Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States

Innovation in Mexican Fiction and Politics (1910-1934)

Author(s): John S. Brushwood
Source: Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 69-88
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the University of California Institute for
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 Innovation in Mexican Fiction and Politics*
(1910-1934)

John S. Brushwood
University of Kansas

Las innovaciones (tematicas y tecnicas) en la narrativa mexicana, presa-

gian los cambios politicos desde la Revoluci6n hasta la administraci6n
de Lazaro Cardenas.

In an essay on the vanguardist painter, Carlos Merida, Patty

Koeniger writes, "Merida represents the middle of the road stance
in American painting: wanting neither to be purely nationalistic
. . and separate from the mainstream of art, nor, on the other hand,
only modern, concerned only with the European schools" (Koeniger
7). If it seems strange that an essay on fiction and politics should
begin with reference to a painter, the choice can be explained by
taking Merida as a sort of metaphor of his time; the bipolarity con-
fronting him was faced by artists in all genres, and the meaning of
"nationalism" is clarified by the fact that Merida was a Guatemalan
by birth though he worked mainly in Mexico, so "nationalism" can
be understood, in some contexts, as "nativism" or indigenismo.
A similar condition might well be attributed to Mexican politics dur-
ing this period, a time of seeking an appropriate direction in both
politics and narrative.
Farther along in her essay, Koeniger says, "We do not know
exactly why Merida became an internationalist rather than an in-
digenista" (Koeniger 10). This observation, too, speaks eloquently
to the circumstance of the period. The "why" of the road taken

*This article is part of a larger study completed at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bel-
lagio Study and Conference Center, Como, Italy, November-December, 1987.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 5(1), Winter 1989. ? 1989 Regents of the University of California.

69

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70 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

by certain writers is equally uncertain, and the trajectory of politics

is no more easily understood. It seems possible that a study of one
aspect of literature-innovation in narrative fiction-along with
speculation concerning its analogy to politics, may enhance our un-
derstanding of a complex and extremely significant period in Mexi-
can culture; that is, culture in the larger sense, not simply the fine
arts.
When we speak of the Mexican Revolution, we think of a series
of armed struggles that lasted from 1910 until 1917, when the new
constitution was promulgated and Venustiano Carranza was well
established as president of the republic, his period in office extend-
ing from 1916 to 1920. We also think of a subsequent period of
social change that is marked by the literacy campaign, by Jose Vas-
concelos's promotion of the classics, by the work of the great
muralists, by so-called "vanguardism" in literature, by the Chavez
school of music, by the most intense of Mexico's church/state crises,
by the promise of agrarian reform, by a series of political assassina-
tions, and possibly by other equally significant specifics that func-
tion in individual repertories. It was undoubtedly a remarkable
period in Mexico, possibly better characterized by a general sense
of potential well being than by reference to specific phenomena.
Daniel Cosfo Villegas has written to that effect. In his Change in
Latin America, he says that by 1920, the Revolution was popularly
accepted, morale was high, and both the government and the coun-
try as a whole enjoyed a feeling of self-confidence: "Not 'every-
body' but certainly large numbers everywhere felt that exalted
sensation of man turned into a god, of man with creative genius
and will, with the faith that from his hands may come a new, great,
brilliant, harmonious and kind world; faith, also, that nothing is im-
possible and that anything may be achieved by simply willing it"
(Cosio V. 29).

1. Regarding the analogy between narrative fiction and politics that constitutes
the basis of this essay, it should be understood that analogies may be found among
all the constituent factors of society: all the arts, of course, and also other constituents
such as religion, banking, education, commerce, etc. I have chosen fiction and pol-
itics because these two phenomena have been associated with each other tradition-
ally in Latin American studies. It has been generally assumed that fiction reflects the
political (or social) circumstance. I take the position that the political circumstance
is just as likely to reflect fiction-perhaps more likely, given the imaginative dimen-
sion of artistic creativity. Change occurs in a culture for reasons that affect all of its
constituent factors, with no established order of precedence that would hold in all
circumstances.

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 71

The problem was the extent to which this energy should be

channeled into nationalistic concerns and expression, as against a
more cosmopolitan position. It is important to notice that the prob-
lem was one of degree, not a matter of categorical choice. Nation-
alism versus cosmopolitanism constitutes an axiomatic opposition,
in theory. Nevertheless, in practice, even though the opposition re-
mains a fact, the two opposites do exist at the same time, in the same
place, and even as factors in the same enterprise. Take for example
the colonialista novels, a kind of narrative that flourished from
1918 to 1926. Their subject matter tends to be anecdotal, tales of
Mexico's Colonial Period. The language may be described as feigned
archaic. Unquestionably, a nationalistic impulse was at work in
them; the stories deal with the national past, characterize extraor-
dinary historical personages, develop a sense of this-is-where-we-
came-from. They very clearly emphasized the Hispanic heritage.
This quality indicates not only a continued relationship with Eu-
rope, but also a reaffirmation of relationship with Spain. (France had
been the predominant European influence in Mexico from the time
of the Independence.) In addition, the colonialista novels counter-
balance post-Revolutionary emphasis on the indigenous Mexicans.
Cosio Villegas says that during the "good years" of the Revolution
(1920-1925), it was thought that the Mexican Indian could be
brought into the modern world without destroying the values of his
traditional way of life (Cosio V. 34). It is obvious that, precisely dur-
ing these good years, the innovative colonialista novel was making
a different kind of statement, one that expressed pride in the His-
panic heritage. It is also interesting to note, in this connection, John
Johnson's study of decision making by the "urban middle sectors."
He points out that these sectors held on tenaciously during the pe-
riod of radical agrarianism following the Revolution, and finally re-
turned to predominence during the nineteen forties Johnson 128
ff.). Undoubtedly, the colonialista writers were announcing the per-
sistence of the urban middle sectors, as did innovative narrative
throughout the years between the Revolution and the decade of the
forties; in fact, the words "innovative fiction" could be satisfactorily
substituted for "urban middle sectors," in Johnson's statement. But
such a view into the future is less important than a look backward
from the innovations of the colonialistas, for the immediate pur-
poses of this essay.
An understanding of innovation in narrative and politics during
this period depends on an explanation of the Ateneo de la Juventud
as a revolutionary force, and even certain aspects of modernismo.

