Spanish, American and Brazilian Literature: A History of Disconsonance

Author(s): David William Foster

Source: Hispania, Vol. 75, No. 4, The Quincentennial of the Columbian Era (Oct., 1992), pp.
966-978
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
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David William Foster, Arizona State University
Spanish,Americanand BrazilianLiterature:
A Historyof Disconsonance
Perhaps the best way to begin is with one
of those anecdoteswhose barefacts speakvol-
umes of socioculturalhistory.BuenosAires has
traditionallyseen itself, and been seen by other
Latin Americans,as the culturalcapitalof the
Spanish-speakingNew World. Mexicans or
even Colombians and Peruviansmay not be
particularlyhappyaboutthis circumstance,but
the simplefact remainsthatthe Argentinesafter
independence (and particularlyafter ousting
Rosas in themidnineteenthcenturyandafterthe
capitalistbourgeoisietook over) overcametheir
statusas a colonial backwaterby pursuingag-
gressivelyEuropeanculturalmodels thatset the
tone for the dominantculturalelite in most cor-
nersof the continent.
This leadershiprole has never seemed to
wane much, no matterhow dictatorialregimes
may strive to underminethe nation's creativ-
ity-and foreignassimilationism-in the name
of a closedCatholicmorality.Thus,onemayfind
as a synecdocheof Argentinecosmopolitanism
books in most of the majorforeign languages:
wags might even note than one can even find
books in Spanish,althoughnon-Argentineau-
thorsareoftenhardto come by. Therearebook-
storesspecializing,of course,in booksinEnglish
and French,and the Italianand Jewish immi-
grantheritageis honoredby books in Italianand
Yiddish. The Germanancestryof many immi-
grantsbeforethe war makes books availablein
thatlanguage,and,hereandthere,booksmaybe
seen in the many languages of other stocks.
Orientalimmigrationis the new wave in Argen-
tina, and surely that publicationsin Korean,
Chinese, Japanese,Vietnamese,and so on are
now availablein the grocery stores these new
arrivalsseem to have acquiredalong Corrientes
in the previously almost exclusively Jewish
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Once districtof Buenos Aires.
But it is impossibleto find books in Portu-
guese, andthis in the largestSpanishAmerican
countryto borderBrazil. Newspaperkiosks in
andaroundCalleFloridacarryissues of 0jornal
do Brasil andManchete,but the unusuallycre-
ativelydesignedvolumesassociatedwithBrazil-
ian publishersare nowhere to be found in the
dozens upon dozens of places one scours for
booksin thisvery bookishcity. The sameis true
of otheraspectsof Brazilianculture,andonly an
occasionalBrazilianmovieunderscoresthegen-
eral absence of Brazilianinfluence in Buenos
Aires/Argentina.The combined non-Spanish
Americanismof the countryand its capitaland
the lack of anythingto remindthem of home
must certainlybe in partthe foreign attractive-
ness to the Braziliantouristswho arriveduring
the wintervacationperiod.
Of course, there is a fair degree of cultural
interpenetrationalongthevastborderthatBrazil
shareswithits Spanishspeakingneighbors.Yet,
only the Uruguayansseem to have done any-
thingwith it the way of forgingbiculturaltradi-
tions:to be sure,whatis now Uruguaywas once
in Brazilianhands, and one of the country's
historicalreasonsfor being is as a bufferstate
between the two SouthAmericansuperpowers
andarchrivals.The simplefactthatthe principal
centersof Braziliancultureareconcentratedin a
narrowstripalongthe easterncoast of the coun-
try(leadingsomeoneto remarkonce that,demo-
graphicallyspeaking,Brazil is the Chile of the
Atlanticcoast)has meantthatthe greatdistance
between these centersand the capitalsof con-
tiguous countries has not been conducive to
culturalsymbiosis.The closest culturalcenters
betweenBrazilanda Spanish-speakingcountry
areCuritiba,the agriculturalandindustrialcapi-

tal of southernBrazil(it is the capitalof the state
of Parani,whichwas heavilypopulatedby non-
Mediterraneanimmigrants)and Asunci6n.But
the in many ways non-Braziliannessof Paranai
andParaguay'slong historyof deadeningdicta-
torshipsdo notmakefora promisinginquiryinto
culturalexchange.
A very importantsocioculturalfactto bearin
mind as one explanationof the overall lack of
any such exchangebetweenBraziland Spanish
America is how both countrieshave been en-
gaged in the same pursuitof foreign cultural
modelsin a way thatexcludestheirhavingmuch
to do with each other.Even when one takesinto
accountBrazil's uniquehistoricaldevelopment
involving existence as an independentheredi-
taryempirebetweenits being a Portuguesecol-
ony and the declaration of a constitutional
republic,Brazil demonstratesthe same trajec-
tory as do the bulk of the Spanish-speaking
republics of fascination consecutively and
overlappinglywith French,British,andAmeri-
can models in all facets of the life of the domi-
nantbourgeoisie.This similarity,ratherthanthe
historicalandsociologicaldifferencesthatmight
be postulated, accounts for how Brazil and
Spanish-speakingAmericahave had little con-
tact with each other,at least of the sort thatre-
sults in a productionsusceptibleto comparative
culturalanalysis.
The differencesspringimmediatelyto mind.
First,thereis the aforementionedhistoricalfact
of the Empire,whose sumptuousnesscompeted
withthatof the Argentinenouveauxrichesas an
exampleof the Europeanizedmodem splendor
capitalizedwealthcould amass.Secondly,there
is language, althoughSpanishand Portuguese
are so close that they should be called widely
divergent dialects rather than separate lan-
guages. Certainly,in the Peninsula, the long
coexistenceof mutuallyintelligibleSpanishand
Portuguesedialects has led to much cultural
exchange,despitetheearlydefinitionof Portugal
as politically independentfrom what would
evolve into modem Spain.
Moreover,until the Modernistemphasisin
Brazil beginning in the 1920s on highlighting
Brazil's linguisticindependencefrom Portugal
via the wholesale incorporationof indigenous
foreignwords and by the creolizationof diver-
gentstructuralfeatures,academicBrazilianPor-
tuguese did not look all that different from
Spanish:mostadvancedSpanishmajorshaveno
difficultyreadingMachadode Assis, although
M~iriode Andradeand Joho Guimaries Rosa
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OF DISCONSONANCE967
A HISTORY
mayas well havebeenwrittenin Guarani,which
they often seem to have done. But again,might
not the close proximitybetween the two lan-
guagesexplainwhyBraziliansrarelystudySpan-
ish and Spanish Americans even less so
Portuguese,with a concomitantbelief for both
partiesthat it is betterto learn a truly foreign,
prestigelanguagelike Frenchor English?The
studyof FrenchandEnglishin LatinAmericafor
reasonsof social pretentiousnessand commer-
cialinterestin thefirstplacebroughtwithit in the
secondplacea respectforandforanassimilation
of respectivecultures.Andthemutualdisinterest
between Spanish and Portuguesein the New
Worldmeantno culturalintermingling.
Even possible coincidences in the area of
black and indigenousculturecome to naught.
