The Distant Relation: Time and Identity in Spanish American Fiction

190 Pages·2001·9.093 MB·English

by  Eoin S. Thomson

THE DISTANT RELATION
TIME AND IDENTITY IN SPANISH
AMERICAN FICTION
In The Distant Relation Eoin Thomson presents innovative readings of ca-
nonical philosophic and literary texts, focusing on the distance that me-
diates the relation between word and thing, past and present, I and you.
Through a novel convergence, itself arising from a field of philosophic
and literary experimentation, he challenges previous traditions while
demonstrating that his strategy is appropriate to the texts considered.
The Distant Relation breaks down the artificial division between philos-
ophy and literature by weaving contemporary philosophic arguments
through close readings of Carpentier, Rulfo, Paz, and Garcia Marquez.
Thomson draws the reader into the largely uninhabited space between
philosophy and literature, providing new critical strategies that allow
text and reader to respond to the very distance they share. These strate-
gies involve a reconceptualization of distance that recognizes the pro-
ductive and affirmative nature of separation.
The Distant Relation will attract anyone interested in the ongoing strug-
gle to overcome conventional interpretations of language, time, and
identity within the broader context of philosophical trends and Spanish
American studies.
EOIN s. THOMSON isan independent scholar who has taught in the De-
partment of Philosophy at Trent University.
McGiLL-QuEEN's STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
1 Problems of Cartesianism 9 The Jena System, 1804-5:
Edited by Thomas Logic and Metaphysics
M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, G.W.F. Hegel
and John W. Davis Translation edited by
John W. Burbidge and
2 The Development of the Idea George di Giovanni
of History in Antiquity Introduction and notes by H.S.
Gerald A. Press Harris
3 Claude Buffier and Thomas
10 Consent, Coercion, and Limit
Reid
The Medieval Origins of
Two Common-Sense
Parliamentary Democracy
Philosophers
Arthur P. Monahan
Louise Mardl-Lacoste
11 Scottish Common Sense in
4 Schiller, Hegel, and Marx
Germany, 1768-1800
State, Society, and the
A Contribution to the History
Aesthetic Ideal of Ancient
of Critical Philosophy
Greece
Manfred Kuehn
Philip J. Kain
12 Paine and Cobbett
5 John Case and Aristotelianism
The Transatlantic Connection
in Renaissance England
David A. Wilson
Charles B. Schmitt
13 Descartes and the
6 Beyond Liberty and Property
Enlightenment
The Process of Self-
Peter A. Schouls
Recognition in Eighteenth-
Century Political Thought
14 Greek Scepticism
J.A.W. Gunn
Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient
7 John Toland: His Methods, Thought
Manners, and Mind Leo Groarke
Stephen H. Daniel
15 The Irony of Theology and
8 Coleridge and the Inspired the Nature of Religious
Word Thought
Anthony John Harding Donald Wiebe
16 Form and Transformation 24 Kierkegaard as Theologian
A Study in the Philosophy of Recovering My Self
Plotinus ArnoldB. Come
Frederic M. Schroeder
25 An Enlightenment Tory in
17 From Personal Duties Victorian Scotland
towards Personal Rights The Career of Sir Archibald
Late Medieval and Early Alison
Modern Political Thought, Michael Michie
1300—1600
Arthur P. Monahan 26 The Road to Egdon Heath
The Aesthetics of the Great in
18 The Main Philosophical Nature
Writings and the Novel Allwill Richard Bevis
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Translated and edited by 27 Jena Romanticism and Its
George di Giovanni Appropriation of Jakob
Bohme
19 Kierkegaard as Humanist Theosophy - Hagiography -
Discovering My Self Literature
Arnold B. Come Paolo Mayer
20 Durkheim, Morals, and 28 Enlightenment and
Modernity Community
W. Watts Miller Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and
the Quest for a German
21 The Career of Toleration Public
John Locke, Jonas Proast, and Benjamin W. Redekop
After
Richard Vernon 29 Jacob Burckhardt and
the Crisis of Modernity
22 Dialectic of Love John R. Hinde
Platonism in Schiller's
Aesthetics 30 The Distant Relation
David Pugh Time and Identity in Spanish
American Fiction
23 History and Memory in Eoin S. Thomson
Ancient Greece
Gordon Shrimpton
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THE DISTANT RELATION
Time and Identity in Spanish
American Fiction
Eoin S. Thomson
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 2000
ISBN 0-7735-1028-1
Legal deposit fourth quarter 2000
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for our publishing activities. It also acknowledges
the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its
publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Thomson, Eoin Scott
The distant relation: time and identity in Spanish Ameri-
can fiction
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-1028-1
i. Spanish American fiction - 2Oth century - History and
criticism. 2. Time in literature. 3. Identity (Philosophical
concept) in literature. I. Title.
PQ7O82.N7T45 2001 863 000-900722-9
This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc.
in 10/12 Baskerville.
For the distant murmur of their voices
Leslie Marie Jewell
and
Wayland Drew
in memorium
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"The pages of the book are doors. We go through them, driven by their
impatience to regroup, to reach the end of the work, to be again trans-
parent.
"Ink fixes the memory of words to the paper.
"Light is in their absence, which you read." Reb Hati
Distance is light, as long as you keep in mind that there are no limits.
"We are distance." Reb Mirshak
Edmund Jabes The Book of Questions