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The prose fiction of Salvador Elizondo
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The prose fiction of Salvador Elizondo
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THE PROSE FICTION OF SALVADOR ELIZONDO by Earl Larry Rees A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ‘ (Spanish) September 1976 Copyright by Earl Larry Rees 19 7 6 UMI Number: DP31607 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. DIssiertatton FWWisMng UMI DP31607 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90007 R32S This dissertationj written by ...E.ar!L..Lâj:!ry...BiaQ.s.... under the direction of h.%M... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean D at e . . . Q È > È M . . ? 3 4 J m k DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Chairman ...... TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . 1 I CHARACTERIZATION......................................12 II TIME IN FARABEUF.............................. 52 iril EROTICISM.............................................. 80 IV EL HIPOGEO SECRETO: THE WORD.........................105 V THE STRUCTURE OF EL HIPOGEO SECRETO................... 122 VI FROM MIMESIS TO ECRITURE 14 8 CONCLUSION............................................171 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................... . . . . 175 XI INTRODUCTION In 19 63, it was stated that "France is the only country where the novel is not repeating itself . . . This statement, if indeed it was valid then, is certainly not accurate today. One case in point is Mexico where writers, with bold new thematic, technical and aesthetic considerations, are altering the course of the novel. Among this promising group are Gustavo Sainz, José Agustîn, Hector Manjarrez, Vicente Lehero, Fernando del Paso, José Emilio Pacheco and, the focus of our attention, 2 Salvador Elizondo. Salvador Elizondo has been rightfully described as "one of the most original men of letters writing in Spanish today.Born in Mexico City in 1932, he has spent a considerable amount of time abroad. He has studied art and film. In 1965, he produced a film entitled Apocalypse 1900. Elizondo's literary output includes: Poemas, two novels, Farabeuf o crénica de un instante and E]^ Hipogeo Secreto, two collections of short stories. Narda o el verano and El retrato de Zoe y otras mentiras, several collections of essays and numerous articles. The primary purpose of this dissertation is the study of Elizondo's two novels. Other facets of his literary production will be considered only tangentially. Specif ically, in Farabeuf/ characterization, time and eroticism will be explored. In El Hipogeo Secreto, I will look at structure and "the word" Lastly, language in both the novels, and to a limited extent his other works, will be covered. First, a note on Elizondo's critical reception, the nouveau roman and phenomenology, specific knowledge of the last two items being necessary for an understanding of the novels in question. The critical reception of Elizondo's works has been varied. In general, Farabeuf has been well received. That Elizondo was awarded the coveted Premio Villarrutia for the novel is a clear manifestation of its acceptance in Mexico. The eminent Mexican critic, Emmanuel Carballo, says that "Elizondo es un punto de partida, un escritor insôlito que abre al cuento-como antes a la novela-nuevas posibilidades en sus distintos aspectos."^ Farabeuf has also received considerable favorable attention outside of Mexico and, thus far, has been translated into French, German and Italian. In the United States, John Brushwood and George McMurray, among others, have been favorably impressed by Farabeuf. McMurray says that the novel deserves "special attention as a major landmark in the contemporary Mexican novel.On the other side of the ledger, Walter Langford, referring to both works we are 2 considering, says that a minus for Elizondo is that "it is difficult to find anything typically Mexican in his n novels ..." But, even Langford does not deny that Elizondo is a promising writer. With respect to EL Hipogeo Secreto, the antipodal nature of the criticism is indicative of the fact that it is a very controversial work.^ Julieta Campos considers it to be, along with Los peces, by Sergio Fernândez, one of the most important novels to appear in Mexico in 1968.^ At the other end of the critical spectrum, Donald Yates says that EL Hipogeo Secreto strikes him "as a 'fad novel' . . . which in its cultivated incoherence and tradition-flouting technique adheres . . . to a current popular formula.Yates ends his comments stating that "There is nothing more we can say here about books that appear to be novels and are not."^^ The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in between the above divergent opinions. George McMurray says that "the tenacious reader will read Farabeuf with curiosity, discouragement, disgust, fascination and ultimate aesthetic appreciation."12 I agree with this observation with respect to Farabeuf and El Hipogeo Secreto. There seem to be two basic reasons for the divergence of criticism of Elizondo's novels. One stems from the fact that he is not writing about a specific place and country. His basic themes, love, pain, eroticism, death, 3 violence, insanity and man's, destiny, are dealt with mostly on an abstract, universal level. In other words, his works are not "realistic" in that the historical and social milieu are secondary, the case of Farabeuf, or non existent, as in E_1 Hipogeo Secreto. This point is especially critical in Spanish America with its deeply embedded tradition of literatUra comprometida.1^ Another reason for the divergence of criticism is that Elizondo, as well as many of his contemporaries, shows, according to George McMurray "a greater preoccupation with art-perhaps to some extent a means of escape-which leads them to bold linguistic innovations and far out technical procedures. McMurray goes on to say that while many young writers acknowledge a debt to writers such as Yahez, Rulfo and Fuentes, they also look to the writers of the nouveau roman for many of their techniques and general aesthetic guidance. This leads us to the important consideration of how to classify the works of Elizondo. Elizondo has been placed, at least by one critic, the Brazilian Terezinha Alves Pereira, among the magical- realists.^^ I classify him as the Spanish-American writer who comes closest to writing in the style of the nouveaux romanciers. There are several principle characteristics which may be used to define the nouveau roman^^ and, to a large extent, the novels of Elizondo. In the nouveau roman, the omniscient narrator has all but disappeared. In both Farabeuf and El Hipogeo Secreto, limited narrative viewpoint is used. The reader only knows about the immediate world which the narrator per ceives . Secondly, the narration no longer centers around some "'unforgettable character' whose social dossier and ■ j 7 personal ties are developed ad nauseam." As Alain Robbe- Grillet says, the "creators of characters, in the tradi tional sense, no longer manage to offer us anything more than puppets in which they themselves have ceased to believe."^^ There is a tendency toward anonymity in char acterization which, as we shall see, in no way eliminates the human factor from the narration. This is a distin guishing feature of Farabeuf and El Hipogeo Secreto. In the former, we are not even given the true name of the protagonist. In the latter, most of the personages, very much in the style of the nouveau roman, have a single 19 letter for name. Bruce Morrissette says that in the nouveau roman there is no "knowing analysis of passions, jealousy, greed, 20 ambition and the like ..." In Elizondo's novels almost all analysis is left up to the reader. This is a reminder that the omniscient narrator, who knows every thing about everybody, is no longer tenable for the writers of the New Novel. Another facet is that language is stressed more than the story line. The practitioners of 5 the nouveau roman no longer believe, as Robbe-Grillet s ays, that "A novel . . . is primarily a "story'."21 Elizondo definitely shows that language is the central issue. The story line in Farabeuf is tenuous and in El Hipogeo Secreto almost non-existent. Robbe-Grillet says that, in the New Novel, time "seems 2 2 to be cut off from its temporality." No longer linear, time in the nouveau roman is subjective, mental or psycho logical time which is juxtaposed to chronometric time. In both novels under consideration, time is mind time and distinctions between past, present and future, if they are made at all, are blurred. Finally, there is the importance of phenomenology. George McMurray says that : In their subjective approach to reality Elizondo and other 'new novelists" reveal the influence of the German philosopher Husserl, the originator of phenomenology . . . In order to understand Elizondo's nov- elistic technique and aesthetic objectives, a basic understanding of Husserl's philosophy is essential. Phenomenology is concerned with the "classification of phenomena or acts of perception as the only objects of knowledge possessing ultimate reality."25 Phenomenology eliminates the dichotomy subjective-objective by looking at individual existence only in terms of a succession of mental experiences. In other words, everything is subjective. Things perceived are not important per se. They have meaning for the consciousness in which they appear: "they are intended, that is to say they are evidence of the mind’s intentionality. " As Husserl says : "I, the transcendental phenomenologist have objects . . . solely as the intentional correlates of 2 7 modes of consciousness of them." Stephen Heath says that Husserl’s idea of intentionality of consciousness comes about basically because of two factors. The first is the rejection of Lockean materialism which views the mind as being a passive register of stimuli from the external world. The other factor not accepted by Husserl was "the idealists concepts of the mind as the source of the objects it knows which thus exist ’in' consciousness 2 8 alone." That Husserl's intentionality of consciousness posits a meaningful relationship between the subject and the world is of the utmost importance with respect to the nouveau roman since the novel is the verbalization of "the successive contents of a consciousness, that of the 2 9 narrator." In short, and again I borrow from Sturrock, "We do not have him (the narrator) and them (the objects) but him-seeing-them." In Farabeuf, the reader, for the most part, sees the world through the mind of a deranged woman. Since what she perceives is significant to her, the reader must look at what she sees in order to under stand her. In EL Hipogeo Secreto, the reader is again locked up in the mind of the narrator. The problem of understanding what is going on in the novel is greatly complicated since everything seems to be one fantastic dream. Thus, with the above in mind, we begin our examina tion of the works of Salvador Elizondo with a look at characterization in Farabeuf. This, as well as the remaining chapters, is offered not as a definitive state ment but rather as one credible interpretation of two complex, but fascinating, novels. FOOTNOTES ^J. Mitchell Morse, "The Choreography of 'the New Novel’," The Hudson Review Vol. XVI, Number 3 (Autumn, 1963): 3937 2 other writers mentioned with some frequency are Sergio Galindo, José Revueltos, Orlando Ortiz, Garcia Saldana, Juan Tovar and Alfredo Leal Cortés. ^George McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's E_1 Hipogeo Secreto and Wittgenstein's Philosophy," Hispania 53 (1970): 334. 4 Farabeuf o la crônica de un instante, 3^ edic (México: Editorial Joaquin Mortiz, 1971. The first edition of Farabeuf is 1965. El^ Hipogeo Secreto (México: Editorial Joaquin Mortiz, 1968). Consult the bibliography for those works by Elizondo which will be dealt with tangentially. For more specific information on Elizondo's life see : Nuevos escritores mexicanos del siglo XX presentados por si mismos (México: Empresas Editoriales, 1971), Los narradores ante el pûblico (México: Editorial Joaquin Mortiz, 1967), both written by Elizondo. Also consult David William Foster's A Dictionary of Contemporary Authors (Tempe: Arizona State University, 19 7517 ^Emmanuel Carballo, prologue to Nuevos escritores mexicanos del siglo XX presentados por si mismos, p. 9. ^George McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," Hispania 50 (1967): 596. ^Walter M. Langford, The Mexican Novel Comes of Age (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972), p. 192. o Elizondo said that EJL Hipogeo Secreto received little attention when it appeared because of all the trouble surrounding the 19 6 8 Summer Olympics. Interview with the author, Mexico, Mex., D. F., 12/23/76. 9 Julieta Campos, "Novela," Siempre, nûm. 810 (enero de 1969) , Suplemento Literario, nûm. 359 , p. II. l^Donald A. Yates, Review of El Hipogeo Secreto in Books Abroad (July 1969): 383. ^^Yates, p. 383. 1 2 McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," p. 601. ^^The phrase literatura comprometida refers to the fact that much fiction in Spanish America has been, and is still used, as a vehicle for denouncing the social ills in that part of the world. ^^George McMurray, "Current Trends in the Mexican Novel," Hispania 51 (1968): 536. l^Terezinha Alves Pereira, "Salvador Elizondo, um mexicano mâgico," Minas Gerais (Suplemento Literario) (27/Nov/71): 8. Pereira starts by saying that "A finalidade deste trabalho e acrescentar a esta lista talvez arbitraria de realistas mâgicos, o nome de um escritor mexicano: Salvador Elizondo." (p. 8). In the conclusion, the critic notes that, at times, Elizondo is closer to the "escritores franceses do "nouveau roman" que dos hispanoamericanos da "nueva narrative," ou seja, filla-o mais a um Michel Butor do que a Julio Cortazar." (p. 9) . ^^The reader should consult the bibliography for a more extensive listing of nouveau roman sources. ^^Bruce Morrissette, "The New Novel in France," Chicago Review Vol. 15 (Winter-Spring, 19 62), 8. l^Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Grove Press, 1965), p. 28. ^^At times, the nouveaux romanciers use letters instead of names. Speaking of Robbe-Grillet, Ludovic Janvier notes that "A., X., M., N., son tan sôlo los signos mudos que nos designan a los personajes a partir de L^ Jalousie hasta L'Immortelle." Una palabra exigente: el "nouveau roman", trans. Rosa Marcela Pericas (Barcelona: Barrai Editores, 1971), p. 21. Robbe-Grillet points out that many contemporary authors, such as Sartre, Beckett and Faulkner, often attach very little importance to names. For A New Novel, p. 28. Nathalie Sarraute, among others, varies this practice somewhat by using pronouns. Jean Ricardou refers to this phenomenon in terms of "un ère du prono minal." Pour Une théorie du nouveau roman (Paris : 10 Editions du Seuil, 1971), p. 245. ^^Morrissette, "The New Novel in France," p. 8. ^^For A New NoVe1, p. 29. 22 For A New Novel, p. 155. 2^Phenomenology is a school of philosophy which dates from the turn of the twentieth century with the work of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) . ^^McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," p. 596. ^^McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," p. 596. 2^John Sturrock, The French New Novel; Claude Simon, Michel Butor, Alain Robbe-Grillet (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 27. 27 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, An Introduc tion to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), p. 37. Also important is the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the leading writer/ philosopher of phenomenology in France. See especially Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (New York: The Humanities Press, 1962). With respect to the differ ences between Edmund Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, which are complex and will not be discussed here, see John F. Bannon, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967) , and James M. Edie, Ed. , The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomeno logical Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964). 2 8 Stephen Heath, The Nouveau Roman: A Study in the Practice of Writing (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1972), p. 88. 2 9 Sturrock, p. 26. ^^Sturrock, p. 26. ^^George McMurray says: "A complex novel that lends itself to numerous interpretations, EL Hipogeo Secreto assumes greater plausibility if one considers it a fantastic dream which dramatizes Elizondo's inner conflicts as he attempts to create a work of art whose literary style accurately reflects his psychic moods." "Salvador Elizondo's El Hipogeo Secreto," p. 331. 11 I. CHARACTERIZATION Alvin Seltzer says that "In what may be the greatest blow to form, the experimental novelist has eliminated character from the fiction that always seemed built around him."