Althoughboth the Spanishand the Portuguese
importedblack slaves. Brazil ended up with a
moredefinedblackandmulattoculturethandid
mostof SpanishAmerica.Negritudhasstrivento
correctthebalancein SpanishAmerica,butthere
is no equivalentin the latterfor Brazil's black
Bahia or strikinglyintegratedCariocacultures,
the Afro-Braziliannovels of JorgeAmadonot-
withstanding. (ItshouldbementionedthatAmado
is theone Brazilianwriterwidelyreadin Spanish
becauseof his highlyromanticizedversionof an
exotic black culture ranged against a stereo-
typicallyracistwhite one.) It is doubtfulthatthe
evolutionof somethinglike a "blackpride"in
Brazil ever found much to emulate in more
raciallyoppressiveSpanishAmerica,not even
the Caribbeanislandswithstanding.
By thesametoken,whilethereis ananthropo-
logical continuitybetween the indigenouscul-
ture of Paraguayand of southernBrazil, the
repressionof the formerby successivedictator-
ships and the dilutionof the latterby German,
Polish, Ukrainianet al. immigrationresult in
insignificant traces in most cultural spheres.
Conversely,the marginationof the indigenous
by a society clinging to the Braziliancoast and
thenaiveteordisingenuousnessof muchof what
has passed for "cosmic race" indigenism in
Mexico andthroughouttheAndesmeanequally
disappointingbases for comparison. Mexico
perhapshas done the best job of integrating
indigenous elements into its culture,although
this project,which dates back to the programs
derived from the Revolution of 1910, is not
unfraught with a certain degree of official
mythmakingvacuousness.Mexico's official in-
digenouspolicies are, nevertheless,for enough
removed in space from the interest in Brazil
968 HISPANIA75 OCTOBER1992

sustainedby anthropologists,linguists,and art- ductionassociatedwithit in one nationalsetting,

ists oftenin diametricoppositionto government seems by far the more coherentliterarymove-
policies as to suggestfew coincidences. ment, andcertainlythe longer-livedone. Yet, it
remainsto be seen if a revisionistliteraryhisto-
II riographywill ultimatelydeconstructBrazilian
modernismanddemonstratethatits muchvaun-
Literarylanguage is at the heartof the most ted successive phases constitutein realitypro-
importantprojectin Braziliancultureinthetwen- founddiscontinuities.
tieth century,one that is directlyrelatedto the Certainlyit is the preoccupationwith the
international understanding of modernism. evolution of a truly nationalliterarylanguage
Modernismoin Brazilcorrespondschronologi- thatmost providesthe Brazilianmodernistpro-
callyto itsEuropeansources,and,likewise,ithas ject with its greatestcoherency.Withinthe con-
hada continuingprojectionin nationalliterature text of the internationalmodernistcommitment
andart,so muchso thatits hegemonyhas only in to the possibilitiesof art as the most essential
thelasttenorfifteenyearshas beenshakenby an form of human understandingand expression
equally internationalpostmodernism.Just as and to the constructionof innovative stylistic
modernismmadeparticularsensein theBrazilof forms that would match the new, "modem"
the twenties, which was at least in the large demandsof knowledgeandrepresentation, Latin
metropolitan areas an
experiencing expansive American modernism in general constituted a
growth identifiedwith a sense of the modem, repriseof thecontinuing"questionof language":
postmodemismis affordedprofoundechoes by the advisabilityand the possibility of forging
successive formsof institutionalcollapse in the alternatelycontinental(i.e., Pan-American)and
country,themostrecentbeingtheevaporationof nationallinguisticstandards.Itwouldbe illusory
thepromisesof a returnto a reasonableconstitu- to suggestthatBrazilhadit easierin thequestion
tional democracyand the solutionto the coun- of language as the only Portuguese-speaking
try's staggeringeconomic chaos. If modernism republicof LatinAmerica,versusthealmosttwo
meanta faith in the definitiveforgingof a mo- dozen Spanish-speakingnations(leaving aside
dem Brazilianself-identityas refractedby the for this discussion the status of Francophone
manifestationsof culture,postmodemismis a Haiti). By virtue of its enormous geographic
disparatedocumentationof the breakdownof expanse,naturalbarriers,andtheradicallydiffer-
every aspectof the culturaland social codes. ent social history of the north,the south, and
Whatis impressiveaboutmodernism,how- the center(withtheneed,in turn,to differentiate
ever, was its initial vigor and its subsequent betweenthetwo centralpointsof reference,Rio
hardinessin the face of Braziliansociocultural and Sdo Paulo),along with a coastalcontinuity
realities,even more so when one considersthat versus the disjunctionbetween this complex
its Spanishequivalent,Vanguardismo,remains demographicstripand the scatteredcentersof
quite narrowlycircumscribedin chronological the interior,Brazil often seems to presentlin-
terms,althoughthe poeticcareerof certainof its guisticallyand culturallyas much social diver-
principalfigures like Pablo Nerudaor Nicolais sity as all the rest of LatinAmerica.Thus, the
Guill6nextends far beyond the 1940 terminus concern for the developmentof a nationallin-
ad quem that is usually spoken of for Spanish guistic norm, whether tied directly or not to
Americanmodernistwriting.(It is necessaryto modemism's most definitiveexpressionin the
make the customaryobservationat this point urbanintellectualandartisticcirclesof SdoPau-
that SpanishAmericanculturalhistoriography lo, cannotavoidbeingviewed againstthe inevi-
reserves the term Modemismo for the pamas- tably sustained fragmentation of Brazilian
sian/symbolistaestheticthatdominatesbetween nationalculture.
approximately1880 and 1920.) SpanishAmeri- Yet, modernism did accompany the con-
can modemrnism is generallyseen as limitedto a sciousness that a unifying national linguistic
Mexico-Buenos Aires axis, crosscut by a se- dialect was being achievedon both the literary
condaxis in theAndeanregion(C6sarVallejoin and the colloquial levels. Indeed, one of the
Peru and Neruda in Chile) and the Caribbean salient features of literarymodemrnism was to
(largelyby virtueof Spanish-language versionof evoke a specifically literarydialect while de-
nigritude and the CubanOrigenesgroup)and fendingcolloquialregisters,marginalsociolects
confinedto the 1920sand 1930s,Brazilianmod- (e.g., black speech), and even indigenouslan-
ernismby virtueof the tremendousculturalpro- guages as revitalizingor invigoratingdonorsto

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the nationallinguisticspecies. Modemismwas
very thoroughin this project,andthe ruptureon
theliterarylevel--and subsequentlyon themore
conservativeacademiclevel--of the hegemony
of PeninsularPortuguesewas far-reaching.As
was the case with the linguistic rupturewith
Spain during Spanish American Modernismo
(i.e., the movementdatedfromaround1880) as
a consequence of the belief that the mother
country'sculturehadbecomehopelesslyfossil-
ized, the belief in BrazilthatPortugalhadfallen
to a similarculturalnadiratthehandsof reaction-
aryleadershipcontributedto theopportunitiesin
Brazilaffordedtheinternational modernistmen-
tality. Thus, considerablealterationsin the na-
tionalstandardwereeffectedby the enthusiastic
endorsementby the literateelite of phonologic
(as reflected in a modernized orthography),
morphosyntactic,and lexical featuresof collo-
quial speech, the massive incorporationof "fu-
turistic"elements drawn from a new prestige
languagelike English, and the "technocratiza-
tion"of poetic languagein general,wherebyit
was understoodthat artisticspecialistslike the
poets would reshapethe BrazilianPortuguese
languageto conformto the new social and cul-
turalexigencies.
