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The Perdido as a Type in Some Spanish-American Novels
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In his prologue to the first Argentine edition of Eduardo Barrios' novel Un perdido, Manuel Gálvez sets forth a number of germinal ideas. One of these is that Lucho Bernales, the perdido of Barrios' fictional creation, is a “brother” to Gálvez' own Carlos Riga of El mal metafísico; and furthermore he proposes certain literary sources for both characters. It is the present purpose to examine these two suggestions, testing their adequacy, then passing on to inquire whether a pattern of thought may not be detected and whether other important novels may not be related to the questions thus raised.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955
References
1 (Buenos Aires, 1921), pp. 5–6.
2 Grandes novelistas de la América Hispana (Berkeley, 1943), ii, 37–44. El niño que enloqueció de amor is also brought into this interesting discussion, but the emphasis is on Un perdido. The young protagonist of Barrios' earlier work can, from the present point of view, be thought of as an approach to the full-length perdido characterization.
3 L'Education sentimentale (Paris, 1880), p. 365.
4 Alfred Colling: “Dans L'Education sentimentale, il reprend done ce thème cher de deux personnalités masculines s'attirant, s'opposant et se complétant l'une par l'autre” (Gustave Flaubert, Paris, 1941, p. 281).
5 This is the sense in which the phrase is used by the Mexican writer Jaime Torres Bodet in his quasi novel La educatión sentimental (Madrid, 1939), where in the space of a few months a boy passes from infantile affective states to the adult. The author says that his title is borrowed from Flaubert.
6 As Flaubert based the characters of L'Education sentimentale on actually living persons, so does Gálvez, to such an extent that El mal melafísico could be studied as a roman à clef. Alberto Reina, e.g., is a recognizable sketch of Horacio Quiroga, Almabrava that of Almafuerte, Orloff of Alberto Gerchunoff, Fermín López of Florencio Sánchez, Juan Luis Heleno of José León Pagano, Marcelo Aguiar of Mario Bravo, La Patria of La Nctión, etc.
7 “Manuel Gálvez, ‘Gabriel Quiroga,‘ and El mal metafísico,” HR, xi (1943), 317, n. 26.
8 It is pertinent that this title, together with the idea it overlies, is taken from Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine.
9 (Madrid, n.d., Obras completas), xxix, 8.
10 See my “Perspectiva de la novela de la ciudad en Chile,” La novela iberoamericana (Albuquerque, 1951), pp. 196–197.
11 (Paris-Mexico, 1910), i, 21.
12 (Madrid: Editorial-América, n.d.), p. 70.
13 Un perdido (Madrid, 1926), ii, 42–43. All subsequent references are to this edition.
14 Twice during his novel Blanco Fombona mentions Daudet's book. It is not impossible that Crispín Luz owes something to the personage Passajon, the patient office drudge of the Caisse Territoriale.
15 Leland E. Hinsie and Jacob Shatsky, Psychiatric Dictionary (N. Y., 1953). Cf. Enciclopedia Espasa: “Debilidad de la voluntad e imposibilidad de tomar resoluciones.”
16 George O. Schanzer, in “Parallels between Spanish American and Russian Novelistic Themes,” Hisp, xxxv (1952), 42–48, suggests that the Idearium's having been written in Helsingfors has a bearing on the “abúlicos” theme, which is present in both Russia and Spanish America. Ganivet, however, mentions no Russian source but explicitly relies on the French scientists. It is moreover difficult to accept “abúlico” for a person like Reinaldo Solar, if this adjective is to be synonymous with “spine-less” and “weak-willed.”
17 Compare this scene with the final chapter of Azuela's Los de abajo, beginning, “Fué una verdadera mañana de nupcias…”
18 Green: “Carlos Riga is suggestive of a lesser Lugones.” Op. cit., p. 315, n. 7.
19 “Breve historia de mis libros,” Rostros (México, 1947), p. 47.
20 Torres-Rioseco, op. cit., ii, 23, 27. See also Jefferson Rea Spell, Contemporary Spanish-American Fiction (Chapel Hill, 1944), pp. 143,151. Julio Cejador, however, quotes Barrios to this effect: “Siempre hubo en mí una voluntad firme, que me daba combatividad ante los peligros; era una fuerza ciega que me envolvía, me arrojaba duro de coraje en la brega y me ínflamaba súbitamente en medio de cualquier desaliento.” Historia de la lengua y literatura caslellana (Madrid, 1915–21), xii, 221. On its face the statement precludes the author as a model for a perdido. One might nevertheless observe that the very extreme vehemence of this self-characterization casts doubt on its objective reliability.
21 Woman plays an important role in highlighting these qualities. She can, as with Bernales, give occasional comfort; but her sensuality preys on him like the female spider. Pito Pérez: “El amor es la incubadora de todas mis amarguras; el espejo de todos mis desengaños. … El amor … con sus manos de niño inocente rompió los resortes de mi voluntad” (p. 87).
22 It is curious that the poison which ruins Riga and Bernales is a foreign one—whiskey. Pito Pérez, being less citified, devotes himself to native wine or aguardiente.