[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”1568587473″ locale=”us” height=”333″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RO5lC8TFL.jpg” width=”220″ alt=”Eduardo Galeano” ]Better Days for Our Future History
A review of
Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History
Eduardo Galeano
Hardback: Nation Books, 2013
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Reviewed by Sam Edgin
There is a stale wind that blows throughout literature. So many authors push so very hard to succeed. They want popularity and book sales, recognition and critical praise. In the midst of this pursuit they leave their voices – and the potential power those unique voices can carry – in lonely, forgotten places. Sometimes they find it again, and turn out works of uncharacteristic brilliance, and sometimes someone new will step out, seeming to emerge just as the wind has passed so that they can hand us a truly good work. Often though, we are rewarded with more books that say little with many words, and take us to places suspiciously familiar. And so the stale wind picks up, occasionally dropping books by the wayside that tell wonderful stories or contain power-full thoughts, but always dancing around the pages of contemporary literature.
However, I think there is a strength within Latin American literature that resists the gusting of that stale wind. Authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and poets like Pablo Neruda hide within their respective voices a kind of power that seems refreshingly untouched by that wind’s sapping flow. Eduardo Galeano is one of these. Already a distinguished presence within Latin American literature, Galeano’s Children of the Days speaks with that power that seems often so illusive in other spheres of literature. This is the power I speak of: the ability to unleash your words to reveal the innermost truth of yourself. His words carry a blunt sincerity reminiscent of Marquez’s short stories – amusing, thoughtful, and scathingly critical, often all within the same sentence. With each page of Children of Days, Galeano reveals himself anew, and challenges us to do the same.
Children of the Days is poetry disguised as prose disguised as a calendar. It would, in fact, work nicely as one of those tear-off-each-day desk calendars, although I doubt Eduardo Galeano or any other self-respecting author would allow their work to be printed in such a way. However, I digress; the book is arranged chronologically, taking the reader through an entire calendar year. Each day Galeano speaks of a story of a lesser known event or hero from around the world. They correspond, roughly, with the day on which they are featured. For instance, on June 21st he speaks of a soccer match that happened on that day in 2001 in which all the players on one of the teams painted their faces black in support for a Nigerian teammate who was often subject to racist chants. Or, on April 23rd, World Book Day, he mentions a number of famous lines and quotes that are mistakenly attributed. The days all bring something new. A few times they will follow each other, but more often he will bridge the gap in days with themes, like May 24th and 25th, which both involve the hypocrisy and abuse of power that can be seen in the church’s relationship with heresies.
Children of the Days is many things. It is a reminder, a chance for introspection, a forgotten history, a critique and a call to arms. Galeano uses the power of his words to seize hold of the reader and conjure up all manner of emotions. We celebrate as he celebrates Georgia O’Keefe’s “joy of having been born a woman,” (March 6th), and we roll our eyes as he reminds us that Hollywood gave Gone With the Wind – which looked fondly on the era of slavery – eight Oscars 25 years after its first blockbuster, Birth of a Nation, which was “an anthem of praise to the Ku Klux Klan (February 29th).
A few common themes begin to emerge as the days pass. He is damningly critical of imperialism, war, corporate greed, harm to the environment, sexism and racism. He speaks of a myriad of Latin American issues like corporate abuse and interference, abuse against native peoples, and unprecedented violence against revolutionaries and dissenters. At times he becomes who Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert would be were they poetic historians as he reveals forgotten – or purposefully hidden – hypocrisy in government, sport, entertainment or religion. His history is that which has been forgotten or pushed aside. It is the heroes who died championing justice amongst the oppressed, the small acts by famous people which often get overlooked because of their more popular deeds, and the victories – no matter how small – for equality, peace and hope.
Sometimes Galeano forces you to think about how you live and the way you think. At other times you just sit and revel in the brilliance of lives lived well. Often days will start as one thing and end scathingly, calling out the deepest of faults in cultures and systems around the world. A day that begins as a lament of the brutally racist 1904 Olympics’ “Anthropology Days” ends with a rebuke of doping culture in athletics. Other days highlight the mixed motives for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. All of the days in Galeano’s Calendar are poetry in the finest sense. His words weave surprise into the ordinary, and dig truth from the rubble of those who would hide it. Even translated to English they retain a rough rhythm as the line breaks push singular ideas from the page.
Aside from the chronological ordering of days, there is really no unifying purpose here, yet months of in-book time will pass before thoughts of putting it down will surface. Galeano knows the power of words, and he intends for each day to cause us to reflect. As they days go by we think more and more about who we are. Are we living enough? Is there any chance we will do something significant enough to be included in an anthology like this in the future? What can we do to combat the injustice that seems so rampant?
But this is all history, and only answers for us here are inspirations to walk in the examples of those who have lived before us, and lived well. Children of the Days is best read in pieces, perhaps day by day, as a reminder that we are inheritors of history both grand and foul. The way that we choose to live our lives each day will determine which side of our history we will fall on. Eduardo Galeano’s clear voice propels us to sincerity. If we were to listen, maybe we could stand against stale winds as well as he.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
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