Sobre el autor y la obra
-
José
Asunción Silva
o
Colombia,
Vida: 1865-1896
o
El
más decadente de los modernistas
§ Decadentismo – reacción en contra de los
parnasianos y naturalistas
o
Eventos trágicos en la vida de Silva – caída económica
de Colombia, las muertes de su padre, abuela y hermana, en un naufragio perdió
toda su obra en 1895, se suicidó
-
Novel
is modernist
-
Novel was published posthumously – in 1925, 29
years after Silva’s death
-
Many autobiographical elements in the novel,
particularly in travels in Europe (Silva identifies with Fernández)
Comps Example Question
-
Modernismo
as (a) the first, genuinely Spanish American movement of the vanguard (meaning
“experimental” in this case), (b) americanismo
and mundonovismo, (c) a precursor to
modernity. Authors: Martí, Darío, Gutiérrez Nájera; Silva. Some
suggested.readings: Franco (Modern
Culture), Burgos, Garfield and Schulman, Jrade.
Summary (from Cambridge Latin
America, pg. 39-40)
“De Sobremesa is closely focused on José Fernández, a wealthy,
cultivated Columbian. After his early success as a poet, Fernández has
frittered away his energy on various pursuits, ranging from amateur archaeology
to erotic adventures to imagining how Columbia would progress under his
dictatorship. Fernández suffers from a malaise that has some positive
qualities. Sensory impressions register so powerfully upon the hypersensitive
young man that he is easily overwhelmed, especially by art or female beauty. He
experiences life intensely and is aware of the esthetic dimension, but he
cannot organize his ideas coherently.
In a framing story,
Fernández invites select friends to his house, decorated with exotic but
tasteful sumptuosity, and after dinner reads aloud from his diary. The text of
the diary occupies most of the novel. It tells of Fernández’s aimless travels
through Europe and his pursuit of beautiful women and paintings, two entities
that are commingled in his outlook. For the most part, Fernández chooses women
who are sexually knowledgeable, deminondaines or aristocratic libertines. But
amidst this dissipation, the protagonist falls in love with an adolescent to
whom he attributes the greatest innocence and purity, although he has never
spoken with her and knows litter about her. His European trip then becomes a
quest for an ideal being who less resembles a real-life woman than a
pre-Raphaelite painting. Though he mourns her death, he is uncertain that she
has ever existed.”
What Cambridge Latin America
says (Chapter 1, Pg. 39-40)
-
This is the “outstanding modernista novel of the 19th century”
-
Summary – pg. 39-40
-
Most of the novel is occupied by the text of the
protagonist’s diary
-
Idea that the protagonist, Fernández, must stand
for some more general category of people, rather than for the author alone
What Franco says (Chapter 6)
-
Novel of intellectual frustration (174)
Notes from introduction to text (version translated by Kelly Washbourne)
-
Idea of this work as a “lost novel”
o
Original manuscript was lost in shipwreck
o
Lost somewhat in the rewritten manuscript
because it had to change; it is a “recreated entity”
o
Lost in critical discourse for long time due to
later publication date
-
Modernismo
o
Spanish American modernism went from
approximately 1882 to 1917, when avant-garde “isms” (Futurism, Creationism,
Cubism, Ultraism) came into vogue
o
Importance of autonomy of art and the cult of
form
o
Aggressive cosmopolitanism
o
Silva is considered among the major figures of
modernism
o
Modernistas were a highly diverse group
o
Modernism was the first manifestation of a
uniquely Spanish American literature
o
Conflicting goals of joining universal
literature and also de-Castilianizing Spanish American literature
o
Basic components/trends/ideas of modernism:
§
Preoccupation with the marginalized status of
the writer, recognition of writer/artist’s important interpretive role in the
universe
§
Disdain for everything bourgeois
§
Art as a new source of faith
§
Importance of language
§
Innovation
§
Aspiration toward beauty
§
Highlights mystery
§
Awareness of Latin America as a presence
