EDITORIAL BOARD

(Department of
Languages, Literatures,
and Linguistics
Syracuse University)
Augustus Pallotta
Editor
Paul Archambault
Review Editor
Beverly Allen
Pedro Cuperman
Kathryn Everly
Ken Frieden
Erika Haber
Harold G. Jones
Dennis McCort
Gerlinde Ulm Sanford
Amy Wyngaard
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Frank Paul Bowman
University of Pennsylvania
Lilian R. Furst
University of North Carolina
Gail K. Hart
University of California, Irvine
Angele Kingue
Bucknell University
Bettina L. Knapp
Hunter College, CUNY
John Kronik
CorneLL University
Lucienne Frappier-Mazur
University of Pennsylvania
Paolo Possiedi
Montclair State University
Nadia A. Saleh
Syracuse University
John Walker
Queen's University, Ontario
ABOUT THE COVER
Author Carlos Fuentes. Photograph
courtesy of Royce Carlton, Inc., New
York.
HELDREF PUBLICATIONS
Director
Douglas J ... Kirkpnt;riol(
Prodllcfton Editor
S tlzabeth Fox well
Ediforial Production Director
Jennifer Pricola
S,>ealive Director.
CaT1l'len S. Jessup
Q,t tpUic A rtisl
Janrieite Whippy
Production Manager
R ichard Pepple
Cl rcLilal/on Diroctlfr
Fred HU.ber
F'uljillmenr a/ld Reprints-Manager
Jelln Kline
Mal'/wting.Ar:(Dirl!ctor
Owe.n T. D a'il j g,c
PmmotionS Associqre
Uwl Basaninyen-zi
Advertising M anager
Alison Mayhew .
'Logi$tif;$ (md fi'qcilitie$ Manager
Ronnie McMi.llian
Permissiolls k;sociate
Mary Jaine Wjnokur
AtcOlmJ(ng Managef
Ronald 'P. era.nston
AC(J'ounJing Assistarlt
Azal ia St'ephenS
SYMPOSIUM
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL IN MODERN LITERATURES
VOLUME 57 NUMBER 2 SUMMER 2003
A Reappraisal of the ''Total'' Novel: Totality and Communicative
Systems in Carlos Fuentes's Terra Nostra
Mark Anderson
Carlos Puentes 's monumental novel Terra Nostra ( 1975) is often described as a
"total" or "encyclopedic" novel. One way that this novel creates the illusion of
totality is through the manipulation of communicative systems. By creating a
Hagelian dialectic between opposing di scourses in a wide variety of media,
Terra Noslra stimulates the reader to arrive at a synthetic understanding of
power relations. However, this synthesis is also directly written into the text,
thus raising questions about the autonomy of the process.
La re-creaci6n del romanticismo en La Reina de las Nieves de
Martin Gaite
Nuria Cruz-Cdmara
La Reina de la.\' Nieves (1994) by Carmen Martin Gaite rearticulates central
romantic themes from a femini st perspective. The masculinist aspects of the
romantic self are el iminated to create an ideal symbol of gender integration, the
androgyne, which becomes the embodiment or new identities, free from gender
prescriptions.
L'adolescence devant la mort dans les oeuvres de Camus et
de Sartre
Vincent Gregoire
The theme of adolescence is rarely treated in twentieth-century French litera
ture. Camus' s and Same' s works are no different, except in the case of an
imprisonment ending before a flring squard. This article addresses issues such
as misunderstanding, bad faith, and betrayal faced by adolescents in Sarrre's
"Le MlIr" and Morts sans sepultures, and Camus 's Lellres (/ lin ami al/emand.
'"
Reviews
Vernon A. Chamberlin. "The Perils of Interpreting Fortunata's
Dream" and Other Studies in Gald6s: 1961-2002.
James C. Courtad
Louise McReynolds and Joan Neuberger, eds. Imitations of Life:
Two Centuries of Melodrama in Russia.
Erika Haber
59
81
93
107
109
MARK ANDERSON
SYMPOSIUM
QUARTERLY JOURNAL IN MODERN LITERATURES
A REAPPRAISAL OF THE "TOTAL" NOVEL:
Symposium (ISSN 0039-7709) is published
qu. arterly by Heldref Publications, 1319 Eigh
teenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036
1802. Heldref publications is the educational
publishing division of the Helen Dwight Reid
Educational Foundation, a nonprofit 50 I (c)(3)
organization, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick,
president, (202) 296-6267; fax (202) 296
5 1 49. Heldref publications is the operational
division of the foundation, which seeks to ful
fill an educational and charitable mission
through the publication of educational jour
nals and magazines. Any contributions to the
fo undation are tax deductible and will go to
su PPOrl the publications.
Periodicals postage paid at Washington,
DC, and at additional mailing offices. POST
M ASTER: Send address changes to Sympo
sium, Heldref Publications, 1319 Eighteenth
Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036-1802.
The annual subscription rate is $99.00 for
institutions and $47.00 for individuals. Single
coPy price is $24.75. Add $14 for subscriptions
outside the U.S. Allow six weeks for shipment of
first copy. Foreign subscriptions must be paid in
U_S. currency. For subscription orders and CllS
tomer service inquiries only, call 1-800-365
9753. Claims for missing issues made within six
months will be serviced free of charge.
Copyright 2003 Helen Dwight Reid Edu
cational Foundation. Copyright is retained by
the author where noted.
Contact Heldref Publications for copyright
permission, or contact the authors if they retain
copyright. For permission to photocopy He!
dref-copyrighted items for classroom use, con
tact the Copyright Clearance Cent.er (CCC),
Academic Permissions Service, (978) 750
8400. Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)-reg
istered users should contact the Transactional
Reponing Service.
Symposium is indexed. scanned or abstract
ed in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index,
Current Contents/Arts & Humanities. Human
ities Index, Research Alert, and Social Plan
ning/Policy & Development Abstracts.
Symposium does not accept responsibility
for views expressed in articles, reviews. and
other contributions that appear in its pages. It
provides opportunities for the publication of
materials that may represent divergent ideas,
judgments, and opinions.
TOTALITY AND COMMUNICATIVE SYSTEMS IN
CARLOS FUENTES'S TERRA NOSTRA
OF THE NUMEROUS LENGTHY AND COMPLEX NOVELS written by Mexican authors
in recent decades, Carlos Fuentes's Terra Nostra (1975) is the longest and
generally considered one of the most complex. This novel is Fuentes's most
exhaustive exploration of the origins of Mexican culture. Through a symbol
ic rewriting of history from the Conquest up through the present, Fuentes pre
sents a global vision of the roots of modern Mexican society. The novel's
panoramic scope defies facile summarization. In the broadest of terms, Terra
Nostra is divided into three parts that correspond to three overlapping geo
graphic and cultural spaces.
The first part, "EI Viejo Mundo," deals with shifting power relations as six
teenth-century Spain experienced the transition from a feudal society toward
an emerging capitalism. The central figure in this section, Felipe or simply "EI
Senor," is a composite figure of several sixteenth- and sevenleenth-century
Spanish monarchs. This character, obsessed with monologic political and reli
gious discourse, is placed in opposition to a socially and racially diverse group
that attempts to undermine his control through a discourse of plurality. The
second section, "EI Mundo Nuevo," explores the Americas as exotic otherness
as well as a blank site for the construction of cont1icting European utopias .
Two Spaniards, self-exiled for political reasons, are the first Europeans to
arrive at the shores of the New World. Pedro, a dispossessed farm laborer and
sailor, immediately claims a piece of the land for himself by fencing it otT. As
the concept of private property is foreign to the indigenous groups who inhab
it the coast, he is eventually killed for his refusal to take down the fence. In
contrast, his companion, "EI Peregrino," is integrated into the indigenoLls cul
ture as the reincarnation of the Mesoamerican god Quetzaicoatl and makes a
symbolic dream journey to Tenochtitlan in which he undergoes a series of
tests that lead to a final confrontation with his double, "EI Espejo Humeante."
