Magic Realism

Social Context and Discourse

Maria-Elena Angulo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815311836
• eBook ISBN: 9781317954231
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Since the 1930s, Latin American writers have used magic realism to transcend the limits of the fantastic and illuminate social problems within the culture. The author considers five modern Latin American novels. Starting with two canonical texts of magic realism, Alejo Carpentier's El reino de este mundo (1949) and Garcia Marquez's Cien a-os de soledad (1967), the author argues that Los Sangurimas (1934), by the Ecuadorian Jos de la Cuadra, is a seminal work due to de la Cuadra's new approach to reality and his use of marvelous and hyperbolic elements. The author shows the continuation of this example in Ecuador in Demetrio Aguilera-Malta's Siete lunas y siete serpientes (1970) and Alicia Y nez Coss'o's Bruna, soroche y los tios (1972), which elucidate social problems of race, class, and gender through use of magic realism.
In selecting for her study well-known writers such as Carpentier, Garcia Marquez, and others, less well-known such as de la Cuadra, Aguilera-Malta and Y nez Coss'o, the author demonstrates that both canonical and noncanonical writers for many years have been working on this new way of writing to interpret in fiction the highly complex Latin American reality.

Two Ecuadorian Novels of Realismo Maravilloso of the 1970s

Para que un país tenga novela, hay que asistir a la labor de varios novelistas, en distinto escalafón de edades, empeñados en una labor paralela, semejante o antagónica, con un esfuerzo continuado y una constante experimentatión de la técnica. (Alejo Carpentier, Tientos y diferencias)

The literary renovation reached by many Latin American countries during the 1950s and 1960s was not experienced in Ecuador where, during these years, there was a decline in literary production, especially in the novel. Agustín Cueva, in Lecturas y rupturas, explains the situation of the 1950s in Ecuador in these terms:

Las razones de dicho declive son por supuesto múltiples, comenzando por el hecho más obvio: la realidad se modificó más rápido que la Weltanschauung de la generatión del 30. A1 entrar en una fase de franca desestructuración ("modernizatión" o modificationes sectoriales) la vieja sociedad rural que fue el Ecuador se "descompuso," pero sin engendrar de inmediato una sociedad de nuevo tipo, plenamente urbana. En consecuencia, la conceptión del mundo de los años treinta se marchitó antes de que surgiera una alternativa coherente para reemplazarla. El adocenamiento y el oportunismo hicieron el resto: desde la "gloriosa" del 44 hasta finales de los cincuenta el espíritu combativo de las capas medias decayó, fueron "cooptadas" como se diría hoy. (189)

During the sixties the cultural, political, and social issues in Latin America were also reflected in its literature. In Ecuador, there were changes in poetry, but there were no important novels to be equated to those of the great Latin American writers of the "boom," García Márquez, Cortázar, Fuentes, Vargas Llosa. This situation was to change, however, in the 1970s with the appearance of novels with as great a variety and richness of themes and complex narrative techniques as on the rest of the continent.

Some of the most important novels in the decade of the seventies are: Demetrio Aguilera Malta's Siete lunas y siete serpientes (1970), El secuestro del general (1973), El jaguar (1977); Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseeo's Las pequeñas estaturas (1970), La Manticora (1974); Pedro Jorge Vera's Tiempo de muñecos (1971), El pueblo soy yo (1976); Alicia Yánez Cossío's Bruno, soroche y los tíos (1973), Yo vendo unos ojos negros (1979); Jorge Rivadeneira's Las tierras del Nuaymás (1975); Jorge Enrique Adoum's Entre Marxy una mujer desnuda (1976); Fernando Tinajero's El desencuentro (1976); Iván Egüez's La Linares (1976); Jorge Dávila Vázquez's María Joaquina en la vida y en la muerte (1976); Miguel Donoso Pareja's Día tras día (1976); Gustavo Alfredo Jácome's Porqué se fueron las garzas (1979) and Eliecer Cárdenas's Polvo y ceniza (1979). As Sacoto rightly states in La nueva novela ecuatoriana:

La actual novela ecuatoriana, la de la década del 70, es bastante lograda en Hispanoamérica, advirtiendo, sin embargo, que no ha llegado a su cenit todavía y está muy lejos de su madurez. Algunos narradores ecuatorianos son muy jóvenes (Dávila, Egüez, Cárdenas) y están en período de gestación. En consecuencia, es mucho, pero mucho, lo que se puede esperar de la novela ecuatoriana, en los decenios a venir. (206)

For this study I have chosen two novels: Aguilera Malta's Siete lunas y siete serpientes (1970), and Yánez Cossio's Bruna, soroche y los tíos (1973); these works elucidate social problems of race, class and gender through use of marvelous realism.

Demetrio Aguilera Malta’s Siete lunas y siete serpientes

En esta obra voy a los mitos de mi infancia. El auto sacramental, el misterio. Se ha hecho una gran mutilación al prescindir de los mitos cristianos: ellos son para nosotros los más importantes. Jesús y el diablo. (Demetrio Aguilera Malta)

As mentioned in the third chapter, Demetrio Aguilera Malta was a member of the "Grupo de Guayaquil," and he contributed four short stories to the first publication of the group, a collected volume entitled Los que se van (1930). The setting of these stories is the coastal region of the gulf of Guayaquil, the same setting of Don Goyo (1933), La isla virgen (1942), and Siete lunas y siete serpientes (1970), Aguilera Malta's trilogy of novels of the tropics. Although all three present elements of realismo maravilloso, the third one marks a new stage in the writer's development. Here Aguilera Malta experiments with structure and language, situating this novel within the current trend of the new Latin American narrative. Since that year (1970) several Ecuadorian writers have followed his initiative.

Siete lunas y siete serpientes¹ denounces social exploitation, racial and class prejudices, religious decadence and general social problems, presenting them as the eternal question of good and evil. Although the above topics had already been treated in the social realism of the 1930s, the new approach of Aguilera Malta through incorporating another level of reality, that of myth and magic, allows the reader to see the complexity of social structure. The author no longer poses the old antinomy of "explotadores versus explotados" but instead puts forth a more elaborate and complete picture of social problems. He uses fragmentation of time, linguistic experimentation with Spanish, Latin and Quechua expressions, and cinematic techniques like foreshadowing, flashback and montage. A narrative voice gives account of the realistic marvelous attitude of the natives of a remote village, Santorontón, who believe in God, the devil, wizards, and in zoomorphic and magical transformations of the human being. These varied literary devices make the reading of Siete lunas y siete serpientes an exciting adventure into many cultural elements of the Latin American symbolic universe. The author, who is well versed in poetry, theater and cinematography, succeeds in presenting the reader with a "novela total" to which he is expressly committed.²

The plot develops in three geographical spaces: the center is Santorontón, a place where "what happens there doesn't happen"; Balumba, "the island of the wizard Bulu-Bulu;" and Daura, "the Quindales's little island." Throughout the novel, in characters and situations, the juxtaposition of good and evil and natural and supernatural elements has an important ideological and aesthetic function.

Among the forces of "good" are Father Cándido, the prototype of a Christian minister, whose main concern is to take care of the poor, the sick, and the oppressed; Juvencio Balda, the idealistic doctor who arrives in Santorontón at the highest moment of exploitation by the powerful; Clotiide Quindales, who was raped by Candelario Mariscal and who is the only survivor of the Quindales family; and Juan Isabel Lindajón, the poor man who lodges Balda at his arrival at Santorontón. Protecting this group, but only at critical moments, is a humanized Burned Christ, Father Cândido's "comrade."