emerging from exotic “Other” to exploited source of resources and victim of the
foreign policies and cultural hegemony of colonial aggressors
o
Great pressure to be “modern”, against the pull
of tradition and the pride of cultural heritage
-
Setting
o
Work is a novel of exile, or a travel novel
o
Idealization of exotic aspects of Paris
-
Genre, Form, and Language
o
Work is a hybrid – part disquisition, part
memoir, part modernista manifesto
o
Early example of psychological novel, in which
external events are subordinated to the inner life of the protagonist
o
“Frame novel” – circularity organizes the work
-
Decadence, the Dandy, and Neurosis
o
Decadent style
§
Monotonously artificial, introspective,
contradictory, riotous, and boundless in referentiality and imagination
§
Tendency to vague and mystical language
§
Hypersensitivity – intense sensory experience
§
Fascination with psychopathology
o
“Though ill, Fernández does not embody the
typical emasculated Decadent hero: he is far closer to the Romantic physically,
but is typically modern in his dividedness”
-
Opening and Closing Scenes
o
Parallel scenes that frame the work
o
Valuing of inner spaces
-
Reception of the Work, Erotics, and Naming
o
Body and its representation, both in the domain
of erotics and in that of disease, play a fundamental role in the novel and its
reception
o
The work treated with frankness certain themes
that were sensitive in the Colombia of the day – the delay in the work’s
publication may reflect that fact
o
The book demands an unusually active
participation of the reader
-
The Tropes of Illness: Madness, Nerves, and
Tuberculosis
o
Frequent presentation/exploration of mental
illness
Personajes
-
José Fernández – protagonist and narrator;
wealthy Colombian poet that has frittered away his riches and is a bit mad
-
Juan Rovira – Fernández’s friend at after-dinner
conversation
-
Oscar Sáenz – Fernández’s friend at after-dinner
conversation
-
Luis Cordovez – Fernández’s friend at
after-dinner conversation
-
Helen de Scilly Dancourt – young beautiful girl
that Fernández idealizes obsessively
Temas/ideas importantes
-
Estilo de escritura
o
A framed novel mostly in form of a diary with
flashbacks
o
Told in first person – permits introspection of
protagonist (testimonial reality)
o
Ritmo
expositivo lento (propio de la novela psicológico)
o
Long
run-on sentences
-
Influence
of modernisim
o
Importance
of imagination and beauty
o
Use
of several colors
o
“la
estética del lujo y de la muerte”
o
Prose written as though it is verse, well
thought-out
o
Narrator doesn’t write in poetry because he
can’t find the appropriate form
o
Idea that the narrator needs time to reflect
about himself and his life
-
Gender
o
Pretty much the only women we see are women that
Fernández sleeps with (exception would be Russian girl María Bashkirtseff)
o
Sees women as distractions from his intellectual
pursuits, yet can’t seem to stop having sex with them
o
Is often violent against women (stabs woman that
cheats on him, and strangles another woman since she’s a distraction)
o
His obsessive idealization of the beautiful
teenage girl Helen
o
Idea of marriage as the constant solution for
malaise/madness (all the doctors suggest that Fernández marry)
-
Depiction
of nature
o
Place
of isolation and meditation
o
Observation, fusion of images in creation of
landscape
-
References to Europe
o
Long-time travels in Europe, especially France
(Paris) and England (London)
o
Comparison between “new” Americas and “old”
Europe
-
El sufrimiento
o
Constant self-doubt, sense of inferiority
o
Inability of artists to fully express
themselves; frustration in creation process
-
Controversial themes
o
Combination of religious and profane ecstasy
o
Adultery
o
Talks rather openly about sex
-
Illness, madness/insanity
o
Fernández has various illnesses
o
Fernández is constantly on the brink of madness
Apuntes del texto
First Section, Opening
Frame (Pre-Diary Entries)
-
José Fernández is having an after-dinner
conversation with his two friends. They are all very quiet. One friend, Oscar
Sáenz, is tired because he’s been in the hospital (working?) and has been
surrounded by illness.