The third and final section, "EI Otro Mundo," represents the collision of
these two worlds and the ensuing formation of a hybrid mestizo culture that,
interestingly, has its center in Paris. However, the hybridization of the two
worlds is not shown to be the final victory of plurality over monologism.
Through the temporal juxtaposition of scenes that highlight power relations
from Roman times through the year 2000 (nearly twenty-tive years after the
59
61
Summer 2UUJ
SYMPOSIUM
6()
pL1 blication of the novel) and the reincarnation of characters from earlier time
pe-riods, the novel portrays power relations not as a simple binomial opposition
bLI- t as a constantly oscillating pendulum that reaches critical mass in Paris on
toe eve of the third millennium. The resulting apocalypse leaves only Polo
the reincarnation of "El Peregrino," and the reincarnated La Celestina
alive as the Edenic pair who may generate a new beginning for the human race.
The scope and density of Terra Nostra have elicited a wide gamut of
from scholars and critics, ranging from "a sprawling, encyclopedic
rO- cnster" (Brashear 1 0 1) to "novela monumental" (Marquez Rodriguez 185);
fc
om
the product of "una ambicion ilimitada" and "un proposito totalizador"
(Goytisolo 237) to "palimpsest" and "roman gourmand" (Price 48). Roberto
Gcnzalez Echevarria has written that "Fuentes' voluminous novel represents a
considerable effort to achieve an absolute knowledge of Hispanic culture" (89),
wbereas Lucille Kerr describes Terra Nostra as "Fuentes' attempt to write a
'1:o
t
a1' and 'eternal' novel" (99). Indeed, two rubrics surface time and again in
the critical discourse on this novel, like mantras to complement Fuentes's rnan
clala: the concept of the "total" novel and its synonym, the "encyclopedic"
aovel. I However, these terms are rarely qualified by their users.
Tbe Theory of the Total Novel
According to one critic, "The term 'totalizadora' apparently derives from
sociology where it first came into vogue in Latin America. The idea is that
subjects of study need to be seen in their 'totality'-almost a.Renaissance
man's intellectual approach" (Brashear 102). This perception of society as an
'.organic" whole can be traced to Auguste Comte's formulation of positivism,
a theory that became popular in Latin America during the late nineteenth cen
tury.2 However, it was not until the 1960s that the denomination novela total "' .
izadora, or "total" novel, surfaced in Spanish American letters, along with the
authors of the Boom. During this period, writers such as Alejo Carpentier,
Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel Garcia
1'1arquez published a series of essays and novels in an attempt to redefine the
parameters of the novelistic tradition in Latin America. Among these writings
was Vargas Llosa's critical introduction to loanet Martorell's Tirant 10 Blanc
( L 969), where he articulates the beginnings of a theory of the total novel, in
which the novelist supplants or displaces God by creating an autonomous fic
tional world capable of competing with exterior reality. According to the Peru
vian novelist, Martorell begins this tradition of fictive creation in his chivalric
ncvel Tirant 10 Blanc: "Martorell es el primero de esa estirpe de suplantadores
de Dios-Fielding, Balzac, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoi, loyce, Faulkner-que
pretenden crear en sus novelas una'realidad total,' el mas remoto caso de nov
elista todopoderoso, desinteresado, omnisciente y ubicuo" (11). Novelists
assume the role of God within the fictional world, exercising complete con-
Anderson SYMPOSIUM
trol over their tictional creations. However, the author of a novel does not live
in a vacuum, and this fictional "total reality" is not constructed from nothing
ness. Rather, the referents that form the fictional world reflect the world out
side the novel. The act of creation lies in constructing a novelistic system from
a preexisting set of elements: "El novelista crea a partir de algo ; el novelista
total , ese voraz, crea a partir de todo" (29). Consequently, for Vargas Llosa,
this "totalizing impulse" is closely linked to the representation and mediation
of reality, even if the constructed world of the novel is synthetic and ultimately
parodic of its modeL Yet he is acutely aware of the essential superficiality of
this representation and its ultimate fictional or illusory nature:
La representacion de la realidad total que puede dar una novela es ilu
soria, un espejismo: cualitativamente identical, es cuuntitativamente una
infima particular imperceptible confrontada al infinito vertigo que la
inspira. Da la impresion de ser un caos tan vasto como el real, pero no
es ese caos; representa la realidad porque tomo de ella todos los aromos
de su ser, pero no es esa realidad. (33)
Within the confines of the novel, exterior reality becomes subordinated to the
interior, fictional reality of the novel. The exogenous elements that both con
stitute the fictional world and reach outward from it, bringing to bear entire
fields of knowledge that are directly or indirectly related to them in the com
plex system of reality, confer a deceptive sense of legitimacy to the fictional
world. These referents have a centripetal effect, concentrating spheres of
information from far beyond the limits of the novel. However, the structuring
of these elements within the novel is never the same as in reality (as much as
it may wish to imitate it); this is how the novel gives the impression of being
the "chaos" of totality, without being totality itself.3
In his essay La nueva novela hispanownericana (1969), Fuentes employs
Vargas Llosa's terminology of the total novel in his analysis of several con
temporary Latin American works, including Vargas Llosa's own Lil Cilsa verde
(1966). According to Fuentes, the modern novel is epitomized in the totaliz
ing tradition of authors such as Faulkner, Lowry, Broch, and Golding
[quienes] crearon una convenci6n representativa de la realidad que pre
tende ser totalizante en cuanto inventa una segunda realidad paralela,
finalmente, un espacio para 10 real, a traves de un mito en el que se puede
reconocer tanto la mitad oculta, pero no por ello men os verdadera, de la
vida, como el significado y la unidad del tiempo disperso. (19)
If Vargas Llosa associates the total novel with realism in literature, Fuentes
highlights the importance of myth.
4
For Fuentes, myth and reality are insepa
rable. One cannot exist without the other, even if myth is habitually subsumed
to reality. Consequently, he writes that "solo la palabra vertida puededescol
oral' eso que pas a pOl' 'realidad' para mostrarnos 10 real: 10 que la 'realida,d'
Summer 2003
6::2 SYMPOSIUM
c; onsagrada oculta: la totalidad escondida 0 mutilada por la l6gica conven
c;i.onal (por no decir: de convenci6n)" (85). Fuentes, then, sees myth as a con
s. tituent of totality. Fuentes's reinstatement of myth as a structural component
o:f the novel reveals a crisis in realism that the total novel attempts to address
bY including parts of reality that are masked or "mutilated" (to use Fuentes's
plJrase) by conventional logic.
Working with elements delineated by Vargas Llosa and Fuentes, Robin W.
piddian has generated a provisional list of tendencies that he considers com
LXlon to total novels.
s
Fiddian's addition to Vargas Llosa's and Fuentes's con
tributions is his analysis of language, informed by Severo Sarduy's influential
s;t:udy of the Latin American neobaroque literary style.
6
Indeed, the use of a
'baroque" verbal texture and the "paradigmatic overspill" are symptomatic in
the fiction of these authors. The baroque surface of these novels, in fact,
results from the sheer number of linguistic and cultural referents that occur
"""ithin them, and the "paradigmatic overspill" perceived by the reader can
often be attributed to the presence of heteroglossia as well as to the theoreti
c al interests of their authors. The excesses of these novels are not limited to
their authors' aesthetic preferences; rather the referential overload is neces
sary to evoke the connection with totality in the mind of the reader.
7
'The Encyclopedic Novel
The marking of the encyclopedia as a metaphor for the construction of cos
:o1ography by Jorge Luis Borges in "TWn, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" hits the nail
on its head. Few objects more aptly symbolize a world view in which all
lcnowledge is perceived as immanently catalogable and leads to a unified,
absolute system or truth. It is not surprising that totalizing novels such as .
... .
