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Barbarism in the Muck of the Present: Dystopia and the Postapocalyptic from Pinedo to Sarmiento

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Zac Zimmer
Zac Zimmer*
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech
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Abstract

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In this article I consider the temporality of postapocalyptic narrative and use a contemporary postapocalyptic novel, Plop (2004), by the Argentine author Rafael Pinedo, to open up new considerations of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's classic Facundo: Civilización y barbarie (1845). Following the method proposed by Jorge Luis Borges (1966) in “Kafka and His Precursors,” it is my position that Pinedos novel invents a new, postapocalyptic Facundo, thus converting Sarmiento into one of the American continent's first postapocalyptic authors. Furthermore, Pinedos novel reframes the “civilization or barbarism” debate under the contemporary sign of ecological catastrophe, allowing the reader to arrive at new and startling conclusions about language, the environment, and disaster.

Resumo

Resumo

En este artículo, el autor considera la temporalidad general de las narrativas posapocalípticas, y el uso particular de una de esas narrativas en la novela Plop del argentino Rafael Pinedo (2004), para luego abarcar nuevas consideraciones sobre Facundo: Civilización y barbarie de Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1845). Movilizando la metodología histórica-literaria propuesta por Jorge Luis Borges en “Kakfa y sus precursores”, se avanza que la novela de Pinedo inventa un Facundo nuevo y posapocalíptico, convirtiendo así a Sarmiento en uno de los primeros autores posapocalípticos del continente americano. Pinedo logra esto al replantear el debate civilización o barbarie bajo el signo contemporáneo de la catástrofe ecológica, hecho que destaca nuevas y asombrosas conclusiones sobre el lenguaje, el medio ambiente y el desastre.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , 2013 , pp. 131 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

My thanks to Bruno Bosteels, Susan Buck-Morss, Edmundo Paz-Soldán, Debra Castillo, Juan Manuel Espinosa, and Elisabeth Austin for their comments and suggestions. I presented preliminary versions of this argument at the 2007 and 2009 congresses of the Latin American Studies Association, in Montreal and Rio de Janeiro, respectively.

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