se acerca a su templo

LlBROS DE VERSION UAM-X MEXICO 1997 PP 279-297
The Dialogic Nature
of Colloquial Discourse
and Carnival in El rey
se acerca a su templo
Scott Hadley
Benemkrita UniversidadAut6noma de Pueblu, Mkxico
In the early sixties a generation of Mexican authors pioneered by Jos&,
Agustin and Gustavo Sainz, opened up new creative and experimental
possibilities for young writers intheir country. These writers received at
first either indifference or outright oppression from an imposing literary
elite and the status quo. Yet over the years more and more critical studies
on the Onda movement, as it was to be called, have been written from
both inside and outside of Mexico.
A close look at JosC, Agustin's work in particular reveals a rich variety of styles and an impressive plasticity of language due to the colloquial narrative voices of his novels and short stories. It is because of
these voices that a Bakhtinian analysis of his work is sparticularily pertinent. After a brief introduction to the significance of Onda literature in
Mexico, this paper will analyze JosB, Agustin's fourth novel, El rey se
acerca a su templo (1978), using the Russian formalist's theories on the
dialogic nature of colloquial narrative discourse and the problem of carnival to reveal some aspects of the experimental quality of the novel and
relate it to a universal literary tradition.
With the publication of JosB, Agustin's La tumba in 1964 and Gustavo
Sainz's Gazapo in 1965, a new rebellious youth culture was beginning
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to emerge in literature. In the case of Agustin's La tumba, the reader
finds Gabriel Guia, the adolescent narrator of the novel, pitted against
the unjust adult world. Like Holden Caulfield in Salinger's The Catcher
in the Rye, Gabriel comes from an upper middle class family and also
like Holden, the colloquial narrative voice is used to make the character
more real. Gabriel's sarcasm towards his adult superiors is a constant in
the novel. In one example he particularily dislikes his literature professor who accuses him of copying a story from Chekhov for a creative
writing assignment. Gabriel comically refers to him in one instance as a
'Trran Dragdn Bizco del Ku-Klux Klan".' These bitter and sardonic references punctuate his self marginalization from the adult world and provide a good portrait of the "generation gap" that was also forming in
Mexico. Perhaps the best definition of this narrative language was offered
by Parmanides Garcia Saldaiia another writer of the Onda generation:
Las palabras eran bombas de destellas multicolores entre el mundo blanco
y negro de la gente decente. Las palabras eran las bombas que predecian
una modificaci6n en el mod0 de la vida de nuestra pequeiia burguesia.
Las palabras profetizaban la resurreccidn de algunos chavos y chavas,
presuponian un cierto retorno a la sencillez. Las palabras eran una mentada
de madre y una patada en el culo a la respetable sociedad mexicana,
pacffica y pr6spera.. .2
Agustin's second novel, De pe@l (1966), follows the first novel's
lead to a lesser extent yet it is obviously structurally superior to the first
as John Brushwood noticed.' In his third novel, Se esth haciendo tarde
(jiml en laguna) (1973). the author has evolved into one of the representatives of the hippie movement of the later 1960's. This shocked attitude of the "pequefia burguesia," as Parmknides mentioned is represented
in the novel by Rafael's observation of Francine's language, one of the
characters Rafael meets as he is being thrust into the decadent drug world
of Acapulco:
' Jose, Agustin, LA rumba (Mexico City: Organizacidn Editorial, 1966)
12.
Parmenides Garcia Saldaiia En la ruta de la onda (Mexico City: Editorial Di6genes.
1974) 49.
' John Brushwood, La novela mexicana: (1967-1982)(Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo,
1985) 47.
Oy6 las dltimas palabras de Francine y se le revolvi6 el est6mago. ~ P o r
qu8 habla mi? iPor qu8 tanta vulgaridad? iPor qu8 tanta groseria agresividad y hablar de vergas y marnadas y culos y coger? Pens6 fugazrnente
que en ocasiones 81hablaba de culos-mamadas-vergas-cogery no le parecia
From the very beginning, the critics showed little interest in this type
of narration or even some contempt. Margo Glantz on an early occasion
referred to this nasrative discourse as a vicious jargon used by degenerate
p e ~ p l eIn
. ~ another instance, the same critic mentions the self destructive rebellious nature of the Onda generation and even goes as far as to
say that it is literature "que el adolescente escribe paraque el adolescente
lo lea."6 In a later study the best she does in talking about the language is
refemng to it as a photograph of the spoken word.7 Another critic who
falls into this category is Xorge del Carnpo. In his study entitled "La
narrativa joven de Mkxico," he goes no further than Glantz in defining
Onda literature as it relates to Agustin and other author^.^ Even Carlos
Monsiv is focuses on the rebellious image of the Onda generation but
adds how it is an imitation of the popular culture of the United States
that seems to lessen the innovative aspects of this break with traditional
It is because of these early studies, Jos, Agustin
molds of literatu~e.~
resents the classification of "literatura de la Onda."Io
' Jose, Agustin. Se estd haciendo tar&
(Fml en lagum) (Mexico City: Joaquin Mortiz,
1973) 63-64.