^ To a greater or lesser degree. Seltzer's statement expresses the sentiments of many critics. Farabeuf is vulnerable to this type of attack if one examines the novel using traditional concepts related to characterization. But, since Gustave Flaubert many changes have taken place in the depiction of character. It is in light of these changes that characterization in Farabeuf should be studied. Elizondo has chosen to use limited narrative viewpoint. With few exceptions, everything is seen through the eyes of the woman. Therefore, the reader must scrutin ize what she sees and comments on and correlate it to her particular situation as it is presented in the novel. The reader must actively participate and translate apparent chaos into a reality which is functional to the perceiving mind. In Farabeuf, this task is especially difficult since we are locked up in the mind of a deranged woman. The protagonist turns out to be a narrating consciousness. There evolves, from within, a very complete picture of a 12 character. The title of the novel, Farabeuf q La crônica de un instante, is somewhat misleading. Farabeuf, the surgeon- radical-photographer-lover, is not the central character. He seduces the woman and proves to be the instrument of her downfall. He will dissect her and, therefore, be the means of her "salvation." In his supportive role, he gives the work a lugubrious, sadistic atmosphere. The novel chronicles the visions of an insane woman who is at various times in the work nurse-nun-spy-lover-prostitute- concubine-wife. Her precise identity is something the reader never learns. The reader does not know where she 2 was born, anything about her family, how old she is, whether she is short or tall, not even the color of her hair, which is on occasion blond and black. Not even her real name is given. All we know is that she is a nun. Soeur Paule de Saint Esprit, who has gone to China to work as a nurse. Under an assumed name. Mile. Melanie Dessaig- nes, she is helping a religious organization which is trying to spread Christianity throughout China. After seeing a picture of a Chinese being tortured during the Boxer Rebellion,^ she is seduced by Dr. Farabeuf. The torture and the seduction, acts which become synonymous in the woman's mind, affect her to the extent that she becomes deranged. She becomes obsessed with the desire to know her true identity. This, she believes, can only 13 be revealed through her dissection by Dr, Farabeuf. Many critics and literary historians: take Gustave Flaubert as a point of departure in the evolutionary process away from the omniscient narrator. "It was Flaubert who sought to destroy the omniscient narrator who knew everything about everyone in his book, who, in his Godlike way, described both the exterior and interior of all his scenes and characters. Henry James shared the same concern. James favored "a single perspective over multiple perspectives, and . . . that this single perspective be that of a character who is inside the frame of action rather than that of a disembodied presence who addresses the reader from outside the action. Percy Lubbock says that a "story that is centered in somebody's consciousness . . . not poured straight into the book from the mind of the author . . . is . . .of stronger stuff than a simple and undramatic report."^ Major changes in fiction have taken place since Flaubert. Due to the advent of the nouveau roman in France, there came about another decisive moment in the evolution of the novel. An important aspect of this moment was point of view in fiction. The device of the omniscient narrator, now completely untenable for many authors, led to the use of radically new techniques in the presentation of characters. These techniques, not being fully understood, prompted some to conclude that characters were no longer in fiction. 14 The dehumanization of art, described by José Ortega y Gasset in his book of the same title, had supposedly reached the novel. In large part, the idea that people had been removed from fiction was brought about by the writers themselves. This is especially true of Alain Robbe-Grillet who directly confronts the problem in his controversial book. For A New Nove1.^ One well-known chapter is entitled "On Some Outdated Notions." Robbe- Grillet says : How much we've heard about the 'character'1 Moreover, I fear we haven't heard the last. Fifty years of disease, the death, notice signed many times over by the most serious essayists, yet nothing has yet managed to knock it off the pedestal on which the nine teenth century had placed it. It is a mummy now, but one still enthroned with the same- phony-majesty, among the values revered by traditional criticism. In fact, that is how this criticism recognizes the 'true' novelist: 'he creates characters' . . . ^ Robbe-Grillet says that in the traditional novel a person age must not be pictured in anonymity. In depicting characters, certain rules must be followed. A character must have a proper name, two if possible : a surname and a given name. He must have parents, a heredity. He must have a profession. If he has possessions as well, so much the better. Finally, he must possess a 'character,' a face which reflects it, a past which has molded that face and that character.H Nathalie Sarraute picks up the same thread in The Age of Suspicion. She says that, traditionally, character was described according to certain standards. Above all, 15 the reader had to be given factual, "objective" informa tion.^^ Considerable change has taken place. Character in the contemporary novel "has lost everything: his ancestors, his carefully built house . . . his sources of income . . . his clothes, his body, his face . . . that most precious of all possessions, his personality . . . and frequently, even his name."^^ According to Sarraute, these changes have taken place because the reader is suspect of a narrator who has the power to see all and know all. "We have now entered upon an age of suspicion. She explains this in the following way: the reader has grown wary of practically everything. The reason being that, for some time now, he has been learning too many things, and he is unable to forget entirely all he has learned. He has made the acquaintance of Joyce, Proust and Freud; the trickle . . . of the interior monologue; the infinitely profuse growth of the psychological world and the vast, as yet unexplored regions of the unconscious. He has watched the watertight partitions that used to separate the char acters from one another give way, and the hero become an arbitrary limitation, a con ventional figure cut from the common woof that each of us contains in its entirety . . . Bruce Morrissette says that at the center of the issue of characterization in the contemporary novel is what Flaubert was saying a century ago : "... if the omniscient author is eliminated, the only remaining basis for the "point of view" that justifies the text has to be 16 17 the consciousness of someone." Through a narrating con sciousness , the reader will get to know, from within, the "arbitrary limitations" of the hero and the complexity of his psyche. Salvador Elizondo seems to be among those who are "suspicious." Specifically, Elizondo employs limited narrative viewpoint throughout Farabeuf and thus avoids vitiating the narrative with the total control of an omniscient narrator. Everything seems more vivid and distinctly felt because almost everything is seen from the restricted point of view of a deranged woman. Of primary interest is a narrating consciousness, a fascinating mind which defines the person from within. The reader is not allowed to consult with the author or get an outsider's view of what is happening. We are told only what seems relevant to a deranged woman who not only confuses past and present but also speculates as to the future. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to establish with any certainty the "true" story. She is, to borrow an expres sion from Wayne C. Booth, an "unreliable narrator. Aside from the possible intrigue concerning the spread of Christianity in China, Farabeuf is the story of a woman's search for identity. There is only one question she wants to answer; "cQuiën soy?" (p. 179). The answer will come at the precise instant of her death, when Farabeuf dissects her. In this way, she will come to understand the 17 "dualidad antagônica . . . " (p. 10) found in her own personality. She is herself and "la otra; la que el deseo de aquel hombre habfa creado ..." (p. 120). The intriguing part is that the reader must attempt to do what she cannot, find out who she is or at least try to under stand her problem. Aside from the letter written in French and the woman’s comments about herself, the only way left open to the reader to know the protagonist is to examine what she perceives and describes. She chooses from the present and the past not in order to explain the world but rather as an effort to define herself. What she describes, in Husserl’s terms, are "intentional correlates" which, since they are significant for her consciousness, serve to clarify and link certain periods of the woman's life. Among the "things" described are a painting, a photograph, various elements from the beach scene, especial ly the starfish, a Chinese character, a mirror, rain and a fly. Through an examination of these objects, the reader learns of what preceded the woman's seduction, its effects, and the reasons behind her desire to be dissected. I will start with a statement of the problem. There is only one objective piece of information in the entire novel. This is a letter from a M. Paul Belcour to V. Em. T. Rev., a Cardinal (pp. 31-33). That it is written in French highlights the content of the letter. It deals with the spread of Christianity in China. The 18 letter states, among other things, that M. Paul Belcour will look into the private life of "F." The initial "F" apparently stands for "Farabeuf." Thus, the doctor is linked to the religious society. The post script mentions a nun. Soeur Paule du Saint Esprit, who is working as a nurse in the military hospital of the Services Médicaux de la Force Expeditionaire. Because of her connection with the religious organization, she has concealed her true identity. She calls herself Mile. Melanie Dessaignes, from Honfleur, Calvados. Her piety is evidenced not only by her zeal to gain converts in China but also by the fact that she is a nun. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that her seduction could have and did have a tremendous effect on her. It had enough of an effect to make her schizo phrenic. An examination of her reaction to the painting reveals much as to the nature of her problem. Throughout Farabeuf there are numerous references to the cuadro. The cuadro is a painting by Titian which, in 20 the novel, is called El Amor Sagrado y_ El Amor Prof ano. The painting has had various titles through the centuries : La Donna Divina e Profana, La beltà ornata e l_a beltà disornata, among others. Erwin Panofsky believes that the 21 most adequate title is The Two Venuses (duae Veneres). The two Venuses embody félicité, eterna and félicita breve, the ethical and natural sides of human nature which are in opposition. The painting depicts a dialogue between the 19 two Venuses which is concerned with love as a matter of a scale of values. The two forms of love are, in essence, one, because "... terrestrial or human love can and should form a transition to, and ultimately enter into a blissfully harmonious union with, celestial or divine love."^^ The woman, a nun, has been seduced. While striving for félicita eterna she has come to know félicité breve. The dialogue in the painting corresponds to the dialogue the woman is having with herself throughout the novel. She realizes that her "entrega estaba figurada en un cuadro ..." (p. 119). Besides being a nun, she is a human being who has felt the need for terrestrial love. The painting is also described by the woman as being "incomprensible e irritante . . . " (p. 22), and one which contains "un misterio ..." (p. 88). She does not under stand herself and therefore cannot comprehend a painting which is analogous to her own predicament. The cuadro is "irritante" because she is irritated with herself for hav ing been seduced "en el mâs manido de los estilos de las novelas galantes ..." (p. 34) . The woman also refers to Eros, or Cupid, the boy in the painting, as being a particularly disquieting element. The boy is trying "tal vez de sacar de esa fosa un objeto cuyo significado . . . es la clave del enigma ..." (p. 22). Eros is supposed to be harmonizing the waters of 20 life. This seems to be what the woman is trying to do. She wants to find out who she is in order to understand the conflicting forces in her make-up. She mentions "aquel ser equivoco que nuestro amor habia creado ..." (p. 109). A "ser equivoco" is someone with two significa tions. The woman is not only herself but also "la otra." She has within her the two kinds of love personified by the duae Veneres. The narrator highlights this duality when, in a separate fragment of the novel, which is not translated, she simply says "Himmlische und Irdische . . . " (p. 109). Octavio Paz, in EJL laberinto de la soledad, talks 2 3 about "la otredad." The woman’s identification as "la otra" is very Pacian. Paz states that the Mexican woman "no se siente ni se concibe sino como objeto, como "otro." Nunca es dueha de si."^^ Paz goes on to say that the image she has of herself is one dictated by family, class, 2 R school, friends, religion and lover. This last factor is the one basic to the woman in Farabeuf. Her problem is one of finding "un paso hacia la identificaciôn de un rostro . . . " (p. 17 3). The woman, un "ser equivoco," wants to know about "ese otro que somos y que llevamos escondido en nuestro interior" (p. 145). Paz says that "En cada hombre late la posibilidad de ser o, mâs exacta- mente, de Volvef a ser, otro hombre." The woman wants to "volver a ser" who she is, in essence, even though she 21 will be herself for only an instant. Elizondo plays with the idea of the dual aspects of the woman's personality by describing the painting as it is reflected in the mirror in the room where she is waiting for Dr. Farabeuf. Se trata en realidad de una famosa tela del Renacimiento veneciano-la otra mujer (o tal vez la enfermera misma) la haya descrito de tal manera que el emplazamiento de los dos personajes principales de la pintura-que re- presentan simb61icamente 'el amor sagrado' y 'el amor profano'-se encuentra trastrocado. El personaje que en realidad estâ a la dere- cha ha sido visto por ella colocado del lado izquierdo de la tela y vice versa en lo que toca al personaje que en realidad aparece del lado izquierdo de la pintura (p. 64). The woman goes to the extreme of identifying herself with a notorious harlot. The medical students call her "Mademoiselle Bistouri o bien 'La Enfermera' por su marcada proclividad, como el personaje de Baudelaire, a acostarse indiscriminadeamente con preparadores de anfi- teatro y manipuladores de cadâveres" (p. 6 8). The woman concludes that félicita breve, dressed in white in the painting, is "una figuraciôn alegdrica de la Enfermera . . . " (p. 22). The observation is essentially correct. At one point, the woman speculates that she might have wanted to "disfrazarse de enfermera con el fin de aumentar su atractivo sexual ..." (p. 161). The woman is constantly groping in an effort to understand herself and her actions. When she looks into the mirror to prove her existence, she 22 says to herself: "Mas no te reconociste. Eras la otra y lleyabas un antlcuado uniforme de enfermera" (p. 121). Subconsciously, sh,e does not recognize the "irdische" side of her personality. Her interest in the painting manifests itself in other ways. She was Farabeuf's assistant during what she refers to as "la primera êpoca del Teatro Instantâneo . . . " (p. 127) at which time Dr. Farabeuf gave slide shows of people being tortured. The woman tries to dupli cate certain parts of the presentations of the doctor. For example, she buys some useless books by the pound and puts on each of them a label which says Aspects Médicaux de la Torture. This book, written by Dr. Farabeuf, was sold after the presentations of the "primera época." Now, she will be the main attraction of the presentation that she is preparing for Dr. Farabeuf. In preparation for his arrival, she has brought a "féretro de utilerîa alquilado en un teatro" (p. 169). It is meant, she says, only to "sugerir la magnificencia de un sarcôfago clâsico ..." (p. 169). She is referring to the sarcophagus in the painting. Continuing her preparations for his arrival, she undresses and puts on a "lienzo bianco de lino" (p. 175). Her disrobing accords with the idea that felecita eterna is almost nude in the painting since Titian's nude Venus has no need to conceal herself under the transitory things of the world. In keeping with 23 her dual nature, she puts on the white cloth (lienzo bianco) which corresponds to the robed Venus in the paint ing as well as the dress of "La Enfermera" of Baudelaire. After dressing, she proceeds to act out the painting while continuing the dialogue with herself: "Ahora ven; descansa un instante apoyada en este fêretro. Posa tu mano derecha sobre ella. Quiero hacer un apunte sumario de esta imagen. Levanta tu brazo izquierdo como si estuvieras haciendo una ofrenda al cielo" (p. 175). She is copying the pose of félicita eterna to the letter. When Dr. Farabeuf arrives, she will again assume this pose and, at the same time, that of félicita breve : "La Enfermera se colocarâ en una pose determinada de antemano, en el otro extremo del fêretro. Vestida con su anticuado uniforme gris representarâ a la otra figura de la alegorîa incomprensible" (p. 176). To the end the antagonistic duality, evident in her make-up, will manifest itself. When Farabeuf is there she will continue to have "un diâlogo tedioso con La Enfermera. Ella le harâ preguntas mientras tü te abandonas lentamente, mediante un esfuerzo supremo de concentraciôn mental, a ti misma ..." (p. 177) . Another part of Titian's painting is described in Farabeuf. It is the mythological scene on the fountain. Only the right-hand side of the scene is pertinent since this is the part that is disquieting to the woman. 24 Panofsky says that the fattish boy on the right "very possibly Amor Ferinus himself is being savagely beaten. And near the right-hand margin, there appear two figures carrying a stake , . . no doubt in order to tie the victim 9 7 to it and to torture him further." Panofsky synthesizes the ideas pertinent to the scene: There is, according to the Platonists, a third kind of love which Ficino and Pico della Mirandola call ambr ferinus or amore bestiale in contradistinction to both amor divinus and amor humanus . . . Whereas divine or celestial love ascends to the realm of the mind, and whereas terrestrial or human love remains within the realm of vision, bestial love descends to the sense of touch and causes its votaries-or, rather, victims-to indulge in 'sexual intercourse with out moderation' or in unnatural practices.^8 Only the right-hand side has been described because the woman specifically states that only "el lado derecho justo debajo del borde en el que se apoya la mujer desnuda" (p. 89) is disquieting. Although she offers no explanation, the scene no doubt makes her feel uneasy for several reasons. The woman, it has been shown, has gone to the extreme of identifying herself with Mademoiselle Bistouri, a woman who seems to have indulged in "sexual intercourse without moderation." The woman in Farabeuf has an inkling that the person on the ground (Amor ferinus) is being beaten because of sexual activities : she refers to the person as an "hermafrodita" (p. 89). Therefore, she feels uneasy because she identifies with Amor ferinus. 