The Ironic Apocalypse in the Novels of Leopoldo Marechal (Monografías A)

181 Pages·2000·0.62 MB·English

by  Norman Cheadle

Colección Támesis
SERIE A: MONOGRAFÍAS, 183
THE IRONIC APOCALYPSE IN THE
NOVELS OF LEOPOLDO MARECHAL
Leopoldo Marechal is a precursor of both the Spanish American
nueva novela and the Argentine novísimos, but traditionally he has
been read as a Christian apologist. This study finds instead that
Marechal’s novels parody the grand narratives of religion and
metaphysics. Close readings of Adán Buenosayres (1948), El
Banquete de Severo Arcángelo (1965) and Megafón, o la guerra
(1970) show that these novels radically subvert the teleological
notions underpinning authoritarianism in both religion and politics,
supporting instead a profoundly democratic cultural politics. This
newcriticalperspectiveonMarchal’snovelisticsthrowslightonhis
relevance to contemporary Argentine culture.
NORMAN CHEADLE teaches in the Department of Modern
Languages, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario.

NORMAN CHEADLE
THE IRONIC APOCALYPSE
IN THE NOVELS OF
LEOPOLDO MARECHAL
TAMESIS
© Norman Cheadle 2000
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First published 2000 by Tamesis, London
ISBN 1 85566 070 9
Tamesis is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA
website: www.boydell.co.uk
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cheadle, Norman, 1953–
The ironic apocalypse in the novels of Leopoldo Marechal/
Norman Cheadle.
p. cm. – (Colección Támesis. Serie A, Monografias ; 183)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–85566–070–9 (hc : alk. paper)
1. Marechal, Leopoldo, 1900–1970 – Criticism and interpretation.
2. Politics in literature. I. Title. II. Series.
PQ7797.M26 Z624 2000
863 – dc21 99–086336
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
CONTENTS
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Irony, parodry, satire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Apocalypse in history and literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Problems in Marechalian criticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2. Adán Buenosayres: parodic Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Diremptive structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Beginnings and end(ing)s, prologue and epilogue . . . . . . . . . 23
Authors and (unreliable) narrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Adán’s personal apocalypse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3. Metahistory and the cycle of language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Apocalyptic metahistory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The cycle of language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Modes of language in Adán’s interior monologue. . . . . . . . . 48
Ironic motifs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Adán’s poetry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Adán’s poetics: Platonism andvanguardismo . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Nominalism and realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
The book of the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4. Light against Darkness: poetry versus science . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Book Two: thetertulia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Book Three: adventures in Saavedra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Schultze intervenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5. Schultze and “El viaje a la oscura ciudad de Cacodelphia”. . . . . . 84
Schultze as Adán’s teacher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Cacodelphia: The Last Judgment as carnival. . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Rhetorical politics in Cacodelphia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Mise en abyme: the story of Don Ecuménico . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The Paleogogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6. Textual apocalypse:El Banquete de SeveroArcángelo. . . . . . . . 122
Metahistory:repriseandricorso. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Symposium assainete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Andrés Papagiourgiou’s vision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7. Coda and conclusion: Samuel Tesler’s last word inMegafón,
o la guerra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
PREFACE
This book is the result of what began as an investigation into the various
ways the New Testament Apocalypse has been inscribed into Argentine nar-
rative. It became immediately obvious that Leopoldo Marechal’s “apocalyp-
tic”novelswerestrikinglydifferentintoneandintentbycomparisonwiththe