-
Fernández’s friends are encouraging him to
return to literary work (poetry), from which he has strayed. Fernández is doing
a million different things at once rather than putting all of his energy
towards literary creation. His friends say he’s going to go crazy.
-
“One does not make verses; verses make
themselves within one, and issue forth”
-
Fernández feels that he can’t be a poet because
he’s not good enough – language’s
incapacity for satisfactory expression (modernist!)
-
Fernández doesn’t write because he’s too busy
enjoying life
-
“In these final days of the year I dream
constantly of writing a poem, but I can’t find the form”
-
Idea of the writer’s frustration because of the
reader’s lack of imagination/understanding
-
His friends ask him to read his diary out loud
to them
Paris, 3 June, 189-
-
Is reading two books – one scientific one by a
German doctor, Max Nordau, and a diary by the deceased Russian girl María
Bashkirtseff.
o
Huge contrast between the two texts and writing
styles
-
The doctor Nordau sees flaws and deformities
everywhere. He was incapable of seeing the beauty of the girl Bashkirtseff’s
soul because he only saw the flaws.
-
Fernández imagines Bashkirtseff’s life based on
her diary – he pictures her as a frustrated artist. She suffered from
consumption (illness). She didn’t
understand why she had to die so young, when she hasn’t really lived and hasn’t
satisfied all her curiosities. She still has so much left to paint – none of
the current paintings are good enough. (modernist
desire to refine and perfect). How could God let her die when she’s in her
prime?
20 June
-
“the artist expresses in his work dreams that in
less powerful, confused minds lie latent”
-
Common fascination with the Russian Bashkirtseff’s
diary because it reflects the consciousness of many artists – insatiable
curiosity to see and experience the world, drive to create better art, love of
beauty
-
Idea of a few different styles of life: he lived
for a while almost “monastically,” focused on intellectual/philosophical
thought. Then he was forced to live more “in the world,” interacting with
normal society
-
He loves art
– has collected tons of paintings
-
The
constant sense of inferiority and drive for more
Bâle, 23 June
-
Some woman has probably died (memory of injury
and blood) and the police are now looking for him (Fernández) – guess he was
involved somehow? Very unclear
Wyhl, 29 June
-
Some friend lets him know he can come back; the
police don’t suspect him in the injury of the woman (June 23 entry) – turns out
the woman didn’t die.
The next day
-
Apparently he had wanted to murder the woman…
(from entries June 23 & 29)
-
Copied letter: Fernández’s dear grandmother
died. Before her death she was obsessed with the idea that God needed to save
Fernández from madness and sin.
-
About the woman he had apparently wanted to
murder: Her name is María Legendre; he met her at the opera and they became
lovers. (Kinda like Sin Rumbo!). The
reason he wanted to murder her was because he found her in bed with another
girl.
Wyhl, 5 July
-
He’s in hiding in a secluded, wooded area.
10 July
-
Life out in the sticks, outside of Paris (in
hiding). Peaceful and fresh feeling of being around nature. (Seems slightly
Romantic).
-
Fernández’s plans for the future – He wants to
sell some mines to get rich, then go explore the United States and stir up some
kind of political change. Seems like he basically wants to overhaul the entire
country (not sure if the U.S. or Colombia) and perfect it in every way
(politically, economically). He’s in favor of a dictatorship as government.
Interlude: Back in
frame, with friends in conversation
-
Friends suggest he’s mad – why didn’t he ever go
through with his plan to try and change the government?
-
One friend leaves, but other friends tell
Fernández to continue reading.
Interlaken, 25 July
-
He’s been traveling around the countryside,
enjoying the solitude of nature.
Interlaken, 26 July
-
He’s staying in a hotel and observing and
analyzing all the other people there (he identifies them by nationality).
-
Criticism of society: “you all slurp down the
same cosmopolitan noodle soup” (modernist
desire to separate oneself from society)
Interlaken, 5 August,
nighttime
-
Another of Fernández’s lovers, Nini Rousset, who
works in a comic theatre in Paris. “I dislike her with all my heart and soul.
She is a true incarnation of all Parisian rottenness and vice.”
