Book review: El ruido de las cosas al caer

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El ruido de las cosas al caer - winner of the Premio Alfaguara 2011, and also available in English as The Sound of Things Falling, translated by Anne McLean.

This story is narrated by Colombian lawyer Antonio Yammara, who strikes up a casual acquaintance with a man called Ricardo Laverde, who describes himself as a former pilot. When Laverde is killed in an incident which also seriously injures Antonio, the latter eventually sets out to discover what was behind it, and is drawn into a story of love, loss, violence and crime.

The book is beautifully written, quite sombre and wistful, and deeply concerned with issues of memory. Of Bogotá, for instance, Antonio muses,

Colombia produce escapados, eso es verdad, pero un día me gustaría saber cuántos de ellos nacieron como yo y como Maya a principios de la años setenta, cuántos como Maya o como yo tuvieron una niñez pacífica o protegida o por lo menos imperturbada, cuántos atraversaron la adolescencia y se hicieron temerosamente adultos mientras a su alrededor la ciudad se hundía en el miedo de los tiros y las bombas sin que nadie hubiera declarado ninguna guerra, o por lo menos no una guerra convencional, si es que semejante cosa existe. Eso me gustaría saber, cuántos salieron de mi ciudad sintiendo que de una u otra manera se salvaban, y cuántos sintieron al salvarse que traicionaban algo, que se convertían en las ratas del proverbial barco por el hecho de huir de una ciudad incendiada. 

However, the novel is not "about" the drug war or Pablo Escobar in the straightforward sense, it is rather a constant backdrop to the story and, you might also say, the situation of Colombia makes the events of the story possible. At the end, we are still left asking ourselves what will happen to Antonio and how he will move forward from his trauma, but there is grounds for hope. Highly recommended.