Margo Glantz ed, prologue, Onda y escritura en Mdxico: j6venes de 20 a 33 (Mexico
City: Siglo XXI.1971) 20.
Ibid., 9.
Margo Glantz. "La onda diez af~osdespub: jepitafio o revalorizaci6n?:' Repeticiones:
ensayos sobre la literatun mexicam (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1979) 119.
Xorge del Campo, "La narrativa joven de Mexico," Studies in Short Fiction 8.1
(1971): 183-185.
Carlos Monsiv&is. "La naturaleza de la onda." El ensayo hispanoamericano del
siglo xx. ed. John Skirius (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica. 1981) 394.
Even Jorge Ruffinelli. who describes some of the most obvious of the author's
experiments. finds no better term than to classify them as part of a general attitude
of being "irmverente." See Jorge Ruffinelli. "C6digo y lenguaje en Jose, Agustin:'
La palabra y el hombre 13 (1975): 60.
'O "...yo aqui en Mtxico me he mostrado siempre muy reacio al ttrmino 'literatura de
la onda'. Porque creo que aparte de que ha sido muy ma1 definido y no ha habido
todavia un estudio serio que lo defina. y ya son, no st. treinta, cuarenta criticos 10s
que manejan el concept0 sin preocuparse, lo dan por entendido y como lo dan por
'
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The situation later on, however, has happily changed. Especially during the 80's more serious work has been devoted to Onda literature in
general by a variety of critics from many countries."
In order to further contribute to this school of new critics, this paper will
now focus on a Bakhtinian analysis of the dialogic properties of doublevoiced discourse and carnival in Agustin's El rey se acerca a su templo.
Fist, it is important to mention that the very structure of the novel helps
to provide a stage for this dialogic encounter. The book is actually divided into two sections: "Luz interna" and "Luz externa." Each part is
structurally autonomous and arranged in such a way that both sides of
the book provide an identical front cover where each story begins. They
are paginated separately and meet in the middle so when the reader comes
to the end of one of the parts, he must flip over the book to the other
front cover and start the new story. No indication is given as to which is
to be read first because it really doesn't matter. Each part is centered
around a character: The drugged out hippie Ernesto in "Luz externa"
and his more conservative friend Salvador in "Luz interna." Both appear
to be as different as two people can be while they become the actors in
the great dialogue of the novel. Another structural factor that helps set
the stage for dialogue is the intertextual element of the I Ching: Book of
Changes. The Chinese philosophy of the opposites: En and Yang and
how they do not oppose yet complement each other was well studied by
entendido nadie lo define y el resultado es que todo el mundo est6 trabajando sobre
bases muy endebles y sumamente fr6giles .." From JosC, Agustin, "Jod, Agustin y
el lenguaje coloquial literario: una entrevista," ed. Scott Hadley Charqui 17.2 (1988):
77-78.
" See Elena Poniatowska. iAy vida, no me mereces! (Mexico City: Joaquin Mortiz,
1985) 198. for her resentment to easily classifying authors into overgenerailzed
categories. For a variety of excellent critical studies on Agustin's work in general
see June C.D. Carter and Donald L. Schmidt eds, Jose,Agustfn: On& and Beyond,
(Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1986). For an early article that seems to be more
serious than other studies of its time mentioned here, see John Brushwood,
4.14
"Tradici6n y rebeldia en las novelas de Jos6. Agustin," Et Caetera 2da. +a,
(1969): 7-18.
Mario Rojas.'? Returning to our specific treatment of the dialogic properties of carnival, Bakhtin in his book, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, argues that one of the most important aspects of the carnival world
is its kinship with Socratic dialogue which "developed from a folkcarnivalistic base and is thoroughly saturated with a carnival sense of
the ~ o r l d . " 'The
~ first characteristic to discuss is the dialogic nature
of truth in the Socratic dialogue. The dialogic approach is opposed to
any other approach to truth that may seem unilateral or ready made.
Truth must be discovered through interaction with others in this sense
(1 10). Another important characteristic for us here is that in Socratic
dialogue, the idea is organically combined in the person who turns out to
be the carrier of that idea. The testing of the idea is consequently also the
testing of the person who represents it. In this sense, the person becomes
what Bakhtin calls "the embryonic image of the idea" (111).As acomplement to this is something else that Bakhtin mentions about Socratic dialogue. The hero in these dialogues was "debased." He was brought down
to size and made human. All that was stilted about the hero was bumed
away without destroying the basic heroic core of his image (132). This
debasing of the hero and the destruction of ready made, unilateral truths
are especially achieved by the dialogic nature of the colloquial narrative
discourse in the first part of the book this paper which will analyze:
"Luz externa."
