Body of Writing : Figuring Desire in Spanish American Literature

Body of Writing focuses on the traces that an author’s “body” leaves on a work of fiction. Drawing on the work of six important Spanish American writers of the twentieth century, René Prieto examines narratives that reflect—in differing yet ultimately complementary ways—the imprint of the author’s body, thereby disclosing insights about power, aggression, transgression, and eroticism. Healthy, invalid, lustful, and confined bodies—as portrayed by Julio Cortázar, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Gabriel García Márquez, Severo Sarduy, Rosario Castellanos, and Tununa Mercado—become evidence for Roland Barthes’s contention that works of fiction are “anagrams of the body.” Claiming that an author’s intentions can be uncovered by analyzing “the topography of a text,” Prieto pays particular attention not to the actions or plots of these writers’ fiction but rather to their settings and characterizations. In the belief that bodily traces left on the page reveal the motivating force behind a writer’s creative act, he explores such fictional themes as camouflage, deterioration, defilement, entrapment, and subordination. Along the way, Prieto reaches unexpected conclusions regarding topics that include the relationship of the female body to power, male and female transgressive impulses, and the connection between aggression, the idealization of women, and anal eroticism in men. This study of how authors’ longings and fears become embodied in literature will interest students and scholars of literary and psychoanalytic criticism, gender studies, and twentieth-century and Latin American literature. Body of Writing focuses on the traces that an author's "body" leaves on a work of fiction. Drawing on the work of six important Spanish American writers of the twentieth century, Rene Prieto examines narratives that reflect -- in differing yet ultimately complementary ways -- the imprint of the author's body, thereby disclosing insights about power, aggression, transgression, and eroticism.Healthy, invalid, lustful, and confined bodies -- as portrayed by Julio Cortazar, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Severo Sarduy, Rosario Castellanos, and Tununa Mercado -- become evidence for Roland Barthes's contention that works of fiction are "anagrams of the body". Claiming that an author's intentions can be uncovered by analyzing "the topography of a text", Prieto pays particular attention not to the actions or plots of these writers' fiction but rather to their settings and characterizations. In the belief that bodily traces left on the page reveal the motivating force behind a writer's creative act, he explores such fictional themes as camouflage, deterioration, defilement, entrapment, and subordination. Along the way, Prieto reaches unexpected conclusions regarding topics that include the relationship of the female body to power, male and female transgressive impulses, and the connection between aggression, the idealization of women, and anal eroticism in men.This study of how authors' longings and fears become embodied in literature will interest students and scholars of literary and psychoanalytic criticism, gender studies, and twentieth-century and Latin American literature. Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1 Julio Cortázar’s perpetual exile......Page 30 2 More than meets the I: Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s......Page 88 3 The excremental vision of Gabriel García Márquez......Page 114 4 The degraded body in the work of Severo Sarduy......Page 148 5 Rewriting the body: renewal through language in the work of Rosario Castellanos......Page 186 6 The body of pleasure in Tununa Mercado’s......Page 226 Conclusion......Page 253 Notes......Page 268 Bibliography......Page 288 B......Page 298 C......Page 299 E......Page 300 F......Page 301 I......Page 302 L......Page 303 N......Page 304 P......Page 305 S......Page 306 V......Page 307 W......Page 308 A psychoanalytic exploration through a series of reading of Latin American fiction of Roland Barthes' contention that literary texts have human form and are always an anagram of our erotic body