Joyce's Ulysses, Del Paso' s Palinuro de Mexico, and Pynchon's I Gravity's
Rainbow have often been described by critics as "encyclopedic narrative." In
{act, Vargas Llosa's and Fuentes's delineations of the total novel find a paral
lel expression in the concepts of the encyclopedic novel articulated by Edward
Mendelson and Mexican novelist Gustavo Sainz. Sainz provides the follow
j:ng definition:
Encyclopedic narrative attempts to put in perspective the totality of
knowledge and beliefs of a nation's culture and, at the same time, to
identify the ideological perspectives to which that culture conforms and
by which it interprets its knowledge. Keeping in mind that it is a prod
uct of an epoch in which human knowledge is greater than any single
person is able to master, it necessarily makes frequent use of synec
doche. No one encyclopedic narrative can encompass all the natural sci
ences, so one or two serve to represent the entire spectrum of scientific
learning. (570)
Anderson
SYMPOSIUM 63
Sainz's definition of encyclopedic narrative articulates three fundamental
points. First, it defines the relation of the encyclopedic novel to reality in
terms of Hegelian totality (parts to the whole). Second, it recognizes that this
relation functions on a basic mechanism of metonymical or synecdochal asso
ciation. Third, it inscribes the encyclopedic novel within a national context
and underscores the critical relationship that total novels develop with respect
to their cultures' ideological coding.
Mendelson coincides with Sainz's delineation of encyclopedic narrative,
stating that "all encyclopedic narratives [ ...Jare metonymic compendia of the
data, both scientific and aesthetic, valued by their culture. They attempt to
incorporate representative elements of all the varieties of knowledge their soci
eties put to use" (9). It is significant that Mendelson associates encyclopedic
narrative with indicators of a certain moment in which national cultures begin
to recognize their uniqueness (10). For Mendelson, encyclopedic narrative per
forms a role in the construction of national identity. This statement is particu
larly engaging in the context of Latin American narrative, especially when one
considers that most of the truly encyclopedic works of narrative in the Latin
American tradition begin appearing around the mid-twentieth century.s
Hegelian Dialectics and the Total Novel
Precursors such as Don Quixote, Tristam Shandy, and several other early
novels clearly demonstrate totalizing tendencies. However, modern total nov
els such as Terra Nostra consciously deploy a Hegelian conceptualization of
totality in their attempt to capture the complexity of reality. Indeed, Arnold
Hauser has suggested that modern art in general IS characterized by a "mania
for totality" (237). That mania is rooted in the revolution of scientific and
philosophical thought of the two preceding centuries and more specifically in
Hegel's writings Y As Sainz pointed out, encyclopedic novels operate on a
basic synecdochical relation of the parts to the whole. a relation developed by
Hegel in his dialectical method.
Hegel is particularly concerned with the formation of an individual con
sciousness that is equipped to conceive totality. His model of consciousness
postulates an "absolute" or "universal truth," which is at the same time the
underlying essence and the irreducible totality of all things. The perception of
this totality requires a shift in scale from "finite spirit" to "infinite spirit" (Intro
duction 33). However, he writes, "we have on hand for the essentially specula
tive nature of the Absolute only finite materials which are all that can serve us
to comprehend and express the nature and character of the infinite, whether in
a wholly literal or also symbolic sense" (33). The total. infinite nature of reali
ty, then, can only be inferred through the observation of its tinite parts.
In his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Hegel further explores
the relations between "das Ganze" (the whole) and "die Teile" (the parts). He
6- 4 SYMPOSIUM Summer 2003
observes that as a system, the "parts" can only be understood as a "whole." In
other words, the parts make no sense if they are taken out of context. The con
text, or web of interrelations between the parts, coalesces a meaning that the
parts themselves cannot individually signify. For Hegel, isolated parts are
abstract entities that can only be understood subjectively without the objecti
fying influence of the context or system to which they belong. The subjective
act of perceiving these parts only attains objectivity through the context of
totality. Yet, because of the finite nature of human perception, a consciousness
of totality can only be reached through the contemplation of the parts, which
are also finite and therefore can be perceived directly. Because these parts
simultaneously constitute the system, they also conceal the keys to its dis
cernment. The systematic relations that govern the whole may be discovered
in the play between opposing parts or binomial oppositions. The whole is thus
inferred from the parts by discovering the dialectical movement that exists
between them. Furthermore, each part contains dialectical elements evocative
of other systems within itself. In this way, the parts are autonomous and rep
resentative of the whole themselves.
Lukacs has argued that the novel has been a "totalizing" genre from the
:llloment of its inception. 10 Lukacs, following Hegel, associates the self-reflex
i vity that characterizes the novel as a genre with the perception of the parts in
relation to totality:
Thus a new perspective of life is reached on an entirely new basis-that
of the indissoluble connection between the relative independence of the
parts and their attachment to the whole. But the parts, despite this attach
ment, can never lose their inexorable, abstract self-dependence; and their
relationship to the totality, although it approximates as closely as possi
ble to an organic one, is nevertheless not a true-born organic relationship
but a conceptual one which is abolished again and again. (75-76)
Addressing the "inner form" of the novel, Lukacs distinguishes between a
conceptual and a "true-born organic" relationship between the parts and the
system to which they pertain. A more accurate term, "referents," may be sub
stituted here for "parts" to highlight the relation of the novel as a conceptual
totality to the real world as an epistemological or factual totality and the fact
that referents in the novel are a symbolic presence, functioning by metonymy.
Referents work within the novel to evoke fields of information that are exoge
nous to the novel. Consequently, Lukacs places much emphasis on the alle
gorical nature of the novel. 1 1 He establishes a conceptual connection between
referents in the novel and the exterior world: the novel is a space in which the
"system of regulative ideas that constitutes totality" becomes visible (81). He
further asserts that "the outside world cannot be represented" because, by def
inition, transcribing totality is impossible and therefore any attempt to repre
sent it becomes subjective (79). Only the systematic relations between sub-
Anderson SYMPOSIUM 65
jects and objects within totality can be objecti vely portrayed in the novel. For
Lukacs, the novel's relation with the totality of reality is thus based on the
inclusion of social, cultural, and historical components that invoke the sys
tematic relations that exist within it. Terra Nostra, like other total novels, con
sciously exploits this model of totality in an attempt to acti vate the reader to
the perception of these systematic relations, which for Hegel constitute the
"Absolute" and must be inferred through the dialectic method.
12
The Dialectics of Communication in Terra Nostra
Several critics have amply demonstrated the vastness of the cultural and
historical knowledge that underpins Terra Nostra and the interwoven, syn
thetic nature of the social, cultural, and historical referents that appear in it.
13
The dialectical relations between these real world referents work to create a
system within the novel that imitates and at the same time supplants exterior
reality, negating its model. Simultaneously, a dialectic forms among the his
torical object, the group of texts that constitute the historical irnagination, and
the fictional creation that requires the reader to arrive at a resolution. Howev
er, the interplay within the vast field of referents included in Terra Nostra does
not completely account for its effect on the reader. A significant factor is
Bakhtin's concept of dialogism. Bakhtin builds from Lukacs's model, but he
disagrees with Lukacs's assertion that the novel's relationship to totality is
purely conceptual. 14 He recognizes that the novel as a textual construction is
created primarily from language and that all language bears an ideological
load that cannot be stripped away. Indeed, for Bakhtin, "form and content in
discourse are one, once we understand that verbal discourse is a social phe
nomenon-social throughout its entire range and in each and every of its fac
tors, from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning" (251).
Bakhtin deflates and concretes the metaphysical component of Lukacs's
vision of totality (which he had inherited from Hegel). He does not, however,
discard the term itself. Rather, totality, like language, becomes a concrete
social phenomenon that is reflected in the system of languages in the text:
"The novel orchestrates all its themes, the totality of the world of objects and
ideas depicted and expressed in it, by means of the social diversity of speech
types and by the differing individual voices that flourish under such condi
tions" (263). Lukacs's "parts," or referents, become heteroglossia in Bakhtin;
the invocation of the whole now functions through a concrete system of
socially diverse languages rather than an abstract system of objects. Through
the presence of heteroglossia, the novel becomes a microcosm of the society
to which it pertains. Totality is thus represented through the inclusion of social
heteroglossia in the text, which results in the dialogic nature of the novel.
According to Bakhtin, this polyphony creates the multiple, conflictive points
of view that allow for the utilization of Hegel's dialectic method to infer the
66 SYMPOSIUM
Summer 2003
t:otality of social stratification within a society. The novel, then, becomes an
encyclopedia of languages that captures the totality of an era's heteroglossia.
