Attuned Listening in Ricardo Piglia’s Plata quemada

This article argues that Ricardo Piglia’s novel Plata quemada should be read not simply as a postmodern experiment in polyvocal narration but as a collage of sounds of all kinds, of which voices are but one, and which should be experienced “musically.” An attuned listening is proposed as a way to approach the text. This listening is modeled on the Lacanian psychoanalyst who seeks to attend to the articulations of the analys and without imposing his or her ego onto the process of analysis. This approach to the novel does not close itself off through guilt, defensiveness, emotionality, or narcissism, but rather attends to the form of the text rather than interpreting its content. By attuning our reading to the complex and intimate music that makes up a novel, we can begin to understand the ways that form renders intelligible complex social formations and subject positions. This offers a reading of the novel that it is attentive to its formal and technological interest in addition to its political concerns.