Luisa Valenzuela - cuentos

LUISA VALENZUELA – CUENTOS

Luisa Valenzuela

-          Argentina, 1938-present

-          Journalist, and writer of some short stories and novels

-          Focus in traumatic memory (particularly as related to the period of repression related to the “guerra sucia”)

-          Also interested in sexual oppression and feminine desire, and gender

-          Use of “lo lúdico” and metafiction

-          Use of satire and irony

Social/political context – “Guerra sucia” in Argentina

-          Political right’s attack against and oppression of the political left (with supposed goal being the “montoneros” or the urban guerrillas)

-          Many unexplained disappearances (somewhere roughly between 15,000 and 30,000 – no number ever presented officially, because still haven’t discovered all the cadavers)

-          Large political cruelty – torture and assassination

“Cuarta versión”

Characters

-          Bella – self-conscious society beauty; actress

-          Pedro – ambassador from an unnamed Hispanic country

-          Compiler of story / principal narrator

Notes from story / Summary / Main events

-          Different narrative voices – narrator in italics suggests he’s gathering this story from several scattered pages; he’s trying to piece the story together

-          Various mentions of the mirror – Bella looking, talking into the mirror, not trusting it

-          Little mentions that provide social context: man with a machine gun, messenger, embassy, whispers about 15 corpses that appeared in the river and a friend gone underground

-          Embassy party where Bella meets the ambassador, Pedro

-          Party at a friend’s house with the ambassador there – a bomb goes off nearby… “Maybe the next day they’d read about it in the papers. Or maybe not”

-          Another party

-          Narrator: “What bothers me most about this story is what’s being disregarded, what isn’t being told”… the political refugees are being concealed within the story

-          Narrator: “This seems to be a story about what is left unsaid”

-          Narrator: “I believe Bella was far more politically committed than she had ever wanted to admit, even to herself”

-          The refugees – Pedro is sheltering them secretly in the embassy

-          Pedro’s Uncle Ramon – stories Pedro tells about him are actually code

-          The refugees sometimes go crazy and anxious, etc. Bella helps Pedro with problems.

-          Bella and Pedro’s intimate relationship – she wants it to be secret so it can’t be used against them

-          Pedro arranges for Bella to go on an acting tour in his country – he wants her away from danger. She enjoys it for a while, but soon wants to go back home, is worried about her friends.

-          Bella: “If I go back to my country and they torture me, it will hurt. If it hurts I’ll know that this is my body”

-          Bella’s phone call with an old friend back home – conversation in code

-          Bella and Pedro eventually return to her country

-          Pedro’s government is removing him from his post; he has to return to his country and wants Bella to go with him.

-          Bella and Pedro have a big last party; she invites all her old friends. That way they’re protected from raids outside. The party comes to an abrupt end late at night, armed guards come in and attack… the end.

Themes

-          Hidden political message

-          Fairy tales

-          Sexuality

o   Sex as mundane, where as real life (politics) is hidden interesting focal point

-          The title, "Cuarta versión", seems to suggest that this is the fourth version of the story, that there are other buried versions. From the very outset, the title indicates the themes of re-writing and censorship, and the theme of the SUB-TEXT.

-          Experimentation / avant-garde

o   Play on words/language

§  “languid, avid hand”

o   Use of alliteration at times to play with language

o   Influence of metafiction

o   Various narrative voices

Influence of post-modernity / Post-modernism

-          Multiple narrators

o   And principal narrator has multiple roles – sometimes narrator and sometimes transcriber

-          There are gaps missing from the story – unreliable source that doesn’t guarantee a full story

Influence of metafiction

-          The title – implies that it’s the fourth version/draft of the text; there’s not one single version of the text

-          Use of an authorial mask

-          Questioning of the text: “Uno de los tantos principios - ¿en falso?” (4) --- don’t even know if this beginning is correct

-          Bit of chinese box structure – story of tío Ramón

-          Undermining of fictional conventions

o   Can’t trust in narrator

o   Characters unlike traditional types

“Cambio de armas”

Characters

-          Laura – protagonist; seems to have suffered amnesia

-          Roque – Laura’s husband, called by many names

-          Martina – the maid that lives in the house, very soft character

-          One and Two – men that arrive with Roque and always wait outside the apartment door

Notes from story

-          A woman who seems to have suffered amnesia; she interacts with only her husband (Roque), who she doesn’t really remember, and another woman who lives in the apartment, Martina

-          There is a picture of Laura and Roque’s wedding that she’s fascinated with because it’s the only clue to who they are

-          Also fascinated with the door, and the concept that she could leave through it if she wanted to

-          The plant – wilting, “like it should”

-          The mirrors – he puts one on the ceiling and forces her to watch herself when they have sex

o   He yells at her violently and it triggers a memory (a memory from torture?)

o   She yells NO (or remembers yelling it?)

-          “a window limiting a view instead of revealing one”

-          Roque has colleagues over for a drink before lunch; he buys her a new dress – she feels like they interrogate her… vague references to the Guerra Sucia

-          Refers to her sexual desire / sexuality as a well (I think?)

-          Roque brings a whip to the apartment and Laura freaks out --- tries to soothe herself and has the sudden conviction that her loved one is dead, that he was killed

-          Roque: “don’t torture yourself, let me torture you”

-          Roque undresses Laura in the living room instead of the bedroom, and opens the peephole on the door so that One and Two can watch them have sex… she’s very aware that they can see and hear her… her sense of separation from her own body

-          Laura’s realization that she has no true escape – the keys he leaves by the door don’t even match the lock

-          “He wants her to be erased, a malleable woman that he can put together as he pleases”

-          Roque is revealed to be a military colonel; he brings her a handbag with a gun inside… she recognizes it but doesn’t want to, tries to deny it.

-          Roque insists that he saved her – she wanted to shoot him and he attacked her but didn’t go as far as he could have… so as revenge for her wanting to kill him, he forced her to depend on him. “I’ve got my weapons too” Now the “game” is over… he tries to reject her and force the truth on her, so she kills him.

Themes

-          Play with idea of memory –

o   Very abstract, each word cuesta

o   Writing style reflects the sense of memory

o   Sense of amnesia

o   Traumatic memory – repression of things too difficult to recall

-          Sexual tones

o   Making love

o   She touches his penis, even when it’s not erect

o   Idea that sex is only time she’s real, only moments that “really belong to her”

o   Sadist side of sexuality, also aspect of voyeurism with peephole bit (and with reader, who is “observing” this sexuality and torture)

o   Somewhat similar to Bombal (La última niebla) – idea of female sexual desire

-          Violence

o   The way he hugs her so tight it hurts – more out of hate than love/desire

o   Scar on her back

-          Idea of Laura’s complete lack of power, compared with his power/ability

-          Sense of fragmentation of the body

-          Use of masks / deception

o   The creation of a fake marriage

-          Gender

o   Sense of masochism – Laura seems to sometimes enjoy the savage way that Roque treats her sexually

-          Postmodernist influence

o   In the beginning the reader is just as lost as the protagonist in terms of what has happened

o   More than one version of events (what she thinks, what he has made her believe, what actually happened)

La casa de los espíritus (1982) – Isabel Allende

Sobre la autora y la obra

-          Allende

o   Chile, 1942-present

o   Rapidly published several best-selling novels (Franco 342)

o   Interest in sexual and political violence (Franco 342)

o   Some influence of magical realism

-          This is her first novel

-          Key work of the post-boom

-          This work is often seen as a sort of critical and feminine re-working of García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad

Comps Example Questions

1. Metafiction and historiographic metafiction: Borges, Huidobro, Puig, Allende, Sarduy, Valenzuela, Vargas Llosa, etc. Some suggested, secondary readings: Waugh, Hutcheon, Juan-Navarro.
2. Narrative of dictatorship in the Southern Cone and the guerra sucia. Authors: Puig, Allende, Valenzuela.