Undoubtedly,muchof theformeris whatwas
takingplace in Spanishduringthe sameperiod,
particularlyif we bearin mind thatsome of the
majorSpanish-languageexponentsof modern-
ism like JorgeLuis Borges, PabloNeruda,and
C6sarVallejowere moving in internationalcir-
cles that allowed then to see Spanish outside
nationaland continentalterms. (Borges's suc-
cessive linguistic modalities have yet to be
studiedthoroughlyin terms of his early com-
mitmentto Germanand his lifelong identifica-
tion with English,particularlyin the contextof
his repudiationof "rhetorical" Spanishbothdur-
ing and afterhis modernistenthusiasms.)Yet,
Latin American Spanish had, by the time of
Vanguardismo,alreadysufficientlydissociated
itself from Peninsularnorms so as to develop
the nascent characteristicnationalliterarydia-
lects which modernism only served to rein-
force, so much so that linguistic nationalism
oftenappearsto be the only formof nationalism
endorsedunequivocallyfrom all points of the
sociopoliticalspectrum.The linguisticdiversity
of contemporarySpanishAmericais as much a
consequence of modernism(without commit-
ting the errorof believing thatits only impetus
was thismovement)as thepalpableoverlayof a
nationallinguistic unity in Brazil, despite sur-
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A HISTORY
OF DISCONSONANCE969
viving regionaldifferences.
Althoughin its ramificationsin both Brazil
and Spanish America, the modernistcultural
ideology can be perceivedin a form of linguis-
tic consciousnessand in the developmentof a
wide diversity of nationalculturalforms that
striveto substantiatethe modernistbelief in the
cognitive and redemptivequalitiesof art for a
society, it is importantto underscorehow the
fundamentalinstrumentof modernism,interna-
tionallyand in LatinAmerica,was poetry.
Poetryvied withtheemergenceof realistand
naturalistprosefictionduringthe latterdecades
of the nineteenthcentury,and modernismwill
stimulatethe developmentof an experimental
narrative early on (cf. the modernist novel
Macunaima[1928]by Brazil'sMahrio de Andra-
de and Don Segundo Sombra [1926] by
Argentina's Ricardo Giiiraldes), it is poetry
whereinresides the foremosttesting groundof
the modernistproject.
Modernism, by stressing the centralityof
languageas partof the social dimensionof its
aestheticprogram,reinstallspoetryas the high-
est form of linguistic expression, both as the
most specialized form of linguistic discourse
and as the potentiallymost malleable in the
searchfor a correlationbetweenexpressionand
the complex levels of experiencethatmust be
addressed.Poetryis botha primitiveursprache
of men and women and their societies and a
highly specialized semiotic instrumentof the
modemworld.Itbothbearsthetracesof thelong
mythic developmentof societies and serves to
chartthemultipleevolutionsof thepresentsocio-
culturalconsciousness.Becauseof its densepro-
cesses of signification,poetry is most able to
providedthe sense of the multidimensionality
of modem man andto contributeto its continu-
ing processof formulation.
The multiplicityof poetic manifestationsas-
sociatedwithmodernisminform,themes,voices
and pragmaticgoals is a naturalreflex of full
agendaspecifiedby such a heady allegianceto
the powerof poeticexpression.The recoveryof
indigenouscultures,therevindicationof popular
motifs,therevisionof thepast,themappingof all
the diverse manifestationsof the new urban
culture,the reassessmentof the ruralunderthe
purviewof theurban,the stipulationof the inter-
relationshipsbetweenthe nationalandthe inter-
national,the defense of specific political and
social programs, and the by-no-means
unambitiouscharacterization of the importance
of the individualpoetic identityas the centerof
970 HISPANIA75 OCTOBER1992
this vast process of signification:these are the
majorparameters of theactivityof poetsthrough-
out LatinAmericafor whom the possibilitiesof
poetic articulationgo handin handwith a sense
of a modem LatinAmericathatmay now be in
full possessionof its own cultural,andtherefore
social and political,destiny. Buenos Aires and
Mexico in the 1920s (andmodernismin Mexico
acquiresthe addeddimensionof the nationalist
culturalfervorin the wake of the 1910 revolu-
tion) areeverybit as dynamicculturalcentersas
Rio or Sdo Paulo,and even places like Havana
and Santiago, Chile are infused with the new
consciousness following the GreatWar. Mod-
ernismin both these Spanish-Americancenters
and in Brazilis a sharedartisticand intellectual
commitmentbecauseof its internationalaffilia-
tions,despitethe apparentlackof sustainedcon-
tacts across the still abiding abyss between
Spanishand Portuguese.
III
Althoughtheremayhavebeena considerable
numberof SpanishAmericanworks belonging
to the so-called narrative"boom"of the 1960s
and 1970s to be translatedinto Portuguese-
JuanRulfo,CarlosFuentes,MarioVargasLlosa,
Alejo Carpentier,Julio Cortaizar,among oth-
ers-few Brazilianworksevincing the same or
similar conceptions of fictional writing were
translatedinto Spanish.Perhapsthis patternof
oversight was the consequenceof one central
marketplacein theSpanish-speaking world:per-
haps it is due to the way in which Argentine
culture,the logical place for suchtranslationsto
be undertakenandpublished,systematicallyig-
noresBrazil.Whateverreasonsmightbe alleged,
the Spanish American and Braziliancontacts
thatdid exist in the narrativeduringthis period
tendedto be oneway,andthishascontinuedto be
the case throughoutthe 1980s.
However, there is one Brazilian writer to
achieve considerablecurrencyamongSpanish-
language readers,and that is Jodo Guimardes
Rosa. There are many reasonswhy Rosa is an
importantfigure in Brazilianliterature.In the
first place, there is his applicationof the most
advancedconceptionsof narrativeproseto rural
topics. Many might have believed that by
midcenturythese topics had been sufficiently
exhaustedby a formof literaryrealismandlocal-
colorwritingthatdweltinsistentlyon thesurface
featuresof the variousregionalpatternsof daily
life in a countryas vast as Brazil, featuresex-
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ploredin termsof the prevailingsocial conflicts
in the country involving class oppression,
strugglesbetweentheprimacyof the city vs. the
outback,andWesternconceptsof sophisticated
living vs. the continuedadherenceto primitive
and archaicbut allegedly more authenticprac-
tices and beliefs. Rosa continuedto deal with
many of these ideologemes, which other con-
temporarywriterswishedto repudiatein favorof
therepresentation of thecomplexitiesof modem
urbanlife. However, Rosa did so precisely by
usingthe arsenalof narrativestrategiesthelatter
believed to be most suitedfor the characteriza-
tionof a nonruralconsciousness:fragmentedand
cyclicalchronologies,splitandrefractedcharac-
ters, multiplenarrativeironies,a carnivalesque
bricolageof eventsanddialogues,andthepoetic
foregroundingof ahighlyidiosyncraticlanguage
thoroughly at odds with the criterion of
sociolinguisticdocumentalismcustomarilyas-
sociatedwith the portrayalof ruralspeech.
