giving voice to the Andean Indians through his works, and worked hard for their recognition. This voice mainly refers to attributing identity to the Indians beyond the dehumanizing one assigned to them by the Spanish conquerors. In his works, he explores the themes of the conflict between the forces of "tradition" and "modernity." He published his poetry in Quechua, but invented a language for his novels in which he used native syntax with Spanish vocabulary, which makes translation of his work into other languages extremely difficult. Arguedas was tormented by the dilemma of authentically illuminating the life of the Andean Indians which drove him into depression. He died by his own hand in 1969. Deep Rivers is a semi-autobiographical novel. show less
This was a haunting and at times painful book to read. It is the story of Ernesto, a white Peruvian boy who was relegated to the kitchen by the relatives he was sent to live with and thus was raised by the Indian servants and came to speak their language, Quechua, and love their culture, especially their relationship to the natural world. When he got a little older, his father, a not-so-successful itinerant lawyer, took him with him as he traveled around the Andes seeking work.
As the story opens, the father is taking his son to see his estranged brother, known as the Old Man, in the ancient city of Cuzco. The Spanish colonial walls built on top of the remains of Inca stone buildings set the symbolic stage for the rest of the book, for show more Ernesto is caught between the two cultures. Later, father and son go to the town of Abancay, where the father hopes to stay but ultimately leaves his son at a Catholic boarding school. It is there that most of the novel takes place.
Although the usual pranks and even some terrible cruelties take place at the school -- most horribly the opaquely described repeated rapes of a mentally unstable woman called "the Idiot" -- most of Ernesto's time there is spent inside his own unhappy and lonely head. The most moving and lyrical parts describe his connection to nature, not just animals and plants but the mountains and rocks and rivers, all of which in Quechua culture have much greater significance than in white culture, and are often even personified. Aruguedas, whose early life was similar to Ernesto's, frequently uses Quechua words and Quechua songs to illustrate Ernesto's deep love of the culture and its conflict with the powers that be. Ernesto is also drawn to the myths and spirits and music of the Indian culture and endows a top he receives as a gift with the powers of communication.
I found it a little difficult to keep track of who the various schoolboys were, but I think this was intentional, as they are really more symbols of different aspects of white and mestizo upbringings than fully developed characters. Although there is not much of a plot, a couple of things of significance happen, including an uprising by local woman because the distribution of salt has been halted; feeling himself connected more to these women than to the society inside his school, Ernesto runs after them, drawing the ire of the powerful but condescending priest, the Rector, who runs the school. (Later, however, in the wake of another trouble that strikes the area, the Rector will try to protect Ernesto.) Following the uprising, the troops come to town, and that gives Arguedas the opportunity to further contrast people from the coastal regions with those from the highlands, and to further show the conflicts between the descendants of the colonialists and the indigenous populations.
Mostly, as I said, this book is about Ernesto, and the tragedy of his alienation from both worlds which leads to his living so much in his own dreams and odd ideas.
"I wanted to see Salvinia, Alcira, and Antero. And then to become a falcon and soar over the towns where I had once been happy; to descend to the levels of the rooftops, following the streams that bring water to the settlements, hovering for a moment over the familiar trees and stones that mark the boundary of the tilled fields and, later, calling down from the depths of the sky." p. 161
Because Ernesto is the center of the book, and because he is so unhappy and feels so out of place, this was in places a difficult book to read. The ending of the book is ambiguous, and not a little shocking.
Arguedas, who was also raised by Indian servants in a home in which his white stepmother despised him, became an ethnologist and ultimately killed himself. My edition had an interesting afterword by fellow Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. show less
As the story opens, the father is taking his son to see his estranged brother, known as the Old Man, in the ancient city of Cuzco. The Spanish colonial walls built on top of the remains of Inca stone buildings set the symbolic stage for the rest of the book, for show more Ernesto is caught between the two cultures. Later, father and son go to the town of Abancay, where the father hopes to stay but ultimately leaves his son at a Catholic boarding school. It is there that most of the novel takes place.
