The Passing of a Generation

Each generation wants new symbols, new people, new names. They want to divorce themselves from their predecessors.
Jim Morrison

Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.
Sallust

I believe that one of the most difficult writing tasks is to attempt to pay tribute to a recently deceased relative, especially one who meant a lot to the writer. Treading on this emotional ground makes it easy to fall into bathos, or overdone sentimentality.

Still, in spite of the danger, I shall try to honor a favorite uncle.

Last month, on June 19, to be exact, in Granada, Nicaragua, Guillermo Sirias, the last surviving member of my father’s immediate clan—four male siblings—died at the age of eighty-three. With my uncle Guillermo’s passing, the generation of Siriases that preceded my own has vanished from this earth.

Of all of my father’s brothers, my uncle Guillermo was the one I knew best—partly because he survived the longest, but also because he was the one with whom I spent the most time. What’s more, the bulk of our relationship took place when I was already an adult, when we were able to converse and deal with each other as equals. And this allowed me to understand—more so than with my other uncles, and perhaps even my father—the man he was.

My uncle Guillermo was a restless spirit. During my Los Angeles childhood, he wasn’t really part of my family’s orbit. At the time he was living in Guadalajara, México, where he attended the university. Related to this, there is a story, I believe, which best illustrates the peculiar way in which my uncle Guillermo lived his life. As a young man, then residing in Panamá—in the 1940’s—my uncle worked as a barber, cutting hair for American servicemen stationed in Fort Clayton. When he migrated—with my grandmother and the rest of his brothers—to the United States, he planned to continue earning a living as a barber. The problem was that, in the States, my uncle Guillermo needed a barber’s license. After a couple of months in barber school, while studying charts depicting the structure of the human cranium, my uncle quit school, saying, “I might as well become a physician if I’m going to have to learn all this.”

And that’s when he packed his bags and left Los Angeles for México, to study medicine at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara.

My earliest memories of my uncle Guillermo are of the medical student whose occasional appearances in Los Angeles were cause for joyous get-togethers with plenty of food, drink, and laughter. And, always, to celebrate my uncle Guillermo’s return, both he and my uncle Eduardo, who did become a licensed barber and operated his own barbershop, would bring out their clippers to give every man and boy in the extended family a haircut.

After completing his medical studies, my uncle Guillermo, who didn’t want to bother obtaining a license to practice medicine in the States, opened a clinic in Tijuana—a decision fueled by his desire to remain somewhat close to the family. But even then he was only a sporadic presence in my life; and at least ten years went by at one stretch, while I spent my adolescence in Nicaragua, where I didn’t see him or hear a word from him.

It wasn’t until 1975, at my grandmother’s funeral, that our relationship truly began. A few years later, by sheer coincidence, we both ended up living in Nicaragua, under the same roof, for a year. It was then that we became close.

But our paths again diverged for nearly two decades—during this time my uncle worked for several years with AIDS patients in Washington, D.C., having at last obtained his license to practice medicine in the States, before eventually returning to Nicaragua—until I moved back in 1998. My wife and I visited him often at his home in Granada, where he lived alone.

Shortly after resuming our relationship, on New Year’s Eve—as 1998 turned into 1999—my uncle Guillermo, my wife, and I were sitting on a bench in Granada’s Parque Central when the bells of the Cathedral began to toll, calling the faithful to midnight mass, an event my uncle insisted we attend. Unexpectedly, as fireworks and other festive sounds engulfed us, my uncle Guillermo—under the influence of alcohol, the bane of the Siriases, with the exception of my father—broke into sobs.

“It’s so terrible being alone. I’ve made some bad choices in my life, and now I’m facing them all.”

And, in all honesty, my uncle Guillermo made many questionable choices that, when I was a boy, the older family members spoke about in whispers. For instance, he married three times. (And these are the marriages that we knew about. My uncle led such a secretive life, disappearing for years at a time, that the things he may have done during these absences are anyone’s guess.) But he did leave behind two children that he loved very much: a daughter, Bruni, from his second marriage, and a son, Salomón, from his third.

Salomón is now a member of the U.S. Air Force. He kept in touch with his father to the end—which is something that I know gave my uncle Guillermo great joy. But as hard as my uncle tried to reconcile with Bruni, his daughter, she could never bring herself to forgive his existential restlessness, and my uncle’s failure to mend the gap was—during the final years of his life, when he sensed the end approaching—his greatest source of anguish.