25 Secondly, it is disquieting because the punishment and the stake at the right, not mentioned but surely seen, remind her that she too must go through such punishment, or rather, a "ritual of purification," to find out who she is. The painting is both a statement and a clarification of the woman's problem. The photograph of the Chinese being tortured offers a key as to why she was seduced and why she wants to be dissected. There are indications that the woman was present when it was taken (pp. 82-83, 133, 140). Whether or not she did witness the torture, it has had a tremendous effect on her. Talking to herself, she says that from the moment she saw the Chinese "no sabemos cuâl es el sueho, no sabemos cuâl es la imagen del espejo y s61o hay una realidad: la de esa pregunta . . . que nunca nadie ni nada ha de contestarnos" (p. 82). The woman and Farabeuf, after taking a walk on the beach, return to a nearby house. There they find the picture of the Chinese being dismembered. The picture excites the woman sexually: it is "empleada como imagen afrodisiaca por el hombre en la mujer ..." (p. 61). The photograph acts as an aphrodisiac because "intense pain and final death spasm . . . are synonymous with physical love and orgasm.This idea is brought out explicitly in the novel: "Ese hombre parece estar absorto por un goce supremo . . . Las sensaciones forman en torno a êl 26 un clrculo que siempre, donde termina, empieza, por esto hay un punto en el que el dolor y el placer se confunden" (p. 145). The idea of a "cîrculo que siempre, donde termina, empieza" is as an allusion to t'ai ki (p. 147). T'ai ki means "the great primal beginning" of all that exists and is represented by the circle divided into light and dark, yang and yin. " The yang is the male element and the yin the female and respectively represent, among other things, life and death. The woman is familiar with these ideas and this is a possible explanation as to why she desires sexual intercourse ("life") the first time she sees the picture and dissection ("death") when she sees the picture in Paris. The relationship between creation and destruction is discussed, from a neo-Freudian angle, by Norman O. Brown in Life Against Death. In animals, Eros (life instinct) and death coexist in some kind of oneness. Man, on the contrary, has separated out the instincts disrupting the unity of life and death. The life instinct aims to preservq life through unification. Thus, implicitly, the aim of the death instinct is separation.^2 Freud is thus moving toward a structural analysis of organic life as being con stituted by a dialectic between unifica tion or interdependence and separation or independence. The principle of unifica tion or interdependence sustains the 27 immortal life of the species and the mortal life of the individual; the principle of separation or independence gives the individual his individuality and ensures his death.23 The first time the woman makes love to Farabeuf, she is performing a creative act. She is affirming life by seek ing "unification." Years later, she runs across the picture of the Chinese. At this point, the death instinct is dominant. Since her seduction, she has been "la otra." Now she wants to know who she is. Through death, "the aspect of life which confers on life individuality . . . "2 4 she will come to know her distinctive character. From another angle, at one point in their lives the photograph serves as an aphrodisiac because the way to achieve something comparable to the instant of "goce supremo" of the Chinese being tortured was through orgasm. Years later, in Paris, the photograph will again excite her. This time she will achieve the "goce supremo" in the manner of the Chinese, through dismemberment, or death, which is nothing more than "una figuracidn precaria del orgasmo" (p. 42). Georges Bataille comments on the connection between death and sex saying that: La simple activité sexuelle est différente de 1'érotisme; la première est donnée dans la vie animale et seule la vie humaine présente une activité que définit peut-être un aspect 'diabolique,' auquel le nom d'erotisme convient. 28 S'il est vrai gu'essentiellement, 'diabolique' signifie la coïncidence de la mort et de 1'érotisme . . . 25 Manuel Duran underscores the amatory nature of Farabeuf saying that "Définir Farabeuf como novela erdtica es necesario punto de partida ..." Returning to the woman in an apartment in Paris, we know that she calls up Farabeuf immediately after running across the photograph. Dr. Farabeuf, now old, arthritic, his sboulders covered with dandruff, will come "en busca del recuerdo de la Enfermera-la mujer-siempre vestida de bianco" (p. 15). He will find only an old woman. She is describing herself indirectly when she refers to the house with its "jardincillo abandonado," "cortinas de terciopelo desvaido" which resemble "unas colgaduras fûnebres" (p. 16). The diabolical-erotic atmosphere is highlighted in that, as Farabeuf arrives "la luz mortecina del atardecer se iba coagulando en torno a los objetos como la sangre que brota apenas de la incisién hecha en el cuerpo ..." (p. 17). This time the "operaciôn quirûrgica llamada coito" will in fact be an operation. Performed with a knife, phallic symbol par excellence, the operation will correspond to the one in the photograph. "Farabeuf experimentarâ, al mismo tiempo, el orgasmo, mientras la vîctima llega por fin a un orgasmo que pudiéramos llamar existencial o esencial: sabrâ por fin quien es ella, habrâ resueIto ese largo y angustioso problema de identidad 29 tantas veces planteado a lo largo de la novela."27 TKus, the photograph which led to her seduction and identity crisis will lead to her "salvation." Like the photograph, which was taken at the instant the Chinese died, her death will be a question of an instant. And "la clave de tu vida se encuentra encerrada en esa fracciôn de segundo" (p. 175). Another ramification of the identity problem is brought out when she identifies herself with the tortured Chinese. First, she speculates as to whether the person being tortured is male or female. Her conclusion is that the photograph "Se trata de un hombre que ha sido emas- culado previamente" (p. 14 6). At the same time, the proc ess of her identification with the Chinese starts to take place: "El supliciado es un hombre bellîsimo. En su rostro se refleja un delirio misterioso y exquisito. Su mirada justifica una hipôtesis inquiétante : la de que ese torturado sea una mujer" (pp. 144-145). The person in the photograph is not just a woman; it is the narrator herself : "Es una mujer. Eres tû" (p. 146) . A messianic note is added when the woman refers to the Chinese as "el Cristo chino ..." (p. 147). Using vapid, syllogistic reasoning, she then concludes that the photograph is nothing less than a picture of "la mujer-cristo ..." (p. 148). The reader, also using syllogistic reasoning, will conclude that the woman unconsciously identifies with 30 Christ. In doing so, she will add a religious dimension t o he r dis; se et io n. The messianic nature of her dissection is somewhat diminished by a curious outburst of the woman. After con cluding that the person in the photograph is "la mujer cristo," she goes on to say: "îPasen, sehores, pasen! îVean las maravillas del mundo.î îLos monstrous que asombranî îLa beldad que enloquece! îEl mal que hiela; îPasen, senores, pasen1 îPasen a ver a la mujer-cristot" (p. 148). Acting like the deranged woman that she is, she is imitating a circus barker outside of a side show and giving a parady of what she did during the presentations of Dr. Farabeuf. The woman repeats the description of the beach scene in some detail throughout the work. The man and the woman are walking along the beach. They pass a woman dressed in black, followed by a dog, and a boy building a sand castle. They sit on a cliff for a while, he takes a picture of her, and they start back along the beach. On the way, they notice that the sand castle has almost been destroyed by the tide. Then she runs across a dead star fish which has started to rot. Repulsed by the feel of it, she tosses it into the water. Immediately after tossing the starfish, she starts to run. When she stops to turn back toward the man, she is "la otra." Upon returning to the house, they find the picture of the 31 tortured Cblnese, which excites their sexual desires, and they make love. Manuel Durân says that "Tres premoniclones de muerte aparecen en la escena de la piaya : el castillo que se derrumba, la estrella de mar . . . la foto del supliciado . O Q . . " It would appear that the woman dressed in black and the pelicans (" . . . los pellcanos revolotean tratando de cazar su presa") (p. 160) could also be considered foreboding signs. With respect to the sand castle, the woman and Dr. Farabeuf note that it is being destroyed by the tide. Besides the self-evident meaning of desolation and life defunct, the destruction of the castle is a portent of the eventual dissection of the woman since "ruins are symbolically equivalent to biological mutilation."29 Of particular interest is the starfish. After having touched it, she says that the feel of it produced "una sensaci6n inquiétante y vagamente répugnante . . . " (p. 60). This, plus the fact that she starts to run after throwing the starfish away, certainly indicates that she is aware, at least unconsciously, of what the starfish symbolizes. Years later, in her recapitulation of the incident, she says that the starfish was "visible a la vez que tangible . . . " (p. 60). Now, on the window in the apartment where she is waiting for Farabeuf, she has drawn a sign (signo) which turns out to be the Chinese 32 character for the number six: . The character, as in a rebus,leads her to make certain associations. "Es el nûmero seis y se pronuncia lié. La disposici6n de los trazos que lo forman recuerda la actitud del supliciado y también la forma de una estrella de mar, cverdad?" (p. 150). In hindsight, it seems that the starfish was not only a premonition of death but also an indication of how she was to die. And just before being dissected by Farabeuf she repeats the words "una estrella de mar" three times. Her many references to the signo on the window is also indicative of her intense interest in the number six. Taking as a starting point the photograph, the woman says that: Es preciso estudiar la configuraciôn de los verdugos . . . es important!simo . . . forman un dodecaedro con seis cüspides visibles . . . son seis los verdugos que actüan sobre el cuerpo del supliciado, seis . . . como las lîneas del hexagrama . . . yin-yang . . . como el t'ai ki también: la conjuncidn de dos seises ..." (p. 147). She is dropping the three coins in order to form a hexagram which is necessary if she is going to consult ^ Ching. Even the clatro, so meticulously described (pp. 156-160), has six spheres and each sphere has six orifices. Her interest in the number six is not surprising in that it is, in all its manifestations, connected with her life, or rather, death. 33 I have already mentioned some items— the painting and the photograph— that are metaphors for the mirror. They reflect, as it were, some facet of the woman's personality. An actual mirror, located in the room in Paris, is constantly referred to by the woman throughout the novel. Manuel Durân says it is "quizâ el slmbolo fundamental . . . George McMurray points out that "The mirror . . . is often the focal point of the woman's vision and an ingenious device for displaying her shifting conscious- 4 2 ness." Specifically, it proves her existence and leads her to speculate on the illusory and infinite nature of reality, all of which show her psychic instability. The mirror also reflects the antagonistic duality found in her personality: "Té, entonces, te volviste hacia el espejo para comprobar, en la imagen de tu rostro, reflejada en aquella superficie turbia, tu existencia. Mas no te reconociste. Eras la otra y llevabas un anticuado uniforme de enferma" (p. 121). Her lack of understanding as to the dual aspects of her personality is graphically brought out by the fact that she does not recognize herself when she appears as "la otra." The disturbing lack of self-understanding is enhanced by her description of the mirror : it is a "superficie turbia." On occasion, her precarious existence is put in jeopardy when the mirror almost fails to reflect her: "El espejo apenas nos refleja" (p. 84). Another time "la otra" is not reflected _________ 34 at all. (p. 96). The mirror itself ceases to be just a mirror and becomes "un universe angustioso e impenetrable dentro del que tal vez vivimos, dentro del que tal vez viviremos para siempre ..." (p. 85). Alice, in Through the Looking Glass, goes through the mirror into a very strange world. The woman in Farabeuf also has "gone through the looking glass": she is living in "un universe angustioso e impenetrable." On the other hand, the mirror has a calming effect since "los espejos duplican la quietud de la quietud" (p. 95). The mirror provokes thoughts concerning relativity. For example, she comments on the painting of Titian reflected in the mirror: "El personaje que en realidad estâ a la derecha ha sido visto por ella colocado del lado izquierdo de la tela y vice versa en lo que toca al personaje que en realidad aparece del lado izquierdo de la pintura" (p. 64). Everything seems to depend on one's point of view. This notion is applied to the reading of a book: "Cuando se lea en este libro: Incîdase de izquierda a derecha . . . ; atâquese el borde izquierdo del pie . . . ; prosîgase hasta la cara derecha del miembro . . . , adviêrtase que los têrminos izquierda y derecha se refieren al operador y no al operado" (p. 136)."^^ After this warning, she adds that "este aviso es una sabia precauciôn del maestro, sobre todo si se tiene 35 en cuenta la existencia de ese espejo, <îno créés?" (p. 136) In the continuing, dialogue with herself, she asks three questions all having something to do with a mirror: 1) Si es que somos tan s6lo la imagen en un espejo, ôcuâl es la naturaleza exacta de los seres cuyo reflejo somos? 2) Si es que somos la imagen en un espejo, cpodemos cobrar vida matândonos? 3) cEs posible que podamos procrear nuevos seres autônomos, independientes de los seres cuyo reflejo somos, si es que somos la imagen en un espejo, mediante la opera ciôn quirûrgica llamada acto carnal o coito? (p. 91) The first two questions reflect the woman's general interest in the nature of existence and show some rather profound metaphysical peregrinations. The third is an echo of what one of the characters of Jorge Luis Borges says: El espejo y la côpula . . . son abominables, porque multiplican los individuos hasta el infinite. The idea of procreating "nuevos seres autônomos" is brought out again when she says that "se multiplican nuestros rostros confrontados con el precario sistema de espejos infinites ..." (p. 172). 4 7 The mirror implies the use of the doppeIganger. Briefly, the double has been and continues to be a common literary motif. Witness such works as Don Quijote, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, some of the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, just to mention a few. The romantics portrayed doppeIganger in their works. In general, "the romantics _______ 36 . . . used th.e theme as a straightforward device for humorous, or grisly, misunderstandings in the tradition A Q of the farce of mistaken identity or of folklore." Robert Rogers says that only in light of psychology can doubling in literature be fully understood. He points out that Plato was inclined to divide the psyche into component parts in essentially the same way Freud does. Man has inner forces that are in conflict at times and 49 which need to be balanced and harmonized. The woman and Her doppeIganger, "la otra," whom she sees in the mirror, is a dichotomy basically concerned with the forces of good (nun-nurse-spy for a religious organization) and evil (wife-lover-concubine-whore). Calling herself Mme. Farabeuf is a manifestation, in light of societal conven tions, of a degree of self respect. The degree of self degredation is very evident when she identifies herself with "La Enfermera" who is not just a prostitute but "una puta vieja . . . " (p. 68) who makes love indiscriminately. The doppeIganger in Farabeuf is not just a figure divisible by two. The woman's mental gyrations and various identi ties illustrate the complexity and multiplicity of her psyche. The problem, as many from Plato to Freud have said, is that there must be "harmony or balance among the various components of self ..." The woman has failed to achieve this equilibrium.^^ The labyrinthine use of mirrors is reminiscent of 37 Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year at Marienbad. I n this work there are mirrors of all descriptions: black, cut- glass, big, elaborately framed, unsilvered and so on. The mirrors are mainly used to enhance the maze-like setting of the work., Robbe-Grillet explicitly states that "... the labyrinth effect is increased by the presence of monumental mirrors that reflect other perspectives of complicated passageways."^^ "X", the stranger in Last Year at Marienbad, has been in this maze before: "And once again I walked on, alone, down these same corridors . . . making my way as though by chance among the labyrinth 53 of similar itineraries." The mind of the woman in Farabeuf is a maze of sorts. Caught in a "mental" labyrinth, she keeps going over and over the same "itineraries." This idea is heightened by the use of mirrors. Not only her face is multiplied by the "precario sistema de espejos infinitos ..." (p. 172) but also "la imagen del salon se multiplica al infinite sobre la superficie del espejo." (p. 168). In conclusion, the mirror has godlike powers- It can prove the woman's existence, eliminate her by not reflect ing her, and multiply her into infinity. It is a very important symbol which " . . . se convierte poco a poco en slmbolo de nuestra inestabilidad pslguica, nuestra falta de identidad, del carâcter pasajero e inestable de la conciencia humana."