The opposing band, that of the forces of evil, is constituted by the "mandamás de Santorontón" whose leader is Crisóstomo Chalena, the "water hoarder," who mercilessly exploits the poor; Salustiano Caldera, the Political Lieutenant; Rugel Banchaca, the chief of Rural Police; Father Gaudencio, the simoniacal priest, a partisan of the rich; Espurio Carranza, the "doctor-undertaker;" and Vigiliano Rufo, the storekeeper. With Chalena and his allies Aguilera Malta depicts the rich joining forces with the classic triumvirate of governmental, military and religious authorities who have dominated the life of many Latin American villages. We shall observe later the magical zoomorphic transformation of this group. Helping this group is the devil; however, according to a popular belief it is bad luck to name the devil as such. Thus throughout the narrative he is given at least fifteen different names: Old Longtail, The Malignant, The Seven Thousand Horns, The Green-Red-Soul-swallower, The One Whose Name is Never Spoken, and so on.

Candelario Mariscal and the wizard Bulu-Bulu are also among the characters who represent the forces of evil; however, they are somehow different from the rest, and they deserve special consideration. Candelario Mariscal, although evil in all his deeds and directly affiliated with the devil, does not care about money. He prevents Chalena (the richest man of the village) and his people from attacking Father Cándido's group while the latter are building the cistern. With this action Candelario is helping the poor because the water collected in the cistern will liberate them from Chalena's oppression. The wizard Bulu-Bulu and his family live isolated in their island, suffering from discrimination. Bulu-Bulu is not aligned with either group; he helps anybody, depending on circumstances.

As in all texts belonging to the category of new narrative in Latin America, temporal and spatial fragmentation are characteristic of this novel. It opens with Dominga, the wizard's daughter, in her seventh day of erotic obsession with the Tin-Tines and the snake, and Candelario Mariscal, on his way to see Bulu-Bulu, hoping to find a cure from the erotic persecution of the dead Chepa Quindales. It closes on the eve of his wedding with Dominga. Interwoven in this "time" are all the episodes corresponding to the development of Santorontón and various facts of the characters' life: Candelario's origins (17), his past bad deeds as Colonel (122-23), his attack on the Quindales (89-90); Chalena's past (46, 298-301), his establishment in Santorontón to exploit the poor, and his pact with the devil (79-85); the arrival of Juvencio Balda (174), his life as a medical student (229-37); the construction of the cistern where men and animals work together in "a kind of collective fever" (302); the story of Father Cándido (29), the Burned Christ (30-34, 66), and their continuous dialogues; the arrival of Father Gaudencio (192); the story of Bulu-Bulu, his origins (280-86), his magic powers, and so on. None of the episodes of the thirty-three chapters is narrated in logical sequence or with the same technique, nor do they have the same duration. Flashbacks and interior monologue are very common. Some of the important aspects we shall consider are: the juxtaposition of natural and supernatural codes without conflict, the ideologeme of "mestizaje," and the complex narrative technique and linguistic experimentation.

In Siete lunas y siete serpientes the coexistence of natural and supernatural elements without conflict, both forming a coherent and harmonious fictional reality, is a constant. This method is used to describe the magical world of the Santorontonians and also to criticize social and cultural problems. To achieve the presentation of a harmonious world, the narrator describes natural and supernatural events as if there were no difference in the perception of them. Since the natural and the supernatural are intrinsically interwoven in the fictitious world there is no hierarchy of reality. The narrator adopts the perspective of a community living in a world ruled by its own laws. The reader does not question but accepts this magical alien universe. In the microcosm of Santorontón, everything is possible. Santorontón is:

un lugar donde las cosas empiezan a inventarse... Donde el Diablo aún baila en la punta del rabo. Donde el Hijo del Hombre no gana todavía sus últimas batallas. (317, 313)