With my uncle Guillermo’s passing, my generation of Siriases now takes a big step forward to face our own mortality. The buffer he represented between life and death has been removed, and the question of what ultimately becomes of us haunts me now more than ever.

What’s more, I feel as if I my blood ties to Granada, Nicaragua, my second hometown—my first being LA—have been severed. My uncle’s home was the last refuge in this city where I could show up unannounced, suitcase in hand, and know that I’d be well received. Moreover, with my uncle’s death, I’ve lost the consolation of knowing that another voice, not unlike my father’s, still remained on this earth.

I agree with Jim Morrison’s statement that each new generation seeks to establish a separate identity from the previous one. But I’m now at an age where I no longer wish to rebel. On the contrary, today I thrive on continuity.

But as much as I would love to have my father and my uncles back among the living, I find great comfort in knowing that they’ve gone on to a well-deserved rest.

Vacation at Decamerón: Or, Is it Really Panamá?

Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.
John Kenneth Galbraith


Decamerón—and other such resorts in Panamá—means all the water, sun, sand, food, and drink a person can handle.

The success of the concept of the “All-Inclusive Beach Resort” is unquestionable. From December through March cruise ships and planeloads of Europeans and North Americans flee toward the tropics of Latin America to escape the bitter chill of winter.

And today, as I write this, in early July, Panamá is in the midst of its rainy-season—a slow period for the tourist trade. That’s when those of us who live in this marvelous country can invade Decamerón at bargain prices. My wife and I love to take advantage of this, and we make it a point to come to this resort once a year.

“It’s a no-brainer of a vacation,” my wife likes to say.

And I believe that’s a perfect description. A person doesn’t need to think much at an all-inclusive resort. All one has to worry about is what to drink, when to eat, and when to go to sleep.

Regarding what else to do during the day, my wife and I have that down to a science. At the easternmost of Decamerón’s six pools—the quietest pool, without loudspeakers blaring reggaetón for patrons in search of greater thrills—there’s a corner spot where we place two lounge chairs under a large umbrella, lay back, and relax.

This spot has become our sanctuary.

But the serene, secluded setting comes with a price: we have to get up early, around seven—when the other guests are still recovering from the previous night’s festivities—to stake our claim. We leave behind towels, wraps, and books to mark possession, and then we go to breakfast. Afterward, we spend the entire day at poolside: reading, perhaps doing a little writing, but mostly resting in the shade. We get up from our lounge chairs only to get drinks, take a dip in the pool when the heat starts to become oppressive, and to have lunch. At 4:30 or so, we go to our room to shower and change. Then we have dinner, a couple more drinks, and go to bed.

That, for us, is Decamerón at its best—a no-brainer of a vacation.

In all honesty, we’ve walked the beach only once. It’s a forgettable beach, with nothing special to remember it by. But that’s fine with us. We’re happy just to sit by the pool.

The thing about Decamerón—or, for that matter, any of the All-Inclusive Beach Resorts that have sprung up throughout Latin America’s Caribbean rim—is that you can be on a tropical beach anywhere. There is nothing uniquely Panamanian about the place.

People who choose to visit Panamá and spend most of their time at Decamerón leave without having the slightest notion of the country, of its true landscape, of its history, or of its culture.

Personally, I find it fascinating that the enviable real estate Decamerón now occupies once belonged to General Manuel Antonio Noriega. One of his favorite beach houses was located here, at what is known, geographically, as Farallón. And it was at his house, which no longer exists, where one of the few amusing episodes of the American invasion took place. Back in December of 1989, shortly after having taking possession of the nearby airfield at Río Hato, spokespersons for the U.S. Armed Forces announced that they had found an enormous cache of cocaine inside of Noriega’s residence. The news made Operation Just Cause seem righteous. But a couple of days later the military representatives retracted, saying that upon closer inspection the alleged drug stash had turned out to be sacks of flour the General kept on hand for the making of his beloved tamales.

But looking around Decamerón today, other than the nearby abandoned airstrip of the now-defunct Panamanian Air Force, there is no evidence that General Noriega once vacationed here, and much less any markers of the prominent international incident.

(Incidentally, the corporations that run All-Inclusive Resorts seem to have specialized on acquiring the beach properties that formerly belonged to dictators. Montelimar, Nicaragua’s best-known All-Inclusive Beach Resort, was a favorite play-spot of the Somoza family. In fact, Montelimar was where General Anastasio Somoza Debayle spent his last night in Nicaragua before flying into exile forever. But again, looking at Montelimar now, one could never imagine its colorful history).