3.      Discuss the relationship between Latin American and Latina/o literature by choosing three representative authors/works. For example, similarities and differences between Paz’s Laberinto de la soledad and Anzaldúa’s Borderlands. (Works to consider: Paz, C. Fuentes, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Allende, Anzaldúa, J. Álvarez.)

4.      Boom, realismo mágico, and lo real maravilloso; postboom and neobarroco; precursors; modernity (see the “Modernismo since 1940” section of list) and the controversy over postmodernity in Spanish America. Authors: Borges, Huidobro, García Márquez, Rulfo, Carpentier Asturias, Cortázar , Allende, Puig, Sarduy, Fuentes, Poniatowska, Valenzuela. Note: other movements which are associated with some of these writers, such as surrealism (Cortázar) or the use of popular culture and other genres in narrative (Puig), etc. Some suggested, secondary readings: Rodríguez Monegal, Shaw, González Echevarría, Hutcheon.

What Franco says (Chap. 11, pg. 342)

-          Explores and to some extent subverts the gendered separation of public and private

-          Inverts the national allegory mode by portraying strong women protagonists

What Cambridge Latin America says (Chap. 4, pg. 94-95)

-          Key work of the Post-Boom

-          Unmistakable reflection of modern Latin American history, and in particular the modern history of Chile

-          Since it directly reflects modern history, it comments on the evasive nature of the narrative of the Boom

-          Novel is a critical reworking of García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad

-          “Allende’s novel perfectly demonstrates the idea of the Post-Boom as a rearticulation of the Boom while also exhibiting the trend towards greater referentiality that some associate with a Post-Boom proper”

Temas/ideas importantes

-          Estilo de escritura

o   Varied narrative voice: Perspective switches between first person (Esteban) and third person omniscient

-          Influence of the post-boom (experimentalism), magical realism

- Varied narrative voice
--  Largely linear structure (rather than wacky temporality of lots of boom novels)

-   Magical realism – idea of the women having some sort of magical powers/abilities (Clara predicts future, moves sugar bowl with her mind, etc.)

-          Post-modernism

o   Questioning of past reality, historiographic metafiction

-          Metaficción historiográfica

o   Se cuestiona un pasado histórico al mismo tiempo que se recoge una construcción literaria

o   ** should consult Linda Hutcheon’s “The Postmodern Problematizing of History”

o   The story retells the history of a country through its characters, and at the same time we are conscious of what we are reading – it’s a reconstruction of Clara’s notebooks and Esteban’s memories, written by Alba’s pen… we’ve been warned from the beginning that what we are reading is the story of Alba’s family, and also the story of the country (Chile) through the story of her family.

-          Gender

o   Importance of a distinctly female perspective – heavier focus on female characters rather than male ones

o   Idea of the woman as head of household (particularly in Clara)

o   Woman as victim, controlled by men (especially Blanca)

§  Rape, sexual abuse

o   Gender inequality, woman is often inferior in society

-          Turbulent political situation

o   Commentary on current political situation of country (?)

o   Commentary about communism – both for and against

§  Esteban hates communism

o   Conservative party vs. more liberal one, there is a revolution

o   Socialist party wins power, but the country/situation rapidly deteriorates and the militant dictatorship takes over

-          Social class

o   Concern of reputation (upper class)

o   Weakness / lack of power of lower class, particularly in rural region

o   Strong class divide: rich, urban vs. poor, rural

-          Rural vs. urban divide

Main / most important characters

This list is based off Wikipedia; there’s a lot more character analysis there.

-          Clara del Valle Trueba – key female figure in the novel. She is a clairvoyant and telekinetic who is rarely attentive to domestic tasks, but she holds her family together with her love for them and her uncanny predictions

-          Esteban Trueba – central male character of the novel, and along with his granddaughter Alba, is one of the story's main narrators. Clara’s husband

-          Blanca Trueba - Clara and Esteban's first-born daughter; becomes pregnant illegitimately (by Pedro Tercero García) and is forced to marry Count Jean de Satigny, whom she does not love

-          Pedro Tercero García – son of the tenant/foreman of Tres Marías, Pedro Segundo García. Falls in love with Blanca and is the father of her only child, Alba. Revolutionary and songwriter.

