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Kentucky Foreign Language Quarterly

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The Mexican Detective Story

a
Donald A. Yates
a
Michigan State University , USA
Published online: 09 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Donald A. Yates (1961) The Mexican Detective Story, Kentucky Foreign Language Quarterly, 8:1,
42-47, DOI: 10.1080/00230332.1961.9926277

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 THE MEXICAN DETECTIVE STORY

By Donald A . Yates, Michigan State University

While i n Mexico City in the summer of 1958 I talked with four peogflle who,
grouped together, could be designated as the soul and the conscience of the Mex-
ican detective story. These individuals, all w r i t e r s , a r e : Enrique F. Gual,
widely known in the capital a s an art c r i t i c ; Antonio Held, Mexico's f i r s t author
of detective s t o r i e s and f o r nearly fifteen y e a r s editor of the only Mexican m a g a r '
zine devoted exclusively t o the g6nero policial; M a r l a Elvira Bermddez, a lawyer
in the Mexican Supreme Court and the most prolific woman w r i t e r of detective
fiction in the Spanish language; and the late Alfonso Reyes, writer, historian,
humanitarian, and a great aficionado of -tKe ' h t e c t i v k s t o r y .

To a world opposed t o the mention of "detective fiction" in the s a m e breath

as "literature, I ' all of these w r i t e r s have contributed essays and articles which
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undertake t o d.emonstrate the significance, the value--indeed the unique structur-

al beauty--of the detective genre.

In an essay composed in 1944, Alfonso Reyes wrote: "iInter6s de la f f i u l a

y coherencia en la accibn! Pues, &gut! mbs exigfa Arist6teles? La novelapolicial
e s el ggnero c l i s i c o de nuestro tiempo. High praise indeed f o r one of the most
maligned of contemporary fictional f o r m s ; interesting, too, that this accolade
should be voiced in a country where cultivation of restrictive fictional forms has
been traditionally infrequent. Standing in support of Reyes' statement a r e the
following facte: There exists what could be called a national, Mexican detective
story; it h a s existed for nearly two decades, and furthermore--despite a certain
national suspicion of, and disrespect f o r , the retributive functions of the law in
general, and the figure of the policeman in particular--the genre has enjoyed a
notable degree of cultivation and a modest amount of popular success. It has
been up t o thi:s time, moreover, a little-noted facet of the present-day Mexican
l i t e r a r y scene:. Certainly a prose f o r m that has attracted and engaged the talents
of Reyes, of Rafael Solana, Juan Bustillo Oro, Rodolfo Usigli, Xavikr. V i l l a n r r n t i a
and other prominent Mexican l i t e r a r y figures would s e e m t o deserve something
less than a total critical silence.

It was also Alfonso Reyes who designated the gdnero policial as, f i r s t , "lo
que
- mds s e lee en naestros dfas, I ' and secondly, Itel llnico g6nero n u e v o .

natural, en el pasado. I '

5
aparecido en nuestros d as, aun cuando sus antecedentes se pierden, como e s
But this, of course, r e f e r s generally t o the universal
detective story, the international detective story.

Interesting, however, and perhaps paradoxical (in a fashion that would

have charmed Chesterton himself), is the fact that this unique genre, the most
 -43-

1 igid and limiting of all fictional f o r m s in its requirements, has often proved to
1,e capable of reflecting in a number of ways the peculiar outlook of a given
c ountry and the attitudes of its people before the l a w . This is precisely what is
c emunstrated in the case of the Mexican detective story. Writing on the individ-
i a1 attitude of the Mexican toward the detective story, M a r f a ElviraBermddez,
-
i n the incisive prologue to her anthology, Los mejores cuentos pol’iisi a1 e s . .
-
I oexicanos, states:

