Uncivil Wars: Elena Garro, Octavio Paz, and the Battle for Cultural Memory

Preface

“The difficult part is taking the first step.” ELENA GARRO Reencuentro de personajes (Reunion of Characters) “I am the shadow my words cast.” OCTAVIO PAZ “A Draft of Shadows” (The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957–1987, trans. Eliot Weinberger) PREFACE FOR MANY YEARS I CONSIDERED EXPLORING the roles of Elena Garro and Octavio Paz in formulating and transmitting the cultural memory of Mexico during the second part of the twentieth century. The inspiration derived in part from my earlier study of the historical figure of the indigenous woman, La Malinche, and how she was portrayed in Mexican literature and culture through the ages, from the initial chronicles to contemporary literary expressions . It seemed to me that everyone—or perhaps almost everyone—dealing with the topic quoted Octavio Paz’s influential essay “Los hijos de la Malinche” (The Sons of Malinche) to discuss the impact and relevance of that historical figure for Mexican ethnic identity. Most readers and critics, however, ignored the subtle commentary of Elena Garro on the same topic (if they even knew that she had attempted such a response). By contrast, my reading suggests that Garro was actually in debate with Paz when she wrote her now canonical short story “La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas” (It’s the Fault of the Tlaxcaltecas). It offers a commentary not only on Mexican ethnic identity but also on gender relationships, an issue that Paz often neglected. The ideas and esthetic expressions of Garro and Paz project varying perspectives on Mexican cultural memory—both what is recalled and “memorialized ” and what is ignored and forgotten. What is poignant and yet paradoxical UNCIVIL WARS X in the “Garro and Paz story” is that they each had so much to offer to Mexican culture, yet their personal and professional trajectories were so divergent. A case in point: after the traumatic Tlatelelolco Massacre of 1968, Paz became a figurehead for the protesting Mexican students, who called him “El padrino” (the godfather), while Garro was marginalized and forced into exile by both governmental and literary communities for her supposedly inappropriate actions . In this book I document the two writers’ war of words, in which they explore in different ways similar themes that cover esthetic, erotic, and ethical questions as well as issues of individual and national identity. Paz was certainly the “go-to” intellectual for any number of esthetic, philosophical, political, and poetic topics in the twentieth century, while Garro’s voice was muted, overshadowed by recurring personal issues. Her difficult personal life, spent in exile and marked by financial and psychological stresses, often clouded the vibrant and coherent literary texts that she created. Despite the obstacles, Garro contributed to the Latin American canon three virtuoso texts in three different genres: Los recuerdos del porvenir (translated as Recollections of Things to Come), “La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas,” and Un hogar sólido (A Solid Home). Despite such evaluations by scholars, many of her works have yet to be translated and thus are unknown to an international public. Paz, in contrast, was lionized, interviewed, translated, and showered with prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize in 1990. He was recognized early as one of the outstanding poets and essayists of the twentieth century. When he died in April 1998, his funeral justifiably was an event of national import. It was attended by thousands, including Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, who called him a “universal Mexican” (New York Times, April 21, 1998). Paz was mourned by the intellectual elite as well as by average citizens. When Garro died a few months later, in August 1998, her funeral understandably did not occasion the same highly publicized national state of grief caused by Paz’s death, although a leader did comment on the meaning of her loss to the world of letters. As reported by the New York Times on August 25, 1998, the president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts in Mexico, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, singled out Garro as one of the three most important female writers of Mexican letters, along with the seventeenth-century nun and poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Rosario Castellanos (1925–1974), a contemporary of Paz and Garro. Garro’s contributions to cultural memory provide a reckoning of the terrible impact of machismo in Mexican society. She critiqued the negativities of a patriarchal culture throughout her writings, especially in a number of novels [3.135.195.249] Project MUSE (2024-04-16 19:36 GMT...