All that kept going through my mind as I read the second half of this tale was “poor Mayta”. We’ve got this character that’s been idealistic since a child, looking for way to alleviate some of the cruelty that exists in the world, forever walking on egg shells. He goes on hunger strikes to protest poverty. He teaches himself French in order to give the proletarian access to avant-guard literature. He spends all of his time and energy and money on a minuscule Marxist political party that shares his ideals for a better Peru, a country he loves despite the fact that he is ostracized and forced to conceal his sexual preferences.
My heart broke as the plan for the revolution crumbles that morning in the mountains; however Mayta stays impossibly positive, taking every major setback in stride. Even though his actions seemed doomed from the very beginning he is exulted merely to be part of the action, to be soaked by the rain.
I suppose everyone’s spirit would break eventually in this situation, but I wish I hadn’t met the disillusioned Mayta at the end of the book. The one that finally is destroyed by the betrayal of his comrades and several stints in an over-crowded prison, the one married with four children, living in a slum, scooping ice-cream for the bourgeois of Mira Flores. What’s the message here? Don’t bother?