Although the usual pranks and even some terrible cruelties take place at the school -- most horribly the opaquely described repeated rapes of a mentally unstable woman called "the Idiot" -- most of Ernesto's time there is spent inside his own unhappy and lonely head. The most moving and lyrical parts describe his connection to nature, not just animals and plants but the mountains and rocks and rivers, all of which in Quechua culture have much greater significance than in white culture, and are often even personified. Aruguedas, whose early life was similar to Ernesto's, frequently uses Quechua words and Quechua songs to illustrate Ernesto's deep love of the culture and its conflict with the powers that be. Ernesto is also drawn to the myths and spirits and music of the Indian culture and endows a top he receives as a gift with the powers of communication.
I found it a little difficult to keep track of who the various schoolboys were, but I think this was intentional, as they are really more symbols of different aspects of white and mestizo upbringings than fully developed characters. Although there is not much of a plot, a couple of things of significance happen, including an uprising by local woman because the distribution of salt has been halted; feeling himself connected more to these women than to the society inside his school, Ernesto runs after them, drawing the ire of the powerful but condescending priest, the Rector, who runs the school. (Later, however, in the wake of another trouble that strikes the area, the Rector will try to protect Ernesto.) Following the uprising, the troops come to town, and that gives Arguedas the opportunity to further contrast people from the coastal regions with those from the highlands, and to further show the conflicts between the descendants of the colonialists and the indigenous populations.
Mostly, as I said, this book is about Ernesto, and the tragedy of his alienation from both worlds which leads to his living so much in his own dreams and odd ideas.
"I wanted to see Salvinia, Alcira, and Antero. And then to become a falcon and soar over the towns where I had once been happy; to descend to the levels of the rooftops, following the streams that bring water to the settlements, hovering for a moment over the familiar trees and stones that mark the boundary of the tilled fields and, later, calling down from the depths of the sky." p. 161
Because Ernesto is the center of the book, and because he is so unhappy and feels so out of place, this was in places a difficult book to read. The ending of the book is ambiguous, and not a little shocking.
Arguedas, who was also raised by Indian servants in a home in which his white stepmother despised him, became an ethnologist and ultimately killed himself. My edition had an interesting afterword by fellow Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. show less
Los Rios Profundos (Deep Rivers in English) by José María Argüedas, is a great book, the first really good book that I´ve read this year. As soon as I finished the last page, I found myself turning back to the initial chapters, wanting to know more about what had happened over the course of the story and how the beginning set the stage for later chapters in the book. If I finish a book and don´t want to put it down, it means a lot to me. I imagined this book as a sort of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Peruvian-Mestizo-Quechua Man. It´s true that I haven´t read James Joyce´s book since I was in high school, but the first person style, the intensity of character and emotion of the young protagonist, and the questions of show more religious, social, and racial identity that he grapples with, all made me think of Joyce. I find it interesting how the influence of famous authors such as Joyce and Faulkner has trickled through the different national literatures of Latin America: which elements have been adapted by authors across such a large cultural space to fit their unique thematic and sociopolitical realities. I imagine the author reading Joyce´s book and seeing himself in its pages, adapting in his mind the coming of age story of Stephen Dedalus to fit the issues faced by his people and his country, and crafting something as beautiful as this book.
Los Rios Profundos is the story of Ernesto, a young boy whose mother has died, and who travels from town to town with his father, a poor lawyer who is continually searching for a place where he can live and earn enough money off of his law practice to survive. He eventually leaves his son at the Catholic school in the town of Abancay, and continues on his journey from town to town. The bulk of the story deals with Ernesto´s life in the school, the challenging and often brutal relationships that exist between the children of different social and racial backgrounds at school and in town, and the moral progression of Ernesto as he views the interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in the town and the surrounding haciendas, where the Quechua population is subjugated under the power of the hacendados, the military and the church, forced to live in poverty and ignorance. Ernesto feels a strong affinity for the indigenous people of the haciendas, perhaps connecting them with his dead mother, and yearns to understand them and connect with them in alliance against the oppression that he sees in the acts of those around them. The events that fuel Ernesto´s moral development include a conflict between the chola women of Abancay and the government over the distribution of salt, and an outbreak of typhus that sets in motion a series of events that lead to the imminent departure of Ernesto from Abancay at the end of the novel.
