Chapter 135: The Making of A Cult Novel

Every country has its cult classics, those strange titles passed on in a conversation, or let slip in bookish asides. Then, it’s wisest to not just nod to hide one’s ignorance, but to inquire. And chance on a rare reading experience. The novel Rasero, by Francisco Rebolledo, is such a discovery. 

Francisco Rebolledo (1950), lives in the state of Morelos, south of Mexico City. His fervent imagination is just one of many attracted over the years to the land of “eternal spring,” from psychologist Eric Fromm to the surrealist painter and writer Leonora Carrington, the prolific Ricardo Garibay, and, most famously, Malcolm Lowry, who made the state capital of Cuernavaca the setting for his masterpiece Under the Volcano.

It is from there that Rebolledo has authored four novels, books of essays, and short stories, among them, that Mexican cult classic: Rasero, winner of the 1995 Pegasus Prize. It tells the story of Fausto Rasero, a Spanish marquis, bald and wide-eyed, living in 18th-century enlightenment Paris, where he befriends philosophers Voltaire and Diderot and meets Mozart and Madame de Pompadour. Yet, amidst a  century of faith in progress, he is haunted by visions of the horrors of the 20th century, which come to him in his moments of greatest pleasure. 

It was the writer’s first novel, and as Mexican critic Christopher Domínguez has said, he "did not commit sins of youth and presented himself mature, full-bodied" with this 600-page tale.

From a gallery with a view of his garden, he recounts the genealogy of a unique novel thirteen years in the making.

DC: Your three adolescent passions, science, history, and philosophy, come together in your first novel in 1993. Yet it wasn't your first attempt. Why did literature prevail, and how were those years of postponed writing?

FR: When I finished high school, I didn't know what I wanted to study; I was very hesitant to choose science, as I did. In that dilemma, I was helped a lot by a literature teacher, Carmen Meda. "Don't study literature, and don't stop reading. It is much more important to read than to write," she told me. "You will write. Don't worry so much. But read a lot because that will make you a good writer." I took her at her word. And so I read and read, but of course, I also had the writing bug.

I wanted to try my pen and did so a couple of times. First came a typical adolescent novel, an introspection of a character thinking about what had happened at a meeting in '71 during the student movement. I lived through that movement when I was very young, so there I was, reproducing it. I started it, got tired of it, and thought, "No, this is crap. I'm like all writers who begin to write about their youth without the required distance." So I said, "To hell with it." 

But sure enough, I got the bug again. I was around 28 and working in Mexico City, and I retired, so to speak, and got a good severance package. Then, I finally had time and spent nearly a year doing my dream of writing and reading. That's when I wrote another novel that wasn't so bad; it was even pretty good: a story I read in the newspaper about a Huichol Indian who lost his mind. He'd gone to Guadalajara to reclaim land, inadvertently got involved in a protest and a fistfight with the police, and got thrown in jail. It's there he meets an American preacher, who turns him into a fanatic, which leads him to take over his hometown and burn people on the pyre. That's a true story. My first intention was to tell it as such, like In Cold Blood. And then, to tell the truth, I said no, I'd better make it up. I was about to finish and already had the rest of it in my head just as we were moving here to Cuernavaca, and that's when I lost the manuscript during the move.

I searched and searched and found nothing. I felt bad, although, honestly, I am not a vain person. I don't have that spirit in me at all. So, I said, "Well, what's lost is lost." On the other hand, I enjoyed that time a lot because I was doing exactly what I wanted to do: reading and writing. I was very happy. So whenever I remember that year, I never look back and say, "Oh, I lost my novel!" I say, "Oh, what a great time I had!" 

DC: The idea for the novel of Rasero came to you one night, long before you wrote it. That vision already contained the main character and his curse of foresight. 

FR: I wrote it in Mexico in '78, practically ten years before starting the novel, on a night during which I'd argued, in which I was conflicted by many things and the fact that I wasn't writing. I wanted to write, and I was writing stuff I didn't like. Then, that night, I poured myself a few shots of sherry, I remember. Sherry is an awful thing, and I didn't get drunk because you can't write drunk. And suddenly, the idea of a character came to me: the story was an epiphany. I had the image of the Eiffel Tower and of a bald character. From the beginning, it occurred to me that Rasero was bald, with his eyes wide apart, riding in a carriage in the 18th century. Suddenly, he tells the coachman to stop and he gets out of the carriage and tells the coachman, "Here, an iron tower will be built." The other thinks he's completely crazy, and off he goes. That's the story. And something happened to me with it. I said here's a vein; here's something I can exploit, that little story, to immerse myself in the 18th century. 