In order to explore how the colloquial discourse of the novel helps
foster a dialogic process that leads to parody and the debased hero, one
must take into consideration what the Russian formalists called skaz in
general and return to Bakhtin's book on Dostoevsky in particular. Skaz
is a Russian word with no English translation that refers to any narration
spoken in an oral or colloquial style. Boris Eikhenbaum was one of the
first to pioneer his theories of this concept as he talked about how the
living word of the oral narrator can be lost to eventually sound like a
* Mario Rojas. "The Reconciliation of Opposites in El rey se acerca a su templo,"
''
Josd, Agustfn: On& and Beyon4 eds. June C.D. Carter and Donald L. Schmidt
(Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1986) 78-90.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dosroevsky's Poetics, trans. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P. 1984) 109.(All other quotations and references are taken
from this edition and accompanied by parenthetical documentation in the text.)
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book.14 Eikhenbaum touched upon a very important point on how the
colloquial narrative represents the human instead of the written voice
but it is Bakhtin that argued that skaz provides a "dialogic" approach to
speech (192). A dialogic discourse is not present in impersonal language
but must exist as a representative of another person's utterance or, in
other words, of another person's semantic position. It must be embodied
in something to bring the dialogic relationship to life. In dialogic discourse two different voices collide. If the author uses a alternative semantic position besides his own for a narrator: then these two voices can
be felt: that of the author's and that of the narrator's. This relationship is
impossible if language is only used to direct itself towards its referential
object without any semantic position detected. A dialogic approach to
speech leads inevitably to what Bakhtin calls "double-voiced discourse."
Double-voiced discourse follows two directions. It is directed at its
referential object and also towards someone else's speech (185). This
type of discourse can also take place if the narrator is one of the characters, even if he temporarily takes on the role of narrator:
His importance to the author, after all, lies not only in his individual and
typical manner of thinking, experiencing, and speaking, but above all, in
his maMer of seeing and portraying; in this lies his direct function of
narrator replacing the author. (190).
Bakhtin carried this idea even further to explain that in skaz, there is
the tendency towards parody. This occurs if the other's voice clashes
with the original which leads to "vari-directional" voices that pull in
different directions (194). In parody the deliberate presence of someone
else's discourse must be particularly sharp and clearly marked (193).
The depth of parody for Bakhtin can also vary. One can parody superficial verbal forms or one can parody the very deepest principles working
in another's discourse (194).
To further our understanding of how colloquial language works in
skaz, and how it is double-voiced and vari-directional, it is necessary to
use some guidelines offered by two other theorist, Irwin R. Titunikls and
"
l5
Boris Eikhenbaum 'The Illusion of Skaz." trans. Martin C. Rice. Russian Literature Triquarterly 12 (1975): '733-235.
Irwin R. Titunik "The Roblem of Skaz (Critique and Theory):' Papers in Slavic
Philology 1 (1977) 276 -301. (All quotations and references are taken from this
edition and accompanied by parenthetical documentation in the text.)
Emil Volek.16Titunik talked specifically about skaz by making a distinction between two types of texts. The first text he called text "A" which is
the text of the author directed towards the reader. The other text he called
"P"which is the text uttered by the characters. Both of these texts are
clearly distinguished from one another by certain features. Skaz for
Titunik is what happens when a text "P" addresser is made narrator inside the work and introduced by some sort of reporting message (295).
This is precisely what happens when the text "P" character, Ernesto is
made narrator in the part of the book entitled "Luz externa." Volek, on
the other hand, examined how colloquial language was marked by constructing several oppositions contrasting colloquial language from other
forms of discourse. It is interesting to see how the two studies complement each other and are useful to make the distinctions needed to arrive
at something analogous to Bakhtin's parodistic skaz and double-voiced
discourse.
In "Luz externa," a third person nasrator sets the stage for Emesto's
long monologue directed towards his friend Salvador. The two men are
in Salvador's small apartment that is nothing more than a room on the
roof of a building. Salvador is a starving writer who is translating a book
on mathematics that doesn't really help to pay the bills. He is a mild
mannered person and, as was mentioned above, exactly the opposite
from his filend Ernesto who is taking about his failed relationship with
Maria and their adventures together. In fact, the important aspect to
mention about Ernesto's narration is not only its extremely colloquial
nature but it is that of someone who is under the influence of a powerful
hallucinogenic, LSD.
