46 pages • 1 hour read
Luis SepulvedaThe Old Man Who Read Love Stories
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
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BetaChapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3 opens with a description of Antonio’s simple hut: “A ten-yard square foot bamboo hut in which he’d arranged his meager furniture” (27). On one wall is a photo, retouched by an artist, of Antonio and his wife. Antonio acknowledges that his two prized possessions are his teeth and the magnifying glass that he uses for reading.
The narrator takes the reader back to the distant past, providing a detailed description of the finery and youth of Antonio and his beloved wife, Dolores Encarnación del Santísimo Sacramento Estupiñán Otavalo. They met as children in the mountain village of San Luis, where they were raised. At 13 they were betrothed, and two years later they were married. The couple spent their first three years of marriage in the bride’s father’s house. Dolores never got pregnant and soon the gossip started. They “drifted from one quack to another” (29) to find a cure for infertility, but eventually Dolores, deeply wounded by all the gossip, hid herself in shame in a corner of the house. The gossip began to circulate that Antonio was the sterile one. The neighbors suggested Antonio take his wife to the June festival of San Luis, get her drunk, and eventually put her in a “mingling of bodies under cover of darkness” (30) to see if she got pregnant. At that point, in a rage, Antonio told Dolores it was time to leave. He was not sure which was more insulting: the suggestion that he was sterile or that he should let the men in town sleep with his wife to prove that he was the one with the fertility problem.
Three weeks later the couple arrived in El Idilio, where they were given a plot of land. They were “handed a pompously stamped piece of paper” (31) to prove the plot was theirs to develop. They set to work building a hut and trying to clear the land, but the advent of the rainy season stopped them. Soon they and the other settlers ran out of food and water. They didn’t know how to hunt the clever animals, and so the settlers began to die.
The Shuar finally took pity on the settlers and taught them how to fish, hunt, and build huts that could withstand the harsh environment. They showed them which fruits were edible and which would kill them. Antonio’s wife died of malaria in their second year at the settlement. Enraged at her death, Antonio directed his anger at the land. But then he realized “he didn’t know the jungle well enough to hate it” (X). At that point, Antonio began tagging along on hunting expeditions with the Shuar, learning their language, customs, and survival techniques.
He began to feel a freedom he’d never known. He grew close to the Shuar, and over time they welcomed him. They gave him a blowpipe for hunting, a simple weapon with poison darts as ammunition. The Shuar asked Antonio to describe them, and when Antonio told them they were like monkeys and loud-mouthed parrots, the Shuar laughed in delight. After living among the Shuar for five years, Antonio never wanted to leave the jungle. One day, in a moment of carelessness, he was bit by a viper. He chopped off the snake’s head and, as his life ebbed away, “he set off in search of the Shuar settlement” (36). The Indians recognized his dire situation and put him under the care of a witch doctor. To everyone’s surprise Antonio survived, and soon the Shuar women helped him by following “a strict routine to clear his system” (36). When he recovered completely the Shuar were so happy that they showered him with presents, including a new blowpipe. These gifts were meant to show Antonio that he had “passed an acceptance test imposed at the whim of mischievous gods” (36). To honor him they painted his body with the colors of the iridescent boa constrictor, introduced him to a mind-altering drug called natema, and invited him to dance with them.
Later, Antonio developed a friendship with an Indian named Nushiño. Nushiño was a Shuar from a different tribe who was found one day with a bullet wound on his back, “a souvenir of a civilizing expedition by the Peruvian army (38).” When he was healed, Nushiño and Antonio became like brothers. The two men were soon expert hunters. Antonio began to hunt venomous snakes, mimicking them in movement and essence, and killing them for their venom. He sold the venom at a high price. Because Antonio was not a Shuar by blood, he had to leave from time to time so that the Indians could feel his absence and then the joy in their hearts when he returned. While he was with the Shuar, Antonio participated in their rites and sang the anents (the songs of thanksgiving), and imbibed the natema. Often, he accompanied the elders to their chosen death site after they selected their death day.
