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Juan Criollo, After Forty Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

J. Riis Owre
J. Riis Owre*
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida
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Extract

Since Carlos Loveira's last novel was published in 1927, the whole way of life which it described—and described with what bitter disillusion!—has disappeared. The Cuba Loveira knew, and the Cuba he hoped would evolve, are both lost—perhaps irretrievably— but the novel itself, seen through the perspective of four decades and a social upheaval, now seems to have even greater values, both as a work of art and as a social document, than its first readers saw in it.

In 1922, a friend of Loveira, reviewing Los ciegos (his third novel), placed him in the first rank of Cuban novelists:

Entre los novelistas cubanos, ha logrado Loveira colocar su nombre en prominente lugar, y, sin hipérbole, a tanta altura, como el que más haya alcanzado.

And he added that Los ciegos seemed to predict an obra maestra from the author's pen. Juan Criollo is that masterpiece.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1967 , pp. 396 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1967

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References

1 The first edition (Habana: Ed. Cultural) bears the date 1927 on the title page. Most critics give 1928 as the date of the novel.

2 Montori, Arturo, “Las novelas de Carlos Loveira”, Cuba Contemporánea, XXX, num. 119 (November 1922), 238.Google Scholar

3 Revista de Avance (Habana), año II, núm. 29 (15 December 1928), p. 346; and num. 22 (15 May 1928), p. 130.

4 “Lo que se sabe de Carlos Loveira”, El Mundo (Habana), 8 November 1963.

5 That of the Consejo Nacional de Cultura (Habana, 1962); and the carefully edited and annotated edition of Carlos Ripoll (New York: Las Americas Publishing Co., 1962). My references to Juan Criollo are to this edition.

6 Pogolotti, Marcelo, La República de Cuba al través de sus escritores (Habana, 1928), pp. 26–28 Google Scholar. The chapter entitled “Juancriollismo” pays scant attention to the implications of the hero's life for Cuban government and for the future of the nation, thus—to this writer's mind—neglecting the chief purpose of the novel. Pogolotti does, however, speak of these matters at length in his chapter “La República de Generales y doctores” (pp. 48-50).

7 See my article “Generales y doctores after Forty-five Years” in Journal of Inter- American Studies, VIII, no. 3 (July 1966), 371-385.

8 Loveira was born on 21 March 1882 in El Santo, a village in the province then called Santa Clara, now Las Villas.

9 La última lección (Habana: Rambla Bouza y Cía, 1924), p. 5.

10 In this episode the old Spanish concept of el honor appears. Only two members of the family beside Nena know what has happened, and they are at great pains to conceal it. Juan has in his possession notes and scribbled drawings from Nena, which he keeps all his life, as a kind of insurance. But he never can bring himself to use them for blackmail, even when he is in greatest need, and when he has finally attained wealth and power, he destroys them.

11 Anxious as always to give the exact time-setting for his work, Loveira establishes the date: 12 February 1895 (p. 212).

12 Pp. 317-318. Julia is also called “la malograda flor de ternura y sentimentalismo, nacida en Ticul”.

13 Ramón A. Cátala, “Divagaciones sobre la novela”, Anales de la Academia Nacional de Artes y Letras (Habana), 10 (1926), 62-63.

14 Enrique José Varona, Estudios y conferencias (Habana, 1936), p. 187.Google Scholar

15 Printed at Matanzas, Sociedad Enrique José Varona, 1923.

16 Habana, Imprenta de la Universidad, 1924.

17 Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, José M. Pérez Cabrera, Juan J. Remos y Rubio, and Santovenia, Emeterio S., Historia de la nación cubana, VII (Habana, 1952), 331.Google Scholar

18 Las Impuras, Biblioteca Clásica de Cultura Latinoamericana, no. 2 (Habana, n.d.), p. 107.

19 One should also note Ramos’ Manual del perfecto fulanista (Habana, 1916), which bears on the same subject, and was called “la vivisección más ingenua, acuciosa y penetrante que del organismo político cubano se haya hecho hasta hoy” in the introduction to Las impurezas de la realidad, by Manuel Pedro González (Barcelona, 1929), p. 8.

20 Particularly by Manuel Pedro González in “La literatura de hoy: Carlos Loveira” in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (San Juan, P.R.), tomo II, núm. 1 (eneromarzo 1929), p. 188; and by Marinello and Salvador Bueno in the articles cited in notes 3 and 4, above.

21 Chapman's History … was published by Macmillan in 1927. See p. 504.

22 Literatura iberoamericana (México, D. F.: Ediciones de la Universidad de México, 1937), p. 109.

23 A contemporary Cuban writer says that Loveira himself confessed that his “características … lo inducían siempre a terminar atropelladamente lo que requería un segundo tomo”, and proceeds to make the absurd suggestion that Loveira, had he attempted “complete” endings for his novels, would have had to discuss “Yankee imperialism,” which he was reluctant or unable to do. See Mirta Aguirre, review of the 1962 editions of Juan Criollo and Generales y doctores in Cuba Socialista (Habana), año II, num. 21 (mayo 1963), pp. 132-139. I have not been able to find the statement by Loveira to which she refers.

24 Diario de la Marina, 25 March 1928, p. 34.

25 “Balance literario 1928”, Revista de Avance (Habana), año II, tomo iii, núm 29 (15 diciembre 1928), p. 246.

26 González, op. cit., p. 181.

27 Los inmorales (Habana: Sociedad Editorial Cuba Contemporánea, 1919), p. 255.

28 Ibid., p. 63.

29 Pogolotti, op. cit., p. 27. He does, however, admit at the beginning of this essay that Loveira's concept of Cuban eroticism is accurate.

30 Spell, Jefferson Rhea, Contemporary Spanish-American Fiction (Chapel Hill, N. C.: the University of North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 104.Google Scholar

31 Remos y Rubio, Juan J., Historia de la literatura cubana (Habana: Cárdenas, 1945), III, 306.Google Scholar

32 Bueno, Salvador, Medio siglo de literatura cubana (Habana: Publicaciones de la Comisión Nacional de la UNESCO, 1953), p. 79.Google Scholar

33 Panorama histórico de la literatura cubana (New York: Las Americas Publishing Co., 1963), II, 342.

34 See above, note 5. The text is unchanged from the original edition, and there is no critical matter or introduction.

35 Marinello, op. cit., p. 109. This passage is clearly the source of Mirta Aguirre's article referred to in note 23, above.

36 See my article cited in note 7, above. Also, my study “Carlos Loveira, novelista cubano que previo la tragedia” in Resúmenes de las comunicaciones … del Segundo Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (Niruega, Netherlands), p. A-50; and the introduction to the edition of Generales y doctores by the writer and S. M. Bryant (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).

37 Branly, Roberto, “Carlos Loveira: Imagen de un tiempo superado”, Pueblo y Cultura (Habana), num. 14 [1963], pp. 19–23. Google Scholar

38 Vega, Lorenzo García, Antología de la novela cubana (Habana: Dirección General de Cultura, Ministerio de Educación, 1960).Google Scholar Italics mine.

39 Rogelio Luís Bravet, “La República amarga”, Bohemia (Habana), año SS, núm. 29 (14 junio 1963), p. 59.