The Reader and the Recent Novels of Gustavo Sainz Author(s): Raymond L. Williams Source: Hispania, Vol.

65, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 383-387 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/341273 Accessed: 30/12/2009 03:05
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THE READERAND THE RECENT NOVELS OF GUSTAVOSAINZ

RAYMOND L. WILLIAMS Washington University GUSTAVO Sainz's most recent novels, La princesa del Palacio de Hierro (1975) and Compadre lobo (1978) are complementary examples of a type of narration that invites consideration of the reader. After a six-year hiatus since the publication of Obsesivos dias circulares, the appearance of the two later novels marked a reaction against the complexity of Sainz's earlier fiction. Such complexity was evident in the first novel that identified Sainz with the "honda" in Mexico, Gazapo
(1965).1 Its non-traditional approach to

narrative is suggested by one critic's observations concerning the narrator and the reader: "The narrator is removed from the novel, and the reader takes over."2 The structure of Obsesivos dias circulares is also notably intricate.3 The two novels at hand, however, relate stories in a basically straightforward fashion. Both portray violence and ugliness in Mexico, concomitant with occasionally tender moments involved with one of Sainz's favorite themes, growing up in Mexico City. Whereas such technical and thematic considerations have been accorded certain critical attention in the somewhat sparse body of critical work on Sainz, no exegesis has been undertaken on the matter of reader response in Sainz's later fiction.4 The present study will examine briefly the matter of "reader response" in these two novels, a theoretical matter I shall define further in the process of the analysis. The two novels relate a series of anecdotes by narrators within the story. The narrator of La princesa del Palacio de Hierro is a female whose incessant chatter is a monologue that could well be a telephone conversation. At one point, as an employee at a department store ("El Palacio de Hierro"), she tells parts of her life to an unidentified friend. The story begins in adolescence and covers several years. Her somewhat banal, but perhaps paradoxically, not boring existence consists of a series of relationships that inevitably fail. The special quality of her life, and of the novel, is found in the bizarre ways these

relationships develop and in her surprisingly uninhibited mode of expression. Compadre lobo's narrator is a male who recounts his growing up in Mexico City's lower class with a circle of friends who perpetrate violent and illegal acts. Lobo is one of the members of the group. A considerable portion of the novel also deals with the narrator's relationship with Amparo, whom he eventually marries and leaves. The novels feature what could be described as three types of readers. The first are characters within the text who act as readers. These "readers of fiction" receive messages within the text from other texts. A second reader, a "fictionalized reader," is not a character in the text or the real reader who actualizes the text, but a fictional entity similar in this sense to a narrator or character. The text creates the fictionalized reader by means of a variety of narrative strategies, as Walter Ong has suggested.5 An extension of the fictionalized reader is an implied reader, one who extrapolates from these anecdotes, techniques and strategies to formulate the novel's thematic concerns, as proposed by Wolfgang Iser.6 The characters who are readers, the first of these three types of readers, are not a new element in Sainz's fiction. In Obsesivos dias circulares the main character, Menelao, reads Ulysses as he travels in a plane. In Compadre lobo both the narrator-protagonist and Lobo are readers of fiction. The narrator, when he finds a job in a bookstore, discovers the art of "reading," that is, the reading of literature, more authentic than a mere understanding of an alphabet and a written vocabulary. He explains:
Aprendo rapidamente que leer es elegir ciertos puntos privilegiados de los textos, vamos a decir, los nudos del tejido. Y frente a autores que no se ofrecen sino hasta una segunda o tercera relecturas, acepto que leer es tambien trastornar el orden aparente en el que se constituyen los libros, acercar las partes alejadas, descubrir repeticiones, oposiciones y gradaciones, sacrificar la vida en aras de un misterioso trafago de simbolos y simbolos de simbolos.7