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72 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

It is generally agreed-by Jose Luis Martinez, Alfonso Reyes, Samuel

Ramos, and Jose Rojas Garciduefias, among others-that the activi-
ties of the Ateneo anticipated the political revolution. It was the in-
tellectual side of the revolution, so to speak, especially because of
its rejection of Positivism as the philosophical guide of Mexican cul-
ture. Paul Kecskemeti says that, since the Renaissance, humankind
has been increasingly dynamic, and that the comfort of a static so-
ciety must be sacrificed for higher values (39-40). One could hardly
find a better general statement of the Ateneo's reaction against the
old regime.
Johnson says that, by 1910, education had deteriorated "to the
point where Mexico was referred to as a cultural desert" (129). On
the face of it, this assertion seems strange, since it refers to the pe-
riod when the art-for-art's-sake enterprise of modernismo flour-
ished.2 Then one recalls that the masters of this literary promotion
were French, and not always the most up-to-date French writers at
that. In fact, the Gallic quality of this period in Mexico tended to be
static. At the same time, the Diaz government depended less and less
on a large segment of Mexican support among intellectuals and/or
businessmen, preferring a small group of Mexican power brokers
known as the cientificos, along with foreign investors (ohnson
128-131).
Modernismo was certainly not a Mexican tradition in opposition
to the establishment, but some aspects of it reveal a deep current of
doubt if not of dissatisfaction. Specifically in certain works of fic-
tion, one can find experimental combinations of theme and tech-
nique that project a sense of uneasiness, of anticipation of change.
Manuel Gutierrez Najera's "Rip-Rip" employs a variety of narrative
techniques-indirect free style, untagged dialogue, negation of log-
ical time-to raise questions about human relationships and, by im-
plication, about the significance of the past/present differentiation
and the viability of what is not "modern." Amado Nervo, in Pas-
cual Aguilera and El bachiller, uses narrative material from the
Mexican literary repertory; both narratives show dissatisfaction with
the social phenomena they describe; both make use of the "new
science" of their day, psychology; both are short and carefully
focussed, as a short story might be, or a modern lyric poem.
Even more innovative was Nervo's third novelette, El donador

2. I use the Spanish modernismo to distinguish the nineteenth-century

phenomenon, traditionally recognized in Spanish American literary studies, from the
more generally current "modernism" that is the subject of much recent discussion.

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 73

de almas, first published in 1899. This narrative is an early science

fiction, based on parapsychology, in which a physician-practical,
scientific, and bored-is given a soul by his poet friend. The story
anticipates the rejection of Positivism by the intellectual community,
and the ousting of Diaz and the "cientificos" in the political realm.
El donador de almas is innovative not only in theme, but in narra-
tive strategy as well. Nervo uses a minimum of intrusion by the ex-
plicatory voice within the scenes of the story (that is, there is a
minimum of "telling" in the midst of "showing"), and he uses sup-
posed newspaper accounts to avoid excessive narrative summary.
On the other hand, the author, as author, intrudes to comment on
the making of the narrative and, at the end of the story, there is a
dialogued discussion of its significance and how it was made, includ-
ing a defense of the "nouvelle" as a genre. This last feature looks
forward to the emphasis on process that is necessarily a characteris-
tic of politics following the Revolution, and also to a similar interest
in process that is apparent in the self-conscious narrative of the nine-
teen twenties and, of course, the novel of the late twentieth century.
The Ateneo de la Juventud was an intellectual renovation, not
primarily literary. Its greatest effect was produced by its members'
concern, conscious or subconscious, for Mexico's identity in an in-
ternational context. Jose Luis Martinez identifies two basic goals of
the Ateneo: 1. the definition of a set of appropriate interests for
Mexican intellectuals, and 2. a disciplined approach to cultural ac-
tivity. Regarding the first, he mentions interest in specifically Mex-
ican culture, in Spanish and English literature as well as in French,
in new critical methods of analyzing literature and philosophy, in
universal thought, and in interdisciplinary relationships. Regarding
the second, Martinez says that, oversimplifying but in a meaningful
way, one could say that writers suddenly went from the bohemian
life to their libraries/studies (Martinez 4-5).
Of the ateneistas, Julio Torri is the most interesting for a study
of prose fiction. Serge Zaitzeff, probably the most thorough analyst
of Torri's work, says, ". .. since he finds the customary literary
forms inadequate, Torri leans especially toward the prose poem and
the short essay" (Zaitzeff, 1980, 9). It is not always easy to distin-
guish between these two genres in Torri's work. Some of the pieces
are characterized by a strong. narrative factor which would not
necessarily be indicated by the terms Zaitzeff uses and which are
based on Torri's own classification. On the other hand, the impor-
tance of the narrative factor varies greatly from one piece to an-
other, and it is precisely the freedom signified by such variety that

