"Les Dejo El Mar, a novel of hope"

Interview and Critique by M. Nélida Mendoza, M. A. in Literature, Arts and Culture
October 3, 2006, Seattle, WA

María de Lourdes Victoria Muguira, known by all her friends as María Victoria, lawyer by profession, is a Mexican writer, who has been writing for several years. María Victoria received the Faulkner Memorialship Award and the Jimmy Knudston Memorialship Award for her essays and children stories. She has been invited twice as a resident writer at Hedgebrook, Langley in 2004 and 2006. Her first novel "Les Dejo el Mar" ("I leave you the sea" Mexico/U.S.: Ediciones B, dist. by IPG. 2005) was a finalist of the Mariposa Award as the best second novel in Spanish and received third prize as best historical novel for the International Latin Book Awards.

"Les Dejo el Mar" is a novel full of sentimental strength, which makes us laugh and cry. The story reflects the struggles, the tragedies, changes of character, and the successes of several generations of the Victorias and Muguiras, two families from the XIX century, originally from Mexico and Spain. The novel paints masterfully all these feelings of pain and love of these families living in Mexico, whose ancestors suffer many losses, but who finally reunite to free themselves and find peace in the force of the sea.

It is the sea that has served and continues to be the link between people, and it is the mediator between life and death; it is the sea, which paradoxically is full of hope, as it is taught to us in the last chapter 'A light in the horizon': “Then it was the life who had pity of Licho and decided to return to him that which had been taken away from him out of the blue: his health, his job, his house and his children.” [p. 437]

"Les Dejo el Mar"is an inheritance left by the grandfather Antonio, a fisherman in love of the sea, to several generations, so that through the sea they reunite. And it is what María Victoria has done by writing this novel, using the offering of words of her grandfather Antonio; it is she who takes possession of this mythical inheritance and the one who carries out the promise, and he “is the raft who drives me to the title of the novel.” And this is why we mention this inheritance: “This is my last and only will: my body to the fish, my rafts to my fishermen; and to my grandchildren…I leave them the sea…” [p.118].

According to Maria Victoria, the survival of her father, after so much suffering, is symbolically reflected in the sea. She tells us that since she was a little girl, she was raised in Veracruz, and for her, the sea has different meanings, and it is the center where the novel is focused through the Victorias, a family dedicated to pharmacology: “The sea is something which will never die, which is always there, the one that takes and endures all things.” According to her, Veracruz represents those arms which welcomed all the immigrants from Spain and my ancestors, and the sea unites us to all the continents and to all nations.”

María Victoria decided to write this novel about her family in which she entwines historical events of Mexico and Spain, as a gift to her two children, both born in the United States of an American father, so that they can be proud of their Mexican and Spaniard ancestors: “For me was very important that they learn their roots. Both have kept a frequent contact with their cousins, uncles, and all the family in Mexico; each year they spent their summers there with the family.”

María Victoria spent about eight years to write the novel, including all the investigation and compilation of the information, and she says that it was an experience of interviews, in which there was a lot of pain and joy. One of the experiences she lived was the story which was always heard and repeated, and it was to bury “Chucho.” Her sister Noris invented a friend, as it is written in the chapter “The death of el Meon,” in which his soul is buried: “On the untilled land, next to papa Licho’s house, in front of the thumb, decorated with pebbles, my sisters and I prayed for Chucho, the one who peed, so that he would go to heaven…”[p. 220].

The author has captured in a fascinating way the trade of her grandfather, a pharmacist, and she tells us that it was her father who “dictated all the stories pertaining to the Victorias. My father gave me my grandfather Tali’s blue notebook, which contains all the prescriptions with all the deletions and the preparations tests.” Her father, an 83 year old man, is a doctor with “an impeccable and sharp mind” who in the novel is Licho. She and her father looked trough all the prescriptions and chose the ones which had the appropriate message, and she adds that “these prescriptions were written exactly as they appear in the notebook and lead several chapters in the novel.” He still keeps the original stethoscope of her grandfather, and she hopes that her father “would present this family heirloom, which has so much sentimental value, to my son Nicolas, who is the first grandson of all who is studying to become a doctor.”

The novel is not only about historical data or events, it is a fiction novel in which the author speaks also about fantastic events, such as the premonition which was disclosed by the beggar woman to the great-great grandmother Adelaida, as she was leaving the church, about the two women in the family by the name Pilar, who would die leaving her children as orphans: “-Two Pilares, how many orphan grandchildren, I feel sorry for you, my Lady, I hope that God will protect you…” [p.35].

María Victoria has really gotten in to the characters minds to describe them with all their faults and virtues and, she also tells us that “I took a lot of poetic licenses; the characters are a little bit distorted.” María Victoria comments that when writing this novel, she learned many lessons during the time she lived with her relatives remembering the past: “it helped me to get to know myself and to identify characteristics in both families.” She declares that she interviewed the eleven children of the grandmother Felicia, and even though there were some people who did not agreed with this process, the majority of her relatives supported her.

María Victoria speaks to us about the most significant moment of her childhood. It was a very sad moment with regards to her grandmother Felicia, with whom she lived after her mother’s death, but it was very important in her life, and which she described in the chapter “Claimed daughter, abandoned grandmother,” and she tells us that “the novel was a mourning and has been great to have been able to live this experience and to finally conclude this period of my life,” and she adds that it was a therapy, and that definitely this chapter was the climax of her life: “The fact that my father claimed me at that moment with such force, changed me and took away from me the responsibility of having to decide. I think that for a child there is nothing more important than to feel loved by his or her father.” This is what the author narrates in the novel: “The bus chauffeur, anyway, picks me up and puts me in the bus, but I kick him and now I howl, I scratch him and bite him… - I want to stay with my dad and my little brothers! … -Bring her down! That little girl is my daughter and she stays here!” [p.372].

María Victoria does not remember her mother, because she was very little, and this is why she read all the letters that her parents wrote daily to each other  in order to be able to convey the essence as to how her mother was portrayed, and she adds that “she is the phantom of the novel, because I did not want to place her as a character, nor to include the melodrama of this painful topic, rather, I wanted the reader to know her as a mirror, the same way the other people around her visualized her, felt her, cried and suffered her absence.”

The spiritual connection with her ancestors was through her father, uncles and aunts, who accompanied her in this memory trip. In this novel, María Victoria successfully captured the historical details and events expressing the philosophy of that period, what was happening with the politics in the country, the wars, the fashion, the food, and the thoughts of the church and even the illnesses which affected the Mexicans. The author is very satisfied with her work, and she tells us that she learned to deal with her pain by writing this great novel. When María Victoria talks about her father, you can feel her love for him, and somewhat sad she said that her father was so enthusiastic about the novel that he did not believe that 'A light in the horizon' was the last chapter. She did not want her father to cry anymore, but he said to her: “What a weird idea, my little girl! For me crying is a relief.”

María Victoria is working on two novels, one is historical and it is about a love relationship between a Zapoteca woman and an Irish man, and dates back to 1847; the other is a fiction story about her experiences as a legal expert in the courts. Besides, she has already finished a series of children stories and a collection of short stories which are going to be published soon.