illiteratus.com

Translated by Justin Loke (21 October 2016)

Everyone knows, or should know, that the novel is a form adopted by narrative to represent a vision of reality during the age of the bourgeoisie. According to Lukács, the tension within the novel between the protagonist and the world is not merely a question of historicity, but a limit that points us toward its imperfection. From a certain point of view, realism signifies the sufficiency of writing grounded in a vision of man who is exhausted by history. The origin of realism is found in comedy – in other words, the art of the real. Cervantes, the father of realism, introduces narrative into comedy, as the source that guarantees historicity.

Recognized as the avatar of narrative, the function of the novel emerges within a well-defined historical period that would be absurd to eternalize. For the great narrators of the twentieth century, from Joyce to the authors of the New Novel, the principal objective is to break through the barrier imposed by the concept of flawless historicity. For Joyce, symbolism is the dialectical opposite of realism. For Kafka, the line between parable and allegory is blurred. In Pavese or Mann, an epiphany is uncovered within the cultural domain during the course of a mythical search, and in general, it transcends mere historical reality.

In Argentina, two writers dissolved these problems: Macedonio Fernández, who did so radically, and his disciple, Jorge Luis Borges. Their critiques of the novel began as early as the mid-1930s and, through their anachronistic practice, transformed the trajectory of narrative in the Spanish language ever since.

I fully adhere to the position of Macedonio Fernández, and I believe his Museum of the Eternal Novel is an unprecedented feat in the Spanish language. One cannot ignore the reasons why Macedonio opposed the novel, because his critique of the novel is fundamentally a critique of the real. Consequently, my first preoccupation as a writer is with what is presented to us as reality, the supposedly unquestionable real to which everything else is subordinated. Being Argentine, for example, is part of the puerile reality that requires, like everything else, careful examination. I do not write to assert my Argentine identity, although this may frustrate the expectations of many readers, especially non-Argentinians. I do not speak as an Argentine but as a writer. Narrative is not produced as an ethnographic or sociological document. The narrator is not a designated spokesperson charged with representing the totality of a particular nationality.

European critics often regard Latin American literature through the lens of what they consider “Latin American” traits. To me, this is confounding and dangerous. Such preconceptions confine writers within the ghetto of Latin American-ness. If a writer’s work does not match the European reader’s immediate image of Latin America, it is often read as a sign of inauthenticity, especially if the writer seems “too European.” Certain features, both formal and thematic, have been stereotyped as Latin American by Europe, and many Latin American writers reinforce this by aligning nationalism with anti-colonial resistance. Yet the nationalism of the colonial master and that of the colonized should not be studied separately, because both stem from the same ideological structure.

Three dangers loom over Latin American literature. First, the assumption that a writer must be presented a priori as Latin American. But literature is not tasked with investigating the traits of nationality. When nationality becomes the point of departure, any imperfection in the work is deemed unacceptable, and the text becomes closed off from other sources. The greatest error a writer can make is to believe that being Latin American is, in itself, sufficient reason to write. What is considered “Latin American” should be secondary, something one might happen upon. Particularity does not come from one’s place of birth but from the work itself. As Hölderlin wrote to Böhlendorff on December 4, 1801: “When culture progresses, national essence is always of the least interest.” To claim national identity as literary substance is to simulate, to perpetuate the old ideological masks that prop up the status quo. Among the many layers that constitute reality, national specificity, fortified by morality and politics, should be the first to be questioned for how indisputable it seems.

This demand to represent one’s country leads to two further dangers that lurk behind literature. The first is vitalism, the ideology of the colonized. This is a sophistic narrative that links our underdeveloped economy to a supposed intimacy with nature. It gives rise to excess and exaggeration: the cliché of unrestrained passion, occultism, the best-selling genre of magical realism, and the romanticized image of vast continental terrain equated with primitivism. The Latin American is cast as a noble savage, constantly at odds with untamed natural forces. The second danger is voluntarism, born of our dire social and political conditions. This sees literature as a direct instrument of social transformation, used to illustrate principles that have already been defined. Naturally, in the face of state terror, exploitation, and political violence against the working class or individuals, we desire immediate and absolute change—but this is not the function of literature.

From the beginning, the narrator has nothing more than a negative theory. What is formulated is of no practical use. Narrative is a practice that, as it unfolds, secretes its own theory. Before writing, one knows only what not to do. What remains, what one ends up doing, is the result of ongoing decisions made during the process of composition. The statement, “Given that I am Latin American, and that we Latin Americans must describe what we are,” is typical of a certain ideological attitude. But it is also tautological. If one is already recognized as Latin American, it is pointless to declare it.

Historical, political, economic, and social problems demand precise solutions grounded in appropriate methods. Displacing the singularity of literary practice is a form of naïveté, opportunism, and bad faith. This bad faith stems from the discomfort writers feel when confronting the particularities of their work within their historical moment. There are two possible responses. One is to limit oneself to the voluntarist repetition of social conditions, it is a mistake. The other, which appears to me as the only viable path, is to begin from the discomfort itself: to analyze one’s experience and let that analysis emerge in the writing.

The novel is merely a literary genre. Narrative is a way of relating man to the world. Being Latin American neither places us outside this truth nor exempts us from its demands. To be a narrator requires an immense readiness, for uncertainty, for misunderstanding, even for oblivion. This applies to all narrators, regardless of nationality. Every narrator lives in the same place: the dense, virgin forest of the real.

Juan José Saer: “La selva espesa de lo real”