Inthesecondplace,Rosainvestedhis charac-
ters with an inherent ideological decon-
structionism that ran counter to the almost
folkloristictypicalnessof the dominantmode of
social fiction, as best representedin the charm-
ingly superficialstereotypesof JorgeAmado's
castof Bahianfigures.WhenRosahascharacters
that initially may appearto be textbooktypes
becoming the focal point for heady issues of
social philosophy like androgynyor polisex-
uality or for the demythificationof the alleged
essentialsof nationalcharacter,somethingradi-
cally differentfromthe standardnovel of social
types andcustomsis going on.
Finally, the very conceptionof a fluid and
dynamicreality,the breakingdown of the fron-
tiers between "realityand "fantasy"(concepts
thatmustnecessarilybe bracketedwhen speak-
ing of a cosmovisionthatbeginsby denyingtheir
conceptualvalidity),the attemptto chartforms
of personalandcollectiveexperiencethathasnot
been-and, perhaps,cannotbe-accounted for
by existingdiscoursesof representation, andthe
convictionthat people may discover that what
really constitutesa profoundhumanexperience
lies beyondthekenof theirreceivedsocialcodes:
these are all narrativeprimesin Rosa's writing
thatunderscorethe originalityof his fiction.
Rosa's "thirdbankof the river"is the space
beyond the ideologically frozen geographyof
dailysociallife wheretheindividualdisembarks
in the discoveryof an existentialrealitybeyond
reality, where the absolute signifiers of an all
encompassingcode aredeconstructedin orderto
 OF DISCONSONANCE971
A HISTORY

permitaccess to a profounderdiscourseof hu- all the codes of conventionalbut stultifying

man life. Beginningwith the disarticulationsof modes of existence. In all of these cases, the
standardliteraryBrazilianPortuguese,Rosapur- individualconfrontswith stunningsuddenness
sues an aggressivecampaignof misreadingsof the possibilityof a worldof shiftingdynamicsof
the basic culturaltexts of his society in orderto meaning,a "modelto be assembled,"wherelife
arousea sense of alternatesocial meanings. is lived in muchmoresurprisingandvital terms
The ArgentinewriterJulioCortaizar is a strik- than held possible within the confines of the
ing example of someone working in Spanish preconstructed realityof thepolite,decent,bour-
with the same commitmentto the productive geois societyLatinAmericawishesitselfin large
misreadingsthroughliteratureof the social text. measureto be, no matterwhatthe personaland
In one sense,Cortizar'sliteratureis moreversa- collectivecost of sucha modelmightbe. Forthe
tile thatRosa's. WhereRosa wroteexclusively sophisticatedEuropeansmostArgentineslike to
fiction, Cortizarcomplementedhis novels and see themselvesasbeing,Cortizar'swriting(from
shortstorieswithjournalism,arthistory,poetry, his Paris-basedEuropeanexile) turnedout to
and the speculativeandmixed mediaessay. On promoteas much of a driftingtowardthe third
the otherhand, aside from some experimenta- bankof the river as did Rosa's within a Brazil
tions with thecacophonyof thevariousnational committedto differentbut equallyfetteringso-
and social dialects of Spanish,particularlyas cial myths.
theycometogetherstridentlyamongLatinAmeri- On quite a differentaxis, GuimardesRosa
can exile groups. Cortizar's major linguistic evokescomparisonswiththeMexicanJuanRulfo
contributionwas to writea verylucidandmildly withinthe contextof the literaryrepresentation
ironicformof ArgentineSpanishthat,alongwith of marginal,especiallyrural,socialtypes.Tradi-
Borges's prose, confirmeda sort of official so- tionally,it has beenthoughtthatthemost appro-
phisticatednormforthelanguagein thatcountry. priatefashionfor representinganysocial typein
But where one finds a firm coincidencebe- literaturemustinvolve the accuratedepictionof
tween the two writersis in theirsharedcommit- his/her appropriatesociolinguistic register. If
ment to the need to challenge rigidified modem literature,as a high bourgeoiscultural
interpretations of a static and unquestionedso- form,has defineda purportedlyneutralcultural
cial reality.Thistheypursuethroughthepromo- normof writtenlinguisticrepresentationbased
tion of deconstructivereadings of social and on thestandard,receivedsociolectof a dominant
culturemyths in the case of Rosa and through oligarchythathasin placeanarrayof institutions
pseudopsychoanalytical readingsof terrorin the to perpetuateits own self-image, any cultural
face of a mutablerealityin the case of Cortaizar. manifestationthat would pretendto represent
Inbothcases, thedenselywoven textureof worn classes orsubclasseson themarginsof thedomi-
andcomfortablebeliefs is gashedby happenings nant group must face the problemof what its
that are too urgent to be ignored while being linguisticembodimentmightbe.
unaccountablewithinthe codes of conventional As against a neoclassic norm of linguistic
reality.Cortaizar'scronopiosandfamas come up homogeneity that either excludes deviations
againstthe wall of prescribedreality,the latter from the normor assimilatesthem generallyto
tending to accept the iron bars it, a folkloristicor indigenousor Creoleimpetus
of its signifiers,while the formerblithely, but militatesfor a documentary,quasiscientificre-
not always untragically,seek to bend them in spectfornonstandard registers.Theproblemhas
their intuitionthat there are verdantfields of always lain, of course,in how to representwith
meaningbeyond the prison house of language the standardorthographyanddiscourseconven-
(languageunderstood,of course,in its multiple tionsmarginalregistersthatbothhaveno orthog-
manifestationsbeyondthe immediatelylinguis- raphy and are, in sociological terms, actually
tic sense of the term). Alternately,Cortaizar's denied the linguistic statusof an orthography.
characterssettle themselves into the comfor- Thatis, the conceptof a writtenlanguage-and,
tablepocketsof anabsolutist(authoritarian) defi- therefore,of a writtenliterature--evolvescon-
nition of experience, only to fall throughthe comitantly with a cluster of dominantsocial
bottom into a realm of events that demand classes for which writtenlanguageis an instru-
unyieldinglya new conceptionof the old values ment of power.
andexplanations.Or,finally,his charactersmay The Romanticalternativeandits derivations,
stumble into a hopscotchingof life that leads evinced more systematicallyby the ultimately
themovertheedge intothevoid of ajumblingof inconsequentialattemptsatorthographic reform

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972 HISPANIA75 OCTOBER1992
of Sarmientoandothers,was to adjuststandard
orthographyto suggestthe"flavor"of nonstand-
ardspeech.This alternativeis still to be foundin
suchgraphicdevices as elision (pa'alldto repre-
sent one colloquialpronunciationof para alld,
esepcidn for excepci6n, and so on) or
regraphication(ehto for esto, caye for calle).
While such an approach(and the form may or
maynotbe accompaniedby additionalhighlight-
ing like italicizationorbolding)mustsuggestthe
flavor of nonacademicor nonstandardpronun-
ciation,it can hardlybe associatedwith a scien-
tificallybasedlinguisticdialectology.The latter
woulddemandafullphonetictranscription, which
would be incomprehensibleto the (academi-
cally...)untrained.Since the likelihoodof devel-
oping formal nonstandardorthographies of
whateverdegreeof representativeuniquenessis
remoteorsimplyincomprehensible, theproblem
of how to record accuratelymarginalspeech
phenomenawith the conventionalorthography
anddiscoursestructureof thedominantregisters
remainsessentiallyunresolvable.
