By Marcelo Baez Meza | Writer and film critic
The Levite Thief (Planeta, 1989; Eugenio Espejo Reading Campaign, 2008; Municipal Library, 2018) is a short novel by Jorge Velasco Mackenzie (1949-2021) on the life and work of Enrique Mora Martinez, a famous criminal who operated in the Ecuadorian Coast and Sierra during the sixties and seventies of the last century.
Enrique Izquieta, the man who, at 82 years old, fulfills the dream of writing a book; a crime novel featuring a ‘cynic’
Through a monologue divided into four parts, the thief’s voice tells of his transfer to a hospital after having suffered a heart attack. In the manner of Artemio Cruz, from Carlos Fuentes, the narrative voice tells his story in two planes: the present in which he is treated by nurses in an ambulance and the past from which he recovers his vital and family history and his main crimes.
Flowing prose, poetic in many passages, with reflections on life and death, homosexuality, and everyday morality. This ethic of the offender reminds Thief’s diary, by Jean Genet, which also reflects on the life of both interior (moral introspection) and exterior (the prisoner who purges a sentence or the patient undergoing surgery in the case of the novel that concerns us). The trinity (that’s what the narrator calls it) made up of the murderer, the thief and the homosexual is built in a plausible way and recovers a well-drawn marginality in a previous novel by the author, The corner of the righteous (The Rabbit, 1983).
The memory of Jorge Velasco Mackenzie is kept alive in his work: the books that marked his literary path
A biblical breath (product of the Jewish migration to Ecuador) runs through the entire novel, accounting for the foundation of towns with names like Palestine, Jordan, Yumes and Thebes. Antonieta, the protagonist’s sister, is always flagellating herself, turning into a kind of Narcisa de Jesús Martillo y Morán. There is also a criticism of patriarchalism, to prejudice against the other, to the media who see the news subject as prey. The frock coat appears as a double symbol: that of the anti-hero’s disguise (a kind of cloak) and that of the mortuary sheet (it serves to cover it after the last breath).
A parallel story is that of the constant allusions to Carryl Chessman, a serial killer who was executed by electric chair. The narrative voice is constantly identified with the murderer who wrote three books. This data makes Enrique Mora Martínez, by Jorge Velasco in a chronicler who gives an account of his own destiny.
One of the nods of the novel is the appearance as a character of Miguel Donoso Couple, coordinator of the literary workshop where the author finished his training. The protagonist he meets Fernando, “The political prisoner whose eyes swelled when he came to light after more than a year in prison.” The inmate tells him some stories: “Like that of the man who killed his children, or the story of the sea of never again; we sat around him next to the black Henry Black who reminded me of Chavico. Fernando described to us Gudrum, a woman who had something of all women; He was explaining everything with his slow voice while stroking his goatee. I was wondering if it could not be a male Gudrum, someone who had something of all men (…) “.
Velasco’s novel is more current than ever thirty-two years later. The author is ahead of a whole literature queer with descriptions of members, homoerotic body encounters, plus a thorough understanding of “that love that dares not say its name”, as Oscar Wilde said. A book for all times. (O)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
