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| Laurence Gough 1993 |
There is a literary term in Spanish that has no translation into English. The word is “costumbrismo”.
Some years ago the first Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2002-2003) George Bowering (a good friend of mine) told me that he drove down Broadway to Alma to see if a gas station mentioned in one of Laurence Gough’s novels (he wrote police procedurals set in Vancouver) existed. It did.
After consulting with Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate George McWhirter (2007-2009) he and I arrived at the fact (perhaps?) that the only novels written in Vancouver with Vancouver place names are Gough’s. Today I talked to my friend, former Vancouver Magazine associate editor and she mentioned the non-fiction books by Chuck Davis.
By now anybody who has gotten this far will have an idea of what costumbrismo is. Jorge Luís Borges wrote several stories and poems where he was precise of Buenos Aires street corners. My list of authors who would be deems as being considered to be part of costumbrismo:
Michael Dibdin’s novel the Dead Lagoon
Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti novels set in Venice
The above novels had Rosemary and me in a February 2019 looking for places mentioned in those novels. We found them!
I would now add Henry James On Italy who wrote: It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of the world is the easiest to visit without going there.
Henry James on Italy -1988 by Barrie & Jenkins Ltd – London
More to that list would be Julio Cortázar who wrote about living in Paris where he moved to from Buenos Aires in 1951 in his novel Rayuela (Hopscotch).
I could go on with more authors but I would like to add that Astor Piazzola’s version of the Argentine tango is really the music of one city (not the country) Buenos Aires.
To end here I have to stress that Laurence Gough is special to a slim Vancouver costumbrismo. Will anybody else soon write about our city?