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74 MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanos

constitutes innovation in Torri's work. He is very modern in that

"he finds the customary literary forms inadequate." Torri's innova-
tions relate to other phenomena, artistic and political, in two dif-
ferent ways: 1. as a rupture of conventional limits on the form of
expression, and 2. as an acknowledgment of art as an elitist activity.
With regard to literary form-that is, with regard to generic
definition-Torri seems to abhor completeness (Zaitzeff, 1983, 30-
31). It is helpful, in this connection, to look briefly at painting. In
her significantly titled book, Diego Rivera: The Shaping of an Ar-
tist (1889-1921), Florence Arquin points out the importance of Jose
Maria Velasco in the formation of Rivera, because the great land-
scapist subordinated the "severe, incisive line" that Rivera had been
taught at the Academy of San Carlos (Arquin 13). What was happen-
ing in the cases of Rivera and Torri certainly did not correspond to
the political circumstance of the Diaz regime, but rather anticipated
its collapse. Even more, it anticipated the political structure-or
antistructure-beyond the presidency of Francisco A. Madero, since
the Madero period brought about some changes in the decision
makers, but really did not succeed in eliminating the "severe, inci-
sive line" of the establishment. Julio Torri's narrative innovation,
right at the time of the Madero revolt, also looks beyond Madero
with respect to the breaking of traditional form. At the same time,
Torri's work communicated the notion of elitism, a proposition that
looks beyond those "good years" of the Revolution that Cosio Vi-
llegas identifies.
Torri admitted to an elitist appreciation of art, not in the sense
of cultivating injustice toward any given group, but because he
thought that art naturally distinguishes itself from the commonplace
(Zaitzeff, 1980, 9). This exclusivist attitude no doubt existed in all
innovative writing, since one can hardly practice innovative narra-
tion without taking such a position. On the other hand, it seems
that, among the colonialista writers, exclusivism existed also as a
hedge against the populist, proletarian, or indigenista tendencies of
the post-Revolutionary governments, especially in the "good years."
The story material of these narratives emphasizes the Hispanic
tradition much more than the Ateneo did. The difference in empha-
sis is caused largely by the colonialistas' use of Spanish that provided
a certain flavor of the Colonial Period, a narrative strategy that cor-
responds to renewed awareness of the Spanish heritage. And of
course, it contributed to the Mexican intellectuals' renewed interest
in Spain. This special use of language is clearly the most innovative
aspect of colonialist narrative; it also became its worst enemy, be-

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 75

cause its quaintness wore thin very rapidly. This quality must also
be considered important; the language of the colonialista novels was
only a simulation, and this condition may well be shared by other
cultural phenomena that appear analogous to it. Genaro Estrada's
Pero Galin (1926) is a colonialista novel that satirizes the genre and
puts an end to it as a literary enterprise, though one of its practi-
tioners, Artemio de Valle Arizpe, was able to continue writing this
kind of fiction with some success.
One of the earliest colonialista works, Francisco Monterde's El
madrigal de Cetina (1918) exemplifies the subgenre's essential fea-
tures. It is a short work (sixty-eight pages in an edition commemo-
rating the fiftieth year of its publication), that refers to a supposed
episode in the life of the Spanish poet, Gutierre de Cetina, when he
was in Mexico. Specifically, it is based on his famous madrigal that
begins, "Ojos claros, serenos," (Limpid, tranquil eyes). The narra-
tor begins with an "Envoi" to the lady who has those "ojos claros,
serenos," addressing her with the second person, plural pronoun
and verb, an archaic form of address that establishes the desired feel-
ing of an epoch long past. He provides background information
about the protagonists, a Spanish poet/soldier and a mestizo lady
who, sure enough, has the "ojos claros" ("claros" carries the con-
notation of "light-colored") of her conquistador father and the
bluish black hair of her mother, an Indian princess. This young
woman, Maria Soledad, experiences great ambivalence as she ob-
serves the displacement of her mother's culture by her father's.
Nevertheless, she accepts the desirability or inevitability of this
change, and learns to pray to the Holy Virgin for her own in-
digenous mother who died in childbirth. It is important to note that
this absent mother is the only indigenous factor in the novel. What
we know about Maria Soledad places her safely within the roman-
tic tradition of literary indianismo, rather than the socially oriented
indigenismo. The story that follows this introduction need not be
told for present purposes. It is enough to say that Cetina's madrigal
becomes a part of the story, the hero's destiny is left undetermined,
and there is very slight characterization.
While the narrator gives some description of the people, they
never seem more than shadows. This condition is characteristic of
innovative novels in the nineteen twenties, whether colonialista or
of some other persuasion. Brevity and indeterminacy are also com-
mon. It seems strange to find them in a narrative as tradition-oriented
as Monterde's; on the other hand, this tension between tradition and
innovation is almost a definition of the period. It seems clear that

