On the dark side of the archive: turn of the century, nation, and literature in Spanish America

250 Pages·2010·1.687 MB·English

by  González Espitia, Juan Carlos

On the Dark Side
of the Archive
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TheBucknellStudiesinLatinAmerican LiteratureandTheory
SeriesEditor:An´ıbalGonza´lez,YaleUniversity
Dealing with far-reaching questions of history and modernity,language and self-
hood, and power and ethics, Latin American literature sheds light on the many-
faceted nature of Latin American life, as well as on the human condition as a
whole. This series of books provides a forum for some of the best criticism on
LatinAmericanliteratureinawiderangeofcriticalapproaches,withanemphasis
on works that productively combine scholarship with theory. Acknowledging the
historical links and cultural affinities between Latin American and Iberian litera-
tures,theserieswelcomesconsiderationofSpanishandPortuguesetextsandtop-
ics,whilealsoprovidingaspaceofconvergenceforscholarsworkinginRomance
studies,comparativeliterature,culturalstudies,andliterarytheory.
TitlesinSeries
AmyNaussMillay,Voicesfromthefuenteviva:TheeffectofOralityinTwentieth-
CenturySpanishAmericanNarrative
J.AndrewBrown,TestTubeEnvy:ScienceandPowerinArgentineNarrative
JuanCarlosUbilluz,SacredEroticism:GeorgesBatailleandPierreKlossowskiin
theLatinAmericanEroticNovel
MarkA.Herna´ndez,FiguralConquistadors:RewritingtheNewWorld’s
DiscoveryandConquestinMexicanandRiverPlateNovelsofthe1980sand
1990s
GabrielRiera,LittoraloftheLetter:Saer’sArtofNarration
DianneMarieZandstra,EmbodyingResistance:GriseldaGambaroandthe
Grotesque
AmandaHolmes,CityFictions:Language,Body,andSpanishAmericanUrban
Space
GailBulman,StagingWords,PerformingWorlds:IntertextualityandNationin
ContemporaryLatinAmericanTheater
AnneLambright,CreatingtheHybridIntellectual:Subject,Space,andthe
FeminineintheNarrativeofJose´ Mar´ıaArguedas
DaraE.Goldman,OutofBounds:IslandsandtheDemarcationofIdentityinthe
HispanicCaribbean
Eva-LynnAliciaJagoe,TheEndoftheWorldasTheyKnewIt:Writing
ExperiencesoftheArgentineSouth
Rau´lMarrero-Fente,Epic,Empire,andCommunityintheAtlanticWorld:Silvestre
deBalboa’sEspejodepaciencia
SharonMagnarelli,HomeIsWherethe(He)artIs:TheFamilyRomanceinLate
Twentieth-CenturyMexicanandArgentineTheater
YolandaMart´ınez-SanMiguel,FromLacktoExcess:‘‘Minor’’ReadingsofLatin
AmericanColonialDiscourse
JuliaCuervoHewitt,VoicesOutofAfricainTwentieth-CenturySpanishCaribbean
Literature
JuanCarlosGonza´lezEspitia,OntheDarkSideoftheArchive:Nationand
LiteratureinSpanishAmericaattheTurnoftheCentury
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/univ_press
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On the Dark Side
of the Archive
Nation and Literature
in Spanish America
at the Turn of the
Century
Juan Carlos Gonza´lez Espitia
Lewisburg
Bucknell University Press
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(cid:2)2010byRosemontPublishing&PrintingCorp.
Allrightsreserved.Authorizationtophotocopyitemsforinternalorpersonaluse,
ortheinternalorpersonaluseofspecificclients,isgrantedbythecopyrightowner,
providedthatabasefeeof $10.00,pluseight centsperpage,per copyispaiddi-
rectly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massa-
chusetts01923.[978-0-8387-5736-9/10$10.00(cid:3)8¢pp,pc.]
AssociatedUniversityPresses
2010EastparkBoulevard
Cranbury,NJ08512
ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstherequirementsoftheAmerican
NationalStandardforPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials
Z39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Gonza´lezEspitia,JuanCarlos.
Onthedarksideofthearchive:nationandliteratureinSpanishAmericaat
