(Homo) Posing the Flesh in Virgilio Piñera's La carne de René

Author(s): LEE L'CLERC

Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos , Otoño 2001 / Invierno 2002, Vol. 26,
No. 1/2, ESTUDIOS EN HONOR A MARIO J. VALDÉS (Otoño 2001 / Invierno 2002), pp.
225-240
Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27763765

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.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Revista Canadiense de
Estudios Hispánicos

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
LEE L'CLERC

(Homo)Posing the Flesh in Virgilio

Pinera s La carne de Ren?

A pesar de que la homosexualidad se entiende en t?rminos de deseos intercambiados

entre dos personas del mismo sexo, o como actos sexuales particulares, podr?amos
tambi?n comprenderla en t?rminos de una (homo)est?tica corp?rea. Con esta
perspectiva, se propone se?alar en este art?culo c?mo, en La carne de Ren?, del
cubano Virgilio Ri?era, la homosexualidad se revela a trav?s de las acciones y
motivaciones del cuerpo, tom?ndose en consideraci?n los gestos y la postura del
protagonista. Se tiene en cuenta tambi?n las referencias en la novela a los cuerpos
de Cristo y San Sebasti?n - en particular a este ?ltimo, dado su significado ic?nico
homosexual - que sirven como fondo al conflicto social que hay en la narrativa entre
el cuerpo herido y el cuerpo sano. Se reconoce en este art?culo la carne herida en
relaci?n con la experiencia colectiva y como una superficie que ha sido marcada por
eventos externos. Por otra parte, se analiza la carne sana en relaci?n con la
experiencia individual (la del protagonista) y como portadora de su propia historia.
Se persigue concluir que no s?lo se pone al descubierto la homosexualidad del
protagonista a trav?s de sus gestos y postura corp?reo, sino que, como en la filosof?a
de Schopenhauer, todo acto inmediato de la voluntad del protagonista es tambi?n
y directamente un acto de su cuerpo, y por consecuencia, todo gesto de su cuerpo es
tambi?n y directamente un gesto de la voluntad propia de su ser.

Oh, no arrows, dear; it's before the martyrdom. He's quite

unpierced. But he looks ready for it, somehow, the way I have
done it. (Alan Hollinghurst The Swimming-Pool Library)1

This article begins with a brief comment on the cover art for the 1995 Cuban
edition of Virgilio Pineras La carne de Ren?. The image, a copy of the Doryphoros
(450-440 bc), a sculpture by Polykleitos, is that of a youth, reminiscent of the
ancient Greeks' notion of the idealized and perfectly developed male body,
shown with his weight shifted onto one leg, hip raised, and body gently and
sensuously curved. But this broad-shouldered figure is shown holding an arrow

REVISTA CANADIENSE DE ESTUDIOS HISP?NICOS Vol XXVI, 1-2 Oto?o / Invierno 2001-2002

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
226

Fig. i. Ilustraci?n de Manuel Fern?ndez para la

cubierta de La carne de Ren?, de Virgilio Pi?era.

in his left hand, his body already pierced by other arrows, and his genitals con
cealed by a modern circular sign with the letter P, standing not only for the
traffic sign for stop, but also for what it hides. Iconographically, the image of
Saint Sebastian is evoked. The arrows piercing the body would direct us to this
kind of reading; still more, the modern traffic sign places this image within a
contemporary setting. In any case, this is an illustration that shows a juxtaposi
tion of the classical idealization of the male body as a harmonious whole, and a
Christian characterization of the body (hidden genitalia included) as the locus
of suffering.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that the image of Sebastian, the youthful and
handsome soldier traditionally bound to a tree or a stake showing no signs of
pain despite his body having been transfixed by arrows, remains linked to
Christian hagiology. Immortalized primarily by painters for having died for the
Christian cause, Sebastians symbolization came to represent the suffering
endured by early Christian people. On the other hand, whether as conceived,
experienced, relocated, culturalized, or simply as it exists in the consciousness
of a male homosexual collectivity, Saint Sebastian has come to represent the
incarnation of homosexuality. For contemporary gay men, as Richard A. Kaye
writes in his valuable essay, "Losing his Religion: Saint Sebastian as a Contem

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 227

porary Martyr" Sebastian has become a locus for homosexual existence, and an
icon that elicits the homoerotic:

Sebastians fate in modern and contemporary representation is, above all else, the story
of the mischievous appropriation of Christian symbolism and Renaissance imagery by
homosexually identified men ... The archetypal Renaissance image of the saint as
ecstatically receptive to arrows suggests, of course, a desire for penetration and thus
embraces associations of male homosexuality. The penetrated (and therefore feminized)
male in the Renaissance paintings of Saint Sebastian is, significantly, a figure of visibly
triumphant bliss. (86-89)

Most significant, the cover art serves as a visual account of the narratives
main character: his bodily pose, his loneliness, his effeminacy, and his undis
closed sexuality. By "Sebastianizing" the male body of a known classical image,
Manuel Fern?ndez who illustrated the cover, has brilliantly captured the text's
characterization of Ren? as "encarnaci?n viviente de un semidi?s griego" (19),
and as Saint Sebastian:

Finalmente, sus ojos se posaron en un cuadro de grandes dimensiones, un ?leo del

Martirio de San Sebasti?n. O al menos el pintor tom? como punto de partida dicho
martirio, porque en el caso de este cuadro no se podr?a afirmar que fuera exactamente un
martirio. La pintura presentaba a un hermoso joven, tal como lo hab?a sido Sebasti?n, en
actitud reposada, con la mirada perdida y una sonrisa enigm?tica. Hasta ah? el cuadro no
ofrec?a nada de particular. En lo que se apartaba del modelo tradicional era en lo referente
a las flechas. San Sebasti?n sacaba las flechas de una carcaj y se las clavaba en el cuerpo.
El pintor lo hab?a presentado en el momento de clavarse la ?ltima en la frente. La mano
a?n se mostraba en alto, separados los dedos del extremo de la flecha y como si temieran
no se hubiera sumido definitivamente en la propia carne. (31-32)2

It is in relation to the symbolic significance of the cover image, suggestive of

an interrelation with the text and recognized as an image embedded with
cultural signs, that I wish to comment on the characterization of the homosexual
in Pi?era's narrative. Mainly, I want to draw attention to the narrative's
disclosure of the homosexuality of its main character through bodily signs. On
this basis, my interpretation grows from the understanding that the
individualization of Ren?, his singularity in the novel, owes much to his
behaviourial gestures, his closeted fantasies, and the pose of his body - all of
which can be understood within the context of a certain (homo) aesthetic. This
is to say that homosexuality in La carne de Ren? reveals itself through the body;
and is less the result of a hetero/homo opposition that would define the sexuality
of the "one" at the expense of the "other," than a cultural projection of gayness.

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 228

Thus I hope to show that, as with the image of Saint Sebastian, Ren?'s homosex
uality is not defined by the sexual act, but by the signs of his body.3
La carne de Ren? (1952) is divided into thirteen sections with titles alluding to
the human body or flesh. Essentially, it is conventional story telling about a
young man seeking his own place in the world. It can be classified as a
Bildungsroman, or "novela de formaci?n or aprendizaje" (7), as Ant?n Arrufat
points out in his preface to Pi?era's work. Although it can be said, as the title of
the novel suggests, and as it subsequently becomes foregrounded and visibly
framed, that this is the story of a young man whose beautiful flesh - "en la
calidad de su piel reside su belleza" (19) - becomes bound up with his existence.
To be sure, what is central in the narrative is Ren?'s flesh, as the garment of his
body, and as an external event that incites lust as well as disgust. It all seems to
occur within the context of a narrative that, as Arrufat observes, "[es] desarbola
da, [y] parece ocurrir en un espacio vac?o, irreal en apariencia, [que propone]
involucrar a su personaje en la ?nica realidad reconocida, la de la carne humana"
do).
Pi?era's novel brings us an account of two bodies caught up in representa
tion: the uninjured body, and the scarred and injured body. The former, as
represented in the novel through the character of Ren?, is an account of a
particular body as it struggles to assert its distinctive individuality. This is a body
that carries its own inscription: that of beauty. The other body, as represented
through the paternal bodies of Ren?'s grandfather and father, and visual
interpretations of Christian bodies, also carry their own inscription: the
embodiment of an absurd history (i.e., "La causa del chocolate"), its cruelty, and
its violence. This is the body Foucault refers to as "the inscribed surface of events
... totally imprinted by history and [equally representative of] the process of
history's destruction of the body" (Rabinow 83). This also is the body that
articulates the hetero-social relations at play in the novel - concrete hetero-social
relations promoted by the father, legitimized by the school, and confirmed
through the seductive role played by Se?ora P?rez. Yet, it is not so much the
oppositional differences between these two bodies that interests me. Rather, it
is the novel's account of Ren?'s bodily experiences and actions, as they become
more singular when they are brought into play with the other body.
In this novel, there are no adjustments between the physical and the spiritual.
As Arrufat points out, religious tradition serves as a "burla constante de las
concepciones m?sticas acerca del alma y su oposici?n con el cuerpo, y [como]
denodada parodia de las met?foras y t?rminos del cristianismo" (13). In what can
be seen as a reversal, the body is treated here for its physical, rather than
spiritual, worth. A case in point are the bodies of Christ and Saint Sebastian,
which function in the narrative as surfaces that are representative of pain and
torture and not as formulations of an intrinsic spiritual Christian message. As
impressions of the wounded flesh, these images duplicate the information of the

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 229

text regarding the forces of punishment, torture, and sentiments of suffering.