The question,however,thatwriterscame to
askthemselvesis whetherornottheirgoal should
in fact be to leave a sociolinguisticallyfaithful
record of rural, substandard,or nonacademic
registers.Farfrombeinga turningawayfroman
interestin the "folk,"such a reflectionis con-
cerned with the level of representationto be
achieved. That is, where the traditionof oral
folkloreandits highcultureprojectionsin litera-
turehave stressedthe accuratetranscriptionof
manifestspeech,Rulfo andGuimardesRosa are
atthecenterof a contraryemphasison theliterary
rewritingof levels of cognition,expression,and
self-identificationthat are anteriorto manifest
linguisticutterances.
The emphasison preverbalarticulationim-
plies a profoundrift between the dynamicsof
cognitionandthe conventionsof its representa-
tion. Since the formeris preverbal(froma theo-
retical point of view, it is an open question
whetherit is prelinguistic,i.e., whetheror not
cognitionis circumscribedby thedeepstructures
of language),linguisticrepresentationis not the
transcriptionof actualspeech,to be assessedas
accurateorinaccurate,aspreciseorbroad.Rather,
the textualizationof preverbalcognitioncan be
nothingmorethana complex andabstractalgo-
rithm,a hypotheticalpostulationproposedby a
narratorwho mediatesbetween charactersand
readers.Thismediationproceedswitha stylistic
code thatproposesto be a difficultlywon for-
mulation of the structuresof cognition and
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experiencebut is, nevertheless,essentiallyarbi-
trary in its configurationsbecause it is in no
way the transcriptionof material linguistic
utterances.
Therefore,the degreeto which it adheresto
conventionallinguisticstandardsandthewaysin
which it deviatesfromthemcannotbe linkedto
a criterionof accuratesociolinguistictranscrip-
tion.It is importantto notethatthe textsof Rulfo
and GuimardesRosa areoften totallydevoid of
dialogue.Theircharactersdo notspeakbecause,
save for rigidly defined social circumstances,
they live a life in which linguistic expression
does notplay a prominentrole.Or,whatexpres-
sion does takeplaceis circumstantial, markedly
phatic,andhas littleto do with the realissues of
life the narratoris interestedin exploring.These
real issues take place or are perceived on a
preverballevel of cognition and sentence,and
theirnarrativedepictionrequiresa structureof
linguisticsignsthatinvolveneithersociolinguistic
transcriptionnor conventionaldiscourse.The
dense prose of these writers,who are often de-
scribedas usinga complexindirectfree style, of
representinga streamof consciousness,and of
employinga host of strategieslumpedunderthe
designationof magicalrealism,is the attemptto
develop a narrative language to probe the
preverbalcognition of marginal social types.
Whereastheearlypsychologicalnovel,notedfor
its developmentof a streamof consciousness
prose,was typicallyinvolvedwith representing
individualswhoselanguageregisterswerecoex-
tensivewith thosebeingused by theirnarrators,
Rulfo's and Guimaries Rosa's charactersare
likely neitherto belongto the linguisticrealmof
the readers(i.e., individualstrainedin both the
conventionsof academicproseandhigh culture
literature)norto manipulatethe semioticof their
narrators,to the extentthatthe latterhave devel-
oped a complex code of linguisticandnarrative
representationfor the formers' specific and
preverbalformsof cognitionandsentience,the
result is a linguistic and narrativetexture in
these authorsthatexploits all of the experimen-
tationof modernistwriting(alongwith the sub-
sequent projections of postmodernistdecon-
struction and disruption)in the name of the
literaryrewritingof marginalsocial types.
Although both Rulfo and Guimaries Rosa
may continueto make abundantuse of a collo-
quialandruralvocabularyandeven some details
of a nonacademicmorphosyntax,the stylistic
processesassociatedwith theirproseis a farcry
from the folkloristicregistersof the romantic,

creolist,and indigenoustraditions.Like Peru's
Jose MariaArguedas,Paraguay'sAugustoRoa
Bastos, or Cuba's Severo Sarduy, Rulfo and
GuimaraesRosaunderstoodthatwhatneededto
be representedliterarilywas not overt speech,
but multiplelevels of preverbalexpressionthat
were not unequivocally tied to any one
sociolinguisticregisteror even to any one lan-
guage. The narrativesemioticthatresultsfrom
this convictionuses linguisticstructure,not as a
tool for the transcriptionof speech, but as a
highly supple and inventiveinstrumentfor ex-
ploring the ways in which to display a "deep
level" perceptionof personaland social experi-
ence. Such an explorationbecomes, in turn,a
culturalform of mediationbetweenindividuals
viewed as on the marginsof and systematically
excluded from the dominantsocial power and
thatsocialpowerin theformof a culturalmodal-
ity-literature and literarylanguage-coexten-
sive with the dominantsocial power.
Rulfo and Guimaries Rosa wield highly
complexformsof literarydiscoursefor the rep-
resentationof marginalsocial types excluded
from the discourseof power,while at the same
timetheyseekto validatethepersonalandcollec-
tive statureof marginalcharactersthrough a
dense narrativeimage of the complexities of
theirprocessesof cognitionand sentience.The
fundamentallymodernistcommitmentto the
possibilityof elaboratinga complex expressive
languagefor the depictionof marginalindividu-
als deprived of socially acceptable linguistic
registersor confined to an insignificantphatic
speech viewed as "charming"and ingenuously
humble constitutesa significantarea of com-
monality between writers like Rulfo and
GuimardesRosa.
IV
Feminism,like countercultural identities,is,
in one prevailingWesternview widelyendorsed
by Latin American intellectuals,essentially a
matterof sociopoliticalrealitythataffectsevery-
one, notjustfeminists.Moreover,sincefeminist
writing shares with literatureon lesbians and
gays an explorationof the tensions of social
texts as they impinge on individuallibertiesin
the form of authoritarianism,repressive, and
persecution,it is a writing that often reveals
some of themostoriginalandaudaciouscreativ-
ity in contemporaryculture.The inventoryof
women writers in Latin America, specifically
feministorotherwiseandnew as well as hitherto
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A HISTORYOF DISCONSONANCE973
ignoredorforgottennames,hasbecomeimpres-
sive indeed.
The inevitable point of reference for any
discussionof womenwritersin Brazilis Clarice
Lispector,a writerwhose worksof fictionhave
achieved as much internationalrecognitionas
those of Machadode Assis andJodoGuimaries
Rosa. Before feminism came to the fore as a
necessaryopticfor treatingbothwomencharac-
ters and the charactersof both sexes of women
authors,Lispector'snovelsandshortstorieswere
more apt to be discussed as exemplarsof the
generallyexistentialistposturethatheld sway at
the time of her firstmajorworks.Her narrative
world is populatedwith individualswho are
obsessively self-contemplative,and combined
interiormonologue and dense authorialcom-
mentaryresultsin a complexanalysisof motiva-
tions, feelings, and consequencesof the most
minuteor trivialof humanactions. When seen
from a feministperspective,these actionsfocus
themselves sharplyas the reflexes of painfully
sentient men and women trappedin the laby-
rinthof social andmoralconventions.