Living with the Shuar in the Amazon meant Antonio had no need to read love stories because his entire life was a love story. Eventually the Shuar gave him a woman, and they fell in love, “a pure love with no other end than love itself” (42). Time passed. Soon big machines came through to build roads, and with the roads came settlers, which forced the Shuar to pick up their huts and find a new place to settle. Where they once stayed in one place for three years, the Shuar became even more nomadic. One day, when Antonio was hunting, he missed his target and realized it was time for him to return to El Idilio and settle there. He knew, because he isn’t a Shuar, that he couldn’t fix the date of his own death like the Shuar elders.
His departure was hastened by the unexpected death of his friend Nushiño. It happened when five white builders set off dynamite in a stream, killing the spawning fish. When the Shuar arrived, the white men grew nervous and shot two of the Shuar, one of whom was Nushiño. After that the white men fled. The Shuar took a shortcut, chasing after them and killing all but one of the white men. The one survivor got into a canoe and disappeared. Nushiño told Antonio that he couldn’t rest in peace until the man who fled was killed. He said, “I’ll wander like a sad, blind parrot, bumping into trees” (44). He begged Antonio to help him.
Antonio promised he would and soon found the surviving white man. The man, thinking that Antonio was not the enemy since he was not a Shuar, lowered his guard. Antonio took that moment to fire his blowpipe at him, but it was a bad shot. They scuffled. Antonio grabbed the man’s gun, and though he had never fired one, he shot the man in the stomach. He tied the man’s legs and the man, still alive, screamed as Antonio threw him in the water. The Shuar were waiting on the other bank, and they rushed to pull the man out of the water. But when they saw him they burst into tears: Antonio had made a grave error. He should have used a poison dart, allowing the white man to fight like a warrior, so that when he was paralyzed by the poison, all his courage would be captured in his face. The Shuar, as is their custom, would have shrunken the head with the courageous expression on the man’s face, forever knowing that though he was an enemy, he fought nobly. Antonio’s mistake meant they couldn’t shrink the head, because the man’s face was stuck forever in a “rictus of fear and pain” (46). Antonio realized he had disgraced himself and doomed Nushiño to eternal misery. Weeping, the Shuar told Antonio he must leave forever. They gave him supplies and explained that he was no longer welcome. Antonio got into a canoe and the Shuar pushed it onto the river, erasing Antonio’s footprints from the beach.
Chapter 4 Summary
As Antonio neared the quay at El Idilio, he noticed the town was larger. There was now a government building bearing a sign that designated it as the El Idilio town hall. Antonio continued downstream past the quay and found a spot to build a hut. The settlers kept their distance from him because he looked savage and wild. They watched him go into the jungle with the gun he inherited from the man he killed, and soon the settlers realized Antonio’s value to them. He could hunt and kept many of the marauding gringos from totally destroying the surrounding jungle. But Antonio noticed that the jungle had suffered in this part of the Amazon due to the massive killing and brutalization of the animals, namely the ocelots, who retaliated by killing the white man’s cattle. The animals, like the Shuar, headed east, deeper and deeper into the remotest parts of the jungle. At this juncture Antonio’s teeth began to rot. He also realized he could read. This ability to read was “the most important discovery of his whole life” (52), and he soon convinced the mayor to lend him a few old newspapers. Antonio found them boring since all they contained were political and crime stories that belonged to another world.
One day, after the Sucre docked at the quay, Antonio noticed that the priest who came to try and convert the settlers was reading a book. When the priest fell asleep, Antonio quickly grabbed it and began to read. It was a biography of Saint Francis. When the priest awoke, the two of them discussed books, and Antonio learned there are millions of books in the world, and some of them are love stories.
Antonio spent that entire summer brooding because he had nothing to read. Then he got an idea. He headed into the jungle and cleverly trapped monkeys and colorful parrots. He caged the monkeys and the birds and paid the skipper of Sucre the two most beautiful love birds in exchange for a ride to town. On the boat he told the dentist that he was going to sell the monkeys and the parrots to buy books. The dentist told Antonio he could bring books for him. They docked in the city of El Dorado. The dentist introduced Antonio to the schoolmistress and arranged for Antonio to sleep there and be fed in exchange for work.
