Fifth son of a marine non-commissioned officer, Victor Gutierrez was born in 1964 in Quilpué in Chile. His father, Emilio Gutierrez worked some years as marine attaché in Lima, Peru. His mother’s name is Aida Prieto. In 1973, when Victor was 9 years old, he and his family moved back to Chile.
With the money Emilio Gutierrez had earned in Peru the family who lived modestly in Quilpué, bought a house in a nice neighborhood in Santiago called Beauchef. The young and wild Victor spent his life playing games in the streets of Beauchef but one day he met the writer Hernan Diaz Arrieta known as Alone who lived not far from Gutierrez’s home.
Apparently, the elderly Arrieta who rarely went out and disliked meeting people, was disturbed by the boys noise while they played football; he went to them and told them that boys should not play in a residential neighborhood; he added that they should study and read books. Then he asked Victor if he had ever read a book. VG answered only the books that the school forced them to read. Suddenly, Alone went home and came back with one of his books and asked the boy to read it and to write a summary about it. VG did what he was told to.
In 1996, Gutierrez talked about this meeting in a Chilean TV program called “Reportajes”:
“When he [Alone] read it [the summary] he was almost horrified.
He told me: this is longer than my story! And you have added new characters in the book! Probably, you’re going to be a writer or a journalist.”
Surely, VG would like to associate his name with a writer like Alone. But it might have been more than that. Therefore it could be informative to learn about Alone too. Here it is some information:
Arrieta was born in Santiago in 1891 and died in the same city in 1984. He was tall, good looking and penniless aristocrat who lived most of his life alone! He worked 25 years at the Ministry of Justice in the Civil Registry office.
In the surface, he was a simple employee who had an ordinary life but in privacy he studied literature and became an autodidact literary critic and writer. He published his writings in several newspapers and magazines mostly in “El Mercurio”. Knowing French, he was under the influence of the French literature and French writers and critics like Rousseau, Proust and Saint-Beuve. Alone was honored in 1959 with the National Prize in Literature. He was a fervent catholic who defended the military coup that overthrow Salvador Allende and his government in 1973.
Arrieta published several books about literature, reading, writing and grammare; but he had also written a novel and private diaries in which he had expressed his deepest thoughts.
La Sombra Inquieta published in 1915 , Diario Íntimo 16.VII.16”published in 1918 in a litterer magazine. Apparently, none of these writings have been translated to English.
At 18 years old, Alone had a long and platonic relationship with a writer, Mariana Cox-Stüven known as Shade. She was married and almost 20 years older than Alone. Eventually, they became good friends. After a while Shade moved to Europe. They wrote to each other until she passed in 1914. A year after, Arrieta published his only novel La Sombra Inquieta in honor to Shade.
Alone was never married. It has been said that he had causal lovers.
He did not like children.
After analyzing Alone’s fictional work, some critics and journalists think that there were two Alone. One, the powerful critic with a clean style who could destroy a writer if he judged him not worthy; and the second one who juggled with gay / bisexual / “young boy” thoughts. It seems that being an fervent catholic, he did not dare to accept his own feelings.
In his analysis on Arrieta’s diaries, Gonzalo Vial wonder what Alone meant by writing about himself in underwear. What was his purpose by doing this? Why this need to narrate about these private moments and publish them ?
Here are some quotes from Arrieta’s private writings (I hope the translation is OK even with my low knowledge in this language):
“Encuentro un placer vergonzoso en el medio popular y canallesco. Debe ser algo bajo en mí, en el fondo de mí”….
I find a shameful pleasure in popular and scum media. It must be something in me, deep inside me.
“Hay media luna y una estrella como un gran diamante. Muchos pensamientos malos, obscenos”…
It is half moon and a star big as a diamond. Many evil and obscene thoughts … .
“Estuve después en el (Cementerio General) y leí San Francisco de Asís en un banco de piedra, frente a un muchacho que pintaba de verde las rejas de una sepultura”.
I was then in the (cemetery) and read San Francisco de Asis while sitting in a stone bench, in front of a boy who painted green bars on a grave.
Vial adds these parts too:
“Arriba tomé dos botellas de Bilz, celestiales, y en el bosquecillo de pino me saqué los pantalones y me tendí a leer sobre la yerba verde y fresca”. Esto sucedía en 1917. Curiosidad histórica ¿usaba Alone, en esos años, calzoncillos largos? ¿O eran los cortos, deportivos? ¿O los actuales slips, como trajes de baño? Seguramente largos. Me informaron que tenía las piernas muy flacas. Estuvo leyendo libros píos en este atuendo hasta las 4 de la tarde en que se vistió y comenzó a bajar entre los espinos en flor donde vio “un soldado de gris primavera que corría a la orilla del agua, joven, adolescente”. Por suerte el soldado no lo vio en calzoncillos leyendo la “Vida de Jesús”, de Renán. Para la época, qué escándalo habría sido. Alone, tímido como una flor silvestre, cometía estas extravagancias, perpetraba estos gestos liberadores. ”
“I drank two bottles of Bilz, heavenly, and the pine grove. I took off my pants and lay down to read on the fresh and green grass. ” This was in 1917. What an odd story? Did Alone used in those years long underwear? Or were they shorts, sports? Or were they slips and bathing suits? Probably long ones. Then he informs us that his legs were too skinny. He was reading intensively his books until 4 in the afternoon when he got dressed and walked when among the flowers he saw ‘a soldier in young grey colour who ran along the water, he was young, an adolescent. ” Fortunately the soldier did not see him in his underwear reading the Life of Jesus’ by Renan. At the time, what a scandal would that have been. Alone, shy as a wild flower, committing these extravagances, perpetrating these acts of liberation.”