7erra Nostra capitalizes on this multiplicity of discourses to create the impres
sion of what Corral calls a "collectivizing of subjectivities" (319), a web of
i-ndividual discourses that form an objective system through a complex
process of counterpoint and juxtaposition of subjective modes of expression.
Communication is one system in Terra Nostra that is configured to create
a polyphonic sense of totality in the mind of the reader through the use of
dialectically opposed subjectivities. The self-conscious orchestration of sev
eral levels of communication in Terra Nostra relies on basic organizing and
structural principles of metonymical and synecdochical association. The novel
invites the reader to analyze the roles of written, spoken, and nonverbal com
munication by creating dialectic systems that appear in the fissures of the
mimetic or rhetorical representation of communication as a total system with
in a social context. The systems themselves are also directly textualized; char
acters and narrators alike demonstrate reflexivity about their own discourse
and an awareness of their textuality that transcends the borders of their fic
tional world. On the extradiegetic level, Fuentes explores the relationship
between author and reader as well as between one text and the system of texts
to which it pertains. Within the limits of the text, both the narrators and char
acters show themselves to be conscious of the textuality of their discourse(s)
and of the ultimate verbal (and communicative) economy in which all their
transactions take place. Through the inclusion of a wide range of commu
nicative components and elements of verbal and nonverbal communication,
Fuentes evokes a sense of polyphonic totality in the mind of the reader.
"Verbal Communication
...
The use of verbal communication in Terra Nostra hinges on three distinct
considerations: language as power, reflexive writing (metafiction), and the use
of linguistic multiplicity as a symbol of cultural and religious plurality. Each
of these considerations represents the resolution of a dialectic opposition that
jIl tum leads to a general synthesis in which power relations emerge as a cen
tral organizing principle in the novel.
In Terra Nostra, the conflation of discourse and power is a central thematic
concern (Kerr 96). Fuentes's fantastic rewriting of history can hardly be con
s trued as realism. Instead, it directs the reader toward a critical re-evaluation of
history and the power relations that propel it. The repressive authoritarian and
<::entralized power that Felipe and his "texto unico" represent are in a constant
:5 truggle for the control of discourse against the decentralization and plurality
that Ludovico, Celestina, Fray Julian, EI Cronista, and others embody as a
<::ollective threat to homogeneity. In Felipe's world, power is based on the pos
session of this "texto unico" that "asegura la perrnanencia y la legitimidad de
' Anderson SYMPOSIUM 67
los actos del poder" (194). But for Felipe, the constitutive power of the text
extends beyond the physical plane. The text is capable of prefiguring reality,
as he tells Guzman: "Escribe: nada existe realmente si no es consignado al
papel" (111). Felipe's "one text" is also associated with truth: "Escribe,
Guzman, escribe, 10 escrito permanece, 10 escrito es verdad en sf porque no se
Ie puede someter a la prueba de la verdad ni a comprobaci6n alguna [ .. .]"
(193). Felipe's statement echoes Fuentes's ideas on the nature of the total
novel. Writing in general, and particularl y fiction, is inherently truthful
because it uncovers that "masked" part of reality that cannot readil y be per
ceived because of societal conventions.
However, the Cronista counters Felipe's assertion: "Mi rad asf el misterio
de cuanto queda escrito 0 pintado, que mientras mas imaginario es, por mas
verdadero se Ie tiene" (240). The Cronista refutes Felipe's claims that his text
has the power to constitute truth and reality by alluding to Cervantes's ques
tioning of legitimacy in Don Quixote. Felipe' s doubt s regarding the validity of
his discourse also undermine the claims he makes for hi s text: "i, Tu nunca
dudas, Guzman, a ti nunca se te acerca un demonio que te dice, no fue asf, no
fue s610 asf, pudo ser asf pero tambien de mil maneras diferentes, depende de
quien 10 cuenta, depende de quien 10 vio y c6mo 10 vio?" (194). Felipe ques
tions the unity of his text, of his history, and of the transmission of history in
general. These moments of self-doubt are the space in which appear what
Foucault terms "systems of exclusion" and the institutions that they defend.
Both Felipe's doubts and the Croni sta's dissenting voice are silenced by these
systems of exclusion. The agent of the silencing is the Inquisition , and in both
cases the characters are forcefully isolated from ,society. In the scene immedi
ately following Felipe's voicing of his doubts, Guzman drugs him and
attempts to betray him to the Inquisition by turning the "testamento" contain
ing his heretical ravings over to Fray Julian. It is significant that "testamento"
is a polysemic word that evokes both the rites of succession and the tran
scription of the revelations that Felipe has witnessed. Felipe's testament is
threatening in that it denies the succession of power and because it gives voice
to the possibility of plurality. Guzman's betrayal is therefore a political act
that both subverts and reinforces the centers of power: he takes revenge on his
despised master and at the same time protects the status quo. Guzman acts as
the agent of the institution of nobility that struggles to conserve its power, or
rather regain that which it has lost. Felipe is only saved by the intervention of
Fray Toribio, who burns the evidence. In any case, the shadowy, neurotically
totalitarian side of Felipe's personality has already isolated him from society:
he has locked himself into the seemingl y impenetrable EI Escorial. The Cro
nista is also silenced, condemned to the galleys, after he is betrayed to the
Inquisition by his friend, Fray Julian. The church, like the nobility, must also
toil to conserve its power and the uniqueness of its text.
Related to the ties between power and the text, meditations on the function
vo Summer 2003
and uses of writing are an important thematic consideration in Terra Nostra .
The narrators show awareness of the act of narration as communication.
Celestina, apparently speaking to the Naufrago, catches the attention of the
reader with statements such as this: "Quiero que oigas mi cuento. Escucha.
Escucho y veo por ti" (65). This passage certainly seems an apt description of
the narrator's position in relation to her listeners: to hear and see for us. The
reader is drawn into the novel through the use of pronouns in the second per
son; the characters, directly or indirectly, appear to be speaking to us. Teodoro
also appears to address himself to an extratextual reader in the parchment from
the second green bottle: "Yo, Teodoro, el narrador de estos hechos, he pasado
la noche reflexionando sobre ellos, escribiendolos en los papeles que tienes 0
algun dla tendnis entre tus manos, lector, y considenindome a m! mismo como
otra persona: tercer a persona de la narraci6n objetiva; segunda persona de la
narraci6n subjetiva" (691). The narrator, by showi ng his awareness of an audi
ence as well as admitting his manipulation of voices, creates a disruption in the
complex layering of narrative levels in which he performs a metalepsis. By
directing himself to an unspecified reader, he communicates anachronically,
through time, on the mimetic level to reach characters in the distant future of
his world and through narrative distance on the diegetic level to reach the
implied reader of the novel. He thus communicates simultaneously within and
outside of the narrative structure of the novel. In this way, the dialectic fic
tion/reality is stressed, requiring a synthetic resolution from the reader.
The inclusion of all three voices of the triad of personal pronouns is anoth
er way in which Fuentes uses dialectics to represent the totality of communi
cation and simultaneously emphasizes its hierarchical nature. As Barthes has
stated, a polarity exists between personal pronouns that "involves neither
equality nor symmetry: I always has a position of transcendence with respect
to thou, I being interior to the enonce and thou remaining exterior to it; how
ever, I and thou are reversible-I can always become thou and vice-versa" (45).
However, "this is not true of the non-person (he or it), which can never reverse
itself into person or vice-versa," as "he is situated outside discourse" (45). Nar
ration in the second person "tL'" voice is inclusive, and narration in the first
person "yo" presupposes a listener who may reverse the order of communica
tion, while narration in the third person automatically precludes interaction in
the discourse, effectively negating any possibility of agency other than that of
the speaker. In thi s sense, third-person narration is hermetic, for it is closed dis
course. In Terra Nostra, Fuentes avails himself of these distinctions to elabo
rate the hierarchy of power and discourse. The narration that focalizes on
Felipe is written in third person. Felipe's desire for absolute control is mirrored
in the closed nature of the narration. Although the distance between character
and narrator sometimes wanes, the narrator always maintains tight control over
the discourse. When the narrator gets too close to the character, satirical lan
guage is used to re-establish distance. In contrast, the sections that deal with

characters and narrators that represent plurality (Celestina, Ludovico, el
Naufrago) tend to be narrated in first or second person, thus opening the di s
course to the possibility of interpersonal communication. These sections seem
to invite the participation of both characters, who may interrupt the narration,
and readers, who are drawn closer to the speaker. This polarization is further
illustrated in the presence of fictionalized listeners in the novel : Felipe's inter
locutors are often mirror images of himself (his conversations with his dog,
Bocanegra, with paintings, or with actual mirrors), denoting an interiorized,
circular system in which he is both the sender and the receiver of his message.
