Practicing Memory in Central American Literature by Nicole Caso (review)

In Practicing Memory, Nicole Caso selects a variety of "mainstream" contemporary texts from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Honduras that employ historical fiction to cover what poet Humberto Ak'abal describes as "the mouth of silence" (2), that is, to speak out against pervasive silences and forced acceptances imposed by official history in the isthmus. Although the chosen works assume markedly different approaches as they each seek to interject their historical perspectives, their "regenerative effect" (3) becomes clear in the four sections of this study as memory is accessed from distinct physical and ideological spaces. The influence of East-West politics and North-South economics is treated in each chapter, uniting Caso's critical analyses into a cohesive argument that reveals recurring imperial and colonial legacies. As a result, Central America becomes more than just a small strip of earth bridging two land masses; it becomes a spatial metaphor "intentionally left open [to] ambiguity" (4), allowing both marginal and popular, literal and figurative issues to be explored.

The first two chapters comprise part one, "The Isthmus", where East-West relations converge in Central America, making clear the links between the Cold War rhetoric of the twentieth century and the isthmus's role as "elusive object of desire" (20) for foreign powers. In chapter one, Caso argues that Ernesto Cardenal's epic poem El estrecho dudoso (1966) challenges complacent univocal representation of the past by filling in the omissions in the hegemonic historical record in an effort to escape its construct. In chapter two, Caso focuses on U.S. involvement in the region by analyzing the ideological use of language in two works that deal with the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état: Miguel Ángel Asturias's Week-end en Guatemala (1956) and Arturo Arias's novel Después de las bombas (1979). She indicates that Asturias forcefully brandishes language in his short stories in order to expose anticommunist campaigns through the manipulation of words and propaganda to legitimize U.S. intervention. Arias, on the other hand, makes language a "site of struggle" (76) by restoring some words onto the silenced, blank pages of history. Caso points to the novel's carnivalesque and satirical style as a means to "orchestrate the many self-conscious voices of resistance" (75) elaborated within a single, literary space.

Caso then begins section two, "The City," which concentrates on urban spaces as entities representing the impact of modernity in Central America. Chapter three initiates this section with a study of Asturias's El señor presidente (1946). By examining the cost of "progress" in the isthmus, Caso makes the case that this novel "captures what gets left out of historiographical discourse... through sounds, spaces, and images that fall at the margins of normative language" (107). Then, the fragmented novels Diario de una multitud (1974) by Carmen Naranjo and Manlio Argueta's Caperucita en la zona roja (1977) are contrasted in chapter four to reveal how "community" can be represented either as isolated and broken-down by external market forces, or an interrelated unit able to resist in times of need. In both novels, the push towards social awareness and sociopolitical solidarity is evident. She concludes this chapter by suggesting that these works use "fragmentary narrative styles from within the discourses that they are critiquing to interrupt their homogenizing tendencies" (142).

Part three of the study, "The Nation", takes a step back, spatially speaking, to consider the totalizing narrative of Julio Escoto's Rey del Albor, Madrugada (1993) in chapter five. Caso argues that Escoto opts to use the typically hegemonic style of totality to give voice to his project from the margin, able to point out "top-down manipulations from abroad" (147) when conceiving ideas that pertain to mestizaje and nationalism in Honduras. Additionally, although the novel attempts to fight homogenizing tendencies imposed on the country from the outside, the risks involved in an inward "rallying around the Honduran nation" (183) and the consequent homogenizing from within are also taken...