Geneva, 9 August
-
He has been high on opium for two days; wanted
to escape from life for a bit
-
He was with a woman and became enraged because
having sex with her had distracted him from his intellectual pursuits, so he
tried to strangle her (dude’s crazy…)
Geneva, 11 August
-
“I fear that as I attempt to convey the
impression in words, I will destroy its freshness” (incapacity of expression – modernism)
-
Intense observation of a man and his teenage
daughter at the hotel. The girl (Helen) is very beautiful in a fragile sort of
way. He feels like they communicate in their shared gaze. Later, he makes a
bouquet of flowers and throws it onto her hotel room’s balcony, but she doesn’t
see it, and he takes it back. The next day, the girl and her father leave. He
wants to go looking for her.
London, 11 October
-
Has lived two months in London. Has been sending
out telegrams searching for young Helen, who he has continued obsessively
idealizing. “when I think of her I see her as uncontaminated by the Earth’s
atmosphere, sexless and radiant as Milton’s cherubs”
-
While in London, he has sold the mines he
inherited from his father for quite a sum of money. Despite now being rich, he
hasn’t really wasted the money; has been lazy.
London, 10 November
-
Has been studying military stuff for the
U.S.-political-overhaul plan.
-
Had a horrible nightmare. He’s restless and
wants to get laid, but feels he can’t since it would be a sort of betrayal to
Helen…
London, 13 November
-
Fernández has made arrangements to get with some
woman. When he goes to see her he is horrified because he sees all sorts of
things that remind him of Helen (a bouquet of flowers, a butterfly), so he
leaves.
London, 17 November
-
Fernández’s meeting with some important
psychological doctor, Dr. Rivington, who he asks to be his “spiritual and
physical leader.” The doctor accepts, and Fernández gives him a sort of
scientific confession. (This is weird,
goes against Catholicism, sort of like a scientific/atheist religion).
-
The doctor tells him he needs to
normalize/stabilize his life, and meet Helen for real instead of idealizing
her. Then the doctor shows him a painting with the exact replica of Helen, but
painted several years ago. Fernández had seen the painting as a child and
linked it in his mind to the girl Helen as he idealized her.
-
Political commentary: suggestion that Colombia
is resistant to progress “on account of the weakness of the race that inhabits
it”
-
Doctor: You need to stop dreaming so big, calm
down, and set manageable, realistic goals, or you’ll go crazy.
Interlude: Frame, with
friends in conversation
-
Sáenz: “So, I’m suggesting the same thing as the
doctor (calm down or you’ll go crazy) and you’re still not listening…”
London, 20 November
-
Idea that Fernández’s love for Helen could be
his salvation – if he finds her, settles down, and marries her.
-
Fernández’s thoughts about his family and youth.
Lost his parents when relatively young.
-
“terror of madness” – feels that he is often
very close to it. (madness, illness)
o
Personification of madness: “She had a horrible
head, half twenty-year-old woman, smiling and healthy but crowned with thorns
that bled her smooth brow; the other half, a dessicated death’s-head with
hollow black eye sockets, and a crown of roses that wreathed her skull-bone,
all silhouetted against a halo of pale light, a horrible head that spoke to me
with its mouth, half pink-flesh lips, half pallid bones”
London, 5 December
-
Has been studying pre-Raphaelite art in a weird,
tangled attempt to learn more about Helen…
-
Recognition that he is not practical – “To be
practical is to apply oneself to a lowly, ridiculous undertaking” (modernist desire to separate from society,
to be distinct)
-
Fernández goes to see Doctor Rivington again; he
is horrified by the doc’s other clientele – he can’t be like them! He’s not
really ill, is he? Doctor tells him again to quit dreaming and get his life in
order.
Paris, 26 December
-
Fernández’s sense of anguish and anxiety since
arriving in Paris. Doctor suggests it’s because of his 5 months of sexual
abstinence
17 January
-
He has been ill for a while with same
anguish/anxiety. Felt like he was dying. Later he suspects that perhaps this
malaise has been due to an innate terror of the new year.