-          Alba García – daughter of Blanca and Pedro Tercero García, although for many years of her life she was led to believe that Count de Satigny was her father

Detailed plot summary (from Wikipedia)

The story starts with the del Valle family, focusing upon the youngest and the oldest daughters of the family, Clara and Rosa. The youngest daughter, Clara del Valle, has paranormal powers and keeps a detailed diary of her life. Using her powers, Clara predicts an accidental death in the family. Shortly after this, Clara's green-haired sister, Rosa the Beautiful, is killed by poison intended for her father who is running for the Senate. Rosa's fiancé, a poor miner named Esteban Trueba, is devastated and attempts to mend his broken heart by devoting his life to uplifting his family hacienda, Las Tres Marías. Through a combination of intimidation and reward systems, he quickly earns/forces respect and labor from the fearful peasants and turns Tres Marías into a "model hacienda". He turns the first peasant who spoke to him upon arrival, Pedro Segundo, into his foreman, who quickly becomes the closest thing that Trueba ever has to an actual friend during his life. However, unable to control himself, he rapes many of the peasant women, and his first victim, Pancha García, becomes the mother of his bastard son, who would eventually become Esteban García.

Esteban returns to the city to see his dying mother. After her death, Esteban decides to fulfill her dying wish: for him to marry and have legitimate children. He goes to the del Valle family to ask for Clara's hand in marriage. Clara accepts Esteban's proposal; she herself has predicted her engagement two months prior, speaking for the first time in nine years. During the period of their engagement, Esteban builds what everyone calls "the big house on the corner," a large mansion in the city where the Trueba family will live for generations. After their wedding, Esteban's sister Férula comes to live with the newlyweds in the big house on the corner. Férula develops a strong dedication to Clara, which fulfills her need to serve others. However, Esteban's wild desire to possess Clara and to monopolize her love causes him to throw Férula out of the house. She curses him, telling him that he will shrink in body and soul, and die like a dog. Although she misses her sister-in-law, a passive and dreamy Clara finds happiness in developing her psychic powers. Spirits, artists, and spiritualists flock to the Truebas' house.

Clara gives birth to a daughter named Blanca and later, to twin boys Jaime and Nicolás. The family, which resides in the capital, stays at the hacienda during the summertime. Upon arriving at Tres Marías for the first time, Blanca immediately befriends a young boy named Pedro Tercero, who is the son of her father's foreman. During their teenage years, Blanca and Pedro Tercero eventually become lovers. After an earthquake that destroys part of the hacienda and leaves Esteban injured, the Truebas move permanently to Las Tres Marías. Clara spends her time teaching and helping peasant children, while Blanca is sent to a convent school and the twin boys back to an English boarding school, both of which are located in the city. Blanca fakes an illness so as to be sent back to Las Tres Marías, where she can be with Pedro Tercero. Life runs smoothly until Pedro Tercero is banished from the hacienda by Esteban, on account of his revolutionary communist/socialist ideas.

A visiting French count to the hacienda, Jean de Satigny, reveals Blanca's nightly romps with Pedro Tercero to her father. Esteban furiously goes after his daughter and brutally whips her. When Clara expresses horror at his actions, Esteban slaps her, knocking out her front teeth. Clara decides to never speak to him again, reclaims her maiden name and moves out of Tres Marías and back to the city, taking Blanca with her. Esteban, furious and lonely, blames Pedro Tercero for the whole matter; putting a price on the boy's head with the local corrupt police. At this point, Pedro Segundo deserts Esteban, telling him he does not want to be around when Trueba inevitably catches his son. Enraged by Pedro Segundo's departure, Trueba begins hunting for Pedro Tercero himself, eventually tracking him down to a small shack near his hacienda. He only succeeds in cutting off three of Pedro's fingers, and is filled with regret for his uncontrollable furies.

