The Cult of Bolivar in Latin American Literature (review)

Since the critical reassessment of the question of nationalism at the beginning of the 1980s, the formation of lieux de mémoire has become a subject of crucial analytical importance for those interested in understanding the construction of collective identities. In particular, the study of how certain emblematic figures are invented and imposed in the social body has proved to be a compelling and effective way to demonstrate the strategic role that cultural products play in the building of imaginary communities. Christopher Conway's The Cult of Bolívar is the latest example of this analytical tradition, but it is a crucial one. In his work, Conway explores the discursive battles that have taken place over the course of nearly two centuries around the construction of Bolívar as a symbol of national identity. Departing from the historiographical approaches to the cult of Bolívar adopted since the end of the 1960s, Conway proposes here to examine "the image of Bolívar in fiction, and the conceptual understanding that we might arrive at through the study of literature" (10). Conway particularly seeks to explore what is considered to be one of the most recurring issues in the literary construction of Bolívar: the persistence with which numerous texts have addressed questions of gender and corporality as crucial factors in defining Bolivar's monumentalism. Furthermore, Conway is specifically interested in observing how the strategies of construction and questioning of Bolívar's figure in literary texts can be seen as alternative attempts to both preserve and challenge the integrity of the national body, especially with regard to three fundamental issues: those of progress, patriarchy, and "authority of the sign."

In his investigation of the complex tensions between monumentalism and iconoclasm, Conway begins by discussing the themes and strategies around which the cult of Bolívar built its foundation in the first half of the nineteenth century. Devoting special attention to the works of Olmedo and Vargas Tejada, Conway examines in his first chapter the emergence of a series of texts that sought to represent Bolívar as a republican statesman, albeit from drastically different ideological perspectives. By studying these early nineteenth-century sources, Conway demonstrates how Bolívar's figure was imbued with contradictory meanings according to the different phases of the hero's political trajectory: whereas in the peak of his career (up to the year 1825), Bolívar was primarily defined in Augustan terms, later on he began to be represented as Caesar, particularly by those who had started to question his growing conservatism. Finally, Conway addresses the works of Toro and Larrazábal in order to analyze a third allegorical discourse that surfaced in the complex political and social climate that succeeded Bolívar's death: that which likens Bolívar to Christ, and consequently promotes the collective adoration of his body and his words. This association is also significant because it represents the first attempt to fashion the liberator as a national hero; by connecting Christianity to nationalism these works represent Bolívar as a "missionary of order" and base of social unity for the nation.

The primarily descriptive nature of the book's first chapter contrasts with the analytical density of the second. In this section, Conway discusses the appearance of the first critiques of nationalist, demagogical, and monumentalist urban projects in Venezuela at the end of the century. In particular, Conway is interested in examining the literary responses to the construction of Plaza Bolívar and the Panteón Nacional during the presidency of Guzmán Blanco. Analyzing two works that explicitly address the topic of Caracas' architectural renovations in that period—"Las noches de Panteón," by Eduardo Blanco, and Ídolos rotos, by Manuel Díaz Rodríguez—Conway proposes a reconsideration of the ways in which both texts question the cultural politics of the time and adopt a critical—albeit conservative—position on modernity and the nation's future. In Conway's view, Blanco implies that the end...