To begin the analysis, Titunik saw an "expressive participation" of the
addresser in text "P" that in text "A" is not detected (294). This also
corresponds with Titunik's semantic pole which consists of any value
judgements of a personal or idiosyncratic nature instead of the impersonal judgements found in text " A (295). In Volek's terms, this is the
opposition between "spontaneous vs. constructed" (63). Colloquial discourse emphasizes the speaker and his pwticular reactions in the discourse.
"
Emil Volek "Colloquial Language in Nanative Structure: Towards a Nomothetic
Typology of Styles and of Narrative Discourse." Dispositio 5-6.15-16 (1980-1981):
57-84.(All quotations and references are taken from this edition and accompanied
by parenthetical documentation in the text.)
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This creates a "dislocation" of the discourse that, as for Titunik, becomes subjective instead of objective. This is seen in how Bakhtin mentions that the discourse is double-voiced because it is aimed at a referential
object and at the speech itself. This is seen most strikingly in the typography. Emesto's spontaneous speech is heavily marked by just looking
at the layout of the page. Agustin plays freely with the margins and
spaces in order to illustrate the wanderings of a mind under the influence of drugs. In the following textual example, the reader can easily see
through Ernesto's boasting to notice quite the opposite of the purely
referential message:
Con claridad - - -- - - - -- - con huevos para entrarle al Acido- -a 10s
hongos - - -para que te des cuenta de
que---debes cambia- - - - Si cambias: te vuelves loco -- -- - h e es el pinche cambio -de la-sicodeliaoyes voces dentro de sf mismo - - Queno,carajo------mirame a
mi, ya tengo -- - - - - - -- - diez
-- - -afi0s --- - -desde que
-Y aquf estoy,
tomo- - - m i s aceitescada vez m6.s a tus 6rdenes. . . I 7
-
-
-
The erratic typography of the page, that is seen throughout this part of
the book, is an attempt of the author to take a stab at Ernesto and sabotage this self image that the narrator has of himself as a person who is
always in control. The last line is a pathetic attempt to rescue his subjective message after contradicting himself saying that the changes allowed
by drugs leads one to madness.
Titunik also noticed that text "A"is devoid of any dialectical deviations of colloquial speech that can be found in text "P" (295). In Volek's
hierarchy this is the distinction between authoritative v.s non-authorita"
Jose, Agustin, El rqv se acerca a su templo "Luz extema" (Mexico City: Editorial
Grijalbo 1978): 58. (All other quotations and references are taken from this edition
and accompanied by parenthetical documentation in the text.)
tive discourse. In the most extreme forms of both, non-authoritative can
become playful while authoritative can become serious or solemn (62).
This is clearly illustrated by Ernesto's ability for word play that works
within the norms of his colloquial language. All during his narration,
Emesto explains that he can't understand what went wrong between him
and Marfa because he gave the best that he had to offer and was always
very patient with her. He felt that the two were very close knit: "siempre
crei que ella era mi dama, mi ruca, mi tom, mi chava, mi nalga, mi
novilla, mi Aora, mi Aorsa, mi chamaca, mi mujer, mi espositasanta..."
(99). The referential image is one of a hurt Ernesto that can't believe that
they have broken up but the dialectical lexicon subverts this message
converting her into a sex object and, at times, dismembering her.
Another aspect of this playful use of language and his choice of words
brings about his actual insecurity about himself. He is the great Guru of
the psychodelic experience yet he womes about what other people think.
Going out in the street looking for a party, Ernesto imagines what people
must be saying about him: " ~ r a m o sla pura variedad de Insurgentes, y
todos nos veian con cara de ya-viste-esos-mugrosos-t6, ni-se-baiian, hande-traer-hasta-chicles-en-el-greiiero
(y-en-el-cerebro)" (34). He is always
jealous of an American named Robbie that Maria talks extensively with
at a party which he refers to as an "imperialismoquitaesposasyanqui"
(63). Even though the playful choice of words on Emesto's part adds
color and interest in the narration, it is still used to put the narrator in his
place by parodying the speech used by writers and people in this social
group. ls
Next, Titunik noted another characteristic of text "P" as attempts are
made in this type of text to check or resume contact with the addressee
which is not seen in text " A (294). Volek noticed something similar as
he examined the dialogic vs. monologic opposition. This can be viewed
as the semantic twists that go on between one speaker and another as the
monologic pole tends to abolish these differences by being a more impersonal use of language. Volek further stresses the relationship between
For more information on how On& texts tend toward self parody, see Margo Glantz
in her article. "La onda diez aiios despu6s" 118. For more information on how
parody works within Agustin's works on other levels outside of the Onda texts, see
Juan Bruce-Novoa's article "La Onda as Parody and Satire." JosC, Agustfn: Onda
and Beyond, (Columbia: U of Missouri P. 1986) 37-55.