For five months Antonio perused the library shelves, trying to find books that interested him. He tried a geometry book but found it indecipherable, and the history books seemed like “a string of lies” (60). He couldn’t see how these “pale-faced playboys” (60) with their skintight breeches could defend or kill anything. Finally, after reading too many books that didn’t interest him, he happened upon a love story with suffering and agony and “love everywhere” (61). Antonio’s magnifying glass was wet from his tears. The schoolmistress allowed him to take the book back to El Idilio, where he read it over 100 times while standing at the window, looking out at the river. In this way he forgot his twice-broken heart and was assuaged by love that “outlasted time” (61).
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
The flashback that begins in Chapter 3 illuminates the events of the novel’s present-day timeline, offering motivation for Antonio’s actions. The flashback also adds complexity to Antonio’s character. The narrator remains distantly omniscient to achieve a sense of magical realism and to create a parable about the evils of empire and colonization. This chapter is abundant with symbolism and, as is characteristic of parables, has a wide arc of action.
This chapter dives into the paternalistic nature of this book, in which women have little voice and are viewed mainly as useful for pleasure, marriage, childbearing, and prostitution. Shuar culture is patriarchal, and its gods and spirit animals are strongly masculine in nature. Men are leaders, and women fulfill traditional roles as prostitutes, wives, and healers.
Antonio and Dolores’s infertility brings them shame. However, it is even worse if the man is accused of infertility. It is this insult that drives Antonio deeper into the jungle to protect his reputation. This state of barrenness is symbolic and sets the tone of this chapter. The news that the government wants to colonize a part of the Amazon motivates Antonio to move. He and his disgraced wife leave the town, and Antonio becomes part of the wave of settlers.
When they arrive in El Idilio, the land is described as barren, mirroring the emptiness and perceived failure of their lives. The government and its reputation for arrogance makes it the new patriarch. The conflict between the white settlers and the inhospitable land, as well as the superior intelligence and dominance of the animals, demonstrates the settlers’ weaknesses.
As they begin to die, however, the Shuar arrive to help them. This noble act signifies that the Shuar, unlike their white counterparts, are generous and compassionate. When Antonio’s wife dies, he falls into a deep depression punctuated by rage. This represents the moment when Antonio changes. Without such grief, he would have remained as he was: a man constrained by the rules of the culture that raised him. As he learns the ways of the Shuar, he also abandons the ways of his own culture. Over time his spiritual life changes: He leaves behind the Catholic church and to worship the land and the animals that live there. He abandons the restrictive clothing of his previous life to roam about half naked. The white settlers see him as a madman, but Antonio lives freely, having abandoned the constraints of his provincial, Christian upbringing. Most importantly, Antonio is given a weapon—a blowpipe that the narrator takes great pains to distinguish from the gun.
The blowpipe is ascribed magical powers. The poisonous darts allow enemies the opportunity to fight with courage and dignity, unlike bullets and their destructive power. The courage and dignity frozen on the faces of the dead enemies allows the tribe to shrink the heads and keep them as a talisman of the Shuar moral code and its power and vitality.
The Shuar, as a culture, are portrayed as a just, joyous, and intelligent society. They have an abundance of freedom but also maintain cultural rules and boundaries that allow everyone to thrive in harmony. At the same time, like the white culture they detest, the Shuar are still a culture in which men are given special status on the hierarchy, enjoying greater freedoms than their female counterparts.
In a scene highly suggestive of the Shuar’s humility as a culture, they laugh at themselves when Antonio compares them to monkeys, drunken parrots, and loudmouths. They are also welcoming, but with limits. The phrase “He was like the Shuar but not of them” (X) is repeated throughout this chapter to emphasize that the Shuar, while welcoming, kindly, and companionable, also have boundaries. Antonio is allowed to be as close as a white man can be, without enjoying all the benefits of true belonging.