Over the past year I´ve read a handful of indigenist books from different parts of Latin America, and I think this is my favorite. It seems very sincere and, while I´ve read that Argüedas´s descriptions of the Quechua people have been criticized for being overly simple (the Indian being naïve and childlike), I don´t really feel that here. If anything, I see the author´s approach as a result of his understanding that he cannot understand everything that the Quechua people feel and experience, that he is half-connected with them yet different in so many ways. The protagonist, while not wholly a member of the Quechua ethnicity, is deeply connected to its traditions. His admiration for the culture shines through in the pages of this story, often in his love for and description of Quechua music, in the form of huayllas presented to the reader in both Quechua and Spanish. The conflict between his desire to connect with his Quechua heritage and his status as a member of the educated Mestizo class contributes to his moral struggles, because he understands that he is stuck in the middle and will not truly connect with either the indigenous or the non-indigenous classes of his country.
I highly recommend this book, and hope that others enjoy it as much as I did. I´ll seek out other works by Argüedas and try to read and reflect on them later this year. show less
Los Rios Profundos is the story of Ernesto, a young boy whose mother has died, and who travels from town to town with his father, a poor lawyer who is continually searching for a place where he can live and earn enough money off of his law practice to survive. He eventually leaves his son at the Catholic school in the town of Abancay, and continues on his journey from town to town. The bulk of the story deals with Ernesto´s life in the school, the challenging and often brutal relationships that exist between the children of different social and racial backgrounds at school and in town, and the moral progression of Ernesto as he views the interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in the town and the surrounding haciendas, where the Quechua population is subjugated under the power of the hacendados, the military and the church, forced to live in poverty and ignorance. Ernesto feels a strong affinity for the indigenous people of the haciendas, perhaps connecting them with his dead mother, and yearns to understand them and connect with them in alliance against the oppression that he sees in the acts of those around them. The events that fuel Ernesto´s moral development include a conflict between the chola women of Abancay and the government over the distribution of salt, and an outbreak of typhus that sets in motion a series of events that lead to the imminent departure of Ernesto from Abancay at the end of the novel.
Over the past year I´ve read a handful of indigenist books from different parts of Latin America, and I think this is my favorite. It seems very sincere and, while I´ve read that Argüedas´s descriptions of the Quechua people have been criticized for being overly simple (the Indian being naïve and childlike), I don´t really feel that here. If anything, I see the author´s approach as a result of his understanding that he cannot understand everything that the Quechua people feel and experience, that he is half-connected with them yet different in so many ways. The protagonist, while not wholly a member of the Quechua ethnicity, is deeply connected to its traditions. His admiration for the culture shines through in the pages of this story, often in his love for and description of Quechua music, in the form of huayllas presented to the reader in both Quechua and Spanish. The conflict between his desire to connect with his Quechua heritage and his status as a member of the educated Mestizo class contributes to his moral struggles, because he understands that he is stuck in the middle and will not truly connect with either the indigenous or the non-indigenous classes of his country.
I highly recommend this book, and hope that others enjoy it as much as I did. I´ll seek out other works by Argüedas and try to read and reflect on them later this year. show less
What a lovely book this is. I thoroughly enjoyed Jose Maria Arguedas' "Deep Rivers" and marveled at the ability of translator Frances Horning Barraclough to create a rhythm that seemed really unique in a book that was considered tough to translate. Argeudas wrote in Spanish, but used the sentence constructions of Quecha, a language used in the Peruvian Andes.
The story centers on Ernesto, a white boy who was banished to the kitchens by his stepmother, so he lived among Peruvian Indians, learning not only Quecha but their manner of relating to the landscape so closely. (This was in fact Arguedas' own upbringing.) Ernesto is left at a boarding school in Abancay, where life proceeds as it might in a small Peruvian town.
