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I came to Firenze to forget Peru and the Peruvians for a while, and suddenly my unfortunate country forced itself upon me this morning in the most unexpected way. I had visited Dante’s restored house, the little Church of San Martino del Véscovo, and the lane where, so legend has it, he first saw Beatrice, when, in the little Via Santa Margherita, a window display stopped me short: bows, arrows, a carved oar, a pot with a geometric design, a mannequin bundled into a wild cotton cushma. But it was three or four photographs that suddenly brought back to me the flavor of the Peruvian jungle. The wide rivers, the enormous trees, the fragile canoes, the frail huts raised up on pilings, and the knots of men and women, naked to the waist and daubed with paint, looking at me unblinkingly from the glossy prints.
Naturally, I went in. With a strange shiver and the presentiment that I was doing something foolish, that mere curiosity was going to jeopardize in some way my well-conceived and, up until then, well-executed plan—to read Dante and Machiavelli and look at Renaissance paintings for a couple of months in absolute solitude—and precipitate one of those personal upheavals that periodically make chaos of my life. But, naturally, I went in.
The gallery was minute. A single low-ceilinged room in which, to make room for all the photographs, two panels had been added, every inch of them covered with pictures. A thin girl in glasses, sitting behind a small table, looked up at me. Could I visit the “Natives of the Amazon Forest” exhibition?
“Certo. Avanti, avanti.”
There were no artifacts inside the gallery, only photos, fifty at least, most of them fairly large. There were no captions, but someone, perhaps the photographer himself, one Gabriele Malfatti, had written a few pages indicating that the photos had been taken during a two-week journey in the Amazon region of the departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios in eastern Peru. The artist’s intention had been to describe, “without demagoguery or aestheticism,” the daily life of a tribe which, until a few years ago, had lived virtually isolated from civilization, scattered about in units of one or two families. Only in our day had they begun to group together in those places documented by the exhibition, but many of them still remained in the forest. The name of the tribe was Hispanicized without spelling errors: the Machiguengas.
The photos were a quite faithful reflection of Malfatti’s intention. There were the Machiguengas, aiming a harpoon from the bank of a river, or, half concealed in the undergrowth, drawing a bow in pursuit of capybaras or peccaries; there they were, gathering cassava in the tiny plots scattered around their brand-new villages, perhaps the first in their long history, clearing the forest with machetes, weaving palm leaves to roof their huts. A group of women sat lacing mats and baskets; another was making headdresses, hooking brightly colored parrot and macaw feathers into wooden circlets. There they were, decorating their faces and bodies in intricate designs with dye from the annatto tree, lighting fires, drying hides and skins, fermenting cassava for masato beer in canoe-shaped receptacles. The photos eloquently showed how few of them there were in the immensity of sky, water, and vegetation that surrounded them, how fragile and frugal their life was; their isolation, their archaic ways, their helplessness. It was true: neither demagoguery nor aestheticism.
What I am about to say is not an invention after the fact, nor yet a false memory. I am quite sure I moved from one photograph to the next with an emotion that at a certain moment turned to anxiety. What’s happening to you? What might you come across in these pictures that would justify such anxiety?
From the very first photos I had recognized the clearings where Nueva Luz and Nuevo Mundo had been built—I had been in both less than three years before—and an overall view of the second of these had immediately brought back to my mind the feeling of impending catastrophe with which I lived through the acrobatic landing that morning as the Cessna belonging to the Institute of Linguistics avoided Machiguenga children. I even seemed to recognize some of the faces of the men and women with whom I had spoken, with Mr. Schneil’s help. This became certainty when, in another photograph, I saw, with the same little bloated belly and the same bright eyes my memory had preserved, the boy whose mouth and nose had been eaten away by uta ulcers. He revealed to the camera, with the same innocence and unselfconsciousness with which he had shown it to us, that hole with teeth, palate, and tonsils which gave him the appearance of some mysterious wild beast.
The photograph I was hoping to see from the moment I entered the gallery was among the last. From the very first glance it was evident that the gathering of men and women, sitting in a circle in the Amazonian way—similar to the Oriental: legs crossed tailor-fashion, back held very straight—and bathed in the light of dusk fading to dark, was hypnotically attentive. They were absolutely still. All the faces were turned, like radii of a circumference, toward the central point: the silhouette of a man at the heart of that circle of Machiguengas drawn to him as to a magnet, standing there speaking and gesticulating. I felt a cold shiver down my spine. I thought: “How did that Malfatti get them to allow him to...How did he manage to...?” I stooped, brought my face up very close to the photograph. I kept looking at it, smelling it, piercing it with my eyes and imagination, until I noticed that the girl in charge of the gallery had risen from her table and was coming toward me in alarm.