^^ The mirror is another object in 38 Farabeuf which helps the reader get a closer look into the mind of a deranged woman. But, little progress has been made since "El espejo conduce a la protagonista a un laberinto sin salida, en el que, al seguirla, el lector pénétra a pesar suyo."25 Rain is another part of the environment relevant to the woman's situation. It symbolizes memory and con sciousness and provides a direct link to the past. With regard to time, the present in Farabeuf starts one-half hour after the woman has telephoned the doctor. And there is an exact correspondence between the beginning of the rain and this period of time: "R . . . E . . . M . . . (Farabeuf) lleg6 media hora despuês de que habîa empezado a 1lover" (p. 46). When he arrives she points out that it is still raining. This comment is prompted because the rain is a link to the past: "la lluvia que empaha los cristales o que empapa los hombros de su abrigo es lo no? la misma lluvia que cafa en Peking aquel dfa . . . " (p. 67). "Aquel d!a" refers to the day when Farabeuf, accompanied by the woman, took the picture of the Chinese. Before the telephone call, the rain is described as a tenacious "lluvia menuda que no cesaba de caer desde hace muchos dîas . . . " (p. 13). Her general consciousness of the past seems to parallel the light rain that has been falling for a long time, probably since "aquel dîa" in Peking. The increased intensity of the _____________ 39 rainfall corresponds to how vivid past events are in her mind. When the woman suddenly stops before going all the way up to the window in the room in Paris, she observes that it has started to rain "con mâs fuerza" (p. 124). She has seen either the signo on the window or Farabeuf through it. Either would conjure up very intense recollec tions which parallel the increased intensity of the rain fall. Just before Farabeuf enters the room to dissect her, she again notes that it is still raining. Her memories are just as tenacious. When Farabeuf is in the room and she has literally started the countdown to her death, the rain is not just described as falling, "golpea contra esa ventana . . . " (p. 179). The rain reaches its greatest intensity when her awareness of the past and her emotional fervor are at their peak, at the moment before her dissection. The intensity of the rainfall is in direct correspond ence to the woman's emotional state. What is at one time a "lluvia menuda" becomes harder and harder as her recol lections increase in vividness and her dismemberment and death approach. The situation seems ironic. Rain, usually associated with renewed life, becomes more intense with approaching death. However, the situation is not ironic if the rain is thought of as a symbol of her purifi cation which will renew her life. In death, she will 40 purge herself: "tu cuerpo desfallecerâ huyendo de ti misma y s61o su significado, su esencia ûltima, se concretarâ en las palabras que tü digas" (p. 170). Another link to the past and a portent is the fly. Early in the novel, the woman says: "una mosca-de seguro que recuerdas esto, £.no es as!?-cay6 muer ta, despuês de golpear repetidas veces los cristales empahados" (p. 16). She remembers the fly because it provides a direct link to her seduction: "(El se incorporé. -Un d!a, quiza -dijo-, recordaremos este momento por el zumbido de una mosca ... . . " (p. 100) . The fly is not just a "mosca" but a "mosca agônica . . . " (p. 101); "una mosca . . . en agonfa . . . " (p. 99). The personification of the fly is a comment on the woman's own condition prior to the arrival of Farabeuf at the apartment. If we think of the fly as an insignificant insect, it also provides an echo of her "vida anodina . . . " (p. 161) before she met Farabeuf. Anodina, which means "insignificant," comes from the Greek anodynos, "free from pain." She, too, was free from pain before meeting Farabeuf. The action and death of the fly parallels that of the woman as she is waiting in the apartment. She will run back and forth from the table to the window until her dissection. She, like the fly, will flee "zumbando hasta morir junto a los flecos del cortinaje desvaido de ________________________________________ 4J_i terciopelo" (pp. 99-100). The woman has again selected that part of her environ ment which is relevant to the particular situation at hand. That which may at first seem insignificant, a fly in this case, turns out to be not only a tie to the past but also foretells the future. Above all, it further illustrates the woman's complete preoccupation with a single event in her life. Dr. Farabeuf*s role, as has been noted, is supportive. Still, piecing together what the woman says about the doctor, we can put together a rather complete picture of a surgeon whose actual life model was one Dr. H. L. 56 Farabeuf, a nineteenth century French surgeon. A medical student from a poor provincial family, he is fond of banal and obscene music and frequents certain revolutionary circles. He becomes a surgeon and also develops an interest in photography. He publishes a précis entitled Aspects Médicaux de la Torture Chinoise. The book contains a picture of a Chinese being tortured during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and a detailed analysis of the torture called Leng Tch'e■ The précis causes a scandal due to "el uso tan inapropiado que los literatos estân haciendo de él" (p. 2 7 ) . The scandal affects Farabeuf's chance of being a candidate for a post in the school of medicine. His fascination for the macabre is not always associated with Oriental cultures. He has 42 presentations using his "1interna mâgica" (p. 12 7) to show pictures of people being tortured. After the show, the woman, who acts as his assistant, sells two different books. One is the above-mentioned précis and the other turns out to be a book by H. Hoffman called StruweIpeter. This book is a collection of gruesome folk tales from Germany. The one referred to in Farabeuf concerns a boy who sucks his thumb and "’ . . . por chuparse los dedos vino el Sastre y se los corté con sus grandes tijeras . . . (p. 122). To the woman. Dr. Farabeuf is "el mâs hâbil cirujano del mundo" (p. 10). It is very likely that there is a double entendre here. Besides his skill as a surgeon. she may be referring to his adroitness at "la intervenién quirûgica llamada acto carnal o coito" (p. 90). Elizondo has created a personage replete with literary resonances. Farabeuf is another "mad scientist" of sorts, an echo of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the one hand. Dr. Farabeuf is presented as a famous, meticulous, inventive surgeon who is even described as being "afable" (p. 104). On the other hand, he has developed an interest in torture which is a grotesque extension of surgery. Ironically, he seems to be the only hope for a woman who believes that the enigma of her life will be resolved through Leng Tch'e. No longer able to perform "la intervencion quirûgica llamada acto carnal o coito," Dr. Farabeuf will use a knife so that the woman will achieve 43 the moment of "goce supremo." The key to her enigma will be found in "un hexagrama ûnico e inesperado, la sexagésimoquinta combinaciôn de seis llneas quebradas o continuas . . . " (p. 165) which is one beyond the sixty- four found in 1 Ching. This "hexagrama" belongs to Dr. Farabeuf alone. I have shown that Farabeuf, o la crônica de un instante is a chronicle of part of a woman's life and that Dr. Farabeuf plays a secondary role. Emmanuel Carballo deals with the two personages in more general terms: Para mi dos son los personajes, El y Ella- la pareja sin tiempo y sin espacio, igual y siempre diferente-, quienes por la fascina- ci6n llegan al deseo, mueren y resucitan en diferentes êpocas y paises distintos. Son los eternos protagonistas de una historia tan vulgar como fascinante. The statement is misleading because the implication is that the novel is just another love story. The treatment of the libidinal drive in Farabeuf makes the work a love story sui generis. Salvador Elizondo has not created characters in the traditional sense of the word. What he has done is to make a narrating consciousness the protagonist. Using almost exclusively limited narrative viewpoint, the reader knows only what goes on in the mind of one person. It follows that the narrator, being just another human being, and not God-like, may not supply all the information we are accustomed to finding in a novel. The reader must become 44 used to these omissions and the reasons for them. Robbe- Grillet asks, for example, why we should "persist in dis covering what an individual's name is in a novel which does not supply it? Every day we meet people whose names we do not know , . , Nathalie Sarraute, using a tennis match as an analogy, says that the novelist no longer "occupies the place of the umpire perched on his stool, supervising the game and announcing the score to the fans (in this case, the readers) seated on the side lines."^^ The reader may no longer be passive. He must project himself into the narration and become an accomplice As Leo Pollmann says : entre el lector de una nueva novela (en el sentido mâs amplio de la palabra), y el autor de ella no existe ya la relacidn de confianza que existîa al leer una novela tradicional. En la novela tradicional podia abandonarse el lector al autor, podia dejarse llevar por êl de la mano a un mundo que le ofrecia durante unas horas una morada espiritual, a un cosmos de leyes fijas, esclarecido previamente por el autor.62 Character has not been eliminated from the novel, at least not Farabeuf. No longer neatly defined from without, a woman with all her preoccupations and complexities has been put at the very center of the narration. And the reader must view the world as she sees it. To paraphrase Robbe-Grillet, a woman is reporting nothing but her experience which is limited and uncertain. She is, finally, her own narrator.^^ 45 FOOTNOTES ^Alvin J. Seltzer, Chaos in the Novel--the Novel in Chaos (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), p. 384. 2 Manuel Durân, in his book Triptico mexicano: Rulfo, Fuentes, Elizondo (Mexico: Sep/Setentas, 1973), p. 151, mentions Honfleur saying that "sabemos que alii naciô la mujer." The woman, in China under an assumed name, says sfie is from Honfleur, Calvados, a part of Normandy. If she has changed her name, I also assume that she would conceal her place of birth. ^The Boxer Rebellion (1900) refers to an uprising against foreigners and foreign powers in China. The Chinese secret society called itself the "righteous harmony band" which was mistakenly interpreted as "righteous harmonious fists," hence Boxers. ^Bruce Morrissette, "The New Novel in France," Chicago Review, No. 3 (Winter-Spring 1962), Vol. 15, p. 4. ^Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (New York : Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 273. ^Percy Lubbock, The Craft of Fiction (New York : The Viking Press, 1968), p. 271. ^José Ortega y Gasset, La deshumanizaciôn del arte (Madrid: Colecciôn Austral,”T956) . During recent years, Ortega y Gasset has come under attack. For example, see Joseph Frank's The Widening Gyre : Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1963), especially pp. 163-178, "The Dehumanization of Art." ^Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel, trans. Richard Howard (New York : Grove Press), 1965. ^Robbe-Grillet, p. 27. ^^Robbe-Grillet, p. 27. _____________________ 4&I 11 Robbe-Grillet, p. 27. 1 n Nathalie Sarraute, The Age of Suspicion, trans. Maria Jolas (New York: George Braziller, 1963). 13 14 15 16 Sarraute, p. 55. Sarraute, p. 55. Sarraute, p. 57. Sarraute, pp. 61-62. l^Morrissette, p. 4. (Italics in original). ^^Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 339-374 for a general discussion of the unreliable narrator. l^For comments concerning "intentional correlates" see the introduction, pp. 6-7. Similar to the phenomeno logical concept of "intentionality" is T. S. Eliot's "objective correlative." In his book. The Sacred Wood : Essays on Poetry and Criticism (London: Matheu and Company, 1960), there is an essay entitled "Hamlet and His Problems." (pp. 95-103). In this essay Eliot says that "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked" (p. 100). 20 Titian, Italian painter (1477-1576). To date, there is no definitive explanation of the mentioned painting. 21 Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian Mostly Icono graphie (New York: New York University Press, 1969) , p. 115. ^^Panofsky, p. 116. ^^Octavio Paz, E^ laberinto de la soledad (México: Fondo de Culture. Econômica, 1964) . 24paz, p. 163. 25paz, P- 163. 26paz, p. 24. 47 27panofsky, pp. 117-118. 28panofsky, p. 117. ^^George R„ McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," Hispania 50 (September, 1967), p. 596. Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton: Bollingen Series XIX, 1974), p. Iv. 31 Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psychological Meaning of History (Middletown; Wesleyan University Press, 1966). 3 2 Brown, especially chapters VII, "Instinctual Dualism and Instinctual Dialectics," and VIII, "Death, Time, and Eternity." 3 3 Brown, p. 10 5. 34 Brown, p. 109. ^^Georges Bataille, Les Larmes d'Eros (Paris: Biblio thèque Internationale D'Erotologue, 1964), p. 11. ^^Durân, p. 139. ^^Durân, p. 153. ^^Durân, p. 159. 39juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York: Philosophical Library, 1974), p. 264. ^^The woman refers to her story as a rebus, p. 57. Farabeuf. ^^Durân, p. 160. 42 McMurray, p. 59 8. ^^Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1946). Also, the whole problem of one's identity appears in Alice in Wonderland. Alice has changed sizes during the day. When the Caterpillar asks her who she is, she is not able to answer: "I can't explain myself. I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see." (p. 42). 44 This aviso is a translation from Louis Hubert 48 Farabeuf*s Precis de Manuel Opératoire (Paris: Masson & Cie., 1909) , p. 1. 4 5 There is an echo here of Alice's experience in the Looking Glass House. She cannot read the first verse of "Jabberwocky" until she holds it up to the mirror. Through the Looking Glass, p. 159. Durân, p. 160. That mirrors create a labyrinth of multiplied images is an idea common, not only to Borges, but also to Octavio Paz. The woman's desire for coito (dissection) is in keeping with the Pacian idea that "copulation . . . is the synthesis, the transcendence which goes beyond any mirrored maze of repeated images." Gary L. Brower, "Borges and Paz: Death by Labyrinth and Resurrection by Dialectic," Latin American Literary Review II (Spring-Summer, 1974), p. 20. The fact that her external person is reflected on a surface only proves she exists. It does not explain who she is. John M. Fein says that in the poetry of Octavio Paz the mirror rarely reflects what the person looking into it expects to see. Thus, "far ^rom being a source of satisfaction and pleasure, /what is reflected/ she is the cause of adverse reactions ranging from boredom through rejection to the deepest despair." "The Mirror as Image and Theme in the Poetry of Octavio Paz," Symposium X (1956), p. 254. Paz writes, in Libertad bajo palabra (México: Fondo de Cultura Econômica, 1974), p. 56: "De una mâscara a otra/ hay siempre un yo penéltimo que pide." Fein notes that this "'yo penéltimo' . . . asserts the existence of the 'éltimo yo,' the object of his search." (p. 49) This "éltimo yo" is also the object of the woman's search. ^^The term was first used by the German writer Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825). Robert Rogers, A Psychological Study of the Double in Literature (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1970), p. 26. ^^Rogers, p. 26. ^^Rogers, p. 10. ^^Rogers, p. 98. Emphasizing the validity of subject doubling in fiction, Rogers says that "When an author portrays a protagonist as seeing his double, it is not simply a device or gimmick calculated to arouse the reader's interest by virtue of the strangeness of the episode but is, in fact, a result of his sense of the division in which the human mind in conflict with itself is susceptible" (p. 29). 49 ^^Alain Robbe-Grillet, Last Year at Marienbad, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Grove Press, 1962). ^^Last Year at Marienbad, p. 89. 53 Last Year at Marienbad, pp. 56-57. ^^Durân, p. 160. 55purân, p. 160. ^^Elizondo, referring to his film Apocalypse 1900, says "la realizaciôn de esta pelîcula hizo que llegara a mis manos el célébré Précis de Manuel Opératoire del Dr. H. L. Farabeuf cuyas maravillosas ilustraciones de técnicas amputatorias tenfan un papel importante en mi pelîcula. Estes grabados, de una pulcritud insiciva sorprendente, complementaron grâficamente las imâgenes que se habîan formado en mi mente a partir de la fotografîa de la tortura china y me sirvieron en la escritura de Farabeuf para establecer ciertas dimensiones de atmésfera y de contrapunto de imâgenes que dieron a la novela cierto carâcter y cierto estilo inusitados en las corrientes mâs tradicionales de la narracién castellana." Nuevos escritores mexicanos del siglo XX presentados por sî mismos (México: Empresas Editoriales, 1971), pp. 44-45. ^^An interesting parallel here is that Elizondo has used the précis of Georges Bataille, Les Larmes d'Eros, as a point of departure for Farabeuf. ^^Durân notes that the "monstruo original se debe a la pluma de Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus." Triptico mexicano, p. 49. ^^Emmanuel Carballo, "îQuién es el autor de Farabeuf ?" Siempre nûm. 665 (marzo 23, 1966), Suplemento Literario nûm. 214, p. IV. Elizondo says that "En Farabeuf el personaje principal de la novela es el cuerpo, y el escenario en el que transcurre la acciôn es la epidermis de ese cuerpo, en el limite del cuerpo en el que el mundo empieza." Margarita Garcia Flores, "Elizondo: la novela del solipsismo," Hojas de oritica, Suplemento de la Revista de la Universidad de México, Vol. XXIII (abril 1969), 12. 60 For a New Novel, p. 139. ^^Sarraute, p. 103. 50 ^^Leo Pollmann, "Nueva Novela" en Francia en Iberoamerica (Madrid: Editorial Credos, 1971), p. 143. ^^For a New Novel, p. 139. Robbe-Grillet*s book of short stories. Snapshots, trans. Bruce Morrissette (New York: Grove Press, 1968), contains a selection called "The Secret Door" which is very reminiscent of Farabeuf A woman, a sacrificial victim, is mutilated by a very mysterious man wearing a cape. 51 II. TIME IN FARABEUF An examination of the treatment of time is basic to an understanding of Farabeuf. The subtitle of the novel. La crônica de un instante, the quote from E. M. Cioran which introduces the work, the first and last word, "recuerdas," are immediate intimations of the importance of time. After a brief historical note concerning time in literature in general, chronological time, tempo lento and timelessness in Farabeuf will be examined. I will then look at specific techniques used by Elizondo to control time. Lastly, verbs will be examined. In general, we will see that time in Farabeuf is psychological time and that the disjointed chronology of the novel is integral to the structure of the work. The twentieth century has an obsession with time which has manifested itself in literature.