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76 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

the colonialista novel, flourishing at a time when populism briefly

dominated the political scene, forecast a necessary balancing of the
equation.
We must remember that Mariano Azuela, in an entirely different
kind of novel, broke with traditional form at about the time of the
Ateneo and continued experimenting with narrative technique in
several subsequent novels, though he cannot be placed in any group,
and often expressed disdain for any narrative that was not represen-
tational and without artistic pretensions. The case of Azuela is im-
portant because one often assumes that any novel that deals with the
social/political realm will resemble a novel of realism. This assump-
tion is quite unfounded, and Azuela's Los de abajo is an excellent
example. Its innovative characteristics may well be the result of a
subconscious instinct that created a strategy appropriate to the sub-
ject matter. It certainly does not resemble the realist-naturalistnovels
that Azuela had been writing. Actually, a difference in Azuela's nar-
rative procedure is apparent in Andr6s Perez, maderista (1911), a
short novel that uses rapidly changing scenes to portray the back-
ground of the Madero revolt. In Los de abajo, Azuela's "scenes of
the Revolution," as his novel is described in its subtitle, create a
sense of movement that corresponds to the movement of the troops
and also to the change from a static to a dynamic society. Elliptical
narration, remarks about the joyful irresponsibility of moving about
the countryside, emphasis on the absence of specific purpose, all
may be taken as antirevolutionary, if one thinks about the author's
conscious attitude. On the other hand, the novel's deeper communi-
cation-what one feels through the experience of it-is a certain
inevitability that will not be altered by the defeat of Villa or by any-
thing else.
The effect of a narrative, with respect to its innovative (revolu-
tionary) quality, is not necessarily related to the author's ideology
or attitude. It makes perfectly good sense to regard Mariano Azuela
as conservative (or as liberal, in the nineteenth-century sense) and
still find signs of social rupture in his novels. Some of the ateneistas
were even less enthusiastic than Azuela, with respect to the Revo-
lution; the intellectual revolution does not need arms any more than
the armed revolution needs intellect. The two phenomena comple-
ment each other, but the relationship is not always apparent to the
participants.
By 1923, the promotion of innovative fiction had become suffi-
ciently strong to make Azuela aware of the strategies he was using.
In that year, he published La malhora, the first of three novels that
are generally considered more innovative than the rest of his work.

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 77

Actually, it is not spectacularly different. The handling of narrative

voice is probably a bit more intricate, and more is left to the reader's
imagination, or better, to the reader's ingenuity, since the narrative
does not supply all the information one might desire. We note here,
again, the quality of incompleteness. It is also significant that Azuela
is participating in that search for a suitable direction that character-
izes the post-Revolutionary years.
In politics, the uncertain, troubled search for a sure way toward
the nation's destiny was exemplified in startling, violent assassina-
tions: Zapata in 1919, Carranza in 1920, Villa in 1923, to mention
only the names of the most famous. Surely the quest for personal
power had much to do with the conflicts that characterize this pe-
riod; however, a persistent factor in the conflicts was nationalism
in its various manifestations, as foreseen in the Ateneo and then in
the work of the colonialistas. The opposition nationalism-versus-
cosmopolitanism at times became nativism-versus-cosmopolitan-
ism; within the concept of nationalism, one observes an opposition
between Hispanic tradition and indigenismo; the opposition tradi-
tion-versus-innovation (change) may substitute indigenismo or cos-
mopolitanism for "innovation", depending on the different shades
of meaning granted to the various terms.3 Hence, the absence of a
clearly defined opposition, in politics and in literature.
The period called the "good years" by Cosio Villegas corre-
sponds roughly to the presidency of Alvaro Obregon. They were
good, not only because of the national sense of accomplishment that
Cosio Villegas describes, but also for a sense of confidence created
by Obreg6n. He seems to have been unpretentious, capable of sym-
pathy for the common people but always with a sense of how much
power to retain. He chose Jose Vasconcelos as his Minister of Edu-
cation and, although he took a somewhat skeptical view of Vascon-
celos's promotion of the classics, he recognized this revolutionary
intellectual's importance to the nation (Strode, p. 266-268). The
work of the Ateneo, some years earlier, indicated that such a con-
venience (that is, political recognition of the intellectual's role)
would have to be reached; the colonialistas certainly indicated that
any inwardness on the part of Mexico would recognize its Hispanic
heritage.
Insofar as it is possible to divide and define the several literary

3. A fuller discussion of these oppositions may be found in John S. Brushwood,

"Contempordneos and the Limits of Art", Romance Notes, V, 2 (1964), 1-5, and
translated by Jose Tlatelpas and Rosario Kishida in Revista de Bellas Artes, 3a epoca,
nuim. 8 (1982), 33-35.

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78 MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanos

enterprises in Mexico during the nineteen-twenties, the colonialistas

were followed by the estridentistas, a group that adamantly stood
for change in artistic expression, though their social position seems
rather comfortably bourgeois, in contrast to their radical pronounce-
ments. Naturally, there is a certain overlapping of movements. The
colonialista movement was effectively ended by 1926; Arquelas
Vela, one of the estridentistas, published La sehorita Etc. in 1921,
though the movement cannot satisfactorily be dated before the mid-
twenties, when its magazines, Irradiador and Horizonte, were pub-
lished. If the colonialistas presage the conservative turn taken by the
Calles government, the radicalism of the estridentistas looks forward
to a turn to the left in the government of Cardenas.
Definition of estridentismo is not easy. The name in itself is sig-
nificant. Beyond that, its members referred to Mexico's social prob-
lems more than other innovative writers-e.g., the colonialistas or
the Contempordneos group. One of the group, German List Arzu-
bide, in his account of the movement, says that it tells "the story of
the only revolutionary-social-literary movement in Mexico" (List Ar-
zubide, "Colof6n"). The colophon itself indicates the heterodoxy
of the group: not only does it comment on the nature of the book,
it comments on the date of publication, and it is preceded by a page
bearing only the word "Colof6n", in large, bold-faced type, as if it
were announcing an important section of the text. Like some Euro-
pean vanguardist publications of the same period, List Arzubide's
book is highly visual, and verbal descriptions of it hardly suffice.
Among other things (a paste-in of a mask made by the sculptor, Ger-
man Cueto, a "pentagramatic poem" by Pedro Echeverria, a photo-
graph of telephone wires by Tina Modotti, for example), it contains
reproductions of the art of Alva de la Canal, the principal visual ar-
tist of the movement. His paintings and woodblocks show a strong
Cubist influence. It is noteworthy, in this connection, that Pic6n-
Garfield and Schulman refer to the estridentista's "zeal for Cubist
representation" (158). If we add to this interest a certain amount of
futurism, we have a reasonably adequate idea of the group's canon.
It would be appropriate to mention a considerable quantity of sheer
youthful exuberance.
While Cubism certainly reached Mexico via the artists of the
period who studied in Paris, it did not exclude nationalism. Diego
Rivera, while still in Paris and during his Cubist phase, used Mexi-
can subject matter (Arquin 80). No doubt the motives behind this
preference were complex, but we may be sure that among them
were the satisfaction provided by a different line and the freedom
afforded by polyfaceted representation. It may seem a bit forced to

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 79

project a Cubist-like narrative that is analogous to Cubist painting,

but that is surely what interested the estridentistas in the nineteen-
twenties, and it is just as surely what appears in later fictions as
"simultaneousness", or fragmentation, or multiple point-of-view,
or antichronology, or any combination of these variously named
phenomena.
If Alva de la Canal may be considered the estridentistas' semi-
official artist, Arqueles Vela occupies the same position in prose
fiction. His major work, a short novel called El Cafe de Nadie (No-
body's Cafe), was published in 1926. The title is an important ele-
ment in the novel because the estridentista group used to refer to
their favorite meeting place, a cafe in Colonia Roma, as the "Cafe de
Nadie." It is, to a considerable extent, a narrative written for an "in
group," an interpretation of the significance of this place to the peo-
ple who made it their unofficial headquarters. The degree of differ-
ence from the establishment must have varied considerably among
the individual members of the group; for example, the aggressive,
antitradition provocation by Manuel Maples Arce seems far removed
from the metaphysical system of metaphors employed by Arqueles
Vela in his attempt to achieve tabula rasa and then rebuild.
Vela's narrator tells us, at the very beginning, that the threshold
of the cafe is "like the last stairstep of reality," by means of which
you "enter the subway (he uses the English word) of dreams, of ide-
ation" (11). The following imagery suggests a stasis, a synchronic
circumstance in which various observed phenomena contribute to
the same meaning-or perhaps better, the same sensation. Material
objects exist in some half recognized state that is removed from real-
ity and is still not quite unreal. The people in the novel experience
this strange state; readers see the characters in exactly the same way
-that is, the characters themselves are somewhere between real and
unreal. They are especially notable for the quality of "decharacteri-
zation" that Gustavo Perez Firmat sees in the vanguardist novel.
Mabelina, the center of narrative attention, feels her spirit broken
and her body transmigrated "to all the shadows where it contem-
plated itself and abstracted itself, recognizing its immoderate move-
ments that were tapestrying the room with decorations of dreams"
(23). Mabelina, like others in the narrative, is in a constant state of
change and has finally become a sketch (the English word is used
again) of herself: "After being all women, now she was nobody"
(38). Of course, this condition makes her the ideal patron of No-
body's Cafe.
Vela's images use material objects to communicate the mood of
a person or the atmosphere of a place, and sometimes they are

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80 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

startlingly unpoetic. On restraining an impulse to express her love

by kissing a man, Mabelina remains "still, frightened, as if in the
electric chair of love" (22). This image recalls many instances in
which the estridentistas used objects of modern technology as ar-
tistic devices. One feels that they were forcing the issue of modern-
ness, via such imagery and also via other deviations from customary
narrative strategies. Vela, for example, used typographic effects that
make one think of concretist poetry, mentioned jazz, used English
words, produced a schematic recit that requires readers to compen-
sate, extraordinarily, for the unstated.
The concern for social protest that may be associated with some
estridentista work is not apparent in El Cafe de Nadie. However,
readers of the novel necessarily sense the implied author's impa-
tience with the status quo, the need to join the twentieth century,
to question ordinary concepts of reality, and to do great things. It
is highly significant-however strange the association-that the
same year, 1926, saw the publication of Vela's novel and the out-
break of the cristero rebellion, an expression of traditionalist extre-
mism. President Calles's government was virtually forced, by a
complicated series of maneuvers on the part of the clergy, to take
a strong anticlerical position, enforcing the provisions of the consti-
tution that were designed to limit the political power of the church
-that is, the influence of the church on its communicants, in mat-
ters other than faith and worship (Cumberland, 276-281).
The government's radical anticlerical position was clearly anti-
traditionalist, though the Calles government could not be described
generally in those terms. It was an intensely political regime, in-
clined to take the convenient road, and in so doing, had acquired
a certain populist character through association with labor and
agrarian unions. It may seem ironic, from a certain point of view,
that the cristero movement, a clearly traditionalist undertaking, was
supported by the peasant population, since one tends to associate
traditionalism with social elitism. However, the true nature of the
conflict is deeply rooted in Mexican history, and transcends social
and economic class lines; it amounts to a struggle between the civil
government and the ecclesiastical authority for control of the pop-
ulace. In other words, what authority do the people accept? The
nature of the cristero conflict-that is, its combination of tradition-
alism and peasant support-further complicates the polarity, or
polarities, of the era.
To the radical change called for by Arqueles Vela's brand of es-
tridentismo, Xavier Icaza added a specific social problem, including
concern for the rural poor, in Panchito Chapopote (1928). The pro-

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 81

tagonist, Panchito, becomes wealthy when oil is found on his

property. The petroleum controversy goes back to the Diaz regime
when foreign interests, mainly British and American, virtually took
control of the industry in Mexico. By 1925, worker unrest caused
President Calles to threaten the foreign entrepreneurs with a modifi-
cation of their status. The legal basis behind the Mexican position
was the principle of subsoil rights belonging to the nation, pro-
pounded in the eighteenth century by Charles III of Spain, and stated
also in the Constitution of 1917. The consequent maneuvering went
on until President Cardenas expropriated the petroleum properties
in 1938.
Icaza's novel looks back in time to project the competition be-
tween the United States and Great Britain for Panchito's property.
They reach a compromise that enriches Panchito, but hardly in pro-
portion to what the two political/economic powers have gained. At
the point in the narrative when the compromise is reached, the rep-
resentatives of the two nations are magically transformed into Uncle
Sam and John Bull as part of a phantasmagoric binational victory
pageant. The narrative then returns to the narrator's present, and to
Panchito. We find much American influence in the locale: asphalt
highway, expensive but bad hotels, American cuisine ("Lonches.
Quick lonch. Free lonch. Banana lonch." 64), trucks, business men
from everywhere.
Attention continues to be focussed on Panchito until the events
become so much more important than Panchito that the author
enters the narrative to tell his protagonist that he is no longer
needed (76-77). Over Panchito's protests, the author arranges his
demise. This procedure is only one of many modernist aspects of the
novel. Icaza defies every custom of genre. Often the narrative resem-
bles the text of a play, composed of dialogue and stage directions.
But it is not consistently so. There is also descriptive narration, in
a staccato style. Folk songs serve as narrative devices, and radio
loudspeakers facilitate long distance communication.
Icaza's novel is clearly innovative in narrative strategy. Its use
of modern technology and its insistence on brevity are similar to es-
tridentista works in general. The abruptness of his expression is like
Maples Arce's iconoclasm: "the appropriate strategy was fast action
and total subversion" (Schneider, 11). Icaza himself, in a 1934 ad-
dress, announced that art for art's sake was no longer a viable pos-
sibility, that the world needed changing, and intellectuals were
called upon to do it. "Thus is born social, vanguardist art" (38). He
advises against the trappings of realism and proposes a more essen-
tial expression that will take into account the folkloric and will be,

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82 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

above all, brief (44). His combination of innovative technique and

social protest may be seen as a link between vanguardist narrative
and the socially oriented novels of the nineteen thirties and nineteen
forties; it may also be seen as an anticipation of a more sophisticated
combination of narrative experimentaton and national themes found
a bit later in Revueltas, Yafiez, and Rulfo. Relating Panchito Chapo-
pote to the realm of politics, the novel seems to reflect, thematically,
the urgency faced by the Calles government in 1925 and to antici-
pate, through the diminution of Panchito, an even more dramatic
decision by Cardenas. Its narrative strategies certainly correspond
to the attempt, by many different forces, to pull Mexico into the
modern world.
Politics between the end of the Calles presidency, in 1928, and
the inauguration of Cardenas, in 1934, were remarkably confused.
It was a period dominated by Calles, but that statement alone is the
well known tip of the iceberg. Toward the end of Calles's term, the
ruling party effected a constitutional change that would lengthen the
presidential term to six years and also permit the reelection of Presi-
dent Obreg6n. This procedure was not universally approved, for
some feared the possibility of an indefinite rotation of Calles and
Obreg6n (Parkes, 387). One of the leaders who objected, General
Francisco Serrano, was assassinated, and following the election, so
was President-elect Obreg6n. The Congress, inspired by Calles,
named Emilio Portes Gil to serve as president for one year. In 1929,
Pascual Ortiz Rubio, another Calles choice, was elected with such
a vast majority over his opponent, Jose Vasconcelos, that the num-
bers are ludicrous to the point of being incredible. In the fall of
1932, Portes Gil displeased his political mentor and was summarily
sent to the United States for a rest. Calles then instructed Congress
to name Abelardo Rodriguez, who filled the remainder of what
would have been Obreg6n's second term.
The period between 1928 and 1934 is a succinct example of the
political quest (the search for a suitable way) that characterized Mex-
ican politics from the Revolution to the presidency of Cardenas.
The literary scene was similarly confused. A remnant of colonialista
narrative remained; estridentismo was still a force. And, almost iron-
ically, during this same period, Mexico's most famous literary maga-
zine, Contempordneos, flourished.
The magazine and several writers closely associated with it
(often referred to as the "Contempordneos group") have become
the standard example of vanguardist literature in Mexico. A broad
definition of vanguardism would include estridentismo and some