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As such, his role as a reader of fiction is with the narrator's wife, Amparo, the nara key point in his maturation process, one rator comes to the conclusion that people of the novel's essential thematic concerns. live on different levels of reality, some of As he becomes a competent reader of liter- "total lucidez" and others of "vacio" or ature he is more capable of distancing him- "ausencismo." self from the group, a change from a purely In La princesa del Palacio de Hierro, external violence to a gradual creation of the reader of fiction who functions as a an internal, more reflective and intellec- receiver is the unidentified person to whom tual, fictional world. The narrator's father, the princesa directs her monologue. This indeed, considers his son's conversion fictional entity is present from the first hardly laudable. He says to his wife about lines of the novel, when the princesa dihis son, the newly converted reader of fic- rects an oye and tut to her: "Oye, pero la tion: "Alli esta el cretino de tu hijo . . . tipa estaba de sanatorio. Se vestia de homleyendo idioteces, fabricandose una vida bre, con sombrero, corbata y todo, ti, i,y interior porque no puede vivir como los sabes quien se parecia? Bueno, ,te acuerhombres" (p. 193). Extending this under- das de Mercedes?"8 Although the novel's standing of reader of fiction somewhat, in 345 pages all feature precisely the same a metaphorical sense the narrator and narrative situation, the tu to whom the Lobo also function as readers in the sense princesa directs her ramblings is not identithat they are conscientious and acute stu- fied as the receiver of the princesa's words. dents of words. The narrator's relating The presence of this entity is the key to of his story is to a considerable extent the functioning of the novel's humor, as his reading of words during the period de- the following example of the monologue scribed. The more the narrator reads, the directed to the ttuillustrates: greater becomes his distance from the A veces nos reuniamos para hablar de nuestros progroup. He also becomes increasingly aware blemas. Y cuando estabamos juntas empezabamos of words and on occasions he writes. When a hablar de todas las cosas que habian pasado, los he is suffering the pains of one of his cambios de maridos, los orgasmos felices, los adolescent nocturnal escapades, he returns abandonos y cosas asi. . . . (p. 180) home where his aunt cares for him. He We note a loss of the basic intimacy of the conversation. This principle, the violation comments in retrospection: of the code of intimacy between the prinjsi hubiera podido escribir esa noche! Escribir una cesa and her fictional reader by the real como si fuese la tarea mas tras otra imporpalabra tante del mundo, con la condici6n de actuar, de reader, is the basis of the novel's humor. tener algo que hacer, de rechazar el desamparo In contrast, the fictionalized readers, as agobiante. Escribir . . . Como si la tarea valiese la delineated by Booth and Ong, are created (p. 119) pena.... by means of various narrative strategies.9 The narrator also defines Lobo in terms Ong points out how an author such as of words and the reading of them. He de- Hemingway can manipulate a reader by scribes how Lobo and he exchange inti- flattering him.'? In La princesa del Palacio mate revelations during their meetings at de Hierro, Sainz places the reader in a posithe Chivo Encantado. These revelations tion of superiority-a type of flatteryaffirm that the two friends no longer have with respect to the characters. As noted much in common. The narrator-protago- above in the case of the protagonist and nist has become sufficiently distanced from the ttu to whom she directs her discourse, the everyday world and so drawn into his the reader is entertained by the character's own personal world as a reader and writer pettiness and vulgarity. The use of vulgar that he no longer has many points of language and the surprising interjections mutual interest with the mundane Lobo. that the princesa repetitively employs, such The narrator explains this distance in terms as "ranas sifiliticas," "diablos circuncidaof words, palabras: "Si me decia cosas dos," "tortugas ninformas" and "vampilo hacia atraves de la infinita distancia ros capados"-these are just a few examque lo separaba de mi, y sus palabras, ples from the first chapter-are effective precisamente, no hacian otra cosa que su- strategies for fictionalizing a reader who is brayar esa distancia" (my emphasis, p. superior to the characters. In both novels the most predominant 251). Later when Lobo initiates an affair

The Reader and the Recent Novels of Gustavo Sainz strategy for fictionalizing a reader, however, concerns the intellectual and analytical content that each employs. Not only is the reader fictionalized in the two novels superior to the characters he observes, but the author also fictionalizes him fundamentally as an intellectual. In La princesa del Palacio de Hierro one strategy employed to fictionalize this intellectual (and superior) reader is the inclusion of a series of quotations from the poetry of Oliverio Girondo at the end of the princesa's twenty-one monologues. They distance the reader and make the somewhat frivolous anecdotes a focus of analysis. They elaborate an attitude, idea or theme exposed in the princesa's section. The second quotation from Girondo, for example, reads as follows: "se miran, se presientan, se desean, se acarician, se besan, se desnudan, se respiran, se acuestan, se olfatean, se penetran, se chupan, se demudan, se adormecen, se despiertan, se olfatean, se codician, se palpan, se fascinan, se mastican ..." (continued for twelve more lines, page 43). These lines at the end of the chapter communicate the sense of monotony of the princesa's anecdote the reader has just completed, thus supporting her commentary thematically, and, just as importantly for this analysis, creating a fictionalized reader who will indeed take a critical attitude toward her. A similar type of pure intellectual analysis is effected in Compadre lobo by means of retrospective commentary by the narrator-protagonist. He regularly interrupts his relating of adventure and personal relationships to speculate in a present time about these events he recalls as he creates. These interruptions also comment directly on the actual process of writing. The reader understands that this commentary has a scope beyond the fabula because it appears in italics. The first such sentence in the novel appears when the narrator states: "Este libro hablard de esa complicidad" (p. 78). Speaking more directly about the characters as pure fabrications, and of his creation of them, the narrator states later on: "Caminan los dos, Lobo detras" and then, in italicized letters: "Un poco ajenos a este texto que intenta rescatar sus toscas maldiciones, su espontdnea sublevacion, su irrupci6n en mitad del mediodia. " He continues relating the fabula for one more