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the addresser and the addressee and it is important for him to examine
what kind of attitude the addresser has taken toward the colloquial word
and how it is incorporated in a particular orientation toward the addressee
(78). Even though this is a narrated monologue, Emesto's true addressee is
not the reader but his friend Salvador. The text is filled with such phatic
comments of colloquial language to resume contact like "fijate" i"T6
crees?" "jno?", etc. However, there are also signs that Ernesto shows
deep insecurity about his narration. Ernesto, as was mentioned above,
considers himself as a profit, a spiritual guide. In one part of his narration he talks about how he kills with drugs the inferior person inside
someone so that the superior warrior can come out and experience an
awakening (27). However, as he was explaining how he tried to help
Maria control herself during a bad trip, he emphasized how he could
always control himself: "...s6 quedarme callado, acompaiiado por mi
mismo, me lo crees? Cr6emelo" (23). His insistence on being believed
perhaps reveals how the unseen and unheard Salvador is reacting disapprovingly to his friend.
An additional aspect that recreates the dialogic elements of the narration are the side comments in the margins that the author has inserted to
subvert and parody the narration as well. These side comments further
emphasize the vari-directional features of the discourse and give a powerful tool for the carnival debasing of the hero. They work much differently
than what was mentioned above because these comments represent what
is going on in Ernesto's mind, instead of what is being articulated to Salvador. The reader is the only one privileged to observe the inner dialogue
going on in silence, ye1 it tortures Ernesto relentlessly in the form of many
different voices.19 One example. is when he loses complete control over
himself at the party mentioned earlier when Robbie, who seemed unphased
by the amount of marijauna they had smoked, started to devote his attention to Maria. Ernesto has lost even his identity as a little voice inside him
asks: "iC6m0 te lbnws nerlr?" (66).The voices can be readily identified
as echoes from other people in the story as well. Another example is when
Emesto talks about Maria's fanatical religious conversion when she broke
l9
Mario Rojas mentions that these asides can be attributed to: "...the homodiegetic
narrator: to chaotic voices that emerge from his unconscious; to the narrataire; to
potential phrases by Salvador in reaction to Emesto's discourse; or they may simply come from voices that are not situationally identified." "Reconciliation" 81.
away from Emesto and his world of psychodelic drugs. As Emesto talks
about this. the reader hears Maria's voice mocking him by saying: "el
gran gur6, hablus poi- hublul: rro vus u sulir del injiemo" (97). Even the
religious statues that Masia buys mock Ernesto from his own nightmarish
subconscious: ";Juju! ;B u m m bclertas! ;Te esperdbamos! j Emesto! " (95).
The great guru has been decrowned and debased and sabotaged by his
own words now ringing inside his head. The truth behind the monologue
is brought about by the dialogic elements of vari-directional discourse.
What is brought before the reader is not some mystical being but a real
person no different from his fellow creatures. Bakhtin can offer us more
answers about Ernesto's colloquial narrative discourse in another chapter of his book on Dostoevsky as he talks about further aspects of the
carnivalization of language and how it has permeated into the life of
European culture in particular. Bakhtin traces back this phenomenon
of carnivalization to the Middle Ages in this way:
It could be said (with certain reservations of course), that a person of the
Middle Ages lived, as it were, mlo lives: one was the oficial life, monolithical, serious and gloomy, subjugated to a strict hierarchal order, full of
terror, dogmatism, reverence, and piety; the other was the life of the
cnrnivcrl syrmre, free and unrestricted, full of ambivalent laughter, blasphemy, the profanation of everything sacred. full of debasing and obscenities, familiar contact with everyone and everything. Both these lives
were legitimate, but separated by strict temporal boundaries. (129-130).
Emesto, obvicnsly, represents this carnivalized side. He is very blasphemous on various occasions as he tries to make himself look like the
prophet he aspires to be on his official side. The finalized version of
himself, as will be discussed in more detail later in a different part of the
novel with Salvador, is melting away before our eyes. According to his
theories mentioned above, he goes on to mention that in the drug world
one must die to be resurrected: "como Cristo el Viejo Maestro, que muri6
y resucit6, porque eso es un sfmbolo jno?'(27-28). Yet as was mentioned earlier, Emesto's jealousies and insecurities, which are all very
human reactions, are really what shine through in his discourse destroying the official dogmatic message. His language is what makes him more
human and shows that he is a creature full of emotions and feelings like
everyone else. His carnivalized language brings him into contact with
this weaker side that he tries so hard to deny.
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One, however, might argue that Ernesto is a marginalized being that
can't be representative of his fellow man. The bizarre typography and
the obscene language is not that of a normal person and the difficulty of
deciphering the text separates it from being representative of anything in
the real world. This position can certainly be defended, yet what is happening is that Ernesto's reactions are being "defamiliarized" by the author as Victor Shklovsky would put it. "Defamiliarization" for Shklovsky
was a way of presenting a clearer image of something through unfamiliar means. Shklovsky talks about how perception can become habitual
and thus, a~tomatic.~')
In this way, life is filled with too many commonplace experiences and things are taken for granted to the point that one
no longer sees them. Art, through the process of defarniliarization, recovers life's sensations for Shklovsky in the following way:
The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the
process of perception is an aesthetic end to itself and must be prolonged2'
All of the experiments of colloquial language are to prolong this pro-
cess for us. One can say that the typographical and the word play can
become tedious and difficult, especially for readers that are not from
Mexico City and Ernesto's cultural experience, but what they actually
accomplish is this very process of defarniliarization that helps the reader
recognize the carnivalized, unofficial side within all of us. Ernesto's
quality as a narrator is to bring us back to behavioral phenomena that
governs human beings but made automatic by our day to day experiences as the author explained in an interview:
Yo pienso que la literatura a1 margen de todas las definiciones que se le
puedan dar, contiene un elemento que es su condici6n de experiencia.
Para mi leer un libro significa, a1 margen de todo, una experiencia y sale
uno de un libro m8s experimentado como si uno hubiera vivido mAs,
como si de pronto uno hubiera vivido una etapa importante de la ~ i d a . ~ ~
20
2'
22
Victor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique," Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays,
trans, and eds. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P. 1975)
11.
Ibid., 12.
Agustin "lenguaje coloquial" 76.
So, it would appear that the real issue at hand is that while Agustin is
revealing Ernesto to us from behind his back, he is also doing something
similar to the reader. The reader also falls victim to the same defense
mechanisms that Ernesto uses and recognizes in himself this carnivalized
side that Ernesto reveals. This act of discovery would fail to be carried
out if it weren't for the dialogic elements of colloquial speech and it is
precisely this dialogic, parodistic image of Ernesto that most of the critics mentioned above, fail to see when they denounce the book and Onda
literature in general. This is Emesto's true heroic character as the embryonic image of this suppressed carnivalized side that he is forced by
the author to convey. Ernesto, has now finished with the reader and as
the two parts collide in the middle of the book, the reader must witness
how the carnivalized world will help Salvador break down his self image and discover new things as well.
After turning the book over and starting anew, the reader enters Salvador's
oneiric wanderings into the carnival world in the part of the book, "Luz
interna." Salvador (an ironic name for another debased hero) is the more
conventional character of the two, as was mentioned above, and he considers himself an intellectual that translates books which also provides
him with defense mechanisms to protect himself in much the same way
Ernesto does. This monologic view of himself is heightened by his comments made towards Raquel, a woman much younger than Salvador
whom he believes to be very inexperienced and childlike. At the beginning of "Luz interna," they are talking about Ernesto who has been spending the last six months in prison since his narration in "Luz externa."
She can't believe what Salvador is telling her about how Maria lost her
religious fanaticism that she underwent, in "Luz externa" Salvador mocks
her enthusiasm about this piece of gossip in the following way:
A Raquelita le encanta oir Cosas Tremendas, pues esta Avida-de-aprendery-de-ver-la-vida. y en todo el cuerpo de Raquelita d i g 0 esto porque se
le nota- ocurre un homigueo de excitaci6n. como en el niiiito que
encuentra jun boleto de troleb6s! (14-15).
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It is Raquel, however, that is to lead Salvador into the carnival world
and towards a breakdown of his sense of self that will lead to the great
dialogic search for truth at the end of the book with Ernesto. In order to
analyze this carnival world, one must take up again Bakhtin's book on
Dostoevsky for a closer look.
Socratic dialogue, as was seen previously, is an important element in
carnival but there is also another literary genre that provides an important catalyst for the problem of carnival: Menippean satire. Bakhtin
mentions that an important element in the menippea is the "moral-psychological experimentation" thal goes on in it (1 16). This includes any
kind of abnormal moral w d psychological states that break down the
finalized quality of a inan to see other possibilities and other sides of
himself. In this sense, as was seen before, he loses his one sided view to
discover other facets which is characteristic of the dialogic relationship
with one's self (116- 117). There can also be found in the menippea the
use of "scandal scenes" or any sort of violation of societal norms (117).
Another important aspect of the menippea is what Bakhtin calls "slum
naturalism" (115).This implies that the way to discover truth can be done
in any number of places such as prisons. marketplaces, city sh-eets, etc.
To summarize, the carnival sense of the world unifies these chxacteristics by being life "drawn out of its usual rut" where all sorts of violations
of normal behavior can take place ( 126). Perhaps the "slum naturalism"
and eccentric behaviour is instrumental in bringing people together that
otherwise would be apart. Distances between two apparent opposites
have been reduced into what Bakhtin called curr~ivalisticmasalliances
which can be observed in the menippea in its representation of Olympus
with its free contacts and contrasting pairs (133). This is also important
in Socratic dialogue as it presumes the elimination of all differences
between people that enter into the dialogue (132).
In "Luz interna," Salvador's unwillingness to enter a dialogue is first
shown when he openly censures Raquel's suggestion to visit Ernesto in
prison because he was sure that all Ernesto would do is unload his resentments on him and, ironically, assault him with his monologic view
of the world: ..."no queria comunicarse de igual a igual sino que buscaba
catequizarme, hablar, hablar, masturbarse mentalmente, consentirse,
consecuentarse" ("1,uz interna," 19).His basic intolerance for other people
helps paint the picture of a world that he is comfortable in and there is
obviously no room in it for neither Ernesto nor Raquel.
However this world of self confidence is to be shattered shortly after
Salvador finally decides to see Esnesto at the prison. The visit is a failure because Salvador arrives too late to see Ernesto and also, his arrival
was untimely because Ernesto and Raquel were in the process of making love leading us to the first "scandal scene."
After they leave the prison. Salvador accompanies Raquel back to her
house where most of the action of this half of the novel takes place. It is
in this location, that Bakhtin would have called the "carnival square,"
(128) where the curnivalisric masalliances of the novel between the
unlikely pair of Salvador and the younger and more affluent Raquel confront Raquel's molher and her young lover known as licenciado Paco.
Raquel is uncomfortable with &co's presence so she and Salvador
retreat to the garden where she tells him about her deceased religious
father and how she saw him trying to cover up some self inflicted wounds
on his back with a bathrobe. The wounds were supposedly a manifestation of the Lord's gloly and God's power and his father swore her to
secrecy about it ( 5 9 ) .This has left a lasting impression on Raquel since
that time.
Raquel and Salvador are unexpectedly involved in another "scandal
scene" when, as they retreat inside from the oncoming rain, they surprise Raquel's mother making love to Paco. With a hysterical Raquel
and an equally upset mother, Salvador feels his superficial self beginning to break down and his inner self for the first time starting to come
out as he tries to comfort her:
Yo la ahrazaba con ttda la humedad Ma de mi cuerpo, mientras mi mente
caia en un estado crepuscular, en el que se fundfan varias emociones
intensas, incalificables, que crecian desde la base de mi columna vertebral
hasta anidarse en la geanta, ganas de llorar tarnbikn, i y a mi edad! (66).
Yet he still needs to be further immersed into the carnival world by
something even more bizane. After taking a bath together at her request,
he is forced to wear her father's robe as his clothes are drying from the
rain. This becomes symbolic of another carnivalistic masalliance as a
bizatre pairing of the sacred and the profane. The portrait of her father
looms over everything in the house and even in the mind of Salvador
earlier when they first heard the noises of Raquel's mother making love
with the young lawyer. The robe symbolically envelopes him into the
carnival world and he is now hopelessly captured in an insane reality
that "tums life inside out" quoting Bakhtin (122). This strange reality leads
him to certain conclusions about another self from within him:
Dejt que fluyerd en mi la inconexi6n de mis pensarnientos y algunas
imkgenes oscuras que surgieron de un extremo de mi cabeza, como si
abriesen una puerta y se asomaran, y luego recomesen la oscuridad antes de perderse en el extremo, como si fueran sombras, o mejor. formas
intangibles pero reales que deambulaban en mi interior con autonomia
total, porque yo, yo, o lo que dentro de mi era yo, las estaba viendo
pasar, y por tanto esas formas no eran yo; habitaban denuo de mi, que
era distinto. (77).
He has lost his finalized version of himself in this "moral-psychological experimentation" and his monologic view of the world is beginning
to lose strength. He is now in the process of what Bakhtin would call an
intense and "active dialogic approach to one's own self' (120).
He is now becoming ready for his final dialogue with his old friend
from which he has drifted apart. He begins to realize that they are not
that much different in the aspect that Salvador is just as much a prisoner
outside as Ernesto is inside (78). The similarities between the two become even more apparent on different levels of the two texts. As Salvador plunges into this sequence of self awareness, the oneiric sensorial
perceptions he perceives differ very little from what Emesto describes
to us in "Luz externa" as he is hopelessly under the control of
hallucinagenic~.~~
Both men have feelings ranging from burning from
within, to irrational sensations of freezing, loosing their minds and total
darkness. It even reaches such an extreme that their words tend to echo
each other. Especially in the respect that Ernesto, as well, falls into a
recognition of the breakdown of his sense of self: "Mis pensamientos no
soy yo." ("Luz externa" 67). The similarity of Salvador's dream and
Emesto's trip cannot be accidental because the two men are undergoing
the same process being stripped of their differences by the playful psychological workings of carnival.