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 83

other writers like Julio Torri and Efren Hernandez, but there is a
clear preference, among literary specialists, for concentrating on
Contempordneos. Its characterizing quality might be described, su-
perficially, as "polished sophistication," in contrast to the explo-
sive, brave-new-world posture of the estridentistas. The intent of its
editors and collaborators was to make a modern magazine, like the
Nouvelle Revue Francaise or the Revista de Occidente. Its interna-
tionalist outlook evoked much criticism, of the magazine and of its
contributors, by more nationalistically oriented writers, especially
in another periodical, Crisol. This discrepancy was never as great
in actuality as it was in discussion, or in the subsequently developed
perception of the polemic.
Contempordneos paid a great deal of attention to Mexican litera-
ture, art, and music, even to a consideration of the Mexican essence,
through the work of Samuel Ramos. However, it was not militantly
nationalistic; rather, it seems to have looked for the position of Mex-
ican culture in a larger, universal context. Contempordneos was in-
volved in the cosmopolitan/nationalism dispute on two different
levels. In the first place, as a representative of cosmopolitanism, it
was defended or attacked because of that position. On another level,
the magazine involved itself, internally, in the consideration of how
the reality of being Mexican was related to the position of Mexico
in an international context. The work of Carlos Merida, probably the
painter most closely related to the review, shows the same concern,
in a nonliterary medium.
As has traditionally been the case in studying vanguardism, the
poetry of the "Contempordneos group" has received much more at-
tention than the prose fiction. Recently, Gustavo Perez Firmat's Idle
Fictions has been helpful in filling this void by referring to the
novels of Torres Bodet, Gilberto Owen, Xavier Villaurrutia, and a
vanguardista not closely associated with Contemporaneos, Jose
Martinez Sotomayor. To these names, one might well add Salvador
Novo, Efren Hernandez, and Ruben Salazar Mallen. The common
denominator among their narratives is their "pneumatic" quality,
to use the terminology of Perez Firmat. Clear yet succinct definition
of this kind of fiction is not possible, but its quality may be suggested
by saying that it refers to an evanescent reality. Characters tend to
fade; figuratively speaking, portraits become silhouettes. Locale
tends to be specified vaguely; even the action (what little there is)
tends to be otherworldly, not representative of ordinary life, but in-
terpretative in such a way that aspects of ordinary life are recogniz-
able in ethereal form. Perez Firmat explains the relationship between

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84 MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanos
the writers mentioned above and the Spanish novelist, Benjamin
Jarnes (incidentally, represented in Contempordneos), and also their
similarity to Jean Giraudoux.
Some of these qualities are present in El Cafe de Nadie, but
Vela's novel is more shocking linguistically, less "lyrical" then the
narratives analyzed by Perez Firmat. It is important to surround
"lyrical" with quotation marks because it is not quite accurate to say
that such novels are poetic, as Perez Firmat shows most convinc-
ingly in his analysis of Torres Bodet's Margarita de niebla, 1927
(Perez F., 81-95). Although it is true that one reads Margarita de
niebla closely, and with the expectation of figurative language, as
in reading poetry, the experience is somewhat different.4
Perez Firmat shows that there is a plain and simple love story
that exists somewhere behind or beneath the narrative that we read,
but such a love story is not what we experience. Rather, we expe-
rience the effort to characterize Margarita. Her suitor, Borja, is the
narrator, and one might reasonably expect a psychological novel of
character. But Borja seems never to capture the essence, never to
communicate clearly the reality of Margarita.To quote Perez Firmat,
"... Margarita de niebla cannot be read fruitfully as a novel of
character, it can be regarded as a novel about character, as an in-
quiry into the question of characterization in fiction" (83). He goes
on to point out that Torres Bodet's novel belongs to a long tradition
of fictions that project a well-rounded character, but function as a
critique of that tradition. This quality clearly defines the work as a
modernist novel. For the average reader who probably does not
think about such matters, Margarita de niebla provides more am-
bience than characterization. It exudes the feeling of the upper-
middle-class environment in the nineteen-twenties. It is something
like a novel of manners, yet never becomes exactly that, because it
is not a critique of manners. It is all too vague, too distant and, there-
fore, is a kind of critique of the novel of manners, just as it is a cri-
tique of traditional characterization.
Similarly modern qualities are found in Gilberto Owen's Novela
como nube (1928), Jose Martinez Sotomayor's La rueca de aire

4. Perez Firmat recognizes the work of earlier scholars-e.g., Merlin H. Forster

-and explains the difference between his own reading and earlier readings that em-
phasize the poetic quality of vanguardist fiction. Some more recent analyses are closer
to Perez Firmat's, in that they glimpse the importance of these fictions as commen-
taries on the creation of fiction, but they do not put aside completely the notion of
poetic novel: Sail Juarez, "Nubela-novela," Revista de Bellas Artes 3a epoca, num.
5 (1982), 63-64 and Juan Coronado, "Novela como nube: prosa como poesia (un acer-
camiento a Owen)," Los Empenos, nueva epoca, num. 1 (abril-junio, 1981), 137-148.