10 March
-
The doctor Rivington gives Fernández a copy of the
painting reminiscent of Helen.
10 April
-
Fernández finds out that the Helen-like painting
is a portrait of Helen’s mother who died young (I think…)
20 March, 12 April, 13
April
-
Fernández is still looking for Helen and her
father, Mr. Scilly Dancourt.
-
He loves her more and more – “For you I will
forsake the plans to have my name go down in posterity.” He imagines their
future together
14 April
-
A building was bombed
-
“Art is becoming a medium for antisocial
propaganda”
-
Fernández addresses the lower-class worker and
points out his ignorance
15 April
-
Desperation for Helen…
19 April
-
At a jewelry shop. Admiring all the different
jewels. An American woman comes in and can’t afford anything; Fernández offers
to buy her whatever she wants.
28 April
-
Fernández’s memory of his meeting with the
American woman. She wanted to give him a trade of some less valuable jewels for
the necklace until she could pay him for it, but he just wanted to give it to
her. “poets go through the world only to fulfill the whims of goddesses like
you.” They end up having sex. (adultery)
1 September
-
Some party, then Fernández helps some friend
trick his wife so that the friend can go out with some other woman.
-
Apparently Fernández had kissed this friend’s
wife at some point, and knew her when they were young. So then when they’re
alone together they have sex… (adultery)
This starts a rather extended relationship as lovers.
-
Memories of various sexual encounters with a
variety of women
18 September
-
Thoughts about his little lover, the friend’s
wife
1 October
-
Fernández’s conversation with his cousin Camilo
about how to go about acquiring material luxuries.
15 October
-
Thoughts about Helen again. Somewhat regrets
having been with other women.
25 October
-
“ten days of mad activity, with nothing to show
for it”
-
Still searching futilely for Helen
16 January
-
“spent ten days out of my head;” was ill and
delirious for a bit
-
He is now going to leave Paris due to his frequent illness
-
Discovers that Helen is dead… but denies her
death; she lives on in a mysterious way
o
“You, dead, Helen?... No, you cannot die. Perhaps
you never have existed and you are but a luminous dream of my spirit; but you
are a dream more real than what men call Reality. What they call thus is but a
dark mask behind which the eyes of mystery loom up and look out, and you are
Mystery itself.”
Last scene, back in
frame
-
Closes the diary, friends are silent
Miscellaneous notes:
Miscellaneous notes:
I) Begins with a slow,
detailed description of the scene
“el fino perfil árabe de
José Fdz.” (1st description of a person). Juan observes fisionomía
(maybe he’s a doctor b/c he spends time in hospital)
Fdz. has aventuras
amorosas. (No clear ‘plot starter” at the beginning)
one of the men is a writer
who hasn’t published in a while, which is beneath his skill level. It’s
wartime, yet the writer doesn’t believe in the cause.
*Trying to develop too many
new skills, lost sight of his vocation. Fdz. insists it won’t make him crazy to
do all of that.
Writer says that “los
versos se hacen dentro de uno” (yet, he denies being a poet. Writer is
disillusioned, can’t escape his societal label.
**Fdz: “Who knows what life
is? Religions don’t. Most men die without
having lived life. The other replies: most men die without having lived life.
The other: you are just trying to satisfy your urges.
Fdz. Someone insulted my
last poems. (Also, has some unidentifiable ailment). The men want Fdz to read
him something, so he begins.
Paris, 3 de junio:
Mentions writers/artists
associaled with [psychological] illnesses. One escritor, in her house, feels
sick, creates artificial nighttime. She’s dying but wants to explore life so
much more.
“Rusia, con su semi-civilización
tan diferente de la Latina”
Later: Where is a good God
and why is she dying? (Again, questioning religion, free will…etc. Religion vs.
science detbate.)
June 20th
Artists say what we
would’ve said if we were capable of saying it.
p.38: makes fun of nobility
(riding horses with girly shoes)
Bale, 23 June: man recently
killed someone. Says he’s only a step away from crazy.