Over time with the Shuar, Antonio becomes one with the land. His muscles become “feline” in nature, foreshadowing his future relationship with the female ocelot whose babies were killed in Chapter 1. He becomes an expert tracker, his body sculpted by the jungle. But the Shuar continuously remind him he is not one of them and force him to leave them from time to time for a long period so they can feel his absence and appreciate his return. This is an important narrative position: If you are not blood or kin, you can never really understand the nature of the Shuar or the jungle.
Antonio finds love again after his wife’s death. It’s not just the love he shares with the Shuar woman, but love of life and land and the prosperity of having all that he wants and needs in his friendships with the Shuar. In this book, love is the balm that allows people to find happiness. The narrator further positions love as something that can only come from living in the natural world. The use of the aphorism that time has forgotten this jungle signifies that when you are one with nature and each other, it is as if time does not exist. The elders’ death ceremonies place death on a plane of joy and acceptance and love.
But if death is violent and not avenged in the ways of the Shuar, then death can be a misery. This is exemplified by the juxtaposition of the elders, who choose their moment of death and take hallucinogens to enter their new lives as butterflies or other animals, with the violent death of Antonio’s best friend Nushiño. When Antonio fails to avenge Nushiño’s death in the proper way, with the white man’s gun and not the Shuar’s poisoned dart, he violates one of the most sacred elements of Shuar culture. Because everyone weeps over this mistake, readers see that the Shuar are a true community who celebrate and grieve together. Since death is the ultimate transformation, the most important change in the lives of the Shuar, Antonio’s mistake is unforgiveable.
Still, when the Shuar tell him he must leave, their compassion and basic goodness continue to exist. They are kind and send him in their best canoe. They make sure he has enough supplies to last awhile. They do not show anger, only their true emotions—grief and regret. As Antonio’s canoe dips into the water and floats off, they wipe his footprints in the sand away, signifying that he is no longer welcome among them.
In Chapter 4 Antonio returns to the life he was born into. The narrator implies that people can never escape their blood line; sooner or later, either by choice or by exile, they will be forced to return. But it’s more complicated than that for Antonio. Filled with grief for what he has lost, Antonio is also viewed with wary eyes as a savage within the white community. He straddles two worlds, never really whole in either one. Instead, his soul is divided. Thus, Antonio’s character embodies the deep divisions created by empire and colonialism.
At the same time, Antonio discovers that he can read, and reading becomes his salvation. At this juncture in Antonio’s life, the notion of books and reading is suggestive of being saved; it is also emblematic of white culture. If he can’t have the Shuar and the jungle, he can have the next best thing: his reading skills. But the joy reading brings him is hard won. He sits in frustration with nothing to read. The mayor’s newspapers are filled with details about the white world that do not interest him. The autobiography of Saint Francis is interesting but not his first choice of reading material. Ironically, however, this book about a saintly man who loves animals foreshadows Antonio’s role when the situation with the ocelot evolves.
Antonio is amazed there are so many books in the world. What interests him most are love stories, but Antonio needs money to buy them. He fails to recognize that his plan is the act of a white man who has no regard for the jungle’s treasures. By exploiting the jungle, Antonio sabotages what he once loved, including the relationship he once enjoyed with the Shuar. It is a stunning reversal for a man who supposedly honors the sacredness of all animals, plants, and people in the jungle. Nevertheless, he must save his own life, no matter the cost, by finding the right books to assuage his grief and loss.
Antonio manages to secure passage to the town of El Dorado, which means “the gilded one.” In Amazonian lore, El Dorado was a city named after a very rich king who allegedly dusted his body with gold and washed it off in a nearby lake while being showered with silver and gold by his subjects. This legend—the dream of El Dorado—was understood by the Spanish conquistadors to be an actual place, which led many Spanish conquistadors on a fruitless search for gold. Their search for this mythical place (in reality El Dorado refers not to a place but to a person) created much ravaging and pillaging of South America’s rainforests and jungles. Ironically, Antonio seeks books in a town that invokes the legend of El Dorado. The stark and paradoxical symbolism of this journey implies that he has now returned to himself as a white man.