Making an effort to contain my excitement, I asked if the photographs were for sale. No, she didn’t think so. They belonged to Rizzoli, the publishers. Apparently they were going to appear in a book. I asked her to put me in touch with the photographer. No, that wouldn’t be possible, unfortunately: “Il signore Gabriele Malfatti è morto.”
Dead? Yes. Of a fever. A virus he’d caught in the jungle, forse. Poor man! He was a fashion photographer: he’d worked for Vogue and Uomo, that sort of magazine, photographing models, furniture, jewelry, clothes. He’d spent his life dreaming of doing something different, more personal, such as taking this trip to the Amazon. And when at last he was able to do so, and they were just about to publish a book with his work, he died! And now, le dispiaceva, but it was l’ora di pranzo and she had to close.
I thanked her. Before leaving to confront once again the wonders and the hordes of tourists of Firenze, I managed to cast one last glance at the photograph. Yes. No doubt whatsoever about it. A storyteller.
THE STORYTELLER English translation copyright © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. The Storyteller This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780571152087
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Bright, clean pages. Binding is solid. Somelight scuffing on dust jacket, otherwise appears like new. ; 9.29 X 6.22 X 1.02 inches; 256 pages. Seller Inventory # 18702
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780571152087
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Hardcover. First reprint of the first UK edition. A little minor wear at jacket's extremities; spine head is faintly bumped. Page block and page edges are tanned. Text is clear throughout. TS. Used. Seller Inventory # 602893
Book Description Condition: Very Good. 1990. Hardcover. Good clean copy with some minor shelf wear. Dust wrapper has some minor edge wear but remains very good. . . . . Seller Inventory # KKD0002863
Book Description Condition: Very Good. 1990. Hardcover. Good clean copy with some minor shelf wear. Dust wrapper has some minor edge wear but remains very good. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # KKD0002863
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Andrzej Klimowski (Jacket illustration) (illustrator). First UK Edition. First impression of the first UK edition. Translated from the Spanish by Helen Lane. ***Near fine in orange boards with black titles to the spine. Head and tail of spine slightly creased. Boards clean and unmarked. Spine tight. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. No creases or tears. Clean pages although the paper stock has tanned lightly. ***In a very good colour illustrated dustwrapper, which retains the original publisher's price of £12.99. The dustwrapper is complete with no chips or tears, but please note that there is creasing to the top edge of the back panel. Very light edge wear and the spine is slightly faded. Dustwrapper bright. ***246 pages. 242mm x 157mm. ***'A visitor from Peru, happening upon an exhibition of photographs from the Amazon jungle in an obscure Florentine picture gallery, finds his attention drawn to a picture of a tribal storyteller seated among a circle of Michiguenga Indians. There is something odd about the storyteller. He is too light skinned to be an Indian. As the visitor stares at the photograph, it dawns on him that he knows this man. The storyteller is his long lost friend Saul Zuratas, his classmate from university who was thought to have disappeared in Israel. A brilliant and compelling study of the world of the primitive and its place in our own modern lives.' (Quotes taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***A first impression of the first UK edition, in very good condition, albeit with some creasing to the dustwrapper. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc. Seller Inventory # 7955
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Jacket by Andrzej Klimowski (illustrator). 1st Edition. First UK edition, first impression. Some edge wear to top and bottom of jacket and spine, corners slightly rubbed and bruised, slight lean, not price clipped (£12.99), no inscriptions, internally clean and tight, overall a vg+ copy. 246pp. A visitor from Peru, happening upon an exhibition of photographs from the Amazon jungle in an obscure Florentine picture gallery, finds his attention drawn to a picture of a tribal storyteller seated among a circle of Michiguenga Indians. There is something odd about the storyteller. He is too light skinned to be an Indian. As the visitor stares at the photograph, it dawns on him that he knows this man. The storyteller is his long lost friend Saul Zuratas, his classmate from university who was thought to have disappeared in Israel. A brilliant and compelling study of the world of the primitive and its place in our own modern lives. Seller Inventory # 006532
Book Description Condition: Sehr gut. Zustand: Sehr gut - Gepflegter, sauberer Zustand. | Seiten: 256 | Sprache: Spanisch. Seller Inventory # 28163808/2