The narrative s mockery is implicit when it claims that "sufrir en silencio" is
emblematic of salvation, for it equates pain with life, particularly in the
interrelation between Ren? and the visual bodies. We can also say, recalling
Schopenhauer, that these images of wounded Christian bodies bring to the
narrative "not merely an absurd, but also a wicked, way of thinking, [and] a
bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of mankind" (i, 326).
It must be observed that La carne de Ren? deals not with religion per se, but
mainly uses the language of Christianity and its iconography of wounded bodies
as a background reference. The wounded body articulates and mocks issues of
corporeal sacredness, and presents the idea that corporeal salvation can only be
attained through the cult of the flesh, or "La carne chamuscada."4 Thus, the
textual claim that, "Si Ren? se decid?a por la carne sufriente, no pasaba nada; si
escog?a el camino de la carne como placer, todo estaba perdido" (82). Moreover,
these visual references serve as a mirror that reflects the corporeal impulses at
play in the novel within the framework of given oppositions: represented
body/lived body, historically inscribed body/self-inscribed body, aggressive
gestures/passive pose, pain/pleasure, collective actions/individual actions, and
profane/sacred.
To be certain, this novel proposes the view that the reality and the secret of
human life are to be found within corporeal existence. There are no distinctions
between body and soul here because the latter is perceived as non-existent,
fleeting and incorporeal: "?Qu? cosa era eso del esp?ritu? ... ?Alguien lo hab?a
tocado?" (64). The narrative's primary focus is on the body, its actions, its
motivations, and how it exists among other bodies. Similarly, this novel seems
to be advancing the idea that, to be carnally minded is life, which is contrary to
the biblical message: "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on
the Spirit is life and peace" (Romans 8:6).5 One of the novel's lines of argument
is: "No por otra v?a que por lo carnal el ser humano se realizaba" (44).
Social interaction in this novel is exteriorly animated by "la carne" which, as
in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, refers to the idea of Being. "La carne"
reveals itself freely and in the process discloses its own experiential condition and
motivations - grounding itself according to its own act. This is particularly
evident in the relationship (grand)father/son, which is grounded on the
distinctness of each body. On the one hand, the injured body is formulated in
this novel both as a model of political life and emblematic of outer suffering.
Exemplified through the bodies of Ren?'s grandfather and father, this body bears
and exposes the political conflicts of "La causa del chocolate" (see below). As
Ram?n explains to his son, his father, as a result of his fight against the enemies
of "el chocolate," "march? a la tumba acompa?ado de m?s de doscientas
heridas" (28). This body, moreover, appears as an extension of history (that of
the "chocolate") and linked to the collective experience (i.e., the defenders of "el

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
230

chocolate"). On the other hand, the uninjured body, Ren? s body, stands in
immediate relation to itself. As viewed by the characters in the novel, in
particular by Se?ora P?rez, it is enhanced by the materiality of its skin and the
motivations of the self. His body has yet to be inscribed by any external event or
even by the experience of another body. As the narrative voice tells us, he is
almost twenty years old and has yet to see a naked body. Ren?'s body is but the
personal body, bearer of a beautiful skin, a spectre of itself, directly linked to his
will. As the school director notes, clearly referring to the sovereignty of his body
and its "eccentricities," Ren? "Es una carne que se permite pensar sobre s?
misma" (105).
Furthermore, Pi?era's narrative also proposes an understanding of the body
as a mechanical object. Perceived as a "thing" motivated and driven .by its own
actions, the importance of the body resides within its functional time; and ceases
to have any significance once it stops moving. The immateriality of the body, in
other words, is of no concern in the narrative because the flesh can no longer be
subjected to judgement:

Por el contrario, en el cuerpo se encerraba el secreto de la vida humana. En verdad, un

secreto simple: todo para el hombre terminaba cuando el cuerpo deten?a su admirable
maquinaria. Para el hombre su oportunidad resid?a en el per?odo de la existencia
corporal; en cuanto a la otra, la de un m?s all?, no exist?a para el Predicador. (99-100; my
emphasis)

Indeed, this is a statement that seems to be grounded not only on the

Schopenhauerian formulation affirming that "Death is my entire end" (11, 491),
but also on formulations by Descartes regarding the body as a machine:

... and we may judge that the body of a living man differs from that of a dead man just
as does a watch or other automaton (i.e., a machine that moves of itself), when it is
wound up and contains in itself the corporeal principle of those movements for which
it is designed along with all that is requisite for its action, from the same watch or other
machine when it is broken and when the principle of its movement ceases to act. (333)

Moreover, the novel allows us to draw from the Schopenhauerian idea that
the body is "the starting-point in the perception of the world, and [is] a
representation which forms the starting-point of the subject's knowledge"
(Schopenhauer 1,19). Conceived in the novel as the point of access to the world,
the body is proposed as the most immediate manifestation of hope, belief, and
all that concerns everyday reality. It becomes the site of interpretation, that
which provides meaning, and pervades the narrative: "en verdad, un lenguaje
harto complicado, ya que la carne estaba presente en cada tema de conversaci?n"
(22); and, "la carne mueve al mundo" (101). The body is thus in Pi?era's

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 231

narrative, as in Schopenhauer's philosophy, a microcosm of the world, and the

perceiver and the perceived of human experience and knowledge - the
experience and knowledge of "la carne."
This novel, however, does not bring us close to the earth, nor to the heavenly
universe of the stars, nor to the natural flow of things, as in Alejo Carpentier's
El siglo de las luces, a novel Arrufat compares to La carne de Ren?. The presenta
tion in this earlier novel is not, in other words, a meditation on time and space.
Pi?era's characters do not seem to have the time to contemplate the world in
which they live, and which, consequently, may remind them of their fragile
existence. Again, we are summoned here to a space that simply exists in relation
to the body, as one that assumes its value only within the boundaries of bodily
life; there cannot be world, nor space, unless it is confirmed through the
evidence of the body. The body, as it reveals itself and as it acts up and brings
about changes in other bodies, accounts for the materialization of the world and
itself (Schopenhauer 119).
Similarly, we are drawn into a space that becomes a more immediate
extension of the sexual body, in particular the homobody. Mainly serving as a
playground for same-sex spectacle, this space allows for the body to be at the
centre of the show. It is a space in which the body freely exhibits itself as an
object of desire and as a subject with desires of its own. This is what Aaron
Betsky would describe as a "queer space," a space that is measured and assessed
by the body as it reveals itself through a physical exchange with another similar
body:

a space of spectacle, consumption, dance, and obscenity. It is a misuse or deformation of

a place, an appropriation of the buildings and codes of the city for perverse purposes...
By its very nature, queer space is something that is not built, only implied and usually
invisible ... Queer space often does not look like an order you can recognize, and when
it does, it seems like an ironic or rhetorical twist on such order. (18)