In contrast, the representatives of plurality often speak toward the exterior, to
other, different humans. The monologic nature of Felipe's di scourse is thus
contrasted with the dialogic exchange of his adversaries. This dialectic opposi
tion further develops the systems of power present in the novel.
Parallel to the manipulation of the triad of personal pronouns, Fuentes cre
ates an opposition between Felipe's language and desire for homogenous dis
course and the plurality of voices and linguistic diversity represented by other
characters and narrators. The interruption of these voices at both the mimetic
and diegetic levels can be read as heteroglossia. Fuentes consciollsly uses this
technique to represent the struggle for power at the linguistic level. The fol
lowing vocabulary of exclusion is employed by the side of closed, mono logic
order: "marrano converso," "falso cristiano," "judaizante vero," "hereje judaf
co," and so on (Terra Nostra 68). A rhetoric of inclusion and plurality is
placed in opposition to this vocabulary and spoken by its proponents. Ludovi
co describes this second, heterogeneous group: "Mas alia de las l1lurallas de
tu necr6polis y de su severa fachada de unidad, Felipe, otra Espana se ha ges
tado, lIna Espana antigua, original y variada, obm de muchas culturas, plurales
aspiraciones y distintas lecturas de un solo libro [ ...J" (624). Ludovico's
Spain is a decentered Spain of linguistic and cultural ditlerence that contrasts
with Felipe's totalitarian views, symbolized in the monolithic EI Escorial.
Self-conscious intertextuality forms the bedrock of the narrative structure
of Terra Nostra . Throughout the novel, Fuentes works against the genealogy
of influence that critics such as Harold Bloom propose. 15 Rather than a sim
ple acknowledgment or agonistic effacement of his models, he performs a
self-conscious Borgesian creation of his precursors. 16 Using a series of liter
ary referents and borrowing characters from other sources, Fuentes actively
manipulates what Barthes calls the circular memory of reading. The reader's
memory of the texts cited is challenged by the mutation that these texts under
go in Fuentes's rewriting . In addition, he engages in an appropriation and
transformation of the three most prominent archetypes of Spani sh literature:
Don Quixote, Don Juan, and La Celestina. By invoking these characters and
then erasing the readers' expectations of them, Fuentes willingly negates the
presence in his text of the authors of hi s pre-texts. Except in the case of Cer
vantes, who is transmogrified into another archetypal tigure, the Cronista, the
I V t....J .l. .1." '-J\J ....,J.".L ....
authors of these texts are not invoked and the characters themselves are trans
formed. By removing the authorial presence and authority, the origin and the
unity of meaning in these texts is removed and left open to revision and muta
tion. Fuentes effaces the points of cohesion in these texts, cutting the bonds
that hold them to a fixed interpretation or meaning, thereby granting the char
acters certain autonomy from their creators. In this way, the reader is forced
to create a synthetic character that mediates between Fuentes's mutated arche
types and the original, a process that requires a critical consciousness with
respect to their role in Hispanic culture.
Nonverbal Communication
In Terra Nostra, Fuentes both describes nonverbal behavior and expands its
communicative capacities. As linguists such as Fernando Poyatos have point
ed out, gesture, or "kinesics," is an integral part of communicative systems.
Other body parts are often as responsible for the transmission of meaning as
the tongue. In Terra Nostra, gesture plays a central role in the performance of
power: the language of power is as much action as verb. The kind of gesture
that Ekman and Friesen (71) have termed "emblems," or those signs that are
acted out consciously by a speaker and have a fixed meaning within a cultur
al context, is particularly effective for the communication of hierarchy and
power, as is evident in this passage:
El hombre del bigote trenzado tom6 el pelo del naufrago con un puno y
levant6 violentamente la cabeza prisionera: la mirada opaca del joven se
fij6 en el gesto impaciente de la cabeza de la mujer, enmarcada por las
altas alas blancas de una gola. [ ...J La mujer levant6 un brazo de man
gas abombadas y dijo, al tiempo que con el dedo fndice ordenaba a la
guardia de negros: -T6menlo. (Terra Nostra 45)
This fragment contains a broad range of symbolism and gesture that not only
complements the command at the end but effectively defines it. In the first
sentence, the guard takes the prisoner by the hair with his ','puno." The
clenched fist is a universal symbol of force, an emblematic sign that commu
nicates aggressiveness and a threat of violence to the person to whom it is
directed. This use of "puno" is complemented by the adverb "violentamente"
later in the sentence. The Naufrago is placed in a low, subjected, and ulti
mately powerless position, which is contrasted to that of the Queen Mother,
who looks down on him and orders with the impatience of authority. It is note
worthy that the narrator does not describe her gesture; rather, he captures its
essence, the impatience. In the second sentence, her raised arm coincides with
the fist of the guard as a display of power that culminates in the order:
"T6menlo." Here a sequence of emblematic gestures demonstrates a hierarchy
of power in which a person in a position of authority communicates her power
through intermediaries, leading up to the final verbal expression of that
power: the order.
Emblems are also used to contradict the discourse of power. Such is the
case in this paragraph:
Desde su posici6n arrodillada, Guzman, allevantar la mirada para entregar
el brevi ari 0, mir6 tijamente, por un instante, al Senor y debi6 arquear las
cejas de una manera que ofendi6 al amo; pero este no podfa reprocharle a
su servidor la celeridad con que demostraba su obediencia y SLi respeto; el
acto visible era el del mas excelente vasallo, aunque la intenci6n secreta de
la mirada se prestase, mas que nada por indetinida, a interpretaciones que
el Senor, a un tiempo, deseaba admitir y rechazar. (46)
Guzman's apparently servile attitude toward his master (embodied by his
kneeling before him) is belied by one gesture: the arching of his eyebrows, an
emblem that reveals a questioning attitude. This emblem contrasts with other
signals by which the vassal communicates to his master "obedience and
respect." In this way, one ambiguous emblem is able to subvert an entire
sequence of signs that display servility.
The visual image also holds a privileged position in Terra Nostra. Howev
er, it is not always just what is seen that is important. Fuentes places great
emphasis on both who does the seeing and the transfer of information through
gaze. Mirar is one of the verbs that occur most frequently in the novel (Espina
57). Gaze provides unity both to the structure of the novel (it opens the first
chapter and closes each of the three sections) and as a shared perspective
between characters (Williams 94). Gaze can also confer power to another or
dissipate one's own power, as Felipe's father tells him: "Desele al mas por
diosero de los pordioseros de esta tierra de mendigos el menor signo de dis
..f:.. tinci6n, y en seguida se comportanl como un hidalgo vano y pretencioso; no
los distingas, hijo, ni con una mirada, es gente sin importancia" (43). Felipe
remembers his father's advice too late during his hunting trip, after glancing
angrily at his subordinates when they were too slow to react to his orders:
"Quizas, encaramados en la siena, recordaban al Senor que par un momento
se habla dignado de fulminarlos con una mirada, sin necesidad de hablarles ;
y si su padre tenia raz6n, de esa mirada nacerfa multiplicadas soberbias y
rebeliones" (43). Openly recognizing the existence of anyone not on his social
level opens channels of communication that threaten his power. It gives the
voiceless mass a voice, an individuality that breaks forth from the anonymity
of the collectively ignored. This idea is echoed by one of Felipe's hallucinat
ed Christs speaking about the Romans: 17
Yo agradecfa la ceguera del amo extranjero ante la raza extrana y
sometida, pues si nosotros sabemos distinguir el rostro de cada opresor
extranjero ya que en ello se nos va la vida, ellos nos miran como 10 que
somos: una masa de esclavos, sin fisonoinias individuales, cada uno
indistinguible delos demas. (208)
When Felipe breaks the social norm of not deigning to look at his subordi
nates, both parties undergo a psychological shift. The faceless mass suddenly
becomes a group of subjects capable of action rather than objects to be dis
posed of at his will.