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 85

(1930), and other vanguardist novels. The description of them as

"modern" is based on both technique and thematic material. The
narrative strategy depends largely on focalization that produces an
intensely subjective view of persons and places. This view may or
may not be that of the person who narrates; in either case it is sub-
jective to the point of subverting both character and story line. In
some cases, and especially in the case of Owen, figurative diction
increases the sense of intangibleness. These techniques become
related to theme through references to classical mythology and liter-
ary figures, as well as to popular culture and mechanical devices of
the nineteen-twenties, e.g. Buster Keaton, automobiles, electric
signs. The important point is that these references are intercalated
in such a way that no type has priority over another. The effect
created by this combination of technique and theme is like seeing
the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald through a theatrical scrim.
Length of the narrative is of little importance. Some of the
novels are quite short, and Efren Hernandez's famous short stories,
"Tachas" (1928) and "El sefior de palo" (1932), are clearly in the
same vein. "Tachas" could well be considered, along with Marga-
rita de niebla, as a critique of traditional characterization. "El sefior
de palo" is a critique of the whole process of narration; it is a nar-
rative that really is about narrating, although, on one level, it may
be said to be about a love affair and a jealous husband (a story that
is not really told).
These pyrotechnics of the imagination are most appealing to
readers who are actively involved in some process of artistic creativ-
ity, or readers who are stimulated intellectually by a challenge to
reality and to tradition. Occasional allusions to things Mexican are
so incidental they do little or nothing to make the fiction seem more
representational. To this extent, vanguardist fiction stands guilty of
the elitism and xenomania of which it was accused. On the other
hand, it seems reasonable to see it as one manifestation of the post-
World War I (and in Mexico, post-Revolution) ebullience and con-
fidence that encouraged innovation and the desire to be modern.
Perez Firmat ponders the slight endurance of the vanguardist
novel (21, and elsewhere). Considering this kind of fiction in con-
nection with the real world and those events that we commonly
take to be the facts of history, it is reasonable to think that a crea-
tion which is, in some sense, a negation of reality, must inevitably
exist rather tenuously within its context. In the nineteen-thirties, an
accumulation of social concerns would not encourage the writing
of such fictions.
Specifically in Mexico, one can see that, from the early nineteen-

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86 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

thirties, novels concerned with typically Mexican affairs-the Revo-

lution and its consequences-begin to establish their dominance
over more cosmopolitan fiction. One should not assume that this
"Mexicanist" trend is entirely without innovation in narrative pro-
cedure; an examination of novels by Gregorio L6pez y Fuentes, for
example, would prove otherwise. The great difference is that Mex-
ican themes gradually become pervasive and, although innovative
techniques are sometimes used, innovation is not primary. There is
certainly no sense of evanescent reality in them. With regard to this
difference, Perez Firmat notes that Torres Bodet, the most prolific
of the vanguardist novelists, wrote novels with a firmer hold on
their subjects, as his career moved on (Perez F., 95). There is no way
of proving that this change in Torres Bodet is related to the grow-
ing emphasis, in fiction, on typically Mexican subjects, but it may
be that both phenomena are expressions of a tendency to examine
specific problems of society, a need that could not be entirely satis-
fied by any of the novelistic innovations of the nineteen-twenties.
The beginning of the Lazaro Cardenas presidency, in 1934, is
highly significant in this connection. It may be regarded as having
indicated, for however brief a time, a specific course for the nation.
Even a casual look into the future reveals the transitoriness of this
choice, but such a view does not alter its basic nature. It marked a
clear path after a period of searching, of experimentation, of inde-
terminacy. In a way, this presidency effected an implementation of
the post-Revolutionary euphoria that Cosio Villegas called "the
good years" of the Revolution. Programs of land reform were put
into effect, the railroads were nationalized and turned over to the
workers, public education was made socialist, the petroleum industry
was expropriated. All these programs may be described as nation-
alistic, directly concerned with specifically Mexican circumstances.
But at the same time, certain events outside Mexico would inevita-
bly distract the nation from its inward contemplation. Of extraor-
dinary importance, in this regard, was the arrival of refugees from
the Spanish Civil War. And near the end of his administration, Presi-
dent Cardenas felt compelled to protest Germany's invasion of Bel-
gium, Holland, and Luxemburg.
At about the time President Cardenas took office, the period of
vanguardist innovation had ended. Specific thematic material had
become more prominent than suggestive ambience, simple narration
was favored over experimentation, nationalism predominated, cos-
mopolitanism declined. It is necessary to state these facts in terms
of a period, because the kinds of fiction written during the nineteen-
twenties and early nineteen-thirties (they may be identified collec-

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 Brushwood: Innovation in Fiction and Politics 87

tively as innovative/cosmopolitan) did not simply disappear. Such

novels continued to occupy a place, albeit less prominent, in the
literary spectrum. Torres Bodet, in Primero de enero (1935) and
Sombras (1937), continued the line, though with some modifica-
tions, as noted by Perez Firmat. The line was strengthened by
others, among them Salazar Mallen and Eduardo Luquin. But the
dominant fiction corresponded to the politics of the time. In the
early nineteen-thirties, the search for an appropriate kind of fiction
was joined by the inwardly oriented nationalistic concern. The lat-
ter became dominant at about the time Cardenas became president.
As was the case with politics, this inwardness would be transi-
tory. Just as it became necessary, in the nineteen-forties, for the Mex-
ican government to recognize its place in an international context,
so also the novelists found a way to combine national identity and
cosmopolitanism. They developed the combination of modern nar-
rative strategies and national themes, a combination that is especially
apparent in well-known novels by Jose Revueltas, Agustin Yafiez,
and Juan Rulfo. This new novel reaffirms the vanguardist enterprise
and incorporates the national interest. In contrast to the volatile
nineteen-twenties and early nineteen-thirties, when innovation in
narrative seemed sometimes to anticipate political change, both
novel and politics, in the later nineteen-thirties, seem more stable,
more coordinated, and both are more representational. The subse-
quent move toward internationalism was gradual, the novel using
modern techniques to interpret its context, the political structure ad-
justing national policy to the exigencies of its international commit-
ment. This process is the story of innovation from the middle of the
nineteen forties until the middle of the nineteen sixties, when inno-
vation in the novel again becomes dramatically apparent.

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