Examples of such "queer space" in this novel, are the boarding school and
Bola de Carne's house. For these spaces are confirmed as such by the rituals of
homosex and the body's goal of reaching an orgasm, as Betsky observes (17). In
any case, we are made witness to a long account that conjures up the imagery of
dogs sniffing, smelling, licking, and poking Ren?'s lips as they slide over his
naked body smeared entirely with saliva. This account describes the softening of
Ren?'s flesh by his classmates and teachers, but it is also an account of delirious
sexual excitement in which the excessive enjoyment of the flesh, food, and
alcohol, leads to fatigue, drunkenness, illness, orgasm, and sleep (86-98).6 And,
similarly, the narrative's account of the homosexual act between the sixty year
old Bola de Carne and the fifteen year old Principe makes evident how the space
in this case, as Betsky says, "is activated only by [the] body" (5):

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
232

Como si fuera la palabra de orden de todo un ceremonial, un criado deposit? a Bola en

el centro del colch?n. Acto seguido el Pr?ncipe march? majestuosamente a los acordes de
una m?sica de circo ... Pronto se oyeron los primeros compases de un vals. Y a medida
que la m?sica se hizo m?s impetuosa, Pr?ncipe imprim?a mayor velocidad a Bola, que
gritaba, lloraba, re?a y daba grandes voces anim?ndolo en su labor. (160-61)

From "Encuentro en la carnicer?a," the title of the first section of this novel,
this is clearly a horizontal narrative - albeit "desarbolada" - that sets out to map
Ren?s journey and document his social interaction. The story, moreover, is set
against the background of a modern era, judging by the references to the
automobile, the elevator, and electric lights. Contrary to Arrufat's view when he
says that Pi?era's narrative "parece ocurrir en un espacio vac?o, irreal en
apariencia" (10), Pi?era's space grants us the familiar, although without the
descriptive vastness of the world his characters inhabit. As the story unfolds, we
realize that Ren? and his family are once again in exile, and that happier times
have been erased, once again, by a dreadful present. The reason for this is
Ram?n s political past, and his having inherited the leadership of "La causa del
chocolate." Thus, the family has been forced to a life of hiding and wandering
from place to place. As Ram?n explains to his son, he has been branded an
enemy of his country for promoting the free consumption of chocolate, which
at one time had made people happy and had heightened the political and
economic dynamism of the country. But "el jefe" has banned its consumption
- and killed many defenders of "el chocolate" - because of his fear that it
undermines the security of the nation.
In the face of such situation, Ram?n hopes not only to continue promoting
"La causa del chocolate," as his father did and died for, but also to teach Ren?
how to suffer in case he is captured. The novel begins with a scene in the
butcher's shop, where Ren? has gone, not just to buy meat, but also to begin a
series of lessons about the cult of the flesh. This is what his father has requested,
so that Ren? can come to the realization that he too is made of flesh and,
therefore, overcome the fear and horror he feels for "cuanto sea carne descuarti
zada y palpitante" (18). Furthermore, since Ren? is going to be the future leader
of his father's "Causa" ("La causa del chocolate"), this is but part of the political
training his father has designed for him: "primero, asistencia sistem?tica a las
carnicer?as, despu?s a los mataderos, m?s tarde, a las grandes hecatombes
humanas" (18). Ultimately, he will also be taught at the special school to where
his father sends him, that even Christ "hab?a perecido en la cruz por la causa de
la carne" (84).
A world of carnal excesses and corporeal obsessions thus begins to emerge
from the very first chapter. And within this scenario Ren?'s existence becomes
the more noticeable because of his unwillingness to subject himself to anything
pertaining to the flesh. His initial refusal of dead flesh reveals not that he is