385

sentence ("Pretenden rugir pero guarden silencio") and then resumes his commentary in italics: "Caminan agitados como dos piojos que huyesen fabrilmente por los renglones de este libro que habla de ellos." Such interruptions traditionally have two types of effects in fiction. Robert Alter points out that such techniques are commonly used to point out the artificiality of the character-they remind the reader that the characters are not real human beings, but a product of self-conscious fiction." Those of the James and Lubbock tradition, of course, consider such direct editorialization necessarily detrimental to the work's effectiveness-"telling" instead of "showing." Sainz's Compadre lobo does not elicit either of these responses. Rather, his fictionalized reader observes the characters as real fictional beings from the past (real or invented) of the narrator. Such commentary functions as the process of the narrator's coming to an awareness of himself as a person different from the group he belonged to in the past of the imperfect used throughout the novel. After a love scene he describes this past by interrupting with a brief analytical passage in which he makes a generalization about such situations that the fictionalized reader accepts as a part of his process: "El dialogo entre dos personas que se aman profundamente, en los instantes de su mds intensa profundidad, se hace silencioso" (p. 241). The narrator occasionally even takes the right to add such analytical comments as a part of the narration, without italics. When describing Lobo, the narrator interrupts the narration with a comment such as this: "Lo desconocido no existe sino en ninguna parte, es decir que no lo vemos nunca, siempre es ajeno al paisaje en el que parece perfilarse, siempre es distinto al enigma dentro del cual se entregaria al conocimiento" (pp. 253-54). It is a generalization that, taken out of context, a reader may object or not object to such elements as a part of the fiction experience. The reader fictionalized in this particular text, however, finds such commentary a part of his process of discovery of the protagonist in the present, rather than as a truly sententious proposition about the nature of things. At times the narrator even establishes a certain intimacy with this fictionalized reader by creating

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lines of communication directly to him: "^,Notanc6mo las teclas de maquina saltan gozosas, en cuanto comienzo a hablar de Amparo Carmen Teresa Yolanda?" (p. 179). This entire process of characterization of this fictitious entity, an intellectual to whom the narrator speaks, is an example of what Booth has described in connection with fiction in general: "The author creates, in short, an image of himself and another image of his reader; he makes his reader, as he makes his second self, and the most successful reading is one in which the created selves, author and reader, can find complete agreement."12 A third aspect of reader response, different from but related to the others, is the implied reader. As Iser explains, the implied reader includes the fictionalized reader and interprets the thematic concerns: "both the prestructuring of the potential meaning by the text and the reader's actualization of this potential through the reading process.""3 This prestructuring of potential meaning has already been mentioned in the discussion of the reader of fiction and the fictionalized readers. The creation of this second code deals preeminently with the matter of language in both novels. In La princesa del Palacio de Hierro, language stands out above all because of the way the princesa distinguishes herself through her language-the novel's most immediately memorable feature is her verbal attack on her fictionalized reader (her listener) and the real reader. A certain distinguishing feature has already been noted, i.e., the humor of her "ranas sifiliticas." Beyond this impact, her recounting is an exercise in indeterminacy. The princesa's verbalization is an expression of her inability to come to grips with her past or herself. She talks in concentric circles missing the center, perhaps a self-awareness. The vivid imagery of her metaphors is an expression of her masks of verbalization whose expressive value is similar to the ramblings and superficiality of her existence. She can surprise the reader with an image such as that of a crowd that parts "como la vagina de una puta deseosa de terminar aprisa" (p. 32). Her metaphors express the banality of a life whose repetitive cycles are recreated in a series of substitutions (the essence of metaphorical processes) but never substantially altered.

The tragic implications of the process are evoked in the epilogue with contrasts in tone, but not in thematic focus, with the princesa's verbiage. This epilogue is from Waitingfor Godot:
Vladimir: ,Que dicen? Estrag6n: Hablan acerca de su vida. Vladimir: Haber vivido no les basta. Estrag6n: Tienen que hablar acerca de ello. Vladimir: Estar muertas no les basta. Estragdn: No es suficiente.