Althoughher characterscannotsuccessfully
free themselvesfromconvention,eitherthrough
ultimatelyfeebleactionsorthroughexcruciating
convolutions of self-scrutiny, as narratives
Lispector'stextsbecometellingdeconstructions
of the prevailingcodes of our world.The very
commonnessof her men and women make the
analysesof thenarrativevoice andtheirownself-
examinationsall the more eloquent as a dis-
course on the collision between the material
textureof daily life and the cruellyempty illu-
sions of transcendencepropagatedby the con-
trollingideologies of politics,religion,and cul-
ture in general.Lispector,as a feminist writer,
is certainlyin the deconstructionistmode that
antedatesthe more prevalentethics of the mo-
ment whereby the writersof marginalityhave
the obligationto providetheirreaderswith im-
ages of individualswho areable to triumphand
transcenddespite the repressive structuresof
conventionandoppressivestructuresof political
containment.Severely unromanticwriterslike
LispectorandLygiaFagundesTelles, a novelist
who covers much the same groundbut with an
emphasison thedialogicinteractionbetweenher
charactersratherthan the often leaden interior
monologue that Lispector strove to achieve,
might well feel thatportrayalsof such forms of
ideologicalvictoryfor feminism,gay rights,or
eth-nicidentityarejejeunelyAmerican.
The feminist restructuringof the canon has
974 HISPANIA75 OCTOBER1992
broughtintofocustheclearimportanceof writers
like Chile's Maria Luisa Bombal and Marta
Brunetfor theirechoes of the same sortof femi-
nistanalysisassociatedwithLispector,ananaly-
sis, it must be stressed, that does not deal
exclusivelywithfemalecharacters,butinvolves
renderinga representationof male characters
beyond the restrictiveheroic/tragic(and occa-
sionally comic) dimensions of the patriarchal
conventions of representation.Authors like
Bombal,Brunet,Lispector,Telles,literaryfemi-
nists avantla lettre,areof crucialimportancein
obligingthe literaryhistorianto establisha tradi-
tion of exopatriarchal writingin LatinAmerica,
or even to consider the problematicissue of
nineteenth-centurywomen writers who may
have attemptedto assimilatetheirwriting to a
version of the patriarchy:ClorindaMatto de
Turner is of interest in this regard, just as
Argentina'sJuanaManuelaGorritiis so strik-
ingly againstthe grain.Whenone considersthe
hegemony achievedby the Liberal,patriarchal
oligarchythroughoutLatinAmerica-at leastin
those countriesusuallyclaimedto have been in
theculturalvanguard-it is notsurprisingto find
an almosttotalabsenceof femininevoices, and
it is only with the breakdownof this tradition
beginningin the 1930sthatwomenwriterscome
definitely to the fore, which only makes early
precursorslike Uruguay's late symbolist but
highly erotic poet DelmiraAgustini (who was
alledgedlyshot to deathby her husbandas im-
moral)all the moreexceptional.
It would seem that, despite the impressive
opennessinBrazilfortheincorporation of women
into positions of professionaland public influ-
ence and recent efforts on behalf of women's
rights, Spanish-languagewomen authorshave
been more audaciously innovative than their
Braziliancounterparts. Onecannotreadilydeter-
mine Brazilian parallels to the versions of
eroticizedfemale consciousness of PuertoRi-
co's Rosario Ferr6,the journalisticand docu-
mentarywritingsof Mexico's Elena Poniatow-
of female expe-
ska, the politicalinterpretations
rienceof Argentina'sMartaLynch,or the unre-
lenting dissectionof the crushinglydestructive
dynamicof patriarchalauthorityof Argentina's
GriseldaGambaro.
Brazil,like Argentinaandotherneighboring
countries,experienceda particularlydraconian
formof militarytyrannyin the 1960s and 1970s.
Lynch's novels like La penaltimaversidnde la
Colorada Villanueva(1979) and Informebajo
Ilave (1983) arenotablefor theirexplorationof
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theimpacton feminine-if notspecificallyfemi-
nist-consciousness of this dominantstrainof
patriarchalauthoritarianism. Her charactersex-
istinadangerousrelationship toauthoritarianism,
dangerousbecauseof thesufferingtheirsense as
derivingdirectlyfromit anddangerousbecause
of the punitive consequences that flow from
challengingauthoritarianism, nomatterhowtim-
idly and tentatively,in thoughtand action.The
idea of women who arecaughtin a doublebind
of emotionaland physical anguishbecause of,
first, their awakeningto their marginalrole in
society and,then,the suffering,andoften literal
tortureand death, that descends on them for
challenging that role constitutes a sustaining
postulatefor a good amountof feministwriting
in LatinAmerica.
Since the consequencesof challenging au-
thorityin authoritariansocietiesareusuallymore
explicitly dreadful,as opposed to the greater
psychologicalrepercussionsin allegedlydemo-
cratic "open"societies, writerslike Lynch and
Gambarohave much to say aboutthe material
consequencesof the severalsuccessivestagesof
attemptsat liberation.Moreover,Gambarois
one of LatinAmerica'smost successfuldrama-
tists, and in the case of one segment of her
writing, the representationof the dynamic of
oppressionis vividly graphic,resultingin a very
LatinAmericanversion of a theaterof cruelty,
bothin the crueltytowardshumandignityof the
social structuresdealtwith andin the crueltyof
theunrelentlesstheatricalassaulton thecompla-
cency of the spectator,Ferr6,writing within a
Hispanic enclave of American society is less
faced with the issue of overttyranny.Yet, Puer-
to Rican society may on occasion be seen
as a caricatureof WASP respectability,andthe
eroticizationof Ferre'scharacters(a qualitythat
is stillonly sporadicallyto be foundamongLatin
American women writers; see, however, the
brillianttreatmentof female sexualityby Mex-
ico's Maria Luisa Mendoza in her novel De
Ausencia [1974]) is an impressiverepudiation
of the desexualizationon the groundsof moral
principlessustainedby the conventionalfemi-
nine ideal.Thedisingenuousvacuousnessof this
ideal as promotedby masculine interestsand
acquiescedto by passivewomenwas challenged
early on in contemporaryLatinAmericansoci-
ety by Mexico's Rosario Castellanos and
Argentina'sSilvina Bullrich.The eroticization
of the female body and its sociopoliticalconse-
quences, however, constitute important ad-
vances in feminist liberation from the pa-

triarchaldefinitionof sex, bothmaleandfemale.
Poniatowska,on theotherhand,is moreatthe
center of the developmentof a documentary
narrativein orderto lay bare the deep rifts of
Mexicansociety coveredover by layersof offi-
cial hypocrisythanshe is specificallyconcerned
with feminist issues as such. The overriding
preoccupationwith the natureof power and its
various forms of official and countercultural
discourse is understandablyat the heart of a
feministimperativeto deconstructsociopolitical
institutions,to engage in a radicallyrevisionist
publichistory,andto rewritethe parametersfor
the participationof the individual,man or wo-
man, in the nationalpower structure.In effect,
her most famous works, like La noche de
Tlatelolco(1971) andHasta no verteJesas mino
(1969), involve an artfulcombinationof docu-
mentarymodesthatarea refinementof sophisti-
cated investigative reporting,of specific wo-
men's issues like the recoveryof lost or mar-
ginal participantsin history (the soldadera is
allowed to tell her own storyin the latternarra-
tive), andthe elucidationof the patternsof indi-
vidual and collective consciousness about the
natureof events officialhistorywould ignoreor
explain away, as in the recreationof a poly-
phonic chorusof outrageover the studentmas-
sacres duringthe 1968 Olympic Games in La
noche de Tlatelolco.