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 233

vegetarian, but that his attitude towards the flesh is different. This will lead to his
being perceived as someone who exhibits affectations of weakness, and worse.
He will be described as "anormal," "exc?ntrico," "hedonista," and "payaso," and,
as the school director tells Ram?n, someone who "est? hechizado por el
pensamiento" (105). Consequently, this branding of Ren?, the result of his
particular outwardly gestures and pose makes him a target marking him as "un
elemento antisocial." That Ren?'s flesh is viewed as an oddity by the others is
most clear when one of the male characters says about him, "Esa clase de carne
no me gusta" (20). Even to his female audience, who find him possessing a most
beautiful skin, his pose is pitiful for it appears as if "pidiendo protecci?n contra
las furias del mundo" (19). In short, it is Ren?s pose as "h?roe rom?ntico [y]
joven lunar de mirada so?adora" (27), as his father says of him, that reinforces
his "abnormality" and misplacement in this environment.
As Arrufat points out, "Toda [la acci?n de Ren?], desde el primer cap?tulo
hasta el ?ltimo, consiste en huir" (8). However, and contrary to Arrufat's point
of view, Ren? does not try to "escape from his own flesh," but from an
environment that perpetually questions and threatens his being and his body. It
is not his own flesh that terrorizes him, but that of his father and that of the
Christian martyrs with his face. For the injured body, linked to a past upon
which the world of his grandfather and father has been erected, as well as
representing the "sufferings of mankind," is a sight that foregrounds violence
and denies Ren? the possibility of experiencing his own body (i.e., the expression
of his individuality). There is no doubt that, as Schopenhauer says, "If ... we
were to bring to the sight of everyone the terrible sufferings and afflictions to
which his life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror" (1,325). In
other words, Ren? does not subscribe to the claim that "Es el dolor quien nos
domina" (70); and the injured flesh, as he tells his father, "es fea" (27). Clearly,
he is an individual who advocates and recognizes the beautiful in life, which
becomes the more implicit when he states that "El cuerpo era su propiedad
sagrada y nadie ten?a derecho a profanarlo" (85). Or, better yet, when he refuses
to be marked on his buttocks during school graduation - which prompts the
mother of one of caf?'s classmates to yell: "Esa carne no sirve. P?ngala a jugar
con mu?ecas ..." (111).
It might be argued that Ren?'s attitude is less a suggestion of fear of "la carne
sacrificada," or even of a desire to escape "de su propio cuerpo" as Arrufat says,
than an assertion of his consciousness and self-knowledge of his body. His
conflict, again, is with an environment that is perpetually trying to involve him
within particular activities that directly contradict and affect the natural
impulses of his body: eating flesh, subscribing to pain, having his buttocks
branded, or just letting himself be seduced by Se?ora P?rez. Accordingly, he
refuses these particular activities, thus manifesting the act of his body, which is
also a manifestation of his will. But, in expressing his individuality, Ren?

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
234

encounters resistance from his community, for his actions stand directly
opposed to the expressions and reality of the others. Strictly speaking, to borrow
from David W. Foster's words, this novel moves "through two conscious realms,
that of public reality and its corresponding official [attitude] and that of a world
truer to the protagonist's actual perceptions of... personal needs that are often
distorted by their conflict with official [attitude]" (125).
Ren?'s disapproval of himself as Saint Sebastian does not contradict our
reading of the symbolic significance of this saint in the novel. What is acknowl
edged is his conscious rejection of an image that not only has been created
according to the instructions and purposes of his father, but also stands contrary
to his belief - which lies in expressing his own will, not someone else's. What
appears within the frame is a figure that, as Ram?n says, is linked to Ren?'s
future: "Si orden? pintar el cuadro fue con el ?nico objeto de hacerte compren
der pl?sticamente tu destino" (38). Namely that, like Sebastian as defender of
Christianity, Ren? will be the potential object of violence and torture once he
inherits the leadership of "La causa del chocolate." The painting is, of course, a
distortion of Ren?; but not in terms of an opposition in the likeness between the
inside (the figurative) and the outside (Ren?), but in terms of what the image
articulates: the possibility of his becoming a wounded body. Consequently, on
viewing the painting Ren? "sent?a que sus fuerzas lo abandonaban" (32). Yet,
what most disturbs Ren? is the way the image has being manipulated in order to
show him as a self-penetrating Sebastian: "Pero soy yo mismo quien se tortura,
padre" (38). For this image is not only a representation of the mutilation of the
self, which betrays the aesthetic reality of Ren?'s body, but will call into question
the possibility of his wanting, as we are told later on, "girar en sentido contrario
a la carne sufriente" (85).
Most important, this is another of the narrative's "enveses pi?erianos"
(reversal of roles, or inversion of the interpretative framework), for Saint
Sebastian in this Cuban tale seems closer to the saint whose significance owes
more to the Catholic Church than to the homosexual collectivity. Certainly, his
image is not exactly the object of fantasy we encounter, for example, in Yukio
Mishima's novel Confessions of a Mask, written three years before Pi?era's, in
which the protagonist masturbates while viewing a reproduction of Guido Reni's
Saint Sebastian. In La carne de Ren?, Saint Sebastian sustains its association with
Catholic doctrine - as part of Pi?era's mockery of Christian values.
Nonetheless, within the context of Pi?era's "enveses," it can be said that the
function of Saint Sebastian here, as a self-mutilating Ren?, is to compromise
Ren?'s pose and homosexuality. It is simply because, what in the image of Saint
Sebastian represents the most salient sign of homosexuality, his receptiveness to
the penetrating arrows, has been erased. Therefore the painting, as commis
sioned by his father, can be interpreted as a representation that excludes or
denies the "homosexual-self revelation" of the image, that of Ren? as Saint