Jaime becomes an empathetic doctor while crafty Nicolás concocts money-making schemes. The two develop a strange relationship with a woman named Amanda. Nicolas and Amanda are originally introduced to the story together, but split later on due to her pregnancy. Jaime loves Amanda dearly at this point but will never admit to his feelings around her. He agrees to help terminate her pregnancy not because his cowardly brother asked him to, but for the woman he cannot have. Years later Jaime and Amanda meet again and Jaime saves her from near death. Amanda remembers Jaime as the tender doctor and falls in love with him, but he realizes that she is not the same beautiful woman that bewitched him originally. He continues to have a relationship with Amanda though he does not love her.

Blanca finds out she is pregnant with Pedro Tercero's child. Esteban, desperate to save the family honor, gets Blanca to marry the French count by telling her that he has killed Pedro Tercero. At first, Blanca gets along with her new husband, but she leaves him when she discovers his participation in sexual fantasies with the servants. Blanca quietly returns to the Trueba household and names her daughter, who has Rosa's green hair, Alba. Clara predicts that Alba will have a very happy future and good luck. Her future lover, Miguel, happens to watch her birth, as he had been living in the Trueba House with his sister, Amanda. They move out shortly after Alba's birth.

Esteban Trueba eventually moves to the Trueba house in the capital as well, although he continues to spend periods of time in Tres Marías. He becomes isolated from every member of his family except for little Alba, whom he is very fond of. Esteban runs as a senator for the Conservative Party but is nervous about whether or not he will win. Clara speaks to him, through signs, informing him that "those who have always won will win again" - this becomes his motto. Clara then begins to speak to Esteban through signs, although she keeps her promise and never actually speaks to him again. A few years later, Clara dies peacefully and Esteban is overwhelmed with grief.

Alba is a solitary child who enjoys playing make-believe in the basement of the house and painting the walls of her room. Blanca has become very poor since leaving Jean de Satigny's house, getting a small income out of selling pottery and giving pottery classes to mentally handicapped children, and is once again dating Pedro Tercero, now a revolutionary singer/songwriter. Alba and Pedro are fond of each other, but do not know they are father and daughter, although Pedro suspects this. Alba is also fond of her uncles. Nicolás is eventually kicked out by his father, moving, supposedly, to North America.

When she is older, Alba attends a local college where she meets Miguel, now a grown man, and becomes his lover. Miguel is a revolutionary, and out of love for him, Alba involves herself in student protests against the conservative government. After the victory of the People's Party (a socialist movement), Alba celebrates with Miguel.

Fearing a Communist dictatorship, Esteban Trueba and his fellow politicians plan a military coup of the socialist government. However, when the military coup is set into action, the military men relish their power and grow out of control. Esteban's son Jaime is killed by power-driven soldiers along with other supporters of the government. After the coup, people are regularly kidnapped and tortured. Esteban helps Blanca and Pedro Tercero flee to Canada, where the couple finally find their happiness.

The military regime attempts to eliminate all traces of opposition and eventually comes for Alba. She is made the prisoner of Colonel Esteban García, the son of Esteban Trueba and Pancha García's illegitimate son, and therefore grandson to Esteban Trueba. During an earlier visit to the Trueba house, García molests Alba as a child. In pure hatred of her privileged life and eventual inheritance, García tortures Alba repeatedly, looking for information on Miguel. He rapes her, thus completing the cycle that Esteban Trueba put into motion when he raped Pancha García. When Alba loses her will to live, she is visited by Clara's spirit who tells her not to wish for death, since it can easily come, but to wish to live.

Esteban Trueba manages to free Alba with the help of Miguel and Tránsito Soto, an old friend/prostitute from his days as a young man. After helping Alba write their memoir, Esteban Trueba dies in the arms of Alba, accompanied by Clara's spirit; he is smiling, having avoided Férula's prophecy that he will die like a dog. Alba explains that she will not seek vengeance on those who have injured her, suggesting a hope that one day the human cycle of hate and revenge can be broken. Alba writes the book to pass time while she waits for Miguel and for the birth of her child.