And that’s because all-Inclusive Resorts are generic.

At a family reunion in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I met the Magees, my wife’s extended family, several of them mentioned, and with great pride, that they had been to the Dominican Republic.

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “What did you think of Santo Domingo? Did you visit San Pedro de Mácoris?”

“Oh, no,” they answered. “We never left the resort, but the Dominican Republic is great!”

And the truth is that they can say that they’ve been there.

But, not really.

And that’s the curious thing , even though we have several All-Inclusive Beach Resorts in Panamá, they could be anywhere—like McDonald’s or Burger King.

Tales of Two Inquisitors: On Reading Small Gods and The Name of the Rose

The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without a smile, truth that is never seized by doubt.
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose


The role that faith plays in peoples’ lives has always intrigued me. The question of belief in a higher power, and how this can define a person, are matters that I explore in Bernardo and the Virgin as well as in The Saint of Santa Fe, the novel I’m currently revising.

Last year, I used Terry Pratchett’s novel, Small Gods, in a couple of my English classes. Coincidentally, around the same time I watched, once again, one of my favorite movies: In the Name of the Rose, based on Umberto Eco’s novel. And on this occasion I found the similarities between both stories striking. As a result, I reread Eco’s work and discovered that both authors explore the use of fear as a tool for keeping the faithful in line. In addition, Eco and Pratchett posit that the greatest foe of the religious authorities that employ fear to control their flocks is humankind’s thirst for knowledge. Following this thread, I offer these thoughts:

Brother William of Baskerville, of Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose, is the embodiment of reason. The narrative pits him against two grim keepers of the faith: Brother Jorge de Burgos and the inquisitor Bernard Gui, both of whom adhere unflinchingly to church dogma and are prepared to kill in its defense.

In this manner, the battle-lines between faith versus reason have been drawn. (And this site of confrontation is of great concern to today’s Catholic Church ). Bernard Gui, intoxicated with the absolute authority the Church has bestowed upon him as inquisitor, gleefully spreads terror as he hunts down heresy with singular ferocity throughout medieval Europe. Nothing else is of consequence to him. An undiluted sadist, Bernard Gui is cloaked behind the investitures of the Inquisition; and the need to inflict pain and suffering so consumes him that he has little interest in the intellectual battle Brother William and Brother Jorge are waging. Because of this, long before the novel’s conclusion, Bernard Gui departs from the unnamed abbey—his blood lust satisfied—leaving his brethren to deal with the death and destruction he has left in his wake.

On another front, Brother William and Brother Jorge are locked in a deadly struggle between faith and reason. What’s at the heart of their clash is the last remaining manuscript of the second tome of Aristotle’s Poetics, a critical masterpiece that was long believed lost. Brother Jorge wishes to keep the existence of this work a secret. He sees the Greek philosopher’s exaltation of comedy and laughter as a powerful threat to the utterly humorless faith he practices. On the other hand, Brother William wishes to bring this unpublished composition to light: Aristotle is his hero and, what’s more, in his eyes, the pinnacle of reason.

Viewing the same predicament from another angle, in Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods, Brutha, a young novice, is the incarnation of pure, childlike faith. He has assimilated everything ever taught to him about his god and his religion. More importantly, he never has questioned anything. But this changes when Om—his god now made flesh in the form of a decrepit tortoise—takes Brutha on, unwillingly, as his prophet. Brutha starts to see the world differently, questioning everything he had once believed in. This sets up his confrontation with Vorbis—the chief Inquisitor as well as the most powerful and feared man in the Omnian church. Vorbis wants nothing more than to be acknowledged, worshipped, feared and, above all, obeyed as the next great Prophet—and he will go to any length, including sending thousands of his fellow Omnians to their deaths, to achieve this purpose.

Interestingly, the turning points in both novels take place in libraries. In The Name of the Rose, as the manuscript depository of the abbey is engulfed in flames, Brother William of Baskerville risks his life in an attempt to save centuries worth of knowledge. Sadly, in the end, he is unable to rescue a single text. Reason has been reduced to ashes before Brother William’s eyes, a sight most painful to him, and in this manner, although he wins the battle against Brother Jorge—by proving that the monk was behind several brutal murders—he loses the war against dogma and obscurantism. (That is, until the day, many centuries later, when Umberto Eco discovers Adso de Melk’s lost manuscript).