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 235

Sebastian. In any case, the painting simply attests a distinction between the
inside (Ren?'s body as it should not be) and the outside (Ren?'s body as it is). As
Arrufat clearly observes: "En este caso es muy claro el env?s pi?eariano: el San
Sebasti?n no es v?ctima de las flechas que le disparan, sino su victimario: con su
mano hunde las flechas en su carne" (12). And as Kaye notes, "Not least
consequential among the elements in Sebastian's twentieth-century cultural
history is the martyr's usefulness as a camp artist's vengeance on the citadels of
high culture and the upholders of religious hypocrisy" (91).
Even the sado-masochistic element that the image of Saint Sebastian elicits,
moreover, is reversed in this novel. It is not Ren? as Saint Sebastian who
symbolizes pleasure at the expense of pain because violence is not exerted upon
him. To borrow from Kaye, when referring to the protagonist of Derek Jarman's
film Sebastiane, in which there is a similar reversal of roles, Ren? "only
inadvertently inspires a destructive lust" in his will be tormentor (97). It is
Ram?n, "un hombre perdidamente enamorado de la carne" (19), who stands in
the novel as the true sado-masochist, for he enjoys both suffering and inflicting
pain. His suffering is clearly recorded on his body, and the pleasure he gets from
inflicting pain is most evident when he says to Ren?, when commenting on the
painting of Saint Sebastian: "?Qui?n, en medio de tantas flechas, resistir?a la
tentaci?n de clavarte una m?s?" (38)/
No less significant is Ren?'s physical reaction towards "la carne descuartiza
da." On viewing the injured flesh, or even the type of carnal display presented by
Se?ora P?rez during her dinner party, Ren? becomes ill or simply vomits. This
reaction is undeniably a display of his feeling, but it is also connected with an
aesthetic enterprise that makes Ren? live and act in relation to the beauty and
sacredness of his body. His vomiting at the sight of the injured flesh becomes
here a means of expression, an account of the unspeakable, of that which makes
him different. This vomiting is his cry of despair, of his inability to communicate
his suffering and feelings to an audience who cannot understand him. Or, rather,
an audience that understands him, but not as he understands himself.
The text quite explicitly underlines the distinctness of Ren?'s body through
signs that refer to his body as it exhibits itself outwardly. For instance, he is
described as being "una criatura espl?ndida" who seeks motherly protection
when being harassed by his father, as when he is shown in the arms of his mother
"formando con Alicia una piet? casera" (28). Also, the recurrence of such
descriptions as "hijo muy sensible," "cuerpo [que] tiembla como la hoja en el
?rbol," and "carne que florecer? a su debido tiempo," contribute to our
understanding of Ren?'s personal (homo)aesthetic. Yet, the best evidence of the
narrative's claim that Ren?'s body allows itself to be recognized, happens when
Ramon's double says to Ren?: "Si juzgo por el aire de familia, jurar?a que usted
no es de la carne de Ram?n" (131). Merely expressed in connection with Ren?'s
bodily gestures and his indifference to his father's cause, this statement also

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
236

makes clear that at the core of Ren?'s immediate reality is his being recognized
as one with "timideces de doncellas" (123); and as someone who is not only
enhanced by the beauty of his skin, but who also "aspiraba a acariciar su carne
o pretend?a hacer de su cuerpo un instrumento er?tico" (81).
On another level, language also seems to hint at how Ren?'s personal drama
would play itself out. The school motto "Sufrir en silencio" (55), for example,
seems to discreetly link together Ren?'s condition in the novel to his secret life.
From outside the text, this is a statement that can be assumed to be meaningful,
for it reflects on the alienation and suffering of the homosexual within a
dominant heterosexual culture. It also expresses one of the conditions of
existence of the homosexual: being in the closet. Yet, this is another of Pi?era's
humorous moments, an "env?s pi?eriano," for this motto stands .here as an
emblem of salvation, acting as a mirror to the school's curriculum by reflecting
on the quality of "religious" learning to which Ren? is going to be submitted. It
is the school's intention to subject Ren? to an uninterrupted learning process
based on discipline, submission, and pain, so that, like the other students, he
would learn to suffer in silence and then be able to embrace the state of things:
the cult of the flesh. But the school fails in its enterprise of controlling the actions
of Ren?'s body. For not even the power exercised on it, after it is collectively
shared by the school director, the teachers, and the students, succeeds in making
him "[una carne] apta para el servicio del dolor" (75). Ren? remains "un rebelde"
among "sufrientes;" and the connection of his attitude to the natural impulses
of his body is made clear when we read: "Con Ren?, todo era distinto. Se trataba
de alguien que no se compadec?a de su carne como tal, sino que protestaba por
el ultraje inflijido" (81).8
Furthermore, seen from within the text, the motto "Sufrir en silencio" is
another of the narrative's utterances that function here as a mockery of Catholic
values. The reference to the posturing of Christ is evident. And considering
Ren?'s rejection of himself as Christ - the image denies his free will - the
narrative holds that there is something inevitably false in the image of a wounded
body represented in divine glory. More humorously, we read: "Cristo resultaba
interesante en tanto que carne. De acuerdo con esto, era hijo de la carne, de la
carne apta para el servicio del dolor" (84). Seen from the outside, the best way
of summing up the textual mockery and the contradictions implicit in the image
of Christ, is to stress what Schopenhauer says about this representation: "... the
Saviour of Christianity, that excellent form full of depth of life, of the greatest
poetical truth and highest significance, who stands before us with perfect virtue,
holiness, and sublimity, yet in a state of supreme suffering" (1, 91).
Certainly, this is the revelatory story of a young man living in a world that is
deeply affected by aggressive history, and one in which he is perpetually
threatened because of his femaleness. Ren? stands alone because the other
characters believe that, in his closeted fantasy, "[?l] cree habitar un mundo

