Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana

Estado de exilio by Cristina Peri Rossi

Review by: Elena M. Martínez
Chasqui, Vol. 35, No. 1 (May, 2006), pp. 164-166
Published by: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29742083 .
Accessed: 22/05/2013 00:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Chasqui.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 187.252.134.206 on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:03:52 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 164 Reviews

Vasconcelos fits the subject well because Vasconcelos explicitly his image as a model
projected
for Mexicans to follow. Ochoa's argument is attractive, but seems to reach too far by suggesting

thatVasconcelos conscientiously intended to fail as a necessary part of his Utopian designs.

The biographical reading of Fuentes is even less convincing. In a round-about way, Ochoa

proposes that a hypochondriac Fuentes' fear of failure is more real than any actual failure. The

body and its phantom illnesses, both in literature and in life, become the expression for Baroque

philosophical dichotomies. Unfortunately, the chapter spends less time on Cambio de piel (1968)
than it does on Severo Sarduy and Baroque body politics.
Conversely, the author's argument that performance artist Guillermo G?mez-Pe?a embodies

the US-Mexico border tensions is captivating. The border is semi-permeable in G?mez-Pe?a's

world, but never allows equilibrium

or assimilation. Indeed, synthesis is antithetical to the per?

former's Ochoa writes: "Unlike Gustavo P?rez Firmat's iife on the hyphen' or Arteaga's
project.
sign of the x, both signs of fusion, his sign seems to be the slash (/), a symbol of doubleness and
juxtaposition" (175). This binarism is contradicted by the street performer's implicit dependence
on the audience, and for G?mez-Pe?a this audience is typically Anglo.
On thewhole the book fulfills the goals Ochoa establishes. It limps slightly, however, because
the author does not apply his theories to a broader discussion of failure in Mexican identity
discourse. His suggests a number of questions?how does failure influence
analysis implicitly
and cultural discourse, for example?but never answers them. Chapters
contemporary political
focus specifically on the foundational texts without expanding on how these texts inform the
ongoing national discussion. This topic has captured the attention of many of Mexico's greatest
intellects: historians like Lucas Alam?n, Justo Sierra, and Daniel Cos?o-Villegas; or essayists of

the caliber of Samuel Ramos, Antonio Caso, Leopoldo Zea, and Alfonso Reyes. More could, and

should, be said about their thoughts and views. Nevertheless, The Uses of Failure in Mexican

Literature and Identity is a commendable It calls failure its name and a potentially
study. by gives

discouraging topic a fresh breeze of optimism.

Brian L. Price, University of Texas at Austin

Peri Rossi, Cristina. Estado de exilio. Madrid: Visor Libros, 2003. 91 pp. ISBN 84-7522-515-2

Los poemas que componen este libro fueron escritos en la d?cada del setenta cuando las

dictaduras chilenas y uruguayas condenaron a muchos al exilio. Como muchos otros

argentinas,
escritores latinoamericanos, Cristina Peri Rossi (Montevideo 1941) se exili? en Espa?a, pa?s en
el cual ha residido desde la d?cada del setenta. La poeta advierte en el pr?logo que empez? a
escribir: "Una vez el dolor un poco. . ."
que afloj? y luego agrega:
comenc? a decir que el exilio nos una segunda oportunidad: la de
proporcionaba
empezar a vivir en otra parte, cuando ya sabemos las dos cosas m?s importantes
de la vida: leer y escribir. (9)
El poemario le da voz a distintas experiencias de la diaspora y a la alienaci?n asociada con

el tener que usar una diferente y al cuestionarse su identidad. As?, lo expresa el poemario
lengua
"Los exiliados II":

Hablamos lenguas que no son las nuestras

andamos sin pasaporte ni documento de identidad

escribimos cartas desesperadas

This content downloaded from 187.252.134.206 on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:03:52 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Reviews 165

que no enviamos
somos intrusos numerosos desgraciados
sobrevivientes

supervivientes
y a veces eso
nos hace sentir culpables. (36)

Algunos de los poemas tienen que ver con lo familiar, la figura de la madre, la casa, los
otros presentan m?s marcadamente el tema como el poema "XXIII", en que
parientes; pol?tico,
se recuerda la pregunta de un periodista que insiste en preguntar "?qu? es el exilio?" Con gran
econom?a de lenguaje, el poema expresa el miedo, la represi?n, la tortura y la violaci?n de las

mujeres por los militares, as? como el hambre del exiliado. "Cabina telef?nica 1975" y "Barcelona
1976" hablan de situaciones extremas y necesidades econ?micas por las cuales pasa el desplazado.
En el primero leemos:
El exilio es tener un franco en el bolsillo

y que el tel?fono se trague la moneda

y no la suelte
?ni moneda, ni llamada?
en el exacto momento en que nos damos cuenta
de que la cabina no funciona. (42)