Sex is an important medium for the communication of power in Terra Nos
tra as well. The text contains explicit heterosexual and homosexual sex acts
as well as incest, sadomasochism, bestiality, necrophilia, masturbation, and
abstinence. The communicative value of these acts varies according to their
context. In some cases, for example, heterosexual contact becomes a means to
communicate messages that are impossible to signify with words, such as
what occurs in one encounter between Celestina and the Naufrago (Terra Nos
tra 278). In these cases, sex acts acquire a verbal capacity superior to that of
dialogue itself. Likewise, abstinence from heterosexual sex often reflects an
absence of communication. Felipe's abstinence with respect to his wife, La
Senora, fits in perfectly with his fixation on immutability and isolation. As he
reveals in one moment: "[...J mi muerte absoluta, mi absoluta remisi6n a la
inexistencia, a la incomunicaci6n hermetic a con toda forma de vida; este es
mi proyecto secreto" (203). His sexual abstinence is thus closely linked to his
metaphysical project of total hermeticism.
Felipe's desire to be the last of his line and to achieve mystical nonexis
tence through abstinence contrasts with his father's animal sexuality. Felipe el
Hermoso uses sex to communicate his authority, to delimit the geographic and
human topography under his control. His violent animal sexuality is that of
the wolf: he fornicates almost unconsciously, making no distinction for social
class or even between humans and animals. Yet his conjugal relationship with
1>: ~
the Dama Loca also negates the possibility of communication through sex.
The Dama Loca explains: "A mf me tomaba a oscuras; a mf me tomaba para
procrear herederos; conmigo invocaba el ceremonial que veda todo deleite de
vista y de tacto" (74). With the senses denied their functions, the sex act
becomes mechanical and incommunicative.
Masturbation falls into the same category of noncommunication. Because it
is a self-contained discourse with no interlocutor, there can be no transmission
of a message. The Dama Loca, denied the possibility of a shared and meaning
ful sexual experience with her husband, becomes obsessed with his body after
his death. His death permanently closes the possibility of any communication
between them; she must resort to the interiorization of the sexual experience
through fantasizing, masturbation, and ultimately necrophilia. The pattern of
sexual repression and isolation leading to necrophilia continues in La Senora,
who fabricates several substitute lovers, the last of whom is a sort of Frankestein
pieced together from the body parts of Felipe's dead ancestors.
f U I U t : C ~ U I I ':)1 l"Jr'!.:l.1U1Y.l I.)
In contrast, homosexuality emerges as a form of resistance against
Felipe's absolutism. The bisexual Miguel de la Vida appears as a symbol of
tolerance: "AW vivfamos juntas todas las razas : mira mis ojos negros, viejo,
y mi rubia caballera. Soy dueno de todas las sangres" (252). Felipe orders
him to be burnt at the stake, because he represents a threat to Felipe person- .
ally, as his wife's lover, and on a political level , as a symbol of plurality
(racially, culturally, and sexually) that threatens Felipe's absolutism. Homo
sexuality also becomes entangled with religious heresy in one of Felipe's
delirious bouts of disbelief. Speaking of Christ, he muses that Hel dfa de su
bautizo que quizas s610 fue el dfa de sus nupcias sodomitas con Juan el
Bautista que quizas era un hombre que quiz8.s muri6, como el otro dfa muri6
el muchacho quemado aquf junto a las caballerizas, por sus amores nefandos
con el hijo del carpintero" (206). It is significant that Felipe places a moral
value on homosexuality. By applying the adjective "nefando," he classifies
homosexuality as deviant , unnatural, and ultimately evil. However, the "evil"
nature of homosexuality in this scene depends more on the heretical over
tones of the scene than the sexual act itself. For Felipe, homosexuality is pri
marily evil because it represents a threat to his absolutism.
Other forms of sexuality are used to illustrate the decadence and sterility of
the centers of power. In particular, the sex ual pleasure that Tiberio takes in both
hearing and viewing the pain of others is symbolic of the structures of politi
cal power that he has created. The fact that the actors in the orgies that he
directs are all in some way deformed also brings attention to the state of his
empire. Incest is another metaphor for the decadence of dynasty. La Senora's
incestuous relationship with her son fathered by Felipe el Hermoso, Johannes
Agrippa (who later becomes Don Juan), promotes a kind of sexual liberty that
rebels against the strict controls in place within El Escorial. Their relationship
also draws attention to the closed circuitry of Felipe's world. Although their
sex act as communication is not completely hermetic, its incestuous nature
places limits on the diffusion of the message: it is kept in the family.
More so than sex, physical violence as a communicative act is an intrinsi
cally coded behavior (Ekman and Friesen 69). Its action encodes its message:
it communicates itself directly without the mediation of words. Violence as a
communicative medium is intimately linked to power structures. Authority
maintains its power through the threat of violence, and the oppressed often
reject authority with a rhetoric of violence or violence itself. In Term NastY(!,
Felipe frequently answers challenges to his authority with violence. In fact,
the legitimacy of his power has been constructed on a base of physical vio
lence: young Felipe betrays his friends Celestina and Ludovico and the
Adamite movement they lead to consolidate his power, a move that results in
the slaughter of hundreds of people. His answer to heresy, which represents a
challenge to his "texto unico," is the same throughout the novel: after mas
sacring the Adamites, he lays siege to Rochelle and annihilates the Flemish
74 SYMPOSIUM Summer 2003
Protestants. Like the real-life, historical Spanish monarchs on which he is
modeled, Felipe silences difference by eliminating it.
Silence is perhaps a fitting topic to close thi s discussion of nonverbal com
munication. Two central manifestations of silence appear in Terra Nostra. The
first, fundamentally linked to with major thematic concerns of the novel, is the
silencing of social groups. There is the focus on the physical silencing of social
groups through the use of violence, intimidation, and simply ignoring them, as
was descri bed above. At the same time, Felipe's "texto unico," the written text
that embodies the official history, censures and silences any dissenting ver
sions. As Guzman states, "No es elsilencio el resorte de la autoridad del Senor,
sino la declaraci6n, el edicto, la ley escrita, la ordenanza, el estatuto, el pape\"
(273). Silence is the lot of the repressed, not those who hold the power and
therefore control the word. The absolute authority of the written text silences
all di ssonance. The power of writing to constitute and maintain reality is con
trasted with the fragility and temporality of the oral discourse of the unlettered
masses. However, oral discourse is shown to be more flexible than written dis
course, and orality infuses supposedly "fixed" or immutable texts. In this way,
Fuentes demonstrates the gap between rhetoric and social reality. Felipe's
authoritarian political language is ultimately ineffective before the oral reports
of the existence of the New World: he attempts to decree the nonexistence of
the New World in writing, but his attempts to silence the message brought by
the Peregrino are impotent. Through the manipulations of Guzman, who sees
his chance to avenge himself of his despised master, the discovery becomes
common knowledge. The silencing of social groups and di ssenting versions of
history support the global theme of power that underpins the text.
The second manifestation of silence in the novel is its use as a structuring
element. Silences or gaps in the narration that involve the reader in a process
of co-creation are integral to the construction of meaning (Iser 168-69).
Fuentes exploits the interplay between the implicit and the explicit in Terra
Nostra. Because of the omnivorous scope of the novel, its author resorts to a
fragmented structure in which only miniscule samples of explicit information
are presented, leaving sizeable gaps for the reader to fill in. Fuentes deals with
the immensity of the knowledge at hi s di sposal (after spending six years
researching the novel) by reducing forms to their lowest common denomina
tor. With the active reader's participation, one oblique referent can bring an
entire tield of concepts to bear on the interpretation of the novel. Williams has
provided an example: By setting a large section of Terra Nostra in EI Escori
aI, Fuentes evokes an entire tradition of Spanish religious architecture as well
as the political ramifications associated with such structures.
