Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma

José Lezama Lima and Paradiso

Author(s): Klaus Müller-Bergh
Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Winter, 1970), pp. 36-40
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40124043 .
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36 BOOKS ABROAD
Tutameia: TerceirasEstorias,Rio de Janeiro:Olym-
pio, 1967.
Com o VaqueiroMariano,Niter6i: Ed. Hipocampo,
1952 (limited ed., 110 copies).
Works in which GuimaraesRosa collabo-
rated:
O Misterio dos MMM (Chapter 7), Rio de Janeiro:
0 Cruzeiro,1962.
Os Sete Pecados Capitais (Chapter 1), Rio de
Janeiro: Civilizacao Brasileira, 1964.
Studies:
Brazilian Embassy, Exposigdo Biobibliogrdfica
GuimaraesRosa, Lisbon-Coimbra,1968.
Candido, Antonio, Tese e Antitese, Sao Paulo:
Ed. Nacional, 1964, pp. 119-140.
Em Memoria de Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Rio de
Janeiro: Olympio, 1968.
Jose Lezama Lima and
By KLAUS MULLER-BERGH
young cultural attache of the Cuban
Embassy in Paris was quick to assure
me that the intellectual in Cuba today en-
joys absolute freedom of expression: "Es-
sentially a writer is not much different
from a research scientist in a laboratory,"
he said. "If he is experimenting with dan-
gerous, unstable material it is best he work
alone, at the edge of town. Should his
project explode, he will only harm himself
and not endanger the community." Jose
Maria Andres Fernando Lezama Lima's
first novel Paradise erupted in postrevolu-
tionary Havana in 1966, and a revised edi-
tion of Biblioteca Era (Mexico, 1968),
with illustrations by Rene Portocarrero,
and de la Flor (Buenos Aires, 1968) scan-
dalized a Hispanic literary world which
has consistently failed to recognize his
original contribution to Latin American
letters.
Although Lezama's career spans more
than thirty years, his poetry, essays, and
short stories have long remained outside
the literary mainstream. The Argentinian
novelist Julio Cortazar in La vuelta al
dia en ochenta mundos (Mexico, 1967),
favorably compares the author with such
established figures as Jorge Luis Borges
and Octavio Paz. The Peruvian Mario
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Harss, Luis, Barbara Dohmann, Into the Main-
stream, New York: Harper & Row, 1967, pp.
137-172.
Lisboa, Henriqueta, Wilton Cardoso, Maria Luisa
Ramos, Fernando Correia Dias, GuimaraesRosa,
Belo Horizonte: Centro de Estudos Mineiros,
1966.
Minos Gerais, Suplemento Uterdrio, special num-
ber on Guimaraes Rosa, Belo Horizonte, Nov.
25, 1967, Ano II, No. 65.
Portella, Eduardo, "A Estoria cont(r)a a Historia,"
Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 30, 1967,
caderno B, p. 3.
Proenca, M. Cavalcanti, Augusto dos Anps e
Outros Ensaios, Rio de Janeiro: Olympio, 1959,
pp. 151-241.
Rodriguez Monegal, Emir, "En busca de Guima-
raes Rosa," Mundo Nuevo, Paris, Feb., 1968,
No. 2, pp. 4-16.
Paradiso
Vargas Llosa feels Lezama's prodigious
assimilation and Americanization of the
exotic elements of European and Asian
cultures in Paradiso rivals that of Ruben
Dario and Borges, (La Gaceta de Cuba,
mayo 1967). Cortazar attributes critical
neglect of the portly Cuban's productions
to their inherent hermetic, esoteric, "ba-
roque" quality, and to the historical and
political underdevelopment of Lezama's
country.
