Novel
The Edge of the Storm
Al filo del agua
Agustín Yáñez · 1947
Synopsis
A Catholic village in Jalisco, from Lent 1909 to November 1910. Women in black, bells and retreats govern life; the parish priest don Dionisio watches over souls and over his two nieces, Marta the sensible and María who reads in secret. Old Lucas Macías tells his stories, Micaela Rodríguez, a flirt, sows trouble among the men and the devout women. Then comes Halley's comet, and news of an approaching revolution.
Context
The novel was published in 1947 by Porrúa, in Mexico City, illustrated with woodcuts by Julio Prieto. Its title takes up a peasant expression that designates the moment when the rain begins, and figuratively the imminence of an event. Without returning to the realism of his predecessors, the author employs interior monologue, stream of consciousness and a complex construction, drawn from Joyce and Faulkner. Ethel Brinton's English translation appeared in 1963; a critical edition followed in 1996.
Who it is for
About four hundred pages of slow, dense prose, with no single plot, opened by an almost poetic “preparatory act”; no French translation found.
Prizes and reception
The masterpiece of its author, counted with Pedro Páramo, Los de abajo and La muerte de Artemio Cruz among the great Mexican novels of the century.
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