The Burned Christ and the devil, protectors of the forces of good and evil, have human and supernatural characteristics. The Burned Christ gets down from his cross to rest when he is tired and comments to Father Cándido in a natural way, "¿Crees que no me canso de estar siempre clavado allá arriba?" (323). He uses his supernatural powers only at critical moments, the first time, when the Pirate Ogazno throws Father Cándido and the Crucifix into the sea; Christ and Cándido arrive safely at Santorontón, using the cross as a canoe. This experience makes them "unos perfeetos camaradas" (34). Later, when Candelario sets fire to the Church, Christ flies with Cándido far from the flames (61). In both cases the marvelous action does not disturb Cándido who accepts Christ's help as a natural consequence of their close relationship. Thus sometimes Cándido helps Jesus to carry the big cross across the jungle (322-23). Only once Christ exercises his supernatural powers in front of the community. In order to save Juvencio Balda from Chalena and the "mandamás," he descends from the cross and menaces the group with it (119). The characters see Christ's intervention as a normal fact. Chalena's people are frightened because they are caught in fault and they are going to be punished for their bad actions. For the "good" people, it is logical to receive help from Christ when they are in danger. Neither group marvels to see Christ alive, and most of the time his participation is as human as that of the other characters.

The devil is also described with human characteristics and Chalena, in the same way as Cándido with Christ, takes the devil's presence as something perfectly natural. The Santorontonians describe Old Longtail in this way:

Aparecía generalmente en la alta noehe. Nunca se quitaba el sombrero. Un sombrero negro. Pelado. Acaso sería para ocultar los cuernos. Asimismo, jamás se sentaba derecho. Como todos los cristianos. —iClaro, él no era cristiano!— áas bien se ladeaba hacia la izquierda. Puede ser que a causa de la cola. Le estorbaría, sin duda. (18)

The narrative presents the people's perspective of the devil as the archetypal figure with horns and tail, but also endowed with supernatural powers to help his protegees; hence he makes rain fall only on Chalena's zinc roofs to help him to monopolize the water and sell it to the poor (87-88). According to the people's beliefs, he also helps Candelario in all his deeds, giving magical powers even to his "machete" which has a life of its own (107). There is no difference in the treatment of real and marvelous isotopies. In all descriptions realistic details are just as precise and convincing as that of the supernatural events. The supernatural appears as normal as the daily events of the Santorontonians' life.

Keeping the natural/supernatural juxtaposition, Christ and the devil each communicate directly with two characters in the novel: Christ with the two priests, Cándido and Gaudencio, and the devil with Candelario Mariscal and Crisóstomo Chalena. To reinforce the leitmotif of good and evil, there is a difference in the closeness of relationship with each character, depending on their behavior. With Cándido, the priest who protects the poor, Christ has a close relationship, for he is his constant companion, his "comrade." With Gaudencio, who favors the rich and powerful, Christ talks only twice: once when Gaudencio was helping Chalena and his group to get Juvencio Balda (119), the "good" doctor, and then again towards the end of the novel, to dissuade Gaudencio from making his trip to Balumba (309).

Christ and Gaudencio discuss Candelario's faults. Soon from this individual case the discussion dialectically turns to religion and its true meaning. When Gaudencio defends the church as an institution that needs to maintain its power, Christ replies: "¿Crees que resulta mejor una Iglesia fuerte con una Religión débil? ¿O has llegado a la paradoja de una Iglesia sin Religión que la sustente?" (316). Gaudencio exemplifies not only the Church as the oppressive institution whose allies are the powerful but he is also the outsider, the colonizer. He is the European who has different values, who cannot understand either the local culture or the people's needs and who maintains an offensive "superior" attitude (193).

In a parallel way to Christ who is closer to Cándido, the good priest, the devil is closer to Chalena, wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Realismo maravilloso
• Two Canonical Novels of Realismo maravilloso
• A Seminal Text of Realismo maravilloso in the Early 1930s
• Two Ecuadorian Novels of Realismo maravilloso of the 1970s
• Conclusion
• Selective Bibliography
• Index