As a result of expositions and publica-
tions outside of Cuba, other Cuban paint-
ers, poets, and novelists such as Wilfredo
Lam, Nicolas Guillen, and Alejo Carpen-
tier had already gained international recog-
nition before the revolution. In their trav-
els through Europe and America they had
won the acclaim of Spanish, French, and
Latin American intellectuals with whom
they had participated in the Spanish civil
war and other political movements of
their generation. Until recently, however,
Lezama Lima had only briefly visited
Mexico and Jamaica on two short trips in
1949 and 1950. Furthermore, since the tri-
umph of Fidel Castro, a progressively suf-
focating economic and spiritual isolation
which has tended to stifle creativity has
been forced on Cuba by the cold war. Even

outstanding authors like Carpentier and
Guillen were too often labeled "Carib-
bean" or "Latin American" rather than
"Cuban."Hence, it is significant that until
1967 Lezama had published only on the
island, and some knowledge of his back-
ground is indispensable to the under-
standing of his work.
Lezama Lima was born in the garrison
of Columbia (Havana), in 1910, and be-
longs to the second group of writers of the
vanguardia in Cuba whose production,
in line with the tradition of "art for art's
sake" of Juan Ramon Jimenez, began to
appear in the early 1940s.The initial wave
of this movement, more militant, national-
ist, and Afro-Cuban, had swept the coun-
try in the late twenties. Jorge Mafiach,
Juan Marinello, Francisco Ichaso, Marti
Casanovas, and Alejo Carpentier, "Los
cinco," came from the Grupo Minorista
and founded the Revista de Avance (1927-
30) that was to become the main herald
for the restless voices of the new aesthetic.
The young heirs of this school, Jose Ro-
driguez Feo and Cintio Vitier, followed in
their footsteps and found a guide in Le-
zama Lima, who continued to open new
paths for the vanguardismo in the pages
of Origenes. The review soon became one
of the finest of its time and attracted con-
tributions from distinguished authors of
the Spanish-speaking world: Vicente
Aleixandre, Jose Bergamin, Lydia Cabrera,
Luis Cernuda, Eugenio Florit, Jorge Gui-
llen, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Lino Novas
Calvo, Pedro Salinas, Alfonso Reyes, Alejo
Carpentier, and Octavio Paz. Since Ori-
genes was not Lezama's first editorial ven-
ture and his work is not readily accessible,
it is helpful to turn to his numerous arti-
cles, essays, and books of poetry in order to
summarize a virtually unknown literary
trajectory that culminates in Paradiso.
Muerte de Narcisco, a poem (La Habana,
1937), is included in the anthology Orbita
de Lezama Lima; Coloquio con Juan Ra-
mdn Jimenez, an essay (La Habana, 1937),
appears in Analecta del reloj; "Doxa y
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LEZAMA LIMA 37
poesia," an essay (La Habana [?] 1939);
"Julian del Casal," an essay (La Habana
[?] 1941), later published in Analecta.
Enemigo rumor, poetry (La Habana,
1941); Aventuras sigilosas, poetry (La
Habana, 1945); La fijeza, poetry (La Ha-
bana, 1949); Aristides Fernandez, an essay
(La Habana [?] 1950); another article on
the same subject "Otra pagina para Ari-
stides Fernandez" in Tratados en La Ha-
bana; Analecta del reloj, essays (La Ha-
bana, 1957); Tratados en La Habana,
essays (La Habana, 1958); Dador, poetry
(La Habana, 1960). Three poems from
Dador were included in Orbita. Anto-
logia de la poesia cubana, (La Habana,
1965), is a three-volume anthology encom-
passing four centuries of Cuban poetry,
from an anonymous seventeenth-century
motet that appearedin Espejo de paciencia
(1608), to Jose Marti, with an excellent
introduction by the author. Paradiso, z.
novel was published in Havana, 1966. In
addition Lezama edited various literary re-
views : three numbers of Verbum (La Ha-
bana, 1937); six numbers of Espuela de
Plata (La Habana, 1938-41); ten numbers
of Nadie parecia (La Habana, 1942-44)and
Origenes (La Habana, 1944-57). An-
thologies of Lezama's work include Orbita
de Lezama Lima, containing poetry, two
short stories, and essays (La Habana, 1966)
with an introduction, selection, and notes
by Armando Alvarez Bravo; Los grandes
todos (Montevideo, 1968), basically the
same as Orbita, also includes a chapter of
the unpublished novel F ronesis.
