In short, an insightful voice loses its way

IF you are familiar with recent literature from Latin America, surely you have come across Eduardo Galeano’s work. Now in his mid-60s, the Uruguayan writer has had the good fortune over the years to be widely translated for audiences in North America and Europe, rewarding his readers with poetic militancy, a dark and righteous vision, and an impish morality. His method -- a rat-a-tat-tat telling of intimate parables, short stories and metaphors -- is so uncommon that no one dares copy his singular style. He has gained renown for his masterful 1980s trilogy, “Memory of Fire,” which takes a chronological look at the broad sweep of time from Creation through the mid-1980s. Each historical event is presented in a concise journalistic present-tense voice and concludes with a rapier payoff.

The downside of Galeano’s style of short, crisp flares is that it can be perilously overdone, and in his newest book, “Voices of Time,” the author indulges far more than he should. His vignettes, most of which appeared originally in newspapers, lack energy until you are far into the book. Most pieces consume less than a page; only a handful spill onto a second page. They would work well as one-a-day calendar entries, like those popular vocabulary builders or as bedtime reading for children, but absorbing one after the other (all 333 of them) tends to dull the author’s literary intentions rather than sharpen them.

Galeano begins by introducing the concept of time itself, then rapidly settles into the 20th century. “Do birds announce the morning?” one entry concludes, “Or, by singing, do they create it?” Knowing the intricacies of Uruguayan politics helps because some entries assume the reader’s familiarity with Montevideo minutiae. The shortest -- three sentences -- is a rather meaningless bit about the late Spanish poet Rafael Alberti. It’s followed by an equally uninspiring piece on Isaac Asimov. “How did we learn our evil ways?” Galeano asks in another. “From whom did we learn to torment our neighbors and subdue the earth?”

There’s a nice one about a humble hat maker who recalls the 1930 World Cup championship in Montevideo and another concerning the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, which celebrated the Declaration of the Rights of Man and at which spectators could watch hungry caged South American Indians fight over red meat.

The best vignettes hint at mischief and humor, such as one about a deer that killed itself. Or the one about an immigrant who is asked at Ellis Island if a staircase should be swept bottom to top, top to bottom, or toward the side. The newcomer replies, “I haven’t come to this country to sweep staircases.” Too many, though, leave the reader with a wan smile, as if having listened too long to beatnik poetry that pleases the poet most of all.

A few words about the translation: It must have been a pleasure for Canadian Mark Fried to render Galeano’s precise and nicely crafted Spanish sentences into English, and he has done admirably well.

Galeano is a cosmopolitan observer with a twinkle in his eye who, at his best, writes with the historical imperative of George Orwell and the subtle authority of B. Traven, best known as the author of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Many of the entries here, however, appear as nocturnal jottings with nice twists at the end. A few leave the reader with a “huh?” rather than an “ahhh.”

A good number are about Galeano’s family and friends, though the ones reminiscent of his best works are poetic polemics about the International Monetary Fund, the war in Iraq or the sale of African art in Europe to finance an expedition to fight in Africa.

“Voices of Time” lacks focus and momentum. These vignettes may have been good enough to appear as daily newspaper reflections of Galeano’s musings, but sometimes it’s best to leave good enough alone.

Tom Miller is the author of numerous books, including “The Panama Hat Trail” and “Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba.”