^ Time in literature is human time which is subjective or psycholog ical. It is juxtaposed with "objective" or chronometric time, either directly or by implication. So, time in literature emphasizes one time but includes the other, too. Since the subject of all literature is man, the emphasis on psychological time is a necessity. This is because 52 "el examen y descripcion de su realidad no pueden ser hechos sin grave falsificaciôn, en un tiempo que no es humano sino astronômico." Psychological time is not a phenomenon of the present century. For many, the point of departure is "Kant's doctrine tl^t time does not pertain to things in themselves out there but is a form of perception of the human mind."^ In terms of contemporary literature, the emphasis on mind time receives much of its impetus from Henry Bergson. Bergson indicated to the contemporary writer that there is a time that is "humanly meaningful in terms of man's inmost existence . . . free . . . from the artificial distinctions of clock time."^ The question of those who directly influenced the treatment of time in Spanish-American fic tion is another matter. This problem is complicated by the fact that, in any discussion of direct influences, one must consider not only other literati but also composers, painters, and film makers.^ Calendar and clock time are of little importance in Farabeuf. In most instances, it is difficult to say when events in the novel take place. The date, January 29, 1901, appears in the book several times. According to a copy of the North China Daily News, which is used to protect the floor, the Chinese was tortured on this day. The letter in French (pp. 31-33) was also written on this 53 day and postmarked the thirtieth of January, 1901. Thus, we do know that Farabeuf and the woman were in China at this time because they are mentioned in the letter. This is the extent of the "documentation" in Farabeuf. A specific period of clock time is brought out in connection with the amputation of a leg. The operation takes one minute and eight seconds. Another "operation" frequently mentioned, coito, takes "canonicamente un minuto nueve segundos de acuerdo con el precepto ab intromissio membri viri ad emissio seminis inter vaginam . . . " (pp. 57-58). To be even more specific, the "operation" is actually bipartite: "un minuto ocho segundos para los movimientos propiciatorios y preparatorios; un segundo para la emissio propiamente dicha . . . " (p. 58). Referring to sexual intercourse in terms of seconds, using such words as "candnicamente" and "precepto," and pontificating in Latin, all combine to form a ludicrous statement. What is important is that the crucial moment is a "segundo." Again, we are back to the only time that really matters, the "instante." The point has been purposely labored. Calendars and clocks are not important for an understanding of time in Farabeuf. Nevertheless, it is very clear that things, places and the physical aspect of man cannot escape time. The apartment house in which she is waiting for Farabeuf 54 shows the effects of time. It has a "fachada rugosa y carcomida ..." (p. 25), and the boxwood trees in front of it are described as being "descuidados, crecidos mâs alla de su armonîa original hasta convertirse en construedones tortuosas ..." (p. 14). Inside, the curtains are "terciopelo desvaido por la luz de los ahos ..." (p. 16). Dr. Farabeuf's instruments have been "abandonados al ôxido paulatino . . . " (p. 38). Even the mirror has been "minado y manchado por el tiempo y por todas las cosas que a lo largo de los ahos se habfan reflejado en êl" (p. 16). When Farabeuf goes to the apartment as a young man in his red sports car, "desciende aprèsuradamente ..." (p. 13). Years later, he returns as an arthritic, old man, with dandruff on his shoulders. He becomes short of breath and has to rest now and then as he climbs the steps to the room where she is waiting for him. Farabeuf will come in search of "la Enfermera-la mujer-siempre vestida de bianco" (p. 15), but will only find a woman "Vestida con anticuado uniforme gris ..." (p. 176). Time has passed, "muchos ahos ..." (p. 14), and change in the physical world is a clear reminder of what happens to humans. But, even though "Man's body may belong to the rushing, growing, and emerging of natural process, . . . his being or self, his human existence, does not."^ 55 The "present" in Farabeuf is the time it takes the doctor to cross the street and climb the stairs to the apartment where the woman is waiting for him. Even though he is old and arthritic, arriving at her apartment from the street would still be a matter of minutes or a half- hour at the most. Most of the 170 pages of the novel represent her effort, made during these few minutes it takes Farabeuf to cross the street and climb the stairs, to remember the "instante" of her seduction and what led up to it. She must remember everything because the instant is one in which "cabe, por decfrlo asf, el significado de toda su vida" (p. 10). Manuel Durân says that "El problema del tiempo se convierte en la salvaciôn del instante, la simultaneidad y permanencia de un instante que se desdobla, se prolonga, parece crecer o achicarse 7 sin de]ar por ello de ser un instante." The first instant was coito. The second instant will involve her death which is nothing more than "una figuraciôn precaria del orgasmo" (p. 42). The woman has noted that the face of the Chinese in the photograph reflects a "goce supremo" at the instant of death. She believes that during her second instant of "goce supremo" she will find out who she is. Thus, there is a deep, psychological need for recalling, in a very short period of time, events that took place many years in the past. 56 The chaotic structure of the novel would seem to be a plausible depiction of the functioning of the mind of a woman deranged enough to want to be dissected. There are two overwhelming impressions one has while reading Farabeuf. One is that time passes very slowly; the other is that it does not pass at all. In referring to these two impressions, we shall use, respectively, tempo lento and timelessness. The tempo lento effect, roughly equivalent to slow- motion in film, is achieved by describing and/or spacing a limited amount of material over a considerable number of pages. In Farabeuf, there are two lines of action. One concerns Farabeuf as he crosses the street, enters the house, climbs the stairs and enters the room where the woman is waiting for him. In the opening lines of the novel, the doctor crosses the street and enters the house. Almost halfway through the novel the omniscient narrator tells the reader that Farabeuf is on the second landing of the stairs. In the very last segment of the work, he finally opens the door and enters the room where she is waiting to be dissected. Nothing much happens in the novel because there has been a shift of emphasis away from external events to the psyche or inner workings of man. Many critics say that the novel that tells a story is a thing of the past. Alvin Seltzer states that "Since story 57 unifies experience, it is anathema for the novelist of p chaos." This is so because unified experience takes for granted some kind of rational order. The world, according to the new novelist, is not a rational place.^ The references to Dr. Farabeuf as he climbs the stairs provides fixed points along which the narrative moves. The frantic nature of the woman's mental gyrations is emphasized by the fact that so many thoughts covering such a span of years goes through her mind in the short period of time it takes Farabeuf to reach the room where she is waiting. The second line of action concerns the woman. At the start of the novel, she is seated at a table. She is alternately dropping three coins, which are part of a Chinese puzzle, and asking the ouija board a question. From time to time, she gets up and runs to the window on which she has drawn a sign. These same activities are described throughout the novel. However, there is a note of ambiguity because it is not certain whether she constant ly runs back and forth from the table to the window or whether a single action is repeatedly being described. In the last part of the novel, she finally lies down on the marble table where she will wait to be dissected. Time has moved so slowly that it is barely perceptible. Timelessness refers to "the absence of a sense of 58 the passage of time. The impression that time is standing still is one of the major features in Farabeuf. The overall, general technique involved in creating this sensation is nonchronological juxtaposition; the placing side by side of distinct temporal planes.The technique creates the sensation of timelessness by eliminating the idea of beginning and end. Time is no longer considered "an objective causal progression with clearly worked-out differences between periods ; now it has become a continuum in which distinctions between past and present are wiped out. " In Farabeuf , the distinction between present and past have, to a large extent, been eliminated. Often, without any transition, the story jumps from one temporal plane to another and back again. Most of the time, one is able to follow the narration. On occasion, the reference is so short and cryptic that the reader just has to specu late as to when and where it took place and what it means. For example, "cLa hubiera retenida un instante en su man.?" (p. 24) is one complete narrative segment preceded and followed by disparate segments. Apparently, the "la" refers to the starfish and, thus, the beach scene, Manuel Durân says that "... nos encontramos ante un palimpseste, con textos diferentes, entremezclados, cuya conexiôn no queda jamâs aclarada en forma compléta."15 Bruce Morrissette, referring to the linear distortion 59 in Robbe-Grillet* s Jealousy, says that "In creating the psychological tensions which bind together the elements of the novel, the author constructs corresponding chronological tensions.This is also one of the effects of temporal juxtaposition in Farabeuf. The woman strives to recall everything of importance to her particular situation. But, because of the mental strain, which is a result of her impending dissection, she flits from one moment of her life to another. The different times in her life are, so to speak, "pulling" at each other. The present desire for dissecting can only be understood in terms of what happened years earlier. Because of the strain she is experiencing, she admits that "La vida quedaba sujeta a una confusiôn en medio de la que era imposible discernir cuâl hubiera sido el présente, cuâl el pasado" (p. 13). Still, she tries to recall everything. At one point she says that "Para poder resolver el complicado rebus que plantea el caso, es precise, ante todo, ordenar los hechos cronolôgicamente, desposeerlos de su significado emotive ..." (p. 57). Before she is able to "ordenar los hechos cronolôgicamente," she mentions coito four times. It is a psychological necessity for her to constantly come back to the "instante" which is her only concern. Therefore, causality does prevail in the mind "but the causal connections (or associations) between 60 events within memory do not constitute an objective, uniform, consecutive order of "earlier" and "later. The notion of "earlier" and "later" has to do with an objective temporal sequence. In the psyche of each individual, there is structure. But this structure is "causally determined by significant associations rather than by objective causal connections in the outside 18 world." In Farabeuf, temporal juxtaposition of narrative segments is not gratuitous. For the woman, there are "significant associations" between past and present. Therefore, she must juxtapose the different moments in her life in order to understand why dissection is the only way for her to discover her true identity. After seeing the picture of the Chinese, the woman cannot distinguish between past and present because the past has become an integral part of her present. This is existential time which admits to no authentic before or after. In the traditional novel^. the sequential nature of the narrative suggests the "immutable pastness of the past.Through the use of nonchronological juxtaposi tion, the diverse fragments of a narration are "conceived not successively but simultaneously, to converge in our minds as contemporaneous events."20 By placing distinct temporal planes side by side, the reader will better be able to grasp the moment in its totality and will. 61 hopefully, come to visualize "a moment which surpasses 21 our usual perception of time and space." In Farabeuf, we have a convergence of form and content. The simultane ous way in which past and present impinge themselves upon her mind is graphically illustrated by the way the novel is structured. Human time is what structures the novel. And that structure is typified by the progressive accumula tion of nonchronologically juxtaposed narrative fragments. Carl Jung states in his preface to 1_ Ching ; . . . the hexagram formed by throwing yarrow sticks or three coins was understood to be an indication of the essential situation prevailing at its moments of origin. This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity, a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to causality. The woman in Farabeuf is throwing the three coins to form a hexagram in order to consult the ^ Ching. In other words, she is not interested in a chronological unfolding of her life which will indicate to her what she has been or will be. She wants to discover her essential nature which is outside of any time continuum just as is any consultation of ^ Ching. The coins will form a hexagram which will reveal her intrinsic nature. It turns out that this hexagram is the sixty-fifth, one beyond the sixty-four found in ^ Ching. The hexagram, according to the woman, "se concretarâ para decirte que yo, igual que 62 tû, no soy sino un cadâver sin nombre ..." (p. 165) . The woman's thoughts are juxtaposed according to the inner rhythms of her psyche. The problem of trying to follow her mental peregrinations is compounded by the fact that "the past (memory) is subject to change, the present (imagination) remains subjective and unstable, and the future (anticipation) ever ambiguous. For example, the recollection of her trip to China becomes somewhat con fused . She supposedly went there to work as a nurse and to help a religious organization interested in spreading Christianity in that country. But, one time she refers to the trip as nothing more than that "veraneo junto al mar . . . " (p. 102). On another occasion, she says that "Su viaje al Lejano Oriente ha sido un viaje de recreo. Una excursion econômica, un veraneo modesto . . . " (p. 103). She is interpreting the trip in a different light now from her original intention. The fact that she cannot keep certain things straight in her mind, or be sure about others, is not really that important. There is, for the woman, only "una realidad: la de esa pregunta /"iQuiôn soy?2_/ que constantemente nos hacemos y que nunca nadie ni nada ha de contestâmes" (p. 82) . Looking at temporal juxtaposition from a slightly different angle, the general sensation one has while reading Farabeuf is one of "process." Ideas and events 63 are seen being distorted, dropped, picked up, contradicted in an ongoing movement pertinent to the psyche of a deranged woman. The woman is caught in the act, or process, of telling her story as it occurs to her. Thus, if Farabeuf is chaotic, it is because: Form, dependent on the human mind, cannot have a pre-established structure : it takes on the structure of association most relevant to the conscious state of the individual whose story is being told.24 We have seen that temporal juxtaposition is the general governing technique used in creating the sensation of timelessness in Farabeuf. Specifically, Elizondo uses repetition, recollection, flashback, digression, fore shadowing and narrative break to control time. Certain verb tenses are also used to achieve special temporal effects. Bruce Morrissette says that Alain Robbe-Grillet's "Jealousy probably contains more repetitions than any 25 other work in the history of the novel." Farabeuf may be a contender for this distinction. Scenes, ideas, expressions, words and drawings are repeated throughout the work. This is because the novel is not an imitation of an action unfolding in time. It is the exposition of a predicament, an instant, which must be looked at again and again. Three basic scenes are repeated throughout the work: the Chinese being tortured, the beach scene 64 and the reunion of Farabeuf and the woman in Paris. The ideas most often mentioned have to do with the nature of existence, memory and forgetfulness. Expressions, such as "se trata de" and "es precise," and words, like "recuerdo" and "olvido," appear with great frequency. At times, the whole novel seems to revolve around the verb "recordar" and its variations. One result of having the same elements in the narra tion repeatedly placed in front of the reader is that the state of timelessness that the woman is experiencing is also experienced by the reader. Referring to the general tendency in modern literature away from orderly, sequential narration, A. A. Mendilow says that "There is no place in the modern novel except the end at which the reader can say; 'The story has now reached such and such a point. In Farabeuf, every time the reader thinks that the story has reached a certain point, some part of the novel is repeated. Only at the end of Elizondo's work can one say that "such and such a point" has been reached. Even then, we can only assume that the doctor dissects the woman since the act is not carried out in the novel. At times, a single reiterated sentence is a leitmotif. "Y entonces él la tomô en sus brazos" (pp. 54, 100, 156) is one such sentence. It is a clear reference to the time of the woman's seduction and aids in the unification of 65 the disjointed narrative in that it is a reminder that everything the woman is concerned with stems from that one moment in her life. Another element that contributes to the general sensation of timelessness is a date, the twenty-ninth of January, 1901. On that day, Paul Belcour wrote a letter to a Cardinal. The newspaper used to cover the floor of the beachhouse also has this exact date. The photograph of the Chinese being tortured was taken on the same day. There seems to be no notion of "earlier" and "later." Time is "frozen" in that many important events in Farabeuf take place on a single, specific day. Recollection and flashback are two techniques used to expand time in Farabeuf. Regarding recollection, the woman, after finding the photograph, tries to remember the portion of her past that has to do with her seduction. Her remembrances often start out with such expressions as "recuerdo," "has estado tratando de imaginar," "es precise evocarlo todo." These are clear indications that the woman is purposely trying to recall the past in order to shed light on the present. Flashback, on the other hand, is a "sudden cutback from the time of present narration to the past in order to 2 7 represent directly a past event." This technique is used with some frequency by Elizondo. The flashbacks are 66 not necessarily indicated by any special type of punctua tion and concern in the lives of both Farabeuf and the woman. In certain cases, a flashback tells us what happened from the point of view of Farabeuf. For example, he de scribes in detail how he photographed the Chinese. The emphasis is on the camera, "una magnffica Pascal de modelo muy reciente, con un objetivo excelente ..." (p. 77). Here, the flashback has been used for character depiction. In reviewing the same scene, the woman has emphasized "la estaca ensangrentada ..." and "aquellas llagas" (p. 82) Farabeuf*s approach is cold, clinical, "scientific." He is, as the woman says, "un hombre que ama su oficio con desinterês" (p. 174). Flashbacks are used to remind the reader of the potentially "exciting" subject of the spread of Christian ity in China: "'doscientos millones de infieles . . . La instauraciôn de una Iglesia Catôlica China comprometida seeretamente con Roma ..." (p. 155). It reminds us of why the nun and Farabeuf went to China. Other than that, the narrator has again titillated the reader's appetite with material that will not be developed since the novel is the "crônica de un instante" in the life of a woman. In Farabeuf, there is one especially enigmatic flash back which could be considered a digression. 