As we can see from this summary of
Lezama's production in its context and
from his talk with Alvarez Bravo, "Con-
versacion con Lezama Lima" (Mundo
Nuevo, junio 1968), the key to his work
lies in poetry, to which he has dedicated
himself unwaveringly over the past thirty
years: "(jEs correcto pensar que su motor
es fundamentalmente poetico?" . . . "Este
motor es esencialmente poetico. Algunos
ingenuos, aterrorizados por la palabra
sistema, han creido que mi sistema es un
38 BOOKS ABROAD
estudio filosofico ad usum sobre la poesia.
Nada mas lejos de lo que pretendo. He
partido siempre de los elementos propios
de la poesia, o sea, del poema, del poeta, de
la metafora, de la imagen . . . ." Although
excerpts of Paradiso had appeared in vari-
ous issues of Origenes, the novel was not
published until much later. In its concep-
tion then it is contemporary with some of
his early poetry and essays, and a distilla-
tion of previous experiences. In Aventuras
sigilosas, for example, Lezama alludes to
some of the expanse of themes traversedin
the novel. Thus the themes of the mother
("Llamado del deseoso"), voluptuousness
and homosexuality ("Tapiz del ciego" and
"Culebrinas"),and the mysterious tropical
marine island reality that permeates the
exotic, mythological superstructure,all find
their later counterpart in the figures of
Rialta and grandmother Augusta, Focion,
and Fronesis. So does the funeral scene of
Oppiano Licario in the final chapter of
Paradiso.
The biographical data we glean from
Alvarez Bravo's introduction to Orbita
and from Lezama's interview with Domi-
nique Desanti, "Jose Lezama Lima, poete-
romancier du scandale" (Le Monde\ 20
July 1968), suggests the novel has substan-
tial autobiographicalcontent. The novelist,
like his hero, is from Havana, suffers from
chronic asthma, descends from a father
who was head of the military academy of
El Morro and a mother whose parents
were revolutionary exiles. Both lost their
fathers at an early age in an influenza
epidemic that swept Cuban and American
forces on military maneuvers in Florida.
The mother of Lezama, Rosa Lima y
Rosado, much in the fashion of Rialta,
the mother of Cemi, was expecting a child
during the final illness of her husband.
After his death, the author's family, like
that of Cemi, moved to the house of the
maternal grandmother in the Calle Prado
of Havana. Although a closer study of
Lezama's life would undoubtedly reveal
further parallels to the novel, Emir Rodri-
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guez Monegal, in his perceptive article
"Paradisoen su contexto" (Mundo Nuevo,
junio 1968), has warned of the dangers of
an excessively biographical interpretation.
He points out that such analyses, reading
the novel as a scabrous roman a clef, or
spinning out extended comparisons with
Dante, Marcel Proust, and James Joyce,
miss their mark. In my opinion, if there is
an analogy to Ulysses it is more in line
with the idea that Lezama, much as Joyce
with the figure of Leonard Bloom, at-
tempts to present the "whole man." Jose
Cemi, the hero of Paradiso, is the com-
plete, all-round Cuban prototype, firmly
rooted in the pre-Columbian myths of the
Caribbeanas well as in those of the Greco-
Roman world. Thus the term "cemi,"
seme or idol, encompasses different taino
divinities that govern the waters, tides,
and maternity, the growth of yucca or
hurricanes. As such, "cemi" often stands
for Atabex, the Mother of God, her son
Yucahuguama, the Lord of Yucca, and
Guabanex, the whirling Lord of the
Winds.1 In this context it becomes clear
that Lezama not only seeks to anchor his
main character in the midst of Cuban
daily family life but wishes to project the
mythical past of the central figure in space
and time to the dawn of Latin American
civilization. The author assured Domi-
nique Desanti: "Pour comprendre ce ro-
man, il f aut aussi connaitre mon intention :
exprimer d'aussi pres que possible la vie
quotidienne de Phomme et de sa famille.