Those were the years of trial and error. At first, I thought I'd give it an ironic tone to make a parody in the vein of Jean-Paul Sartre. In other words, to write as if I were a biographer, an intellectual biography of this Rasero. And it started well. I laughed at the stupid things it said, but there came a time when I began to get fed up with it, too. That is to say, I could no longer afford to make a novel with so much parody. It was going to be a very silly novel. So, I flung everything I wrote, although I later included many reflections in the next attempt. 

When the parody got on my nerves, I told myself I would write it seriously as a novel. And then I said I'm going to make the main character fictitious and most of the secondary characters are all real. That was the game where I moved like a fish in water. I knew I had the right idea. And I started to write and realized that I didn't know the period well enough.  So I spent a lot of time not writing but reading. That's the reason the novel is so thoroughly documented. Well, I was reading for ten years.

DC: When the writing itself finally started, after all that time, there were still circumstances that almost derailed your work. 

FR: When I started Rasero, I found myself in a dilemma: I was about to turn 40 and was offered a job as director of an important museum in Mexico City. With it came very good money. I hesitated but said no, "If I start directing this, I'm never going to be a writer." So I said, "Too bad," and turned down the job. People told me, "Are you crazy?" Well, yes, I am crazy.

I got sidetracked several times. The most notable was when I was finishing the chapter on Voltaire. I was very happy because I was well on my way, and suddenly, the idea of death stopped me in my tracks. I was getting old enough to remember the death of my father, who died when I was 17. And my son, when I was writing that novel, was 17 years old. And I started to panic. And I get death in my head, and I think, "I'm screwed already." I talked it over with my friend Ángel and told him, "I'm so scared I can't write." And he says to me, "Why don't you try to write your fear? Get that fear out by writing it down." That's a good idea. And so I throw the fear of death at Voltaire. He was a man who did have a lot of fear of dying and being killed, and he was obsessed with this. It's all true; I didn't make it up. And I transferred my fear, Voltaire's fear, to my character. 

By then, I was inspired again, and the happier I got, the more lyrical and poetic I said, "Oh, what beautiful things, what beautiful reflections, very well put together." I was surprised; where did it come from? Where did I get these things from? I ended up fascinated with the chapter and followed on from there. And I discovered many things; I had no idea how to end the story. Yet, ever since I wrote the part about Voltaire, I was convinced I would finish that book.

DC: Much like the encyclopedia, whose origins it describes, the novel seems to want to include all your obsessions and all you know. How does one live with such a work? 

FR: It took me three years to write it; those three years were the best of my life. I stayed here, where we sit now, for many hours, writing. That's when I discovered the writer's craft and realized that writing, like all art, is done by creating; it's done in the moment. According to –Bulgarian-French philosopher and critic– Tzetan Todorov, pre-thought work is no good. That is to say, you can think a lot about something, but when it comes to writing it, if it came out just as you thought it would, it came out wrong.

I started with Rasero thinking of a linear novel, from birth to death. Then, I decided to start with the chapter on Diderot. As soon as I began that, the story changed again: I changed the tense, didn't realize it, and switched the narrative voice. I started speaking in the third person and ended up speaking in the second person. That's why I say that the moment of writing is when things occur, and who knows where I came up with the first paragraph. And when I read it, I followed through, very excited. I was writing feverishly. I was amazed when I read the chapter; I didn't have it in my head. 

In literature, it is evident that the creative process is when you write, not when you think about it. When it happens, when it truly happens, it's a kind of schizophrenia. That is to say, you are Francisco, the one who writes the story, and you are Rasero; I am also him; I become him. An example of the level of this madness: One morning, I was here writing a chapter that hit me very hard, which is when Madame Pompadour dies, and Rasero is in the carriage to see her on a cold April afternoon. And he's very sad because he loves her and is thinking about her, and he's freezing. It should be spring, and it's the middle of winter, whereas when I was writing, it was in May, the hottest month here in Cuernavaca. I was sitting here writing, and I started crying. That chapter moved me, and I started bawling. When I woke up from this trance, I suddenly realized I had put on a coat, and I wondered why I would put on a coat in this tropical heat, but I had been so into it that, without realizing it, I'd put it on because the cold had reached me. That's how astounding it is. That's when it dawned on me that creative work can drive you crazy.

I emptied myself into this book. I wanted to tell everything... And I feel that I accomplished it. I felt full and very satisfied: I had finally done what I wanted to do. I tried to make the most perfect work. I did try. Obviously, I didn't succeed; because you can't make things perfect, can you? But the intention was there.

DC: Does Rasero sometimes visit you? Does he still appear to you sometimes? 

FR: Yes, from time to time, he does. I always have him around, waiting.

Jacques-Louis David: Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and his Wife, chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze

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