67 Es un hecho perfectamente concrete, por ejemplo, que: ' . . . una vez al mes, en dfa fijo un hombre concurrîa a casa de su amante y le cortaba los rizos que le caîan sobre la trente. Esto le provocaba el mâs intenso goce. Posteriormente no le exigîa ninguna otra cosa a la mujer.' (p. 22) The words "amante" and the reference to "cutting" would lead us to think of the woman and Farabeuf. But, since there is not another reference to "curls" in the novel, this is merely conjecture. Another possibility is that it is a literary resonance such as the one concerning the boy who sucked his thumbs and had them cut off by the tailor (p. 122). The temporal orientation of the reader is affected by the technique of foreshadowing. Foreshadowing refers to the fact that certain narrative elements are not explain ed when first mentioned. For example, the fly is men tioned almost from the very beginning of the novel. In spite of this, no explanation for repeatedly mentioning the fly is given until beyond the halfway point in the work. The fly, which is buzzing around the room where the woman is waiting to be dissected, is associated with the time of her seduction. Apparently, there was also a fly in the room at that moment of her life. The starfish, the woman in black, the photograph and rain are among other items that could be mentioned as anticipatory narrative elements. Again, the reader is reminded that 68 psychological time governs the structure of Farabeuf. The woman mentions what seems relevant to her at any given moment. Foreshadowing also adds the element of intrigue by forcing us to keep pieces of the puzzle in mind before we have any idea as to where they should be placed. Narrative break refers to the technique of leaving a double space between every segment of Farabeuf. Elizondo follows two basic procedures in using this technique. At times, the space separates two segments completely removed from one another in space and time. For example, one segment of the novel ends with a reference to "aquellos pâjaros sobre la cresta de las olas" (p. 153). The next part mentions that Dr. Farabeuf is "un gran aficionado a la fotografia instantanea" (p. 53). We have jumped from the beach scene to a time which has to do with a conversa tion between Dr. Farabeuf and a person connected with a school of medicine. Leaving a space between the frag ments graphically negates the idea of continuity and intensifies the disjointed nature of the woman's thoughts. The technique of narrative break is also linked to the idea that "La vida . . . es una sucesiôn de instantes congelados" (p. 134). Each double space "congeals" another segment of the novel. Sometimes, the narrative break is merely an indication that the woman has paused between thoughts : 69 cSomos el recuerdo de alguien que nos estâ olvidando? lO somos tal vez una mentira? (p. 84). Here, the technique slows down the narration by forcing the reader to pause and reorient himself after every seg ment. In fact, both types of narrative break we have mentioned add to the tempo lento effect. A rather unusual type of narrative break is a sketch showing preparations for the amputation of what looks like a leg (pp. 54, 135, 139, 147). Again, the reader must slow down to consider what the sketch is and what it suggests. Time is expanded by this type of narrative break in that the sketch, by association, is concerned with every important facet of the work from the torture of the Chinese to the dissection of the woman. Elizondo employs a great variety of verb tenses in Farabeuf. Of special note, in relation to time in the work, is his use of the present, present perfect, condition al and pluperfect subjunctive tenses. Farabeuf is "framed," so to speak, by "recuerdas," the first and last word in the novel. The woman, trying to remember everything, coaxes herself and is urged on by Farabeuf with such expressions as "tû tienes que hacer un esfuerzo," "es precise evocarlo todo," and "debes concentrante." Whereas the past tense creates "distance," the present tense imparts the sensation of immediacy. 70 The reader does not seem remote from the speaker. Manuel Durân notes that Elizondo "emplea le segunda persona del presente indicative en lugar de la primera, a 2^ Carlos 2 8 Fuentes ..." The reference is to Carlos Fuentes' La muerte de Artemio Cruz. Joseph Sommers, speaking of the same novel, says that the use of "tû" has the effect of placing "the reader alongside Cruz as he relives his personal crises .... From this vantage point the reader can participate with the protagonist and thus identify with his dilemma."^^ In Farabeuf, this is not only true in the case of the pronoun "tû," but also in the case of "nosotros." When the woman speculates on the illusory nature of existence, the use of the first person plural of the present tense of the verb "ser" also creates the feeling of directness : "somos el recuerdo, casi perdido, de un hecho remoto. Somos seres y cosas invocados mediante una fôrmula de nigromancia" (p. 94). And the reader is included in the speculation because of the use of "noso tros . " Bruce Morrissette says of Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy that "it is less a matter of uncovering a "solution" to the narrator's personality . . . than . . . to share this personality directly . . . Apparently, Elizondo wants the reader to share the woman's personality by reducing the distance between the personage and the reader. 71 The use of the present tense is also in keeping with the all important question of identity. It is not a question of what she has been or will be. She wants to know who she ’ ’is.” In terms of existentialism, which admits to no before or after, this is the proper way to phrase the question. There are cases of what Rafael Seco calls the O 1 "presente histôrico." Describing Farabeuf's visit to her apartment as a young man, the woman says: "Es un hombre-el hombre-que desciende apresuradamente de un pequeho automôvil deportivo ..." (p. 13). Because the present tense is employed the statement has more "fuerza expresiva / y__/ nos hace testigos de hechos pasados . . . "32 ^ few lines later, she says: "Es un anciano-el hombre-que llega a pie . . . " (p. 14). Through the use of the present tense to describe events that took place years apart, a strange oneiric simultaneity is created. The present perfect is often used instead of the simple preterit. When the woman comments on the arrival of Dr. Farabeuf, she says: "ahora has venido en busca del recuerdo de la Enfermera . . . " (p. 15). Describing her doppe1ganger as she waits for the doctor, she says: "Ella se ha quedado inmôvil frente al espejo ..." (p. 41). A certain enigmatic tone is added by the use of the 72 present perfect. Rafael Seco states that the difference between the simple preterit and the past perfect is the extension the speaker wants to give to the moment in which he is speaking. If the action has a certain cohesion with the present, the present perfect will be used because it 33 falls within a psychological present. There is, in the use of the present perfect, "un elemento subjetivo (mayor or menor interês en la acciôn)."^^ By keeping within the psychological present, the temporal distance between the narrator, the events and the reader is reduced. George McMurray states that the "recurrent use of the conditional and pluperfect subjunctive tenses . . . cast doubt on the actuality of the action."^5 For example, referring to her all-important moment with Dr. Farabeuf, the woman says; "abririas aquella puerta y penetrarlas silenciosa, abandonada al espanto y a la delicia de una seduccion ..." (p. 118). The conditional is used in spite of the fact that the seduction has already taken place. The beach scene is again described in some detail on pages 114-118: Hubieras corrido a lo largo de aquella playa desierta. Hubieras corrido como tratando de escapar de ese sueho en el que yo te habfa aprisionado y solo te hubieras detenido para volverte hacia mi convertida en la otra . . . y hubieras permanecido inmôvil durante algunos instantes . . . (p. 114). These few lines illustrate how the repeated use of the 73 imperfect subjunctive augments the aura of doubt as to whether the action took place at any time. The use of anaphora, here and in many other parts of Farabeuf, has the effect almost of incantation. This enhances the idea that the woman, seated in front of a ouija board and throwing the three coins in order to consult the book, ^ Ching, is under a spell as she waits to be dissected. Reader participation has been mentioned on several occasions. Roger Shattuck says that many modern artists want the spectator's active involvement in pursuing developments and associations that have only been suggested. Since Cezanne, painters have not hesitated to leave bare patches on a completed painting.The artist knows that "by luring the spectator into his work he has dis covered a new attribute in the very structure of his art. " This "new attribute" is a vital part of the structure of Farabeuf. In conclusion, we have seen that time in Farabeuf is psychological time. Elizondo has related events as they occur to the mind of the protagonist and not in terms of some time system imposed from without. As Alain Robbe- Grillet says: "Why seek to construct the time of clocks 3 8 in a narrative which is concerned only with human time?" The reader is often tempted to re-establish the sequence of events in chronological order. But, as Jean-Paul 74 Sartre says of The Sound and the Fury, the reader who attempts to order events in time stops when he realizes that he is telling another story.^9 "Faulkner did not first conceive this orderly plot so as to shuffle it afterwards like a pack of cards: he could not tell it any other way."^^ As we have noted, the disjointed nature of Farabeuf is also an integral part of the woman's story. It seems that Elizondo could not have told it any other way. 75 FOOTNOTES ^A. A. Mendilow, Time and the Novel (New York: Humanities Press), 1972. See especially Chapter I, "The Time-Obsession of the Twentieth Century," and Chapter 2, "The Time-Obsession of Fiction." 2 Ernesto Sâbato, El escritor y sus fantasmas (Buenos Aires : Aguilar, 1971)1 pi Ô2. ” ^Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: the Psycho logical Meaning of History (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), p. 94. ^Margaret Church, Time and Reality: Studies in Contemporary Fiction (Chapel HilT: University of No’ rth Carolina Press, 1963), p. 9. Hans Meyerhoff says that "it is easy to understand why Bergon's philosophy has exercised so profound an influence on literature : the literary treatment of time, as we shall see, has always been 'Bergsonian' in the sense of analyzing time as an immediate datum of consciousness and as it enters into human lives and actions rather than into mechanics and physics." Time in Literature (Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1968), p. 10. Bergsonian time is psychological. Time is durée, duration, which is a con tinuous process in which past, present, and future blend into one. Marcel Proust, like Bergson, ascribed to the idea of duration. But, as George Poulet says, "Nothing is more false than to compare Proustian to Bergsonian duration .... Far from being as Bergson wished it, a 'continuité mélodique,' human duration in Proust's eyes is a simple plurality of isolated moments . . . . " Studies in Human Time, trans. Elliot Coleman (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 316. These isolated moments are evoked by a catalyst which "reinforces a sense of discontinuity found in Proust but not in Bergson." Church, Time and Reality, p. 18. Time in Farabeuf is more Proustian than Bergsonian. Briefly, the woman, after a period of years, runs across the picture of the Chinese being tortured. The photograph acts as a catalyst which prompts her to call Dr. Farabeuf. Proust also states that when a moment from the past was evoked, he 76 felt as though he were living in two different time periods and that he could not distinguish between them. Church, Time and Reality, p. 15. The woman in Farabeuf feels exactly the same way : "La vida quedaba sujeta a una confusiôn en medio de la que era imposible discernir cual hubiera sido el présente, cual el pasado" (p. 13). For Proust, unlike Bergson, the exploration of the past is difficult and requires a "maximum effort on the part of him who is subject." Poulet, Studies in Human Time, p. 316. The woman in Farabeuf has to make such an effort : "Es preciso hacer un esfuerzo. Debes tratar de recordarlo todo, desde el principio. El mâs mînimo incidente puede tener una importancia capital .... Es preciso que hagas un inventario pormenorizado, exhausitivo ..." (p. 101) . ^For example, the problem of influences on Elizondo is a complicated matter. See Nuevos escritores mexicanos del siglo XX presentados por si mismos (México: Empresas Editoriales, 1971). ^Jerome Ashmore, "Symbolism in Marienbad," The University Review (1963-1964), 229. ^Manuel Durân, Triptico mexicano: Rulfo, Fuentes, Elizondo (México: Sep/Setentas, 1973), p. 143. o Alvin Seltzer, Chaos in the Novel: The Novel in Chaos (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), p. 383. ^Seltzer, p. 383. ^^Here, Elizondo makes a small concession to the traditional novel in that Farabeuf moves from the present to the future. In other words, Farabeuf starts climbing the stairs at the start of the novel and arrives at the top at the end. ^^The use of pronouns is confusing. Manuel Durân says that the first part of the novel "no tiene sentido, a menos que la persona que se habla a si misma en segunda persona se vea a si misma, simultâneamente, desencarcada, desde fuera, en extraho desdoblamiento." Triptico mexicano, p. 151. In his article "Escritura y realidad en Farabeuf," Plural Vol. IV (enero de 1975), 66, Pierre Michaëlis says : "dQuién habla en Farabeuf? De hecho, los datos acerca de la identidad civil no aparecen en el texto sino para ser reducidos, contradichos, emborronados. Cada nombre propio, masculine o femenino (emblema sustancial del personaje como tal) estâ dotado de una existencia 77j efimera, de informaciones que s6lo funcionan momentânea- mente para ser luego puestas en duda." ^^Mendilow, p. 135. ^^For an excellent discussion of juxtaposition see Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years : The 0rigins of the Avant-Garde in France 1885 to Wor ld War ^ (New York : Vintage Books, 196 8) , Chapter 11, '^The Art of Stillness." 14 Joseph Frank, The Widening Gyre : Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature [New York: Rutgers University Press, 1963), p. 59. ^^Durân, p. 151. ^^Bruce Morrissette, "New Structure in the Novel: Jealousy," Evergreen Review, Vol. 3, No. 10 (Dec., 1959), 171. 17 Meyerhoff, p. 22. 18]v[eyerhoff, p. 23. Italics in original. ^^Mendilow, p. 105. ^^shattuck, p. 345. ^^Shattuck, p. 345. 2 2 i. Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton: Bollingen Series XIX, 1974), p. xxiv. 2 " 5 George R. McMurray, " Hispania 50 (Sept., 1967), 599. 2 3 George R. McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," 2 4 George H. Szanto, Narrative Consciousness Structure and Perception in the Fiction of Kafka, Beckett and Robbe- Grillet (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), p. 152. ^^Morrissette, p. 185. ^^Mendilow, p. 10 5. 27samuel Joseph O'Neill, "Psychological-Literary Techniques in Representative Contemporary Novels of Mexico," Diss. University of Maryland, 19 65, p. 16. ^Spurân, p. 150. 29joseph Sommers, After the Storm: Landmarks of the 78 Modem Mexican Novel (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968), p. 156. ^^Morrissette, p. 178. ^^Rafael Seco, Manual de gramâtica espanola (Madrid: Aquilar, 1969), p. 64. ^^seco, p. 64. ^^Seco, p. 67. ^^Seco, p. 67. McMurray, p. 599. ^^Shattuck, p. 340. ^^Shattuck, p. 340. ^^Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel (New York: Grove Press, 1965), p. 139. ^9Jean Paul Sartre, Literary and Philosophical Essays (London: Rider, 1955) , p. 79. ^^Sartre, p. 79. 4lMariano Baquero Goyanes, referring to the disjointed chronology of the contemporary novel, says that there is a "deseo de tantos narradores actuates de diferenciar sus novelas de las de tipo traditional. Si en êstas lo normal era la ordenada disposiciôn cronolôgica de los hechos narrados ; se comprende fâcilmente que el quebranta- miento de tal orden constituye, por si solo, un muy ostensible rasgo diferenciador; un aviso, dirido a lectores ingenuos, de que lo que tienen en sus manos es, a todas luces, una novela moderna." Estructuras de la novela actual (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1970), p. 152. If that, in fact, is one of the main reasons for temporal juxtaposition, many contemporary novels are on very shaky ground. 