Hay poemas que hablan del dolor f?sico y el espiritual. En el poema XXXII, la poeta se vale
de la iron?a para expresar c?mo el torturador m?s cruel no es capaz de soportar en carne propia

un dolor leve: "no com?a porque una vez se pinch? con una espina".
(el torturador) pescado
Los temas de la otredad y la desubicaci?n aparecen en muchos poemas. El poema "XXXIII"

habla de la otredad del exiliado recrea en el destierro las costumbres y la lengua de su pa?s
quien
natal. Asimismo el mar aparece en varios poemas como met?fora de la desubicaci?n y del vaiv?n

emocional que experimentan los exiliados:

..."Se exilian de todas las ciudades
de todos los pa?ses

y aman las im?genes de los barcos". (51)

Y m?s adelante se dice: "Sue?an con volver a un pa?s que ya no existe" (52). Por otra parte
en "Cercan?as" se habla de la "ajenidad". La hablante se reconoce como la extranjera, la de paso.

El ?ltimo "Barnanit" es especialmente hermoso y su tono de comuni?n contrasta con

poema
los otros del libro. Parece ser una culminaci?n, un donde se da un encuentro con un ser
lugar
amado con una ciudad. Cada una de las estrofas de este poema comienza con "Creo que por
y/o
amarte..." Este poema de comuni?n concluye as?:

Creo que por amarte

intercambiaremos s?labas y palabras

como los fetiches de una religi?n
como las claves de un c?digo secreto

y feliz, por primera vez en la ciudad

extra?a en la ciudad otra,
me por sus pasajes
dejar? guiar
por sus entra?as
por sus arcos y volutas
como la viajera por la selva
en el medio del camino de nuestra vida.

This content downloaded from 187.252.134.206 on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:03:52 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 166 Reviews

Las ciudades s?lo se conocen por amor

y las lenguas son todas amadas. (76)

La secci?n final del libro, "Correspondencia(s) con Ana Mar?a Moix", es un largo poemario
que habla de la amistad, la literatura, las revoluciones ideol?gicas, y la escritura sobre el exilio
culmina con una reflexi?n sobre el colonialismo cultural.

Elena M. Mart?nez, Baruch College (CUNY)

Roncagliolo, Santiago. Pudor. Lima: Alfaguara, 2004. 187 pp. ISBN 9972-847-49-7

Santiago Roncagliolo (Lima, 1975) belongs to a new generation of Peruvian writers who have

appeared on the literary scene in recent years. His previous two books, the novel El pr?ncipe de
los caimanes (2002) and the collection of short stories Crecer es un oficio triste (2003), have
received good critical attention in Spain, where the author has resided since the late 1990s. His
latest novel, Pudor, is the story of a young, middle-class Peruvian family and its domestic trials

and tribulations. Alfredo Ramos is a man whose doctor has told him he has six months to live;
moreover he unexpectedly finds himself in a troublesome affair with his secretary. His wife,
Lucy, receives anonymous erotic messages from a secret admirer whom she tries to meet, only
to be tragically disappointed. They have two children, Mariana, their pubescent teenage daughter,
who is secretly attracted to her classmate Katy, and Sergio, a young boy who talks to ghosts.

Also included are a senile who hasn't given up on one last attempt to charm his
grandfather,
Doris his fragile body, and Rocky the cat, who roams around the neighborhood
neighbor despite
troubled a curious odor and led by his most basic instincts.
by
The lives of these characters, all of whom share the same household at the Residencial San
in Lima, are cleverly woven in the narrative to tell the story of individual existences that,
Felipe
at least on the surface, appear to be governed by a sense of discretion and stringent middle-class

codes of conduct. However, Roncagliolo puts to use an omniscient (and efficient) narrator who

is able to equally the exterior of his characters, as well as recount the troublesome
depict fa?ades
interior motives that govern their behavior. Such a contrast is maintained in the book through

good dialogue, brief chapters, playful humor and amusing wordplay. Moreover, Roncagliolo's
concise and agile narrative style manages to create good psychological tension in the novel, and

the reader soon finds himself involved in the many hidden fears and desires of yet another
dysfunctional family with many anecdotes to its name.

In the end, Pudor is a witty chronicle of prudish, Latin American middle-class values. In fact,

it could be that the behavior that Roncagliolo's characters exhibit on a daily

argued repressed
basis forces them to seek alternative identities and engage in silent quests to break away (if only
for a little while) from a rigid hermetic social code in order to fulfill their hidden desires?so
much so that what may appear to be playful and humorous in certain passages of the story

ultimately reveals itself as very dramatic and at times even tragic behind closed doors. Roncaglio?
lo's book is not only an
entertaining, realistic narrative that showcases the talent of an author
whose work isworth following in the future; it also points to a shift in attitude in the latest Latin
American novel, where the once sagas of the boom authors of the 1960s now
all-encompassing

This content downloaded from 187.252.134.206 on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:03:52 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions