Tag Archives: war

04/3/23

Week 12: Love and Totalitarianism in Lemebel’s My Tender Matador

    A political malaise of smoke and mirrors, secretive plots and political rebellion create the tone of My Tender Matador, the Pedro Lemebel book which concerns a foiled Guerilla plot to take down the Augusto Pinochet regime in 1980s Chile. As this week’s lecture puts it, it is as much a political drama as it is a love story. This is fitting in the sense that, speaking for myself, political oppression and conflict means little when authors do not put a face to those who are most affected by it, as well as do not shine light on the interpersonal relationships we as readers might relate to even under much different circumstances. Under dictatorship, it is often humanity which most brightly shines through the dogmatic oppression, jack boots and party slogans. It is with this landscape Pedro Lemebel creates a classic not merely related to the past, but like with most of our course readings, remains relevant through to the present. 

    The question of gender, as well as one’s identity under authoritarianism, is highlighted throughout the narrative. The story revolves around the central protagonist, the “Queen of the Corner,” or La Loca de Frente. In addition to what has already been said in the lecture of her character name’s etymology, I interpreted Frente as a nod to the “front” she must maintain while keeping up appearances in a time of conformity under totalitarianism. To be outside the norm is a counter-culture statement itself. Yet with the bovine complacency towards love songs—cultural artefacts which might be seen as commercial and banal in any other circumstance—on her sleeve La Loca wears a wish for escapism: through political change, or interpersonal relationships. This is further reflected in her dynamic with the revolutionary Carlos, to which many of this week’s blogs have referred to as either toxic or loveless. While I’m not sure an entire relationship can be distilled in this way from an outside perspective, there are certainly struggles which, owing to the turbulent times, are certain to find their root cause in the totalitarian regime which surrounds them and a wish for change. It is in the metaphor of Carlos and La Loca for real world political conflict the reader is able to assign a face to the anguish others went through in 1980s Chile. 

    My question to the class: Do you agree that the goal of Pedro Lemebel, as well as other authors speaking on socio-political world events we had studied, is to humanise the conflict, or simply tell their own truth? In what ways do the two complement each other, or are incompatible? S

03/27/23

Week 11: The Politicisation of the Artist in Bolano’s Distant Star

    My first emotion while reading Roberto Bolano’s Distant Star was shock—the author does not paint the portrait of the artist as a relatively favourable position in Chilean society, but rather bleak by contrast. Through censorship, disappearances and political violence—both overtly depicted as well as presented in artistic mediums in the case of Carlos Weider—the artistic representation Bolano provides is that of the artist as a truth teller in society who, in their mastery of drawing up popular sentiment and disillusionment, is equally seen as “dangerous” by totalitarian governments. It is in the revolutionary role of the artist in society that creation is outlined as a fruitless, but also a necessary one. 

    I especially enjoyed the historical context given by the lectures. Before starting this course, 1980s Chile was a country I knew little about–much less the Latin American region as a whole!–and I can safely say I have acquired a greater understanding of its geopolitical events than before. “The Wave of Democratisation” which began with the collapse of the Agentinian dictatorship in 1983; Brazil in 1985; Paraguay in 1993; to the stretching home of Roberto Bolano’s novel was very intriguing to learn about: the quasi-domino effect which would change lives not only on-the-ground, but abstract realms in literature as well. The parallel drawn between barbarity and literature strikes me as a truthful one. Despite platitudes which tell us the pen is mightier than the sword, I wonder if artists see themselves as living by the sword, and often dying by it when they are repressed by governments. Is this the uncertain artistic license Bolano seems to point us towards with Carlos Weider in the novel? 

    In terms of my opinion of Weider, I found the avant-garde ambiguity of his art an intriguing theme. There is no telling whether or not the subjects of the photos are meant to be a condemnation endorsement, or simply provoke in an apolitical fashion. To think that simple photos can tell one so much, yet reveal so little about intent, is therefore what makes the medium both opaque and transparent in the eyes of cultural critics. The adage “a picture says a thousand word” reveals the importance of photography as capturing a moment to change minds; in turn, it also reveals the danger it poses to authoritarian regimes who wish to control the popular narrative. Raul Zurita, as mentioned in the lecture, is a prominent real world example of this figure who lives by this standard. With the Marshall McLuhan belief that the medium is the message, he wishes to have eyes turned upwards towards the sky in a figurative wish for escape from their plights, but also a literary one. 

    My question for the class is in what way does Bolano play into, or subvert, our portrait of the artist? In what ways might it change during authoritarian rule and how might censorship assist in eliminating dissent? S

01/23/23

Week 3: The Link Between Intellect and Violence in The Underdogs

    It can be argued that several wars, if not most of them, have been started by intellectuals. Those few who hold the keys to power in literacy and prestige are often the greatest practicers of spearheading obstinate positions, stirring up the anger of the masses towards any persons viewed as the “enemy” and, above all, overthinking a problem which might otherwise be solved through pacifism rather than violent rebellion. A text on the forefront of literature from the Mexican Revolution, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, is very much a novel concerning this disillusionment from revolution after heavy losses brought on by years of fighting. It paints the intellectuals, or “sense-makers” as those whose over-idealised ideas of change and progress have resulted in devastation not only for others, but made them the architects of their own misery. In equal measure, Azuela’s narrative captures the animalistic brutality brought on by the common soldier manipulated by the demagogic rhetoric of his leaders. 

    Predominantly, the way the extremities of conflict affects the common soldier is captured through the breakdown of class and experience, homogenised during wartime. What might be considered the main character, Demetrio Macias, is a fugitive from the law who joins the conflict as a way to escape punishment, yet soon becomes an unlikely leader of this band of rebels. Because of his development in a more lower class oral culture, he orders his men to engage in book burning at one point in the novel, perhaps believing it to be the symbolic destruction of the literary world which has started the fighting and has always looked down on him. There is a certain joy he finds in this, and more generally, violence as well. “His famous marksmanship fills him with joy,” the text states near the end of the novel. If war does not lead to his physical demise, as it is implied by the end of the text, the comparison between a hollow as “the portico of an old cathedral” certainly symbolises a death of morality in the beast of a man. 

    A more nuanced view of war is taken by Luis Cervantes, who is able to read and write, and is described as more eloquent, inspiring and good for the troops. Yet he is also perhaps seen as part of the problem, another one of these “sense-makers” who have only come to elongate the conflict and inadvertently lead to further destruction. Although a strange pairing, wartime allows these two men to prosper through their ruthlessness and charisma respectively. It is only the way in which they view conflict, as well as embolden it, which differentiates them. 

    My question would be: Do you believe in the central premise that the minority of intellectuals in power are to blame for warfare? Or, more cynically, do you consider man’s devolution into violence inevitable? S