La tradition cubaine, c'est le deracine-
ment, il faut savoir cela aussi . . . L'Eros
cubain est done l'Eros de Peloignement
essentiel . . . Vous comprenez? Le Cubain
regarde le quotidien comme lointain, et
le lointain comme s'il pouvait Pembrasser."
Since in Paradiso Lezama considers some
of the fundamental cultural and anthro-
-
pological elements of Latin America
land, man, language, religion, society, gov-
ernment, economy, education, the concep-
tion of time, food and drink, festivities-
it is not surprising that he evokes such a

penetrating and lasting vision of Cuban
reality, in spite of the awe-inspiring, eru-
dite superstructure.2
Although there a are few short, dream-
like sequences of Mexico and Jamaica,the
main locale of action is Cuba: "La costa
norte es saliente, promontorial, falica; el
sur costero es entrante y culiambroso. Seco
y humedo, flauta y corno, glande sin yerba
y vulva con yerba" (chapter 7). The au-
thor vividly recreates life on the military
garrisons as well as the stagnant existence
of the provinces in the Central Revolucion
and the sleepy backwaters of the Isle of
Pines. Still, his most eloquent descriptions
recapture the air of Old Havana, the nar-
row streets around the cathedral and the
teeming harbor zones Cemi explores in
chapters 9, 11, and 12.
Lezama also presents numerous racial
types that compose the island society and
refracts them through an ironic Cuban
lens: Zoar and Truni, the superstitious
immigrant couple from Galicia; the nine-
teen-year-oldmulatto cook with whom the
precocious adolescent Farraluque makes
love; a young Spanish chambermaid of
bizarre sexual tastes; Chinese vegetable
vendors in the Havana marketplace. All
serve as backdrop and complement to
Cemi, the embodiment of the "criollo,"
and it is also he who perhaps best sums
up the novelist's poetic conception of lan-
guage: "El ejercicio de la poesia, la bus-
queda verbal de finalidad desconocida, le
iban desarrollandouna extrana percepcion
por las palabras que adquieren un relieve
animista en los agrupamientos espaciales,
sentadas como sibilas en una asamblea de
espiritus."Although very often the speech
of his characters bears little relation to
their social status we find it acceptablebe-
cause Lezama overwhelms the reader with
the magic incantation of his characters'
discourse. Far-fetched, esoteric similes,
brilliant images couched in unusual tech-
nical and clinical terms vie with age-old
proverbs and popular sayings. The novel-
ist's approach to religion is equally hetero-
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LEZAMA LIMA 39
dox. Involved dialectical discussions of
homosexuality, reflecting a vast knowledge
of the Church fathers, alternatewith scenes
of witchcraft, spells, and other irrational
beliefs connected with "santena" and
spiritualism so prevalent in the Antilles.
Paradiso also mirrors the tightly knit fam-
ily structure of the Cuban bourgeoisie:
elaborate preparations for the arrival of
guests; effusive greetings among relatives
who have been absent; long dinners pre-
sided over by the father and mother seated
at the head of the table. This traditional
structure with its customs and rites is per-
haps best illustrated by the wedding of
Colonel Jose Eugenio and Rialta, where
students, servants, and officerspay their re-
spects to the couple after the evening cere-
mony.
Just as Cemi forms part of an inherited
pattern of social beliefs, he also reacts to
the government as a member of his class.
Through long years abroad in Jacksonville
his mother's family acquired the perspec-
tive of exile. He learns the songs of the
insurgent mambises, and hears of a mater-
nal grandmother who hid a cache of arms
in a chicken coop during the wars of in-
dependence. Later he becomes a student
activist and narrowly escapes being shot
by the police in a demonstration against
the dictator Machado. From the doctor
Santurce, a self-appointed expert on the
sugar problem, we gain a satiric view of
the island economy. The platitudes of
aunt Leticia's husband recall the endless,
sterile polemics on minute aspects of sugar
cultivation, harvest, processing, and world
markets that fill the Cuban press to this
day.
