The Dancer Upstairs

Typically I have little patience for white men's stories about indigenous cultures, or political commentaries disguised as dramatic fiction. Superficially, The Dancer Upstairs is both of the above -- a mixed-race man in a mixed-race society, continually confused and yearning for what he knows not, and others like him, none realizing that it is all the same, that no one has the answers, not even el presidente Ezequiel. And yet the book is neither of these two things, for it is, at its heart, a love story. The unknowability of the human heart. The inevitability of fate. Suffering. The liquid richness of time -- how certain moments contract into nothingness and yet others expand in our memories, on and on, until we are nothing but those memories, nothing but a physical relic of those vapors of time. The book is beautiful -- the entirety of it thoughtful and graceful like a dance. South America's vibrance is channeled through each page, and particularly via the large brown eyes of Yolanda. In Rejas, the main narrator, we find compassion, sensitivity, and an overwhelming humanity. He lives as if on the fringes of his own life, continually making space for the desires of others -- his wife Sylvina who yearns for Miami, his daughter Laura who lives to dance -- until he meets Yolanda, Laura's dance teacher, who brings out within him desires that can never be put to rest again. The story ends in what I can only call a collision -- but a collision that the reader has foreseen, and anticipates, perhaps as absolution. And even after the story has long ended, I find myself wanting to retread the steps up to the narrow balcony of the Catina de Lua, and imagine that Rejas and Dyer are due to reappear at any minute, and that Rejas will begin anew, to murmur of his past, and that I will listen humbly, as we all do, when faced with a tale of great sacrifice.

My book club read "The Dancer Upstairs" by Nick Shakespeare, and it was enjoyed by all. It tells a fictionalized account of the pursuit of the enigmatic leader of a Peruvian guerilla group. It vividly creates a world unnerved by the menace of political instability, and its varied effect on the citizenry. The main character, a police detective, and his wife represent this dichotomy: while the detective ardently pursues the guerilla leader, his wife is content to sell cosmetics and drive out of the way of bombed out streets.Our one gripe with the book is that the plot hinges on two highly implausible coincidences. I won't give either away, but it didn't surprise me that the recent movie version did away with one of them. All in all, a good read. The world is vividly depicted, the action brisk, and the resolution satisfactory. One note: if you buy the movie cover edition of the book, don't read the back copy. It gives one major twist away!

Shakespeare has turned out a tense and frightening tale. "The Dancer Upstairs" is about the violent and ultra-radical Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) insurgency in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s. The protagonist is Agustine Rejas, a policeman, who hunts down the guerilla leader, Ezequiel. Rejas reminded me of Arkady Renko, Martin Cruz Smith's Russian policeman in "Gorky Park" and other novels. He is an honest, decent, incorruptible man, whose virtues are little valued by the society of which he is a part. Shakespeare tells a compelling story with literary flair and Reyes and the supporting cast, especially the guerilla Ezequiel, are strong, interesting characters. That is fortunate because the story is seriously marred. The author, for no good reason, relies heavily on several incredible coincidences to advance his story. Any hack detective story writer could have come up with a more inventive and believable way to tell his story than Shakespeare does. That being said, "The Dancer Upstairs" is still a cut above than the average political thriller. If you like Graham Greene or John Le Carre, you will probably like "The Dancer Upstairs."

This book, narrated trough the voice of the enquirer (the foreign correspondent) and the police man, reveals perhaps part of the story of a historical period of contemporary Peru. We hear the life of a police man, his houghts, his fears, his family routine, etc. We also are acquainted about how this foreign correspondent gets to this "dissident" of the peruvian police force, and the intricates of the organisation. But, besides the portraits of "insurgent young school girls of twelve years old" and "andean people full of hatred", we do not get further on the other side of this story. The dancer was downstairs, she was an instrument, some one whose hands were clean of blood, someone naive and idealistic, a beautiful girl coming from a good family. How about her inner world? The inner motif that lead her to assume that position? Was it only personal stories, or was it the history itself leading to violence, and more violence from all sides? Why only at last, the only attempt to reveal a bit about her is the talk with the ex-lover, and the former dance teacher? The policeman and the writer himself couldn't go on to her deeper psichyc and outline the complexity of how a modern dancer had come to choose this path, how this organisation succeded in attracting not only 12 or 13 year-olds...but became a national phenomenum? The book is leading and alienating, as if the only ones that had a life were the ones on the mainstream. The other complexity is left there unexplored, untouched. Would love to see the film, and to see that J. Malcovich works better at this aspect.

This book about revolutionaries in South America far transcends any cultural or geographical styles. The plot is intricate and diverse, the characters so alive you feel you are sitting with them, hanging on every word. Beyond the tragedies, are love stories filled with the small details that touch us.