18
Thus, single
referents evoke larger constellations of information that the reader must
access from a common cultural background. Of course, if the reader is not
privy to the same cultural knowledge as the author, many of these referents
may pass unnoticed, and the scope of the novel is thus limited. .
Anderson SYMPOSIUM 7S
Conclusion
In Terra Nostra, systematic power relations are explored through a process
of representative selection of referents and social heteroglossia and the con
scious creation of a Hegelian dialectic between these elements. In this way, a
central locus of meaning is diffused throughout many different mediums that
are reassembled within the mind of the reader to create a total vision. One sys
tem that functions in such a way is communication: the dialectical represen
tation of both verbal and nonverbal communication in Terra Nostra creates an
autonomous fictional world within the mind of the reader that simultaneously
contends and interacts with reality. In other words, a dialectical sampling of
communicative elements leads the reader to arrive at a total vision of power
relations through a synthesis of the disparate verbal and nonverbal compo
nents that are represented.
,
The view of totality offered by Terra Nostra is necessarily limited cultur
ally, geographically, and ideologically, but the power relations and "human
values" it portrays are placed within a framework that models them as "uni
versal" OJ! "absolute."19 In this sense, Vargas L1osa's view that the total novel
ist assumes the role of God within the world of the novel becomes particular
ly provocative, especially when one examines how issues of legitimacy are
treated in this total novel. Ultimately, the role of the narrator in this novel, at
least at the highest level, is to be believed.
2o
The metanarrator, the compiler of
all the diverse narrating voices, is omniscient and as such holds the keys to
absolute truth. And, as Lyotard states, "God is not deceptive" (24). The mul
tiple voices that permeate the text coincide to reaffirm the legitimacy of the
synthetic meaning that is prefigured in the text under the control of this meta
narrator. Indeed, there can be little doubt that Terra Nostra contains multiple,
conflictive coding similar to that described by Carlos Alonso in his explo
ration of modernity in Latin American narrative. The sheer number of refer
ents in this novel and the transparency of its philosophical moorings are tes
tament to the critical discourse that surfaces through the narration, a critical
discourse repeated in Fuentes's companion essay Cervantes 0 la critica de la
lectura.
21
Likewise, thematic and semantic redundancy is the glue that main
tains cohesion within the extreme fragmentation of Terra Nostra's narration.
22
The ideological weight of Fuentes's critical discourse, together with the con
sensus historical perspective that opposes his fictional construction (as much
as that construction may undermine it), displaces the story line, which is then
forced into a supplemental position with respect to both history and theory. 23
The novel's critical apparatus promoting plurality and tolerance is thus at odds
with its own content; the insistence on its message ends up creating a unity or
centrality within the text that belies its own proposal. In other words,
Fuentes's critical discourse proposes "different readings of a single text"
(629), while at the same time enforcing a single reading through repetition.
24
76 SYMPOSIUM Summer 2003
In the end, the stress placed on ideol ogical content forces the reader to arrive
at a synthesis of dialecti cal opposites that has already been written into the
text by its author. This procedure undermines the autonomy of the parts that
is fundamental in Hegel' s method, thus putting into question the integrity of
the process, if not its conclusions.
University of California, Riverside
I. Fuentes comments on the mandalic structure of Terra NOSIra in an interview with Marce
lo Coddou. "Terra Nos/ro , 0 la critica de los cielos" 8.
2. Comtc's intluence on turn-of-the-century Latin American thought was pervasive in later
movements of national identity. as has heen well documented in works such as Leopoldo Zea's
El POsiTivim1O ,!II Mexico: Nacimiel/To, apogeo y decadencia (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Mexi
cana. 19(8) and Ahelardo Villegas's PoSiTivismo y /iorfirismo (Mexico: SEP, 1972).
J. It could hc argued that Vargas Liosa reformulates ideas proposed by Chilean poet Vicente
Huidohro decades earlier. Huidobro proclaimed in "Arte poetica" ( 1916) that "EI poeta es un
pequeno dios" and advocated a "totalizing" aesthetic in his manifesto "Total" ( 1932). Huidobro's
totalizing approach to poetry was not unique; Julien Benda, in his st udy of the French avant-garde
wi th which Huidohro was so intimately associated, states that "L' hymne 11 la totalite est une sorte
de lieu commun chel. tout un monde de litterateurs modernes" (48).
4. Although Vargas Llosa distinguishes a mythical component in TirO-ntlo Blanc, he does not
place the overarclling emphasis on myth that Fuentes does.
5. "I) The total novel aspires to represent an inexhaustible reality, and cultivates an encyclo
pedic range of references as a means towards that end. 2) The total novel is conceived as a self
contained system or microcosm of signification which accommodates ambiguity as a matter of
course. 3) The lotal novel is characterized by a fusion of mythical and historical perspectives, and
by a transgression of conventional norms of narrative economy. 4) The total novel displays a ver
bal texture that tends to the baroque, and typically exhibits paradigmatic overspiJl on to the syn
tagmatic axis of language" (Fiddian 33).
6. See Sarduy.
7. As Wilfrido Corral suggests in "Novel istas sin tim6n: Exceso y subjetividad en el concep
to de la novela total," total novels are characterized by an aesthetic of excess and an accumula
tion of suhiectivities. Howevcr, the techniques employed by these authors are not limited to a
purely aesthet ic function. They work to provoke a particular mode of perception in the reader.
8. Novcls such as Agustin YMiez's AI filo del ag/'/{1 (1947) and Leopoldo Marecha],s Addn
Buel/osa)'res (1948) bring an encyclopedic approach to the exploration of national identity and
origins to Mexico and Argentina respectively. Doris Sommer discerns a si milar trend when she
asserts that the novels of the Boom rewrite the Spanish American fictions (27-29).
9. Hayden White traces Hegel 's intluence on historical and philosophical discourse.
10. In The Theory f The Novel, he writes that "The novel seeks, by giving fonn, to uncover
and construct the concealed totality of life" (60).
II. Lukacs develops a model for an allegorical relationship between characters in the novel
and real world social problems (54-55).
12. Djelal Kadir details the underlying presence of a Hegelian concept of the Absolute in Terra
NOSTra in his chapter on the novel in QueSTing Fictions; and Gonzalez Echevarria has demon
strated Fuentes' familiarity wit h Lukacs's thought on the origins of the novel (90-91).
13. Gonzalez Echevarria has described the vast array of social , cultural, and historical referents
that appear in Terra NosTra as functioning on a basic metonymical relationship with reality: "Cul
ture and history are a structure of knowledge, a key for the comprehension of everything that pre
cedes the text and gives it meaning" (89). Juan Goytisolo also remarks on the breadth of the cul
tural referents that appear in Terra Nos/ra: "Las libeJ1ades que se toma Fuentes con nuestro
patrimoni o cultural son indice de una ambicion creadora omnivora. Su museo imaginario abarca
por igual novel as y cr6nicas, pinturas, leyendas, ciencias y mitos" (237). Goytisolo concludes that
Anderson SYMPOSIUM 77
Terra Nostra reads like "un saqueo cultural" (250). Marquez Rodriguez is si milarl y attracted by
the scope of cultural motifs found in the novel: "La historia es el trasfondo. Sobre este se entrete
jen la poiftica, las pasiones humanas, la mitologia, las artes, la filosoffa, la religion, La
antropologia, la psicologia, la educacion, la teologfa, el esoterismo, la hechicerfa, la cabala, las
ciencias, la tecnologia, la gastronomia [.. .)" (191-92). As Oviedo sums up, "Lo que esta novel a
quiere ser es, sencillamente, todo: una suma de los mitos humanos, una reescritura de la historia,
una interpretacion de Espana, una reflex ion americana, un ensayo disidente sobre la funcj6n de
la religi6n, el me y la literatura en el destino humano, una propuesta ut6pica, un collage de otras
obras, un tratado de erudici6n, una novela de aventuras, un nuevo di1ilogo de la lengua, un exa
men del pasado, una predkci6n del futuro y (no por ultimo) un inmenso poema er6tico" (19).
