Law’s Will to Truth in The Sound of Things Falling

Abstract

This article addresses law’s will to truth in The Sound of Things Falling, a novel written by Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez. The novel’s main character is a law professor who feels the urge of overcoming a traumatic experience by digging into the past life of a friend who was murdered in Bogotá in 1996. The article argues that law’s will to truth shapes the main character’s expectations in a journey that he believes will help him explain why he was also a victim of a violent deed. In this quest, the main character discovers that although truth is elusive, the journey reveals that there is a possibility of rebuilding community from uncertainties and ambiguity. In the novel, law-and-literature approaches to narrativity offer a path toward the creation of new communities after violence and trauma.