Practicing Memory in Central American Literature

290 Pages·2010·3.089 MB·English

by  Nicole Caso (auth.)

Practicing Memory in Central
American Literature
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Practicing Memory in Central
American Literature
Nicole Caso
PRACTICING MEMORY IN CENTRAL AMERICAN LITERATURE
Copyright © Nicole Caso, 2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-62036-0
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a division of
St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the
world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above
companies and has companies and representatives throughout the
world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the
United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-38275-0 ISBN 978-0-230-10625-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230106253
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caso, Nicole, 1970–
Practicing memory in Central American literature / Nicole Caso.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-349-38275-0 (alk. paper)
1. Central American fi ction—20th century—History and criticism.
2. Literature and history—Central America. 3. History in literature.
I. Title.
PQ7472.N7C37 2010
863’.6099287’09728—dc22
2009031180
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by MPS Limited, A Macmillan Company
First edition: March 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my family:
Juan José, Jo Mary,
and Margot Caso
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Covering the Mouth of Silence 1
Part I The Isthmus 17
A Geography of Dubious Straits: A Literature of Trauma
and Redemption 19
1 The Dubious Strait 23
An Epic of Resistance 32
The Strait as Palimpsest 40
2 The Wounds of 1954 45
Historical Context 47
Historicality in Fiction 52
After the Bombs 61
Part II The City 77
The City as Metonymy for the Costs of “Progress” 79
3 El Señor Presidente’s Liberal City and the Modern
Scriptural Economy 85
Subverting the Cabrerista Myth 87
Unlivable Places and Ineffable Experiences 95
4 The Effects of a Fragmented Narrative: Community
and Alienation in the City 109
Fragmentation and the Search for Community 110
The Prison Cell and the Dangers of Critical Thought 114
Refl ections and Refractions: The Window and the Mirror 118
In Search of Community 123
Fragmentation and Alienation 131
Part III The Nation 143
The Nation in a Global Economy 143
5 Totalizing Narratives Written from the Margin: Julio
Escoto’s Rey del Albor, Madrugada 145
viii Contents
The “Truth” Behind the Scenes: A Detective’s Quest 148
History as a Spiral of Resistance and Domination 159
Foundational Fictions: Reasserting National Identity
in the Midst of Globalization 165
Part IV The Other 185
Negotiating Spaces for Cultural Difference 185
6 Defi ning a Space of Shared Cultural Identity:
The Pan-Maya Cultural Movement in Guatemala 187
The Center at the Margin: Rethinking the Role of the
Non-Maya Intellectual 191
Border Crossings, Narratives of Duplicity, and Unstable
Selves 202
Healing and Revitalization through Poetry 214
Conclusion 233
Notes 239
Bibliography 273
Index 283
Acknowledgments
This book has benefi ted immeasurably from the generous support
and encouragement of many people. Thank you to José Rabasa, my
dissertation advisor at the University of California, Berkeley, for con-
tinually challenging me to think against the grain. His keen ability to
listen and to understand where my thoughts were headed repeatedly
steered me through complex theoretical waters that greatly enriched
this project at its initial stages as my doctoral dissertation. To Francine
Masiello, my sincere thanks for her careful reading of my work and
for her helpful and insightful comments. Multiple discussions of
“totality” and “fragmentation” during her graduate seminars have
opened up to me a new way of engaging with fi ction and historical
texts. I owe a signifi cant debt of gratitude to Arturo Arias for being
enormously generous with his time and his vast knowledge of the
region. Thank you, Arturo, for being a constant source of positive
encouragement. Many of the questions raised in this study stem from
discussions initiated at Harvard College with my undergraduate advi-
sors, César Salgado and Doris Sommer. I am indebted to both of
them for exposing me to current debates about history and literature
and the representation of the past through fi ction.
I am grateful for fellowship support from the Department of
Spanish and Portuguese of the University of California, Berkeley,
for the Dissertation-Year Fellowship during the spring of 2004 and
the Summer Research Grant during the summer of 2003. I thank
the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, for
granting me the Bancroft Library Study Award during the summer
of 2003, and the Graduate Division of the University of California,
Berkeley, for the University of California Dissertation-Year Fellowship
during the 2002–2003 academic year and the Mentored Research
Award for the academic year of 2000–2001.
My gratitude extends to all of the authors who have graciously
allowed me to cite their texts in my analysis: Humberto Ak’abal,
Manlio Argueta, Arturo Arias, Ernesto Cardenal, Julio Escoto, Victor D.
Montejo, and Calixta Gabriel Xiquín. Citations of Ernesto Cardenal’s