A new book will be presented this Thursday by the writer Rafael Gumicio, focused on topics such as the Chilean oligarchy, the family and the complex relationships between brothers.
This is “The Poor Relatives”, whose launch will take place in the TV Studio (floor -1) of the Diego Portales University (Vergara 240, Santiago), at 6:00 p.m.
“Many of my books are about old people facing death, which is a topic that is urgent for me. Well, I think it is the great theme of literature, but I have approached it in a very obvious way, which is a man who has little left in life, or a lady, in the case of my grandmother,” he comments to The counter.
In this work, Gumucio surprises again with the hilarious portrait of a family that must deal with the unusual fact that the elderly father of some and the elderly mother of others, siblings among them, who also have their minds lost and are admitted to the same residence, have fallen in love, says the editorial review.
“A portrait of Latin American endogamous society and the eccentricity of its wealthy classes, ‘The Poor Relatives’ is a detailed investigation: while the children discuss among themselves what to do with their parents, the family’s dirty laundry comes to light in a kind of Pandora’s box from which no one comes out unscathed,” he adds.
“The origin of the book is a story I heard about relatives, not so close, but, and from there I began to invent possible relationships, weave possible relationships,” says Gumucio.
“It is a novel about 11 brothers who have to worry about a father and enter into a delirium that they never fully resolve. It’s a kind of soap opera.”
Gumucio wanted to address the topic of family in this book because, in his opinion, it is “a nerve center where diverse personalities come together who, if it weren’t for the fact that they are relatives, could not stand each other.”
“So, that obligation to be together seems to me to allow all kinds of exchanges, transformations, madness. So, the family is a great catalyst for a certain environmental madness and I think it allows all kinds of games.”
wealthy class
When asked how he would describe the Chilean wealthy class, Gumucio is emphatic:
“What characterizes the Chilean wealthy class is its lack of cultural refinement, its lack of knowledge, of finesse. It is something that has changed a little over the years, but basically the Chilean upper class looks a lot like the middle class and even the lower class, it looks even more like the lower class than the middle class,” he says.
“It is a bit of the structure of the estate, as Joseph Hoth said, that deep down the last laborer and the owner of the fund have been nourished in the same milk and speak alike and sometimes think alike. I would say that, this is of course in transformation and it is no longer like that, but it was for a time very like that, the famous austerity, which was simply a lack of knowledge and refinement,” he states.
Regarding endogamy, another of the book’s topics, the author does not believe that it is a privilege of the Chilean upper class.
“I think it is something that is basically Chilean, let’s say. For example, my second last name is Araya. There are Arayas everywhere and they are all related to each other. And there are the most diverse arayas in different places in Chile, let’s say. But they all come from the Coquimbo region. So, that means that there are so few people and so close together, because the country is huge but people live more or less close, it makes endogamy inevitable, let’s say. And I think that we also only understand each other, we have a language, a way of seeing the world that only we understand and that no one else understands.”
love for the old
Finally, another element that draws attention, in this case, is Gumucio’s interest in older people, something that is related to his personal life.
“Well, I have lived my entire life with people much older than me, because they interest me more, because they are more complex, because I have also had the need to feel part of a tradition, part of a history, let’s say,” he explains.
“So, I have lived with old people and I have lived trying to understand their world, let’s say, which is also a way of understanding mine, let’s say, understanding what happened before me. And of course, older people have more life, let’s say, they have more different lives and that makes it intrinsically interesting,” he concludes.