Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-fnpn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T09:59:36.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modernism, Crisis, and the Ethics of Democratic Representation in Fernando del Paso's Total Novels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Mark Daniel Anderson
Mark Daniel Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Recent criticism of the Spanish American novela total likens the genre's “totalizing” approach to social representation to that of state-administered nationalism, in which differences are either systematically erased or institutionalized through demographic segmentation in order to construct homogeneous, “democratic” consensus among political agents. In this view, the total novel misappropriates others' voices for the cultural elite's own political and commercial ends. In contrast, the testimonio is held up as a more democratic genre that distributes representational authority among a variety of agents. This essay reevaluates the relationship between the novela total and testimonial modes of discourse, arguing that Mexican author Fernando del Paso's total novels draw on the litigious power of testimonial as well as modernist aesthetics of rupture to disrupt the narrative of democratic consensus constructed by Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Institucional and to postulate a civil society that congeals as a horizontal, aggregative ethical community in opposition to state politics.

Resumen

Resumen

La crítica reciente sobre la novela total hispanoamericana ha equiparado su modo “totalizante” de acercarse a la representación social al del nacionalismo administrado por el Estado, en el que las diferencias se borran sistemáticamente o se institucionalizan por medio de la segmentación demográfica con el fin de construir un homogéneo consenso “democrático” entre actores políticos. Según esta perspectiva, la novela total se apropia de las voces de múltiples otros para los fines políticos y comerciales de la élite cultural. En cambio, el testimonio se presenta como un género más democrático que redistribuye la autoridad representacional entre una variedad de actores sociales. Este ensayo revalúa las relaciones entre la novela total y modos de discurso testimoniales, argumentando que las novelas totales del escritor mexicano Fernando del Paso apelan al poder litigante del testimonio a la vez que despliegan una estética vanguardista de ruptura para desmentir la narrativa de consenso democrático forjado por el Partido Revolucionario Institucional de México y para proponer una sociedad civil que surja como una agregativa comunidad ética en oposición a la política de Estado.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , 2015 , pp. 42 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the Latin American Studies Association

