Latin-American literature

Before the Second World War, Latin-American writers were scarce even in their homelands. Cheap paperbacks of the latest European novels abounded in book stores. The only local talent that was read widely was Roberto Arlt - his novels were even sold in kiosks. His novels dealt with the seedy side-streets, ruffians, lunatics and mobs of Buenos Aires.

Apart from the odd elite here and there, there was no modernist movement as such. Poets like Vicente Huidobro hastened to Paris and and became fervid presence in Parisian coffee houses. Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo wrote densely experimental verse, but then he led a tragically isolated life.

Where was there a literature which spoke about nationhood? Where was there a literature which wore its cultural idiosyncrasy on its sleeve? Pablo Neruda wrote the epic Canto General which, among other things, lamented the extinction of indigent tribes. Yet as a whole there was no collective Latin-American 'voice.'

Latin-America has never been a homogeneous culture. Indigenous tribes have interbred with colours and creeds and immigrants have always deluged its shores. Anyone can be a 'Latin-American.' I, for one, having grown up in Chile, consider myself as such. If it ever were to summon up a 'voice,' it would be bound to reflect this cosmopolitanism and diversity.

The European influences of Joyce, Proust, Woolf etc. soon crept in and gelled with the local folklore. Stream of consciousness, unattributed dialogue and multiple perspectives were appropriated by local writers and given a new slant.

Jorge Luis Borges had been writing poetry and prose unassumingly since the 1920s. He was part of the movement 'Ultraism,' which aimed to oppose the prevalence of European modernism and to forge a new voice. Metaphors ought to be kept at a bare minimum, it should be freed of baggy adjectives and still maintain a vestige of ambiguity.

Borges was a very well-read man, deeply familiar with classical literature. He drew from his vast pool of knowledge to form a strange hybrid landscape. He wrote apocryphal reviews and biographies. He wrote about strange creatures. His stories were very prismatic; common motifs included mirrors, parallel worlds, recurring dreams and labyrinths. His deeply surprising stories seemed to take place in a completely different world and lay the groundwork for future writers.

Yet the stories of Borges defied categorisation. You would also be hard-pressed to ascribe him a nationality. Is his fiction Argentinean or is it European?

 

Borges

Later novelists would suffuse this veneer of unreality with local dialect and colloquialisms. Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo is an astonishing novel. It appropriates modernist techniques, it is a non-linear narrative which rotates around multiple voices, yet it is written in Mexican dialect. All the characters in the novel are dead and the novel is comprised by their reveries and murmuring voices. It details the decline of an antiquated Mexican rural town and the eponymous characters who wrought its end.

A writer who held a strong influence, but remains obscure to the Anglophone world, was Juan Carlos Onetti. His style has its own beauty and is characterised by its pessimistic somnolent tone. His novels could be called existentialist, but they still have an air of the unreal to them. Most of his novels take place in the mythical 'Santa María,' such as A Brief Life.  A cross between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, it is a mythical land the character Brausen entertains himself with in the form of a screenplay. As he becomes more and more worn down by the reality surrounding him, he eventually immerses himself into this alternate world. Populated by several eccentrics, Santa María would become the setting for most of his later novels. When Uruguay was struck by a coup, Onetti was surprisingly detained. Released after a petition made by several eminent writers, Onetti soberly had Santa María destroyed in Dejemos hablar al viento. (Though it resurfaced as a wasteland in later novels.)

Onneti

All this ultimately culminated in what was termed 'El Boom.' This phenomenon boosted the sales of writers like Rulfo and Onetti. It also popularised Latin-American literature worldwide. The four main exponents were Gabriel García Marques, Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Córtazar and Carlos Fuentes.

I really can't stand Marquez! His magic realism strikes me as a phony gimmick. I find the writing style monotonous and repetitive. I have tried reading One Hundred Years of Solitude twice and have given up on both occasions. (I also tend to persevere whenever I encounter a cumbersome book!)

Mario Vargas Llosa is a vulpine, versatile writer. He has written about many different periods in Latin-American history and has deft writing style. He has written with panache about tyrants and abuses of power. His writing is very political. Indeed, he run for the Peruvian presidency under the centre-right ticket.

Cortázar is a mixed bag. His stories are brilliant, though I think that his novels have dated horribly. Although Hopscotch has its moments, it is riddled with 1960s cant and follows a group of Bohemians having meandering pseudo-intellectual discussions. His stories have dated far better. They are characterised by their absurdity and deadpan surrealism. Cortázar spoke about 'fissures' - cracks in reality one serependitously chances upon. His best stories rank among my favourites.

Other writers I have not mentioned include Antonio Di Benedetto and José Donoso. The former writes existentialist literature akin to Camus and Sartre, but it is set in the provinces of Buenos Aires. Donoso is a marvellous writer and his brand of magical realism - evidenced in his bizarre tour de force The Obscene Bird of Night - is far more to my liking than the Marquez variety.

Latin-American literature has sparked another resurgence of late. Granta published an issue devoted to a 'second boom.' Writers are generally moving toward realism and becoming ever more self-reflexive. The apotheosis of this is the Chilean writer Roberto Bolano, whose tomes The Savage Detectives and 2666 have earned him numerous caveats.