29 June: man didn’t
actually kill the girl? Al día siguiente, old lady dies. Upon her death, she
implores the lord to save him from this crime he’s about to commit. (Religion à Miracle in the previous chapter) Later, he questions “Why did I try to
kill her?”
Whyl, 5 de Julio- in an escondite
in Interlaken.
10 de julio
Man in the countryside,
with an old couple, abstaining from drink and women.
Acheives “nirvana divina”
enjoying la naturaleza.
“es cuestión de cálculo, de
ciencia pura, resolver los problemas [del país]”
Talks about studying
tribus, then going into politics…This is his plan to power in which he solves
everything utopically using science. Wants to modernize with trains and vías de
comunicación.
Es el camino del progeso. (All written in a hypothetical future tense)
Interlaken, 25 de julio
“orgía de movimiento”
exploring nature
26 de julio
Cosmopolitan nature of the
place. Goes through the stereotypes of the Europeans (Germans+ beer,
Spaniards+bigotes, English + “beautiful, charming”)
-Mentiosn a lot of modern
“art” (dostoevski, poe, porn…)
5 de agosto, por la noche
The beauty Nini Rouseet
arrives at narrator’s hotelà “Es una
encarnación auténtica de toda la canallería y de todo el vicio parisienne.”
Ginebra, 9 de agosto
Passionate evening,
narrator gets fed up with Nini and wants to kill her, suffocating her with
pillows. But, she escapes and he drugs himself with opio.
Ginebra, 11 de agosto
Has a kind of poetic
meeting with this woman. Doesn’t make eye contact with her because he’s ashamed
of what had happened to him in the days prior. Everything is surreal-ly
beautiful, like a fairy tale. Falls in love with her
London, 11 de octubre
-Calls London la ciudad
monstruo. In between the two dates, he sold off his
mines (“aquel dinero ganado casi sin esfuerzo”)
When he talks about the
furniture and clothing he has, quite clear that he is wealthy
London, 11 de noviembre
(this is the guy who has
the plan for his country)…he’s in England so they will recognize his country’s
independence and “me he entregado a los estudios militares que requiere el
cumplimiento de mi plan”
Meanwhile, can’t stop
thinking about Helena…es una obsesión enfermiza. Mentions some “placer comprado” that might take his mind off this. Al
final, decides not to because he knows he’d want to throw her out in the
morning because she’s not Helena.
London, 13 de noviembre
Goes to see a doctor,
though he’s in perfect health, so that ‘science can heal’ his spirit. Mentions
his atheism, so he wants a DOCTOR be his spiritual help-mate instead.
Doctor’s “Greek
physiognomy” doesn’t betray his feelings as he listens to éste talking about
his life.
Dr. tells him “Hay
funciones nobles y bajas en el ser humano.” Tells him to balance his studies
with diversions. Mentions marrying Helen if her character and ideas coincide
with his. Also suggests he goes back to his country and works on a “gran
explotación agrícola”
London: 26 de noviembre
-was told love will be his
salvaion. Mentions heritage from his parents- padre delicado, mom died when he
was a child. Mentions drugs he takes. Worries bout going crazy + ending up in
manicomio.
When he talks about love
“estoy cansado de la carne y quiero el espíritu.
5 dec., London.
“Ser práctico es aplicarte
a una empresa mezquina y ridícula”
Paris 26 dec: Feels malestar in Paris. Goes to see the doctor. Death is not more mysterious or
horrible than life.
17 Jan: seeing the doctor, more
narcotics/diagnoses. still feels insomnia, anxiety. Marriage as invention to
channel sexual instinct.
10 de marxo: paintings.
blah.
10 abril: doctor tells him
he’s fine. Still obsessed with this woman…..
basically, keeps recycling
same ideas
-God is dead, but we still
invoke the virgin.
-Science is everything, but
doctor’s still can’t cure you from your anxiety.
-Poetry is not what it used
to be,
15 abril: devoured by his
love of Helena
-19 de abril- Wants to be
united with his love. Hurrah a la carne!
Really, only talks about
Europe/N.Am.
Helena dies….o tal vez no
haya existido nunca….
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