by Gustavo Vasconez Hurtado
translated by Helga Wrinkler
Quito: Ediciones Libri Mundi,
310 pp., 45,000 (Sucres)
The setting: the Galapagos Islands, in the early 1930s. The characters: mostly German exiles who have fled their homeland for a variety of reasons. The plot: political intrigue, i.e., spying-for the motherland as well as for the Americans and the Japanese. Believability quotient: about 50 percent. Absurdity ratio: the other 50 percent.
This novel has been around for quite a few years. Originally published in Madrid in 1973, under the Spanish title, Galápagos, the English title makes little sense--though one cat is mentioned in the 300-page narrative. The English translation is one of the worst I have ever encountered, topped off with hundreds of typographical errors that become a major challenge to the reader.
Then why read Isle of the Black Cats?
Here's the rub. Broadly speaking, the issues of this strange saga-based on real characters and events in Galapagos' history-are survival and ecology, in a highly exotic environment. As the wooden language describes the focus in one paragraph, "A baroness, born in Paris, capital of France, has established an empire on one of the Galapagos Islands, and she has given herself the title of Empress of this island. There are rumors about this fantastic woman across the world, as well as about her companions who are supposedly from Berlin. The Ecuadorian government is about to risk starting an argument with the Empress."
To the background of "Dark seals stretched out on the rocks," and gigantic "turtles that had survived the carnage of centuries," assorted iguanas and blue-footed boobies, the eight émigrés act out an impossible gavotte that ends in wholesale warfare and carnage-their own World War II. "On this island-men came, went mad, or ended up dying. It was an island that rejected human beings. A damned island that refused to be covered by man, settlement, or any life not inherent to its own nature."
Heavy-handed, to be sure, but great fun in the reading.
Charles Larson is the magazine's book reviews and fiction editor.