theturnofthecentury/JuanCarlosGonzalezEspitia.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-8387-5736-9(alk.paper)
1.SpanishAmericanfiction—19thcentury—Historyandcriticism.
2.SpanishAmericanfiction—20thcentury—Historyandcriticism. 3.National
characteristics,LatinAmerican,inliterature. 4.LatinAmerica—Intellectual
life—19thcentury. 5.LatinAmerica—Intellectuallife—20thcentury. I.Title.
PQ7082.N7G684 2010
863(cid:2).5093588—dc22 2009011145
printedintheunitedstatesofamerica
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Tolaschicasdemivida:Birgitte,Maya,andAlba.(AndMabuki.)
Basta con empezar el d´ıa y saber que esta´n aqu´ı.
A mi madre
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Contents
Acknowledgments 9
1. Introduction 13
2. Ominous Luc´ıa 40
3. Nation: Prosthesis, Writing, and Incest 76
4. Blood Matters 107
5. Morbus Gallicus: Horacio Quiroga’s Originary Disease 148
6. A Final (Re)Mark: Fernando Vallejo’s Gleaming Origins 177
Notes 206
Works Cited 236
Index 247
7
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Acknowledgments
I
HAVE SO MANY PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS TO THANK FOR THEIR
involvement with this project that the length of a book chapter
would not suffice. I will try my best to write an abstract. At the
initial stage, when this book was a dissertation, I received financial
support from the Department of Romance Studies and the Sage
Graduate Fellowship at Cornell University. The support I received,
in the form of a research and study assignment leave and a junior
faculty development award at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, was key to completing this project.
I wish there were some editorial convention that would allow me
to include a ‘‘spiritual coauthor’’ in the copyright. If my wishes
were to come true, the name of my best friend Stuart Day would be
on the cover ofthis book: thank you for helping me findmy path to
live and write in America. I want to thank my dissertation commit-
tee at Cornell: Debra A. Castillo, my wonderful director; Edmundo
Paz-Solda´n; Trevor Hope; and John W. Kronik, who gave perennial
guidance.Forhisexemplaryadvice,Iwouldliketoexpressmypro-
found gratitude to the late professor Rafael Gutie´rrez Girardot. I
also want to thank An´ıbal Gonza´lez Pe´rez, my editor, for his pa-
tience and for giving me such a great opportunity to be part of his
book series.
If you can read the following pages, it is thanks to the patient
help of many readers. Elizabeth Kissling did initial translations of
original chapters in Spanish. Anne Tordi, Jonathan Risner,
Gretchen Moehlmann, Jenny Bennett, Sarah-Frances Wallace, and
Helia Patricia Rodr´ıguez Alvaredo helped me out of my grammar
and style agonies. The comments and valuable insights of my
friends and colleagues Nancy LaGreca, William G. Acree, Christo-
pher Conway, John Charles Chasteen, Mar´ıa Salgado, and Carlos
Abreu Mendoza have made this a much better work. Julia Kruze
helped with the translation of Fichte’s intricate German. The edito-
rialteamsatAssociatedUniversityPressesandBucknellUniversity
Press have been an example of professionalism and collegiality.
Thank you.
9
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10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without my fairy godmothers, mine would be a sad tale. They
believed inme from the very beginning:Doris Amanda EspitiaAre´-
valo, my mother, tirelessly encouraging me; my cheering sisters,
Pilar Amanda Gonza´lez Espitia and Juana Espitia Are´valo; and my
dear Erlinda Chitiva, always in my memory. Betty Osorio and
Mar´ıa Antonia Garce´s helped me to have a second chance in life.
All of you have helped to prove that fairy tales do come true.
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