And:
“Frecuentaba las piscinas. “El militar tonto, el muchacho de 16 años, colorado, de pestañas negrísimas, ojos grandes, nariz redonda, dientes muy blancos y el de 10, perfecto, tostado, rosado, ojos azules, nariz respingada, labios vueltos, piel dorada, vivo, audaz, ágil”. ¡Basta, basta, Hernán, no sigas! “Me sentí viejo, gordo, ancho, pesado, feo”.”
“When frequenting the pools: “The silly military boy, 16 years old, colorful, very black lashes, big eyes, nose round, white teeth and … perfect, tan, pink, blue eyes, nose …, lips … golden skin, alive, bold, agile. Enough, enough Hernan, stop! I felt old, fat, large, heavy and ugly.”
“¡Al parque, solo! Magnífica luz silenciosa, tibia, aterciopelada. Atravesé la elipse, un lago de leche y niebla transparente, procurando unirme con la naturaleza, llegar hasta Dios, Pero tirado hacia abajo por malos pensamientos”.
“At the park, alone! Magnificent silent light, warm and velvety. Crossed the ellipse, a lake of milk and transparent fog, trying to join with nature, to reach God, but pulled down by bad thoughts.”
In a recent study on Alone’s work , Gilda Luongo said since Alone had an isolated life, it seems that reading and writing were like sexual acts for him. She has an Freudian approaches to Alone’s work. Here is a quote from Arrieta:
“Hace tiempo buscaba un libro para leer, un libro largo, largo de esos que duran, por cuyas páginas entra uno como por una avenida, sin verle el término […] Existen libros perturbadores, incitantes, como los hay serenos, de palabra lenta y clara, adaptables al cuerpo, que nos abrigan y sonríen”.
“Some time ago I was looking for a book to read, a long, long book that last and whose pages open a new world, without indication how it ends [...]” “There are books that are disturbing, inviting and books that are serene, peaceful and clear; Words can be adapted to the body that we have and the joy”.
Even if that day in the street, Arrieta gave one of his grammar books to Gutierrez, sooner or later, the curious boy would read Alone’s other books. Probably, this reading helped VG to understand more about himself.
VG chose very soon the life that he wanted to live. He knew that he could not realize his plans in Chile because LGBT people had no legal rights in this country. He did not wish to end up like Alone. Arrieta’s polite, clean and conservatives manners were nothing for him. So he had to find another home where he could be wild, famous and rich at any price.
At the age of 16, VG went to the Institute of Communication Arts in Santiago. But his provocative and nasty attitudes towards his classmates forced the school’s responsible to expel him. After his expulsion, he find a temporarily job at “Teleonce al despertar” where he learnt to work with cameras.
Then in 1984, he went to Los Angeles to work as photographer for the newspaper “La Tercera” during the Olympics games. After the games, he went back to Santiago to collect his salary and to pack for moving to LA. He had found his home: California, here I come!
It has been said that before his move to California, VG had done some “politics and human rights writings” (for example here
http://www.taz.de/?id=archivseite&dig=2005/04/05/a0170).
Probably these writings were about LGBT rights in Chile. Soon he gave up because he realized that the name and the fame he was after could not be reached in his home country. In the same article published in taz.de, he described himself a kind of “refugee” in US!
Once again in LA, he went to a short and intensive course at a school and become “journalist”.
He found a job at a Hispanic tabloid in LA. In 1987, he did an interview with a future teller that predicted on October 12, at 13.30 another earthquake would happen in Los Angeles. On October first, a powerful earthquake had already shaken the city. The “news” appeared on the front page. On October 12, many Latin Americans left the city to save their lives but no earthquake happened. People who believed him, were angry but the tabloid hired Gutierrez because 150 000 copies of the paper were sold.
Sources:
1- http://diario.elmercurio.com/detalle/index.asp?id={97781fbc-0b34-4aaf-aa9d-fba6d6edfd0d}
2-
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Díaz_Arrieta
3-
http://www.profesorenlinea.cl/biografias/DiazArrieta.htm
4- http://diario.elmercurio.com/detalle/index.asp?id={341ce7fc-cfea-433a-b520-7b21251d3a5c}
5-
http://www.memoriachilena.cl/temas/index.asp?id_ut=hernandiazarrieta(alone)(1891-1984)
6-
http://www.discursospracticas.ucv.cl/html/articulo_luongo.html