The phrase "Hablan acerca de su vida" suggests the inability to hit the mark, which is precisely the point the implied reader formulates in the actualization of La princesa del Palacio de Hierro. What Compadre lobo communicates thematically is also a matter of language. The protagonist's key changes are intimately associated with words. When he thinks of Carmen, and is in the process of liberating himself from his group of peers, he states: "Me refugiaba a pensar en Amparo Carmen Teresa Yolanda. Daba vueltas y vueltas a sus palabras y escribia en mi frio departamento frente al Palacio de Bellas Artes." Later in the novel, as he becomes more self-conscious and adept at analyzing his situation, he demonstrates to the reader the importance of words in his total life: "No cabe duda que la vida del hombre corre el riesgo de sufrir mucho al tornarse palabras" (p. 226). At the end, during the Tlatelolco confrontation, this event too has connotations concerning words. The march is described as a phenomenon of words. The narrator states: "Las peores palabras eran dichas por el silencio electrizante o suscitadas por el" (p. 369). More importantly, the march is described as an attempt to formulate words: "Era el momento del amasado y la maceracion, del esfuerzo inutil por formularse en palabras" (p. 369). In the two novels, Iser's second code is a process of discovery of two notably selfconscious language objects. In La princesa del Palacio de Hierro, numerous technical devices create this effect of verbal object. The portrayal of the characters as caricatures-e.g., her description of "nariz pinochescas" and "caras de botella"-create a series of cartoon-like objects for the reader. In addition, her numerous digressions during which she loses the thread of the narration, only to find it again later, also draw attention to the very act of nar-

The Reader and the Recent Novels of Gustavo Sainz rating, to the verbal construct that the novel is. The narrator of Compadre lobo makes his work a self-conscious verbal object by means of his constant analysis of its very fabric, words. The reader's discovery concerning words is that language degrades everything, expressing only the most banal, or even worse, reducing what is non-banal to the banal.
ITHE MULTIPLICITYOF READER RESPONSE-

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the seventies there is also, at least in the case of Sainz, a self-conscious reading. This self-conscious reading and writing of other novels of this decade, such as Vargas Llosa's La tia Julia y el escribidor, suggests the importance of an awareness of reader response in the study of contemporary Spanish-American fiction.'"
NOTES 'As with any literary movement or group, the "onda" has a wide range of possible definitions and members, according to the critic. Most critics would agree, however, that the term applies to relatively young Mexican writers who published their first works in the 1960's and 70's, and whose youthful or "hip" language and rebellious attitude toward society differed notably from the previous generations. Gustavo Sainz (1940- ) and Jose Agustin (1944- ) have been the most internationally successful writers of the "onda." 2John S. Brushwood, The Spanish-AmericanNovel: A Twentieth Century Survey (Austin/London: University of Texas Press, 1975), p. 269. 3David Decker, "Obsesivos dias circulares: avatares del voyeur," Texto critico, 9, 95-116. 4An article dealing with Sainz's fiction in general is David Decker, "The Circles and Obsessions of Gustavo Sainz," Review, 18 (Fall 1976), 44-47. 'Walter Ong, "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction," PMLA, 90, 1 (January 1975), 9-21. 6Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). 'Gustavo Sainz, Compadre lobo (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1978) p. 177. Subsequent quotations are from this edition and are included in the text. 8Gustavo Sainz, La princesa del Palacio de Hierro (Mexico: Joaquin Mortiz, 1974) p. 9. Subsequent quotations are from this edition and are included in the text. 'Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). '"Op. cit., Ong, pp. 14-15. "Robert Alter, Partial Magic: the Novel as a SelfConscious Genre (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975). "Op. cit., Booth, p. 138. O3p. cit., Iser, p. vii. '"I discuss the matter of the readers and writers in my article "La tia Julia y el escribidor: escritores y lectores," Texto Critico, 13 (1979), 197-209.

the interaction among the three readers, reader of fiction, fictionalized reader and implied reader-is the basis for the tension noted by the real reader who experiences all three in the total work. In both novels the narrative situation is ambiguous. The very instability of this narrative situation seems to enhance the variety of reader response noted here. The first level of response to reading, the basic observation of the anecdote, turns the novel's theme of reading upon itself and alludes to certain thematic concerns that are mirror images of the implied reader. At the same time the process of gaining the confidence of the reader, the strategies discussed concerning the fictionalized reader, make the two novels the aesthetic success that they are. Interaction between the reader of fiction and the fictionalized reader is noted in statements such as the following by the reader of fiction (a character) quoted before: "sacrificar la vida en aras de un misterioso trafago de simbolos de simbolos y simbolos." Here the reader of fiction, in effect, describes the process undergone by the fictionalized reader. These levels of reading and the interaction among them inevitably return the reader to Sainz's initial discovery as a writer of the "onda"-language. The reader is faced with a series of substitutions as he observes himself in the novel, is also substituted for within it, and experiences the substitutions as all of the readers postulated concurrently by Sainz. In correlation with the abundant self-conscious writing of

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