E n 10s palses en que nacid como gdnero descentralizado, la

literatura policiaca continda siendo objeto de amoroso
cultivo. A su florecimiento patente coadyuvan otros factores:
existencia de grandes urbes (Londres, Nueva York, San
Francisco) en l a s que s e finca el mito modern0 segdn la
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teorfa de Roger de Caillois, complicado material y eficientes

equipos de investigacidn policiaca. En E s p f i y en 10s pafses
hispanoamericanos e l acervo l i t e r a r i o detectivesco e s muy
raqultico en virtud, precisamente, de la ausencia de esas
circunstancias. P e r o , a mi parecer, la subestimacidn del
e s c r i t o r latino, y en particular, del mexicano, hacia el
terna policiaco, tiene causas mucho m4s profundas: e l ingleSs
y el estadounidense tienen p a r a la ley un respeto y una
confianza que, Sean o no espontgneos y sinceros, m a r c a n
siempre su fisonomfa colectiva. Cuando son vfctimas de un
atropello, acuden a la autoridad p dejan a su cargo la
reparacidn del dago el castigo del delincuente. E l latino,
e l hiepano-americano y sobre todos, el mexicano, s e
dietinguen por un escepticismo sin recato hacia el poder de
la jueticia abstracta y por un desddn amargo hacia laactuacidn
de 10s depositarios de la justicia concreta. Para e l mexicano,
revancha es sindnimo de justicia; y la revancha ~ 6 1 0 de sf
mismo puede dimanar y convertfrse en acto. P o r ese motivo,
e e 61 en persona quien venga 10s agravios que le han sido
inferidos; y tambidn por e s a causa, l e tiene s i n cuidado la
pereecucidn de la justicia. Si e s pobre, huye de ella, per0
no e e molesta en fraguar coartadas ni s e preocupa de b o r r a r
BUS r a s t r o s ; si e s rico, trata de comprarla; en todo caso,
se atiene a las consecuencias de s u s actos, remedando el
estoico fatalism0 de SUB antepasados. 3

These comments suggest a specific cultural background f o r the cultivation

c f the ggnero policial in Mexico. SeFiora Bermddez proceeds t o comment as fol-
1 3 on~the ~apparent reasons for the relatively s p a r s e cultivation of the detec-
t .ve.story i n h e r country.

Sin contar con 10s elementos de fondo (aplicacidn de un

 -44-

priiicipio de justicia) y de construccidn (coartada) que la

integran, e s imposible hacer literatura policiaca. E s
natural pues que si esos elementos son ex6ticos y esporddicos
en iiuestro ambiente, 10s e s c r i t o r e s mexicanos no s e sientan
atrafdos por el t e m a detectivesco.

La intensidad y frecuencia de una forma l i t e r a r i a

constituyen generalmente la expresidn mejor de un pueblo.
Son las vivencias colectivas las que configuran las especies
l i t e r a r i a s y no a1 contrario. Es por esto que en nuestra
literatura predomina el tono subjetivo y sombrfo, reflejo
exacto del sentimentalism0 t r i s t e que parece caracterizarnos.
E s diffcil, por lo demss, que una especie l i t e r a r i a marcada
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con signos objetivos, razonadores y frfos, cunda entre literatos

que suelen volcar en su obra s u s propias y privativas experiencias.4

In view of these observations it i s remarkable that under such apparently

adverse conditions the native detective story should still manifest itself. But
manifest itse1:f it has. In books and in magazines, in the movies and on the stage,
even in the writings of l i t e r a r y critics the genre has made its presence known.

The briefest historical sketch of the Mexican detective story would perforce
consider the following works:

Item: The detective short s t o r i e s of Antonio Held which f i r s t began appear-

ing in 1926, and i n which the author's charming rogue-hero M&imo Rolddn
(Rolddn being an anagram of ladr6n--thus "Mdximo Ladrbn'l) stars. The best of
Held's tales w e r e gathered in -La obligacidn de asesinar (1947) which c a r r i e d a
sympathetic introduction by X z i e r V i l l a u r r z a . This volume of short stories,
now r a r e in the first edition, figures as number 102 in Ellery Queen's list of the
106 most important books of detective fiction in the history of the genre, and has
sold i n its ori,ginal three-peso f o r m for up to ten dollars in the United States.

Item: The play, "El c r i m e n de Insurgentes," by Held and Adolfo FernSndez

Bustamente, published by the Sociedad General de Autores de Mdxico following
its premikre on the Mexican stage in August of 1935.

Item: The evangelistic work of Alfonso Reyes who, in addition to his

critical commentaries on the gdnero policial, gave perhaps the single greatest
foreign stimulus to the m o r e active and prolific Argentine authors of detective
fiction (Borgee, Bioy Casares, Silvina Ocampo, Peyrou, Castelloni, and others)
with his exce1:lenk translation of G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who W a s Thursday.
I -I 7--*

Item: Rafael Solana's -

E l crimen --
de t r e s bandas, published in 1948.
 -45-

Item: The four detective novels by Enrique F. Gual published between

1?45 and 1948, three of which a r e attractively and effectively laid against Mexican
t: ackgrounds.