work of other Argentine novelists such as Roberto Arlt, Ernesto Sábato, and
EduardoMallea,allofwhominvokeapocalypticmotifstoconveythemesof
crisisanddisasterinsocietyandtheworldatlarge.Inotherwords,thesenov-
elists use apocalypse in what must be called a conventional way, in accord
with the “great code,” as Northrop Frye calls the typological rhetoric
bequeathed us by the Christian bible. Marechal, by contrast, employs the
heavy artillery of apocalypse in apparently banal contexts, evidently with
ironic intent. Just how deep Marechal’s irony cuts and what it means is the
question this study attempts to address.
But is it justifiable to devote a monograph to the novels of Leopoldo
Marechal? Marechal is not well known outside Argentina, though many
critics have acknowledged – briefly, sometimes begrudgingly – his impor-
tanceasaprecursorofthenuevanovelaoftheworld-famous“boom”genera-
tion of Spanish American novelists. However, his influence extends beyond
theheightsachievedbytheSpanishAmericannovelinthesixtiesandseven-
ties,andforthisreasonMarechalmustbeofmoreinterestthanever.Ricardo
Piglia, for example, one of the foremost writers in contemporary Argentina,
includes Leopoldo Marechal among a pantheon of only three other literary
forbearswho,inhiswords,constitute“nuestraverdaderatradición”(Ficción
y política 102). (The others are Macedonio Fernández, Roberto Arlt, and
Jorge Luis Borges.) It is instructive that Piglia should choose Marechal as a
precursor.Piglia’scriticalandtheoreticalsophistication,aswellashispoliti-
cal orientation, should be enough to alert us to the possibility of a new
reading of Marechal, one that breaks with the tradition that views Adán
Buenosayres (1948) as a totalizing narrative endorsing Augustinian and
Thomistmetaphysics.OneofPiglia’sfictionalcharacters,arenegadesenator
and oligarch, makes this observation about the official Argentine discourse
grounded in authoritarian metaphysics: “se muestra ya la heterogeneidad de
lo que nuestros enemigos siempre pensaron idéntico a sí mismo. Lo que
podía pensarse unido, sólido, comienza a fragmentarse, a disolverse,
erosionado por el agua de la historia” (Respiración artificial 61). The Piglia
viii PREFACE
who celebrates, through his character, the fragmentation of the self-identical
Subject, the rigid totality underwritten by conservative reaction, must cer-
tainlybereadingMarechal’sapparentlycrankyCatholictheologyàrebours,
thatis,ironically.ThereadingofMarechal’snovelsoutlinedinthefollowing
pages does the same.
Finally, then, this study will have been justified if it contributes in some
small measure to a reassessment of the literary value of Marechal’s Adán
Buenosayres. In 1975, David William Foster ventured to prophesy that
Marechal’schefd’oeuvrewouldeventuallyemerge“aseitherthemostmon-
umental disaster in Argentine letters or the most brilliant novel of the first
half of this century” (Currents in the Contemporary Argentine Novel 18).
Foster was at least partially right on both accounts. Twenty-odd years later,
AdánBuenosayresappearstobeatonceacalculateddisaster,inasmuchasit
brings monumental metanarratives tumbling down, and a brilliant literary
achievement whose significance reaches beyond Argentina, and even
SpanishAmerica,intothewiderworldofWesternliteratureinthelatetwen-
tiethcentury,where,intheshadowofthemillenium,theoldtropesofapoca-
lypse once again flicker fitfully, garishly, parodically, across our rhetorical
horizons.
Acknowledgement
This book has been published with the financial aid of the Scholarly
Subventions Program of the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
L’ironieapénétrétoutesleslanguesmodernes...ellea
pénétré les mots et les formes . . . L’ironie s’est glissée
partout, est attestée sous tous ses aspects – depuis
l’ironie infime, imperceptible, jusqu’à la raillerie
déclarée. L’homme moderne ne proclame plus, ni
déclame, il parle, et il parle restrictivement. Les genres
déclamatoires se préservent principalement dans des
momentsconstituifsduroman,desmomentsparodiques
ou semi-parodiques. [. . .] Les sujets parlants des genres
déclamatoires nobles – prêtres, prophètes, prédicateurs,
juges, chefs, patriarches, etc. – ont disparu de la vie.
Tous, ils ont été remplacés par l’écrivain, le simple
écrivain, devenu l’héritier de leur style.
Mikhail Bakhtin (1979, 351)
He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational
animal proceeding syllogistically from the known to the
unknown and a conscious rational reagent between a
microandamacrocosmineluctablyconstructeduponthe
incertitude of the void.
James Joyce,Ulysses(572)
La bestia humana, la más civilizada de las fieras, es la
bestia del Apocalipsis.
Augusto Roa Bastos,Vigilia del Almirante(123)