References

Adler de Lomnitz, Larisa, Elena, Rodrigo Salazar, and Adler, Ilya 2010 Symbolism and Ritual in a One-Party Regime: Unveiling Mexico's Political Culture. Translated by Wagner, Susanne A. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beverley, John 1993 Against Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Black, Shameem 2010 Fiction across Borders: Imagining the Lives of Others in Late Twentieth-Century Novels. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce-Novoa, Juan 1990 “Noticias del Imperio: La historia apasionada.” Literatura Mexicana 1 (2): 421–438.Google Scholar
Bürger, Peter 1984 Theory of the Avant-Garde. Translated by Shaw, Michael. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Colás, Santiago 1996 “What's Wrong with Representation?” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Gugelberger, Georg, 161–171. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Corcoran, Steven 2010 Introduction to Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics by Rancière, Jacques, 1–24. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Corral, Wilfrido 2001 “Novelistas sin timón: Exceso y subjetividad en el concepto de la ‘novela total.‘” MLN 116 (2): 315–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corral Peña, Elizabeth 1997 Noticias del Imperio y los nuevos caminos de la novela histórica. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilíes, and Guattari, Félix 1987 A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Del Paso, Fernando 1969 José Trigo. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Del Paso, Fernando 1987 Palinuro de México. Mexico City: Diana.Google Scholar
Del Paso, Fernando 1988 Noticias del Imperio. Mexico City: Diana.Google Scholar
Ercolino, Stefano 2012 “The Maximalist Novel.” Comparative Literature 64 (3): 241–256.Google Scholar
Fell, Claude 1991 “Historia y ficción en Noticias del Imperio de Fernando del Paso.” Cuadernos Americanos (28): 77–89.Google Scholar
Fiddian, Robin William 1989 “James Joyce and Spanish American Fiction: A Study of the Origins and Transmission of Literary Influence.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 66:23–39.Google Scholar
Fiddian, Robin William 1990 “Fernando del Paso y el arte de la renovación.” Revista Iberoamericana 56 (150): 143–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiddian, Robin William 2000 The Novels of Fernando del Paso. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
Fuentes, Carlos 1969 La nueva novela hispanoamericana. Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz.Google Scholar
Garrido, Luis Javier 1986 El Partido de la Revolución Institucionalizada: Medio siglo de poder político en México; La formación del nuevo estado, 1928-1945. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Guerrero, Elisabeth 2006 “Burying the Emperor: Mourning in Fernando del Paso's Noticias del Imperio.” Latin American Literary Review 34 (67): 94–110.Google Scholar
Gugelberger, Georg, and Kearney, Michael 1991 “Voices for the Voiceless: Testimonial Literature in Latin America.” Latin American Perspectives 18 (3): 3–14.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Cham, Gerardo 2009 “Palinuro sobre la mesa de disección.” Literatura Mexicana 20 (2): 75–90.Google Scholar
Haber, Paul Lawrence 2007 Power from Experience: Urban Popular Movements in Late Twentieth-Century Mexico. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Hancock, Joel 1991 “New Directions in Historical Fiction: Noticias del Imperio, Fernando del Paso and the Self-Conscious Novel.” Hispanic Journal 12 (1): 109–121.Google Scholar
Ibsen, Kristine 2006 “La poética del fragmento y el tercer espacio de la historia en Noticias del Imperio de Fernando del Paso.” Rilce 22 (1): 91–103.Google Scholar
Ibsen, Kristine 2010 Maximilian, Mexico, and the Invention of Empire. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric 1992 “De la sustitución de importaciones literarias y culturales en el Tercer Mundo: El caso del testimonio.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 18 (36): 117–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1982 Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Roudiez, Leon S. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Long, Ryan F. 2008 Fictions of Totality: The Mexican Novel, 1968, and the National-Popular State. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansour, Mónica 1986 Los mundos de Palinuro. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana.Google Scholar
Mata, Óscar 1991 Un océano de narraciones: Fernando del Paso. Tlaxcala: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala; Puebla: Universidad Autónoma de Puebla.Google Scholar
Menton, Seymour 1991 Narrativa mexicana (desde Los de abajo hasta Noticias del Imperio). Tlaxcala: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala; Puebla: Universidad Autónoma de Puebla.Google Scholar
Moreiras, Alberto 1996 “The Aura of Testimonio.” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Gugelberger, Georg M., 192–224. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Brian L. 2012a Cult of Defeat in Mexico's Historical Fiction: Failure, Trauma, and Loss. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Brian L. 2012b “Non Serviam: James Joyce and Mexico.” Comparative Literature 64 (2): 192–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rancière, Jacques 2010 Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Edited and translated by Corcoran, Steven. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Inés, Saénz 1994 Hacia la novela total: Fernando del Paso. Madrid: Pliegos.Google Scholar
Sainz, Gustavo 1983 “Carlos Fuentes: A Permanent Bedazzlement.” World Literature Today 57 ((4)): 568-572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez-Prado, Ignacio M. 2008 “Dying Mirrors, Medieval Moralists, and Tristam Shandies: The Literary Traditions of Fernando del Paso's Palinuro of Mexico.” Comparative Literature 60 (2): 142–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solares-Larrave, Francisco 1999 “De la ciencia y el relato: Rasgos de la postmodernidad en Noticias del Imperio de Fernando del Paso.” Revista Iberoamericana 65 (186): 13–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Peter N. 1995 “Historiographic Metafiction and the Neobaroque in Fernando del Paso's Noticias del Imperio.” Indiana Journal of Hispanic Literatures 6-7:169–184.Google Scholar
Vargas Llosa, Mario 1971 García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio. Barcelona: Barral.Google Scholar
Vargas Llosa, Mario 1992 Carta de batalla por Tirant lo Blanc. 1969. Mexico City: Seix Barral.Google Scholar
Yúdice, George 1991 “Testimonio and Postmodernism.” Latin American Perspectives 18 (3): 15–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar