I love you putamente. (I Love You Whorely)

Reviewed by Kathleen March, Univ. of Maine, Orono -- Críticas, 9/15/2008

Mejía, Esteban Carlos.
Colombia/U.S.: Norma. 2007. 252p. ISBN 978-958-04-9934-3. pap. $22.95. FICTION

Colombian Mejía’s novel tragicomic plot takes the perspective of a very male and perhaps oversexed protagonist who enjoys his adventures and sees little in women except their usefulness in bed (on tables, etc.). Society’s violent underside is edged in around his personal need for immediate gratification and easy come, easy go relationships. Some readers might see this as a fine example of pop culture, in part because of the devil-may-care-but-oh-things-are-rough narrative style. Others will applaud its running on overdrive in pop slang, the real source of humor here and a lexical lesson that has something new for everybody. The comic relief, though, is brief and is offset by the flippant description of supporting character Gallemo’s cocaine habit—a dime a dozen in contemporary fiction—and of main character Victor Yugo (a too-easy play on the French writer’s name, with yugo actually meaning “yoke” in Spanish) as he sizes up and strips down as many females as he can in a jocular machismo that wears thin very quickly. Yugo is but a step away from another world of ethics and actions (no longer the original one) concerning writing to live or living to write, which has its appeal but gets lost in the ramblings of language and places. The superficiality of the human interaction portrayed is puzzling; in the end, readers may just have to settle for a full plate of pop and underworld linguistic lessons. Recommended only for large bookstores.

Order this title