Neale-Silva’s study of José Eustasio Rivera is the result of patience, perseverance, and fascination with the personality of the Colombian poet, novelist, diplomat, lawyer, adventurer, businessman, explorer, and politician. The second volume of a proposed trilogy— the first was entitled Estudios sobre José Eustasio Rivera: El arte poético (Tierra de promisión) (New York, 1951)—it is written for both the specialist and the general reader. The latter may find it too long and too replete with details to hold his interest. The minutiae, however, add to rather than detract from the value of the biography, and aside from any other consideration, assure it a permanent place among scholarly works on Rivera. Another impressive feature of the work is the author’s skillful sifting of his materials in order to discover the personality traits of Rivera. This was no easy task.
The difficulties Neale-Silva experienced in seeking to identify the “common denominator” in Rivera’s personality are primarily, if not exclusively, attributable to the nature of the available sources. Over 1000 newspaper stories, reviews, magazine articles, and critical studies, we are told, were consulted. Access also was obtained to some letters, unpublished verses of Rivera, and official and unofficial documents. Numerous segments of the biography, however, are based on collated or uncollated information obtained through correspondence or interviews with people who had known Rivera, and with members of the Rivera family. Thus Neale-Silva was able to reconstruct the social, political, and cultural milieu in which Rivera lived, but without the archives of Rivera, he could not learn the motives for Rivera’s seemingly inconsistent behavior, or penetrate the intimate life of Rivera. Neale-Silva is well aware of the handicaps under which he worked, and does not pretend to have written a complete or definitive study of Rivera.
With the information he obtained, Neale-Silva attempts to describe the personality of Rivera, to present Rivera as he really was. The emphasis here is on psychoanalysis. There is no effort to classify Rivera psychologically, or, it sometimes seems, to distinguish between cultural traits that permeate personality and Rivera’s personality per se. According to Neale-Silva, Rivera evidently showed early in life the signs of the dual personality that was to influence his entire career. He was both sentimental and lonely, and a timid fighter. His sense of insecurity and sensitivity to criticism were heightened by his failure to realize his dream of greatness. In politics he revealed himself as a man of principles, a perfectionist who was unwilling to compromise. He was strongly motivated by a nationalistic spirit which manifested itself in an ardent concern for the prosperity of Colombia, and by the tenets of the “Generación del Centenario.” Among the political events which left their mark on him were the conflict with the United States over Panama, the treaties with the United States concerning Panama, and the boundary treaties with Peru and Venezuela.
Neale-Silva does satisfactorily explain many aspects of Rivera’s career. This is especially true of Rivera’s trip through the Amazon region, and of his activities as a member of the diplomatic corps, the House of Representatives, the boundary commission, and the investigating commission. Light is also shed on Rivera’s sources of inspiration and information for his two major works, La vorágine and Tierra de promisión. A mixture of fiction, autobiographical detail, poetry, and prose, the novel was already partly written before Rivera visited the Amazonian jungles. It appeared in a period of transition from one literary movement to another, and so it initially was not favorably received in Colombia.
One person whom Neale-Silva never interviewed and mentions only once in his biography is Ricardo Charria Tobar, author of the second book reviewed here. Charria Tobar tells us he was a friend and confidant of Rivera for over twenty years, and had frequently lived with him. His purpose in writing is simply to record certain memories which will help explain Rivera the man. He is in substantial agreement with Neale-Silva on many points, but he has another view of Rivera’s motives and personality. For him Rivera’s greatest ambition was to become a famous dramatist, a dramatist whose concept of the tragic was that of the Spanish and Greek theaters. In real life, however, all was not nostalgia or tragedy. He had an excellent sense of humor and irony, and he was proud. This explains why he was a little formal in his relations with people he regarded as his intellectual inferiors. In his vignettes Charria Tobar also discusses the background of some of Rivera’s poems.
In many ways the works of Neale-Silva and Charria Tobar complement each other. Each from his own perspective has added to our understanding of Rivera the man and the writer. Neale-Silva especially has provided students of Rivera with a valuable foundation upon which to base their studies.