In Small Gods, as the library of Ephebe, the city of philosophers, is set ablaze by Vorbis’s orders, Brutha employs his prodigious memory to save the content of the books before the flames can consume them. Brutha’s mind devours symbols that he does not understand, for he is illiterate, but in the process, faith merges with reason. Ultimately, because of this prodigious act, Brutha is able to defeat Vorbis and the dark forces of dogma.

The presence of God and the inherent goodness of knowledge are, without question, what differentiates these novels. When God stands alongside reason, as God does in Small Gods, faith also wins. But as seen in The Name of the Rose, when faith acts alone there’s a danger that it may become an agent of fear—for through fear the faithful can be easily controlled—and it is then that the world religious beliefs is intended to serve can end up as a pile of ashes.

The Spark of a Footnote: On Reading Saving the World

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world.
Allen Ginsburg

Dominican history, family, and personal experiences are the rich grounds that Julia Alvarez expertly mines to unearth fictional gems.

In How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and ¡Yo!, her imagination taps the well of family and personal memories to delight readers with the frequently funny and often heartrending stories of the making of a writer. In the Time of the Butterflies and In the Name of Salomé bring back to life the tales of the Mirabal sisters and the Henríquez Ureña clan—well-known personages in Alvarez’s homeland, the Dominican Republic. In retrieving these stories from the Spanish-speaking world, and then retelling them in English, Alvarez makes the lives of these noted Dominicans accessible to American readers.

In her fifth novel for adults, Saving the World, Julia Alvarez finds the spark of inspiration in a footnote she came across while conducting research in preparation for writing In the Name of Salomé: the story of a Spanish expedition charged by King Carlos IV with the mission of eradicating smallpox from the face of the earth.

In the novel, as counterpoint to the tale based on the true story of Isabel Sendales y Gómez—the governess who watched over the twenty-two orphan boys selected as live carriers for the vaccine—Alvarez offers a fictional heroine: Alma Huebner, a Latina writer who is immersed in telling Isabel’s story, with the usual fears and trepidations a writer encounters at the onset of producing a novel.

In Saving the World, Alvarez, who’s has proven herself to be an expert at weaving together stories of disparate times and people, links events of the early nineteenth century with those of the early twenty-first—both centered on devastating diseases: smallpox and AIDS—to provide her readers with a glimpse of the sacrifices people are capable of making when they give over their lives to a noble cause.

Isabel’s story is intriguing. As an adolescent, smallpox disfigured her face. As a result, in spite of her passionate nature, she believes that she’s condemned to live a lonely life, thinking that no man will ever be interested in her. Because of this, when the opportunity to participate in the vaccination campaign arrives at the doorstep of the orphanage she directs, even though Isabel knows that the expedition will likely take her from her homeland forever, she sees it as an opportunity providence has provided to strike back at the disease that took her family and altered her life forever. The details of her quest to help save the world—particularly her relationship with Dr. Francisco Xavier Balmis, the charming yet megalomaniac director of the vaccination expedition—are alluring, holding the reader’s interest throughout.

On the other hand—and it pains me to say this for not only am I a devoted student of Alvarez’s work, but also a BIG fan—the story of Alma Huebner pales in comparison (at least at first reading; however, I’ve often changed my mind after rereading a novel, so check back with me later). Alma’s plights—writer’s block, depression, a beloved elderly neighbor dying of cancer, a husband caught in a life-threatening situation—although in outline form have the markings of a page-turner, when fleshed out, the details fall flat, perhaps because there’s too much crammed into the short span of this character’s life. What’s more—and it’s surprising considering Alvarez’s penchant for portraying life in Latin America truthfully—the story of what happens to Alma’s husband while he is working in the Dominican Republic strains one’s willingness to believe the narrative (at least in the eyes of someone, like me, who lives in Latin America), and I fear, in fact, that the account of what happened to him may serve to reinforce negative stereotypes many Americans have of “Banana Republics.” All in all, Saving the World doesn’t tug at my reader’s heart in the same life-changing way that Alvarez’s previous works have done.

For once, the stories Julia Alvarez chooses to tell in contraposition to one another don’t match up well; and her fifth novel, although well-intentioned in its desire to help readers reclaim their awareness of the world, may end up as a footnote in what has so far been, in the career of this gifted Dominican-American author, a remarkable string of literary gems.