Paper short abstract:

In this comparative study of Las batallas en el desierto and Vidas perpendiculares I look at the changes in the relationship between Mexican writers and history by contrasting two bildungsromans set in the 1940s and their approaches to memory and identity, particularly their ideas of nostalgia.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I explore identity and memory through a comparative reading of José Emilio Pacheco's Las batallas en el desierto (1981) and Álvaro Enrigue's Vidas perpendiculares (2008). Through the operation of recollection, these bildungsromans underscore their historical setting in 1940s Mexico as a conflictive stage for the development of the characters' self-definition. However, while Pacheco engages with the relationship between history, memory and the self through an uncertain literary nostalgia, Enrigue subverts the process of remembering using narrative fragmentation and dislocation. These differences hint to a transformation in the relations between the writer and the past.

Las batallas is a central book for the Mexican canon. The coming-of-age tale of young Carlos is marked by the reflective exercise of memory that, from a seemingly innocent first-person narration, introduces a poignant sociopolitical criticism and it has been widely studied for its uses of history and memory. Vidas perpendiculares, on the other hand, has received little critical attention. The novel is the sardonic autobiography of a multi-reincarnated being written during the character's life as a Mexican teenager. Through formal, spatial and temporal disruptions of the narrative, Enrigue challenges memory as a source of identity and questions the possibility of nostalgia by ironically subverting the experience of the past.

This paper contributes to the debate regarding the transformations in the relationship between Mexican writers and history. It does so through the exploration of the tensions between the works of a highly praised, canonical text and a lesser-known, very recent novel.