Juan Pablo Villalobos’s first novel about a boy growing up in a luxury compound in the mountains of Mexico with his drug baron father, Down the Rabbit Hole, was chosen by Sarah Churchwell as her 2011 Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. I spoke to Villalobos and his translator Rosalind Harvey in London last week.
The original title of the book, Fiesta en la madriguera, did not translate directly to English. What happened to the Fiesta?
RH: We felt that a direct translation could be taken as an order: “Party down the rabbit hole, now! Go and have fun!” There’s not that ambiguity in Spanish. Also, we felt the allusions to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were quite complete. Having the “party” — with its echoes of the tea party, the mad hatter — would be too many layers of reference.
JPV: Also, madriguera in Spanish is like a burrow for many different animals, so the English title is a really good adaptation. Totchli [the child narrator] is a rabbit, so the title offers this second reading. All the names in the novel are animals, which neither the Spanish reader nor the Mexican reader knows, because they are Nahuatl names — a language not really known [nowadays] in Mexico.
The novel is Mexico doesn’t have the glossary. How does a reader learn of the animal names?
JPV: They don’t, but that doesn’t matter. This second reading is… like a secret. You can Google it.
RH: I did.
JPV: If one reader’s curiosity is really strong, he can discover what the name means. And Usagi [Totchli’s temporary name] in Japanese is the same: rabbit.
You wrote the novel when you found out you were having a child. At what age will you give the book to your son to read?
I think maybe 11 or 12. As to Totchli, I always say he can be a really smart boy who’s six or seven, or he can be a bit more naïve and ten or eleven. He lives in these particular circumstances: trapped in the house without contact with other kids, without school. He could be 7, 8, 9, 10… I don’t care.
Have you studied child psychology?
No. My interest was particular only to literature, not a psychological or pedagogical approach. I was seduced by this voice and the possibilities when you can say a lot of things that you wouldn’t if you were telling the story in the third person. The identity between the narrator and the writer can be dangerous, too, like you’re exposing your ideas.
The book recalls Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, the emergence of this voice in modernist literature. What works inspired you?
There’s a very good book, a short story collection about the Mexican revolution, called Cartridge. It was written at the beginning of the 20th century by a woman, Nellie Campobello. Those stories are narrated by a girl, with a similar perspective and style to Totchli.
He learns words from the dictionary, often using them incorrectly. Did you plan to write a novel about semiotics?
In the language, in the use of the dictionary, I was really trying to explore the production of a vision of the world through the knowledge of language. Obviously, that’s why he’s trapped in a house, he only goes out once. It’s a thesis novel. You describe this world, you put the characters in there, and then you have to play with that all the way through. I think the main challenge was to be coherent. Not [necessarily] true, but convincing.
In one passage, Totchli refers to a woman’s bottom being “this big”. The narration takes on a visual element.
As a matter of fact, I’ve had discussions about the orality of the book. I think it’s a very literary book that stays on the page, but because of this tone I had to sometimes use these strategies to be closer to the reader; looking for some complicity. It’s about trying to get closer.
Totchli has a flashback of a visit to a Mexican village that he’s thoroughly unimpressed by. Has he been robbed of a heritage?
Maybe, but here I was thinking of the symbols and clichés we use to construct the identity of a town or country. You’re thinking of Mexico and you’re thinking of hats, mariachis, tequila; these fast associations. “Let’s go to my town: it’s a churro town!” “There are no churros. This is a fraud!” It’s like the Disneyland of churros. It’s [actually] my town.
Through the book, there are these reflections about how we construct our vision of reality with ideas that are really wasted. Tired clichés. It happens the same with Africa. How to construct the idea of it? “Poor, only horrible people” — it’s like that. It’s a provocative joke.
One wonders who is protecting the boy, who is he being protected from. Who is the enemy?
I took a lot of care not to fall into the bad guys and the good guys. I try to escape from moralisms and write the story most clean of ideology. In the end, the father is a threat to his son.
How political is the novel?
Very, of course. This character Mazatism is a cliché of the late Sixties and Seventies professors at the Latin American universities, with the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions and the theology of liberation. This character joins all these clichés and the vision against America.
It’s at the heart of Mexico, this hate/love relationship: “It’s shit, America, but at the same time we love it”. We see it at the pictures, we buy all the products, we love America — but the speech is: “We hate America. The Gringos.”
Totchli carelessly throws away a Star Wars toy given to him by another young boy. Is this an expression of his nature, rather than nurture?
For me it was a moment to see that he’s a child. But it’s also a small episode of the class struggle, class war. These two boys [who come to visit] are from the outside world and are the neighbours of the servants. Mexico is a very class divided society. In this episode I wanted to sell that really fast.
Why the Liberian pygmy hippo?
I love hippos in general. In the beginning I was thinking just in hippos; a boy who wanted one. Then I read this article about the animals in danger of extinction and the fourth or fifth most threatened was the Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. I thought: perfect. It’s more radical. He doesn’t only want a hippo — he wants a particular kind that is in danger of extinction. If it’s absurd he wants a hippo, now let’s do it really absurd. At the end it’s a symbol; he wants something that’s really nothing.
The novel at the end is about the learning of power. How much power do you have? It depends, when you’re a kid, on who your parents are. You are the son of a politician? You are the son of a very rich man? You have working class parents? You learn to deal with how much power you have.
Totchli is rather taken by the word “solidarity”.
It’s a word that’s particular to Mexico from the Eighties. President [Carlos] Salinas was very popular outside Mexico. Like [Brazil’s former president] Lula, everybody loved him because he was modernizing the country, he was a PhD graduate from Harvard, he was “perfect”. He had this social programme, Programa Nacional de Solidaridad (National Solidarity Program), a collaborative project between citizens and the government. But the reality was demagogia [demagogy].
This word — solidaridad — was used all the time in the news, the media, advertising for six years. It became a bad word and you remember it.
What’s next for you?
JPV: I just finished my second novel. It’s for my daughter, who is two. One for him and one for her.
RH: Next one for your wife.
JPV: Let’s see! [laughs]
You’ve moved from Spain back to Latin America. Where do you vote, if you do?
I’ve voted with a cross for twenty years. I spoil the ballot, always. Because, I think that if you don’t agree with the options you have to say. It’s not that I’m not going because I don’t believe in the parties — no. You have to go. And then you have to say: “fuck off, everybody”.
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