Bernardo and the Virgin by Silvio Sirias (thoughts)

As in Under the Ceiba Tree, Sirias created this novel on the inspiration of a true-life event; in this case the appearance of the Virgin (Mary of course) to a lower class Nicaraguan country dweller. The structure is unusual; it goes back and forth in time, and changes narrators so that we see Bernardo’s life, and subsequent fame, from a variety of angles (a note on the religion in the book: Sirias handles it in such a way that as a non-Catholic I never felt preached to but I imagine my Catholic grandmother would be happy as well). This is more a twist on the traditional novel than as segmented as, say, an inter-connected short story collection. Sirias’ writing is so good that I quickly settled in and couldn’t wait to see who would take over the narration next. He succeeds in making the different narrators sound different, which is no small feat and one that I very much applaud. The story itself is handled well and reveals a lot about Nicaraguan culture and politics (the Sandistas, being Communists, are opposed to the Catholic church and at one point try to make Bernardo recant; there’s also a lot of class-based discussions) without ever feeling lecture-y. I cared about Bernardo and the other characters and found myself reacting to them on quite a visceral level. In fact, for almost the entire novel, I thought my post would be an unconditional gushfest; unfortunately, the last narrator is a Nicaraguan writer thinking about novelising the events, and I found this a bit too meta for me. This section seemed to drag a bit too; if I had been the editor, I’d have suggested cutting it completely. Still, this is an entrancing story that provides a marvelous window into Nicaraguan life, and one I’d highly recommend! I only hope Sirias has another novel in the works. :)

Suggested Companion Reads (linked to my thoughts)

• The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie (a pro-Sandinista travelogue; while not an unbiased account of Nicaraguan history and politics, it is a vivid description of the people and places Rushdie encountered)
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (a similarly-structure novel, with multiple narrators discussing the same event)
• Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen (yet another similarly-structure novel, this one also focussed on a questionable religious experience)