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Modernism, Crisis, and the Ethics of Democratic Representation in Fernando del Paso's Total Novels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Mark Daniel Anderson
Mark Daniel Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Abstract

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Recent criticism of the Spanish American novela total likens the genre's “totalizing” approach to social representation to that of state-administered nationalism, in which differences are either systematically erased or institutionalized through demographic segmentation in order to construct homogeneous, “democratic” consensus among political agents. In this view, the total novel misappropriates others' voices for the cultural elite's own political and commercial ends. In contrast, the testimonio is held up as a more democratic genre that distributes representational authority among a variety of agents. This essay reevaluates the relationship between the novela total and testimonial modes of discourse, arguing that Mexican author Fernando del Paso's total novels draw on the litigious power of testimonial as well as modernist aesthetics of rupture to disrupt the narrative of democratic consensus constructed by Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Institucional and to postulate a civil society that congeals as a horizontal, aggregative ethical community in opposition to state politics.

Resumen

Resumen

La crítica reciente sobre la novela total hispanoamericana ha equiparado su modo “totalizante” de acercarse a la representación social al del nacionalismo administrado por el Estado, en el que las diferencias se borran sistemáticamente o se institucionalizan por medio de la segmentación demográfica con el fin de construir un homogéneo consenso “democrático” entre actores políticos. Según esta perspectiva, la novela total se apropia de las voces de múltiples otros para los fines políticos y comerciales de la élite cultural. En cambio, el testimonio se presenta como un género más democrático que redistribuye la autoridad representacional entre una variedad de actores sociales. Este ensayo revalúa las relaciones entre la novela total y modos de discurso testimoniales, argumentando que las novelas totales del escritor mexicano Fernando del Paso apelan al poder litigante del testimonio a la vez que despliegan una estética vanguardista de ruptura para desmentir la narrativa de consenso democrático forjado por el Partido Revolucionario Institucional de México y para proponer una sociedad civil que surja como una agregativa comunidad ética en oposición a la política de Estado.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , 2015 , pp. 42 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the Latin American Studies Association

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