The final confrontation between Salvador and Emesto occurs when
he visits him for the second time at the prison. The scene is very reveal23
For more on the importance of dreams in the work for the purpose of self discovery, see Mario Rojas "Reconciliation" 83.
ing as the two friends argue about their identity in the world. This is
where Ernesto has the opportunity to surprise us with his unexpectedly
sharp observations that further echo Salvador's own words: "Mira buey,
tti estL m h preso afuera que yo adentro" (98). It becomes an open
battle, like any good Socratic dialogue should, about what "Laverdadera
Realidad" is. At the beginning of "Luz interna," as was mentioned, Salvador strongly doubts that Ernesto could have a hold on the "True Reality" because he was unwilling to communicate with others. Now this is
no longer the case as they both begin to discover how far from "La
Verdadera Realidad" they are and they both reveal to each other their
hypocritical nature. Salvador accuses Ernesto of being a pseudo hippie
and Ernesto accuses Salvador for neither being a good saint nor a sinner
yet somewhere in between.
This dialogue, in short, exhibits what Bakhtin referred to as the
carnivalization of the philosophic core of the menippea. Carnivalization,
for Bakhtin, brought the posing of philosophic questions out of the plane
of the abstract into the "concretely sensuous plane of images" (134). It
is here that the truth about themselves is discovered in their own dialogic process and in their own words. They first have to be believable as
characters, brought down to Earth, before anything happens between
them can be made believable as well.
The last chapter of "Luz interna." which bears the same title as the
novel itself, represents the typical happy ending. Salvador is now more
united with his fellow creatures: "Pero al mismo tiempo sentfa un gran
aprecio hacia todos 10s que veia, me agradaba ver sus rostros, y me hacia
sonreir el pensar que eran felices y no lo sabian" (1 15). This new perspective on life is interesting because, once again, it echoes what Ernesto
said in "Luz externa" about how happy people are without knowing it as
he explains that people should wake up and see what is inside of them
("Luz externa," 27). Raquel now looses her girlish appearence to make
passionate love with Salvador that concludes this part of the novel.
Only one question still remains: what happens when the reader picks
up "Luz interna" first? Is this slow dialogic process seen any differently? This is doubtful. Although chronologically, "Luz externa" takes
place before "Luz interna," they are completely independent pieces of
fiction that have been rewritten and published separately since the novel's
release.= It is only in their special relationship together that the two
" JosB, Agustin, Luz interna (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 1989) and Luz e x t e m
(Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 1990). "Luz externa" first appeared in a different
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books take on a new context. Whether the reader hears from Salvador or
Ernesto f i s t it doesn't matter. The two parts of the book meet as the
characters do yet they maintain there sense of autonomy. The two discourses seem to echo and compliment each other yet they maintain there
own distinct style and individuality. The order in which that happens is
inconsequential and a matter of chance. The E n and the Yang, one must
remember, are opposites yet they must work together without imposing
one side over the other. One must also have to remember that the I Ching
deemed pure chance an impostant factor in interpreting nature while the
wiseman threw his coins or counted his sticks.
As mentioned earlier, Jos6. Agustin has been labeled as part of a literary movement that, at it's inception, was censured for its rebellious and
crude nature. It is a literary movement that tried to challenge the cultural
status quo of Mexico and earned very superficial critical treatment in
return. However, the development of the novel can be traced along with
the development of the dialogue between the author and his critics.
Agustin, with El rev se acerca a su renaplo, used dialogic discourse to
parody the more dogmatic elements of his generation and yet it is a book
of encounters: with one's self and with others. However, it is also an
extratextual encounter between these rebellious authors and the recent
scholarly critical attention that they began to receive. The dialogic process inside the book is only a reflection of what is going on outside of it.
It is for this reason that JosC, Agustin obeys higher laws than the ones
that dictate the ephemeral world of customs and fads. His use of discourse responded to a literature in crisis looking for something new. It is
not to be misunderstood that Agustin intentionally tried to make his novel
a carnivalized one. He is simply answering to a medium. to a genre that
has permeated Occidental culture for centuries. He is part of an artistic
dialectic and only obeying it's paradigm.
This is no more or less a nobler task than the one Cervantes undertook
to parody the novels of chivalry or, staying within the Spanish tradition,
Juan Ruiz who took the mester de clerecia to new ironic heights. There
are so many more in their company such as the picaresque novels,
Rabelais, Lawrence Steine and, of course, Dostoevsky.
form as a short story in Agustin's collection La rnirada en el centm (Mexico City:
Joaqufn Mortiz, 1977).
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Ruffinelli,Jorge. "Cbdigo y lenguaje en Jose Agustin". Lapalabra y el hombre
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