Although the novel probably defies nar-
row classification,it comes closest to being
a bildungsroman in that it strives to pre-
sent the psychic and intellectual develop-
ment of the hero from childhood to matur-
ity. We follow Cemi's growth in the Cu-
ban educational process through hilarious
scenes of grotesque sexual initiation at
school, to interminable metaphysical dis-
40 BOOKS ABROAD
cussions with Focion and Fronesis on the
Quijote, numerology, Nietzsche, Goethe,
Hegel, and Mallarme at the university. In
the end, the fact that Cemi has best as-
similated the diverse elements comprising
his intellectual formation determines his
CreoleWeltanschauungand gives him the
strength to come to terms with the unique
sense of tropical time expounded by Le-
zama: "todos que habian conocido a Cemi
estaban convencidos alegremente de que
era el hombre que mejor habia dominado
el tiempo, un tiempo tan dificil como el
tropical, donde Saturno siempre decapita
Cronos, . . ." (ch. 11).
In the course of Paradiso Lezama not
only offers a compendium of native, Creole
-
cookery sofrito, ajicaco, arroz con polio,
picadillo, and yemas, to name only some
of the perennial favorites- but also boasts
a gourmet's preoccupation with intricate
Chinese, Spanish, and French cuisine. The
ritual preparation of succulent, exotic
dishes culminates in ceremonial consump-
tion presided over by high priests initiated
into their mysteries. Without considering
numerous sexual permutations involving
certain characters, other pastimes men-
tioned in Paradiso include the tombola of
the Jacksonville exiles, children's games or
juegos de yaquis whose magic circle en-
ables Rialta to see her dead huband, and
A short, selected bibliographyof articles
on Lezama Lima
RobertoFernandez Retamar,La poesia contempordnea
en Cuba (1927-1953) (La Habana, Origenes, 1954).
Cinito Vitier, ho cubano en la poesia. Chapter 13,
"Crecida de la ambicion creadora. La poesia de
Lezama Lima. . . ." (Santa Ckra, Universidad
Central de las Villas, 1958) pp. 369-397.
Cesar Lopez, "Sobre Paradiso" Union, Revista de la Tomas
Union de escritoresy artistas de Cuba (UNEAC),
num. 2, afio V, abril-junio 1966, 173-180.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Tres tristes tigres. The
chapter "La muerte de Trotsky . . . nuncupatoria
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an extraordinarychess game between Doc-
tor Santurce and Alberto Olalla.
Finally, the intellectual challenge of the
novel leaves the reader exhausted. At times
the work's deliberate, unbearableobscurity
taxes the limits of his patience. A mon-
strous erudite overload achieves brilliant
effects in some instances, and fails to move
in others. But somehow all this seems to fit
into place; the vast complexity does not
matter in view of the final validity of
Lezama's intuition. Far removed from
local color, the fundamental elements com-
prising Latin American culture we have
pointed out are fixed, arranged, and re-
fracted through a peculiar Creolelens that
captures the ultimate truth of an unfath-
omable, tangled, uniquely Cuban world.
We might then con-
clude that Lezama
Lima's vision in Para-
diso correspondsto that
of the bard, the privi-
leged seer of the mind's
eye in forbidden zones
of the intellect.
Yale University
1 Jose Juan Arrom: Historia de la invention de
las Indias of Hernan Perez de Oliva, pp. 111-117.
2 Jose Juan Arrom: Hispanoamerica, panorama
contempordneode su cultura (New York, 1969).
de un cruzado" is a parody of Lezama Lima (Bar-
celona, Seix Barral, 1967).
Severo Sarduy, "Dispersion / falsas notas- Home-
naje a Lezama Lima," Mundo Nuevo, num. 24,
iunio 1968, 5-17.
Jorge Campos, "Paradiso de Jose Lezama Lima."
Insula, niims. 260-261, julio-agosto 1968, 11.
Juan Carlos Ghiano, "Introduccion a Paradiso de
Lezama Lima," Sur, Buenos Aires, septiembre-
octubre 1968.
Eloy Martinez, "Castro Cuba's Amateur
Genius- a Maelstrom, an Earthquake,"Atlas, Jan-
uary 1969, 62-64; a translationfrom Primeraplana,
Buenos Aires.