The result of these documentarynarratives
has beenanenormousamountof enthusiasmfor
Poniatowska'swritingas one of themostperfect
exemplarsin Latin America of a balance be-
tween intersectingpolitical and feminist con-
cerns. Although Brazilian literature reveals
some examples of documentarynarrative,par-
ticularly Miguel Jorge's and Jose Louzeiro's
varioustexts on criminalcases-Aracelli meu
amor (1976) andLacio Fldvio, o passageiro da
agonia (1975) areLouzeiro'smost famous,the
formermade into a successfulplay andthe lat-
ter into a movie by the ArgentinedirectorHec-
tor Babenco-there are yet no outstanding
women's voices exploring the advantagesof
documentarymodes for the promotionof either
feminism and/or sociopolitical interpretation,
andone is left withthe impressionthat,afterthe
particularlyinnovative fictional analyses of
consciousnessof Lispector,the majorityof Bra-
zilian women writershave been contentto ma-
nipulate, with equally impressive results, the
modalitiespreferredby theirmore toutedmas-
culine counterparts.
Brazilianwritersreveala sustainedcommit-
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A HISTORY
OF DISCONSONANCE975
ment to science fiction,particularlyas a dimen-
sion of social criticism.If one subscribesto the
thesis that science fiction is less a projectionof
enthusiasmover technologythanit is a reaction
to it, it is understandable
why Brazil,a continent-
size countrywith a populationconcentratedin
urbanareascharacterizedby an almostpatriotic
fascination with the national endorsementof
technologicaldevelopment,may show an inter-
est in science fiction, both in the translationof
foreign authorsand in a local production.By
contrast,neitherMexico norArgentina,the two
mostindustrialized countriesof SpanishAmerica,
have much of the mythifiedinterestin technol-
ogy that Braziliansociety reveals. As a conse-
quence,wherethe latterhas a sustainedscience
fiction narrativesubgenre,Spanish American
literaturehas only sporadicexamples to show,
andmost of thesearequitemediocreby interna-
tional standards.
It is ironicthatthe film Brazil, on the fascist
uses of technologyas epitomizedin a Western
Europeanindustrialsetting,profferstheimageof
Brazil as the libido-releasingescape from op-
pression.Despite the internationalimage of an
uninhibitedBrazilian society as extrapolated
from the tourist'sunderstandingof carnival,at
least since the Brazilian version of a fascist
movement beginning in the 1930s, Brazil has
hardlybeen mistakenby Braziliansthemselves
as a nonrepressive,oppression-freesociety. In-
creasingly,the uses of technologyfor the con-
trol of the individualdeveloped in Europeand
the U.S. havebeenutilizedby Brazilianauthori-
tarianregimes, allowing for the appearancein
abundancein contemporaryBrazilianwritingof
the science fiction narremesof the disastrous
consequences of the uncheckedtechnological
abusesof the environmentand the deployment
of specializedtechnicalinstrumentsto control,
persecute,and"correct"thecitizenry.Thenovel
Nao verdspais nenhum(1982) by Ignicio Luis
Branddo,which was translatedinto Englishby
EllenWatsonandincludedinAvonBooks'Latin
Americanseries,is an excellentexampleof the
adaptationof a sciencefictionperspectiveto the
chartingof the faultlines of contemporaryBra-
zilian society. The appallingliving conditions
resulting from uncontrolleddemographicex-
pansion,the breakdownof social and sanitary
services, the oppressionthat comes from the
need to restrictseverely a populacealternately
zombifiedandon the brinkof rebelling,andthe
breakdownof the sense of humancommunity
thatmakeslife bearableareall motifselaborated
976 HISPANIA75 OCTOBER1992

by Brandio in his novel about a futuristicSaio specificallygay textsovera chronologicalrange

Paulothat,coloredmorestarkly,hasbeenunder- of writingin Spanish,eithernationallyor conti-
stoodby readersto be the very one now athand. nentally (note, however, that one fascinating
Since science fiction countersthe unreflec- potentiallygay text is the famous,andmadden-
tive paeansto technology and science with so- ingly ambiguous,short story "El hombre que
beringanalysesof thedestruction oftheindividual pareciaun caballo"[1915] by Guatemala'sJos6
that science is able to bringaboutin geometri- Ar6valoMartinez).
cally expandingwaves of horror,Braziliannov- In Mexico, the emphasisof gay writerslike
elists have undoubtedlyfelt that their writing Zapataand Blanco has been on contrastingthe
must serve to call attentionto the nature of patriarchal, Christian-familyunitimageof a het-
oppression in theirsociety by examining one of erosexual dominant society with the inevitable
the mechanisms that in the modem age has complexities of humanrelationshipsthat arise
servedto keep oppressionin place andthatwill in expanding urban societies, along with the
functionto increaseit in thefuture.In additionto need to explorealternateformsof bondingand
Branddo,Andr6 Cameiro, Ruth Bueno, Jose affectivefulfillment.Characteristically, the hy-
Gilberto Noll, and Rubem Fonseca are also pocrisy of bourgeois culture emerges in the
worthnoting in this regard. clash between the ideals of boy-girl romantic
The otherarea of Brazilianwritingthathas love and the impossibilityof complying with
only sporadicconfluenceswith SpanishAmeri- such an ideal in a fragmentedand alienating
can texts is in the areaof the treatmentof homo- environment.Homosexualrelationshipsarenot
sexuality. Although Latin Americanfiction in necessarily seen as any better in dystopian
generalrevealsintermittentreferencesto homo- Mexico-indeed, Zapataruns the risk with a
sexualityas a tragicallyregrettablefeatureof the novel like Enjirones(1985) of beingaccusedof
hiddenrecesses of the humanpsyche (e.g., the lingeringhomophobiabecausehis protagonists
ChileanAugustoD'Halmar'sLapasi6ny muerte end up so batteredanyway. But the point of
del curaDeusto [1924]) or as a sexualtraceof a focusing on them is to bring out the ways in
degradedand/orcorruptcharacter(e.g., the Ar- which contemporaryMexican lives are much
gentine Roberto Arlt's El juguete rabioso morevariegatedandcomplexthanmiddle-class
[1926]), it is only in Brazil where there is a publicitycould lead one to believe.
largebody of writingabouthomoeroticismthat Writerslike ManuelPuig andVillordocome
acceptsthis manifestationof sexualityas a rea- close to the Brazilian emphasis on the direct
sonablesocial componentthatdemandsunder- political dimensionof homosexualityby com-
standing and protection.Although the tragic biningthecontinuitiesbetweenpoliticalliberties
mode continuesto dominate-tragic eitherbe- and sexual freedom.If their protagonistscon-
cause such love is viewed as inherently tinueto farebadly,bothdespiteandbecauseof
doomed or because social prejudiceand per- sexual preference and a so-called alternate
secutionmakesit an impossibleformof human lifestyle, it is because the dominantstructures
fulfillment-Brazilian literaturereveals an im- theyarechallengingaretoo rigidlyoppressiveto
pressive inventoryof treatmentsof the subject, permit them their personal liberty of choice.
reaching back to Adolfo Caminha's Bomrn Thus,the pointof the narrativeis to underscore
Crioulo (1895), perhaps one of the earliest the resultingsocial dissonanceof this circum-
explicitly gay novels in Westernliterature.The stance and the sufferingand destructionof the
first of LeylandWinston'stwo volumes of En- individualthat it produces.That the issue of
glish translationsof gay Latin Americantexts sexualfreedomis containedwithina moreglobal
contains so much Brazilian materialthat the problemof personallibertiesas a whole in au-
Libraryof Congresshasclassifiedit as ananthol- thoritariansocieties makes homosexuality a
ogy of Brazilianwriters,andthe texts contained synecdoche of human rights in a particularly
in both volumes constitutecoverage of all the dramaticmanner,becauseof the way in which
principalchronologicalperiodsof Brazilianlit- it continues to discomfit society at large, to
erature.By contrast,despiteexplicitlygay texts highlight the dynamics of repressionand its
by a numberof contemporarySpanishAmerican compliment,persecution.Thiscomplexof ideo-
writers-Oscar HermesVillordo in Argentina, logical premisesis broughtout very well in the
IsaacChocr6ninVenezuela,Jos6JoaquinBlanco aforementionedArgentinenovels and,in Brazil,
and Luis Zapata in Mexico, Jorge Marchant in a text like Aguinaldo Silva's No pais das
Lazcano in Chile-it is difficult to establish sombras(1979), wherethe postulationof a his-

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torical incidence of gay persecutionsuggests
the incorporation of homophobia into the
foundingprocessesof Braziliansociety.
Silva's novel is an attemptto understandthe
conditionsof the homosexualexperiencewithin
thelargercontextof Braziliansocialreality.Two
basic narrative axes emerge: a homosexual
"crime"asmetonymicof a foundingactof social
repressionandthe typologicalechoes thatexist
betweencontemporarypoliticalexperienceand
successive historicalevents. The narrator,as a
journalistand historicalresearcherwho stum-
bles upon an obscure event in early Brazilian
colonial historythat comes to assume for him
the proportionsof a masterscheme, ultimately
reachesthe unequivocalconclusionthatthe on-
ly purposeof the pastis to explainthe presentin
orderto andmodifyit. Writtenagainstthe back-
drop of violent acts of social repression,the
narrator'stext unfortunately,is unable to do
much to modify the presentand, at the end of
the novel, the narratorbecomesone morevictim
of police brutality.
Silva frameshis novel as an exercise in his-
torical researchthat will reveal the expanding
synecdochicrelationshipbetweenfoundingacts
of violence andan abidingsocial code basedon
the hypocriticaljustificationof repressionand
the cynical justificationof social and political
dissidence. Specifically,No pals das sombras
deals with two young soldierswho, duringthe
firstdecadesof thePortugueseoccupationof the
New World,enter into a homosexualrelation-
ship. One of them, however, is the object of
desireof the chief of the militarygarrison,who
apparentlyharborspedophilicinterestbehindthe
facade of his propermarriageand social recti-
tude.Determinedto separatethe manhe desires
from the former'slover, the general-provedor
informsthemthattheywill be postedto separate
stations.Ratherthanacceptthis separation,the
two menlurethe general-provedor to a secluded
spot and murderhim. Seen leaving the jungle
areawherethe body is laterdiscovered,the.two
men are arrested,accused of murderingtheir
officer as partof a plot to revolt againstPortu-
guese rule,torturedto extracta confessionto this
effect from them, and hanged. Although the
majority of the scarce remaining documents
echo the allegationsof sedition,Silva's narrator
is able to ferretout an alternatereadingof his-
tory where-by the official explanation is a
smoke screen for a tawdry episode involving
sexual jealousy and revenge-and, of course,
cynical official hypocrisy.
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A HISTORYOF DISCONSONANCE977
Silva's novel enjoys an inverted intertext-
uality with the utopian feelings of colonial
chronicles of the Conquestthat saw the New
World as the opportunityto fulfill the Renais-
sance ideals of Europeanculture.The executed
lovers arethe victims of a dystopianrepression
thatpunishesthemforboththeiroutlawedsexual
behaviorand for the energy of social revolt it
engenders.As a foundingactof Brazilianssocial
history,the homophobicpersecutionof the sol-
diers the narratorrediscovers in his research
installsa dynamicof social repressionto which
the narratorhimself, more than three hundred
years later,inevitablyfalls victim himself. The
importanceof a novel like Silva's is that, like
Puig's El beso de la mujerararia(1976), which
frames explicitly the conjunctionof fictional
narrativeand sociological thought,the conflict
between personal liberty and political repres-
sion is foregroundedso vividly withinthe con-
text of a specific reading of the sociohistor-
ical text.
V
The foregoingnoteshardlyrepresenta
formallycomparativistexaminationof the inter-
relationshipsbetween Brazilian and Spanish
Americanliterature.Rather,they constitutepri-
marilyan inventoryof the most salientmanifes-
tationsof contemporarywritingin LatinAme-
rica, with observationsregardingthe continui-
ties and discontinuitiesbetween Brazilianau-
thors and their Spanish-languagecolleagues.
Secondarily,these commentsunderscorewhat
this critic considersto be the most interesting
aspects,the most innovativeand challengingto
readerswho may prefer the conventionalized
varietiesof literarydiscourseof twentieth-cen-
tury literature.In the latter sense, this essay
cannoteven be considereda balancedinventory
of all of the basic forms poetry and narrative
have taken on either or both sides of the
Spanish-Portugueselanguagefrontier.At best,
these comparativenotes can help to stimulate
the morerigorousformsof comparativeliterary
analysis between Brazil and SpanishAmerica
thathave been so notablylackingin ourliterary
historiography.In turn, such studies ought to
contributeto a necessarysymbiosisbetweenthe
two majorblocksof LatinAmericanwritingand
culture so vital to a more properlygrounded
continentalconsciousnessthanyet exists.
978 HISPANIA 75 OCTOBER 1992
0 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
I have listed here only those relativelyscarcecriticalitems
that seek to incorporateBrazil within a globalized
LatinAmericanperspective.
Dixon, Paul B. ReversableReadings; Ambiquityin Four
Modern Latin American Narratives. University:
Universityof AlabamaPress, 1985.
FernandezMoreno, Cesar, coord. America Latina en su
literatura.Mexico, D.F.: Siglo XXI, 1972.
Foster, David William. Alternative Voices in the
ContemporaryLatin AmericanNarrative. Columbia:
Universityof MissouriPress, 1985.
. Gay and Lesbian Themesin LatinAmerican
Literature.Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1991.
9ed. Handbookof LatinAmericanLiterature.
New York:Garland,1987.
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Klein,LeonardS., ed.LatinAmericanLiteraturein the20th
Century:a Guide. New York:Ungar, 1986.
Sayers Peden, Margaret, ed. The Latin American
Short Story: a Critical History. Boston: Twayne,
1983.
Reis, Roberto, ed. Toward Socio-Criticism: Selected
Proceedings of the Conference "Luso-Brazilian
Literatures:a Socio-CriticalApproach."
Tempe:Center
for LatinAmericanStudies, ArizonaState University,
1991.
Mac Adam, Alfred. ModernLatin AmericanNarratives:
theDreamsofReason. Chicago:Universityof Chicago
Press, 1977.
Rodriguez Monegal, Emir. Narradores de esta America.
Montevideo:Alfa, 1969. Buenos Aires: Alfa Argenti-
na, 1974.
Santiago,Silviana.Umaliteraturanos trrpicos.SdoPaulo:
Perspectiva,1978.