14. For a further discussion of the complementarity of Bakhtin's and Lukacs' s views on the
novel, see Hall.
15. In Anxiety of Influence, Bloom studies literary influence as an overbearing accumUlation
of texts and precursors that causes poets psychological anxiet y and a feeling of "belatedness" that
becomes evident in their need to affirm their originality and deny their antecedents.
16. Borges elaborates an alternative theory of influence in "Kafka y sus precursores," in which
authors "create" their predecessors in their own image, thus modifying our reading of past texts.
17. By extension, the Spanish Empire and all other colonial powers are also implicated.
18. See Williams's chapter on Terra Nostra in The Writings of Carlos Fuentes, in which he
develops a series of parallels between the labyrinthic structure ofEI Escorial and that of the novel.
19. "Universal" is employed here with reference to the manner in which it was used by
Fuentes, Vargas Liosa, and other Latin American writers throughout the twentieth century, going
back at least as far as Alfonso Reyes, to denote a largel y Western myth of common cultural ori
gins. Likewise, "Absolute" refers to the Hegelian Absolute cited earlier in this study.
20. A tangled network of narrators shares the task of storytelling, some of whom (s uch as the
Cronista) actually question the truthfulness of their narration. However, as Gonzalez Echevarria
points out, the authorial voice of Fuentes' companion essay to the novel, Cervantes a la cr[tita
de una leclUra ( 1976), spills over into Terra Nost ra, fixing the meaning and the authority of the
text (90-91).
21. Fuentes establishes the complementarity of this text with Terra Nostra by including a
"shared" bibliography for the two works at the end of Cervantes.
22. Susan Suleiman studies how redundancy works to enforce a single reading of a text,
23. Speaking against a superficial reading of Fuentes' deconstruction of historiographic dis
course, Van Delden affirms that "Fuentes does not fictionalize history in order to demonstrate the
distance between text and realit y. Hidden within the fiction of Terra Nostra, there is a reading of
the past that we as readers are meant to take with utter seriousness" (139).
24. In a review that appeared shortly after the publication of the novel, Mexican writer and crit
ic Jose Joaquin Blanco, perhaps sensing this contradiction, accused Fuentes of monologism and
described Terra Nostra as "Iiteratura sin democracia" (14).
WORKS CITED
Alonso, Carlos. The Burdell of Moderniry: The Rhetoric of Cultural Discourse in Latin America.
New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael
Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.
Barthes, Roland. "To Write: An Intransitive Verb?" Modern LiTerary Theory: A Reader. Ed. Philip
Rice and Patricia Waugh. London: Arnold, 1998.41-50.
Benda, Julien. La France byzantine 0/./ Ie triomphe de la litlli rature pure: Mallarnui. Gide, Vatery,
Alain. Giraudoux. Suanis. Les S/./mialistes: Essai d'une psychologie originelle du lil/erateur.
Paris: Gallimard, 1945.
Blanco, Jose Joaquin. "Mas alia de la lectura: Las intenciones monumentales." La cultwa en
Mexico 14Jan 1976: 9-16.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiery of Influence: A TheolY of Poetry. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.
Borges, Jorge Luis. " Kafka y sus precursores." Ficcionario: Una antologla de sus rextos. Ed.
Emir Rodriguez Monegal. Mexico: Tierra Finne, 1998. 307-D9.
78 SYMPOSIUM Summer 2003
Brashear de Gonzalez. Anne. "La Novela Totalizadora: Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and
Fuentes's Terra Noslro." Kanina 5.2 (198 1): 99-106.
Coddou, Marcelo. "Terra Nostra, 0 la critica de los cielos: Entrevista a Carlos Fuentes." The
American Hispanisl 3.24 (1978): 8-10.
Corra\. Wilfrido. "Novelistas sin tim6n: Exceso y subjetividad en el concepto de la ' novela totaL'"
MLN 116.2 (2001): 315-49.
Ekman, Paul, and Wallace Y. Friesen. "The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior: Categories, Ori
gins, Usage, and Coding." Nonverbal Communication, Imeraction, and Gesture: Selections
from Semiotica. Ed. Thomas A. Sebek. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Espina. Eduardo. "Terra Noslra: Fragmentos de un discurso miratorio." Ant(podas 8-9
(198R-89): 56-67.
Fiddian. Robin William. "James Joyce and Spanish-American Fiction: A Study of the Origins and
Transmission of Literary Influence." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 66 (1989): 23-39.
Fuentes. Carlos. La nueva novela ilispanoamericana. Mexico: Moniz, 1969.
---. Terra NosTro. Mexico: Moniz, 1998.
Gonzalez Echevarria, Roberto. "Terra Noslra: Theory and Practice." The Voi ce of the Masters:
WriTing alld AUThority ill Modern Lalill American LiTerature. Austin: U of Texas p, 1988.
Goytisolo. Juan . "Terra NOSlra." Disidencias. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1977.221-56.
Hall. Jonathan. ''Totality and the Dialogic: Two Versions of the Novel?" Tamkang Review I6. 1-4
(1984-85): 5-30.
Hauser, Arnold. The Social HislOry ofArt. Vol. 4. New York: Vintage, 1963.
Hege l, G. W. F. Hegel's Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences.
1830. Trans. William Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975.
---. 117IroduClion TO the Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Trans. T. M. Knox and A. Y.
Miller. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
Huidobro, Vicente. Allrolog(a poe,ica. Ed, Andres Morales, Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 1993.
Iscr. Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP. 1978.
Kadir, Djelal. Qu('slillg PiCliol1s: Latin America's Pamily Romance. Minneapolis: U of Minneso
ta P. 1986.
Kerr. Lucille. "The Paradox of Power and Mystery: Carlos Fuentes's Terra NOSlra," PMLA 95
(1980): 91-102.
Lukacs. Georg. The Theory of the Novel: A HiSlorico-Philosophical Essay on the Porms of Great
Epic Lilerature, Trans, Anna Borstock. Cambridge: MIT P, 1971.
Lyotard, Jean The Posll1wdem Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Ben
nington. Minneapolis: U or Minnesota P, 1984.
Marquez Rodriguez. Alexis, "Aproximacion preliminar a Terra Nostra: La ficci6n como reinter
pretacion de la historia." La obra de Carlos Puenles: Una visi6n multiple. Ed. Ana Marfa
Hernandez de L6pez. Madrid: Pliegos, 1'988. 183-92.
Mendelson, Edward. Introduction. Pynchon: A Col/ectioll of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1978. 1-15.
Oviedo. Jose Miguel. "Fuentes: Sinfonfa del Nuevo Mundo," Hispamerica 6.16 (1977): 19-32.
Poyatos. Fernando. ''The Multichannel Reality of Discourse: Language-Paralanguage-Kinesics
and the Totality of Communicative Systems." Language Sciences 6.2 (1984): 307-37.
Price. David \y, History Made, Hislory imagined: Contemporary Literature, Poesis, and the Past.
Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1999.
Sainz. Gustavo. "Carlos Fuentes: A Permanent Bedazzlement." World Literature Today 57.4
(1983): 568-72.
Sarduy. Severo. "The Baroque and the Neo-Baroque." Latill America ill its Literature. Ed, Cesar
Fernandez Moreno. New York: Holmes. 1980. 115-32.
Sommer, Doris, POUlIdcllional PiCliolls: Th e Natiollal Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: U of
California P, 1991.
Suleiman. Susan. Aulhorilalil'e Pic/ions: The Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre. New York:
Columbia UP, 1983.
Van Delden. Maarten. Carlos Puentes, Mexico, and Modernity, Nashville: Vanderbilt UP,
1998.
Vargas Liosa, Mario. Carta de bawlla por Tircmtlo Blanc. Barcelona: Seix Barral , 1991.
Anderson SYMPOSIUM 79
White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Ninetee11lh-Century Europe. Balti
more: Johns Hopkins UP, 1973.
Williams, Raymond L. The Writings of Carlos Fuentes. Austin: U of Texas P, 1996.