Mariano Azuela’s The Underdogs (Week 3)

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I found that I enjoyed reading Mariano Azeula’s novel, The Underdogs, much more than I did De la Parra’s novel, Mama Blanca, last week. The difference in pacing between the two texts was like night and day, with this week’s text having very short, condensed chapters. I also personally found the content more engaging and all of this led to make the book much more easy to digest.

This pendulum shift of pacing that I bring up speaks to some very interesting ideas that Azuela peppers throughout his text concerning the ephemerality of witnessing history in real time as well as how our various perspectives and origins greatly influence how the same events can be construed in a multitude of different ways. Throughout the text, Azuela makes various choices with regards to the formatting of his story, as well as how he compares Demtrio with Luis to highlight the messy and disjointed reality of living in a country torn apart by a many-faceted war. As Dr.Beasley-Murray spoke about in his lecture, Demetrio and Luis serve conveniently as two sides of the same revolutionary coin. That of the side of revolutionary violence (Demetrio), and the side of revolutionary intellect (Luis). This contrast highlights both of their respective skillsets but also demonstartes how neither can get very far without the abilities and assistance of the other.

As I already mentioned, chapters of Underdogs fly by, usually no more than two pages on the ebook version I read. This choice of pacing has an almost disorienting effect to it as small individual scenes take up whole chapters, causing the breaks to accenutaute their rapid-fire nature. For me, this highlighted the confusion inherent to an active battlefield, especially at the novel’s beginning when it is difficult to even ascertain who is fighting for what or for whom. This confusion heightens for both the reader and the characters in the book when Luis Cervantes somewhat arbitrarily decides defect to the Revolution’s side. Cervantes goes from being imprisoned in, and subsequently sleeping in a “pigsty” to telling Demetrio that he is an “esteemed leader” and educating the band of revolutionaries on what they “are fighting for” (49, 55, 56). Somewhat ironically, Luis’ intelligence does not seem to extend past revolutionary rhetoric and politics, as is evidenced by his total botching of the situation with Camila. This mirrors Demetrio’s inability to harness his violent tendencies for anything more revolutionary violence. Come the end of the novel, Demetrio is still the “rock” that “nothing can stop… now” (139). His sole ability to perpetuate  the violence around him does not mix well with peace time. Therefore, we can see how the strengths of both men aid their revolutionary effort but eventually fail them in the real world.

 

Question: this text got me thinking a lot about how famous historical events are portraryed, often with a sense of authority and solemnity. With this text in mind, are there other historical events that you think could benefit from this more disjointed and less fact-driven account of history?

Teresa De la Parra’s Mama Blanca’s Memoirs

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This was a slightly tough one for me to get finished before the deadline as I started reading late, but luckily its length meant that I was able to get it done with enough time to spare which is a positive for me. Although I got through it, this was definitely a slower pace of writing than I’m used to, so it was a bit of a slog to read through at times.

That being said, embedded within the minutia of the text, Mama Blanca’s Memoirs contains a very interesting examination of how memory and remembering form and re-inform the foundations of interpersonal societal understanding. Teresa De la Parra’s novel explores the functionality of memory throughout one’s life and how it can be manipulated to serve specific purposes. In this case, the existence of the Foreword as part of the fictional text highlights the flattening potential of the written word. Our perspective of Mama Blanca’s childhood comes filtered through both herself writing it years later as well as the unnamed narrator that “prun[es]” away much of Mama Blanca’s original writing (De la Parra 15). Therefore, we can see the few remaining vestiges of Mama Blanca’s account as a nostalgia-driven pastoral re-imagining of a childhood that seeks to outline the fundamental and personal understanding that Mama Blanca imbued on her surroundings.

To begin, Mama Blanca’s parents reinforce classist, hierarchical and patriarchal systems of control. As a privileged child living with land-owning parents, these systems of control do not threaten or oppress Mama Blanca in the way that I am used to reading about them. Papa “rule[s] Piedra Azul…with careless authority” and despite his many “explosions” at various members of the small community for not conforming to his views and wishes, Mama Blanca refuses to acknowledge her father’s “cruelty” (103, 97, 70). Blanca Nieves’ mother, while not as overtly hostile towards digressions from cultural acceptability, nonetheless educates her daughters within very deliberate boundaries. Her mother’s insistence that she always be able to “put up [Blanca Nieves’] hair” demonstrates her strict adherence to traditionally appropriate presentations of gender (28). Her disciplining of Violeta also serves as a watershed moment in Blanca Nieves’ young life. Mama becomes the “Grand Inquisitor” whose authority structures the potentiality for happiness or sadness within the young girls’ lives (41).

In comparison, where her parents set the boundaries upon her limits of expression and individuality, a character like Vicente Cochocho grounds Blanca Nieves in her socioeconomic place. Cochocho is an eclectic man who has unique expertise in everything from “philosophy” to the “natural sciences” (70). His divergence from “acceptable” habits and standards of living cause Blanca Nieves’ father a great deal of consternation and fury. We see the arrogance inherited in Blanca Nieves as she likens Cochocho to the earth as a “good plant” (65). This comparison ties Cochocho to the land, and since Blanca Nieves’ family has the privilege of land ownership, implies that she sees his body and labour as belonging to her family just as the land does.

To finish off with a question: To what extent do you believe that Mama Blanca’s memoirs were altered by the unnamed editor to serve some unknown motivation of their own?

Introduction

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Hi there, my name is Ben. A little about me is that I’m in the 4th year of my combined English Language and Literature degree and this is my last term (yay!). I’m hoping to apply to law schools after I graduate; however, the plan is to take a year off before I do this, mostly just to have a break from school and also to have more time to study for the LSAT.

This final term is all electives for me, so I chose the courses that interested me the most. As someone with basically no background in reading literature from Latin American authors, I figured now would be as good a time as any to expand my knowledge of the region. Also, courses such as this always provide me with new authors and genres for me to appreciate long after they’re finished. If it’s not obvious, I enjoy reading a lot, so I’ve selected a longer reading list so as to get a more complete sense of what the various parts of Latin American offer in a literary sense.

In terms of what to expect, I really have no idea. As I’ve already said, I have no history of reading any Latin American literature. I do, however, have what could be called the basic impression of literature from Latin America in that it’s where I believe magical realism comes from. From the way Dr. Beasley-Murray discussed that topic in his first lecture, I don’t believe that that impression will be very relevant to this course. Possibly when we read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Besides that surface-level association, I have little to no expectations of the kinds of literature we will be reading. I also do not have extensive historical knowledge of the region. I know the basic broad strokes but could not say that I can definitively separate issues that pertain to individual cultures and groups that reside in Latin America. In a sense, this is good because I believe our readings will be a very interesting way to learn about and engage with these diverse cultures and narratives. Dr. Beasley-Murray said in his lecture that we are not to treat this class as though we are solely learning the history behind these texts. As someone who has little knowledge of that history, I appreciate that perspective as it opens up the texts to be analyzed through a more modern lens.

Questions: Since I know nothing about Latin American literature, does anyone have any recommendations for stuff that isn’t on the syllabus but still worth reading?