Item: Rodolfo Usigli's striking novelistic blend of sociology, psychology,

--
and crime, Ensayo de un crimen.

--
Item: The contributions of Rafael Bernals Un muerto en la tumba and T r e s
n ovelas paliciacas,
_I-

which feature archaeologist-detective Don Te6dulo Batanes.

-
Item: The humorous tales of Pepe Martfnez de la Vega, Humorismo en -
-
camiseta and - ---
Las aventuras de P e t e r Perez, which include several parodies of
t'ie traditional detective story. Certainly not t o be overlooked is the most ambi-
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t ous (and the longest) of Mexican detective novels--Licenciada M a r l a Elvira

-- la muerte (1947). The publication of this
E ermbdez's Diferentes razones tiene
book w a s entirely subsidized by a fellow-lawyer and friend of the author who has
1tmg been an aficionado of the detective story. Also i n the field of the novel is
h largo de Villanueva's police story, c 22-horas.

Mention should also be made of the other activities in the realm of the de-
t xtive short story. Antonio Held's Selecciones policiacas -
q - misterio, which
y de
began in 1946 as the Spanish language version of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
and later became a n independent publication, has continued publication up t o the
present day. It has always kept its editorial door open t o the Spanish-language
dstective story original and t o date has published a total of thirty detective short
8 iories by Mexican authors.

The Mexican publishing f i r m Editorial Novaro-Mdxico started in 1956 a

n 3w magazine, entitled Aventura y misterio, which was-devoted exclusively t o
t l ~ edetective genre. It r a n monthly contests f o r the best original Spanish-lan-
g mge detective short s t o r i e s which attracted a few promising c r i m e fiction w r i t -
e rs, but, for lack of public support, it ceased publication with i t s fourteenth
it s u e .

In the field of criticism, aside from the essays already cited, there should
b 3 noted the scholarly piece entitled "Acerca de la literatura policial, I ' by Carlos
-
,k.onsivais, which appeared i n Medio Siglo i n 1956.

W h a t are the characteristics of this literature? What a r e the features

tl at link it to the previously existing detective story, and w h a t a r e those that set
it apart f r o m the deteative story as cultivated i n the Anglo-Saxon countries and
i x its Spanish-language headquarters, Buenos Aires? With reference to t h e f i r s t
0: these m a t t e r s M a r l a Elvira Bermddez has correctly pointed out the workings
o: foreign (principally European) influences. She writes:
Err precis0 tomar en consideracidn la influencia de la lectura
 -46-

en e l que escribe. A este influjo s e deben, sin duda, las

producciones mexicanas del gCnero policiaco. D e ello hay
pruebas en nuestra literatura policiaca: M&ximo RoldBn,
e l M r o e de las novelas y cuentos de Antonio Held, es un
digno sucesor del Arsdnio Lupin; tanto el personaje mexicano
conio el francds poseen rasgQs f i r m e s de audacia y astucia
que infaliblemente 10s ponen a cubierto de toda sancibn, y
en jmbos s e concreta la tendencia, tan latina, a menospreciar
10s principios y 10s procedimientos penales. Don Te6dulo
Batanes, e l protagonista de la obra policiaca de Rafael Bernal,
es, como el Padre Brown de Chesterton, e l infalible -
instrumento con que la divina providencia castiga a 10s
dellncuentes. Como buen mexicano adherido a1 catolicismo,
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por lo menos en teorfa, don Tebdulo prefiere a1 concept0

de UM justicia abstracta, 10s dictados vengadores de la
divinidad. P e t e r Pdrez, el “genial detective de Peralvillo, ‘I
personaje creado por Pepe M a r t h e z de la Vega, es sagaz
y generoso, descubre siempre a 10s criminales, per0 su
act~1aci6ne s ante todo una caricatura neta de las tecnicas
policiaco-literarias tradicionales. A travgs del humorismo
poplilachero de P e t e r P6rez s e trasparenta e s e desddn tan
mexicano hacia todo lo que signifique precisi6n, nimiedad,
rutina. 5

W i t h respect to Seffora Bermddez’s remarks on Antonio Held, I should like

t o add the following observation. After having talked at length with Held, it is
my feeling that his choice of a picaresque hero is not so much the result of his
having been exposed t o a somewhat anti-legal national environment, but stems
r a t h e r f r o m a personal reaction to the hackneyed, overworked resources of the
traditional detective tale. A s for Bernal‘s detective Don Te6dul0, he may allow
a general comparison with Chesterton’s padre, but Bernal’s s t o r i e s notably lack
the substance of the Englishman’s philosophically--and sometimes metaphys-
ically--oriented pkose:. The P e t e r P d r e z stories constitute virtually the only
examples of the parody and s a t i r e that a r e s o characteristic of the detectivefictioi
produced by the Argentines. The Mexican parodies actually approach burlesque
and a r e therefore not so subtle as the comparable Argentine fiction (for example,
the I s i d r o Parodi s t o r i e s by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares).

In -
Sezora
- Bermddez’s own s t o r i e s the influence of the American Ellery
Queen is apparent, although, characteristically, her tales involving the Philo
Vance-like Armando H . Zozaya are m o r e human than mechanical and m o r e often
than not engage Mexican people rather than two-dimensional slaves of the plot.

In contrast with the Argentines who, in the late forties and early fifties,
went through ZL period when the evocation of a foreign, exotic setting w a s nearly
 -47-

a n indispensable requirement of detective fiction, these Mexican w r i t e r s , almost

v 4thout exception, have laid their adventures against Mexican backgrounds. Here
i s an interesting case where national pride has overcome the standard commercial
1emands for producing pseudo-Anglo-Saxon mystery fiction.

It must be observed, of course, that since the detective genre in Mexico is

a thoroughly imported one, in no way providing a natural means of expression f o r
B fexican w r i t e r s , w e have yet another explanation of the relatively slight degree
c E popularity of Mexican detective fiction. (A number of the titles which I have
-
rientioned above were remaindering f o r one peso a copy i n the summer of 1958.)
I ia the native reality, t o be sure, that has constantly been the great theme of
contemporary Mexican fiction.
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This almost compulsive commitment to realism and naturalism on the part

cf a l a r g e number of contemporary Mexican writers w a s something that A l f o m o
Ir eyes deplored. He told m e this one afternoon as we discussed the detective story.
'Ihe great humanist w a s perhaps impatient with his compatriots. He lamented the
f ict that there w a s not m o r e Mexican detective fiction. He felt that writing t o its
B tandards and limitations would have proved an excellent discipline f o r many
Ir[exican authors. In the last moments of our meeting he confessed that he hadonce
H ritten a detective story, and that it w a s his hope to work on i t a bit m o r e and

have it published before his death. (He spoke often that a f t e r m a b o u t death and
i s fearful proximity. ) I did not s e e him after that. Perhapathestory willbe found -.
among his papers. It would be a fine thing t o have it published some day, for it
u auld unquestionably add to the status of the genre i n Mexico.

Finally, we might point out one other factor which suggests that the Mexican
d2tective story may indeed have w h a t is commonly referred t o as Ira promising
fi iture. I ' It is this. The lawyer who a dozen y e a r s ago underwrote the publication
c m t of Marfa Elvira Bermbdez's detective novel has persevered (as all good
n tystery fans do)and has within the past few years been recognized--in a way,
a h i t t e d l y , that few aficionados a r e . His name is Adolfo Ldpez Mateoe. He is
t l rday President of Mexico.
- --
:Viva Mgxico! i Viva el gknero policial!

NOTES
:1. Alfonao Reyes, "Sobre la novela policial, - --
Los trabajos 10s dias ,(M6xico:
Ediciones Occidente, 1945), p. 317. 2. Ibid., p. 313.
-
3 . Marfa Elvira Bermddez, editor, Los m.ejores cuentos policiales-mexicanos
(M6xico: Biblioteca Mfnima Mexicana, 1955), pp. 14-15.
4 . mid., pp. 15-16. 5. Ibid.,, pp. 16-17.

A paper presented at the

Thirteenth University of Kentucky
Foreign .Language' Cxhf-tzrenice
University of Kentucky
1960