‘The Book of Embraces’

 Eduardo Galeano was this kind of writer: He made collections, cabinets that contained curiosities.

The Book of Embraces is a collection of 197 items: short stories, anecdotes, maxims, questions.

One of my favorites is “Chronicle of the City of Havana,” which is about Nelson Valdez, whose parents fled Cuba. Nelson went to Havana. Each day he took the bus to the library to learn about the place his parents loved and hated.

One day, the driver saw a magnificent woman and stopped the bus to introduce himself. The riders applauded and encouraged him — until he disappeared with the woman into an ice cream parlor. When he dallied, the passengers hit the horn. But the driver was lost. So one passenger took the wheel and drove on, stop at each stop, until she reached hers. She turned the wheel over to the next passenger, who drove to the next stop. …

The moral: You can’t learn Cuba in the library.

The embraces in this book are shared memories — things we all know in some way, things that seem to be part of human experience, not just personal experience. We exchange them, back and forth. The book is like that intimate exchange. It’s like a good conversation.

Galeano’s book is wonderful — but only if you, the reader, jump into the conversation.

As I look at the notes that have accumulated in the margins, I don’t see discoveries or insights. I see questions.

• Source: Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces, translated by Cedric Belfrage; New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. “Chronicle of the City of Havana” is on pp. 54-5. Galeano’s meditation on embraces is in “Chronicle of the City of Montevideo,” pp. 248-9.