Although there seems show more to be a sort of universality to stories about boys' boarding schools, no matter what the culture, this story was told in such a remarkable and interesting way. It felt like a primer on Peru's culture without feeling dry... just a great story wrapped up in a fascinating setting. show less
The story centers on Ernesto, a white boy who was banished to the kitchens by his stepmother, so he lived among Peruvian Indians, learning not only Quecha but their manner of relating to the landscape so closely. (This was in fact Arguedas' own upbringing.) Ernesto is left at a boarding school in Abancay, where life proceeds as it might in a small Peruvian town.
Although there seems show more to be a sort of universality to stories about boys' boarding schools, no matter what the culture, this story was told in such a remarkable and interesting way. It felt like a primer on Peru's culture without feeling dry... just a great story wrapped up in a fascinating setting. show less
Deep Rivers is not an easy novel. It was not novel that ever intended to be translated and certainly was not written for an international audience. The introduction states that the author saw himself as "talking not only about the Andean peoples, but for and to them." And while this novel was written in Spanish, Arguedas deliberately constructed sentences according to the rules of Quecha syntax.
Arguedas was an anthropologist, as well as a writer and poet. He drew heavily on his childhood experiences and anthropology training in writing Deep Rivers. Thus, it reads more like non-fiction, somewhat dryly depicting a chronological series of events with no apparent narrative arc. The beauty of the story is found in the cumulative effect of show more his descriptions of the world as seen through the eyes of young boy who is lost in the white man's world, yet does not belong in the Quecha world in which he was raised. show less
Arguedas was an anthropologist, as well as a writer and poet. He drew heavily on his childhood experiences and anthropology training in writing Deep Rivers. Thus, it reads more like non-fiction, somewhat dryly depicting a chronological series of events with no apparent narrative arc. The beauty of the story is found in the cumulative effect of show more his descriptions of the world as seen through the eyes of young boy who is lost in the white man's world, yet does not belong in the Quecha world in which he was raised. show less
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Books and authors mentioned by Le Clézio in his Nobel Prize speech
87 works; 3 members
Las 100 mejores novelas de la literatura hispanoamericana (cicutadry)
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Top Five Books of 2025
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Author Information
88+ Works 1,247 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Deep Rivers
- Original title
- Los ríos profundos
- Alternate titles*
- De diepe rivieren : roman
- Original publication date
- 1958
- People/Characters*
- Ernesto
- Important places*
- Peru
- First words
- Jose Maria Arguedas is one of the few Latin American authors who have loved and described their rural natural surroundings, and he ranks among the greatest writers of any place and any time. (Translator's Note)
"You may be surprised if I confess to you that I am the handiwork of my stepmother. (Introduction)
He inspired respect, in spite of his old-fashioned and dirty appearance.
The connecting thread that is woven through the episodes of this nostalgic and, at time, passionate of a child tortured by a double origin, a child with roots in two hostile worlds. (Afterword) - Quotations
- "I know these wild rivers, these treacherous rivers; I know how they flow, how they grow, what strength they have within them. Where their currents run.
"feel the rest of their lives the brush of its comforting warmth... (show all) on their hearts, protecting them from hatred and melancholy." (reference to the insect Zumbayllu.
"The Abancay lemon, large, thick-skinned, edible within and easy to peel, contains a juice which, when mixed with brown sugar, makes the most deliciou and potent food in the world. It is a burning and sweet. It instill happiness. It instills happiness. It is as if one were drinking sunlight."
"sunshine often appears between scattered showers" and "deeply moved by the sun and the dark clouds that cast down their rain.". - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I also wish to thank Martin Wolf and Claire Eisenhart, who read the English version and made many useful editorial suggestions. (Translator's Note)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)We will await them; we are the sons of the father
of all the lord mountains; sons of the
father of all the rivers... (Introduction)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Lake Lleras!
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)What we do no know, however, is that by pulling the trigger at the very moment he felt his vocation endangered he has set us the greatest example of honesty a writer could give. (Afterword) - Original language
- Spanish
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- (3.48)
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- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 46
- ASINs
- 14