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 237

poblado de hadas" (192). What in effect are acknowledged are his gestures, outer
expressions that are understood by his community as oddly placed in relation to
them. Hence his being perceived as a "fairy," and as an "exc?ntrico" disassoci
ated from his community. Only his mother, who cares for him as if he were an
endangered species, is sympathetic to his flesh and tears. Until she is killed, Alicia
"lo hab?a protegido de las furias paternas" (143) and from a society which, as
happens during his school graduation, often humiliates him. Yet, his mother's
death liberates Ren?, for now "se encontraba solo pero libre" (143).
With this transition, and the freedom now obtained, Ren?'s life will not be as
before. He begins to proclaim his freedom and to assert his own tastes and values
- his coming out of the closet begins to materialize. A clear development of this
is his friendship with the homosexual Bola de Carne, and his subsequent role as
voyeur of a same-sex spectacle. And, ultimately, as if no longer suppressing the
knowledge that bounds him to his bodily existence, and as if all gesture and pose
were finally reduced to an expression of balanced rest, Ren? accepts and
embraces the possibilities of living according to the demands of his own body.
In an ending that echoes that of Mishima's Confessions of a Mask, we thus have
Ren?'s final homosexual-self revelation: "Contempl? su cuerpo en el espejo de
una tienda, en la vana esperanza de ofrec?rselo a Dalia. S?lo carne de tortura
hall? su mirada implorante" (193).
What, then, defines the individualization and the aesthetic value of Ren?'s
body? The former principally resides in his commitment to be attuned to the
resources and motivations of his own body. The latter resides in the value which
the posturing of his body acquires when exposed and, as a result, is distinguished
from other kinds of bodies; and this rests on our adopting, as a reader, a point
of view on the representation of Ren? in the novel as a social body with its own
singular expression. This is to say that, as the narrative informs us of the
interactions between body-image and singular identity, and between singular
and collective identity, our reading involves coming to grips with the language
of Ren?'s body and the question of his "otherness." And, as the narrative makes
it evident, this "otherness" rests on the aesthetic embodiment of Ren?'s flesh, his
slender body, his sorrowful pose, his self-absorption, and the seductive
expression of his face.
In short, Ren? here is the individual who recognizes and lives, to paraphrase
Ronald E. Long, by the "sacrality" of masculine beauty and the fantasy of
homolove (273). From this it may be concluded, as Michel Foucault affirms, that
the body as a lived presence is inverted by historical and power relations
(Rabinow 171). This we recognize in La carne de Ren?, even when the body
appears reduced (as if by Descartes's formulations) to the functionality of a
mechanical object. After all, through the pose and gesture of Ren?'s body we gain
access to the socio-cultural and political projections of gayness at play in the
novel. In just the same way, to borrow from Schopenhauer, we see in this novel

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
238

that "something in the consciousness of everyone distinguishes the representa

tion of his own body from all others that are in other respects quite like it" (i,
103). Ren?'s body exhibits itself outwardly and turns towards itself. That it is as
representative of his beautiful skin as it is of his desire to live according to his
social pose and corporeal actions is implied all the more in this last passage:

Ren? se negaba a ser moderno y osaba declararse a la antigua usanza: cuerpo cultivado,
piel intacta, u?as pulidas, cabellera abundante y rizada; carne muellemente tendida, con
bebidas a su alcance, y encima una fresa y despu?s una guinda. A las nueve el cordero y
m?s tarde otra carne como la suya en lecho de plumas. (85)

University of Guelph

NOTES

1 As quoted by Richard A. Kaye, in "Losing his Religion: Saint Sebastian as

Contemporary Martyr" (86). As will be seen, moreover, this passage by
Hollinghurst appears as if mirroring Virgilio Pi?era's representation of his male
protagonist in La carne de Ren?. For example, Ren? is represented as the bearer
of an "unpierced" body, but one which, in the imagination of the other charac
ters, "looks ready [to be pierced]." As we read: "La se?ora P?rez la imaginaba
herida por un cuchillo, perforada por una bala o pensaba en su uso placentero o
doloroso" (19). And, as if echoing Hollinghurst's "Oh, no arrows, dear; it's
before the martyrdom," we read in the novel: "Lo que quiero decir es que la
carne de Ren? no est? hecha para el dolor" (29).
2 All references to La carne de Ren? are to the 1995 Cuban edition.
3 Homosexuality is mainly understood in terms of sexual acts or same-sex
desires, see for example Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Epistemology of the Closet. It has
also been widely discussed in terms of being a social construction. In her essay
"Imitation and Gender Insubordination," Judith Butler suggests that "a
Foucaultian perspective might argue that the affirmation of'homosexuality' is
itself an extension of a homophobic discourse" (14). Foucault, who has stressed
the way bodily gestures articulate the values of a culture, has stated, for
example, that "what is interesting about male homosexuality today ... is that
their sexual relations are immediately translated into social relations and the
social relations are understood as sexual relations" (Rabinow 251). Moreover,
according to Kaye, the German sexologist Magnes Hirschfeld used pictures of
Saint Sebastian in an experiment and concluded that: "it was not homosexual
acts that constituted homosexual identity, but a desire or 'taste' in beautiful
men, which might be understandable as a kind of homosexual aesthetic" (90).
Undoubtedly, the question then is, as Butler asks, "what determines the disclos
ure of sexuality: the phantasy structure, the act, the orifice, the gender, the
anatomy?" (17). In this article, however, my intention is not to seek a definition

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 239

of homosexuality, but to comment on the way it is revealed in La carne de Ren?

through bodily signs which can be understood, like Hirschfeld's point of view,
as a kind of (homo)aesthetic.
4 A brief biographical detail on the Cuban writer supports this subversive manip
ulation of iconography. Arrufat writes: "Importa ahora se?alar [que] ... la obra
de Pi?era carece de trasfondo religioso. La carne de Ren? es un ejemplo palma
rio. Pocos textos tan irreverentes y sarc?sticos como esta novela. Personalmente
Virgilio Pi?era desconfiaba de los dogmas religiosos, de la salvaci?n y hasta de
la existencia del alma. Para ?l, como declara la protagonista de su pieza teatral
Electra Garrig?, los dioses han muerto y la inmortalidad ha terminado" (12-13).
5 The Biblical reference is from Donn Welton's insightful essay "Biblical Bodies"
(254), in which he discusses representations of the body in Hebrew and early
Christian scriptures.
6 As Quiroga observes, this has to be indeed "one of the more erotically charged
moments in Cuban literature ... The equation between Roger's tongue and a
pen, and Ren?'s flesh and the surface of paper, is the most transparent exposi
tion of the erotics of writing itself. The contact between tongue and flesh
doubles the charged eroticism of a writing inscribed as licking the hardened
flesh of the allegorical Ren?. Why is Ren?'s flesh so hard? This is the question
that haunts Pi?era in his novel... Flesh and politics are the two foci of Pi?era's
allegory which the loyal reader is treated to lick in order to soften its deliberate
hardness. Within this allegory, Pi?era is a voyeur - inscribing, examining the
fissures within heterosexuality, as he denies himself the inner gaze that fathers
and teachers demand of Ren?" (171-72).
7 On the other hand, it could be argued that Ramon's actions are not so much a
question of sadomasochism, as a desire to alleviate his own suffering. The text,
for example, does not suggest that Ram?n seeks sexual gratification through the
(symbolic) pain he inflicts upon his son; and there is no alliance here between
victim and torturer either. His actions display cruelty. In Schopenhauer's
reading: "there necessarily arise an excessive inner torment, an eternal unrest,
an incurable pain in the case of a person who is the phenomenon of the will
reaching to extreme wickedness, he then seeks indirectly the alleviation of
which he is incapable directly, in other words, he tries to mitigate his own
suffering by the sight of another's, and at the same time recognizes this as an
expression of his own power. The suffering of another becomes for him an end
in itself; it is a spectacle over which he gloats ..." (1,364).
8 The religious tone of salvation stands clearly here as an antithesis to Ren?'s
notion of salvation, which is personal instead of social or political. Moreover, in
rejecting the image of himself as Christ, and thus the school's notion of salva
tion, Ren? "in consequence" to borrow from Schopenhauer, "affirms his own
will beyond his own body by denying the will that appears in the body of
another" (1, 334).

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
240

WORKS CITED

betsky, aaron. Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire. New York: William
Morrow, 1997.
butler, judith. "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Inside/Out: Lesbian
Theories, Gay Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, 1991.13-31.
descartes, r. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and
G.R.T. Ross. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984.
foster, david william. Gay and Lesbian Themes in Latin American Writing.
Austin: U of Texas P, 1991.
kaye, richard a. "Losing his Religion: Saint Sebastian as Contemporary Martyr."
Outlooks: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and Visual Cultures. Ed. Peter Home and
Reina Lewis. London: Routledge, 1996. 86-105.
kosofsky sedgwick, eve. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: U of California P,
1990.
long, ronald e. "The Sacrality of Male Beauty and Homosex: A Neglected Factor in
the Understanding of Contemporary Gay Reality." Que(e)rying Religion: A Critical
Anthology. Ed. Gary David Comstock and Susan E. Henking. New York:
Continuum, 1997. 266-81.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. New
Jersey: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.
MiSHiMA, yukio. Confessions of a Mask. Trans. Meredith Weatherby. Tokyo: Charles
E. Tuttle P, 1970.
pinera, Virgilio. La carne de Ren?. Ed. Pedro de Ora? and Ant?n Arrufat. La
Habana: Uni?n, 1995.
QUiROGA, jos?. "Fleshing Out Virgilio Pi?era from the Cuban Closet." Entiendes?
Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings. Ed. Emilie L. Bergman and Paul Julian Smith.
Durham: Duke UP, 1995.165-80.
RABiNOW, pa?l, ed. Fvucault Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1984.
Schopenhauer, arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E.F. J. Payne.
2 vols. New York: Dover, 1969.
welton, donn. "Biblical Bodies." Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader. Ed. Donn
Welton. Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998. 229-58.

This content downloaded from

35.8.11.2 on Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:05:03 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms