Tue 20 Aug 2019
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II – Leonardo’s Bicycle
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II – Leonardo’s Bicycle. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1995; paperback, 1996. Translation of La Bicicleta de Leonardo, Mexico City, 1993.
The literary equivalent of Pulp Fiction or the Mystery equivalent of Thomas Pynchon’s V. Take your pick.
The non-linear plot bounces back, forth, up and down the various and variegated stories of:
— Leonardo da Vinci’s possible invention of the Bicycle four hundred years before its manufacture.
— A blocked writer in modern-day Mexico City who watches Women’s Basketball on Cable TV and makes up erotic fantasies about the players, then is galvanized into action (maybe) when one of them is kidnapped.
— An International Criminal Mastermind in 1920s Spain, dogged by a dying journalist
— A few anarchists
— And an American Embassy bureaucrat at the fall of Saigon who manages to steal a car full of cocaine.
All of which sounds quite Keeler-esque, but Taibo puts it across with sly humor and a gift for colorful description that makes Leonardo’s Bicycle much fun to read. I found myself flipping back and forth, keeping track of the wildly gyrating loose ends, and propelled by the narrative tension into reading this long after I should have been asleep.
I shall definitely be seeking more from this guy.
August 21st, 2019 at 1:16 am
One of my favorite writers and the major reason I regret I can’t read Spanish. Founder of the neopolitical genre.
Born in Spain in 1949 his family fled Franco to settle in Mexico City. A journalist and historian he has written such popular non-fiction as 68 (Mexico City riots) and GUEVARA, ALSO KNOWN AS CHE.
PIT , as he is also know, has written many successful fiction books. His series detective is PI Hector Belascoaran Shayne.
My favorites of his include FOUR HANDS and THE UNCOMFORTABLE DEAD (co-written with Subcomandante Marcos).
Many of his books are available in what reportedly is excellent English translations. I highly recommend him.
August 21st, 2019 at 1:50 am
A lot of mystery fiction I have read in Spanish is difficult to classify in English because the writers frequently use the genre differently. They use the form and not the formula. Yes, they are writing mystery stories but the emphasis sounds syncopated to a reader not accostumed to it.
Some years ago I read a few novels by Paco Tabio ( as well as non-fiction by him ) and thought it would be difficult to classify them with terms that I could apply to genre fiction in English. Additionally the writing itself had an organic structure, and I found myself thinking how much it would have to be twisted to confirm to the structure of English prose. Also it dwelt in the grey, instinctual sphere of Mexican life and carrying this flavor from one language to another, from the interior culture to an exterior culture would be hard to do.
If we are to compare Taibo to mystery fiction in English, we might compare him to Dashiell Hammett. If I remember correctly, Taibo himself has written about Hammett. Like Taibo, Hammett took the form and changed the emphasis so he was writing about something other than the body in the dining room.
August 21st, 2019 at 10:30 am
From what I have read from critics who have read PIT in original Spanish and translated English Daryl you have described him perfectly.
He has been on the Best of the Year lists in the New York TIMES, the L.A. TIMES and others. He has won many awards including the Dashiell Hammett three times (the book reviewed here LEONARDO’S BICYCLE won the Dashiell Hammett in 1994).
He does remind me of Dashiell Hammett in his style, wit and view of the world
August 21st, 2019 at 7:02 pm
Simply one of the best, capable of feats of literary magic Houdini would admire. His series about Mexico City private eye Hector Shayne is worth reading too, taking the genre in surprisingly satisfying directions.
With Perez-Reverte, Zafon, and Felix Palma the Spaniards are using genre tropes to play with the very nature of the story being told.
August 21st, 2019 at 11:13 pm
A writer from what I have read recently who I would compare to Paco Ignacio Taibo II is Francisco González Ledesma, a Basque from Barcelona. After years of writing pulp magazine-style Westerns and following the death of General Franco, González Ledesma was able in the 1980s to have published novels about a detective protagonist bringing to light situations that the repressive forces in society would rather be kept in darkness. The central characters in the works of both Taibo and González Ledesma not seek to find the solution to the mystery but to do so while countering these forces.
In style, Taibo and González Ledesma are similar. They evoke rather than state. The reader has the sense of immediacy as if he is living the moment with the character.
Taibo and González Ledesma have won Premios Hammett. Two distinct awards are named for Dashiell Hammett from two similar groups. Established in 1991 by the International Association of Crime Writers, North American Branch, the Hammett Prize is awarded for works in English that are published in the United States or Canada. Since 1988, the Premio Hammett has been awarded for works in Spanish by the Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policiacos, a group Taibo helped to start.
August 26th, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Taibo II also contributed an excellent short story entitled “The Deepest South” to the 1988 RAYMOND CHANDLER’S PHILLIP MARLOWE: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, published by Knopf.