79 III. EROTICISM Farabeuf o l_a crdnlca de un instante is an erotic novel with a pronounced element of sado masochism. The woman, sexually stimulated by a picture of a Chinese being tortured, makes love to Farabeuf. Death and physical love have become synonymous. In the following discussion of eroticism, we will, after a short historical note, briefly examine the Marquis de Sade and some of his "inheritors" such as William S. Burroughs, Jean Genet, Pauline Reage and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. In spite of the great diver sity of their erotic works, they all have something in common which, in turn, is a link to Elizondo's novel. Still, Elizondo has added an original element which makes Farabeuf a unique work. Above all, to paraphrase Manuel Durân, we will see why the examination of eroticism is a necessary first step in an analysis of this novel.^ Saying that eroticism is concerned with sexual desire or love gives one very little idea of the nature of the subject. The complexity of eroticism is better seen in Georges Bataille's statement that it is not like simple sexual activity: "eroticism is a psychological quest independent of the natural goal: reproduction and the 80 desire for children."^ There is, as all commentators of eroticism point out, a connection between violence, torture, death and sexual excitement. Manuel Durân speculates saying that: El acto sexual significa poder y fertilidad. El acto de torturar o asesinar a una persona con quien podriamos llevar a cabo un acto sexual (heterosexual o no, eso importa poco . . . ) se relaciona con el poder y con la muerte .... De algûn modo, por contagio, asociaciôn, o salto de energîa entre dos polos cercanos, se produce esta conexiôn paradôjica entre la sensualidad y la muerte, entre el sexo creador de vida y la desintegraciôn de un cuerpo vivo.^ Whatever the explanation for the connection between elements which seem to be polarities, the connection does exist.^ For that reason, "Man goes constantly in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him."^ There are specific terms used to describe certain facets of eroticism. Two are of special interest with respect to Farabeuf : sadism^ and masochism. Sadism refers to a sexual perversion in which gratification is achieved by inflicting pain on others. Masochism is a sexual passion characterized by pleasure in being abused or dominated by one's partner. The general principle involved is algolagnia, pleasure in pain. Sadism and masochism are the two sides of this same coin. When either of these perversions is carried to an extreme, death results. Thus, death is also a part of sadomasochism and, 81 therefore, of eroticism in general. Eroticism has apparently been around as long as simple sexual activity. Georges Bataille, referring to ancient man, says that "les premieres images de l'homme, peintes aux murs des cavernes ont le sexe levé."^ There is even a paleolithic cave painting which graphically illustrates the fusion of death and sensuality: "Un hombre-un mago . . . tendido frente a un bisonte moribundo. Y el sexo del hombre en ereccién."9 The fact that these artistic endeavors are found mostly in caves is also important. Evidently, even early man made certain analogies between the human body, in this case the womb, and his physical surroundings. During the last part of the eighteenth century a major change, which is all-important in terms of the course of erotic literature, took place. This change came about mainly in the name of the Marquis de Sade. The hypocrisy of previous ages gave way to a more candid attitude. As Manuel Durân says: "El gran descubrimiento del eroticismo sâdico moderno es la plena conciencia de sî mismo, la autoaceptacién por parte de quien lleva a cabo estos actos."^^ The Marquis de Sade openly talked of, and even recommended, murder, robbery, torture, incest, homosex uality and other such debauchery. According to Sade : La idea del orden de la naturaleza . . . se expresa en el sentido de que el mal, como el 82 bien, lejos de constituir una antitesis en su confrontaciôn intrînseca, constituyen una necesidad, una condiciôn indispensable al equilibrio de las cosas del mundo.^^ With regard to sensuality, it is a means of achieving knowledge : "Los personajes de Sade no se exitan en sentido pasional, sino solo en sentido intelectual. No gozan, investigan.Thus, in La philosophie dans le Boudoir, Sade, in his usual explicit manner, addresses himself to woman saying: "Have no other restraints than those of your appetites, no other laws than your desires alone, no other morality than that of nature.Also, the investigatory nature is evident in Sade's Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou 1'Ecole du Libertinage, one of the first attempts undertaken to catalogue sexual perversions.^^ But, his fame is, above all, due to his candid approach to the sexual perversion previously mentioned. William S. Burroughs is one of the Marquis de Sade's heirs. His most famous, or infamous, work is a novel. The Naked Lunch. Although it deals with drug addiction, capital punishment and the political system of the United States, at times a pronounced element of sadomasochism surfaces. For example, in one of the scenes, Mary is eating Johnny after having cut him down from the noose : "... Mark walks over to her /Mary7 and she looks up from Johnny's half-eaten genitals, her face covered with 1 7 blood, eyes phosphorescent." 83 Jean G e n e t , like de Sade and Burroughs, writes about and praises the sordid aspects of life. But there is a basic difference between the two writers. Sade, in recommending evil, "specifically invokes another standard, which he argues is superior to the normal codes of religion and society.Jean Genet, on the other hand, does not manifest a concept of goodness in his world which is permeated with criminals and by eroticism. According to Genet, "... evil is to be defended for its own sake, and not as a necessary counterpart to g o o d . " ^ 0 Thus, as Philip Thody states, in the evil world of Genet, any idea of pleasure would bring a positive note to a world which is negative.Still, at times, pleasure and violence are linked to one another. For example, in Miracle of the Rose, Rocky and Bulkaen make love in the bedroom of the house 2 2 they have just burglarized. But, crime and sex are not usually associated. When they are, it is "never as a result of a crime of violence, and never as a consequence of a crime consciously undertaken in order to procure this 2 3 kind of pleasure." Another landmark publication in sadomasochistic 2 4 literature is Story of O, by Pauline Reage. The novel is concerned w i t h the debasement of a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer who willingly becomes a slave to her lover, René. O experiences every conceivable type of 84 sexual activity and, through it all, is flogged, branded with red-hot irons, and chained, just to mention some of the more "mundane" types of torture. But, it seems as though "it were O alone who, from the outset, demanded to be chastised . . . The element of algolagnia could not be more pronounced. The strange connection between violence and sensuality remains an enigma, for even the heroine does not understand these impulses: "O tried to figure out why there was so much sweetness mingled with the terror in her, or why her terror seemed itself so sweet." Louis-Ferdinand Céline is another writer who has followed in the footsteps of "the divine Sade," as Céline himself calls him.^^ Céline's vision is pessimistic. Man is vile and his depravity extends to eroticism. In North, for example, Céline says : any playwright will tell you . . . the trouble they have drawing a crowd . . . filling three rows in the orchestra . . . with all the ballyhoo I . . . sexhibitions, banner.headlines, stripteasing ushers, doormen falling all over themselves I . . . hill of beans'. . . . the only reliable drawing card is blood, bowels hanging out 1 . . . vivasection! . . . guts all over the stage I . . . dead and dying.' . . . no gladiators : yawns! a disemboweled gladiator : orgasms!28 With respect to sexual intercourse, the author has two basic views. One is that it provides a person with a few moments of enjoyment. On the other hand, Céline 85 considers coition as a "voyage toward discovery, transfig uration, and renewal. It is a mystical experience, leading to confrontation with the central vision of existence." In other words, Céline is an adherent to the cult of "'erotico-mysticisme.*" In this brief overview, the diversity and explicit ness that has characterized much of this type of prose since the Marquis de Sade is very evident.In spite of the heterogeneity of these works, there is one common denominator: the connection between such polarities as pleasure and pain, good and evil, positive and negative. In Farabeuf, the woman and Dr. Farabeuf, upon return ing from a walk on the beach, run across a picture of a Chinese being tortured. The photograph is "empleada como imagen afrodisiaca por el hombre en la mujer . . . " (p. 61). It acts as a stimulant because "intense pain and final death spasm . . . are synonymous with physical 31 love and orgasm." The association of death and sensual ity is clearly brought out on more than one occasion. For example, referring to the Chinese, it is noted that there is a "punto en que la tortura se vuelve un placer exquisite y en que la muerte no es sino una figuracién precaria del orgasmo" (p. 42). At another time, the Chinese is referred to as "un hombre en el momento de la muerte o del orgasmo" (p. 109) 86 The woman notices that the Chinese, pictured at the instant of his death, "parece estar absorto por un goce supremo . . . " (p. 145). At this time in her life, she, too, desires a moment of ecstasy and apparently obtains it through normal heterosexual activity. Years later, when she again runs across the picture of the Chinese, she will call Dr. Farabeuf. This time, the moment of "goce supremo" will come at the moment of her death. When the woman first sees the picture, she does not desire to be dissected, at least not in the literal sense of the word. She is still young and subject to the "intoxication of youth . . . " One of the Marquis de Sade's characters. Amelie, knows Borchamps is a monster. *I love your ferocity,' she tells him, 'swear to me that one day I also shall be your victim . . . Not that I wish to die tomorrow . . . but that is the only way I want to die; to have my death the result of a crime is an idea that sets my head spinn- i n g . - 3 4 This, in general terms, is the attitude of the woman in Farabeuf. Apparently, she does not, or cannot, face death when she first sees the picture because of the "intoxication of youth." Still, she seems to realize that she must die at the hands of Dr. Farabeuf. This is because, since seeing the picture and making love, there has been a bond linking them. "El olvido no alcanza las cosas que ya nos unen. Aquel placer, la tortura, aquî 87 presente, ahora, para siempre con nosotros ..." (p. 45). "Esa voluptuosidad que nos mantenia unidos . . . en torno a esa ceremonia . . . unidos tal vez para siempre . . . " (p. 47). Not even the reunion of Dr. Farabeuf and the woman is fortuitous. The photograph, among other items, was left in the room "con la intencidn cabal, de que algûn dia fueran encontrados" (p. 70, italics in original). Years later, when she does find the photograph, the emotional bond with Dr. Farabeuf is obviously still strong. She immediately calls, imploring him to come and dissect her. He, of course, knows that she will call: "la campanula del telëfono son6 cuando tû sabias que sonarfa" {p. 15). Dr. Farabeuf, old and arthritic, comes to dissect her. She is now beyond the "intoxication of youth" and is able "to look death in the face and to per ceive in death the pathway into unknowable and incompre hensible continuity-that path is the secret of eroticism and eroticism alone can reveal it. Georges Bataille states that reproduction implies the coming into existence of beings distinct from all others. The essence of reproduction, then, is discontinuity. Herein lies the problem. We are discontinuous beings, individuals who perish in isolation in the midst of an incom prehensible adventure, but we yearn for our lost continuity. We find the state of affairs that bind us to our random and ephemeral individuality hard to bear. Along with our tormenting desire that this evanescent thing 88 should last, there stands our obsession with a primal continuity linking with everything that is . . . This nostalgia is responsible for . . . eroticism i n m a n . 37 The woman in Farabeuf is perplexed by her "incomprehensible adventure." As noted in the chapter on characterization, she is constantly concerned with the illusory nature of existence and, ultimately, with who she is. She is searching for her lost continuity. The woman has noticed that the Chinese, at the instant of death, has an expres sion of rapture.The Chinese must have learned, at the instant his discontinuous being was destroyed by death, his true identity, or continuity. Farabeuf, who knows the procedures used in torturing the Chinese, will reveal to the woman her lost continuity. He will make it possible for her to find "la clave de los que realmente eres o de lo que has dejado de ser ..." (pp. 129-130). In laberinto de la soledad, Octavio Paz is talking about the same thing.He says that the Mexicans feel they have been "arrancados del Todo."^! Using Bataille's term, their "continuity" has been interrupted. The Mex ican, aware of discontinuous existence, is searching in an attempt to re-establish those ties which unite him to 42 creation. The woman must call Dr. Farabeuf, we have said, because he realizes that there is a ritual involved. Eroticism involves a sacrifice and certain procedures must 89 be followed. It is a rite which must be "carried out as the solemn and collective nature of religion dictates.. . . With respect to the Chinese, the ritual is called Leng Tch'e, or the torture of a hundred pieces. It dates from the eighteenth century during the Manchu Dynasty. Like any rite, specific steps must be followed and a dignitary is present to preside over the ceremony. The dissection of the woman will also be a rite. Before starting the dissection, Farabeuf says he will explain to the woman "las etapas fundamentales de su desarrollo" (p. 173). The doctor knows what he is talking about because the ritual is something that "ha sido minuciosamente estudiado por Farabeuf a lo largo de los ahos" (p. 170). The first thing she must do is undress: "Desvfstete. La desnudez de tu cuerpo propiciarâ la curaciôn definitiva de este mal" (p. 175). Referring to this act, Georges Bataille says : Stripping naked is the decisive act. Naked ness offers a contrast to self-possession, to discontinuous existence, in other words. It is a state of communication revealing a quest for a possible continuance of being beyond the confines of self. The woman, in undressing, is following the procedure used in Leng Tch'e. After tying up the Chinese, "le arrancan la ropa. Queda completamente desnudo" (p. 138). In a dialogue in Farabeuf, this act is discussed: "La desnudez y la muerte son la misma cosa./ -Sf, el mismo rito" (p. 90 138). This is, essentially, what is said of the woman: "La desnudez no es sino un signo de tu disoluciôn" (p. 163) . The next step for the woman is to remember everything that has anything to do with her seduction, that all- important "instant" in her life. To do this, she must concentrate because, in ascertaining who she is, "todo, absolutamente todo, puede tener una importancia capital" (p. 56). But, the crucial time is her final moment of "intercourse" with Dr. Farabeuf. This time, he will come to operate, literally, on "esa carne cuyo ûnico destino es la mutilaciôn" (p. 179). We have noted that, first, the woman must be undressed. Next, she is to be penetrated by the male. In a word, she must be profaned.On this final occasion, Farabeuf will do so with a knife. Georges Bataille stresses "Eroticism is primarily a religious matter . . . This seems to be a carry-over from the earliest ages of our existence since "most primitive people simply do not share in our sense of an invisible but absolute barrier between what is seriously religious, and what is sexually stimulating and delight- 4 8 ful." The ritualistic nature of copulation and dissec tion is clearly noted in Farabeuf. With regard to the former, the woman says that the act takes "canônicamente un minute nueve segundos de acuerdo con el precepto ab intromissio membri viri ad emissio seminis inter 91 vaginam ..." (p. 58).^^ "Canônicamente," a reference to church law, hardly seems to fit here. But, in fact, its use is in keeping with the religious nature of the ceremony as it is pictured by the woman. The religious implication is heightened, not only by the reference to a "precepto," but also by the fact that the precept is in Latin. The religious nature of the dissection is explicitly brought out on many occasions. Dr. Farabeuf is described in the following way as he approaches the woman stretched out on the marble slab: Alzadas en un gesto hierâtico y ritual, sosteniendo en la derecha el afiladfsimo bisturf que habfa seleccionado. Farabeuf se dirigiô hacia el pasillo, con la cuchilla en alto : un gesto religioso, inexplicable y como premonitorio de un crimen, dejando por donde iba un rastro de emanaciones de quirôfano. Iba al encuentro de la Enfermera que lo aguardaba inmôvil en el fondo de aquel pozo de sombra, dispuesta a un sacrificio inconfesable (pp. 79-80). The final operation may be thought of as an "iniciaciôn religiosa" (p. 173). The woman should consider the last moments of her life "como una disciplina interior, como una meditaciôn que conduce al êxtasis" (p. 170). The reference to a mystic trance could be related to the writ ings of Santa Teresa and, especially, San Juan de la Cruz. In the case of the latter, the amatory nature of much of his mystic poetry is very evident. Still, coming much closer to what we have in Farabeuf is Louis-Ferdinand 92 Céline*s cult of "*érotico-mysticisme.'" Erika Ostrovsky comments on sexual union in the works of Céline. She says that in the Frenchman *s writings the goal of coition is not "Nirvana or oblivion . . . It is a mystical experience, leading to a confrontation with the central vision of existenceThe woman in Farabeuf is to be dissected in order to have "a confrontation with the central vision of existence" and, thus, discover her lost continuity. As Manuel Durân so aptly says: "la vfctima llega por fin a un orgasmo que pudiéramos llamar 52 existencial o esencial: sabrâ por fin quien es ella." In very general terms, this also fits in with the sensuality of Sade whose essence is knowledge. As noted earlier, eroticism is a psychological quest not related to the natural goal of reproduction. The only hint of any desire to belong to an acceptable social unit is seen when the woman refers to herself as Mme. Farabeuf. There is no indication that they ever get married or even consider the possibility of such a relationship. On one occasion, the possibility of becoming pregnant is men tioned. The solution, if this were to happen, is one that might be expected from the doctor. The woman would have an abortion using "el instrumente conocido en los manuales clâsicos de obstreticia como *basiotribo de Tarnier *" (p. 162) . 93 The woman's desire to know who she is could be interpreted in terms of a desire to return to the Edenic state. She has been seduced by Farabeuf. This seems to be her "original sin." "Original sin is connected in the first instance with division into two sexes and the Fall C 3 of the androgyne, ie., of man as a complete being." What she wants to know about is her person as a complete being. The woman becomes very interested in the sex of the Chinese. She says that his look justifies "una hipdtesis inquiétante: la de que ese torturado sea una mujer" (p. 145). It is speculated that, if the photograph had not been retouched around the area of the genitals, and the wounds on the chest were due to the removal of the breasts, there would be no doubt about it. Farabeuf states that "Se trata de un hombre que ha sido emasculado préviamente" (p. 146). The woman responds that "Es una mujer" (p. 146). It is not just a question of being a woman: "es una mujer . . . una mujer bellisima . . . la mujer-cristo . . . " (p. 148). The tortured one is male (Christ) and female (woman). In a word, the Chinese is an 5 4 androgynous figure. And the woman has identified com pletely with this figure. She first says that the Chinese has a face that contains all faces (p. 146). Then she says that the face of the Chinese is hers (p. 146). It is very likely that she is interested in the Chinese as an androgynous figure because "At the deepest level the 94 androgynous or hermaphroditic ideal of the unconscious reflects the aspiration of the human body to overcome the dualisms which are its neurosis . . . " She wants to return to her "vida anodina" (p. 161), to an Edenic state of sorts, in which the "dualidad antagônica" (p. 10) would no longer be a problem. The erotic nature of Farabeuf is intensified in that everything takes place in a genitally-oriented atmosphere. Since his student days. Dr. Farabeuf has had an obsession with the male sex organ. With his "hoj a de acero . . . Farabeuf amaba amputar los miembros tumefactos de los cadâveres . . . " (p. 52). He belonged to "una sociedad estudiantil de amputadores : Gaudeamus igitur; juvenis /si£/ dum sumus" (p. 161). He has even saved a "miembro" as "un memento de los dfas de estudiante" (p. 160). Farabeuf puts it in formaldehyde and leaves it in the woman's house. The penis is left there on purpose so that the woman will find it at some future date. It will serve as another reminder of her seduction. Besides the direct mention of genitals, there are implicit references to these parts of the body. The woman, referring to Farabeuf's instruments, talks about "los relucientes separadores que aplica en las comiseras de la herida y el-aparato singular con el que ..." (p. 50). Within the total context of the segment, as well as the 95 novel itself, "herida" and "aparato" are somewhat clear allusions to the genitals. The suggestiveness of the statement is heightened by suspending the thought with three periods. At another time, the woman talks about Farabeuf and "aquella jeringuilla que nos habfa mostrado orgullosamente ..." (p. 94). In spite of the possibil ity of a double entendre, in context it seems to be a reference to the male organ. It is also one of the few humorous moments in the entire work. Dr. Farabeuf's intense interest in surgical tools is also associated with his interest in certain bodily organs. Farabeuf, about to leave the woman, is cautioned by her not to leave anything behind: Piense detenidamente . . . las diferentes cuchillas para amputaciôn cuyo filo extremo es uno de sus orgullos . . . los escalpelos con sus diferentes formas de mangos que tan perfeetamente se adaptan a la mano que empuna . . . los aguzados bisturis cuyo s61o peso basta para producir delicadîsimos tajos . . . o su propia sierra universal de seguetas intercambiables . . . (p. 12). Ail of the above-mentioned tools are either knives, or variations thereof, such as the saw. They are, in short, phallic symbols par excellence. The fascination with cutting off, or up, parts of a body is in evidence through out Farabeuf. Of all the instances of this in the novel, the common denominator of almost all the episodes is found in one of the most enigmatic segments of the novel. Once a month, a man comes to the house of his lover. All he 96 does is cut off the curls over her forehead. The cutting provokes "el mâs intense goce. Posteriormente no le exigia ninguna otra cosa a la mujer" (p. 122). In short, the act of cutting, whether it be curls, the thumbs of a boy (pp. 12 2, 129), a man, a woman, or a cadaver, is a stimulating act. Again, we note "conexiôn paradôjica entre la sensualidad y la muerte, entre el sexo creador de vida y la desintegraciôn de un cuerpo vivo."^^ This idea is brought out in a dialogue between Farabeuf and the woman. The torture of the Chinese is being described in detail: -Luego que han apretado las ligaduras . . . -Primero le cortan las manos. -cSentiste miedo? -Senti placer, (p. 138) Even the doctor's descriptions reflect his fascination with knives. He says that as the torture proceeded, the look of the Chinese "se iba aguzando como la punta de una daga" (p. 138). On more than one occasion, there are implicit indica tions that Dr. Farabeuf practices the rare perversion of necrophilia. For example, the woman talks about the doc tor's "gusto de aplicar sus propios métodos a toda aquella carroha tendida bajo la bôveda decorada . . . " (p. 49) . Again, there exists the possibility of a double entendre and, thus, he could actually be studying the corpses. It 97 may be that he does not actually perform the perversion but that he has a vicarious experience while penetrating the bodies with a knife. The woman indicates, or intimates, that she, too, will die by th,e knife. After making love to Farabeuf, she says that at another time in her life she will abandon herself in his arms and open up her body so that he will penetrate her "como el puhal del asesino pénétra en el corazon de un principe" (p. 101). The knife is at the center of most of what goes on throughout Farabeuf. The prince, Ao Han Wan, was killed by a knife. This leads to the torture of the Chinese which, in turn, brings about the dismemberment of the woman. At one point in Farabeuf, there appears a segment which seems strangely out of place. It concerns a boy who sucks his thumbs and "'por chuparse los dedos vino el Sastre y se los cortô con sus grandes tijeras . . . *" (p. 122). It turns out to be part of a grisly collection of German fairy tales called Struwelpeter. On the authority of Jean Paulhan, even a child's story can be erotic: "we know that fairy tales are erotic novels for children. . "57 In conclusion, it seems that man has been an erotic animal since time immemorial. Erotic literature, too, has been around for some time. Still, Salvador Elizondo has come up with something new. To the element of science, 98 which has been especially prominent in literature since Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, Elizondo has added "un instrumente renovado, las mâquinas y los 59 utensilios de laboratorio o de sala de disecctiôn." The word "pornography" has not been used in this discussion of Farabeuf since the novel, in general, is not obscene or licentious. Elizondo starts with a photograph of a person actually being dismembered. He then goes on to show the astounding impulses to which the human spirit is subject. The woman, perplexed by the workings of her own psyche, will seek knowledge concerning the ultimate meaning of her life. To do this, she will submit to a truly astounding impulse, the desire to be dissected. We have seen, in Farabeuf, why Georges Bataille says that "Man goes constantly in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him."^® 99 FOOTNOTES ^Manuel Durân, Trfptico mexicano; Rulfo, Fuentes, Elizondo (Mexico; Sep/Setentas, 1973), p. 139. 2 Georges Bataille, Death and Sensuality : A Study of Eroticism and Taboo (New York: Walker and Company, 196TT, p. 11. ^Durân, p. 147. In "dQuiên es Justine? (Sade, Baudelaire, Bataille)," Revista de la Universidad de Mexico, Vol. 20 (October, 1965), 19, Elizondo writes that eroticism is "una transgresidn, pero no necesariamente una transgresiôn que violenta la naturaleza del hombre sino que, por lo contrario, la gratifica ya que es la expresiôn de una necesidad o de una inclinaciôn apremiante por transgredir dos prohibiclones fundamentales: la de matar y la de fornicar." ^During the preparation of this dissertation, there were reports concerning pornographic films in which actresses were mutilated or murdered: "one film was reported to show an actress, unaware of the true nature of her role in the sex film, being stabbed to death and dismembered." "FBI hunts death film," The Oregonian, 3 Oct. 1975, p. 13. ^Death and Sensuality, p. 7. ^After the Marquis de Sade. ^After L. von Sacher-Masoch (1835-1895), Austrian novelist who first described it. o Georges Bataille, Les Larmes d'Eros (Paris: Biblio thèque Internationale D'Erotologue, 1964), p. 11. ^Durân, p. 141. ^^Comte Donatieu Alphonse Francois, the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield: G. and C. Merriam, 1956), p. 1045, simply 100 lists him as a soldier and pervert. Most sources, however, also refer to him as a writer. ^^Durân, p. 146. Durân also points out that Sade had "precursores en la abundante literatura libertina de la ëpoca, y especialmente en el Diderot de religieuse y El Laclos de Les liaisons dangereuses, para no citar mâs que dos obras fundamentalesT" Trîptico mexicano, p. 144. ^^"^Quiên es Justine?," p. 17. Jean Paulhan points out, as one would expect, that Sade considered "religion, conventional morality, society itself /as/ malignant inventions ..." The Marquis de Sade, compiled and translated by Richard Seaver and Austryn Wainhouse (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p. 23. ^^"cQuiên es Justine?," p. 18. ^^Leonard de Saint-Yves, Selected Writings of de Sade (New York : British Book Centre, 1954) , p. 257. ^^Leonard de Saint-Yves, p. 33. Saint-Yves states that Sade wrote the work during a two-month stay in prison in 1785. ^^William S. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch (New York : Grove Press, 1959). ^^Burroughs, p. 77. ^^Jean Genet, 1910- . French playwright (Haute Surveillance, Les Bonnes) and novelist (Miracle de la rose, Notre-Dame-de Fleurs). ^^Philip Thody, Jean Genet: A Study of His Novels and Plays (New York : Stein and Day, 1970) , p. 26. Thody, p. 25. Thody, p. 27. Thody, p. 27. ^^Thody, p. 27. The elements being considered here are not only found in prose but also theater. See, for example, Jean Genet's Les Bonnes and Haute Surveillance and the comments concerning Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty in Luis T. Cetta's Profane Play, Ritua1, and Jean Genet (University: The University of Alabama Press, 1974) 101 ^^Pauline Reage, Story of O (New York: Grove Press, 1965). Pauline Reage is assumed to be the author although there is little agreement concerning this point. As for the literary merit of the work, the general reaction is basically that expressed in Time magazine about the movie: "The Story of O is, in a word, trash ..." (Time, September 22, 1975), p. 37. There is at least one critic who does not even consider it an erotic novel. "Story of O is not, strictly speaking, an erotic book." This is mainly because the work is "not dependent upon the sensual fire as they (the chapters) would be in an erotic book." Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, "A Note on Story of O", p. XVI in Story of O. ^^Story of O, p. XXIX of introduction. 26gtory of O, p. 23. 2 7 Erika Ostrovsky, Céline and His Vision (New York: New York University Press, 1967), p. 54. Céline's real name is Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (1894-1961). ^^Louis-Ferdinand Céline, North (New York; Delacorte Press, 1972), p. 109. ^^Ostrovsky, p. 19 8. ^^For a lengthy list of lesser-known novels that con tain erotic elements, see Robert George Reisner's Show Me the Good Parts : the Reader's Guide to Sex (New York: The Citadel Press, 1964). ^^George R. McMurray, "Salvador Elizondo's Farabeuf," Hispania 50 (Sept. 1967), p. 596. ^^For a broad sampling of Elizondo's ideas on the relationship between orgasm, death, torture and surgery, see especially "Gironella" and "La esfinge perpleja" in Elizondo's Cuaderno de escritura (México: Universidad de Guanajuato, 1969). ^^Death and Sensuality, p. 24. ^"^Death and Sensuality, pp. 175 35^ Death and Sensuality, p. 24. ^ ^Death and Sensuality, p. 13. 37 De ath and Sensuality, P- 15. 102 3 A Nicolas Berdyaev says essentially the same thing when he states that "Man is a sick, wounded, disharmonious creature primarily because he is sexual, i.e. bi-sected being, and has lost his wholeness and integrity." The Destiny of Man (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1954), p. 64. 39 In keeping with the idea that the Chinese is having a "climax" of sorts, is another part of the description of his torture. He has an "ejaculation", so to speak, in that his blood "se acumula en el pubis hasta que rezumbando cae sobre el pavimento ..." (p. 40). ^^Octavio Paz, EJL laberinto de la soledad (México: Fondo de Cultura Econômica, 1964). "^^Paz, p. 18. 42 Paz, p. 18. ^^Death and Sensuality, p. 82. ^^Manchu or Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1912). 45 Death and Sensuality, p. 17. Bataille adds that "Stripping naked is seen in civilizations where the act has full significance if not as a simulacrum of the act of killing, at least as an equivalent shorn of gravity." Death and Sensuality, p. 18. ^^Death and Sensuality, p. 145. 47 Death and Sensuality, p. 31. Italics in original. ^^Philip Rawson, Primitive Erotic Art (New York; G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1973), p. 2. ^^The Latin should read: "ab intromissione membri viri ad emissionem seminis inter vaginam." ^^Ostrovsky, p. 19 8. ^^Ostrovsky, p. 19 8. ^^Durân, p. 153. ^^Berdyaev, p. 64. ^^The androgynous nature of Christ is brought out in Galatians 3:28: "there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." The androgynous nature of man is also evident in the symbol of the Yin-Yang. 103 This symbol is divided into two equal sections by a sigmoid line. The white section (Yang) has a black spot within it and the black (Yin) a white spot which signifies that there is always something of the feminine in the masculine and the masculine in the feminine. 55 Norman 0. Brown, Life Against Death; The Psychologi cal Meaning of History (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), p. 132. ^^Durân, p. 147. 5 7 Jean Paulhan, preface (p. XXIV) of Story of O. In his autobiography, Elizondo says that at one time in his life he enjoyed "las imâgenes alegremente cruentas del Struwwelpeter." Nuevos escritores mexicanos del siglo XX presentados por sî mismos (México: Empresas Editoriales, 1971), p. 17. ^^Frankenstein was published in 1818. ^^Durân, p. 146. Death and Sensuality, p. 7. 104 IV. EL HIPOGEO SECRETO; THE WORD The epigraph to El Hipogeo Secreto says, in part, that "the world, mind, is was and will be writing its own wrunes for ever . . . * " (p. 8). The quotation, from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, is very apt in that it con tains the essence of a major facet of Elizondo's second novel. The work concerns the members of a secret society in search of the meaning of life. To discover this mean ing, they must reach a secret hypogeum where some sort of supreme being is "writing" them. Thus, the word is of basic importance because in E]^ Hipogeo Secreto "reality" exists by and for it. It will be noted that Elizondo's interest in the word, and its relationship to some kind of universal scheme, has also manifested itself in the works of other Spanish-American authors such as Jorge Luis Borges and Octavio Paz. We will then comment on perspec tive, a fascinating aspect since the novel is concerned, in part, with one Salvador Elizondo who is writing El Hipogeo Secreto. Lastly, some philosophical implications. concerning Ludwig Wittgenstein, will be discussed. In "Escritura," a selection from Libertad bajo palabra,^ Octavio Paz writes: 105 Cuando sobre el papel la pluma escribe, a cualquier hora solitaria,
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Salvador Elizondo has been rightfully described as "one of the most original men of letters writing in Spanish today." Born in Mexico City in 1932, he has spent a considerable amount of time abroad. He has studied art and film. In 1965, he produced a film entitled "Apocalypse 1900." Elizondo's literary output includes: "Poemas," two novels, "Farabeuf o la crónica de un instante" and "El Hipogeo Secreto," two collections of short stories, "Narda o el verano" and "El retrato de Zoe y otras mentiras," several collections of essays and numerous articles. The primary purpose of this dissertation is the study of Elizondo's two novels. Other facets of his literary production will be considered only tangentially. Specifically, in "Farabeuf," characterization, time and eroticism will be explored. In "El Hipogeo Secreto," I will look at structure and "the word." Lastly, language in both the novels, and to a limited extent his other works, will be covered.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Rees, Earl Larry
(author)
Core Title
The prose fiction of Salvador Elizondo
School
Graduate School
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
Spanish
Degree Conferral Date
1976-09
Tag
OAI-PMH Harvest
Advisor
Brower, Gary L. (
committee chair
), Farenga, Vincent (
committee member
), illegible (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC11256303
Unique identifier
UC11256303
Legacy Identifier
DP31607
Document Type
Dissertation